By Peter Kimeu
Before the 2007 Kenyan elections we joked about politics amongst colleagues and neighbors in this most famous of East African nations....
There is value in using the Super Bowl as an opportunity to spend time with family and friends. But as a society we should be mindful of the cult-like traits of groupthink, tribalism and consumerism.
White conservative churchgoers, the story goes, have become unsophisticated robots who pull the lever for whatever Republican happens to be running at the time.
As it happened, Sandy turned out to be every bit the horrific storm it had been anticipated in the worst case scenario. Among the hardest hit was New...
The brain relies on several instincts to help us survive, and sometimes they conflict. One fear can literally contradict another. That's the case with climate change. The bad news is that at this point, the wrong ones are winning. The good news is, things may be changing.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently announced that the country's attempts to encourage multicultural harmony, with races living side-by-side, have "utterly failed." A recent article in the journal Science refutes this claim.
Tribalism is pervasive, and it controls a lot of our behavior, readily overriding reason. Think of the inhuman things we do in the name of tribal unity.
When our notion of the common good, of commonwealth, begins to disintegrate, all that is left are tribes defending their turf, standing their ground, enclosing their land.
There is only one way to lower the danger of nuclear terrorism and conflicts like that between Iran and Israel: the next generation needs to be educated within an ethics of global cooperation from earliest childhood onward.
As 2012 approaches and our global village gets smaller and more crowded, we must remind ourselves that underneath the stars we are all one race, one people.
For the average western mom that doesn't live in a hippie haven, "mommy groups" are where mommies get together. I decided to try one these groups and found myself wanting to rebel.
For Libyans who have risked their lives in the name of democracy, the fates have engineered a beneficent reversal as radical as any in history. It's unclear, however, what the ultimate outcome of the allies' intervention will be for democracy.
When I was a college student, I worked at the student newspaper. I was a longhaired, hard-drinking journalist -- a Woodward and/or Bernstein in traini...
I was spending a rainy week in Santa Monica when I decided to take a yoga class one afternoon. I sat down with Ally Hamilton to talk about the Zen lifestyle of Santa Monica.
General David Petraeus, in a rare public show of indecorum, last week suggested that corruption has been a part of Afghan culture since the country ca...
I am the Afghanistan Blogging Fellow for The Seminal and Brave New Foundation. You can read my work on The Seminal or at Rethink Afghanistan. The view...
Kenya must tackle the roots of its election chaos. These include poverty, tribalism, and the failure of the country to live up to the vision of its first president, Jomo Kenyatta.
Herein lies the key to becoming a more trusting, more unified society: Practice. We will need to exercise our brains to approach each other with openness to connection.
It's political rhetoric to speak of finding unity and strength in our diversity, but how often in the past ten years have we used these differences in a tribal way to divide and conquer, electorally and socially?
Mutts are often stronger, healthier and smarter than purebreds. They tend to live longer. They surprise you more. They're less prone to neuroses and other kinds of twitchiness.