Both sameness and difference are issues for us. A sign of cultural homogenization is that languages are disappearing at an alarming rate. I am heartened by signs that some peoples are fighting back, e.g., the revitalization of the language of the Wampanoag tribe in Massachusetts. But if we reject essentialism about culture, we will be cautious about overgeneralizing about what homogenization is and to what degree it exists. If we think of cultures as dynamic, internally diverse and contested, we will be aware that what looks like homogenization may be deeper down this more complicated thing.

They came looking for dark and terrible revelations and instead found out something even more dark and terrible: that their lives were trite and boring.

People come to have different moral beliefs because they have different non-moral beliefs about relevant facts. People are disposed to believe whatever justifies the practices and institutions that benefit them. But I argue that not all moral differences can be explained away in such a fashion. Some of the most profound disagreements come from differences in priority assigned to values such as relationship and community on the one hand, and individual rights and personal autonomy for the individual, on the other hand.

I once saw Arnold Schwarzenegger kill a man in a movie by grabbing his head and twisting it until the neck broke. Was that difficult? Could a man do it without a lot of practice?

Something coming back from the dead was almost always bad news. Movies taught me that. For every one Jesus you get a million zombies.

And watch out for Molly. See if she does anything unusual. There’s something I don’t trust about the way she exploded and then came back from the dead like that.

The Daoist appeal to simplicity can be very appealing to the many of us who feel that contemporary life is overwhelming. "Less is more" can be a call to identify what it is we really need and appreciate doing for its own sake, as opposed to what we have been socialized into wanting, often to our detriment, or becoming consumed by activity that we would never do for its own sake but only for the sake of something else.