Sublime

A cornered animal will turn around and bite. The three of them knew immediately what had cornered Professor Jung. It was the power of civilization, an invisible power. The force that makes you offer up your things to be stolen, without the powerful needing to threaten or order. The magic that makes you destroy political enemies and muzzle detractor

Behind the threat of barbarians is a simple fact. Social super organisms itch to move up on the hierarchical ladder, and many of those who want to ascend would like to do so at our expense. The legitimate wish for peace often blinds us to this fact. But there is another impulse that also distracts us from the danger of barbarians: the itch to battl

If colonialism constituted the first phase of contemporary African history, and the era of decolonization and the Cold War the second, modern Africa is now in its third phase. There has been some European, American, and, increasingly, Chinese investment in infrastructure and minerals. And there is periodic terrorism. But again, the continent is mor

Misperception can be critical. In reality, there should not be an education-based poverty trap: Education is valuable at every level. But the fact that parents believe that the benefits of education are S-shaped leads them to behave as if there were a poverty trap, and thereby inadvertently to create one.

The results reinforced the findings of Phillips’s earlier study: social diversity leads people to take dissenting opinions more seriously.

ces pratiques que des profits dérisoires. Les principaux actifs économiques consistent désormais en savoir technique et institutionnel plutôt qu’en champs de blé ou même de pétrole : or, le savoir ne se conquiert pas par la guerre.