Tag: Social Science
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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May 1, 2026
Thanks to Chinyere Okoh, a 2026 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s blog.
Beyond the Silence
by Chinyere Okoh
I find myself alone in a still room,
where shadows seem to stretch and exhale with me.
The quiet carries a single, fragile question that lingers in the air:
Where am I?
The voice feels both distant and familiar,
as though it belongs to me and yet echoes from somewhere beyond. » Read more about: Rebuilding Connections: Book Review of Together by Vivek H. Murthy, MD »
July 19, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Last week, I took a look at some of the uncomfortable humor in Aristophanes’ The Wasps. I wondered why (or how) a play can poke fun at the very group that it also needs to please. How does this type of humor please an audience? It’s pretty widely known that sometimes we like to laugh at ourselves,
November 3, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
The October Quarterly Discussion merged two chapters from The Prince by Machiavelli with a chapter from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Of prime interest was the focus on the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Machiavelli presents him as a champion of the princely cause since he successfully tricked and killed his opponents,
October 20, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
George Bull translated the Penguin Classics version of Machiavelli’s The Prince (1999). In the introductory materials, Bull notes some of the difficulties of translating Machiavelli’s language. I find his comments particularly enlightening since they also address the problematic nature of virtue. Machiavelli clearly witnessed unsettling atrocities in his time. Rather than condemning the injustices, he merely noted that injustice exists and suggested that it might be a necessary evil on the ruler’s behalf.
September 8, 2023
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
If it’s been awhile since you have read Machiavelli’s The Prince, you might consider reading an excerpt with us this fall. We will examine two chapters of it in the October Quarterly Discussion. (Reach out to Alissa at as****@*mu.edu for more information). I was also thinking about how one might teach this work, how to bring it to life in the eyes of the students.
November 11, 2022
Thanks to 2022 HMU Fellow in Ideas David Kirichenko for today’s review.
The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
There are defined patterns to how humans behave. Being social creatures, it is important to understand our own behaviors and motivations to grasp the reality of the world around us. In his book The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene attempts to weave together an appreciation of how humans operate through the lenses of history,
November 4, 2022
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
For the October Quarterly Discussion, we read Plutarch’s “Coriolanus” and a speech by David McCullough titled “Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are.” I was not really sure if this combination would work because of the great differences between the two pieces. Plutarch’s biography portends to be history, but is simultaneously a commentary on culture,
September 2, 2022
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Years ago, under the pressures of student life, I read the full volume of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (often referred to as Parallel Lives). Honestly, I was dreading it because I harbored assumptions about some of these ancient texts. (And we all know what a mistake it is to assume anything.) At that time,
July 8, 2022
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Happiness is of such importance that the Declaration of Independence uses it as a foundational principle. Considering its importance in my own society, one would think that I thoroughly understand the term. However, it is as slippery today as it has always been. Sometimes I believe that my own personal happiness is necessary because it will assist me to support those around me.
June 10, 2022
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
“The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.” – John Baker, The Peregrine
”Learning is a profession….” – Zena Hitz
2022 Fellow in Ideas David Yamada recently wrote a book review that inspired me. Per his suggestion, I quickly read Zena Hitz’s Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life.