Opposite Vajdahunyad Castle in Budapest’s City Park, you find the Statue of Anonymous, one of the city’s most evocative and revered monuments. It honors the medieval chronicler who authored Gesta Hungarorum, the foundational text of Hungarian history recounting the journey of the Magyar people from their ancient homeland up to the founding of the nation.

The author signed his work simply as P. dictus magister – The master, called P. Having preserved the story of his people for future generations, he demurred from attaching his own name for posterity. His identity lies buried beneath the sands of time.

The sculpture, created by Miklos Ligeti in 1903, captures the 12^th century historian mid-composition – quill poised, book open, hooded cloak shrouding his face in shadow. The irony of this preserver of history lost to modern memory suggests this week’s addition to the Ethical Lexicon:

Anonym (an·​o·​nym/ an-UH-nim) noun

A person who chooses to remain anonymous.

History, they say, is written by the victors. The chronicles of ancient Syria recount their country’s victories over the Egyptians, then fall silent. The chronicles of Egypt, previously silent, pick up where Syrian accounts ended to record their own triumphs. The works of Josephus invariably depict his Roman patrons in the most flattering light.

Today, we face the opposite problem: Apologists and revisionists driven by political and social ideology often abandon historical integrity altogether. In a deplorable pattern of criminal misrepresentation, modern pundits frequently malign visionaries far ahead of their times for failing to measure up – in their not-so-humble opinions – to modern sensibilities.

In truth, it is the job of historians to interpret history, not merely record it. Why do so many students despise the study of history? Because they are subjected to endless lists of names, dates, and places without context, meaning, or relevance. Even in fiction, Harry Potter had to suffer the butchering of history during Professor Binns’s lecture on the Giant Wars:

“Harry heard just enough within the first ten minutes to appreciate dimly that in another teacher’s hands this subject might have been mildly interesting, but then his brain disengaged, and he spent the remaining thirty-five minutes playing hangman on a corner of his parchment.”

This kind of educational malpractice is inexcusable. Historians have an obligation to teach not only the facts but the dynamics of history. What historical currents led to revolution, upheaval, and the collapse of empire? Who were the players, and what were their motivations? How did the most innocuous and seemingly random confluence of events change the course of civilization? When taught with mastery, history provides drama more compelling than Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and The Handmaid’s Tale all rolled into one.

In our politically tribalized world, however, too many teachers of history go too far, imposing their own ideological predilections on past events, reinterpreting them through the lens of contemporary trends and sensitivities. In this way, they do a profound disservice to the luminaries of the ages and to their own students, undermining reverence for heroes who, despite their imperfections and shortcomings, rose to meet unimaginable challenges and spurred the advancement of civil society.

By inserting themselves in the narrative, revisionists distort our collective memory, ensuring that readers and students will fail to learn the lessons of history and normalizing radicals like Abdul El-Sayed, Melat Kiros, and Zohran Mamdani. As one popular meme astutely observes: “1984 was intended to be a warning, not an instruction manual.”

Which brings us back to our anonymous Hungarian chronicler. Despite having had every right to sign his name to his magnum opus, his commitment to the purity of the past compelled him to remove himself entirely from the annals of the future. Imagine if more of us took his example to heart.

In an age of influencers vying for followers and politicians pandering for votes, the preternatural humility of this anonym is almost beyond our comprehension. And that’s tragic. Because ethics begins not with consideration for what profits us as individuals, but what best serves society and the world we share with others. When we lead with humility, we eventually discover that what benefits those around us is truly what benefits us most of all.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by Yonason Goldson

A man walking through a city park happens upon a little boy sobbing uncontrollably. “Are you hurt?” the man asks.

“No,” the boy whimpers. “I’m playing hide-and-seek with my friends.”

The man nods with compassionate understanding. “And you aren’t able to find them?”

“No,” wails the boy. “I went to hide, and my friends didn’t try to find me.”

We never really stop being children, do we? And we know all too well the feeling of FOMO. Indeed, our collective Fear Of Missing Out has only gotten worse; social media propagates the misperception that everyone else in the world is living a life of unrelenting excitement, happiness, and pleasure while we muddle through our humdrum lives.

But there’s something even worse: FOBMO -- The Fear Of Being Missed Out. More agonizing than the prospect of not being in the right place at the right time is the specter of being consciously excluded or thoughtlessly overlooked.

Hence, this week’s addition to the Ethical Lexicon:

Athazagoraphobia (a·​thaz·​a·​gor·​a·​pho·​bi·​a/ uh-thaz-uh-gor-uh-FOH-bee-uh) noun

The fear being forgotten or ignored.

Perhaps the most deep-rooted of all human needs is the desire to be valued. We want to feel that we are important, that our lives matter, that we are making a difference. This can be a healthy desire when it motivates us to contribute positively to our communities and our world.

But, too often, we look to the wrong people for affirmation. When we do, we make ourselves subject to their value system, regardless of whether or not their system is based on sound and worthy values.

In her delightful TED talk, bestselling author Susan Cain explains how the industrial revolution transformed the way we approach social ranking. Back when most people lived out their lives in small, rural communities, they had plenty of time to get to know their neighbors by assessing character and evaluating worth.

With mass influx into large urban centers, however, the sheer number of people we encounter daily requires us to make faster judgements. Per force, charisma has become the currency of evaluation, even though there is zero correlation between extroversion and either competence or character.

The fallout is distressing. Not only does snap judgment incline us toward superficiality in our decision-making; it also encourages the superficiality of ideas, since the most attention-getting notions may be the least likely to pay off in the end. Remember when Theranos promised early detection of cancer and diabetes? Or how Google Glasses and Hoverboards would change our world? Yet none of these instructive examples curb our irrational eagerness to jump on trains that never leave the station.

Why do we remain so willing to make ourselves dependent on the judgment of strangers? Perhaps the proliferation of social media gurus has caused us to lose confidence in ourselves.

Rather than relying on the madness of crowds, better to cultivate our own judgment, our own understanding, and our own circle of trusted advisors. When we chart a course guided by ethical values and a reliable moral compass, people worth impressing will take notice and readily welcome us into their tribe. And that is worth more than an infinity of fly-by-night followers or smiling emojis.

Rather than enslaving ourselves to the shallow offerings of influence peddlers, better to build upon the foundations of time-tested wisdom. As the sages taught: Be a follower of lions, not a leader of foxes. By doing so, we take responsibility not only for our own fate but for the culture that we help take shape around us.

One simple mindset shift is to articulate daily our commitment to resisting the delusions of popular culture:

• My mission is to succeed by providing value.

• My purpose is to create, contribute, and serve.

• My quest is to earn loyalty.

• My benchmark is to improve over yesterday.

• My community is measured by quality, not quantity.

To escape the diagnosis of athazagoraphobia, we need to stop trying to impress people who are impressed for the wrong reasons and start channeling our efforts toward making a meaningful impact on the world we live in. As Benjamin Franklin said: “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

In his short story, “The Country of the Blind,” H.G. Wells depicts a mountaineer in the Andes who happens upon a hidden valley inhabited by villagers who have lost the faculty of sight. Convinced that “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” the stranger quickly discovers that his gift fails to provide the superiority he anticipated.

Just the opposite: These people have compensated for their lack of vision by hyper-developing their other senses. As the mountaineer struggles with the reality that his sight puts him at distinct disadvantage, the villagers increasingly regard him as delusional.

Only decades after that meditative exercise did I learn that creativity and visualization have nothing to do with one another. Despite being relentlessly creative, I don’t visualize at all. That places me among the less-than-four percent of the population who suffer from this week’s entry into the Ethical Lexicon:

Aphantasia (a·phan·ta·si·a/ eɪ.fænˈteɪ.zi.ə) noun

The inability to form mental images of real or imaginary people, places, or things.

My wife still can’t fathom how I don’t see pictures to accompany the words I hear or read. What’s more remarkable is how this cerebral glitch can prove extremely advantageous.

In fact, aphantasia is found disproportionately among innovators and creatives across all disciplines. A short list of notables includes:

• Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar

• Craig Venter, the biologist who first sequenced the Human Genome

• Blake Ross, creator of Mozilla Firefox

• Glen Keane, Disney animator and creator of The Little Mermaid

• Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller

I always considered myself handicapped until 2021, when I was commissioned to write a memoir of the late Dr. Alan Weiss. An internationally renowned cardiologist possessing almost supernatural diagnostic abilities, Dr. Weiss also possessed a unique talent for formulating original theological insights.

