Sublime

The early twentieth-century philosopher of history Oswald Spengler captured this task when he described the ‘born’ leader as ‘above all a valuer – a valuer of men, situations, and things . . . [with the ability] to do the correct thing without “knowing” it’.[3]

signals. The presence of a human tutor, who looks at the child before making a specific demonstration, massively modulates learning. Not only does eye contact attract the child’s attention, but it also signals that the tutor intends to teach the child an important point. Even babies are sensitive to this: eye contact puts them in a “pedagogical sta

Social cooperation is our key for survival and reproduction.

Like bees, our ancestors were (1) territorial creatures with a fondness for defensible nests (such as caves) who (2) gave birth to needy offspring that required enormous amounts of care, which had to be given while (3) the group was under threat from neighboring groups. For hundreds of thousands of years, therefore, conditions were in place that pu

1,500-layer is the number of faces you can put names to

While natural selection traded strength for fat, increasingly complex tools and techniques drove another key genetic change: the human neocortex sends corticospinal connections deeper into the motor neurons, spinal cord, and brain stem than in other mammals. It is the depth of these connections—in part—that facilitates our fine dexterity for learne

Very young children tend to play in parallel rather than interact with each other,

Kohlberg’s most influential finding was that the most morally advanced kids (according to his scoring technique) were those who had frequent opportunities for role taking—for putting themselves into another person’s shoes and looking at a problem from that person’s perspective. Egalitarian relationships (such as with peers) invite role taking, but