The Winners Are… We have the Oscars. There’s the World Cup, the World Series, the Super Bowl. But despite their increasingly important role in our lives, sociopaths lack sufficient recognition. In a competitive world where achievement is readily celebrated, sociopaths need their own public competition. Now is the time for the Madoff Prize. And not just […]
Your Lying, Cheating Brain (3/3/14)
Creating Useful Lies “I just know it’s true. I saw it.” But your brain is not a DVD player, correctly recording what happened. And that’s a good thing. The unreliability of memory has been a literary theme for thousands of years. The creation of our many “true fictions” are ascribed to factors varying from personality […]
Fict or Faction? (12/30/13)
The New Rules for Unreality Is what you read true or false? Institution after institution – from science to the media – is deciding they don’t know. Often, they don’t care. Instead, many say if you want to know if something’s true, you must decide yourself. Presuming you have the time, means, interest and ability. […]
Post-Election Depression? (11/19/12)
Who’s Depressed? Some of my medical colleagues thought I would see patients sleepless and unhinged, suffering “post-election depression.” I haven’t seen it. Bodies regenerate themselves continuously. They never stay the same, always rebuilding, from the beginning to the end of life. Countries do the same. Populations are born, immigrate, emigrate, grow up and die witnessing […]
Whatever Happened to Guilt? (8/15/12)
Character and Personality in America What has happened to the moral landscape of this country? We read that after helping blow the world economy, bankers went on to “fix” arguably the most important interest rate in the world and laundered money to Iran; that the most heralded sports heroes took performance enhancing drugs; that the […]