In the course of our interviews, Dr. Weiss commented that he did not visualize himself. When he once mentioned this to a noted scholar, he learned how fortunate he was. In the Far East, he was told, students aspiring to higher levels of enlightenment may spend years in isolation learning how not to visualize.

Closer to home, Jewish philosophy teaches that the bridge between pure wisdom and practical knowledge is intuitive understanding -- the ability to discern hidden layers of meaning. In pursuit of true enlightenment, visualization actually becomes an impediment, since concrete imagery inhibits the conceptualization necessary to grasp complexity, nuance, and deeper significance.

This demonstrates how the lessons of aphantasia are universally relevant. As much as “seeing is believing,” it’s equally true that “seeing is deceiving.”

At the very least, seeing can be severely limiting. The more clearly we visualize the advantages or the necessity of a particular course of action, the more invested we become in following it through to the end, and the more resistant we become to considering possible downsides or ethical pitfalls.

Even if the proposal is a good one, we can easily overlook ways to make it better. Exploring further possibilities may reveal how a genuinely good idea could be improved, or open our eyes to discover superior alternatives.

One effective strategy is to pose a series of questions starting with “What if…?”

• What if this idea isn’t sound… how might it go wrong?

• What if there were other options available… what might they be?

• What if this weren’t the best way to go… what other avenues might we pursue?

• What if this idea could be made better… how might that look?

The power of imagination enables us to reach beyond the known into the hypothetical. The more our feet are set in stone, even conceptual stone, the less free our minds are to explore the vistas of what might be. Ironically, blinding the mind’s eye from time to time can prove the most effective strategy for seeing farther than we would have ever believed possible.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by himmlisch from Pixabay

There’s a sparrow in the apple orchard
Sipping dandelion wine,
Singing of a dream I had,
A prophecy of Fate’s design.

There’s a sunbeam through the canopy,
A glimmer through the morning mist,
A promise of imaginings,
Of hopes and chances reminisced.

There’s a tulip in the onion field,
A sane word in a Van Gogh print
Seen only by dark eyes that hold
Fiery sparks from virgin flint.

There’s a dewdrop on the spider’s web,
That glistens in the setting sun —
A whisper from the checkered past
Of indiscretions all undone.

There’s a heartbeat in the catacomb
A trace of life beyond the pale,
A furtive breath, a wistful sigh,
To set the course and fill the sail.

There’s no sign from any oracle,
No voice, just echoes in the dark;
Who else could know but you and I —
It is from here that we embark.

Originally published in The Wagon Magazine.

On January 14, 2005, Harvard President Lawrence Summers ignited the firestorm that eventually cost him his job.

How did he bring the wrath of academia cascading down upon his head? The distinguished economist and former Treasury Secretary transgressed social acceptability by citing “research in behavioral genetics showing that things people attributed to socialization” might in fact have a biological basis. In other words, the reason why women are underrepresented in university math and science departments could be because more men than women excel in math and science.

Predictably, denizens of the ivory tower responded by shooting the messenger. Did it matter that throughout Scandinavia, the world’s most progressive gender-neutral policies had produced the seeming paradox of more, not less, gender inequality? Of course not.

Some psychologists have argued that deep-rooted gender prejudice is to blame for the failure of gender-neutral initiatives. Others, however, including Dr. Jordan Peterson, argue back that there is no paradox here at all.

As controversial as it sounds to progressive ears, both ancient wisdom and common sense attest that men and women are, in fact, different. In general, women take more interest in people, which inclines them toward careers in education and social care; men take more interest in things, which steers them toward executive positions in the private sector. We should find it unsurprising that, left to their own devices, both men and women choose those vocations most aligned with their respective natures.

Of course, this does not imply that women cannot excel in science or math. It simply means that, statistically, more men are likely to occupy the top tier than women, just as more men serve time in federal prison for violent crimes. Should we try to achieve gender-neutral incarceration rates as well?

Our topic here, however, is not social justice but the tension between intention and outcome. And a most useful model for illustrating that tension is this week’s entry into the Ethical Lexicon:

Schrödinger’s Cat | noun

The quantum paradox of an indeterminate state in which a cat in a sealed box can be considered simultaneously alive and dead.

History provides countless examples of good ideas that caused more harm than good. Capital gains tax sounds fair, redirecting income from the wealthiest to the most poor. But statistics prove that tax revenue declines as those taxes rise. The intentionally alive cat appears dead on arrival.

The 2002 Campaign Finance Reform Act promised to curtail the influence of big money on political campaigns. Instead, it drove donations away from the party mainstreams and into the hands of unaccountable Super PACs. Rather than empowering individual voters, it helped fuel a culture of virulent hyper-partisanship so many now lament.

Often, consequences are not merely unintended but utterly unpredictable. Only after putting plans into effect will we discover whether they produce the expected results. That is why, as long as we keep our ideas locked in the box of the hypothetical they remain simultaneously alive and dead.

Erwin Schrödinger himself argued vehemently against the notion that the cat is half-dead and half-alive; it must be one or the other. But until we can determine which, we need to account for both. And that is precisely the mindset needed to resolve the tension between intentions and outcomes.

The appearance of fairness cannot be ignored, since perception influences reality. Once people conclude that a seemingly fair solution is the right one, they will refuse to accept any facts to the contrary. And even the most beneficial outcome, when perceived as unjust, will fail to win the support necessary for long-term success.

Perception, however, is no substitute for reality. Everyone knows the famous road paved with good intentions and where it leads.

Our polarized culture emboldens binary thinking, which suppresses ethical clarity by stifling our capacity for both complexity and nuance. Few things in life are black and white, and only by grappling with the gray can we navigate the moral paradoxes of the human condition.

Authentic wisdom calls on us to reject the false binary of intentions vs. outcomes, thereby empowering us to bridge the ideological divide and resolve the contradiction of heart and mind. That is the road that leads to building a better world.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

“Do you have any heroes?”

I still remember when my English professor, Max Byrd, pinned a student to the wall with that question. The names Harry Truman and Winston Churchill jumped forward in my mind. My fellow student, to my alarm, invoked Woodrow Wilson.

I’m guessing that Peter Singer would answer with a hard “no,” considering his recent criticism of Pope Leo XIV for invoking the term “human exceptionalism” to differentiate between human beings and artificial intelligence. Entrenched in the dubious moral philosophy of utilitarianism, the former Princeton University Professor of Bioethics acknowledges only one metric for determining value: cost-benefit analysis.

Consequently, the unborn, infants, and the profoundly disabled fail to qualify for personhood. Why not? Because they provide no measurable contribution to the world. Conversely, gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees do. So will AI, once it demonstrates “consciousness,” however that might be determined or defined.

For any human being, this kind of moral confusion is dangerous; for a self-designated ethicist, it is reprehensible. Which evokes this week’s entry into the Ethical Lexicon:

Exceptionalism (ex·​cep·​tion·​al·​ism/ ik-SEP-shuh-nl-iz-uhm) noun

The belief that a person or group is unique, extraordinary, and inherently superior to others.

Does exceptionalism smack of elitism? Not in the least. President Barack Obama embraced this very fallacy when he remarked on April 9, 2009: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Maybe Mr. Obama didn’t watch enough movies with his kids. He might have taken a lesson from penetrating line from archvillain Syndrome in “The Incredibles,” who declares that “when everyone is super, then no one will be.”

Any serious student of history recognizes what makes America exceptional. Thomas Jefferson ringingly captured the Framers’ vision of self-evident truths that “all men were created equal [and] endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” that extend throughout (but not beyond) the human race.

Nobility is not an accident of birth reserved for some; it is the transcendent potential possessed by all. Certainly, other societies and cultures have made exceptional contributions to human society. But it was the United States, by rejecting the divine right of kings, that brought the aspirational precept of spiritual egalitarianism into the modern political arena.

Needless to say, few of us manifest the noble character of a Lincoln, Churchill, or Mandela. But that divine spark reveals itself in every one of us, if only we allow it to do so.

