Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com Big Challenges Ahead The world is in the midst of transition and realignment. This, of course, occurs periodically, and the results of these changes will become obvious over time. It is always difficult for us to see exactly where we are headed even when we can sense that
Uncommon Common Sense – November 2017 Read More »
Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com Do I Have to Like Everybody? No. Of course not. That would be very unlikely, probably impossible. But I think it’s beside the point. I am a Unitarian Universalist. Of course I’ve heard all the Unitarian jokes centering around the idea that we don’t know what we believe.
Uncommon Common Sense – October 2017 Read More »
Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com Being Wrong Being wrong is easy. Realizing and admitting we are wrong is more difficult. Yet, I cannot help but wonder how much better the world might be if we had a more refined ability to admit error. I recently read The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis, about
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Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com The Arts: A Tool against Authoritarianism Authoritarian regimes throughout history have a long tradition of suppressing the arts. Hitler referred to any art created by Jews or communists or any modern or abstract painting as “degenerate” art. Stalin severely limited the “approved” art in Soviet Russia and imprisoned
Uncommon Common Sense – August 2017 Read More »
Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com The Dark Side of Populism Although several European populist right wing candidates have lost the recent elections, populism is alive and well in the West. Undergirding the populist appeal is the idea that experts are to blame for many of our contemporary problems. When people consider the consequences
Uncommon Common Sense – July 2017 Read More »
Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com In Pursuit of Loneliness A year or so ago, an alarming study was released that indicated that the death rate for middle-age white men was rising quickly. This was attributed to more drug and alcohol use, risky behavior, and suicide. It was counter-intuitive because we still think of
Uncommon Common Sense – June 2017 Read More »
Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com How Committed Are We To Free Speech? You may have read about the melee at Middlebury College over the invitation of a controversial speaker to address the student body. When Middlebury professor Allison Stanger invited Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute to campus, they were met by
Uncommon Common Sense – May 2017 Read More »
Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com Postman Was Right: Huxley Had it Right Neil Postman was a professor of Education and Media Studies at NYU where he worked for forty years until his death in 2003. He was a humanist who believed that technology could never replace human judgment and interaction. He was the
Uncommon Common Sense – April 2017 Read More »
Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com The Persistence of Binary Thinking Computers work on a binary logic system. Their circuitry is essentially arranged as a series of switches. Each switch has only two options: on or off. If the switch is not on, it is off. If it’s not off, it’s on. Simple. Unfortunately,
Uncommon Common Sense – March 2017 Read More »
Uncommon Common Sense By Bill Frayerbillfrayer@gmail.com Fuzzy Facts? “There’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore, of facts.” Really? This is what Trump surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes declared recently on The Dine Rehm Show on NPR. I think I know what she was getting at. Facts are often spun and viewed differently depending on one’s point
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