People are losing faith in democracy’s ability to deliver social progress. But are democracies better than autocracies at promoting economic growth, alleviating poverty, and creating healthier, more educated, and more peaceful societies? On all counts, the answer is yes.
If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at all.
With illiberal forces ascendant across the globe, protecting individual liberties and the democratic process is crucial. But when institutions empower minority groups over the majority, can democracy survive?
In the decade leading up to the covid-19 pandemic, nonviolent civil resistance grew more popular than ever—but its effectiveness had already started to plummet. The future of nonviolent resistance may depend on movements’ ability to move beyond mass protests toward exploring alternative tactics and developing smarter, longer-term strategies.
Many pundits cry for a negotiated settlement to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. But they misunderstand Vladimir Putin’s motives. The only just end to the war will be in the trenches, not at the bargaining table.
Under Narendra Modi, India is maintaining the trappings of democracy while it increasingly harasses the opposition, attacks minorities, and stifles dissent. It can still reverse course, but the damage is mounting.
Young people from Peru to Madagascar to Nepal—furious with political elites reaping the spoils of privilege and corruption—are rising up to demand change. But what happens when their movements succeed?
He did the hard work of defeating Viktor Orbán. But Hungary’s new prime minister faces the harder task of undoing the damage his predecessor wrought. Can he do it while avoiding the traps Orbán left in his wake?
By Kim Lane Scheppele
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“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a prominent American essayist, poet, philosopher, and leader of the 19th century Transcendentalist movement. His essays and lectures, such as “Self-Reliance” and “The American Scholar”, challenged conventional thinking and promoted independence of thought and self-discovery. Emerson’s philosophy of Transcendentalism emphasized the divine presence in nature and the potential for studying nature to reveal God’s nature. (Wikipedia.org)
On a recent flight, I watched a mother across the aisle play peek-a-boo with her small son while next to me a grown man in a VR headset spent six hours ascending the levels of a video game. It occurred to me that what I was doing between them — reading — was also a game: a peek-a-boo of ideas advancing across levels of meaning. I thought of Newton, who reflected on his deathbed: “I don’t know what I may seem to the world, but, as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore.”
We play games with the mind and call them science, play games with the spirit and call them art, play games with the heart and mistake them for love. Life itself may be, in the end, a game — not a closed game, the goal of which is winning (for the goal of life is death), but an open game, the goal of which is playing.
So argues philosopher Bernard Suits (November 25, 1925–February 05, 2007) in his uncommonly original and intellectually daring 1978 book The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia (public library), exploring the elemental question of what makes a good life through a parable, that ancient form infinitely more effective than polemics, for parables, as Suits observes “ought to come at the end, not at the beginning, of serious inquiry; that is, only at the point where arguments fail.”
Drawing on Aesop’s famous parable about the price of improvidence, Suits subverts the premise to depict the Grasshopper not as a fool but as “a working Utopian whose time has not yet come” and who exemplifies “the life most worth living.” The Grasshopper’s vision of Utopia is the supreme antidote to the cult of achievement — a way of experiencing life not as striving but as a game, of exposing workaholism as “no more than a ruse for avoiding living up to your ideals.” Suits writes:
Prudential actions (e.g., those actions we ordinarily call work) are self-defeating in principle. For prudence may be defined as the disposition 1) to sacrifice something good (e.g., leisure) if and only if such sacrifice is necessary for obtaining something better (e.g., survival), and 2) to reduce the number of good things requiring sacrifice — ideally, at least — to zero. The ideal of prudence, therefore, like the ideal of preventive medicine, is its own extinction. For if it were the case that no sacrifices of goods needed ever to be made, then prudential actions would be pointless, indeed impossible. This principle, knowledge of which I regard as an indispensable first step on the path to wisdom, the ants seem never even to have entertained. The true Grasshopper sees that work is not self-justifying, and that his way of life is the final justification of any work whatever.
At the heart of Suits’s investigation of games is “the attempt to discover and formulate a definition, and to follow the implications of that discovery even when they lead in surprising, and sometimes disconcerting, directions,” and within it “the attempt to define games as illustrating par excellence the futility of attempting to define anything whatever.”
Against the definition of work as a “technical activity… in which an agent seeks to employ the most efficient available means for reaching a desired goal” Suits pits the defining characteristic of games:
Games are goal-directed activities in which inefficient means are intentionally chosen.
[…]
While it is possible in a technical action to break a rule without destroying the original end of the action, in games the reverse appears to be the case. If the rules are broken the original end becomes impossible of attainment, since one cannot (really) win the game unless one plays it, and one cannot (really) play the game unless one obeys the rules of the game. In a game I cannot disjoin the end, winning, from the rules in terms of which winning possesses its meaning. I can, of course, decide to cheat in order to gain the pot, but then I have changed my end from winning a game to gaining money.
