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Articles of NoteBeyond humiliation. Brought low by scandal, Conrad Black found a literary refuge in unit B-1 of a federal prison in Florida... more» Niall Ferguson: not just another pretty face. “The real point of me isn’t that I’m good looking. It’s that I’m clever”... more» Barry Duncan has built a monument to reversibility. The 400-word Greenward palindrome reads like a slightly batty prose poem... more» The fate of “forsooth.” Like other abandoned words, it is but an archaic fragment. Its history is distinguished, its future nonexistent... more» Zomia has been called the largest anarchic region in the world, stretching from Vietnam to India. But is it real?... more» Struggling through unemployment? Try Taoism. Midlife crisis? Read Nietzsche. Philosophical counselors have the cure for whatever ails you... more» India’s love for correction fluid and carbon paper endures in the computer age. “Bicycles survived cars. Why not typewriters?”... more» “One camera can’t show you that much,” says David Hockney, who prefers a multi-lens view of the world... more» “Inflation,” said Ronald Reagan, is “deadly like a hit man.” Maybe not. Is it time to stop worrying and print more money?... more» Some people want to know the future; others don’t. Some feel powerful in the face of fate. Others know that the way to escape fate is to not know it... more» Some people can’t read a book without a pencil in hand. Geoff Dyer can’t read without picking his nose. To each his own... more» Terrorist methods are widely available – a manual lists 14 “simple tools” to wage violent jihad. So why are there so few Islamist terrorists?... more» On the road. GPS means that you never have to find your own way in the world. What would Jack Kerouac think?... more» Losing heir. In his doctoral thesis, Saif Qaddafi endorsed holding war criminals personally responsible. Was he sincere? Probably not; he never was... more» Ah, the Moulin Rouge: a paragon of decadent, belle epoque entertainment. Toulouse-Lautrec saw it as a scene of poignant melancholy... more» In the 1960s, an exotic species roamed the earth: jet-set playboys. Today their pricey chivalry is gone, replaced by tweet-happy politicians... more» Freedom and democracy are incompatible, says Peter Thiel. His solution? Build a libertarian utopia off the coast of California... more» Temptation’s toll. You spend three or four hours a day resisting desire. The result: terrible decisions... more» Albert Barnes built an immaculate estate to hold his $30-billion collection of Picassos, Renoirs, Matisses. It was beautiful – and doomed... more» “When I cleared out my Moscow apartment, they found wiring in the walls,” says Mikhail Gorbachev. “They were spying on me all along”... more» Adam and Eve never existed, or so some evangelical intellectuals now believe. But if there was no original sin, what need is there for a savior?... more» Wikipedia is “intellectual mob rule,” says Jaron Lanier, who is that rare beast: a techno-guru who dislikes what technology has become... more» Strange bedfellows. The gun-rights movement aligned black radicals with the National Rifle Association against a common foe: Ronald Reagan... more» The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was horrific, but it didn’t force Japan’s surrender. So why did the war end?... more» In 1725, a feral boy stumbled out of the woods and posed a challenge to Europe’s secular intelligentsia: What separates man from animals?... more» By the end of the 19th century, torture was “as extinct as cannibalism.” Then it came back. What happened? Guerrilla warfare... more» On August 21, 1911, a man in a smock walked out of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa. Some suspected Picasso; others blamed the Jews... more» Cold War Disneyland. Once a blemish, the Berlin Wall is now home to kitschy, costumed reenactments, pickle-eating contests, and Darth Vader... more» Getting old takes getting used to – loss of appetite, constant urinating – but Jerry Lewis is adjusting. “I keep my fly open all day”... more» St. Augustine’s eccentricities were said to be the result of “a mind steeped too long in too few books.” Of whom can that be said today?... more» New words for the male member: “thundertube,” “seedstick,” the “Malcolm Gladwell.” Who thinks up this stuff? Nicholson Baker... more» Does Islam stifle innovation? Meet the entrepreneurs of Anatolia. However you explain their success, Islam has not impeded it... more» The emotional life of bees. The gentle curl of their mouths, the hesitant flicks of their antennae: Are bees sentient creatures?... more» Ecological nativism. Why the fuss over non-native species? Today’s suspicious-looking foreigner might be tomorrow’s local treasure... more» Silver Spoons may be forgettable, but Ricky Schroder has made a lasting contribution to science: He can make you cry... more» Fear reigns at Punjab University, where Islamists pistol-whipped free thinkers into submission. Well, almost. The philosophers are fighting back... more» The patent war. Nathan Myhrvold is a polymath with a knack for making money. Is his latest venture a shakedown of Silicon Valley?... more» The politics of yuck. Sewage on a hot day is simply gross. Disgust, however, is actually quite complex. In fact, it’s dangerous... more» Aging and innovation. We spend billions to live longer, yet give little thought to how to live longer, better. Here comes the silver tsunami... more» In the basement of the Empire State Building, Dinesh D’Souza prepares an “A-team” of Christian intellectuals to thrive in a fallen world... more» The Code War isn’t about brandishing stockpiles of cyber weapons. It’s about big ideas and a shadowy arms dealer named Mr. Fusion... more» Lucian Freud, divisive, bleak portrait artist, old-school bohemian, wry conversationalist, is dead at 88... NYTimes... BBC... Wash Post... Telegraph... Guardian... AP... Martin Gayford... Peter Schjeldahl... Laurie Fendrich... Jerry Saltz... Forward Growing up Jong. The home decor was pornographic, and Erica’s boyfriends tended to be motorcycle-riding drug dealers. But Molly survived... more» Catch-22 puzzled critics but delighted readers, including Heller’s fledgling agent: “I thought my navel would unscrew and my ass would fall off”... more» “Let’s speak frankly,” says Slavoj Žižek. “The left hates me even though I am supposed to be one of the leading communist intellectuals”... more» A nose for history. Napoleon’s cologne, the resurrected stench of a Viking latrine: Can odor offer a sense of the past? Take a whiff... more» If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, he might produce a cookbook like Nathan Myhrvold’s 2,400-page, 50-pound, $625 tome... more» A woman walks into a male-dominated, money-losing start-up. Now Facebook turns a billion-dollar profit. What’s the lesson?... more» On the New York art scene, the avuncular, ubiquitous Irving Sandler is Herodotus, Livy, and Thucydides rolled into one... more» Bribery is an art, and the art business in China – rife with forgeries, crooked scholars, corrupt auction houses – is brush-stroked by bribes... more» Most Americans don’t want to be Rotarians or Kiwanians; they prefer to bowl alone. But civic groups are thriving – in authoritarian countries... more» In defense of Rihanna. Pop music might be superficial, misogynist, and stupid, but it isn’t to blame for our cultural slide into self-love... more» Given real-time information about their actions, people change their own behavior. Technology makes feedback loops more effective than ever... more» At call centers in India, aspirants to the middle class study clips of Seinfeld. Trainers impart “international