Opinion is Not Necessarily a Good Thing

We live in a civilization that believes that opinion per se is good. This can be seen in the very derivation of the word, which comes from the Latin opinari, meaning to think. It is a fundamental tenet of our civilization that thinking is good, a noble process which is one of the few things separating us from the base animal world. I too believe that thinking is a noble calling and that it is necessary to have opinions for the sake of the kind of thinking that can lead us to a better world. ...

 Rounded Numbers are Cultural Attractors

Rounded numbers are cultural attractors: They are easier to remember and provide better symbols for magnitudes. So we celebrate twentieth wedding anniversaries, hundredth issues of journals, the millionth copy sold of a record, and so on. This, in turn, creates a special cultural attractor for prices, just below rounded numbers—$9.99 or $9,990 are likely price tags—so as to avoid the evocation of a higher magnitude.

 Dr. Frankenstein is a Amalgam of Scientists of the Time

The actual writing of Mary’s novel can be followed fairly closely from her journal in Switzerland, and then back in England at Great Marlow on the Thames. What is less clear is where she gathered her ideas and materials from, and how she created her two unforgettable protagonists: Dr Frankenstein and his Creature. One is tempted to say that the Creature – who is paradoxically the most articulate person in the whole novel — was a pure invention of Mary’s genius. But in Victor Frankenst...