Terror management theory is a theory within psychology that focuses on the implicit emotional reactions of people that occur when confronted with the psychological terror of knowing we will eventually die. Empirical support for terror management theory has originated from more than 175 published experiments which have been conducted cross-culturally both nationally and internationally.

The theory builds from the assumption that the capability of self-reflection and the consciousness of one’s own mortality can be regarded as a continuous source for existential anguish. This irresolvable paradox is created from the desire to preserve life and the realization of that impossibility because life is finite.

Humans are aware of the inevitability of their own death. Culture diminishes this psychological terror by providing meaning, organization and continuity to people’s lives. Compliance with cultural values enhances one’s feeling of security and self-esteem, provided that the individual is capable of living in accordance with whatever particular cultural standards apply to him or her.

The belief in the rightness of the cultural values and standards creates the conviction necessary to live a reasonable and meaningful life. This cultural worldview provides a base of making sense of the world as stable and orderly, a place where one rests their hopes on symbolic immortality such as having children, fame, or legacies of wealth, or literal immortality such as the promise of a life in an afterworld.

Binary opposition is a pair of terms or concepts that are theoretical opposites. In structuralism, a binary opposition is seen as a fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture, and language. It is one of several influential characteristics or tendencies of Western thought. Typically, one of two opposites assumes a role of dominance over the other. The categorization of binary oppositions is often value-laden and ethnocentric with an illusory order and superficial meaning.

An example of a binary opposition is the presence-absence dichotomy. In much of Western thought, distinguishing between presence and absence is a fundamental element of thought in many cultures. In addition, according to post-structuralist criticisms, presence occupies a position of dominance in Western thought over absence, because absence is traditionally seen as what you get when you take away presence. Had absence been dominant, presence might have been seen as what you get when you take away an absence.

Deconstruction is the event or moment at which a binary opposition is thought to contradict itself and undermine its own authority. Although deconstruction can not explain how a rational basis for defending itself can then be maintained, it has removed any objective basis in structuralism it may have had.

The correspondence between each of the dominant Western concepts such as rational vs. emotional, mind vs. body, thought vs. writing, are claimed to show a tendency of Western thought called logocentrism. The critique of binary oppositions is an important part of post-feminism, post-colonialism, post-anarchism, and critical race theory, which argue that the perceived binary dichotomy between man/woman, civilized/savage, and caucasian/non-caucasian have perpetuated and legitimized Western power structures favoring “civilized” white men.

Salvia hispanica, commonly known as Chia, is a species of flowering plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae, that is native to central and southern Mexico and Guatemala. It was cultivated by the Aztec in pre-Columbian times, and was so valued that it was given as an annual tribute by the people to the rulers. It is still widely used in Mexico and South America, with the seeds ground for nutritious drinks and as a food source.

The word Chia is derived from the Nahuatl word “chian”, meaning oily. Chia is grown commercially for its seed, a food that is very rich in omega-3 fatty acids, since the seeds yield 25-30% extractable oil, mostly alpha-linolenic acid. It is also a source of antioxidants and a variety of amino acids.

Chia seed may be eaten raw as a dietary fiber and omega-3 supplement. Ground chia seed is sometimes added to pinole, a coarse flour made from toasted maize kernels. Chia seeds soaked in water or fruit juice are also often consumed and are known in Mexico as chia fresca. The soaked seeds are gelatinous in texture and are used in gruels, porridges and puddings. Ground chia seed is used in baked goods including breads, cakes and biscuits.

Chia sprouts are sometimes grown on porous clay figurines which has led to the popular U.S. cultural icon of the Chia Pet. Chia Pets are grown by applying moistened seeds of chia to the grooved terra cotta figurine body. Several Chia Pet animals are available, including a turtle, pig, puppy, kitten, frog, and hippopotamus.

A lexigram is a symbol that represents a word but is not necessarily indicative of the object referenced by the word. Lexigrams were notably used by the Georgia State University Language Research Center to communicate with chimpanzees. Researchers and primates were able to communicate with one another using lexigram boards made by up to three panels of a total 384 keys.

Ernst von Glasersfeld coined the term lexigram in 1971, created the first 120 of them, and designed the grammar that regulated their combination. This artificial language was called Yerkish, in honor of Robert M. Yerkes, the founder of the laboratory within which the lexigrams were first used in 1973 by the chimpanzee Lana within the context of the LANA project.

The term lexigram has also been used to describe a mystical property of words. A lexigrammer is one who composes lexigrams, decodes hidden messages in words, titles, names, terms, phrases or succinctly stated problems by putting together full, meaningful sentences using only letters found in those expressions. These messages convey a deeper meaning related to the subject of the original name, statement or expression. The act of lexigramming is considered a spiritual process.

Associating the lexigram as a spiritual process was first done by Linda Goodman in her book Star Signs. She described several criteria which she believed were necessary for uncovering the spiritual meaning of a person’s name. While word-play lexigrams can reveal hidden codes or messages within a person’s name, the veracity of any spiritual value is subject to personal interpretation.

Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and denotes positive, virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft.