culture” — which is no culture at all... more» Marc Howard has an interest in prisons and a passion for tennis. On the asphalt court at San Quentin, he learned about the humanity in both... more» Effective, irresponsible populism: Western European leaders find blaming multiculturalism useful because it is both vague and misdirected... more» Lip-syncing at his workstation on an Army base in Iraq, the Wikileaker downloaded top-secret data onto a CD marked “Lady Gaga”... more» The wages of sex selection. More than 160 million women are missing from Asia. Is Western-style feminism to blame?... more» Ice and immortality. What exactly happens to a brain when it’s pumped full of cryoprotectant chemicals and frozen at -124°C?... more» Dan Savage is out to save marriage. His pitch: Monogamy destroys families; infidelity can save them... more» Looking for love? There is powerful software for that. Still elusive is an algorithm for hiding bald spots and back fat... more» Forget Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Much of America’s female power elite was groomed at a small, austere, obscure Catholic college... more» Jorge Arbusto is a brilliant, freshly minted Ph.D. He is also an illegal immigrant in America. What’s his future? Probably a job in construction... more» Beijing’s chattering class. China has 400 think tanks, where opinions vary from government-approved to government-approved... more» If a tumor can make you a pedophile, is that your fault or your biology’s? Wrong question, says David Eagleman. They are inseparable... more» Boozing with the ancients. Nothing gives beer a bite like mugwort, dried doum-palm fruit, and liberal doses of hemp and poppy. Cheers... more» Harun Yahya’s media empire spans the Muslim world. His message is clear and influential: Darwinism is a “satanic plot”... more» The collapse of the Soviet Union was startling, but today it’s clear that Russia is inching toward another perestroika moment... more» Sex and pseudonyms. When Story of O appeared it sent a rush of blood to the nonthinking parts. The author had no shame – and no identity... more» Morality is mediated by biology, not intuition and certainly not God, says Patricia Churchland. Consider the prairie vole... more» “I envied her for her heart,” Simone de Beauvoir said of Simone Weil, who abandoned intellectual life for the joyful suffering of manual labor... more» Nazis and nudity. Mein Kampf sold well in the Third Reich, as did a book of naked, well-oiled Germans exercising. You’re surprised?... more» Feeling blue? There’s an app to manage your emotions – your cognitive ability, weight, and attention span, too. How about an app for narcissism?... more» Errol Morris is promiscuous with his enthusiasms. They include levitating frogs and Thomas Kuhn, who once threw an ashtray at his head... more» Patrick Leigh Fermor, warrior, scholar, autodidact, travel writer, extraordinary raconteur, is dead at 96... Telegraph... Jan Morris... Christopher Hitchens... Paul Rahe... Robert Kaplan... William Dalrymple William F. Buckley long ago faulted academe for its failure to engage unfashionable topics. Is ignoring anti-Semitism the latest example?... more» Dangerous minds. If a brain scan could determine that your child is likely to become a violent criminal, would you want to know?... more» Last requests. In death, John Ross wanted his ashes mixed with pot, rolled into a joint, and smoked at his funeral... more» The city that Darwin built. Can evolutionary theory bring aimless, shabby Binghamton, N.Y. back to life?... more» “To thine own self be true,” said Polonius. Timeless advice, but who are you, really, other than an enigma to yourself?... more»... more» When it comes to excavating the history of consumerism, never underestimate the value of a good dung-fork... more» Among the countless pleasures of profanity is versatility. Noun, verb, adverb, or adjective, four-letter vulgarities are indispensable... more» Quantifying Hamlet. Franco Moretti doesn’t so much read as data-mine literature, looking for a new understanding of character... more» Beyond branded tchotchkes. Big Pharma is putting its marketing muscle toward something more valuable: the contents of medical journals... more» David Eagleman fancies himself the Carl Sagan of neuroscience. Maybe he is. Or maybe his ambition is little more than chest-thumping hubris... more» Lying and art spring from a common impulse: to escape reality. Art is in fact a kind of lying, and lying a form of art... more» Paul Theroux loathes luxury. He set off 50 years ago in search of miserable, difficult places; forbidden cities; and back roads... more» Michael Lind has a question: Why do the American media lavish attention on a vulgar and shallow huckster like Niall Ferguson?... more» Pronghorn antelopes sprint at 60 mph, and elite marathoners are chasing them on foot to test a new explanation of how humans became hunters... more» Think Yiddish, act British. As a child, the Anglophilic David Brooks named his turtles Gladstone and Disraeli. Now the trans-Atlantic love is mutual... more» Growing up Qaddafi. Saif’s reformist ideas earned him a contract with Oxford University Press. Now the despot’s son is the face of tyranny... more» We are known by the trail of 0’s and 1’s we leave in our wake. Who owns that information? Is sharing it – creating a data commons – a civic duty?... more» Henry Kissinger has lots to say about China, the subject of his new book. And he’s happy to talk, so long as you don’t ask about human rights... more» Al Jazeera is a Rorschach test: anti-American propaganda arm of a Gulf monarchy or populist voice of the Arab Spring?... more» Hegel goes west. In the 1870s, an odd idea took hold on the American frontier: History had a direction, and it pointed toward St. Louis... more» At MIT, everyone is eccentric – and it certainly pays. Alumni have founded 25,800 companies, which generate revenues of about $1.9 trillion... more» By all accounts, Vivian Maier was a quiet, standoffish woman. Her street photographs, however, are intimate, even exhilarating... more» Excavation of the oldest known religious structure has unearthed a tantalizing question: Did a sense of the sacred give rise to human civilization?... more» At the border between knowledge and belief, where science flirts with philosophy, you’ll find experimental physicist Rolf-Dieter Heuer ... more» In January, 1917, Lenin described a Communist uprising in the near future as exceedingly unlikely. Let’s face it: Revolutions are hard to predict... more» Bello Maasaba believes in marriage. He has 86 wives and 133 children. So how does he...? “If I didn’t satisfy them, they would leave”... more» In Bloomsbury, wedged between a cafe and a beauty salon, is the School of Life, Alain de Botton’s latest venture in telling us how we ought to live... more» Are creative-writing programs to blame for the homogenization and deterioration of literary culture? The short answer: No... more» In France, intellectuals are lionized – and even listened to. In Britain, this is evidence that the French are unsound... more» Diagnosing Darwin. The naturalist’s chronic vomiting has been attributed to any of 40 diseases. Now there’s a new diagnosis... more»... more» The most extensive, expensive Judaica library was sold at auction in December for more than $25-million. So why is it still languishing at Sotheby’s?... more» The art of biomathematics: Viruses are geometrically arranged bundles of genetic material. To attack them, change their shape. Paging Dr. Euclid... more» For hawkish humanitarians, Libya is a necessary intervention. Doing nothing while others suffer is not an option. Or maybe it is, suggests Tolstoy... more» In a remote