The therapist and the gadfly May 24, 2023 If you want to improve yourself—be happier, for example—you shouldn’t consult society’s ideas of a good life, as portrayed in magazines, pillows, and posters. Instead, you should find the equivalent of a horse trainer. Read More
Can bankers ever be virtuous? May 24, 2023 There are few today who link banking with virtue. The common view is of an industry greedy for profits and far too willing to take risks that, when they go wrong, lead to expensive bail outs using tax-payers’ money while the perpetrators walk away with their bonuses intact. Read More
Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality May 09, 2023 Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of. Widely regarded as one of the greatest moral thinkers of the past hundred years, Parfit was anything but a public intellectual. Read More
When Eero Met His Match May 04, 2023 Aline B. Louchheim (1914–1972) was an art critic on assignment for the New York Times in 1953 when she first met the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. She would become his wife and the driving force behind his rise to critical prominence. Read More
Taking the mysteries out of menstruation without losing the magic May 04, 2023 The science of menstruation, something that over half the world does for months and years on end, has come a long way. At one point scientists were dismissive, assuming that periods had no purpose to the body. Read More
Rabbis in the Roman public bathhouse: Ancient perspectives on modern sensibilities May 03, 2023 The figure of the rabbi, whether modern or ancient, seems far removed from the corporeal reality of a Roman public bathhouse—or at least that’s what we would assume. Yet, the vast body of writings, known collectively as Rabbinic Literature, paints an entirely different picture. Read More
Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi on The Individualists May 01, 2023 Libertarianism emerged in the mid-nineteenth century with an unwavering commitment to progressive causes, from women’s rights and the fight against slavery to anti-colonialism and Irish emancipation. Read More
Please make me pretty, I don’t want to die April 30, 2023 Please make me pretty, I don’t want to die explores tactility, sound, sensuality, and intimacy. Set across the four seasons of a year, these fresh and original poems by Tawanda Mulalu combine an inviting confessional voice and offbeat imagery, and offer an appealing mixture of seriousness and humor. Read More
In dialogue: How does poetry help? April 30, 2023 Across the world, poems have existed for millennia, asking questions and telling stories that affirm, interrogate, celebrate, or simply sit with the mysteries of human life. As more and more of our lives become carved away by forces of consumerism, these mysteries may become buried deeper still, perhaps prompting us to wonder, how does poetry help? Read More
On the tactics of modern strongmen April 27, 2023 Dictators have been changing. They did not loosen their grip over the population—far from it, they worked to design more effective instruments of control. But they did so while acting the part of democrats. Read More
Declaration of independents April 26, 2023 While there are many miles to go, booksellers deserve a day of celebration; a day to show the world the good they have done and the power a community bookstore can have. Read More
To a slower life April 26, 2023 I live less than a mile from Walden Pond. There, in the woods on the east side of the pond, Thoreau built his small cabin and wrote his great book. It is probably true that Thoreau left his cabin from time to time to walk into the town of Concord, one mile away, to see his family and others. Read More
Truth matters: Why we should fight disinformation at all costs April 25, 2023 Why can some social insects carry out what nonhuman primates can’t? The answer lies in large-scale collaboration. Read More
Listen in: The Owl and the Nightingale April 15, 2023 The Owl and the Nightingale, one of the earliest literary works in Middle English, is a lively, anonymous comic poem about two birds who embark on a war of words in a wood, with a nearby poet reporting their argument in rhyming couplets, line by line and blow by blow. Read More
Honoring fairy tales April 14, 2023 Fairy tales are not medicine for the sick world in which we live, they are indications and traces of what we were and can become. Read More
