Author: Janice Baker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317057120
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
Sentient Relics explores museums through cinema and challenges the dominant focus of museum theory as an inclusion–exclusion debate. The author responds to the Enlightenment, ‘rational’ museum of reason contrasting this with the museum of affect and reveals these ‘two museums’ operating alongside one another in a productive paradox. In structuralist-orientated museum theory the affective realm is often subsumed within the imperatives of Marxist theory and practice, identity politics, semiology and psychoanalysis. Sentient Relics, while valuing the insights of ideologically focused meaning-making, turns to the capacity of the affective realm of experience to transform the passive subject and object relation. The author uses museum encounters and cinematic affect to engage with problems of difference, temporality, emotion and the sublime. In so doing the book advances research in museum studies by demonstrating what is at stake in pragmatically working toward a deeper understanding of the museum socially, culturally and philosophically.
Sentient Relics
Author: Janice Baker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317057120
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
Sentient Relics explores museums through cinema and challenges the dominant focus of museum theory as an inclusion–exclusion debate. The author responds to the Enlightenment, ‘rational’ museum of reason contrasting this with the museum of affect and reveals these ‘two museums’ operating alongside one another in a productive paradox. In structuralist-orientated museum theory the affective realm is often subsumed within the imperatives of Marxist theory and practice, identity politics, semiology and psychoanalysis. Sentient Relics, while valuing the insights of ideologically focused meaning-making, turns to the capacity of the affective realm of experience to transform the passive subject and object relation. The author uses museum encounters and cinematic affect to engage with problems of difference, temporality, emotion and the sublime. In so doing the book advances research in museum studies by demonstrating what is at stake in pragmatically working toward a deeper understanding of the museum socially, culturally and philosophically.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317057120
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
Sentient Relics explores museums through cinema and challenges the dominant focus of museum theory as an inclusion–exclusion debate. The author responds to the Enlightenment, ‘rational’ museum of reason contrasting this with the museum of affect and reveals these ‘two museums’ operating alongside one another in a productive paradox. In structuralist-orientated museum theory the affective realm is often subsumed within the imperatives of Marxist theory and practice, identity politics, semiology and psychoanalysis. Sentient Relics, while valuing the insights of ideologically focused meaning-making, turns to the capacity of the affective realm of experience to transform the passive subject and object relation. The author uses museum encounters and cinematic affect to engage with problems of difference, temporality, emotion and the sublime. In so doing the book advances research in museum studies by demonstrating what is at stake in pragmatically working toward a deeper understanding of the museum socially, culturally and philosophically.
Everywhere
Author: Ian R. MacLeod
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
ISBN: 1625674414
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 467
Book Description
“MacLeod is a brilliant writer.” —Tim Powers “Ian MacLeod writes like an angel. He strings together ideally chosen words into sentences that are variously lush, sparse, subtle, bold, joyous, mournful, comic and tragic.” —Paul Di Filippo Welcome to the first half of the collected worlds of one of fiction’s great myth-makers. Blending naturalistic settings with real—and unreal—histories, dark presents, strange pasts and star-flung futures, Ian R. MacLeod’s multi award-winning stories defy easy classification, but are always vividly elegant, compelling, and filled with wonder. In Grownups, a young boy discovers the strange facts of life in a very different—yet also alarmingly recognizable—world, whilst New Light on the Drake Equation focusses on one man’s quest to prove there is still a chance of intelligent life existing beyond Earth, and in Ephemera a very strange librarian has final charge of all the world’s knowledge and culture, and The Master Miller’s Tale tells of obsessive love as a bucolic past dissolves into the magics of industry, iron and steam. Nothing in MacLeod’s visions is ever quite what it seems, yet they remain deeply real and involving. If you haven’t read MacLeod before, you can expect to be moved and surprised. If you have, then you need no further introduction other than to say that Everywhere—and its companion volume Nowhere, which features many of his best shorter stories—represent a generous and wide-ranging summary of his work, along with many insights into the creative process which are provided by the fresh introductions and afterwords. Praise for Ian R. MacLeod “Ian R. MacLeod is rapidly becoming one of the contemporary stars of the genre.” —Brian Aldiss “MacLeod is set to become a writer of the magnitude of Dickens and Tolkien.” —G. P. Taylor “I have no idea what he looks like, but I picture an angle with polychrome wings, dirty hands and a well-chewed pencil.” —Gene Wolf “...in many ways the mature culmination of the New Wave’s aggressive appropriation of literary tropes and techniques and the skillful integration of them into subtle, penetrating fiction that, like all true and dangerous art, can pierce and transform the reader.” —Jack Dann “Stands beside the achievements of China Mieville.” —Jeff VanderMeer “There are moments when you see a life entire... in a moment. And you smile, because you recognize that smell of the world, that capsule of living.” —John Clute “Ian R. MacLeod is one hell of a writer—literary, inventive, always surprising. Pay attention: this guy is important.” —Michael Swanwick
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
ISBN: 1625674414
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 467
Book Description