corner of Shenzhen, the world’s largest genome-mapping facility shares a cityscape with an auto-repair shop and a scrap yard... more» The deep future for humans looks grim. Only .01 percent of species that ever existed still do so. You think we’re special?... more» The vanity of Uncle Sam. Sagging with debt, America has taken to nipping, tucking, and Botoxing its economic indicators... more» Wily tactician of seduction, the bad girl is supposed to be everything men want – and fear. What explains her diminished allure?... more» David Eagleman is a man transfixed by the mutability of time. Supposedly fixed and defined, time is stretched and compressed inside our minds... more» A manly man: Werner Herzog has walked across a rain forest, arranged to kill a man, and been shot in the stomach. All of it pleases him... more» The data ninjas of Silicon Valley are obsessed with eyeballs. “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads”... more» What’s left of the left is Paul Krugman, whose self-certain empiricism amounts to this: Important people have no idea what they’re doing... more» Maurice Sendak sees his death drawing near. “I'm getting out just in time,” he says. “We’ve lost the knack of living in the world”... more» That the archaeologist Zahi Hawass, Mubarak’s friend, is praising the revolution is a surprise. That he is allegedly corrupt is not... more» Why is it that Martin Amis – maligned as a spent talent, and a racist, self-hating reviler of women to boot – arouses such antipathy?... more» The best ideas prevail. Well, maybe not. We’re hard-wired to reject evidence and views that contradict our beliefs – these days, more than ever... more» Ideas, fads, hoaxes: Ours is the age of the meme, in which information spreads faster and farther than ever before. But who’s in charge, us or our memes?... more» Cultural looting reached its apex under the Nazis, who were efficient but careless. What kind of idiot hangs a Leonardo painting above a radiator?... more» The Bible brims with contradictions, says Timothy Beal, but no matter: The Good Book is best read as a catalog of questions, not answers... more» Selfless behavior has long baffled evolutionary theorists. But E.O. Wilson now claims that he can explain altruism. The response has not been kind... more» Pity modern man. College-graduation rates, sperm counts, and testosterone levels are all down. “Emasculation is a national blood sport”... more» Gore Vidal advised Christopher Hitchens never to miss a chance to have sex or to appear on television. Hitchens took the advice to heart... more» Francis Fukuyama says that his break with neoconservatism is “about ideas and policies,” but it’s become personal. Old friends won’t talk to him... more» For an economist like Peter Orszag, two career paths beckon: public intellectual or Wall Street mandarin; Stiglitzism or Rubinism... more» Fed up with being called an “imperialist scumbag,” Niall Ferguson offers this warning: “Never underestimate the irate Professor Ferguson”... more» Over-stressed parents, Bryan Caplan has some advice: Stop trying so hard. Have more kids. Pay less attention to them... more» A.C. Grayling is donnish, leonine, and without self-doubt: “My wife gave me a card that says, 'I used to be an atheist until I realized I am God'”... more» Sidney Lumet, director of more than 40 films, including 12 Angry Men, Serpico, and Network, is dead at the age of 86... NY Times... LA Times... Roger Ebert... Richard Brody... Forward... Guardian... Philip French... Obit Mag... John Lahr Maybe a rising tide does lift all boats. Or maybe you’re a heartless crank for thinking so. Joseph Stiglitz has a view on that... more» Chaos of war? Maybe not. Insurgent attacks in Afghanistan might conform to a mathematical pattern. If violence can be forecast, can it be averted?... more» We’ve been shamed, nudged, and educated, but nothing seems to work: We’re still fat. Matt Ridley has an idea: healthy-living vouchers... more» The herculean new National Museum of China has opened with an exhibit on the European Enlightenment. Can museums shape social attitudes?... more» |
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New BooksDwight Macdonald, a naysayer by nature, was irascible but logical. Asked why he drank so much, he replied, “I'm an alcoholic, goddamit!”... more» Christopher Hitchens’s secular moralism transcends left and right. He is a lodestar of candor in an age of double talk... more» Jane Austen produced frivolous “feminine tosh,” says V.S. Naipaul. But the key to understanding Austen is not her gender, but her genius... more» Is Gary Taubes a scientific Solzhenitsyn, bravely exposing the nutrition establishment? Or is he peddling his own bunk health advice?... more» Chet Baker had a pure sound and matinee-idol looks. Then heroin took over. The trumpeter’s self-degradation, says Greil Marcus, is irresistible... more» Self-control is the best predictor of a successful life. To prevent that next lapse of will, take Steven Pinker’s advice: Eat chocolate... more»
Conservatives, fearful of lowering standards, have long been wary of efforts to democratize higher education. Now liberals are following suit... more» Mass-produced images cheapen what they portray. You doubt that? Consider pornography and the corruption of desire... more» On April 30, 1945, Eva Braun bit into a cyanide capsule. She died as she had lived, invisible to the world... more» Wendy Wasserstein used intimacy as a smoke screen, and, to the dismay of friends, her life – and theirs – as source material... more» What ails American literature? English departments, says Joseph Epstein, have become intellectual nursing homes, where old ideas go to die... more» Hitler humor. The ubiquity of anti-Nazi jokes in wartime Germany suggests that instead of acting against Hitler, most critics just laughed at him... more» Hugh Trevor-Roper was many things – social climber, political intriguer, intellectual bomb thrower – and in none of them was he ever boring... more» Alfred Kazin found that “absolute frankness is the only originality.” But his frankness ends not in originality but in creepy revelations... more» For Rimbaud, precocity yielded an iconoclastic burst of creativity. Then he abandoned poetry. He was 20, there was nothing left to say... more» It is academic snobbery to search for Orientalism in the canon of high literature, but not pulp novels or Hollywood films... more» Young women have at least one asset, erotic capital, but it’s undervalued – by society and by women themselves. There is a remedy: prostitution... more» The idea of universal human rights has been a profound contribution to civilization. More than a little credit goes to the slave rebels of Haiti... more» Henry Luce and the intellectuals. Journalism and the life of the mind merged in the profit-motivated pages of Time, Life, and Fortune... more» Tim Wu has an influential theory about the future of information. The problem: He’s wrong, even incoherent. Paul Starr explains... more» “To be, or not to be” is not original to Shakespeare. In effect, Hamlet is quoting, not thinking. All language carries baggage... more» Humphrey Bogart’s face – indelible and engaging, but hardly beautiful – confounded a co-star. “How can a man so ugly be so handsome?”