The Global Spiral  is an e-publication of Metanexus Institute. Through articles, essays, book reviews, and news, the Global Spiral  explores humanity's most profound questions and challenges.
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Quotes:
"For all of our science, rationality, and technology, we moderns are no less the makers, tellers, and believers of narrative construals of existence, history, and purpose than were our forebears at any other time in human history. But more than that, we not only continue to be animals who make stories but also animals who are made by our stories."
-Christian Smith, Moral, Believing Animals
April 2007
Volume 8, Issue 1
Visual Explorations
Whatever Happened to Wisdom?
by Eric Weislogel

This is the very fine line we walk—between the foolishness of giving up the quest for wisdom and wholeness and the idolatry of thinking our worldview or system or philosophical/theological position is complete and sufficient. The former lacks courage and the latter lacks humility.  more


Sleepless in Tehran
by William Grassie

"2:00 AM. I woke up suddenly from a nightmare. It takes a few days to get over the jetlag. It may take a lifetime to get over this trip." more

The End of Education
by Alasdair MacIntyre

"Since the nineteenth century the number of disciplines studied in American universities and colleges has steadily multiplied… And in all these areas there is a growing array of subdisciplines and subsubdisciplines, not to speak of the introduction of creative writing, of theater arts, and...and...and... " more


Love of Neighbor in Classical Judaism
by Jacob Neusner

"That Judaism maintains that the biblical commandment, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself' (Lev. 19:18), defines the heart of the Torah, which is to say, what we should call the essence of Judaism." more


Book Reviews
Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future by Orrin H. Pilkey and Linda Pilkey-Jarvis
Review by William Grassie

"The book in parable form illustrates what Alfred North Whitehead meant by 'the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness'. The problem is endemic to all modeling of any complex environmental or human process." more

Moral Believing Animals
by Christian Smith
Review by David Sloan Wilson

"Evolution and social constructivism are two subjects that for most people are separated by an enormous gap. Evolution is about genes and behaviors adapted to the distant past that limit what we are and can become in the future. Social constructivism is about culture and our almost unlimited capacity to define what we are and can become in the future." more


Columns
Polydoxy
by V. V. Raman

Designer Cosmology. more


Mind Readers Dictionary
by Jeremy Sherman

Co-Satisficing: Squeaky wheels and vicious cycles. more
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