The rules of a game, Suits observes, are accepted for the sake of the play they make possible — we choose to act within the limitations they impose in order to partake of the game. He offers a definition:
To play a game is to engage in activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient in favour of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity.
A game has four elements: the goal, the means of achieving the goal, the rules, and — crucially — what Suits calls the “lusory attitude”: the psychological orientation necessary for entering into the play, at the heart of which is an acceptance of the arbitrary rules the game imposes. He writes:
The attitude of the game player must be an element in game playing because there has to be an explanation of that curious state of affairs wherein one adopts rules which require one to employ worse rather than better means for reaching an end… In anything but a game the gratuitous introduction of unnecessary obstacles to the achievement of an end is regarded as a decidedly irrational thing to do, whereas in games it appears to be an absolutely essential thing to do.
He simplifies the definition further:
Playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.
Because the goal always precedes the attempt to pursue it, it is inherently “prelusory” and at the same time inherently related not only to the game but to life itself. Suits writes:
The prelusory goal of a game… can be described before, or independently of, any game of which it may be, or come to be, a part. In contrast, winning can be described only in terms of the game in which it figures, and winning may accordingly be called the lusory goal of a game. Finally, the goal of participating in the game is not, strictly speaking, a part of the game at all. It is simply one of the goals that people have, such as wealth, glory, or security. As such it may be called a lusory goal, but a lusory goal of life rather than of games.
Suits identifies three types of pseudo-players who can ruin the game for others: triflers, who recognize rules but not goals; cheats, who recognize goals but not rules, and spoilsports who recognize neither rules nor goals. The true player is one who recognizes both goals and rules — that is, one who enters the game with the lusory attitude and whose reward is not winning but playing.
And so we return to the Grasshopper and his choice, deadly in Aesop’s parable but existentially triumphant in Suits’s, of play over work as the means to the good life. Structured as a Socratic dialogue, the parable pits the Grasshopper against his critical disciple Skepticus, who counters the core argument by pointing out that “people are not, and do not want to be, wholly grasshoppers or wholly ants, but a combination of the two,” seeing that “labour is valuable because it permits us to play.” To this the Grasshopper responds:
The only argument against living the life of the Grasshopper arises from the contingent fact that at present one dies if one does not work. The answer to that argument is that my death is inevitable in any case. For if I am improvident in summer, then I will die in winter. And if I am provident in summer, then I will cease to be the Grasshopper, by definition. But I will be either provident or improvident in summer; there is no third alternative. Therefore, either I die or I cease to be the Grasshopper. But since I am just the Grasshopper, no more and no less, dying and ceasing to be the Grasshopper are one and the same thing for me. I cannot escape that logic or that fate… Everyone alive is really a Grasshopper… Everyone alive is in fact engaged in playing elaborate games, while at the same time believing themselves to be going about their ordinary affairs. Carpenters, believing themselves to be merely pursuing their trade, are really playing a game, and similarly with politicians, philosophers, lovers, murderers, thieves, and saints. Whatever occupation or activity you can think of, it is in reality a game.
We are shaped by all we have suffered — by what harrows us — and in turn shape our lives by how we hold our harrowing. Harrow shares its Middle English root with harvest. It is by suffering, and by what we make of our suffering, that our personhood ripens in us, that we come to reap what evolution sowed long ago when mitochondria first set out to become mind — our capacity for empathy, for doubt, for art.
Harrowing may be the hallmark of our humanity — an AI cannot be harrowed because it does not have hopes, only directives. This may be why John Steinbeck considered hope “the tragic miracle of consciousness” — miraculous because it violates the laws of probability to consecrate the possible, and tragic because it is constantly colliding with the will of the world, constantly devastated by the impartial brutality of time and chance. Harrowing is the price we pay for hope, for being fully human.
And so, a poem:
HARROWING by Maggie Smith
This world is harrowing, harrowing, all harrow, as if harrow were what the world is made of, what we are made of, as if harrow were strings to be strummed, tendons and veins to be strummed, as if harrow could be snapped between the teeth, the word one letter from the white meal inside our bones, the meal we could make of ourselves, harrow, two letters from the bird who might strum with its beak what the body is made of, what the world is made of, and in that strumming become the song.