... more» Famine, flood, and slipshod currency reform have failed to end Kim Jong Il’s reign. But now there’s a new challenge: bootleg copies of Titanic... more» The mind has always been forgetful, lapsing into oblivion. But has this ever been more true than now, when we know so much and remember so little?... more» Alfred Kazin’s love of literature was matched only by his love of himself. Self-absorption, to many women, proved irresistible... more» Agnes de Mille democratized ballet, injecting a dose of pop-art cheekiness into the ordered, insidery world of formal dance... more» V.S. Naipaul among the natives. How to explain his passion for foreign places and peoples? Curiosity and racist snobbery... more» Vodka – no color, no taste – made no sense to A.J. Liebling, a brown-spirits man. He had a point: It’s the chicken breast of libations... more» In 1915, as Edward Thomas prepared to flee the war in Europe, a poem arrived from his friend Robert Frost. “The Road Not Taken” changed everything... more» For the swaggering titans of mid-20th-century literature, violence was their muse. Then Joseph Heller dismantled their greatest subject... more» Back-of-the-envelope calculation: Over the past 10,000 years, humans have created 10,000 religions and 1,000 gods. Why?... more» In 1932, William Shirer, a reporter in Paris, was abruptly fired from his job at the Chicago Tribune. On a whim, he took off for Berlin... more» Brandishing scads of data, Robert Pape argues that suicide terrorism is not motivated by Islam. But what’s motivating Pape?... more» The public palate. Wines today are presented like photographs in lad mags: Attributes enhanced and airbrushed to satisfy a commercial ideal... more» Reading David Foster Wallace is like being trapped in a room with a hyperarticulate obsessive-compulsive. Irksome, but brilliant... more» Is Google evil? Probably not. But it is trying to read your mind. On the upside, it’s saving you keystrokes... more» Knotted: How the Necktie Changed the World. Yeah, sure. The plague of publishing these days is to mistake ubiquity for significance... more» Giro d’Italia, 1956. Fiorenzo Magni fell, broke his collarbone and arm, kept pedaling – and finished second. To think: He wasn't even doping... more» Umberto Eco is fascinated by fallibility. His vast personal library includes the works of the errant Ptolemy, not the accurate Galileo... more» Ladies loved Franz Liszt. The virtuosic composer and cad was the Mick Jagger of his day, trysting his way from Coventry to Kiev... more» Mark Lynas once hurled a pie at Bjorn Lomborg, saying: “That’s for lying about climate change.” Now he’s targeting fellow environmentalists... more» Viagra in the agora. The little blue pill gives rise to enduring philosophical insights. But if they linger for more than four hours, consult a doctor... more» Beware of benevolence. History’s world improvers have been indifferent to actual human suffering, and quite willing to kill with kindness... more» Amid life’s trials, some consult the Bible or the Koran, the I-Ching or Twitter feeds. But more and more people turn to the feel-good gospel of Oprah... more» Mark Twain, swaddled in a white suit of self-promotion, dictated a snoozy, egotistical autobiography. So what? The man deserved to strut... more» Colin Thubron is heir to a vanishing tradition of wryly patrician, English travel writers who trade openly in the strange and beautiful... more» Your dog loves you even more than you think. But here’s the rub: That adorable, knowing look doesn’t mean she’s capable of complex emotions... more» Stealing Rembrandts. Only Picasso has been more frequently pilfered. But art theft is pointless theft: What can you do with a heisted painting?... more» The era of the nonspecialist intellectual is over. These days, aspiring Irving Howes need to master monetary theory... more» Darwin has displaced Hegel as a political thinker, suggests Francis Fukuyama. Is this the end of the end of history?... more» Told that he’d won a Nobel Prize, Richard Feynman balked. He had a radical disdain for royalty, even though his science was conservative... more» Bobby Fischer had much in common with Newton: Both were fear-addled egomaniacs who grew into their gifts by playing games with themselves... more» Every metaphor starts out as a wild beast, waiting to be tamed by usage, writes Carlin Romano. Even the word “metaphor” is a metaphor... more» Quarry of the latter-day hunter-gatherer: old typewriters, vintage dolls, Bakelite jewelry. The one thing you must never ask a collector is “Why?”... more» Too small for their britches? If American men are infantilized, it certainly isn’t because of gains made by women, as one author would have us believe... more» The other other woman: Hardly home wreckers, mistresses are long-term partners who prefer secrecy, for better or worse... more» It’s easy to dismiss Wilhelm Reich’s idiosyncratic blend of Freudianism, Marxism, and orgasm. But consider this: No Reich, no Oprah... more» What the world requires of a publishing bigwig – Robert Gottlieb, Daniel Menaker – is ever more cattiness, more gossip, more score-settling... more» Ribs against racism. American, Jamaican, Korean, Mongolian – is there any cuisine more inclusive than barbecue?... more» Mark Twain never met an idea he could not reduce to a joke – including, it seems, the conventions of autobiography. Michael Lewis explains... more» Virginia Woolf knew well the tedium of the literary critic. “My mind feels as though a torrent of weak tea has been poured over it”... more» Drugs, sex, exercise – all tickle the brain’s pleasure circuits. What doesn’t? Pop-intellectual glosses on the neuroscience of pleasure... more» “I duped the despot by crawling like a snake,” wrote Adam Mickiewicz. No one survives in a dictatorship without being compromised... more» They were Truman Capote’s adoring “swans,” upper-crust types who lapped up his elfin schtick. So why did he betray them?... more» Between those who believe too much and those who believe too little stands Terry Eagleton, scorning the dogmatism of both sides... more» Stagnant wages, stalemated wars, growing debt. Depressing, right? Time for a dose of David Brooks’s sunny optimism... more» Shoplifting is an expression of vanity and need, not ideology. Filching razors from Rite-Aid isn’t political. It’s pathetic... more» When in 1822 a bullet hit Alexis St. Martin’s abdomen, his breakfast poured from the wound. Human digestion had become visible... more» Are you glib and superficially charming? Do you lack empathy and remorse? You might have just what it takes to be a psychopath... more» Robin Fox has spent his life studying tribal-based societies. Does that make him one of the indispensable foreign-policy thinkers of our time?... more» Ronald Dworkin is a hedgehog, sure of one big thing: His values are universal values. It’s hubristic, sure, but is it analytically rigorous?... more» David Mamet’s conservative cri de coeur is smug, propagandistic, error-filled – and boring, too. Christopher Hitchens explains... more» Evaluating evil. Between 1933 and 1945, 14 million civilians died in lands ruled by Stalin and Hitler. Does that diminish the singularity of the Holocaust?... more» Plaid-clad civic saint and master spellbinder, Cesar Chavez generated a legend that elides a history of paranoia and madness... more» In defense of drudgery. Whatever you call it – acedia, horror, taedium vitae, melancholia – boredom is a blessing ... more» Intellectuals and orgasms. The charismatic, daft Wilhelm Reich succeeded in making fools of credulous seekers like Norman Mailer... more» “The only way to write is well,” said A.J. Liebling, “how you do it is your own damn business.” Unless you’re Stanley Fish ... more» The many loves of Ms. Luxemburg. Red Rosa’s life wasn’t all doctrinaire Marxism and scornful polemics... more» The gadgets that enrich and overwhelm you originate in MIT’s Media Lab, where the most important discipline is no discipline at all... more» As if her husband’s drinking and philandering weren’t enough, Lee Krasner’s art never could escape his paint-splattered shadow... more» “Nearly everyone