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Category Archives: Idea of the week
Two kinds of liberty
At least since the days of the founders, ideas about America have been intertwined with ideas about liberty. At Thanksgiving we celebrate the Pilgrims who came seeking religious liberty, and one of our cherished national symbols is the Statue of … Continue reading
Posted in Five-star professors, History, Idea of the week, Philosophy
Tagged Hunter Ripley Rawlings, liberty
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How to read the newspaper
In my last post I wrote that John Zaller’s course Public opinion, mass media, parties, and elections (audio feed, website), gave me a whole new way to look at the news. Today’s newspaper furnished an example, an op-ed piece by … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Courses, Five-star professors, Idea of the week, Political Science
Tagged American politics, bipartisanship, John Zaller, UCLA
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Why African-Americans vote for Democrats
Okay, you political junkies — ever wonder how the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, lost the allegiance of African-Americans? It’s quite a tale and UCLA political scientist John Zaller tells it in the February 23 and February 25 lectures … Continue reading
Values that underlie our political choices
If you want to know someone’s politics, ask about his or her child rearing believes, and you’ll get a pretty good idea if the person will vote for the Democrats or the Republicans. That’s the conclusion of a study cited … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Courses, Five-star professors, Idea of the week, Political Science, Psychology
Tagged John Zaller, UCLA
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Close relationships: the importance of disclosures
Question: What do you do if someone gives you a gift? Answer: You open it. That simple dynamic turns out to be an important key in developing successful relationships, according to psychologist Thomas Bradbury, who teaches the UCLA course Close … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Courses, Five-star professors, Idea of the week, Psychology
Tagged relationships, Thomas Bradbury, UCLA
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The rise of monasticism
According to historian Matthew Herbst, the rise of monasticism can be seen as an answer to this question: how do you perform heroic self-sacrifice when the age of martyrs is past? In lecture four of Herbst’s excellent course History of … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Five-star professors, History, Idea of the week
Tagged Matthew Herbst, monasticism, UCSD
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How to predict the future with game theory
Will the Copenhagen climate summit lead to any meaningful reductions in greenhouse gasses? In a word, no. That’s the confidant prediction of the “Predictioneer,” a.k.a. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, professor of politics at New York University, who has developed a … Continue reading
The accidental chosen people
In the ancient Near East there wasn’t much of a difference between a tribal community and a religious community. Every ethnic community had its own ethnic god. Thus, argues Reuven Firestone in his lecture Who Are the Real Chosen People? … Continue reading
Unwanted side effects of democracy
Maybe it’s the legacy of the Cold War — all of those years of being the bastion of freedom and democracy — but somehow Americans got in the habit of viewing democracy as something completely good, something that everyone in … Continue reading
Posted in Academic podcasts, Courses, Five-star professors, History, Idea of the week, Lectures
Tagged democracy, Margaret Anderson, UC Berkeley, World War I
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The Cold War is history
Many conditions were necessary for the end of the Cold War to happen as it did. In an academic conference, entitled The Cold War is History (iTunes, website), Stanford historian James Sheehan reminds us that even when the Berlin wall … Continue reading
