Category Archives: Dialectics

There are a few memes/popular posts doing the rounds these days that supposedly prove whether or not you could be a psychopath. 

The first one is a bit of fun: 

“While at her own mother’s funeral, a woman meets a guy she doesn’t know. She thinks this guy is amazing — her dream man — and is pretty sure he could be the love of her life. However, she never asked for his name or number and afterwards could not find anyone who knows who he was. A few days later the girl kills her own sister – but why?”

Now, there are surely plenty of ways one could solve this puzzle, but if your answer was because the girl thought the man would show up to the second funeral… you may be a psychopath.

Well, actually that’s not the case. The above riddle hasn’t actually been substantiated in any way. The second riddle below, however, comes from an actual questionnaire in many studies… and is one you may have seen on these humble pages before. 

It’s called the Trolley Dilemma and it is an excellent thought experiment in ethics and psychology… as well as a good introduction into the ideas of utilitarianism. 

It essentially goes like this: 

“A runaway trolley is about to run over and kill five people and you are standing on a footbridge next to a large stranger; your body is too light to stop the train, but if you push the stranger onto the tracks, killing him, you will save the five people. Would you push the man?”

Now… the inherent value of philosophically trying to solve ethical issues should hopefully be obvious. After all, this is a site dedicated to wisdom! The ancients would have most definitely approved of the exercise for its own sake. 

But we do live in a very practical world… so for those who want to take thought experiments out of the classroom and onto the streets, we can do that very easily with this one… especially with regards to modern technology.  

Variants of the original Trolley Driver dilemma arise in the design of software to control autonomous cars. Basically, programmers can choose for a self-driving vehicle to say… crash itself… if that means not driving into a crowd. The issue, of course, is that it might sacrifice the driver – or the entire car’s occupants – in the process. 

This dilemma – as well as the original trolley version – can have infinite levels of complexity. Add in factors such as the health and age of the individuals involved, or their role and contributions to society (imagine one of the folks was Albert Einstein, for instance, or Hitler…), and you have a right mess of a philosophical debate. 

So with that in mind, we’d like to turn it to you, dear reader. 

As always, you can comment below or write me directly at [email protected]. 

Perhaps it’s most striking when you are a new parent.

I remember clearly bringing home my baby girl from the hospital. She was a whopping 2 kilos/4.4 lbs (even after a month of NICU) and those first months were hard. Very hard. The sleep deprivation was real. Very real. The constant worrying… the fussing, the feeding, the burping, the never ending nappy changes… and nappy blowouts. You know, fun stuff all around.  

Emerging from my apartment, half human, half zombie, I was regularly met with well intended abuelos, cooing over my ‘mini-baby’ in the pram. “These are the best days” they would remark, clearly not noticing the garbage bags under my eyes. “Isn’t this the most wonderful time?” they’d smile, ignoring my almost deranged demeanor. “Don’t you just Love it?” they ask.

If I had had enough energy, I might have contemplated punching these kindly old folks.

And yet, through my hazed existence, I had the dim realization, nay hope, that they spoke the truth. That these moments would one day become precious… that they would become something to be nostalgic about. 

Six years later, and while I’m glad I didn’t deck any of them, I can’t say I’m exactly nostalgic either. I much prefer the increasingly inspiring conversations I’m currently having over the fluid filled baby years…. But then again, what is nostalgia in the first place? 

The Greek compound comes from the Homeric word νόστος (nóstos), meaning “homecoming”, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning “pain” or “ache”. Interestingly, the term was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. 

It was initially thought of as a debilitating medical condition, one that could even be fatal! But over the years, especially during the romantic period, nostalgia evolved to be a gentler, happier feeling… one associated with warm yearning for the past.

And while modern science claims that sentimentality improves one’s mood and self regard, the fabulously wealthy and wise king of Israel, felt otherwise. 

In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon addresses the comparison of past with present: “Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this” (Ecclesiastes 7:10)

As always, you can write to me directly at [email protected] or comment below and I’ll post your responses in next week’s mailbag. 

After almost five months of repeated canceled flights and new border restrictions, we finally made it home to Argentina. 

It wasn’t an easy process. In fact, in the end our flights were cancelled once more and we had to buy completely new tickets… from a completely different city across the country… which required a whole other set of flights. 

And while I feel comfortable in saying it’s been an Odyssean journey… I have to ask if I achieved a modern day nostos? 

The root of the word nostalgia, the ancient Greek term nostos means a return to one’s origins, a homecoming of sorts. The ancients, however, had a few important addenda to the concept, such as: nostos involves an epic hero, travel by sea, as well as an elevated status upon return. 

Now, I’m pretty certain I can’t claim any of those additions… unless we are interpreting events very loosely through the eyes of my gracious and imaginative six year old. 

But even with those extra caveats aside, can I claim nostos if my home is not my original origins? 

For the perennial expat and third culture kid like myself, one who has lived in a dozen countries, whose accent is consistently American but with a birth certificate and ancestors from Europe, the idea of ‘home’ gets pretty muddled pretty quickly. 