In December 1943, Franz Stigler, a Luftwaffe flying ace, intercepted a heavily damaged B-17 piloted by American 2nd Lieutenant Charlie Brown. Instead of shooting down the defenseless aircraft, Stigler pulled his Messerschmitt alongside the crippled bomber, escorted it away from German anti-aircraft fire, then guided it toward the North Sea and back to allied territory. Stigler even saluted the American pilot before turning back home.

Would any AI override its programming to reason its way to a similar act of mercy? Even if it did, computers do not think; they simply manage data and weigh outcomes, just as their organic counterparts – animals – merely prioritize based on instinct.

What animals and machines have in common is that they react to stimuli and circumstances. But they do not respond. And because they have no response mechanism, they have no responsibility; decisions that resemble free choice are merely part of their programming. Only human beings can choose to override our self-serving impulses and act in pursuit of higher purpose.

This is the essence of human exceptionalism. And it is precisely the point Peter Singer has continued to miss over the entire course of his career.

In truth, Thomas Jefferson may have missed it himself. Human beings can claim inalienable rights precisely because we alone possess responsibilities. Animals fight, steal, and even murder with moral impunity. They cannot be wicked since they have no virtue -- a quality often detached altogether from intellect.

Indeed, for all intellectual sophistication of ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle endorsed infanticide and the utilitarian eugenics that ultimately found expression in the policies and practices of Nazi Germany. This is the company that Ethicist Singer chooses for himself.

By recognizing the intrinsic value of humankind, we simultaneously recognize our responsibility to protect the vulnerable, to show mercy to the weak, and to condemn immorality regardless of profits or returns. We arrive at ethical clarity only when stop seeing ourselves as biological machines and celebrate the supernal uniqueness of our humanity.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by ThePixelman from Pixabay

The story isn’t new. But it continues to fascinate as it becomes more relevant every day.

Three decades ago, travelers arriving at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport were not happy. The walk from the jetway to the carousel took barely a minute. But they fumed over having to wait seven minutes before their luggage began to appear.

Every imaginable effort to streamline the baggage delivery system succeeded in shaving only one minute off the wait time. Then, inspiration struck and airport officials found their answer: If they couldn’t accelerate the arrival of passenger luggage, they would lengthen the walk from the gate to baggage claim. Once they did, travelers stopped complaining.

Ironically, in an age of escalating convenience, directed inconvenience may be the key to happiness. But there is no paradox here. The reason is summed up by this week’s addition to the Ethical Lexicon:

Liminal (lim·​i·​nal/ lim-uh-nl) adjective

Of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition.

Coined in 1909 by French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep, the word gained popularity in the ‘60s and ‘70s after British cultural anthropologist Victor Turner applied it to the transitional phase we now call breaking out of our comfort zone.

Van Gennep explained that any rite of passage begins with separation -- breaking free from the familiarity of the past -- and concludes with incorporation -- arrival at a changed reality. In between, we cross the threshold of liminality -- metamorphosis into a new kind of being.

The liminal state is simultaneously terrifying and exciting, frustrating and empowering, disorienting and revitalizing. It’s the enlivening process of overpowering our natural complacency by reaching out toward an uncertain but aspirational future.

The benefits of liminality manifest in both modern language and timeless wisdom. We call a graduation ceremony commencement, the new beginning that emerges the moment we attain a goal. Weddings are followed by receptions, as two individuals fuse into divine oneness.

What is paradoxical is how the concluding stage of incorporation feels bittersweet, like the completion of a worthwhile project, the end of an engaging book, the finale of a beloved television series. When we don’t know where we’re going next, our brief elation quickly gives way to undirected and purposeless ambivalence.

The sages of ancient Judea understood this when they taught that, ”You are not obligated to complete the task, but neither are you free to withdraw from it.” Life presents endless opportunities for each of us to fulfill the potential with which we are created. Although virtually none of us achieve all we can, every moment offers a fresh start for us to persevere in the attempt to become all we can become.

This is the liminal mindset the Houston airport officials tapped into. We’re happier walking for seven minutes than standing around for six. The illusion of meaningful progress proves far more satisfying than the sense of wasting time that might otherwise be well spent.

Connection to a worthwhile goal is what kindles within us feelings of value and self-worth. That’s why those who lack purpose often seek to satisfy the liminal urge with the adrenaline rush of driving at high speeds and jumping from great heights. Others distract themselves with dopamine hits from endless scrolling or the sensual pleasure of hedonistic indulgence.

But those are poor, fleeting substitutes for the most profound rewards of life: Discovering purpose, meaning, and fulfillment through the relentless pursuit of realizing our own potential. Moreover, the process of choosing our path with deliberation keeps our moral compass well-calibrated and finely tuned.

Ultimately, the most persistent enemy of ethical clarity is fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of change. Fear of failure.

However, retreating into our comfort zones should frighten us even more. That way lies stagnation, banality, and the emptiness of unrealized dreams. Pushing ourselves to detach from the mind-numbing sameness of habit and familiarity will not bring us to the end of our journey, but to somewhere far more rewarding: The liminal mindset that accompanies the pursuit of a life well-lived.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

At first glance, the soggy, green downs of Ulster bear little resemblance to the parched and craggy hills of Israel.

But tug gently at the cultural fabric of either land and you unravel an unmistakable common thread: two peoples, impossibly close geographically, impossibly distant ideologically, with more than enough fuel for hatred between them to burn until the coming of the Messiah.

Tromping over hills and through city streets, first in one place and then in the other, I discovered a more compelling similarity: the bitter struggle of humanity in exile.

“Which are the bad parts of town, the ones I should avoid?” I asked the owner of the bed-and-breakfast where I passed my first night in Belfast.

She dutifully pointed out the Shankill neighborhood on my map, cautioning me to steer clear of it. I thanked her and, with sophomoric self-confidence, proceeded there directly.

It was the summer of 1984, in the midst of “the Troubles,” and central Belfast exuded all the charm of a city under martial law. Policemen on patrol wore flak jackets. An armored personnel carrier idled at a major intersection waiting for the signal to change. Blown out shells of buildings sprouted weeds, and street signs screamed, DO NOT LEAVE CAR UNATTENDED.

As I worked my way up Shankill Road, I noticed even more disconcerting landmarks: elementary school yards swathed in razor-wire; churches pocked with scars from automatic-rifle fire.

The eye of the storm

I stopped in at a corner pub and took a seat at the bar beside two locals. Each was nursing a pint of Guinness. Another glass, two-thirds-filled with boiled snails, rested between them. The men took turns using a bent ten-penny nail to dig each snail out of its shell before popping the meat into their mouths.

I was half-way through my own pint of ale when the nearest one began chatting me up. “Yootoorin?” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Yootoorin?” he repeated.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“You touring? You traveling around?”

I needed several minutes to adjust to his accent. I never did get used to his indifference to life in a war zone.

“It’s no big deal,” he said with a wave of his hand. “There’s not many bombs going off anymore, except on the big anniversaries, and everyone expects it then.” He extracted another snail from its shell, tossed it into his mouth, and chased it down with a swig of Guinness.

“Nobody lets the fighting get in the way of getting on with life,” my friend continued. “You get used to it, y’know?”

A life in the day

“I was carried away to captivity in Ireland with so many thousands of persons, as we deserved, because we departed away from the Almighty … [and He] brought upon us the fury of His anger and scattered us among many nations as far as the end of the earth…”

So writes St. Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, echoing the prophecy in Deuteronomy 28 according to which, four centuries earlier, the Children of Israel had been exiled at the beginning of the great Diaspora. Yet Patrick applied it without hesitation to his own time and place, presuming that the right of a nation to reside peacefully in its land depends upon the character and integrity of its people.

My wanderings ultimately led me from Belfast to Jerusalem, where I also found people living amidst violence and without fear, stoically enduring the random bombings of the intifada and the vindictive rain of scud missiles launched by Saddam Hussein. There, as St. Patrick had done in Ireland, I learned the ancient lessons of my own people, who have struggled through the ages to find peace with their neighbors and peace with one another.

We have met the enemy…

Exile, I came to understand, does not require banishment to the ends of the earth. It can happen right at home, and it takes many forms. Indeed, which is the more profound diaspora: being scattered to distant lands, or living under siege beneath one’s own roof?

