Showing results for "obsession" in Political Science

A classic exposé in company with An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring, The Story of Stuff expands on the celebrated documentary exploring the threat of overconsumption on the environment, economy, and our health. Leonard examines the “stuff” we use everyday, offering a galvanizing...

A Matter of Facts is a personal journey into the world of quizzes. At the start Shaun enters the World Quiz Grand Prix, pitching his knowledge against the nation's finest minds, including Eggheads and Chasers...he fails. Unperturbed, he sets out to improve his skills through memory training, practice and even hypnosis in an attempt to move himself up the rankings of the quizzing elite. His adventure sees him get his old quizzing 'band' back together to see if he can triumph in the leagues.

In 1872, Fyodor Dostoevsky published a novel titled Demons, about a catastrophe that ensues from the nihilism that became prevalent in Russia in the 1860s. A group of young men incite chaos as they try to stage a revolution. In Dostoevsky’s portrayal, they seem possessed by the doctrines they espouse. In a 1957 essay, the Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, made similar observations about “subversive minorities” in the West who are animated by “chimerical wish fantasies” that may rapidly spread like a contagion and develop into “psychic epidemics.”

Over the last 500 years, life for the average human being has changed dramatically - plagues no longer wipe out entire families, and no longer do we empty our chamber pots into the street. Nope, not today. But, Western progress has shown that no matter how many dangers we neutralize, new ones emerge. Now we remain at the mercy of an invisible enemy - fear. Our well-being suffers and our imaginations are stifled.