There’s an age-old problem that people continually run into when trying to influence people and the world for the better: the dynamic between systems and character.i Poorly-designed political, social, educational, and economic systems will yield people of poor character, possessing questionable values, which will make it hard to accomplish good and needful things. As such,…
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I periodically encounter the idea of the Social Contract being employed to justify something or other, some government policy or some informal opinion. However, when it’s employed in this way, such ideas strike me as commonly failing to do what the speaker intends largely due to the errors to the way they understand and attempt…
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There appears to me to be a lot of confusion surrounding our concept of Rights, and much of this seems to me to have to do with a failure of understanding and communication, both individually and collectively. Because there seems to me to be a great deal of imprecision when people refer to Rights, with…
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I wish I could remember where I first heard of Matthew Arnold. I recall encountering a long quotation from what is likely his most famous work, Culture and Anarchy,1 when reading another book and being drawn to it. (I thought it was quoted in Albert Camus’ The Rebel.2 However, I found from its re-read that…
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“You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra1 Three months ago, I introduced the concept of partisanism and discussed some of the problems it causes.2 Two months ago, I described how the partisan…
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I’m back, at least temporarily. After I started working my last job, I knew that my essay writing was likely to fall by the wayside, but I never expected it to fall off so quickly as the demands of my work completely overtook my life. I honestly tried to at least finish this series that…
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I wanted to continue the discussion I started last month about my growing sense of political alienation.i While I think the behaviour of politicians constitutes an important piece of an explanation for this feeling, it’s only one aspect of something complex and unwieldy, something I need to examine slowly, piece-by-piece, if I hope to gain…
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Over time, I’ve been increasingly hit with this creeping notion that my views aren’t represented by the politicians I’ve been tasked at electing. It felt different when I was first old enough to vote and, though my political views have changed substantially and repeatedly in the years since, it’s only been quite recent that I’ve…
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Over the past few years of pharmacy practice, I’ve felt increasingly unheard and unsupported in my attempts at best practice.i This feeling has been pronounced when attempting to advocate for my patients, most strongly when involving my patients on Opioid Agonist Therapy (OAT).ii The problem as I best understood it upon reflection had a lot…
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When reading Maclean’s, an article occasionally brings to mind different things I’ve read previously. Sometimes, it will conform with what I’ve encountered in a way that strengthens what I’ve come to understand about a topic. At other times, it will go against this understanding, either making me question this knowledge or sort of distrust aspects…
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