“MacLeod is a brilliant writer.” —Tim Powers “Ian MacLeod writes like an angel. He strings together ideally chosen words into sentences that are variously lush, sparse, subtle, bold, joyous, mournful, comic and tragic.” —Paul Di Filippo Welcome to the first half of the collected worlds of one of fiction’s great myth-makers. Blending naturalistic settings with real—and unreal—histories, dark presents, strange pasts and star-flung futures, Ian R. MacLeod’s multi award-winning stories defy easy classification, but are always vividly elegant, compelling, and filled with wonder. In Grownups, a young boy discovers the strange facts of life in a very different—yet also alarmingly recognizable—world, whilst New Light on the Drake Equation focusses on one man’s quest to prove there is still a chance of intelligent life existing beyond Earth, and in Ephemera a very strange librarian has final charge of all the world’s knowledge and culture, and The Master Miller’s Tale tells of obsessive love as a bucolic past dissolves into the magics of industry, iron and steam. Nothing in MacLeod’s visions is ever quite what it seems, yet they remain deeply real and involving. If you haven’t read MacLeod before, you can expect to be moved and surprised. If you have, then you need no further introduction other than to say that Everywhere—and its companion volume Nowhere, which features many of his best shorter stories—represent a generous and wide-ranging summary of his work, along with many insights into the creative process which are provided by the fresh introductions and afterwords. Praise for Ian R. MacLeod “Ian R. MacLeod is rapidly becoming one of the contemporary stars of the genre.” —Brian Aldiss “MacLeod is set to become a writer of the magnitude of Dickens and Tolkien.” —G. P. Taylor “I have no idea what he looks like, but I picture an angle with polychrome wings, dirty hands and a well-chewed pencil.” —Gene Wolf “...in many ways the mature culmination of the New Wave’s aggressive appropriation of literary tropes and techniques and the skillful integration of them into subtle, penetrating fiction that, like all true and dangerous art, can pierce and transform the reader.” —Jack Dann “Stands beside the achievements of China Mieville.” —Jeff VanderMeer “There are moments when you see a life entire... in a moment. And you smile, because you recognize that smell of the world, that capsule of living.” —John Clute “Ian R. MacLeod is one hell of a writer—literary, inventive, always surprising. Pay attention: this guy is important.” —Michael Swanwick
Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place
Author: Phyllis Granoff
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774842199
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
This book brings together essays by anthropologists, scholars of religion, and art historians to explore some of the most fundamental challenges that religious groups face as they expand from their homeland or confront the demands of modernity. The chapters span a broad geographical area that includes India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, and China, and address issues from the classical and medieval period to the present. They show how sacred places have a plurality of meanings for all religious communities and how in their construction, secular politics, private religious experience, and sectarian rivalry can all intersect. A Buddha Dharma Kyokai Foundation Book on Buddhism and Comparative Literature.
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774842199
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
This book brings together essays by anthropologists, scholars of religion, and art historians to explore some of the most fundamental challenges that religious groups face as they expand from their homeland or confront the demands of modernity. The chapters span a broad geographical area that includes India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, and China, and address issues from the classical and medieval period to the present. They show how sacred places have a plurality of meanings for all religious communities and how in their construction, secular politics, private religious experience, and sectarian rivalry can all intersect. A Buddha Dharma Kyokai Foundation Book on Buddhism and Comparative Literature.
The Buddhist Self
Author: C. V. Jones
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824886496
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
Winner of the 2021 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism The assertion that there is nothing in the constitution of any person that deserves to be considered the self (ātman)—a permanent, unchanging kernel of personal identity in this life and those to come—has been a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching from its inception. Whereas other Indian religious systems celebrated the search for and potential discovery of one’s “true self,” Buddhism taught about the futility of searching for anything in our experience that is not transient and ephemeral. But a small yet influential set of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, composed in India in the early centuries CE, taught that all sentient beings possess at all times, and across their successive lives, the enduring and superlatively precious nature of a Buddha. This was taught with reference to the enigmatic expression tathāgatagarbha—the “womb” or “chamber” for a Buddha—which some texts refer to as a person’s true self. The Buddhist Self is a methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathāgatagarbha (otherwise the presence of one’s “Buddha-nature”) and the extent to which different Buddhist texts and authors articulated this in terms of the self. C. V. Jones attends to each of the Indian Buddhist works responsible for explaining what is meant by the expression tathāgatagarbha, and how far this should be understood or promoted using the language of selfhood. With close attention to these sources, Jones argues that the trajectory of Buddha-nature thought in India is also the history and legacy of a Buddhist account of what deserves to be called the self: an innovative attempt to equip Mahāyāna Buddhism with an affirmative response to wider Indian interest in the discovery of something precious or even divine in one’s own constitution. This argument is supplemented by critical consideration of other themes that run through this distinctive body of Mahāyānist literature: the relationship between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings about the self, the overlap between the tathāgatagarbha and the nature of the mind, and the originally radical position that the only means of becoming liberated from rebirth is to achieve the same exalted status as the Buddha.
