Category: Free Will
We’re excited that you’ve joined the conversation! At HMU, we want to continue the great authors’ conversations in a contemporary context, and this blog will help us do that. We look back to Aristotle and the early philosophers who used reason and discourse to gain wisdom and now we endeavor to do the same every day.
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December 12, 2025
Thanks to Ibrahim Nureni, a 2025 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
In Margo Natalie Crawford’s Black Post-Blackness, tidalectics is characterized by “nonlinear” or “back-and-forth” black radical tradition of continuity in that the experiences of black people from the era of slavery to the contemporary days do not follow a parallel path but adopt a circular schema (3). English, in How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness,
» Read more about: Alexander’s “Praise Song for the Day”: A Serial and Tide of Black Voices »
November 21, 2025
Thanks to Rachel D. Perez, a 2025 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
Barbie: The Movie sparked a wide range of conversations—from gender roles and identity to free will and power. But what struck me most wasn’t the obvious. It was the subtle, yet profound, commentary on the branding of liberation. That scene in the Mattel boardroom, where executives discuss how to “brand” freedom through Barbie—along with Gloria’s projections onto Barbie and Barbie’s own misconceptions of freedom—left me thinking about how we,
» Read more about: Aspiring, Achieving, and Unraveling: The Branding of Liberation »
April 11, 2025
Thanks to 2025 HMU Fellow in Ideas, Rachel D. Perez, for today’s post.
With the rise of artificial intelligence and rapid advancements in technology, even the fundamental aspects of human education and child-rearing are being called into question. As we move toward an era where machines increasingly shape our world, one might wonder: Can AI disrupt our humanness? In this blog, I argue that Mother in I Am Mother may represent the ideal tutor Rousseau envisioned in Émile.
» Read more about: The AI Tutor: Revisiting Rousseau’s Philosophy in a Technological Age »
February 21, 2025
Thanks to Rachel D. Perez, a 2025 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
Cinema, at its most incisive, does not merely tell stories—it unmasks the world. El hoyo (The Platform, 2019), directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, is one such film, a relentless interrogation of survival, power, and the human condition. Set within a vertical prison where food descends level by level, the film captures the raw brutality of artificial scarcity.
» Read more about: The Horror of Being: A Philosophical Review of El hoyo (The Platform) »
February 23, 2024
Thanks to Chad Greene, a 2023 Fellowship in Ideas recipient, for today’s blog.
“There is nothing new: all things are both familiar and short-lived,” the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius Antoninus wrote more than 1,800 years ago in the text that we tend to title the Meditations (VII.1). Marcus Aurelius did not give them this title; he merely referred to them by a Greek term that translates to “things to one’s self.” So,
» Read more about: A Week’s Worth of Meditations to Help Prepare to Read Marcus Aurelius »
March 3, 2023
Thanks to Ally Zlatar, a 2023 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
Japanese death game films, also known as ‘Battle Royale’ films, typically depict a scenario where a group of individuals are forced to participate in a deadly game or competition, often with the goal of being the last survivor. Think of movies like Squid Game (2021) and Hunger Games (2012) but more grim.
» Read more about: The Art of Japanese Death Game Films Through Analysis of As The Gods Will »
September 10, 2021
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know/ Silence like a cancer grows/ Hear my words that I might teach you/ Take my arms that I might reach you”/ But my words, like silent raindrops fell/ And echoed/ In the wells of silence/ And the people bowed and prayed/ To the neon god they made/ And the sign flashed out its warning/ In the words that it was forming/ And the sign said,
» Read more about: Modern Day Chorus: Lord of the Rings and Ceremony »
May 28, 2021
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre: written about 1607, by William Shakespeare
”Comus”: written about 1637, by John Milton
Last week, I discussed the character of Pericles from Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre. This week, I will continue to explore Shakespeare’s play, but focus on Marina,
October 20, 2017
Thanks to Alissa Simon for today’s post.
Kant’s Science of Right takes time to read. In the Science of Right, Kant explains the interaction of theory with practice when defining ownership, rights, and equity. I find it difficult to pull short sections from his writing because all of his arguments build upon one another. I also find it nearly impossible to study a single quote with the hopes of gaining a better understanding to his arguments because,
September 29, 2017
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
“I think many of the stories that we tell ourselves as a society – the stories that encode our hopes, aspirations, and fears – preserve the traces of classical culture and myth and are part of our classical legacy.” – Professor Elizabeth Vandiver
Our modern day understanding of the term hero is mostly positive. We think of heroes as protectors and helpers with outstanding qualities that make them better than the average human.