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Aug 9, 2026 Psychology and Psychotherapy Erica Lorentz is a Jungian Analyst with over forty years of clinical experience. She is a training analyst at the Jung Institute of New England. She is author of Body As Shadow: Jung’s Method of Embodied Healing. Her website is https://ericalorentz.com/ Erica explores Carl Jung’s understanding of the body as an essential pathway to the unconscious rather than a mere physical vessel. She describes how authentic movement, active imagination, and the subtle body can deepen psychological healing, transform trauma, and restore the connection between psyche, soul, and embodiment. Lorentz also examines Jung’s relationship to imagination, the feminine, spirituality, and the role of the body as a living expression of the soul. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:02:17 Body as shadow 00:07:24 Authentic movement 00:13:20 Witnessing the unconscious 00:18:22 Healing through embodiment 00:25:55 The subtle body 00:31:15 Active imagination 00:39:16 Archetypes and soul 00:49:16 Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on June 29, 2026)
When the dishes were done, and the lights were turned down low, Grandpa took me out onto the front porch, where the night air had a bite that was as sharp as green persimmons. He pointed to the Milky Way sprawled over the sky like a string of pearls carelessly dropped from above. His calloused finger traced the constellation of Orion and he declared, ”That’s Orion. That feller’s been huntin’ up there since before my great grandaddy’s time, and he’ll be there long after we’re gone.” I squinted at Orion’s Belt trying to count the Stars between the points.
”Will he ever catch anything?” I asked as I tucked my cold hands under my armpits. Grandpa chuckled. “Nope, And that’s the point,” he replied, some things ain’t about the finishing. They’re all about the doin’. Grandpa knelt beside me, the porchboards groaning against his knees, as he pointed toward a shooting star streaking westward across the sky, “See that? “ He asked. It had turned bright and stayed that way all the way down. “Even endings got glory.”
Inside, Grandma’s shadow crossed the window and she stopped to wind the old mantel clock. In the stillness of the country air, I thought I could hear its familiar ‘tick-tock’ through the window pane, but it was only the memory fooling my ears. The distant sound of Wise Willy, the old barn owl, wafted over the distance, mixing with the scuttle of leaves against the porch-steps, creating a lullaby older than the house itself. Grandpa stood slowly, knees popping like green wood in the fireplace. “Time for bed, Lil’Bit. Dawn comes early when you’re plannin’ to search for fox kits.”
10 brilliant essays by a Nobel Prize-winning philosopher challenge romantic mysticism and promote a scientific view of society and nature. Russell explains his theory of logical atomism in these witty, cogent writings, which include popular treatments of religious and educational issues as well as more technical examinations of problems of logic.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, was a Welsh philosopher, historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, pacifist, and prominent rationalist. Although he was usually regarded as English, as he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.”
Internationally renowned leadership authority and bestselling author Stephen R. Covey presents a personal hands-on companion to the landmark The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , which has become a touchstone for individuals, families, and businesses around the world. The overwhelming success of Stephen R. Covey’s principle-centered philosophy is a testament to the millions who have benefited from his lessons, and now, with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook , they can further explore and understand this tried-and-true approach. With the same clarity and assurance Covey’s fans have come to appreciate, this individualized workbook teaches readers to fully internalize the 7 Habits through private and thought-provoking exercises, whether they are already familiar with the principles or not.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Stephen Richards Covey was an American educator, author, businessman, and speaker. His most popular book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. In 1996, Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential people. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University (USU) at the time of his death.
“Mike Zonta, a citizen from District 11, invited all candidates and Nancy Pelosi to participate. 2 candidates accepted this bold and courageous invitation: Shahid Buttar and Bianca Krieg.”
Timothy Regan hosts and facilitates the second congressional candidate empathy circle ever, for our US House of Representatives, CA District 11, San Francisco, currently represented by Nancy Pelosi.
Mike Zonta, a citizen from District 11, invited all candidates and Nancy Pelosi to participate. 2 candidates accepted this bold and courageous invitation: Shahid Buttar and Bianca Krieg.
Shahid and Bianca sit down together and talk and listen to eachother with respect, civility, honesty, and depth, in a simple process of speaking and listening directly to eachother called an empathy circle.
These candidates met on May 22 , 2022 by Zoom for this unique dialogue, to answer one question: “Why should people vote for you?” and to speak to what is on their minds and hearts.
Check out this conversation – it’s inspiring! This is what is possible in politics these days! If you are caught by the dangerous illusion that people can’t talk anymore with respect and collaboration – listen up! This is what’s possible: listening, and being heard, and honest and civil dialogue between competing election candidates! This is a kind of leadership that is inclusive, collaborative, and actually interesting – because respectful dialogue brings the best out of all of us – and we need our best these days.
Prudential actions (e.g., those actions we ordinarily call work) are self-defeating in principle. For prudence may be defined as the disposition 1) to sacrifice something good (e.g., leisure) if and only if such sacrifice is necessary for obtaining something better (e.g., survival), and 2) to reduce the number of good things requiring sacrifice — ideally, at least — to zero. The ideal of prudence, therefore, like the ideal of preventive medicine, is its own extinction. For if it were the case that no sacrifices of goods needed ever to be made, then prudential actions would be pointless, indeed impossible. This principle, knowledge of which I regard as an indispensable first step on the path to wisdom, the ants seem never even to have entertained. The true Grasshopper sees that work is not self-justifying, and that his way of life is the final justification of any work whatever.