And if we do find ourselves exiles in our own land, to where can we escape?

Today, miraculously, Northern Ireland has found peace between Catholics and Protestants, while Israel, even more miraculously, has begun to forge peace with its Arab neighbors. Even so, as these isolated enclaves of eternal discord prove to the world that improbable peace can be brokered and impossible dreams can come true, the wider community of humankind disintegrates into chaotic clashes between races, between sexes, between political ideologies.

Must we continue to find reasons to divide ourselves against ourselves? After all, it’s only a matter of will to reconcile our differences by recognizing the human dignity in those who look different and think differently from us. It’s only a matter of will to acknowledge that none of us has a monopoly on truth and that everyone deserves justice.

Isn’t it?

Ultimately, the only way any for us to find the path leading out of exile is by shouldering the responsibilities of freedom.

Adapted from an article originally published in 1999 by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Image by Martin Dubreuil from Pixabay

Legend has it that Apelles of Kos, court painter of Alexander the Great, displayed his paintings in the public square to elicit comments from passersby. On one occasion, a shoemaker observed an inaccuracy in the design of the subject’s sandals. Apelles promptly revised the painting.

Upon seeing that the artist had heeded his advice, the shoemaker began offering additional suggestions. Apelles responded pithily: “Critique only the sandals.”

23 centuries ago, nothing more was needed to silence an uncredentialed quibbler. Today, it’s considerably harder to stifle self-designated pundits and cognoscenti. In our post-truth era, when feelings routinely overrule facts and logic, authentic seekers of knowledge and wisdom be warned of the danger posed by this week’s addition to the Ethical Lexicon:

Ultracrepidarian (ul·tra·crep·i·dar·i·an /uhl-truh-krep-i-DAIR-ee-uhn) adjective

Describing a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside the area of his or her expertise.

There’s no mystery how we got here. The internet is an extraordinary tool, but to find a needle of insight often requires sifting through haystacks of mis- and disinformation. Wikipedia is a wonderful resource, but only fools accept what they read there without diligently verifying the sources (attribution: Abraham Lincoln).

Why are we so willing to accept unsubstantiated reports and stories? Maybe it’s confirmation bias, since we eagerly welcome any factoids that confirm our preconceptions. Maybe it’s the sense of power we get from claiming truth is on our side. Maybe it’s simple avoidance of the effort required to unearth reliable information.

Ultracrepidarianism rears its head more brazenly by the hour. What’s your opinion about climate change? About vaccines? About the nuclear threat from Iran?

For most of us, the answers should be simple: I don’t know. I’m not a climate scientist. I’m not an epidemiologist. I have no credentials in international politics. But when the whole world seems filled with self-appointed experts, am I any less qualified to pontificate on every subject under the sun?

Returning from sabbatical in Brazil after World War II, theoretical physicist Richard Feynman found the whole scientific community embroiled in a debate over the decay of subatomic particles. Unable to follow the arguments on either side, the future Nobel Prize winner dug up the article that sparked the imbroglio and found it deeply flawed. Apparently, none of the scientists on either side had bothered to read the original paper.

Similar stories abound in the world of business, even though it hardly requires an MBA to recognize how bad information will sabotage strategy, tarnish brand image, destroy reputations, waste resources, increase costs, and lead to missed opportunities.

And yet, astonishingly, willful ignorance pervades corner offices at the highest levels. CEOs of Bausch & Lomb, Radio Shack, and Yahoo! are just a few examples of candidates hired to prominent positions despite falsifying their resumes. In many cases, the scandals following exposure cost the companies dearly. In politics as well, George Santos won election to the House of Representatives after concocting outrageous fictions about his record and his history.

How did these prevarications go unexposed? Because little effort was made to uncover them. If we don’t take responsibility to authenticate stories before accepting them, we have only ourselves to blame when they prove unsubstantiated.

The revered Rabbi Noach Weinberg famously observed that nothing is more irrelevant than the answer to a question that was never asked. Ethics demands that we verify information before disseminating or consuming it. Abdicating that responsibility by relying on unqualified “experts” will prove considerably more inconvenient for us than it does for them.

The true menace posed by ultracrepidarians is not that they don’t know what they say they know. It’s not even that they don’t care whether their own opinions hold water. It’s that we don’t care.

Readers of a certain age will remember Clint Eastwood’s classic line as Inspector Harry Callahan: “A man has got to know his limitations.” When we acquire the intellectual humility to know the limits of our own expertise and the intellectual courage to question the expertise of others, then we can proceed with confidence to make choices we can depend on to lead us where we want to go.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by beasternchen from Pixabay

Where is Montenegro?

That’s the question my wife asked when I suggested we go there. You can look it up if you’re wondering the same thing.

Our apartment balcony overlooked the Bay of Kotor, a branch of the Adriatic Sea. We sat for hours marveling at the water that radiated an impossible shade of blue.

We learned online that the seabed of the Adriatic is white limestone, which intensifies the color of the sky while inhibiting the growth of algae that would darken the water’s hue.

It’s worth remembering that, often, we can’t understand what we see because we don’t have access to information we need.

As Socrates purportedly said: You don’t know what you don’t know.

In the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, the flames of the seven-branched menorah symbolized wisdom. But the oil symbolized confusion.

We need to recognize our own ignorance in order to be receptive to knowledge. We need to acknowledge our own lack of understanding before we’ll feel motivated to actively seek clarity.

Ignorance is only a crime when it is willful.

This is why the prophet Daniel declared that the Almighty “gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.”

Wisdom is a mindset that motivates us to seek greater wisdom. When we do, we uncover secrets that not only benefit us practically but also inspire us with appreciation for the beauty of the world we live in.

How did we ever get by before Google Maps and Waze? I ask myself that question every time I travel, grateful for the feminine voice that guides me through the labyrinth of unfamiliar streets to reach my destination.

Back when the earth was young, travelers managed just fine with paper maps. But in this brave new world, it’s hard to imagine successfully finding our way without the help of GPS.

Online navigation is not the only automotive novelty of recent years. Headlights now turn themselves on and off. Dashboard icons alert us when we’re low on gas. Automated steering systems yank us back into the lane when we begin to drift. Warning bells screech with escalating intensity when we don’t buckle up. Some cars even operate driverless.

All this technology does what it’s meant to do: Make our lives safer, easier, and more convenient. But is it possible that we’ve let it go too far?

A few days into our vacation abroad, my wife began directing me from the passenger seat moments before the same directions issued from Lady GPS. (Now I had two women telling me where to go.)

After traversing the same routes to and from our Airbnb, my wife had learned her way around as a passenger. Meanwhile, I had surrendered so completely to the computer that I had no idea where I was or where I was going.

Modern conveniences are fine, until they render us incapable of fending for ourselves. Once that happens, learned helplessness leaves us unfocused, unconfident, and increasingly irresponsible.

That’s why the best news I’ve heard in a long while is the new trend emerging among Gen Z, which is this week’s addition to the Ethical Lexicon:

Friction-maxxing | noun

Intentionally choosing less convenient, analog, or slower options to combat tech-induced cognitive fatigue and build tolerance for discomfort.

Rejecting GPS in favor of analog navigation is just one example. Others include cooking from scratch, reading paper books, and using cash instead of credit cards. Some young people choose to disable autopay, take the stairs rather than the elevator, park farther from their destinations, or return to physical alarm clocks to break early morning phone addiction upon waking up. A little extra effort dispels device-induced brain fog and promotes healthy gray matter.

Some Gen-Z actually schedule time to be bored. But moments of stillness, meditation, and self-reflection need not be dull. Once we wean ourselves off the dopamine buzz that come from phone addiction, time by ourselves quiets the mind and spirit in a way that is revitalizing and uplifting.

Another example of friction-maxxing is seeking out real human interaction. In one study, Professor Nicholas Epley and PhD student Juliana Schroeder asked Chicago bus and train commuters to strike up conversations with strangers. Those who did reported enjoying their ride more than those who sat in solitude.

So why do we resist reaching out to strangers? Ironically, we convince ourselves that we need to respect others’ privacy, even though they may be yearning for connection as much as we are. Instead, we pull out our phones to distract ourselves from our own isolation, discouraging others to reach out to us as we tighten the cocoon that insulates us from them.

