What the heck is going on in Syria? If you are like me, you have a problem keeping all the players straight, and the unfamiliar Arab names don’t help. Thankfully, the Syrian President has a relatively easy name to remember, Bashar al-Assad, but keeping track of who’s who and which side they’re on is a real challenge. Frankly, even when I can keep track, I’m very skeptical that I am getting anything close to ...

How will the human species continue to evolve? That was the question posed earlier in the week by CBS’s Sunday Morning in a segment called “The Future of Evolution.” But before looking to the future of human evolution, Sunday Morning briefly examined its history. This was a wise direction for the segment, in my opinion, because before we speculate on what we’re evolving into, we need to know what we’ve evol ...

On Saturday, the pop culture icon Justin Bieber visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam while on a world tour. At the end of his visit to the museum, Bieber wrote a message in the guest book. His three-sentence message has become Big News. Sunday afternoon I checked my Huffington Post app and discovered this headline on the homepage, “Fury Erupts over Bieber’s Obnoxious Anne Frank Comment.” This morning t ...

Adam, I’m so glad you challenged the idea that we and our desires are solid and impermeable as billiard balls. That idea is so ingrained in our culture of hyper-individualism that even Ira Glass, the host who brought us the tale of the Kiss Cam kiss, drew a completely unsupportable conclusion from his own story! He couldn’t grasp how it was possible that the accumulated gaze of 50,000 people could cause a b ...

Hey Suzanne, I love that story! I do think mimetic theory helps us understand what makes people do crazy things on TV, even things that are against their best interests. It reminds me of Fear Factor, that “reality show” where people would eat live bugs or animal parts. Who would ever do such a thing!?! And that’s the point. We watch these shows with a sense of moral superiority, as we think to ourselves, “T ...

Hey, Adam – Have you ever wondered what possesses people to do embarrassing things on camera? I heard a story on the radio this weekend about a guy doing something he swore he’d never do, all because of a Kiss Cam. I think this guy’s apparent self-betrayal is crying for mimetic analysis and I’d love to discuss it with you. Here’s the story that appeared on NPR’s This American Life with Ira Glass: Bill Langw ...

The question is: Who is our ultimate model of authority? Rob wants us to consciously choose Jesus as our model of authority. When the church chooses Jesus, then it becomes the body of Christ, empowered not with the authority of coercive power, but empowered by the Holy Spirit to follow Christ in service and love. ...

Many people in our modern culture are quick to denounce ancient literature, such as the Bible, for being backwards and dehumanizing to women. You want to see literature that’s backwards and dehumanizing to women? Then go to the magazine rack at the checkout stand of any American supermarket. ...

Something positively mimetic happened at a Billy Joel concert at Vanderbilt University last January. After Billy Joel played a concert for the students, he did a little Q & A session. During the session, freshman Michael Pollack raised his hand. When his fellow students pointed at him, Billy Joel followed their finger pointing (in good mimetic fashion!) and called on Michael. Michael nervously said, My ...

Can a song reconcile two nations? The captivating life of Monique Andree Serf, also known as Barbara, says yes... ...