has a reaction to India,” writes Patrick French. His is fawning, cliché-ridden, and untethered from reality... more» That Henry Kissinger never fails to praise China’s rulers is disappointing but not surprising: Sycophancy is good for business... more» If our brains are augmented by Google in the future, will our thoughts have corporate sponsors?... more» Forget Facebook – our cognitive capacities max out at three to five intimate friendships. Time to shrink our social networks?... more» Watching Garry Wills. The liberal, Catholic ex-conservative who made enemies of both Nixon and Alger Hiss remains a paradox... more» Poverty deepens and inequality grows. But the rich, says Deirdre McCloskey, are blameless: “Success in a commercial society is a victimless crime”... more» A Jewish joke: Man asks friend, “Which is preferable, an anti-Semite or a philo-Semite?” Friend answers, “An anti-Semite – at least he isn’t lying”... more» Feminist Lothario? Hugh Hefner – the man who marketed promiscuous bachelorhood – is a pioneer of women’s empowerment... more» Payback might be a bitch, but the urge for revenge is universal, and the stuff of great drama... more» Music hits the brain like sex. So can neuroscience distinguish between hearing an organ played and having one’s organs played with?... more» Learning to live means preparing to die. So thought Montaigne, until his own death neared... more» Every year, Washington swells with 20,000 interns. They fetch coffee, drive down wages, and add yet another sexual frisson to the halls of power... more» For Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, whose extraordinary union lasted 40 years, the key to a successful marriage was not sleeping together... more» Janet Malcolm is without illusion. A heartless connoisseur of human misery, she admits her biases run deep. “We take sides as we take breaths”... more» G.K. Chesterton quipped paradoxical: “Travel narrows the mind.” The greatest paradox, however, was his own personality, sophisticated yet naive... more» “The rose,” says Umberto Eco, “is so rich in meanings that it hardly has any meaning left.” Not so. The bloom remains potent with symbolism... more» Moscow, 1960. The city brimmed with hope and creativity. It was a fleeting moment captured in the poetry and charmed life of Joseph Brodsky... more» Nabokov described art as the “dazzling combination of drab parts.” Studies of his own work, however, often read like drab combinations of dazzling parts... more» Gandhi’s commitment to nonviolence was admirable but impractical. As a response to fascism, it was disastrous... more» As a child, Iris Chang learned of Japanese atrocities in Nanking. As an adult, she studied them. Did her research lead to her suicide?... more» While her diplomat father courted Hitler, Martha Dodd courted Thomas Wolfe, who likened her to “a butterfly hovering around my penis”... more» Sibling rivalry. Thomas Mann never quite got over the fact that it was his brother Heinrich’s novels that the Nazis burned... more» The idea of Humphrey Bogart. Stoic, melancholic, humane, even idealistic, Bogie’s characters saw a point in at least trying to right wrongs... more» It takes an unusual intellectual – shrewd, polemical, willfully ignorant – to title a book Why Marx Was Right, and Terry Eagleton is all that... more» David Thomson’s dictionary of film – five editions in 35 years, more than 1,000 pages – is a book meant to be argued with. Clive James is game... more» Shostakovich: party hack or secret dissident? Listen closely: Here is an ironist who scorned the Communist Party he submitted to... more» Nearing 70, E.M. Forster cracked open his diary to note “how annoyed I am with Society for wasting my time by making homosexuality criminal”... more» Tenured professors enjoy speech protections. Yet when it comes to the execrable treatment of grad students and adjuncts, they’ve been awfully quiet... more» “This year I almost died,” reveals Clive James. Had he done so, we would have lost a brilliant prose stylist, intellect, wit, and poet... more» That Heda Margolius Kovály had to write a memoir about life under Nazism and Communism is a horror. That she did it so well is a gift... more» YouTube’s latest intellectual star is a 75-year-old Marxist anthropologist. Surprising? So is this: His ideas are at odds with Marxism... more» “There is only one rule,” wrote Pauline Kael. “Astonish us!” When a film failed, she was unsparing: “Unfunny camp is contemptible”... more» Structure, rhythm, precision – any good sentence is good in its own way. The best ones can move peoples’ souls... more» If, as has been said, the city is “a conscious work of art,” then Jane Jacobs has been its most mindful critic... more» How did a first-generation Turkish grad student end up driving around San Francisco with Isaac Babel’s 90-year-old widow riding shotgun?... more» Mussolini conceived it, Hitler commissioned it, Stalin perfected it, Saddam obsessed over the design of it: totalitarian art... more» A “precocious knack for hackery” earned Simon Schama the derisive label of popularizer. Is that such a bad thing?... more» The delightfully eclectic writer Geoff Dyer writes so well about so many things. Too bad his favorite subject is himself... more» Lies can be “necessary and virtuous,” says John Mearsheimer, who finds democracies – not dictatorships – to be most adept at political deceit... more» Tina Fey has turned superficial self-deprecation into shtick. The lesson for female comics: Be unthreatening and men might let you join the show... more» Socrates dismissed money as irrelevant and even inimical to the good life. But what is so morally corrosive about material comfort?... more» Philip Larkin described sex as a futile attempt to get “someone else to blow your own nose for you.” Funny, right? Now imagine being his lover... more» Murder most entertaining. Crime stories are a ghoulishly satisfying reminder that although murder is possible, it hasn’t yet happened to you... more» Rootless but disciplined, a black man joins a religious community that he ultimately outgrows. It’s Malcolm X’s story. Barack Obama’s, too... more» In 1896, the Cambridge don Solomon Schechter climbed behind a wall in a Cairo synagogue and discovered the detritus of an entire civilization... more» “The least Indian of Indian leaders”: V.S. Naipaul's astute assessment of Gandhi, whose social conscience was forged reading Tolstoy in South Africa... more» Maligned as a gold digger, Wallis Simpson in fact never wanted Edward VIII to abdicate the throne. She wasn’t even in love with him... more» | |