And that is tragic. Because the ultimate source of human happiness is connection – to individuals, to community, to something greater than ourselves. Indeed, the very effort required to create and maintain human relationships is part of what makes those relationships rewarding; it also boosts our confidence and our sense of self-worth.

When I was newly married, after yet another episode bickering with my wife over nothing important, I complained to my rabbi about the tension that continuously invaded my home. I’ve never forgotten his answer, decades before Carol Dweck popularized the term “growth mindset”:

“Without friction, nothing moves.”

There’s a reason why we need to get out of our comfort zones. Adding a bit of friction to our lives spares us from apathy, complacency, and intolerance for inconvenience. Reclaim mastery over your actions and direction to make your days happier and your years far more productive.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by Petra from Pixabay

I’ve always adored Rembrandt. From the time my grandfather first took me to the art museum, I was entranced by the grandmaster’s ability to capture not only the features of his subjects but the essence of their souls. To feel pigmented oil arranged on canvas so deeply stirring the human heart testified to the divine genius of artistry.

Van Gogh was a different matter. Compared with the realists, his paintings appeared to me like childish fingerpainting. So, too, as much as I delighted in the bright colors of Monet’s water lilies, I found nothing compelling about his spotty brushstrokes. The entire impressionist genre struck me as little more than artsy self-indulgence.

Realizing just how wrong I was provided me a valuable lesson in intellectual humility: Don’t make judgments about anything or anyone before you’ve made a serious effort to understand them.

Standing in an art gallery one day -- I can’t remember where -- I paused before an impressionist masterpiece and tried, yet again, to fathom why the world held the art and the artist in such high esteem. The room was empty except for two other patrons, and I couldn’t help overhearing what one was saying to his companion.

“Step close to the painting,” the speaker instructed, “then slowly back away until you see the jumble of disconnected splotches fuse together into a coherent image.”

Curious, I tried it myself. In the next moment, my disdain transformed into wonder. Four decades later, the experience inspires me to welcome this week’s addition into the Ethical Lexicon:

Impressionism (im·​pres·​sion·​ism/ im-PRESH-uh-niz-uhm) noun

The 19th-century art movement focused on subjective experience, fleeting moments, and the shifting effects of light and color.

There are two ways we fail to perceive the world around us. One is by missing the forest for the trees. The other is by missing the trees for the forest.

By fixating on details, we lose sight of context, significance, and meaning. By marveling only at the broad view, we neglect structure, subtlety, and nuance.

Impressionism compels us to reconcile the divide between micro and macro by over-emphasizing the component parts. Only when we take a step back, literally and figuratively, do we behold the big picture while grasping the complexity that created it. The genre reminds us that the details and the whole are one and the same, even if we cannot perceive them simultaneously. By overvaluing either one, we undervalue the other.

Almost as fascinating as the impressionist movement itself is the history of its origins.

Later in their careers, both Edgar Degas and Claude Monet suffered deteriorating eyesight. Their advancing blindness accounted for the blurred impressionistic style of their later works.

As Édouard Manet grew older, he endured leg pain and loss of muscle control. These affected his concentration and brushstrokes, inducing him to abandon his earlier realism and adopt the looser style for which he is best known.

Crippling arthritis confined Pierre-Auguste Renoir to a wheelchair and left him unable to pick up a paint brush on his own. He pivoted to the softer lines and the brighter color palette that produced his dreamlike images. Renoir himself acknowledged that his infirmity set free his impressionistic style.

The stories of these impressionist masters reflect the essence of impressionism itself. If we focus only on the obstacles life strews in our path, we may never discover our own ability to circumvent or transcend them. We need to look beyond where we are toward where we want to be.

Conversely, if we regard the sprawling panorama of our world without perceiving or contemplating its component parts, we won’t appreciate the wonder of its texture and multiplicity. We also won’t recognize the power we have to make a difference.

The genius of the impressionists inspires us to embrace, if not resolve, the eternal conflict between the head and the heart. Facts without context mislead us at best, deceive us at worst. Intuition divorced from reality leads us into folly, if not catastrophe.

True, the whole picture may be greater than the sum of its parts. Nevertheless, by recognizing that the whole remains inseparable from those parts, we find ourselves one step farther along the path toward authentic wisdom.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image: Claude Monet – Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son (1875), National Gallery of Art Washington

Half a century ago, when I possessed the charming innocence of a 12-year-old, I took offense at the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Why, I wondered, was I expected to pledge my allegiance to a flag? Proclaiming loyalty to my country , I could understand. But to a piece of fabric?

That wasn’t all. Having concluded with unshakable, preadolescent self-confidence that human existence is nothing more than a cosmic accident, I found the phrase “under God” offensive as well.

And so, while my classmates were dutifully reciting the full text of the Pledge, I was quietly editing my own recitation: “I pledge allegiance ... to the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation ... indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

By my final year in high school, however, I had acquired enough sophistication to appreciate the importance of symbolism. I no longer resented being asked to swear loyalty to a flag as the embodiment of the noble ideals it represented. I was also less certain about the existence — or nonexistence — of a deity. However, by that time students weren’t reciting the Pledge anymore.

And that’s a shame. Because it provides young people with an opportunity to ponder this week’s entry into the Ethical Lexicon:

Allegiance (al*le*giance/ uh-lee-juhns) noun

Devotion or loyalty to a person, group, cause, or ideal.

For decades now, we have heard from those who object to the phrase “under God” as unconstitutional. Perhaps they should familiarize themselves not only with the letter but also with the spirit of the Constitution, which can readily be discerned from the writings of the Framers. It was Alexander Hamilton who said:

“The sacred rights of mankind ... are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

Neither Washington, Jefferson, Madison nor most of the Founding Fathers felt any reluctance to include references to the Almighty in their political discourse, and even less inclination to expurgate it from the public arena. If the Framers weren’t afraid to mention God in the Declaration of Independence, why do so many fear the utterance of His name in our courthouses or schools?

Does their fear stem from the unknown destiny that may meet us when we depart this mortal coil? Or are they desperate to claim moral and ethical autonomy in their actions, their speech and their values?

For the militant atheist, there is no greater dread than the haunting suspicion that he might be wrong, that we might have to account for the way we’ve lived our lives upon arrival in the hereafter. Every reference to God challenges faith in the randomness of our existence while raising the possibility that we are not the arbiters of absolute moral truth.

The great Joseph B. Soloveitchik, one-time chief rabbi of Boston and teacher of countless theological scholars, summed it up like this:

“All extremism, fanaticism and obscurantism come from a lack of security. A person who is secure cannot be an extremist.”

Indeed, extremism in the form of radical religion and radical nihilism are one and the same. The 19th-century anarchist employed techniques not unlike the suicide bomber of today to advance his own variety of jihad. Modern anarchists, some wearing judicial robes, manipulate the law to advance their cause, supremely confident that they understand the Constitution better than its authors.

It has been observed that the word “ego” is an acronym for “Elbow God Out.” A daily reminder that we should receive our national freedoms with humility is among the surest means of preserving those freedoms for our children and their children after them.

Independence Day calls on us to rearticulate allegiance not only to our country but to the values on which it was founded, to subjugate ourselves to those noble ideals that emanate from a source higher than ourselves.

Creators Syndicate, Inc. © 2026 and Yonason Goldson

Image by Capturing Life as it happens from Pixabay

Storm clouds loom on the horizon. Your heart pounds. Your fists clench. Your body tenses as you anticipate the worst. Then, the threat of danger passes. You feel the tension leaving your body as your fear dissipates. Once again, you can relax.

Of course, we don’t want our faculties, our client base, or our endowments to dissipate. Freeing ourselves from anxiety won’t last long if it’s followed by dissolution of resources.

So is dissipation a good thing or a bad thing? As is so often the case, it depends.

Although the act of dissipation describes weakening or unwinding, the property of dissipation sometimes manifests as growth, strength, and renewal. Hence, this week’s addition to The Ethical Lexicon:

Dissipative (dis·​si·​pa·​tive/ DIS-uh-payt-iv) adjective

Containing the property of dissipation, breaking apart, expending, or releasing resources or component parts.