While there are a great many moral systems, honesty is considered moral and dishonesty is considered immoral. There are several exceptions, such as hedonism, which values honesty only insofar as it improves ones own sense of pleasure, and moral nihilism, which denies the existence of objective morality outright. Honesty may also be challenged in various social systems with ideological stakes in self-preservation. Many religious and national formations might be so characterized, along with many family structures and other small social collectives.

In these cases honesty is frequently encouraged publicly, but may be forbidden if those invested in preserving the system perceive it as a threat. Depending on the social system, these breaches might be characterized as heresy, treason, or impoliteness. Even in moral systems which approve in general of honesty over dishonesty, some people think there are situations in which dishonesty may be preferable.

Others would not define preferable behaviors as dishonest by reasoning that they are not intended to deceive others for personal gain, but the intent is noble in character, for example sparing people of opinions that will upset them. Rather than dishonesty, the behavior is often viewed as self sacrifice or giving up one’s voice for the happiness of others. In many circumstances, withholding one’s opinions can legitimately be viewed as cowardly, dishonest and a betrayal to those who will be hurt. For this reason, many people insist that an objective approach to the truth is a necessary component of honesty as opposed to an ideological or idealistic approach.

Social capital is a sociological concept used to refer to connections within and between social networks. Though there are a variety of related definitions, they tend to share the core idea that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so do social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups.

Early attempts to define social capital focused on the degree to which social capital as a resource should be used for public good or for the benefit of individuals. It has been suggested that social capital can facilitate co-operation and mutually supportive relations in communities and would therefore be a valuable means of combating many of the social disorders inherent in modern societies.

Child development is powerfully shaped by social capital and the continued presence of social capital has been linked to various positive outcomes, particularly in education. In areas where there is a high social capital, there is also a high education performance. When there is more parental participation in a child’s community and education, teachers have reported lower levels of student misbehavior.

It has been argued that one of the reasons social capital is so difficult to measure is that it is neither an individual nor a group level phenomenon, but one that emerges across discreet levels as individuals participate in groups. They argue that the metaphor of social capital may be misleading because unlike financial capital, which is a resource held by an individual, the benefits of forms of social organization are result of the participation of individuals in advantageously organized groups.

Turmeric is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant of the ginger family. It is native to tropical South Asia. Plants are gathered annually for their rhizomes, and re-seeded from some of those rhizomes in the following season. They are dried and ground into a deep orange powder commonly used as a spice in curries. Its active ingredient is curcumin which has a distinctly earthy, slightly bitter, slightly hot peppery flavor and a mustardy smell.

Although most usage of Turmeric is in the form of powder from the roots, in some regions the leaves are used to wrap and cook food especially when on picnic in a field but at homes as well. This obviously takes place in areas where turmeric grown, since the leaves are used freshly picked. This imparts a distinct flavor but has medicinal value as well.

In Ayurvedic practices, turmeric has many medicinal properties and many in South Asia use it as a readily available antiseptic for cuts, burns and bruises. It is also used as an antibacterial agent.
It is taken in some Asian countries as a dietary supplement, which allegedly helps with stomach problems and other ailments. 

In the latter half of the 20th century, curcumin was identified as responsible for most of the biological effects of turmeric. In 2004, the U.S. National Institutes of Health had four clinical trials underway to study curcumin treatment for pancreatic cancer, multiple myeloma, Alzheimer’s, and colorectal cancer. The British Journal of Cancer reported a study that showed that curcumin can kill esophageal cancer cells in vitro. Curcumin also enhances the production of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor which supports nerve growth.

Turmeric is currently used in the formulation of some sunscreens. Turmeric paste is used by some Indian women to keep them free of superfluous hair. The paste is also applied to the bride and groom before marriage in some parts of India, where it is believed to give a glow to the skin and keep harmful bacteria away from the body.

Summum bonum is an expression used in medieval philosophy to describe the ultimate importance, the singular and most ultimate end which human beings are to pursue. The summum bonum is generally thought of as being an end in itself, and at the same time containing all other good. In Hinduism and other Eastern Religions, Summum bonum is cognate with such concepts as Dharma, Tao, Shreyas, Moksha, Liberation, Jeevan Mukti, and Self Realization.

The concept, as well as the philosophical and theological consequences drawn from the purported existence of a more or less clearly defined summum bonum, could be traced back to the earliest forms of monotheism. In the Western world, the concept was introduced by the neoplatonic philosophers, and described as a feature of the Christian God by Saint Augustine in On the Nature of Good, written circa 399. Augustine denies the positive existence of absolute evil, describing a world with God as the supreme good at the center, and defining different grades of evil as different stages of remoteness from that center.

Experience soon teaches that all desires cannot be satisfied, that they are conflicting, and that some good must be foregone in order to secure another. Hence the necessity of weighing the relative value of good, of classifying it, and of ascertaining which good must be procured at the loss of another. The result is the division of good into two great classes, the physical and the moral, happiness and virtue. Within either class it is comparatively easy to determine the relation of particular good things to one another, but it has proven far more difficult to fix the relative excellence of the two classes of virtue and happiness. If happiness and virtue are mutually exclusive, we have to choose between the two, and this choice is a momentous one. But their incompatibility may be only on the surface. Indeed, the hope is ever recurring that the sovereign good includes both, and that there is some way of reconciling them.