Posts Tagged ‘Obama’
Saturday, August 14th, 2010 by Mel Konner
Statesmen understand human nature. Why not psychologists and social scientists?
Most psychologists don’t like human nature, or at least not the idea of it. Clinicians, life coaches, and corporate motivators dislike it because it implies unchangeability. Anyone who took college psychology knows how to modify behavior, from direct instruction to manipulative advertising.
And then, what fool surveying the huge variety of human personalities, needs, and tastes would dream of trying to characterize all that as one thing? Well, some fool might, but not the philosophers, evolutionists, historians and political leaders who have long used the phrase. They’ve always meant something complex, varied, and big-but not limitless.
Barack Obama, for instance. (more…)
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Darwin, evolutionary psychology, George Washington, human nature, Obama, Politics, slavery, Thomas Jefferson, war, Winston Churchill
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010 by Mel Konner
Is Barack Obama an evolutionary psychologist?
Since I criticized President Obama’s speech last year in Cairo (and even “rewrote” it) and later pointed out the names and deeds of those who did not get the Nobel Peace Prize because he did, I think it’s only fair that I resume this blog after a long hiatus by writing about his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in December.
I have to say that it stunned me. (more…)
Tags: Darwinian views of violence, evolutionary psychology, human nature, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Obama, Oslo, peace, sociobiology, violence, war
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Monday, October 12th, 2009 by Mel Konner
Whatever we think of the choice for this years prize, the runners-up deserve some attention.
Since even Obama reacted with disbelief to the news, saying in effect what everyone else said—that it was based on expectations, not accomplishments—I thought I would look into other nominees who were in effect runners-up.
One was Hu Jia, a Chinese dissident and AIDS activist (more…)
Tags: Ghazi bin Muhammad, Hu Jia, Irena Sendler, Morgan Tsvangirai, Nobel Peace Prize, Obama, peace, Piedad Cordoba, Politics
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Sunday, September 27th, 2009 by Mel Konner
Because I was involved in health care reform in the ’90s–two books, four or five New York Times op-ed pieces, a couple of essays in Newsweek , and two testimonies before U.S. Senate committee—a lot of people ask me to help them separate fact from fiction in the current debate.
Tensions are high. When a congressman from South Carolina, long and widely known as a fool and a boor, yelled, “You lie!” (more…)
Tags: health, health reform, lies about health reform, medical ethics, national health program, Obama, Politics, public option, single payer
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Sunday, January 25th, 2009 by Mel Konner
A government in the nature of things, with intelligent (human) design
I could not make the inaugural, but I had to be in Washington on Friday, and I decided to make a pilgrimage. After walking halfway across the city (dragging a rolling bag all the way) I stood in a happy, multiracial crowd before the White House fence,
(more…)
Tags: democracy, evolutionary psychology, government, human nature, hunter gatherers, Obama, Politics, Presidential election, race
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Saturday, January 17th, 2009 by Mel Konner
Three stunning current examples of human character reflect our evolutionary history
Yesterday’s New York Times had three remarkable specimens of humanity on the front page, and together they say much about the human species and our long evolution. They say a lot too about human nature, and perhaps even more about human culture.
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Tags: antisocial personality, character, evolutionary psychology, greed, human nature, hunter gatherers, Madoff, malignant narcissism, Obama, psychopath, Sullenberger
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Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 by Mel Konner
Champagne bubbles, dot-com bubbles, credit bubbles, and bursting dreams.
After a lecture in Poughkeepsie in mid-November I had take a car down to the White Plains airport at 3 AM in order to meet my class in Atlanta. The driver—let’s call him Don—was a big, burly, solid man around fifty with a New York accent that made me feel right at home.
He turned out to be a retired police officer, pro-Obama, a classic New York Democrat like his father and grandfather before him. Don could care less about Obama’s name or race, but as a struggling entrepreneur with two daughters in college he was very, very worried about the economy.
(more…)
Tags: capitalism, economy, government bailouts, greed, inequality, Obama, poverty, Presidential election, social class, socialism
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Saturday, November 8th, 2008 by Mel Konner
Now I get it: This is their generation's March on Washington.
My son Adam Konner is a senior at the University of Michigan who, like so many other young people, has been working to elect Barack Obama.
(more…)
Tags: Obama, Politics, Presidential election
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Obama 
