The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

By Cynthia Chung What say of it? what say CONSCIENCE grim, That spectre in my path? – Chamberlayne’s Pharonnida There has always been a fascination with “horror” since time immemorial, such that much of what functions to thrill us today is not much different from the sort of folk tales told hundreds if not thousands…

Schiller’s Ghost Seer, Intelligence Methods and a Global Citizenry

A Study of Schiller’s The Ghost Seer By Cynthia Chung [The audio version of this article can be listened to here.] The Ghost Seer first appeared in several instalments in Schiller’s publication journal Thalia from 1787 to 1789, and was later published as a three-volume book. It was one of the most popular works of…

Education as the Cause of Political Freedom – The Brethren of the Common Life

We all know that human society is littered with dark ages, renaissances, fallen empires, and brilliant revolutionary bursts of progress, increased liberty and creative freedom. But what is the ‘secret sauce’ that allows a fallen society to rise and generate such powerful artistic, scientific and political minds capable of leading humanity into greater harmony with…

Plato’s Fight Against Apollo’s Temple of Delphi and the Cult of Democracy

By Cynthia Chung Homer’s great poems that are left to us today, The Iliad and The Odyssey, describe the events of the Trojan War and its immediate aftermath, events which marked the descent of Greece into a Dark Age. Following the Trojan War, c.1190 BCE, the civilization of mainland Greece collapsed, written language was lost, and cities disappeared….

Who Will Be Brave in Huxley’s New World?

By Cynthia Chung “ ‘Science?’….’Yes,’ Mustapha Mond was saying, ‘that’s another item in the cost of stability. It isn’t only art that’s incompatible with happiness; it’s also science. Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled…I’m interested in truth, I like science. But truth’s a menace, science is a public…