Freedom of choice is a recent concept when we put its appearance and the scale of human history into perspective. Being free implies taking responsibility for the consequences and responsibility for one’s own choices, which is not convenient for everyone. It is much more comfortable to be guided by family or social injunctions rather than going against the tide. Indeed,…
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Like it or not, we’re all part of a team. It can take the form of a wedding, a family, a company, a nation and so on. Without always having chosen it, we belong to a group whose interests we defend and which is supposed to bring us a certain level of benefits or advantages in return. Having said that,…
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Family is the place of transmission par excellence. There are many different forms, however, are all these bequests good to receive? Heritage, whether cultural or material, is the very essence of the notion of family. Can we deliberately choose not to accept a bequest that has been imposed on us? Should we inherit the sufferings of the past without compromising…
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Emotion seems to be what we lack most in writing, at least that’s what the younger generations think, who compensate by writing with smileys, emojis and other images. This need was born in Japan, where writing is essentially ideographic: the image is the text. In this sense, this need is not present in cultures that have developed around alphabetic writing.…
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From the age of bestiaries to the present day The Middle Ages is an interesting period in that it reflects the coexistence of different influences, both pagan and Christian. One of the manifestations of the persistence of pagan influences is the existence of bestiaries, which in themselves constitute a historiographical material. The bestiaries represented works listing the known beasts of…
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In a world where attention and personal data are captured at every moment, it is worth reflecting on the new paradigms of scarcity. Thus, taking up the adage “what is rare is expensive”, at least in the figurative sense, it is reasonable to ask whether, in this hyper-connected world, anonymity should be seen as the paragon of luxury. Before answering…
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According to Taoist thought, harmony proceeds from a subtle balance between the yin and yang forces, respectively the feminine and masculine energies. These are expressed in various ways: Yin refers to the unconscious, to the static, to the night, to curves, to the Moon, to calm, to slowness or even to softness, etc. Conversely, the yang concepts are the conscious,…
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The condemnation of desertion has played the role of binding societies for many centuries. It sensitized generations of men to this notion of courage and duty while insinuating the consequences of cowardice: physical or social death. The demonization of the deserter has made it possible to instill values of boldness and sacrifice in a duelist logic by identifying the good…
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A key to understanding the French political divide is to recognize that France and its culture are a tangled web of contradictory ideas grounded in the struggle between conflicting ideologies over the course of French history. To make sense of it all, one needs to understand two concepts : tribalism and universalism. These two conflicting principles lie at the heart…
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Why are we inclined to conformism? We’re afraid of regretting our actions if we take the risk of innovating, instead of conforming. This is a somewhat understandable fear since when it comes to innovation 50 % may succeed, but also another 50 % may doomed to oblivion because of failure. This explains why conformity is a safe guarantee of survival…
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