Culture in the Blender

The world from the middle of a culture smoothie

Culture in the Blender header image 4

Entries from July 2008

The Neural Buddhists

May 18th, 2008 · 1 Comment

A friend of mine sent me a link to an opinion article in the New York Times by David Brooks on the effect of the cognitive revolution on discussions about religion. He argues that the materialist-religious debates about the existence of God will be replaced by debates in which scientists whose spiritual beliefs overlap somewhat with Buddhism who challenge […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Global Culture · Politics

Three-Dimensional View of Reality and Distant Proximities

May 14th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Pollock and van Reken mention in their groundbreaking book that one of the unique properties of third culture kids is that we experience the world as three-dimensional, meaning that we can easily imagine that we are on the scene of a news report and understand the consequences, suffering or difficulty reported on.For me, the 四川 (Sìchuān) earthquake is […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Affirmative Global · China · Distant Proximities · Identity · Third Culture

Media Truthfulness in the US

May 10th, 2008 · 4 Comments

When I was a college freshman (first-year university student in the US), I wrote a paper arguing that CNN delivers objective news, because their market niche is just that. The professor gave us an assignment to write about bias in the media, or something like that. The only thesis I could come up with was […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Outsider · Politics · US