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824886496
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
Winner of the 2021 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism The assertion that there is nothing in the constitution of any person that deserves to be considered the self (ātman)—a permanent, unchanging kernel of personal identity in this life and those to come—has been a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching from its inception. Whereas other Indian religious systems celebrated the search for and potential discovery of one’s “true self,” Buddhism taught about the futility of searching for anything in our experience that is not transient and ephemeral. But a small yet influential set of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, composed in India in the early centuries CE, taught that all sentient beings possess at all times, and across their successive lives, the enduring and superlatively precious nature of a Buddha. This was taught with reference to the enigmatic expression tathāgatagarbha—the “womb” or “chamber” for a Buddha—which some texts refer to as a person’s true self. The Buddhist Self is a methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathāgatagarbha (otherwise the presence of one’s “Buddha-nature”) and the extent to which different Buddhist texts and authors articulated this in terms of the self. C. V. Jones attends to each of the Indian Buddhist works responsible for explaining what is meant by the expression tathāgatagarbha, and how far this should be understood or promoted using the language of selfhood. With close attention to these sources, Jones argues that the trajectory of Buddha-nature thought in India is also the history and legacy of a Buddhist account of what deserves to be called the self: an innovative attempt to equip Mahāyāna Buddhism with an affirmative response to wider Indian interest in the discovery of something precious or even divine in one’s own constitution. This argument is supplemented by critical consideration of other themes that run through this distinctive body of Mahāyānist literature: the relationship between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings about the self, the overlap between the tathāgatagarbha and the nature of the mind, and the originally radical position that the only means of becoming liberated from rebirth is to achieve the same exalted status as the Buddha.
The First Minds
Author: Arthur S. Reber
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190854162
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
First Minds: Caterpillars, 'Karyotes, and Consciousness presents a novel theory of the origins of mind and consciousness dubbed the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC). It argues that sentience emerged with life itself. The most primitive unicellular species of bacteria are conscious, though it is a sentience of a primitive kind. They have minds, though they are tiny and limited in scope. Hints that cells might be conscious can be found in the writings of a few cell biologists but a fully developed theory has never been put forward before. Other approaches to the origins of consciousness are examined and shown to be seriously or fatally flawed, specifically approaches based on: (a) the assumption that minds are computational and can be captured by an Artificial Intelligence, (b) efforts to discover the neuro-correlates of mental experiences and, (c) looking for consciousness in less complex species by identifying those that have precursors of those neuro-correlates. Reber shows how each of these approaches is shown to be either essentially impossible (the AI models) or so burdened by philosophical and empirical difficulties that they are effectively unworkable. The CBC approach is developed using standard models of evolutionary biology. The remarkable repertoire of single-celled species that micro- and cell-biologists have discovered is reviewed. Bacteria, for example, have sophisticated sensory and perceptual systems, learn, form memories, make decisions based on information about their environment relative to internal metabolic states, communicate with each other, and even show a primitive form of altruism. All such functions are indicators of sentience. Finally, the implications of the CBC model are discussed along with a number of related issues in evolutionary biology, philosophy of mind, the possibility of sentient plants, the ethical repercussions of universal animal sentience, and the long-range impact of adopting the CBC stance.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190854162
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
First Minds: Caterpillars, 'Karyotes, and Consciousness presents a novel theory of the origins of mind and consciousness dubbed the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC). It argues that sentience emerged with life itself. The most primitive unicellular species of bacteria are conscious, though it is a sentience of a primitive kind. They have minds, though they are tiny and limited in scope. Hints that cells might be conscious can be found in the writings of a few cell biologists but a fully developed theory has never been put forward before. Other approaches to the origins of consciousness are examined and shown to be seriously or fatally flawed, specifically approaches based on: (a) the assumption that minds are computational and can be captured by an Artificial Intelligence, (b) efforts to discover the neuro-correlates of mental experiences and, (c) looking for consciousness in less complex species by identifying those that have precursors of those neuro-correlates. Reber shows how each of these approaches is shown to be either essentially impossible (the AI models) or so burdened by philosophical and empirical difficulties that they are effectively unworkable. The CBC approach is developed using standard models of evolutionary biology. The remarkable repertoire of single-celled species that micro- and cell-biologists have discovered is reviewed. Bacteria, for example, have sophisticated sensory and perceptual systems, learn, form memories, make decisions based on information about their environment relative to internal metabolic states, communicate with each other, and even show a primitive form of altruism. All such functions are indicators of sentience. Finally, the implications of the CBC model are discussed along with a number of related issues in evolutionary biology, philosophy of mind, the possibility of sentient plants, the ethical repercussions of universal animal sentience, and the long-range impact of adopting the CBC stance.
