Can a 14th century Muslim polymath’s ideas about the rise and fall of societies explain the situation in today’s Middle East, and particularly in Israel?
Read MoreWhen formulating foreign policy, domestic considerations are important, but they are only one piece of the puzzle.
Read MoreIn his World War Two memoir, Singapore: The Japanese Version, Colonel Masanobu Tsuji provides a different perspective on Japan’s war effort in Southeast Asia, and our conception of the “enemy.”
Read MoreAmerica’s departure from the Old World and its sense of can-do pragmatism have a built-in downside: it is less capable than other cultures to read the more intangible tribal identity codes and motivations of other societies.
Read MoreIn his book War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires, Peter Turchin illustrates the role of group cohesion in the success of nations.
Read MoreThe recent Pentagon documents leak, which partly demonstrates the degree to which more and more information is subject to classification, is yet another example of a world obsessed with increasingly minute degrees of control.
Read MoreMattias Desmet’s The Psychology of Totalitarianism puts forward a compelling new theory about unconscious group behaviour in the political sphere.
Read MoreCan anything be done to mitigate, or resolve, political polarization over the long term? We propose three kinds of actions..
Read MoreExtreme partisan positions have become the norm in politics, attractive for their dramatic and over-simplistic aspects.
Read MoreDigital and mainstream media are acting as accelerators of polarization, affirming ever deeper cycles of misunderstanding and extreme rhetoric.
Read MoreShielding children from mild risk-taking erodes their resilience into adulthood and contributes to polarization through intolerance to discomfort and the demand for further safetyism.
Read MoreHigh emotional states can easily be directed towards any single goal that relieves the anxiety, including simplified political solutions and conspiracies.
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