The Original: Cicero - The Ideal Statesman Scipio: Why, he should have virtually no duty apart from this, for it embraces all the rest — namely that he should never cease inspecting and examining himself, challenging others to imitate him, and by the splendour of his mind and conduct offering himself as a mirror to [...]
Posts from ‘July, 2010’
World-building and Storytelling
by Hugh C. Howey I just fired off an email to another writer, and it contained some thoughts on these two concepts that I thought I’d share a bit more publicly. Keep in mind: there’s a good chance that I have no idea what I’m talking about. _________________________________ …Another thing to think about is the [...]
Talking About Revolution
The Academy is talking about the “Federalist Transition” and we needed Kuhn to get there. This video aims to explain Kuhn’s understanding of revolutions but also reminds us to take seriously the “baggage” that accompanies the words we choose. And, if none of that is interesting, we can consider his choice of music. While we [...]
Weekly Wavelength
This is one of the easiest ways to share your ideas on Politicolor. Every week we ask our contributors two questions and post their answers in an effort to help you find good ideas on the web. Because effective citizens are informed citizens engaged in sharing ideas… What didn’t you know last week? Gravity is [...]
Re-writing a bit of Hobbes as Cicero
The Original: Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Chapter 14, Section 31. The force of words being (as I have formerly noted) too weak to hold men to the performance of their covenants; there are in man’s nature but two imaginable helps to strengthen it. And those are either a fear of the consequence of breaking their word; [...]
That’s a Re-Write
With two weeks of the National Academy behind the 2010 crew, there’s been a lot of talk about the Writing Assignment. Locke claimed the largest portion of this year’s re-writes with Cicero and Deuteronomy each coming in as a close second. News stories and six word re-presentations took on the challenge of communicating world-making ideas. [...]
A Theory of American Identity: Or the Radical American Exceptionalism: Or Why Baseball is Better than Soccer?
An abstract submitted for you consideration. Your questions and assistance in refining the ideas presented here would be greatly appreciated. Over the last year I have been contemplating the notion of American identity, and what that means. As I contemplated the bounds of this notion, I began formulating a rather extreme form of American exceptionalism. [...]
Weekly Wavelength
This is one of the easiest ways to share your ideas on Politicolor. Every week we ask our contributors two questions and post their answers in an effort to help you find good ideas on the web. Because effective citizens are informed citizens… What didn’t you know last week? Arachne at her loom, after an [...]
The Creativity Deficit
For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong—and how we can fix it.
Experts assess 10 drawings by adults and children for signs of out-of-the-box thinking. View gallery.
How Creative Are You?
Back in 1958, Ted Schwarzrock was an 8-year-old third grader when he became one of the “Torrance kids,” a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children who completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. Schwarzrock still vividly remembers the moment when a psychologist handed him a fire truck and asked, “How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?” He recalls the psychologist being excited by his answers. In fact, the psychologist’s session notes indicate Schwarzrock rattled off 25 improvements, such as adding a removable ladder and springs to the wheels. That wasn’t the only time he impressed the scholars, who judged Schwarzrock to have “unusual visual perspective” and “an ability to synthesize diverse elements into meaningful products.”
See Like Cicero
After last year’s National Academy, we shared Cicero’s View from 100,000 Miles. He will make his more formal appearance at this year’s National Academy in the morning. Found this video on the Hayden Planetarium’s site and it provides all the perspective to think like Cicero. To think big… and small! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this [...]
