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Reflections on Russell and Wittgenstein: Changing Oneself and Changing the World

Andreas Saugstad wrote this article.

Two of the most prolific and famous philosophers in the twentieth century were  Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). Russell was Wittgenstein’s teacher in Cambridge around 1911. Russell was the leading philosopher in England at that time, and one of the world’s leading thinkers in philosophy of mathematics and logic.

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Arguing Against Corridor Teaching

We must always teach our children universal ideas.  The temptation to “corridor” teach them — instead of bending young minds open to other doorways for learning — is a national failing of a teaching philosophy.

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As I Live Dying

We decay the moment we are born in reverberation.

The rest of our lives are spent wasting away from the gift of energy that sparked us into being.

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Moral Futurism and the Enemies of an Open Society

Karl Popper is one of the SuperGeniuses of our time, and his brilliant book — “Open Society and Its Enemies” — is a must read for anyone hoping to understand our necessary and active place in the world.

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The Lesson of the Singing Bowl

As often happens here in your favorite Urban Semiotic, yesterday’s article — The Unnecessary Necessary: An Anonymous Stranger — and its comments, creates the inspiration for a second article to expand the ideas we expressed together.

Today I will share with you a story I learned many years ago from my first Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga guruji: The Lesson of the Singing Bowl.

A Singing Bowl

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Lindsay Lohan Proves Her Illiteracy

Young people look up to other young people. Unfortunately, many of the role models young people choose to use to model are not worthy of imitation or the attention. If you ever needed proof of why young people should not look up to celebrities and imitate their morality and their behavior in the classic Aristotlean way of learning and mimicry, please read actress Lindsay Lohan’s incoherent — and frankly, illiterate — public sympathy card to genius film director Robert Altman’s family she released on Tuesday to see the sad, living proof, of a Long Island public education and the perils of false celebrity.

Ms. Lohan

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Goffman-esque Response Cries: Is Sha! the New Duh?

Is “Sha!” the New “Duh?” I ask because slang erupts from the mouths of the young and lately I have been seeing and hearing this expression — Sha! — appearing in some blogs as well as being heard on the street. Sha! — is not a word, I only learned how to spell it by watching it appear on blogs — and it appears to be an emotional utterance, or more formally: “A Response Cry” as studied by the great sociologist Erving Goffman:

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