Gurus of degrowth: Say hello to the ancient Cynics November 03, 2022 Mark Twain once quipped “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” Read More
Listening to the tree of life November 02, 2022 Listening to nature is an ancient art. But for most of human history, our ability to listen to other species was constrained. Humans are unable to hear many of the myriad sounds made by other species. Read More
Can we accept other people’s relationships with the environment? November 02, 2022 In the acclaimed television series, The Good Place, the main characters come to learn that in over 500 years, no one has avoided going to “the bad place” after their death. Read More
How to Say No November 01, 2022 The Cynics were ancient Greek philosophers who stood athwart the flood of society’s material excess, unexamined conventions, and even norms of politeness and thundered “No!” Diogenes, the most famous Cynic, wasn’t shy about literally extending his middle finger to the world, expressing mock surprise that “most people go crazy over a finger.” Read More
Playing in the gray October 28, 2022 How do global elites capitalize on risky frontier markets? They master the art of playing in the gray. Read More
How Americans’ priorities explain abortion politics October 28, 2022 In only a few months, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—in which the Court majority invalidated the constitutional right to an abortion established almost 50 years ago—has scrambled the political landscape. Read More
Spiderweb Capitalism October 25, 2022 In 2015, the anonymous leak of the Panama Papers brought to light millions of financial and legal documents exposing how the superrich hide their money using complex webs of offshore vehicles. Read More
On consolation, grief, and coping, and heaven October 24, 2022 Psychotherapy is not a recent invention. Thousands of years before Freud, Greek thinkers had discovered the seemingly magical effects that words can have to soothe the mind. Read More
Traveling to the stars October 21, 2022 Barely a week goes by without learning about a newly discovered planet circling some nearby, but still quite distant, star. It wasn’t until the 1990s that scientists had compelling evidence that such exoplanets existed, and the pace of their discovery since then has been astonishing. Read More
Christian nationalism, Christian globalism and White Americans October 21, 2022 Christian Nationalism’s threat to a healthy democracy is a popular topic these days, and with good reason. But few of the many excellent books and articles on the topic explain its origins. Read More
Trust in a distrustful world October 18, 2022 US politics faces a serious trust deficit. MAGA Republicans don’t trust RINOs, leftist Democrats don’t trust their centrist colleagues, Republicans don’t trust Democrats (and vice versa), and trust in major social institutions has been weakening for decades. Read More
Listening to the desert October 18, 2022 Deserts are among the most deeply evocative landscapes in the world. They inspire fear and awe, devotion and revulsion, fascination and longing. Read More
Jonathan Kirshner on An Unwritten Future October 16, 2022 An Unwritten Future offers a fresh reassessment of classical realism, an enduring approach to understanding crucial events in the international political arena. Read More
Listen in: The Sounds of Life October 12, 2022 The natural world teems with remarkable conversations, many beyond human hearing range. Scientists are using groundbreaking digital technologies to uncover these astonishing sounds, revealing vibrant communication among our fellow creatures across the Tree of Life. Read More
Capitalism: The word and the thing October 12, 2022 Capitalism is a word used variously to describe an economic and social system, a modern form of political power, a dynamic mode of production, a stage in a world-historical process running from feudalism to communism, a western object of ideological allegiance, a durable form of inequality or, more simply, a thing. Read More
