On this list of mind expanding documentaries you will find different viewpoints, controversial opinions, and even contradictory ideas. Critical thinking is recommended. The power of an interesting documentary is that it can open our minds to new possibilities and deepen our understanding of the world. I think they are incredible tools for learning and increasing our awareness of important issues. But as he and his wife await sentencing, with a maximum sentence of five years in prison, David Stephan is justified in wondering just how this distinguishes them from the mainstream of contemporary society.Īndrew Potter is the former editor of the Ottawa Citizen and author of The Authenticity Hoax: How we get lost finding ourselves.I watch a lot of documentaries. Add to the mix a healthy dose of postmodern nostalgia, routine anti-capitalist leftism and right-wing big-government paranoia, and you end up with a culture where even the most reasonable, educated, and sober-minded people happily embrace, with their hearts, their minds and their wallets, what is little more than witchcraft.Īn addition to their legal guilt, there is no question that David and Collet Stephan are moral and intellectual criminals. To a large extent, it is a function of an arms race of romanticism, the one-upmanship of authenticity-seekers that starts with nature worship and ends with a thoroughgoing rejection of science, technology and reason itself. What is driving this is a number of complementary and overlapping factors. For its efforts, the company was promptly sued by activists for misleading advertising, on the grounds that its meat comes from animals that might have been given genetically modified feed. And the anti-GMO crowd continues to bully craven corporations into embracing its brainless ideology - a recent casualty was the burrito chain Chipotle, which boldly announced last year that it would use only non-GMO ingredients in its food. Across Canada, more than 30 municipalities, including Calgary and Windsor, have banned fluoride from their drinking water, with entirely predictable results. The anti-vaccine movement is rapidly getting out of control, with long-forgotten illnesses like measles, mumps, whooping cough and chicken pox all making a comeback. To take three obvious examples: vaccines, fluoridation of drinking water and genetically modified organisms, all of which are coming under increasing levels of suspicion and hostility. Meanwhile, as if the overt faith in fads and quackery weren’t bad enough, we actively reject developments that make substantial improvements in our lives. Organic is now a $100-billion industry in North America, while gluten-free somewhere around $5 billion, and growing fast. Forget that study after study has shown that organic food confers no benefits in the way of health, nutrition, or taste, and ignore the fact that well under one per cent of the population has celiac disease. Then head on over to the supermarket, where the produce section has been increasingly colonized by the formerly fringe organic industry, while in the rest of the store, entire aisles are now blessed with the “gluten-free” incantation. It’s a $12 billion to $15-billion industry in North America. Or, you can wander over to the natural supplement aisle and pick from hundreds of vitamins, minerals, herbs or oils, many of which are bad for you, none of which have been proved effective for any of the advertised claims. Start with a trip to the pharmacy, where, with a prescription, you can buy drugs that have been rigorously researched, tested, approved, and regulated. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
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