The Brass Queen
Author: Elizabeth Chatsworth
Publisher: CamCat Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 0744300126
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 462
Book Description
She knows a liar when she sees one. He knows a fraud when he meets one. In a steam-powered world, Miss Constance Haltwhistle is the last in a line of blue-blooded rogues. Selling firearms under her alias, the “Brass Queen,” she has kept her baronial estate’s coffers full. But when US spy J. F. Trusdale saves her from assassins, she’s pulled into a search for a scientist with an invisibility serum. As royal foes create an invisible army to start a global war, Constance and Trusdale must learn to trust each other. If they don’t, the world as they know it will disappear before their eyes. If you like the Parasol Protectorate or the Invisible Library series, you’ll love this gaslamp fantasy—a rambunctious romantic romp that will have you both laughing out loud and wishing you owned all of Miss Haltwhistle's armaments.
Publisher: CamCat Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 0744300126
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 462
Book Description
She knows a liar when she sees one. He knows a fraud when he meets one. In a steam-powered world, Miss Constance Haltwhistle is the last in a line of blue-blooded rogues. Selling firearms under her alias, the “Brass Queen,” she has kept her baronial estate’s coffers full. But when US spy J. F. Trusdale saves her from assassins, she’s pulled into a search for a scientist with an invisibility serum. As royal foes create an invisible army to start a global war, Constance and Trusdale must learn to trust each other. If they don’t, the world as they know it will disappear before their eyes. If you like the Parasol Protectorate or the Invisible Library series, you’ll love this gaslamp fantasy—a rambunctious romantic romp that will have you both laughing out loud and wishing you owned all of Miss Haltwhistle's armaments.
Planeswalker
Author: Lynn Abbey
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
ISBN: 0786966408
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Urza Triumphant The war between Urza and Mishra is over. Brooding on the death of his brother at the hands of extraplanar forces, Urza drifts among the planes. But the end of the Brothers’ War has transformed him into something greater. Deep within his heart, a spark has been kindled to a flame that cannot be quenched. Urza has become a planeswalker.
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
ISBN: 0786966408
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Urza Triumphant The war between Urza and Mishra is over. Brooding on the death of his brother at the hands of extraplanar forces, Urza drifts among the planes. But the end of the Brothers’ War has transformed him into something greater. Deep within his heart, a spark has been kindled to a flame that cannot be quenched. Urza has become a planeswalker.
The Best of the Best, Volume 2
Author: Gardner Dozois
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429916060
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 657
Book Description
For more than twenty years The Year's Best Science Fiction has been recognized as the best collection of short science fiction writing in the universe and an essential resource for every science fiction fan. In 2005 the original Best of the Best collected the finest short stories from that series and became a benchmark in the SF field. Now, for the first time ever, Hugo Award-winning editor Gardner Dozios sifts through hundreds of stories and dozens of authors who have gone on to become some of the most esteemed practitioners of the form, to bring readers the ultimate anthology of short science fiction novels from his legendary series. Included are such notable short novels as: Sailing to Byzantium by Robert Silverberg In the fiftieth century, people of Earth are able to create entire cities on a whim, including those of mythology and legend. When twentieth-century traveler Charles Philip accidentally lands in this aberrant time period, he is simultaneously obsessed with discovering more about this alluring world and getting back home. But in a world made entirely of man's creation, things are not always as they seem on the surface. Forgiveness Day by Ursula K. Le Guin Le Guin returns to her Hainish-settled interstellar community, the Edumen, to tell the tale of two star-crossed lovers who are literally worlds apart in this story of politics, violence, religion, and cultural disparity. Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds On a sea-wold planet covered with idyllic tropical oceans, peace seems pervasive. Beneath the placid water lurks an ominous force that has the potential to destroy all tranquility. Contributors include: Greg Egan; Joe Haldeman; James Patrick Kelly; Nancy Kress; Ursula K. Le Guin; Ian R. MacLeod; Ian McDonald; Maureen F. McHugh; Frederick Pohl; Alastair Reynolds; Robert Silverberg; Michael Swanwick; Walter Jon Williams With work spanning two decades, The Best of the Best, Volume 2 stands as the ultimate anthology of short science fiction novels ever published in the world.
