Lee Vining Creek in Eastern Sierra, California. Courtesy Jacob Morrison.   In its simplest meaning, regeneration is about recreating something useful and vital, including civilization, that humans or unknown forces have diminished or destroyed.   The Atlantis   Plato, 427 – 347 BCE, lived at a time of peril. He grew up in Athens during the last twenty-three years of the Peloponnesian War. Things did not look good. He tried to find out why Athens was part of a Greek fratricide. He studied why civilizations often decline, even disappear. His fertile mind examined historical experience, seeking clues and examples of regeneration. Book 7 of his  Republic  and his dialogues,  Timaios  and  Kritias , offer valuable insights into how humans can sometimes dig in the rubble in order to reinvent civilization. His story of the lost world of the Atlantis has mesmerized countless people throughout the ages. The dialogues  Timaios  and  Kri...

                                                                            River's End poster. Courtesy the film producer, Jacob Morrison.   Inspiration   Occasionally, you come across an article, a book, or a film with exceptional power to capture your imagination, influencing your ideas or life, or, at least, reminding you of a time when you, too, were obsessed by similar concerns and hopes.   This happened to me recently by a film with the magic and tragic title,  River’s End .    I watched the film and then I read carefully the transcripts. That immersion brought me back to all I had done in my work at the US Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the US Environmental Protection Agency. I, too, felt I was a river coming to an end.    Something w...

 Aristotle, painting by the Greek artist Evi Sarantea. Courtesy Sarantea. Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander the Great and the inventor of the science of zoology / biology.    The new iconoclasm   Our iconoclastic age is smashing images that keep the powerful in full control of their money and privileges, while giving the underclass the illusion of change, that their lives are getting better.   Teaching Greek and Latin in selected colleges and universities is now becoming the venom of the iconoclasts. These include people of non-Western traditions who feel angry for having being exploited in the past and, possibly, are being exploited now.   Legacy of slavery and genocide   There’s little doubt that past slavery left a swath of bad memories and revenge  all over America and other colonial societies. Black Americans are still suffering from the poisons of centuries of slavery. Native Americans are the survivors of genocide.   Barking ...