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All Blog Posts Tagged politics
December 15th, 2016 by Howard Ditkoff
As many of you probably know, Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2016 presidential candidate, recently raised money from many donors to try to initiate recounts of this year’s presidential ballots in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. She raised quite a significant amount of money for this cause – many millions of dollars – but had only […]
Posted in Politics | No Comments »
October 2nd, 2013 by Howard Ditkoff
Back in 2003 and 2004, I was almost obsessively focused on advocating for election reform. Specifically, I was focused on advocating for the implementation of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). Many people who knew me back in 2003 and 2004 heard endlessly from me about the wonders of IRV. I even traveled to Washington, D.C. for […]
Posted in Activism, Politics | No Comments »
March 3rd, 2013 by Howard Ditkoff
Just over a year ago, I announced a milestone for me. Reading several books that came to my attention within a period of just a few years prior had convinced me that, when considering health and sustainability, certain topics related to the question of whether that often referred to as “evil” – harmful malicious or willfully negligent activity, for example – has a biological basis are crucial. And I had released a series of comprehensive pages, representing over a year of work, on these subjects, the most important and encompassing being the page on ponerology – the field dedicated to studying “evil” from a scientific perspective.
As I worked on the series, even more relevant material – articles, books, stories, news, television shows, movies, research studies, websites and other resources touching on these topics – continued coming to my attention, precipitating a realization that my interest in them mirrored a growing interest throughout society, supporting many of the arguments I made in the writing and encouraging me to continue the work. While working, however, I did not have time or energy to really focus on or incorporate these new developments.
After releasing the series, these ponerology-related developments continued to arise regularly and it occurred to me to begin cataloguing this emerging material to help support my work and promote it for those wanting to keep up to date. But I put off doing so until a recent coincidence reinforced to me the level of mainstream growth of interest in ponerologic topics and finally spurred me to action.
Now I’m announcing a new website I’ve recently launched dedicated to promoting news and information stemming from disciplines as diverse as neuroscience, criminology, psychology, arts, media and beyond related to ponerology, the “science of evil,” to help raise awareness and educate the public about these issues. Find out about the first set of posts on that site, its mission, early feedback it has received, how you can visit the site and get involved and what it means for the future of this site.
Posted in Activism, Announcements, Politics, Ponerology, Psychology, Science | No Comments »
October 17th, 2012 by Howard Ditkoff
Leave it to the brilliant comedy writers at the Onion. Andrew M. Lobaczewski and his colleagues sacrificed and struggled for decades to carry out the work that led to Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes – their explanation of how human systems at all levels, but especially at […]
Posted in Ethics, Politics, Ponerology, Psychology | 1 Comment »
September 25th, 2012 by Howard Ditkoff
In my last blog post, I offered my response to a debate between Adam Kokesh and The Amazing Atheist that revolved around the subject of anarchism vs. statism. I tried to focus the debate on what I think is the essential issue – the question of how a society can best deal with the inevitable […]
Posted in Ethics, Politics, Ponerology, Positive Change, Psychology, Social Change | 4 Comments »
September 16th, 2012 by Howard Ditkoff
Thanks to a Freedomain Radio forum thread, I was made aware of , and just watched, the debate (embedded below) between Adam Kokesh of Adam vs. The Man and the outspoken and entertaining Youtuber known as The Amazing Atheist (aka TJ). In the debate, moderated by Professor Hip Hughes for POLIPOP, and featuring some moderate […]
Posted in Activism, Ethics, Politics, Ponerology, Positive Change, Psychology, Social Change, Social Justice | 3 Comments »
March 15th, 2012 by Howard Ditkoff
Background information on a group of pages that deeply explore evil, its possibly malicious origins emerging from biologically-based empathy and conscience-reducing psychopathology and its role in the evolution and complications of tragic, seemingly intractable problems and suffering at all levels of our world’s systems. These pages, integrating a range of source material, consider and attract attention to evil’s cyclic, manipulative and deceptive dynamics and its contribution to and exploitation of modern civilization, its structures and technologies, and, in turn, much of its dysfunction, abuse, trauma, corruption, absurdity and injustice. They also discuss our best understanding of the variation in people’s responses to these phenomena and their implications for nearly every area.
Furthermore, the pages advocate for an objective, scientific and medical approach to studying harm, highly valuing critical thinking and investigation, technical insight, psychological knowledge, precise and widespread dialogue and modern wisdom. They urge us to enhance reform efforts by better identifying leverage points and cooperatively developing optimal strategies for transcending challenges and resistance and preventing, assessing, reducing and healing from vicious cycles. And they point the way toward the establishment of new healthy, sustainable forms of human systems, more conscious of and immune to pathological influences and capable of flourishing with creativity.
This work is the culmination of a lifelong progressive quest – fueled by an uneasy sense about our world and concentrated through the discovery of what may be the most important book you’ll ever read – to understand issues of ethics and power. Learn about the very personal stories that coalesced in its development.
Posted in Activism, Announcements, Culture, Ethics, Parenting, Personal Development, Personality Type, Politics, Ponerology, Positive Change, Psychology, Relationships, Science, Social Change, Social Justice, Systems Thinking | 41 Comments »
November 20th, 2011 by Howard Ditkoff
Several days ago, it was reported that a group of millionaires visited Capitol Hill and held a press conference in which they urged that people of their economic status be more highly taxed. A couple of days later, on Neil Cavuto’s television show on Fox, I saw Michelle Fields of the The Daily Caller calling […]
Posted in Economics, Politics, Social Change | 2 Comments »
December 11th, 2008 by Howard Ditkoff
As some of you may know, I often rail about the abundance of sociopaths and people with Narcissistic or Borderline Personality Disorder in positions of power in our culture. There has been ample evidence of this problem in the news recently. Yet rarely do analyses of these cases go beyond charges of corruption to asking […]
Posted in Culture, Politics, Psychology | 17 Comments »
February 29th, 2008 by Howard Ditkoff
In my previous post, I voiced my longstanding frustration with Ralph Nader for continuing to run for president within a plurality election system while simultaneously failing to focus his campaign on raising awareness of and advocating reforms of that system that would eliminate the very possibility of the “spoiler” role of which he is so […]
Posted in Politics | 10 Comments »
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