Sometimes it is important not to come to a conclusion.
Tell the truth and shame the devil
Prager U video about Grant and Lee is not a truthful representation of Grant’s views. Such lies matter.
Healing stories
Thereâs an episode of Northern Exposure, when Leonard the shaman comes to town to gather some stories. In his own practice, he often uses âhealing stories,â so he wants to know what kinds of stories are in use in Western […]
A common fund of knowledge
This essay was originally published in February 2023. In conjunction with the forum on higher education that is taking place at Current this week, we are re-running it, as it addresses a topic significant for conversations about education right now. […]
Let us now praise famous men (and women) or do some praiseworthy deeds
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weatherâd every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the […]
Know when to fold âem
Americans are living longer. Americans are working longer. Are some of them working too long? Earlier this year, headlines shared the saga of a 95-year-old judge who is refusing to retire. Pauline Newman has been a federal judge for 40 […]
Barbenheimer
More Barbenheimer, please. As the summer approached, people who look forward to movies noticed something: Barbie and Oppenheimer were opening on the same day. It seemed incongruous. This led to jokes. Then to memes. Then it became an eventâBarbenheimer. People […]
Growing Up Absurd: American ineptitude
This is the last in a series of three articles based on Growing Up Absurd, a 1960 classic of cultural criticism by Paul Goodman (here are Part I and Part II). While not all the book would have been written […]
Sovereign Citizens, Silent Complicity
Churches suffer from muddled thinkingÂ
Growing Up Absurd and patriotism
This is part II of a three-part series of reflections on Paul Goodman’s 1960 bestseller Growing Up Absurd. If you have missed part I, you can read it here. A chief argument of Growing Up Absurd is that the United […]
Growing Up Absurd and human dignity
I recently picked up the NYRB edition of Paul Goodmanâs Growing Up Absurd, which has a foreword by Casey Nelson Blake. In that foreword, Blake suggests that some aspects of the book are still relevant. For Blake, Goodman is part […]
Liberal girls⌠sad!
Itâs not news that teenage mental health is on the decline in recent years. But recently released data by the CDC indicates that the situation is most bleak for teenage girls. This was especially true for girls somewhere on the […]
What are you reading?
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new onesâon your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on […]
Additional observations on admissions stories
The recent Supreme Court decision overturning the legality of affirmation action in Harvard admissions has been met with all kinds of reactions. There is hand-wringing and rejoicing. There is disdainful headshaking and disdainful crowing. A lot of that is about […]
Bringing it back: mourning clothes
Thereâs supposed to be a difference between history and heritage and historians are supposed to study the past for its own sake, not to make use of it. Thereâs a whole section in John Feaâs Why Study History? about uses […]
Another reminder to be a generous reader
In the course of teaching college classes, I encounter all kinds of readers among my students. Some donât like to read, some love to read. Some are overly accepting of everything in print. Some are the opposite. Occasionally, a student […]
Bringing Culture Wars to Campus
The university does not exist to generate talking points
American animals
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, people doing early anthropology were very interested in climate and environmental conditions, but in very different ways from today. Early anthropologists connected geography to the nature of the people living there. Now, this […]
Disney people vs. Shakespeare people
Disney fans can learn from Shakespeare fans. Lately people are upset with the Walt Disney Company pretty frequently. If we limit ourselves to the complaints about films, we can observe that itâs often about movie remakes. Some people are unhappy […]
We can handle more complexity
One of the most recent rebrands in our media ecosystem is âHBO Maxâ becoming âMax.â What problem does this possibly solve? Ostensibly it will help Discovery + maintain more of its identity and not get buried in HBO programming. But […]