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No Exit: Living With Walls and Fences
The right to move around is a fundamental human right. Back in 1948, in the wake of World War II, the United Nations declared that all men and women have the right to roam freely in their homeland, to leave, to return if they choose, and to exit again. That political vision recognized a basic psychological truth—that it is a violation of human nature to fence people in. Even so, the global reality never matched the ideal. Citizens of many nations are still denied the basic liberty to pack up and leave for a better place. What are the psychological consequences when this human liberty is violated? When borders are closed and exit papers withheld?
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‘To suffer is to suffer’: Analyzing the Russian national character
The 19th-century Russian scholar and war hero Boris Grushenko had this to say about human suffering: “To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love, but then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love, to be happy then is to suffer but suffering makes one unhappy, therefore to be unhappy one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.” Pretty heady stuff—and pretty depressing. There is no Boris Grushenko. Woody Allen fans will recognize Boris as the cowardly anti-hero of the 1975 film Love and Death, the director’s parody of Russia’s brooding national character.
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Can negativity save a failing marriage?
Newlyweds are almost always advised to be upbeat—to have positive expectations for their relationship, to put the best spin on their partner’s actions, and to forgive and forget. Marriage counselors also take (and preach) the view that positive attitudes and actions will strengthen a struggling marriage, even when a little negativity might be well-deserved. So why do half of all couples in therapy fail to save their marriages? Is it possible that this rose-tinted advice is bad advice, that positivity isn’t the cure-all for ailing unions after all?
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Does believing soothe the worried mind?
Religious beliefs date back at least 100,000 years. That’s the time when our Neanderthal cousins began burying their dead with weapons and tools—presumably prepping them for the world beyond the grave. And such beliefs persist today, with the vast majority of modern humans in every corner of the globe espousing some kind of religious conviction. But why? The antiquity and universality of belief suggest that it serves some fundamental psychological purpose, but what would that be? A small but growing number of psychological scientists have been exploring these questions, focusing on the idea that religious belief may be a natural consequence of the human mind at work.
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Does Botox impair human understanding?
Hollywood film directors were among the first to recognize the downside of Botox. Several years ago, Martin Scorsese, whose works include Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and The Departed, became an early and outspoken critic of the anti-aging treatment. The Academy Award-winning director complained that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find an actress who could use her face to express the range of human emotion, especially anger. It may be worse than the famed director susepcted. New evidence is now suggesting that Botox may harm not only the expression of emotion, but also its comprehension.
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The Paradox of Idleness
Would Sisyphus have been happier just sitting in a jail cell, twiddling his thumbs? After all, the punishment Zeus meted out to him was nothing more than make-work: rolling that boulder up the hill again and again and again, without purpose or sense of accomplishment. It couldn’t have been very satisfying. What if Zeus had softened, and granted him a reprieve—and eternal idleness? An interesting new study suggests that the mythical prisoner would not have liked it in the least. Indeed he would have longed for his days of rock pushing. Make-work may be pointless and demeaning, but at least it’s work; it’s an activity.
