September 2019

The Lion King, Sacral Kingship, and Why Presidents Get Blamed for the Economy

Toward the end of the Lion King, Simba returns from his self-imposed exile and walks through his devastated and barren homeland.  There has obviously been a drought.  We know from earlier dialogue that the lions have no food.  Something has gone terribly wrong.  Is it just Scar’s bad luck?  If so, why does it start to rain as soon as Simba has defeated Scar and reclaimed his rightful place on… Read More »The Lion King, Sacral Kingship, and Why Presidents Get Blamed for the Economy

Chicken Nuggets and the Civilizing Process

“In many of our meat dishes, the animal form is so concealed and changed by the art of its preparation and carving, that, while eating, one is scarcely reminded of its origin.”  Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process.[1] Is the Chicken Nugget the most civilized of all foods?  Chicken nuggets tend to get a bad rap, as far as modern food goes, but I’d like to play the contrarian and argue that,… Read More »Chicken Nuggets and the Civilizing Process

If Steve Jobs is Frankenstein, The I-Phone is his Monster

If you love the novel Frankenstein, you will recognize that one of the downsides to your love is that every Halloween, it ends up falling to you to do the very annoying task of explaining to others that technically Frankenstein is the name of the scientist who creates the monster, not the name of the monster itself. Should you not have already worn out your welcome (and you likely have), you might… Read More »If Steve Jobs is Frankenstein, The I-Phone is his Monster

A Machiavellian Analysis of Why Scar Failed

In some ways, Scar, the villain from Disney’s The Lion King, might seem like the perfect Machiavellian leader. He is cunning, devious, and completely lacking any moral scruples. But I don’t think that Machiavelli would have admired Scar. The sixteenth-century Italian political theorist and father of modern political thought, who once claimed that a ruler must seek to be like the lion or the fox, probably would have found much lacking… Read More »A Machiavellian Analysis of Why Scar Failed

Emile Durkheim Explains How Sports Are the New Religion

Except for the occasional moment of evangelical witness, sports, by and large, is not about God.  Religion, on the other hand, is all about God. So sports, ipso facto, cannot be a new religion.  But one of the earliest sociologists of religion, Emile Durkheim, thought that God actually wasn’t exactly necessary to religion at all.   Drawing on a cross-cultural comparison of modern and primitive religious practices, he defined the concept… Read More »Emile Durkheim Explains How Sports Are the New Religion

Poor Richard Gives Advice to the Anti-Vaxxers

Ben Franklin has some words of advice for Jenny McCarthy. Get your kids vaccinated! Well, not exactly.  Franklin’s advice was actually to get your kids inoculated, since vaccines had not yet been invented by Franklin’s day.  But dead as he certainly is, Ben Franklin thinks he can pretty much settle our controversy over vaccines. Vaccines, Jenny McCarthy, claims to know from personal experience, cause autism. No they don’t, say the… Read More »Poor Richard Gives Advice to the Anti-Vaxxers

Aristotle, Locke, and the Disney/Pixar Divide

Aristotle once famously claimed that man is a political animal, by which he meant: “man is an animal whose nature it is to live in a political community.” He less famously followed that up by claiming that the few men who choose to do without a political community are usually very bad men indeed. This is because, so Aristotle thought, it is political community that perfects humans in justice and… Read More »Aristotle, Locke, and the Disney/Pixar Divide