The Emergent Self

Questioning what we're told it means to be human

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Shorter, story-driven reflections — often personal, sometimes provocative, always open to response. Read, disagree thoughtfully, and join the conversation. Choose a topic to narrow the list.

We Won. Now Comes the Harder Part.

Democrats won big on Tuesday, and I celebrated. Then I thought about my friends who voted the other way. What we do with this win will matter more than the win itself.
An open wooden garden gate in a stone wall with a bicycle, old novels, a rotary telephone and a tablet leaning beside it

First They Laugh: The Stigma That Greets Every New Technology

My friends laugh at me for talking to my computers. They laughed at the bicycle, the novel, the test tube, and the dating site too. The stigma that greets every new technology is never really about the tool.
A folded American flag resting on an empty rocking chair on a small-town front porch at sunset, with the mailbox flag raised

Dear America, Part 1: I’ve Done Everything You Told Me

A veteran who kept his end of the bargain writes home to ask what happened.
Old dining chairs and a cradle stacked beside a woodpile in front of a white farmhouse with smoke rising from the chimney

Dear America, Part 2: Burning the Furniture

A house that warms itself by burning its own furniture, and a hope that it finds tomorrow.
A suburban street seen through a lace curtain; a young couple, their toddler and a beagle on the lawn across the way

Dear America, Part 3: The Neighbors with the Beagle

Trust lost in both directions, and a country that now fears the young family next door.
A woven handbasket on a weathered pier, with the Statue of Liberty small and distant in the harbor fog

Dear America, Part 4: Because I Care

Old wounds, the myth of exceptionalism, and a wry question about Lady Liberty, all sent with love.
A full moon over an empty Main Street at night, one lit window, and an unopened envelope lying beneath a mailbox

Dear America, Part 5: The Opposite of Love

The moon landing, 9-11, King George, and broken promises lead to the hardest postcard of all.
Painting of a Black boy gazing through a window at a fenced public swimming pool on a summer afternoon

I’m White, and I Don’t Have to See Color

"I don't see color" is usually offered as a promise of fairness. For many White people, it may really be a description of privilege.
Why flatterers turn on you: an illustration of a conference table where employees hold smiling masks in front of wary faces as they turn toward the boss at the head of the table.

Why Flatterers Turn on You

The person who flatters you most may be the one most likely to turn on you. A meeting I came to dread, the research behind it, and why the truth people can’t tell you goes somewhere else.

About the author

I’m Robert K. Green, a writer and scholar who has spent a lifetime questioning what we’re told it means to be human. This blog is where I think out loud.

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