The law of entropy teaches that systems tend toward disorder and chaos. As energy diminishes, so do strength and form. Even the fiercest storms eventually pass.

A dissipative system, however, is an entirely different phenomenon. A tornado, a whirlpool, and a wave are all dissipative structures. Paradoxically, these are both steady and dynamic: They continuously exchange energy and matter, retaining their shape as they replace their component parts.

A human being is also a dissipative structure. Our bodies constantly generate new cells to replace dying ones. If you are more than ten years old, the constituent parts of your physical self are almost entirely different from what they once were.

Which should compel us to ask: What are we? Clearly, we are more than the molecules that compose our flesh and blood. Each of us is like a wave rolling along the shoreline, ceaselessly regenerating, holding a static shape while inexorable transformation takes place within us.

The Hebrew word for wave is gal, which stems from the same root as gilah, meaning the joy of revelation. The most profound happiness arises naturally from living in a perpetual state of re-creation. The sense of virtually limitless potential, when grounded in reality, produces torrents of unbridled joy.

Human beings are not designed to merely exist. We are programmed to evolve, improve, and move forward even as we remain ourselves. As Bob Dylan sang:

From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

This is not a new idea. The 18^th century European sage Moses Sofer taught that we don’t need to change ourselves; we merely need to uncover who we truly are. In the language of popular culture, your mission in life is to become the best version of your own unique self.

How do we do that? When asked how he produced his most famous sculpture, Michelangelo purportedly answered that David was imprisoned in a block of marble waiting for creative inspiration to set him free. Visualizing your destination is the first step toward getting there.

Consequently, ethical leaders ask themselves:

Why do I do what I do? Making money without some higher purpose will never attract loyal followers or passionate collaborators.

What have I learned today? If the answer is nothing, you’re not paying attention to the lessons life is trying to teach you.

Have I earned my people’s trust? If the answer isn’t a hard yes, it’s probably a hard no.

An organization or community is also a dissipative structure. Either it continuously grows stronger by generating positive energy or it feeds on itself until it unravels entirely. Communal survival depends on community culture. And every culture depends on the integrity of its leaders.

Douglas Adams observed that no single raindrop feels responsible for the flood. When we see ourselves as isolated individuals, our power dissipates. Even worse, it can become misdirected in ways that bring wanton destruction.

But under the guidance of ethical leadership, disparate parts coalesce into a system that grows stronger and more energized, producing creativity, collaboration, and prosperity by fusing its essential elements into a unified, dynamic whole.

What kind of system are you creating?

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by Sergio Cerrato - Italia from Pixabay

You almost certainly know about it: The now-infamous NY Times podcast in which progressive elites endorse the practice of “microlooting” -- a prettified euphemism for stealing. What makes it okay is that the world is inherently unfair. Since “the top 1 percent holds 32 percent of the net worth and the bottom 50 percent holds 2.5 percent,” why should the bottom-dwellers have to play by the rules?

Their argument gets just enough right to sound reasonable. It’s true that not all acts of theft are equal. It’s also true that sometimes acts of theft are justified. But from there the social justice warriors rapidly spiral into the vortex of absurdity.

Use a friend’s Netflix account? Sure thing. Steal a library book? Never. Leave a restaurant without paying your bill? Unthinkable. Swipe a painting from the Louvre? Love to.

Stealing from Whole Foods is okay because it’s an upscale store -- especially when you give the stolen food to a homeless person. Stealing from a Walmart or Costco is not “very significant as a moral wrong.” Stealing from corporations is virtuous.

What’s most chilling is where those justifications take us as individuals and as a society.

Set fire to a Kimberly-Clark warehouse? Tactically unwise, but morally defensible. Murder Brian Thompson? As CEO of United Healthcare, he was guilty of social murder himself. We won’t actually endorse killing, but we can applaud the motive.

Above all, let’s keep our priorities straight: Getting iced coffee in a plastic cup? “That is a profoundly selfish, immoral, collectively destructive action.” So is air travel for pleasure. And private schools should be “mostly illegal.”

The philosophy underlying these moralistic convolutions is perhaps the most nefarious entry in the history of the Ethical Lexicon:

Situational Ethics | noun

The moral framework that right and wrong depend on context and circumstance rather than universal principles.

What’s insidious about this mindset is that the beginning of the definition is entirely true. Indeed, for decades I’ve taught my students that the safe answer to almost any question is: It depends. But the definition’s conclusion is sociopathically false.

Ethical realism asserts that foundational principles never change. Untethered from axiomatic values, we naturally drift into the wilderness of moral anarchy. The challenge arises when two core values collide. Then, we have no choice but to prioritize one over the other.

Is it wrong to take a human life? Of course. Except in cases of self-defense, justifiable warfare, and capital punishment. Complex questions can rarely be answered with a simple yes or no.

In 1969, psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg asked young boys and girls if a husband were justified in stealing medicine he can’t afford to save his dying wife. From their answers, Kohlberg concluded that boys possess greater moral clarity than girls, since they prioritized life over property.

A decade later, Carol Gilligan argued that girls approach moral dilemmas differently, assigning more weight to kindness and compassion than to fairness and justice. It would be a mistake to look at either value system as intrinsically superior.

Ethics demands invoking justice on the one hand and compassion on the other. Both are eternal, universal values, yet we often need to choose which takes priority in any given situation. However, that choice does not give us license to dispense with one for the sake of the other.

This is where situational ethics fails catastrophically. Without rational application of absolute values, we end up basing our decisions solely on feelings, which leaves us victim to our own biases. Ethical integrity requires that we seek context, balancing our humanitarian impulses against the long-term consequences of our actions.

Moral intuition begins with moral reasoning. But we cannot reason in a vacuum. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” he framed the existential value system necessary to preserve not only a nation but a culture.

Situational ethics erodes the foundations of civil society, promoting ethical chaos by rejecting moral axioms. Only by embracing the tension between justice and compassion with sincere determination to honor both can a society flourish, or even survive.

COPYRIGHT 2026 BY CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by Benjamin Balazs from Pixabay

By Dan Shapiro

When my son started playing chess, I thought he was learning a game. Only later did I realize he was also learning character.

Like any parent, I wanted my children to find activities to help them grow into capable, confident, thoughtful people. Sports can do that; or music; or art. But some children need a different kind of arena, where curiosity, memory, independence, and analytical thinking are not just tolerated, but valued.

For my son Harry, it was chess.

During COVID, my wife and I began noticing Harry struggling. He had trouble focusing. He could become emotionally stuck. Schoolwork was difficult. Later testing helped us understand that he was twice exceptional, meaning he was both highly capable and facing real learning, social, and emotional challenges.

We found support from teachers, therapists, doctors, and coaches. But one of the most surprising tools for his growth was not a formal intervention at all. It was chess.

Chess gave Harry a place to develop skills that extend far beyond the board: patience, focus, resilience, confidence, decision-making and, perhaps most important, thinking before acting. These are not just academic skills. They are character skills, the building blocks of ethical behavior.

Ethics often begins in the tiny space between impulse and action. A child wants to grab a toy, shout an insult, quit the game, blame someone else, or rush into a decision. Character emerges when that child learns to pause, consider, choose, and take responsibility for the result.

Chess gives kids repeated practice in that pause.

Every move asks a question: What happens next? What am I risking? What am I leaving exposed? What is my opponent likely to do? Am I acting because this is wise, or because I am impatient?

The habit of questioning before acting is perhaps the most valuable discipline chess can teach a child.

Patience

The first character skill chess builds is patience. Many young players want to move quickly. They see a piece they can capture and take it. They see a threat and react immediately. They want action, progress, drama. But the chess player quickly learns that the obvious move is not always the best move. Don't act impulsively: wait, develop, protect, and prepare.

That lesson alone will serve children well to the end of their days. Patience is not just the ability to sit quietly. It is the ability to resist the first impulse long enough to make a better choice. A child who learns to pause before moving a chess piece is practicing a skill that also applies before sending a text, responding to a classmate, reacting to criticism, or giving up on something hard.

Focus

Chess also teaches focus. We often tell kids to pay attention, but we do not always give them good ways to practice it. Chess demands attention naturally. If a player drifts mentally, even for a moment, the board changes. A threat appears. A piece is lost. An opportunity disappears.

