Gerald R. Ford Leadership Forum

March 16, 2023

On Boredom

by Kevin Gary Should we be concerned about boredom? Several recent psychological studies suggest that we should. Boredom, or more precisely the avoidance of boredom, is causally correlated with a number of troubling behaviors (drinking too much, overeating, gambling, and excessive consuming). In schools, boredom is linked to waning student attention, declining grades, and dropping …

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Empathy

by Jeff Polet In this nearly ten-year old essay, the philosopher Paul Bloom makes an argument against empathy (he subsequently published a book by the same title, but I’ve not read it). I’ll confess to being attracted to iconoclastic points of view, those that make us rethink something everyone knows to be right. Who could …

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