Essays and OpinionRevolution is the triumph of hope over experience, says Avishai Margalit. Any cause for hope should be celebrated. In Egypt, there is still reason to celebrate... more» It’s the first day of college, but before Mark Edmundson welcomes the freshman class, he has a question: What are you doing here?... more» Marx was wrong: Capitalism, not communism, killed the bourgeoisie. Now there’s no escaping the mercurial market forces. Prepare for further upheaval... more» In 1967, Noam Chomsky accused intellectuals of deceit and distortion for rationalizing American militarism. Four decades later, little has changed... more» Literature and the mind. Novelists are thought to be uniquely perceptive about human nature, but does reading fiction increase knowledge? Clarify emotions? Deepen sympathy?... more» Nabokov was fascinated by extreme characters: pedophiles, murderers, megalomaniacs. He depicted and appealed to psychology. For insight, psychology should look to him... more» Arendt in Jerusalem. The trial of Eichmann, she thought, failed to take the measure of the man and his deeds. That failure, perhaps, was her own... more» Learn. Unlearn. Relearn. The Internet makes it hard to concentrate. Good, says Cathy Davidson. Disruption and distraction spark innovation and creativity... more» The power of ideas. Material factors can’t explain 9/11 or the Arab Spring. To understand those events, says Paul Berman, study the influence of intellectuals... more» Militant atheism offers a simplistic reading of religious belief, says James Wood. In reality, our beliefs fluctuate. We are all flip-floppers... more» Early computer culture was a battle between gray, regimented corporations and psychedelic hippie-nerds. It’s still not clear who won... more» “I like walking because it is slow, and the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour,” says Rebecca Solnit. “Modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness”... more» Literary studies: esoteric, politicized, and out of touch with reality, says Scott Herring. Let the dead French theorists lie, and the field will come back to life... more» Philip Larkin is a novelist’s poet. It’s novelists, like Martin Amis, who revere his inimitable skill as a scene-setting phrasemaker... more» For David Hume, conversation – the exchange of ideas, the free play of wit – contributed to “an increase of humanity.” But conversation is one thing; online chat is another... more» Jean Sibelius’s music – slow, simple, beautiful – was lionized between the world wars. The backlash was as predictable as it was misguided... more» War, recession, the recent riots in Britain: Is there anything bad in the world that “neoliberalism” is not blamed for? Brendan O’Neill wonders... more» Robert Johnson never denied that he’d cut a deal with the devil: his soul for his guitar chops. The bluesman knew that scandal sells... more» Jews playing Wagner. It happens, though not much in Israel, where the Nazis’ favorite composer is unofficially banned. But music has many anti-Semites – why single out Wagner?... more» Postmodernism is dead. But before throwing a shovelful of dirt on this dominant idea – or clever sham? – a question: What the hell was that about?... more» Genocide, terrorism, insurgencies: The world feels like an ever more violent place. It isn’t. In fact, war is on the wane. And where it still occurs, it’s less brutal... more» Think of Winston Churchill, what comes to mind? Jowly war hero, stirring orator, acidic wit. How about father of the British welfare state?... more» Charles Taylor routinely raises provocative questions – and routinely fails to answer them. More interested in foreplay than climax, he is a master of the philosopher’s tease... more» Anders Behring Breivik represents more than his own act of violence. His is a new creed of right-wing extremism, a Christian version of al-Qaeda. Malise Ruthven explains... more» Michael Ignatieff ditched Harvard for Canadian politics, insisting that philosophers can transform themselves into kings. Canadians begged to differ... more» Women and wages. Fewer hours at an undemanding job for reduced pay: Welcome to the mommy track. Far from an unjust, patriarchal imposition, it’s where many women want to be... more» Secularism is an achievement, but is it also a predicament? Are nonbelievers condemned to lead desperate lives devoid of meaning? James Wood wonders... more» Death, fear, evil, enemies, justice, courage, patriotism, resilience – what did those things mean on September 11, 2001? What do they mean today?... more» About modern intellectual history, Irving Kristol knew at least this: Big-impact ideas tend to come from small, intently focused groups... more» “Our culture is afflicted with knowingness,” says Erik Davis. But what we know are other peoples’ opinions. Yelp, Digg, Twitter, Facebook...Make up your own damn mind!... more» Ted Hughes, it was said, went through women “like a guy harvesting corn.” Thus Sylvia Plath, the martyred saint of wronged wives. Sounds plausible, but... more» You know the type: abstemious, compulsive exercise, supplements by the fistful. Mark Edmundson is not one of those people. In fact, he loathes them... more» He was among the greatest talkers of his – or any – time, but Oscar Wilde meticulously revised his written prose, never quite sure how subversive he wanted to be... more» Founded in 1857 to advance the “American idea,” The Atlantic Monthly was an odd intellectual home for Henry James, a peripatetic expat who renounced his U.S. citizenship... more» After crunching two billion words of 21st-century literature, Orin Hargraves arrived at an inescapable conclusion: fictional characters can’t stop playing with their hair... more» The agony of originality. Four thousand years ago, an Egyptian writer lamented his stale prose: “Would I had phrases that are not known.” If he was late to the party, what about us?... more» Step aside, Dale Peck. When it comes to sheer brutishness, no book critic compares to John Wilson Croker, who wrote the review that killed John Keats... more» The Teflon icon. An apologist for slavery who fought to destroy the United States becomes an American hero. How did it happen?... more» For conservatives considering grad school, it’s time to reconsider. Why invest so many years and dollars in the thin hope that you’ll be hired by people who loathe your views?... more» After being paralyzed by a tumor, Reynolds Price told friends he was tired of discussing his health. He wanted to talk about something else: sex... more» “I will argue that...” Oh, get on with it! Announcing your intentions might be scholarly convention, but it’s long since become an irritating tic. Geoff Dyer explains... more» At the fertility clinic, no one has sympathy for the man who can’t produce. All he’s left with is a sore arm, a sense of failure, and the ghost of an unconceived child... more» Marshall McLuhan made assertions, not arguments. Most of them unintelligible, if not wrong. It’s tempting to label him a huckster and move on. But that would be a mistake... more» The politics of self-immolation. Mohamed Bouazizi, Thích Quảng Đức, Jan Palach: Their willingness to die offers a repulsive and fascinating lesson in how to live... more» Adventures in fandom. Opera is too often dismissed as out of touch, an elitist obsession of the wealthy. It’s that, of course, and so much more... more» The old cliché is true: One person’s trash may be another person’s treasure. But let’s be serious: Thomas Kinkade’s cloying, dew-kissed paintings are, quite unambiguously, trash... more» So you want to write a book. It will be a lonely, frustrating slog. Maybe a few thousand people will read it, on its way to the remainder shelf. Why bother?... more» If writing makes you a miserable wretch, and reading capaciously hasn’t been a source of moral uplift, you’re hardly alone. The literary life tends to arouse dissatisfaction and antisocial behavior... more» The Internet’s early cheerleaders – anti-Hobbesian, hippie utopians, mostly – envisioned cyberspace as an unregulated public square. It’s more like a private mall... more» Some guys just don’t know when to shut up. Consider the chronically garrulous Tony Kushner and his tendency to drown his characters in a sea of verbiage... more» Melancholic, tormented, debauched, or otherwise awry, our poets must be lunatics, we insist. The results are both sensational and boring... more» “I have a daughter who will one day take drugs,” says Sam Harris. “Of course, I will do everything in my power to see that she chooses her drugs wisely”... more» Good restaurant, table for one at dinner. Pathetic? No, it’s a treat. As a frequent lone diner notes: “How often do I see couples not speak to each other for an entire meal?”