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429916060
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 657
Book Description
For more than twenty years The Year's Best Science Fiction has been recognized as the best collection of short science fiction writing in the universe and an essential resource for every science fiction fan. In 2005 the original Best of the Best collected the finest short stories from that series and became a benchmark in the SF field. Now, for the first time ever, Hugo Award-winning editor Gardner Dozios sifts through hundreds of stories and dozens of authors who have gone on to become some of the most esteemed practitioners of the form, to bring readers the ultimate anthology of short science fiction novels from his legendary series. Included are such notable short novels as: Sailing to Byzantium by Robert Silverberg In the fiftieth century, people of Earth are able to create entire cities on a whim, including those of mythology and legend. When twentieth-century traveler Charles Philip accidentally lands in this aberrant time period, he is simultaneously obsessed with discovering more about this alluring world and getting back home. But in a world made entirely of man's creation, things are not always as they seem on the surface. Forgiveness Day by Ursula K. Le Guin Le Guin returns to her Hainish-settled interstellar community, the Edumen, to tell the tale of two star-crossed lovers who are literally worlds apart in this story of politics, violence, religion, and cultural disparity. Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds On a sea-wold planet covered with idyllic tropical oceans, peace seems pervasive. Beneath the placid water lurks an ominous force that has the potential to destroy all tranquility. Contributors include: Greg Egan; Joe Haldeman; James Patrick Kelly; Nancy Kress; Ursula K. Le Guin; Ian R. MacLeod; Ian McDonald; Maureen F. McHugh; Frederick Pohl; Alastair Reynolds; Robert Silverberg; Michael Swanwick; Walter Jon Williams With work spanning two decades, The Best of the Best, Volume 2 stands as the ultimate anthology of short science fiction novels ever published in the world.
Mountain Doctrine
Author: Dol-bo-ba Shay-rap-gyel-tsen
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834830248
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 895
Book Description
Translated here for the first time into any language, Mountain Doctrine is a seminal fourteenth-century Tibetan text on the nature of reality. The author, Dol-bo-ba Shay-rap-gyel-tsen, was on of the most influential figures of that dynamic period of doctrinal formulation, and his text is a sustained argument about the buddha-nature, also called the matrix-of-one-gone-thus. Dol-bo-ba recognizes two important types of emptiness—self-emptiness and other-emptiness—and shows how other-emptiness is the actual ultimate truth. He justifies this controversial formulation by arguing that it was the favored system of all the early outstanding figures of the Great Vehicle. The translator's introduction includes a short biography of Dol-bo-ba and an exposition of nine focal topics in his religious philosophy. Note: The hardcover edition of Mountain Doctrine includes a "Detailed Outline in Tibetan" that is omitted in the eBook edition.
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834830248
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 895
Book Description
Translated here for the first time into any language, Mountain Doctrine is a seminal fourteenth-century Tibetan text on the nature of reality. The author, Dol-bo-ba Shay-rap-gyel-tsen, was on of the most influential figures of that dynamic period of doctrinal formulation, and his text is a sustained argument about the buddha-nature, also called the matrix-of-one-gone-thus. Dol-bo-ba recognizes two important types of emptiness—self-emptiness and other-emptiness—and shows how other-emptiness is the actual ultimate truth. He justifies this controversial formulation by arguing that it was the favored system of all the early outstanding figures of the Great Vehicle. The translator's introduction includes a short biography of Dol-bo-ba and an exposition of nine focal topics in his religious philosophy. Note: The hardcover edition of Mountain Doctrine includes a "Detailed Outline in Tibetan" that is omitted in the eBook edition.
The Anunnaki Bible
Author: Christine Djerf
Publisher: BookRix
ISBN: 3755418495
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
4 different plots are followed through 500 years. We get to meet the aliens written about The Anunnaki Bible, the bible covering both the past and future. Main plot character throughout the book is J'Ska, an old Alien general. Together they're all searching for the truth about life on earth and today's society with wars and conspiracy's.
Publisher: BookRix
ISBN: 3755418495
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
4 different plots are followed through 500 years. We get to meet the aliens written about The Anunnaki Bible, the bible covering both the past and future. Main plot character throughout the book is J'Ska, an old Alien general. Together they're all searching for the truth about life on earth and today's society with wars and conspiracy's.