For Harry, chess became one of the few activities that could fully hold his attention. Because he cared about the game, focus did not feel like a punishment. It felt like engagement. That distinction matters. Kids build discipline when they invest themselves in the challenge before them.

Resilience

Then there is resilience. Chess is humbling. Every player loses. Sometimes the loss is slow and painful. Sometimes it happens because of one careless move. Sometimes a child believes they are winning, only to discover they missed something important three moves earlier.

That can be frustrating. It can also be incredibly useful.

In chess, a loss is not the end of the story. It is information. A child can look back at the game and ask: Where did things turn? What did I miss? What could I try next time?

That kind of reflection is essential to character. Ethical growth requires the ability to admit mistakes without collapsing under shame. It requires responsibility without hopelessness. Chess gives kids a safe place to practice losing, learning, and returning to the board.

Confidence

Confidence grows from that process too. Not the inflated confidence that comes from being told you are wonderful no matter what, but the sturdier confidence that arises from recognizing your own growth. A child learns a tactic. Solves a puzzle. Remembers an opening. Spots a checkmate. Plays someone stronger and lasts longer than before.

Those small wins build a sense of independence. The child begins to understand: My effort matters. My decisions matter. I can improve.

Children who feel powerless avoid challenge. They assume success belongs to other people. Chess can help reverse that. It gives them proof that effort, attention, and practice make them strong.

Decision-making

Most of all, chess teaches decision-making. Every move has consequences: Gain something now and pay for it later. Protect one piece while exposing another. Make an emotional move and suffer the fallout.

In life, children constantly make decisions, often before they have the maturity to understand their full impact. Whom should I trust? How should I respond? Should I keep trying or give up? Should I follow the crowd or think for myself?

Chess does not answer those questions for them; it strengthens the mental muscles they need to approach them. It teaches children to consider consequences, accept responsibility, and learn from experience.

Every child need not become a grandmaster. We don’t expect every boy who studies violin to become Itzhak Perlman or every girl on the soccer field to become Mia Hamm. We appreciate that the activity itself teaches discipline, teamwork, confidence, and perseverance.

Chess has every bit as much to offer.

It has the added advantage that parents can share the experience with their children, even they’re new to the game themselves. You can start small, learn the basic rules together with your child, try beginner puzzles online, watch simple instructional videos, look for a local chess club or library group.

The key is to keep the pressure low. Let chess be a game first. Let your child discover the challenge. The deeper lessons will come with time.

Parents can also use chess as a window into how their child handles frustration, mistakes, competition, and decision-making. After a casual game, instead of asking “Did you win?” try asking:

• “What did you notice?”

• “Was there a move you wish you could take back?”

• “What would you try differently next time?”

Those questions help children pay attention to their own thinking. They encourage reflection instead of simple judgment.

As I watched Harry grow through chess, I began to see the game differently. It was not just about kings, queens, bishops, and pawns. It was about learning how to think under pressure, how to recover from mistakes, how to slow down, how to prepare, and how to trust your own mind.

Those are chess skills. They are also life skills.

Don’t we want our children to become thoughtful, resilient, ethical adults? Providing them the opportunity to develop those skills early on will ensure they have access to them later, when the stakes are high.

Dan Shapiro is the author of “Decoding Genius: The Unexpected Lessons of After-School Chess Club”

“Am I qualified to express opinions about theology? Maybe, maybe not. But I do less damage speaking about religion than some clergy do when they speak about politics.”

That remark has stuck in my head for 30 years since I heard it from David Luchins, political science professor and one-time advisor to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. More’s the pity that President Donald Trump didn’t respond with it, or something like it, when he launched his recent salvo against Pope Leo XVI.

Alternatively, the president might have politely refuted the pope’s assertion that “G-d does not bless any conflict” by invoking Deuteronomy 20:3: “Your G-d is the One who goes with you, to fight with your enemies, to save you.”

Instead, Mr. Trump retaliated as he typically does, with insults, calling the pope “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy,” while accusing him of catering to the “Radical Left.”

Eventually, the president found solid footing when he posted, “Will someone please tell Pope Leo that Iran has killed at least 42,000 innocent, completely unarmed, protesters in the last two months?” But by then it was too late. No one heard him preaching except the choir.

President Trump’s many critics responded with their own chorus, condemning -- justifiably -- his incendiary rhetoric. Inwardly, I’m sure they were grateful. Far easier to decry Mr. Trump’s congenital lack of civility than to defend the repeatedly failed policy of negotiation and appeasement pursued by his predecessors.

To quote the president, it’s sad. If he stuck to facts and logic, he could make a convincing case to support most of his positions. By shooting first and thinking later, he renders irrelevant the coherence of his arguments. It makes no difference what you say once you’ve given others just cause to stop listening.

When it comes to public relations, Mr. Trump invariably proves his own worst enemy. For reasons best left to the musings of psychologists, he seems incapable of reining in his penchant for comments best described by this week’s addition to the Ethical Lexicon:

Scurrilous (scur·ril·ous/ SKUR-uh-luhs) adjective

Making or spreading scandalous claims about someone with the intention of damaging their reputation; humorously insulting.

Anthropologists observe that exchanging concepts and shared values through speech is what enables individuals to coalesce into cooperative communities. Indeed, the sages of ancient Judea identified speech as the defining faculty that distinguishes humans from animals. Although dolphins and chimpanzees have rudimentary language for communicating information and even feelings, only human beings can share thoughts and ideas.

Those same sages also warned against poisonous speech, which they counted among the most corrosive of all human behaviors. Words intended to inflict harm tear us apart rather than bond us together. And that applies even when the words we speak are true.

Falsehoods can be exposed, refuted, and even prosecuted. That explains why, as bad as slander may be, demeaning language and malicious gossip can be even worse. The most insidious phrase in social discourse may well be: “But it’s true!” Injurious truth is the last refuge of the unethical.

Of course, we have a whole industry devoted to scurrilous speech in the form of late-night comedy. There’s no doubt that sarcastic wit provides easy laughs and scores rhetorical points; but it makes meaningful dialogue impossible. By resorting to ridicule, insult, or verbal bullying, we forfeit any chance of bringing others around to our way of thinking.

The normalization of caustic language should concern all of us. Weaponized speech throws fuel on the fire of an increasingly toxic culture. President Trump’s persona as Bomb-Thrower-in-Chief has ravaged our cultural environment more than California wildfires have devastated the Pacific Coast.

Personally, I applaud many policies of our current president. Which only makes the words of Yale Law Professor Stephen L. Carter more poignant: “I may agree with So-and-so on most of the issues, but I could never vote for somebody who could say this or do that in order to win.”

Enduring victory comes not from beating adversaries into submission. It comes from opening hearts, winning minds, and finding common ground. Scurrilous speech ensures that we will fail spectacularly in all of the above.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image 51581 via Pixabay

I wrote this column after the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, on 25 October 2023 that took 18 lives. It was neither the first nor the last such atrocity.

Neither was it a surprise. The question is: How do we respond?

Zebadiah Carter describes himself living in “an era when homicide kills more people than cancer and the favorite form of suicide is to take a rifle up some tower and keep shooting until the riot squad settles it.”

Novelist Robert Heinlein penned these words in 1980. Back then, they sounded like the science fiction they were. Now they echo like prophecy.

The tragedy of yet another horrific shooting in Lewiston, Maine, extends far beyond the victims and their families. In 1999, the attack on Columbine High School shattered our view of ourselves and of our world. Now, Columbine doesn’t even make the list of deadliest shootings. Even worse, the list of senseless mass violence keeps growing: Sandy Hook, Aurora, Fort Hood, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Robb Elementary, the First Baptist Church, Uvalde… the names are too many to recall.

And those don’t even include the Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon bombings. Why is this happening? And why is it getting worse?

Leaders, especially business leaders, may not be responsible for the chaos of our times. But that doesn’t exempt them from shouldering responsibility to seek solutions. How we got here might be out of our control. But taking control of how we move forward is the definition of leadership.

The fatalist mindset

Indeed, “control” appears to be the operative word here. In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, psychologist Peter Langman told LiveScience, “These kids often feel powerless. The one way they can feel like they’re somebody is to get a gun and kill people.”