... more» Ah, time for the writer to start writing. But wait: Are my pens facing north? What’s that funny noise? My fingernails need cutting. Do I have a toothache? Will I have a toothache?... more» The sudden closing of Yale’s program for the study of anti-Semitism raises the question: Where does scholarship end and advocacy begin?... more» The voracious scavenging of vultures has long helped prevent the spread of disease in India. But at the carcass dump on the outskirts of Bikaner, the sky is empty... more» Pity today’s elite twenty-somethings. Their loving parents pumped them full of enough self-esteem to ripen them into fragile, narcissistic wrecks ... more» Arsenic and oatmeal. Until the mid-1800s, there was no such thing as a toxicology report. It was a golden age of domestic murder... more» At least since Athens clashed with Sparta, the relationship between ascendant nations and dominant powers has been marked by war. Why would China’s rise be any different?... more» The problem with vaginas is that awful things happen to them, says Caitlin Moran. “Vaginas get torn. Vaginas get ‘examined.’ Evidence is found in them. Serial killers leave things in them”... more» The symphony orchestra was once central to the intellectual life of a city. No more, and too bad: The concert hall is a refuge in our age of distracted, self-destroying restlessness... more» Technologically savvy Scandinavian sociopaths; black maids; clandestine military operations; sexy vampires; talking dogs: What does the best-seller list say about American culture?... more» Eco-ignorance. Up to 95 percent of organisms in the soil are unknown to science, and by the end of the century, one-quarter of them will wriggle off this mortal coil into oblivion... more» We want universities to be engines of economic growth. More graduates = higher GDP, right? But look at Switzerland’s strong economy and low enrollment rate... more» It is becoming physically harder to read a book in print. Online connections have disconnected us from ourselves. Johann Hari is mounting a resistance... more» The politics of rescue. Michael Walzer has questions: Is humanitarianism a duty or a gift? A responsibility of states or individuals? Maimonides has answers... more» Practicing pica. Nothing satisfies like a clump of hair, a bite of chalk, or a piece of toilet paper. If we are what we eat, what are we who eat food that isn’t food?... more» Before Robert Nozick helped legitimate it, libertarianism was the creed of smart-set rogues and cranks. Then, says Stephen Metcalf, the philosopher abandoned the movement. Why?... more»... a rebuttal... Metcalf responds War is horrible and great, repellent and seductive, the stuff of great stories. But those stories are not just modeled from war, says Drew Faust. They are models of war... more» Marshall McLuhan is the Marx of the media age. But his Catholicism was no deadening opiate. It made him more ambitious and far-reaching... more» “The potential of human action to do good and evil is larger than it has ever been before,” says Nick Bostrom. “We might even be able to change human nature itself”... more» There is a place for mystery in science, but Stephen Law wants to make something clear: Non-empirical beliefs that ignore reality aren’t mysteries, they’re bull... more» Is evolutionary psychology guilty of intellectual overreach? Timothy Wilson finds fault with its attempts to explain everything. Dan Gilbert and Steve Pinker find fault with Wilson... more» Hard to say what’s more ridiculous: reading Ayn Rand or sitting through a three-part film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. Pick your poison... more» Austan Goolsbee, Christina Romer, and Larry Summers have returned to academe, taking with them the tarnished reputation of Keynesianism... more» In the market for a new philosophy? Rebecca Goldstein has a tip: Postmodernists are out; rationalists are in; short-sell Heidegger because the smart money is on Spinoza... more» A.C. Grayling’s decision to open a private liberal-arts college in London reveals higher education as a strictly luxury good. Cue the outrage... more» Ken Burns’s account of the Civil War is an endlessly compelling story of heroism, reunion, and freedom. Too bad the film is misleading, reductive, and yet enduringly influential... more» Ordinary or pathological, situational or existential, boredom is the natural condition of man. Distracting oneself from that fact is a full-time job. Reading this essay is one way to start... more» You’re immersed in the digital slipstream, running with the cyberherd. Yet you consider yourself immune to hive-oriented behavior and thinking? Sven Birkerts thinks you’re deluded... more» After three weeks in the jungle with Maoist rebels, Arundhati Roy didn’t want to leave. “There is romance in their resistance,” she says from her spacious home in an affluent New Delhi neighborhood... more» Whether giving a pig an enema, or watching a spider trap its prey, E.B. White felt a kinship for animals that he never felt for people... more» Whither expertise? Public discourse is awash in ideologically motivated misinformation. The blame falls upon scholars who can’t speak beyond their narrow disciplines... more» By day, Stephen Griffiths pursued his doctorate in homicide studies, writing a dissertation on 19th-century methods of murder. By night, he employed 14th-century tactics on his victims... more» “We like to think that we live in a violent time. But violence has declined every millennium, every century, every decade,” says Stewart Brand. “The reduction in cruelty is astounding”... more» The 21 million students enrolled in American colleges are pursuing an education that many of them can’t afford, don’t need, and won’t finish. Louis Menand explains... more» “I’ve spent most of my life hyped-up, doped-up, or drunk,” says Larry Flynt, who has now turned a somewhat more sober gaze to the sex lives of American presidents... more»... more» Bernard-Henri Lévy, moral philosopher and vain gadfly, has taken many admirable stands – on Communism, Bosnia, Darfur. So why is this well-coiffed adventure seeker so hated?... more» World War II revisionism – Churchill as war criminal, Allied bombers as terrorists – is often crude, but not without value. It adds complexity to our view of the past. Adam Kirsch explains... more» Harvard has lost faith in itself. Tradition has been abandoned, says Harvey Mansfield, and all that remains is prestige. Harvard will hold on to that, because somehow “it can be used to deflate its pretensions”... more» Primo Levi has been placed in a box labeled “Holocaust writer,” but his humanism and moral clarity resonate everywhere people are not free... more» Forgive everybody everything. So say the self-help gurus. Maybe they’re right. But should forgiveness be reduced to something passive and empty, a sanctimonious way of simply moving on?... more» Literature and law. At the Supreme Court, Hemingway and Wittgenstein loom large. Not so the scribblings of legal scholars, which are of no use and no interest to Chief Justice Roberts... more» To some, the tension between security and privacy melts away with a simple retort: “I’ve got nothing to hide.” But it isn’t true. Even upstanding Arts & Letters Daily readers have things to conceal... more» Word processors were going to liberate us from paperwork: “Machines should work, people should think.” But neither ideal is often enough the case. Now what?... more» Chess and sex. At 19, Bobby Fischer lost his virginity at a brothel. Asked how it went, Fischer replied: “Chess is better.” Monomania marked his path from prodigy to pariah... more» You know that Shakespeare was a word-coining genius who revolutionized the language – and the world. Did you know that he’s also responsible for