And I’m not the only one… In fact, we are now witnessing the highest levels of movement on record. About 258 million people, or one in every 30, are living outside their country of birth (as of 2017)…and the latest revised projection is that there will be 405 million international migrants by 2050.

Indeed, in our increasingly mobile world, ‘home’ is a hard concept to nail down… which brings us to this week’s mailbag question: 

As always, you can comment below or write me directly at [email protected]. 

The stunning Jodie Turner-Smith, playing “Queen”, was sitting on her car probably somewhere in Florida when the timeless question was brought up. Dusty lighting behind, the two actors discussed the conundrum which ambitious world changers have asked from the beginning of civilization. 

I was thrilled to find such an excellent ancient philosophical discussion in such an excellent modern movie! 

You see, just this week I was watching Queen & Slim, self referenced as a Black Bonnie & Clyde movie. Clearly drawing on modern events, the plot follows a tinder date that goes horribly wrong when, after a traffic stop results in the self-defense shooting of a cop, the couple find themselves on the run and hotly pursued. As they flee, their fame (and dash cam footage) goes viral, turning them into icons of resistance. 

The protagonists eventually face a modern version of the ancient dilemma, the very same one presented to Achilles in Homer’s great epic the Iliad. 

While the ancient Greek hero’s options were presented to him from the gods and didn’t involve a prison sentence, at its heart it is the same issue: one of self sacrifice versus comfort. Ego versus stability. 

And interestingly, the great blind bard doesn’t give us a definitive answer either… Because while Achilles chooses one answer in the Iliad, he presents the opposite view in the Odyssey. 

So this week, I’ll ask you dear reader: 

As always, you can comment below or write me directly at [email protected]. 

I once knocked over a dwarf. It was an accident… sort of.

It happened back in my university days. My roommates and I would go to our favorite club every Thursday to dance. At first, it was the perfect level of ‘cool’ – good selection of dance partners, but not so crowded that you couldn’t move. Over the course of the year, however, it became much more trendy.

Us regulars were not happy about losing our floor space.

So, one fateful evening, the place was pumping. Seemed like the entire city was there. I was trying to lose myself in the music when I kept getting bumped into. This being a more common occurrence of late, I prepared my best elbows to make a bit more space.

No luck. I was still getting jostled.

I tried to make my presence known and jostled back.

Still no success.

Finally, I had enough. I knocked back a bit harder.

And to my surprise, they gave immediately. I turned around in just enough time to see the poor fellow’s entire 4’8” frame go flying to the ground.

Now, I should make the following caveat. I’m quite small in stature myself. A 7 year old Taiwanese boy once beat me in an arm wrestling match…really. So accidentally hurting people with my huge physique is not something that ever crosses my mind.

Fortunately in the end he was totally fine. I apologized profusely, of course… Though I felt absolutely horrible nonetheless. I’d like to think I bought him a drink for his troubles, but I probably didn’t have enough money to even make the offer.

Now, why am I telling you this? Not to put myself in a good light… obviously.

While I didn’t do it on purpose, my actions did result in someone’s misfortune (even if it was mostly a bruised ego). So how culpable was I? There was no mean motivation…but a dwarf still ended up on the floor.

The importance of motivation obviously features heavily in our current justice systems. It’s the difference, after all, between murder and manslaughter. But what about things that are truly horrible? What about someone who killed his father… and then slept with his mother?

Obviously I’m talking about Oedipus Rex, the infamous lead of Sophocles’ trilogy.

You can write me directly at: [email protected] or reply to this email.

It’s been a big weekend, dear reader… We travelled to Mexico City to see old friends, we solemnly remembered the fourth anniversary of the deadly earthquake we barely avoided by bizarrely missing a flight, and we celebrated the launch of my dear husband’s first novel. 

It was certainly a rollercoaster of emotions! 

While the other events loomed large, the publishing of a book – no less one’s first – is a really big deal. Currently there are 129,864,880 books in the world (thank you to the nerds at Google for figuring that out!), however, only one in ten is a work of fiction. 

And this is actually quite surprising… The best selling books of all time include first and foremost, the Bible, followed by epics like Don Quixote and Tale of Two Cities, but 2020’s top sellers were “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama, a book on Donald Trump and the recent Stephanie Meyer novel. 

It appears that the literary world is not as popular as it once was. 

Nowadays folks search for self-help, biographies or… vampire series… but literature has a very long and storied history. Indeed, it goes straight back to Ancient Egypt and Sumer with didactic texts, hymns and prayers, written almost entirely in verse.

Obviously Homer features heavily in this tale of tales, as does Hesiod. 

In ancient China it begins with the Hundred Schools of Thought and Sanskrit literature starts with the Vedas in ancient India. 

Indeed, it can be found all over the world! As something so ubiquitous and cherished, we have to wonder at its meaning and purpose…. This brings us to this week’s question, one that considering modern trends must be asked: 

As always, you can write me at [email protected] or reply to this email. 

P.S. If you want to check out a modern piece of literary fiction, grab either the hardback copy or the kindle version of Morris, Alive… it’s a refreshingly optimistic journey and a beautiful read… even if the author’s wife says so herself.