“Out of control” seems the defining description of the world we live in. Yes, technology provides us with the power of information, opportunity, and access at a level unimaginable barely a decade ago. But even back then, our inability to manipulate so much power could leave us feeling both frustrated and inadequate,

Social media compounds the problem, foisting on us the illusion that everyone around us is living a happy, successful life while we battle helplessly against forces we can’t see or understand. The perceived triumphs of others make us feel like pawns in a game we can never win. With the world at our fingertips, success and happiness remain damnably elusive.

We flail about with increasing desperation, constantly trying to push ourselves a little harder and work a little faster, never able to establish order amidst the culture of chaos reported relentlessly by online news channels. Our sense of anger and resentment builds toward a society that promises so much and delivers so little until we feel ready to explode.

In a world gone mad, what else can we do but lash out against the world? It’s a question that frames the urgency of the latest entry to the Ethical Lexicon:

Meliorism (mel·io·rism/ meel-yuh-riz-uhm) noun

The belief that the world tends to become better through human effort.

But isn’t this mere fantasy? After all, the world hasn’t made sense since the beginning of time. In King Solomon’s Book of Ecclesiastes, the wisest of all men sums up a lifetime spent searching for meaning, justice, and truth:

Nothing has changed except our expectations. We have been taught to believe that anything we desire is within our grasp, that we are entitled to the love of poets, the wealth of kings, the pleasures and the power of the gods. Etched upon our collective consciousness is the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And then the fanciful promises of DreamWorks and Pixar and social media and the coddling cocoon of college crash head-on into the unyielding realities of life. Add to that agents of terror committing atrocities in the name of freedom and justice, their malicious violence met by onlookers with celebrations of man’s inhumanity to man. Why should it surprise us when more and more of us choose violence as the final recourse to make the world take notice of our existence?

How we choose to see

Again, Solomon himself seems to warn us against optimism. The opening declaration of Ecclesiastes defies us to find meaning in our lives:

But actually, no. These introductory words offer but a conciliatory nod to the deceptive superficiality of our world. Rather, it is the advice Solomon offers closer to the end that directs us toward his enduring message, in razor-sharp contrast to all the bleak observations that come before:

And what is love? The Hebrew word ahavah derives from the grammatical root hav, which means give. We find relief from the seeming pointlessness of human existence, quite simply, through human relationships, by investing our time, concern, and energy in others to forge the bonds that save us from slipping into the abyss of loneliness and despair.

There are three arenas in which we find this kind of connection: community, family, and work. But our communities are increasingly fractured and divided, and our families are too often dysfunctional. For all that, if we find connection in the workplace, we can summon the strength to not only soldier on but to rejoice in our lot.

This how leaders can give rise to an atmosphere of control, by fostering a work environment that holds chaos at bay. The greatest happiness is not something we pursue but the natural outcome of joining with others to live a life of authentic purpose. Businesses thrive by providing not just a product or a service but a sense that we are collaborating to build a better world.

Indeed, the most inspired workplaces are those where leaders treat employees as partners committed to a higher mission. By doing so, they create a cohesive community in which productivity and engagement are a natural outgrowth of a melioristic vision that transforms emptiness into fulfillment, futility into meaning, despair into joy.

Originally published in Fast Company Magazine

Image by Zigmars Berzins from Pixabay

You’ve heard it before. You may have said it yourself: It’s easier to seek forgiveness than ask permission.

It sounds reasonable. Upon arriving at the crossroads of moral ambiguity, uncertainty encourages rationalization. If we get called out later, we can always claim, truthfully, “I didn’t know it would be a problem.” Why risk a no when we can fly under the radar with a maybe?

But what if asking permission in the first place is actually easier?

I backed into this mindset recently while visiting my kids in Los Angeles. Their apartment building provided complimentary breakfast for residents every morning.

My wife and I pondered whether we were welcome as guests? Most likely. Our impulse was to take our chances that no one would confront us.

But it felt not-quite-right. So we summoned up our ethical courage and asked the concierge if we could go in. She responded with a bright smile and cheerfully replied, “Of course, you can. Enjoy your breakfast!”

Had we not asked, I would have spent my entire breakfast anxious over possibly abusing our privilege and worried that someone might say something. In the end, asking was the far easier choice, allowing me to relax and enjoy my bagel and lox free from moral tension.

And what if the concierge had said no? At worst, we would have had to make our own breakfast or go out to a cafe. But that would have been a small price to pay for peace of mind.

The truth is, the stakes were low. But even when they are higher, doing what’s right only requires invoking this concept, which is the latest entry to the Ethical Lexicon:

TANSTAAFL (TAN·STAA·FL/ TAN-stah-ful) | acronym

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

We live in the most entitled generation in history. With every convenience one click away and free services offered at every turn, it’s no surprise that we expect virtually everything to be both free and easy. But there is always a price to pay; and if we think we’re beating the system, we may end up paying a price higher than we imagined.

Popularized by Robert A. Heinlein in his 1966 novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, TANSTAAFL alerts us to the fallacy of expecting something for nothing. If lunch at the bar is free, the drinks will be overpriced or watered down. If the casino provides complimentary cocktails, it’s because they know that lubricated gamblers more readily part with their money

By the same token, employers may think they can squeeze more productivity out of employees and more purchases out of customers without investing the time and consideration that earn loyalty. But over time they will inevitably pay back dollars for every penny saved through the cost of low engagement, high turnover, and diminished revenue.

Similarly, New Yorkers who voted for a mayor promising free stuff have come face to face with an unpleasant reality check.

The most underestimated cost, however, is lost peace of mind. The minimal investment of asking permission, soliciting advice, and inviting feedback will be recouped many times over with the confidence and tranquility that come with doing the right thing the right way. Indeed, there is no better way to cultivate a culture designed to drive its own success.

So why are we resistant? It all comes down to biology and conditioning.

Our brains are perpetually at war with themselves: The frontal lobe scans the horizon for long term benefit while the amygdala craves and seeks immediate gratification. Without moral discipline, short term gratification always wins out over long term planning.

The more we resort to quick fixes and short cuts, the less willing we become to do the real work that serves our own best interests. Yes, the lunch (or breakfast) might be free. But we may find ourselves shocked by the price we end up having to pay.

Because it’s really true: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. When it comes to acting ethically, the cost might be considerably less in reality than it appears in our imagination, while the hidden benefits go on and on and on.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS SYNDICATE AND YONASON GOLDSON

Image by Xuan Duong from Pixabay

That’s the question that drives the discussion when Melissa Hughes, Mark O’Brien, and Cris Parker join the ethics panel to Grapple with the Gray.

Enjoy the soundbite, then click below to watch or listen to the full episode.

Premium members gain access to exclusive backstage conversations. Join the ethics revolution now!

We’re encouraged to buy reusable shopping bags that make disposable bags unnecessary and thereby help protect the environment. But is that actually a good idea?

In 2019, the top ten grocery stores in Britain reported selling 1.5 billion reusable bags, an average of 54 per household in the UK, arguably ten times more than a family a family needs. In 2018, supermarkets in Britain distributed nearly 20,000 more tons of plastic than they did the year before.

Moreover, much of our home recycling practices are more placebo than cure. Families that fail to sort their trash properly end up contaminating genuine recyclables, jacking up labor and machinery repair costs. For years, much of our recycling was shipped to China for disposal, relocating the problem rather than solving it. And even under ideal conditions, the cost of recycling has often made it financially impractical.

In general, does the illusion of taking positive action encourage complacency, so that we exempt ourselves from implementing practices that might address our problems in a meaningful way? Or might a public awareness campaign that fails to meet measurable objectives nevertheless help change consumer behavior and so help progressive policies eventually succeed?

Click here for the full episode:

Audio podcast

Video podcast

Meet this week’s panelists:

Melissa Hughes, Ph.D. is Founder and Principal of the Andrick Group, applying recent brain research to improve employee engagement, company culture, team dynamics, and innovation.

Mark O'Brien O’Brien is founder and principal of O’Brien Communications Group, helping companies add innovation to their mindsets and their operations to create discernible competitive advantage

Cris Parker is with us from Sydney, Australia. She is Head of The Ethics Alliance, a community of organizations across sectors that are connected through The Ethics Centre, providing ethics-based counseling, consulting and education programs.