the scourge of starlings in America?... more» There are perhaps more meaningful takeaways from David Mamet’s political journey from left to right. But here’s one: Do not suggest trimming the man’s lofty hedges... more» It’s tempting to dismiss Stanley Fish as a media-savvy provocateur. But his contrarianism has served a purpose: tempering the utopianism of his theory-addled colleagues... more» What would Odysseus do? Faced with temptation, resistance is futile; willpower is no match for our rapacious appetites. We must tie ourselves to the mast of our best intentions... more» The satirical economist. John Kenneth Galbraith delighted in mockery. No sacred tenet was safe from his ridicule. But a sneer isn’t an idea... more» Edward Tufte wrangles sprawling data into elegant and restrained stories. He is the da Vinci of our information-drenched, hyperactively quantitative culture... more» Malcolm X had a complicated relationship with his own image. He adopted a dozen aliases, and he cultivated an identity at sharp odds with the facts of his life... more» Raised in relative poverty, Geoff Dyer continues to live with little money and no sense of sacrifice – “a valuable skill, almost a privilege, for anyone wishing to become a writer”... more» To Christopher Hitchens, the vocal cord is more than a piece of gristle. His voice – biting, provocative, enlightening – is his identity. Now it’s gone... more» The quest for truth requires a critical edge, sharpened by lies, hedges, and evasions. Truthfulness, says Julian Baggini, is largely a matter of deciding what to withhold... more» Friendly self-censorship. Orwell derided Stephen Spender’s politics. Then they became friends. “I shall never again be able to show any intellectual brutality towards him, even when I ought to”... more» “This war is trivial,” said Bertrand Russell in 1918. “No great principle is at stake, no great human purpose is involved.” Jailed, he joined the largest group of political prisoners ever in a Western democracy... more» Junot Díaz is a connoisseur of catastrophe: Haiti, post-Katrina New Orleans, Fukushima. In the wreckage, he finds revelation. “Sometimes we have to look in the ruins for hope”... more» Yale University intends to prove something incredible: That a liberal-arts college can flourish in an illiberal society, and that academic freedom can survive where freedom of speech does not...more» Sam Harris has faith that his fellow scientists are paragons of moral insight and circumspection. If so, says Jackson Lears, Harris’s arrogance and ignorance make him an outlier... more» £5 a poem. That’s the price that Ted Hughes set in the early 60s when he began hawking his manuscripts – the ones that Sylvia Plath didn’t set on fire in their garden... more» “In a way, I consider myself a utopian,” Daniel Bell said. “I believe more and more that if we can have utopian movements we’ll do better than if we have messianic movements“... more» Sure, flogging is barbaric, retrograde, and ugly, but if you were sentenced to five years in prison and had the option of receiving lashes instead, which would you choose?... more» The puzzle of poverty. Oucha Mbarbk lives in Morocco without enough work, money, or food, but with a television, DVD player, and cellphone. “Television is more important than food!”... more» The student-loan market has $800-billion in debt, a lot of borrowers in default, and the federal government on the hook. How’s that for a big bubble?... more» “Contrarian” doesn’t do justice to Christopher Hitchens’s talent for merciless barbs: “If you gave Jerry Falwell an enema, he’d be buried in a matchbox”... more» How to account for the tedious mannerisms, digressions, and arbitrary promulgations that pervade Harold Bloom’s prose? “I refuse to be edited.” Ah, that explains it... more» The gospel of Grayling. The philosopher says that he refashioned a 2000-year-old repository of moral thought in a spirit of “great humility.” Brendan O’Neill sees a different spirit at work: tyrannical hubris... more» Scholars secluded in disciplinary silos can’t begin to understand social change. The result is bad social science. The cure, says Francis Fukuyama, is to train a new generation of Samuel Huntingtons... more» Biblionecrophilia: The conversation about print’s demise has been consumed by nostalgia. As if Amazon will forgo e-profits after recalling the tactile thrill of curling up with a musty paperback... more» Graffiti culture was once proudly anti-corporate. “There is no room for empathy when there is a motive for profit,” declared one prominent street artist. Then Levi’s came calling. more» Politics and dirty hands. Are intellectuals who dealt with Qaddafi tainted? Perhaps. Are they chastened? Probably not. They’re too busy cozying up to Beijing... more» God is not a feminist. You think otherwise? Eve is a disobedient, dangerous temptress. And the women of the New Testament, well, they’re either prostitutes or virgins. Take your pick, ladies... more» When the Civil War began, the literati – Whitman, Emerson, Dickinson, Melville – erupted in support of the Union cause. But patriotic fervor soon gave way to skepticism, confusion, and moral ambivalence... more» Insomnia can cause irritability, irrationality, and irascibility – also megalomania. Emmanuel Levinas found it the ideal state of mind for philosophical reflection... more» “I would decriminalize drugs in a heartbeat,” says David Simon. “Take all the incarceration money, all the enforcement money, and hurl it as fast as you can at drug-treatment and jobs programs”... more» With rare exceptions, college students are not visionary thinkers. And they never will be. So why should they bother with physics, calculus, or literature? Let them study something useful: entrepreneurship... more» Murder and despotism, the legacy of Marxism? Terry Eagleton wants to correct the record. “Marx is no more responsible for the oppression of communism than Jesus is responsible for the Inquisition”... more» Shortly after Oklahoma! opened to raves on Broadway, Oscar Hammerstein placed an ad in Variety listing five previous flops. He wrote: “I’ve Done It Before and I Can Do It Again!”... more» Congratulations! Your richly imagined novel – or memoir, or vampire trilogy – is about to be published. But here’s some tough love: Don’t expect glory, or even respect. You’ll get none... more» Don’t let sepia-tinted nostalgia blind you: Baseball ain’t just fathers, sons, flyballs, and Cracker Jack. America’s most literary sport is also its most venal... more» Gourmand or glutton? The former is a high-minded soul in search of foodie transcendence, the latter a weak-willed sinner. Or maybe the distinction is simply this: money... more» Neuroscience revolves around one big idea: You don’t control most of what you do, think, and feel. Your brain calls the shots. Therein lie the seeds of a legal revolution... more» In January, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stepped down as president of Brazil. By any measure, says Perry Anderson, Lula is the most successful politician of his time... more» Introducing the Norton Anthology of Paperwork: Tissue-thin pages of boilerplate, letterhead, fill-in-the-blank forms, and an annotated history of that most poetic instruction, “last name, first”... more» The idea of the “other” – foreign, menacing – is catnip for scholars of violence, says Russell Jacoby. He takes another view: Wars more often pit brother against brother... more» One of David Foster Wallace’s final acts was to leave the manuscript pages of a novel where his wife would find them. The Pale King, like Wallace’s life, feels unfinished, unresolved... more»... more» |
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