Environmental Modesty

Despite this virtue's history as an instrument of women's oppression, modesty, at its most basic, means voluntary restraint of one's power, undertaken for the sake of others. It is a mechanism that modifies unequal power relationships and encourages greater compassion and fairness. I use a Christian perspective with influences from Jewish and Muslim sources to examine modesty. The modest person, I argue, must be in relationship with others, must be honestly aware of her impacts on others, must be sensitive to those impacts, compassionate toward others, and willing to hold back for others' sakes. Moreover, modesty is not only a virtue that pertains to sexuality and clothing, but it also can promote virtuous environmental behavior, particularly as it leads to awareness of, and sensitivity to, the effects of everyday behaviors on vulnerable others.     

Altering contingencies to facilitate compliance with traffic light systems

The effects of altering light pattern sequences on driver compliance at a busy, urban intersection were explored. The baseline light timing sequences resulted in only 46.8% of drivers stopping at the yellow or red lights. Using an A-B-C design, we altered light pattern sequences that increased the probability of drivers stopping at the signals to 88.8% and 98.8%. These findings indicate that traffic light contingencies have potent effects in influencing driver behaviors at busy intersections. Following completion of the study, the traffic engineer approved the permanence of the light timing pattern that increased traffic rule compliance. Accident data collected before and after the light timing changes indicated a reduction in automobile accidents.     

TOWARD A GENERAL THEORY OF HUMAN CREATIVITY

Abstract. The presence of a basic and general form of creativity in people is investigated through experiments with music. The results indicate that "generative" creativity—-the ability to spontaneously generate a music by varying a basic set of musical elements—is a basic human endowment, unlike "constructive" creativity—-the type of creativity exhibited by composers and other artists—-which is the result of training and the spehal development of faculties. Generative creativity's coming to the fore in contemporary people would contribute to the development of the personality and help bring about more fulfilled, better balanced people and societies.     

Message from the Ecumenical Youth Gathering

This is the message of the Ecumenical Youth Gathering held in advance of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, which met in Karlsruhe, Germany, in August–September 2022. In their message, the youth voiced a series of laments, and recognized and prayed for justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation of the wounds the church has inflicted and continues to inflict in the world, and they called on the WCC to provide a meaningful space for an equal representation of young people in all its processes.     

Social Activism's Possibility through Perspectives of Gloria Anzaldúa,Walter Benjamin and C. G. Jung1

This paper explores the vertices of Jung's, Anzaldúa's and Benjamin's distinct ontologies and the way in which they connect in the shared recognition that what has been estranged in human history is enigmatically lodged in the world's fabric today. Cultural distress, in other words, is the outcome of what has become repudiated in the self and the collective across time. From this perspective, the paper argues that we have a collective responsibility to listen to the claims of the dead laid bare in moments of contemporary real-world danger and it elaborates the psychical dimensions of being that are cultivated in times of danger. The author contends that these psychical presences are the dead of human history including our ancestral heritage that linger and possibly may penetrate our awareness. They haunt and hold a potential to animate our movement towards a sublimatory process that can be seen as a precursor to social responsiveness and action. The author explores this through her own experience with an example of the spawning of spiritual activism within the socio-political maelstrom of AIDS.     

Stylistic appearances and linguistic diversity

Philosophy is beginning to pay problems of linguistic justice the attention they deserve in today's heavily interconnected and migrant world. Contemporary philosophy itself, however, has a particular problem of linguistic justice that deserves metaphilosophical attention. At least in the philosophical tradition that is mainstream in much of the world today, viz., analytic philosophy, methodological and sociological mechanisms make it the case that the voices of non-(native) Anglophone philosophers are substantially less heard. Among the mechanisms responsible for this situation, argues this paper, is the emphasis given by influential philosophical institutions to linguistic style and appearances as signs of clarity, precision, and rigour in the treatment of philosophical problems. Such an emphasis is not justifiable, in part because it deprives philosophy of a wider variety of perspectives. The paper concludes by presenting and motivating a recent initiative that aims to foster greater linguistic and cultural diversity within the profession.     

Devouring and Asphyxia: Paradigm Crisis,the Depletion of the Hero and Complex Thought1

This article deals with the profound paradigm crisis that affects modernity and threatens the destiny of humanity. This crisis results from the lack of perspective offered by the paradigm of modernity with its emphasis on unilateral rationality, scientific objectivity, and exploitation of natural resources by a hyper development of an inflated Hero archetype. The emergence of a new paradigm of complexity, C. G. Jung’s complex psychology, and Ameridian perspectivism, may offer new paths to approach these serious problems lived by modern man. A clinical vignette illustrates how complex psychology may also help with individual patients suffering from psychosomatic complaints.