Top Ten of 2020
As 2020 comes to a close, we’re proud to present our top-ten most-read print essays of the year, listed below in reverse order. The topics…
Issue 23
The annotated table of contents below offers a sneak peek at what’s in issue 23. To get the issue delivered straight to your door, subscribe now.…
On Integration
Not only was Cruse dubious about the plausibility of eradicating prejudice from the souls of whites, but he believed that such a project—inevitably focused on…
On Birthrights
Whatever one thinks about the moral status of the existing global order, it is hard to imagine circumstances in which philosophical critique would make a…
Irrepressible Conflict
After his swearing-in on January 20th, President Joseph R. Biden uttered a startling word not heard in an inaugural address since Abraham Lincoln took the…
Escaping the Dire Hose
A few years ago I spoke with Alan Jacobs about his book, The Year of Our Lord, 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis. A…
American Nightmares
In the most basic sense, when we first confront powerful images we say that we are out of words, right? All of a sudden we…
Limited Time
INTRODUCTION The subtitle of Martin Hägglund’s new book, This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom, indicates its ambition. In the first half of This Life,…
“Don’t You Kneel”
WHEN THE EDITORS of this magazine began to talk about how to address this summer’s uprisings—hundreds of thousands taking to the streets in hundreds of American cities…
Working with the Earth
This fall and winter we invited people who work with the land—farmers, ranchers, foresters, ecologists and others—to tell us what they think the earth is…
Intellectuals in Crisis
Intellectual Ex-Radicals and World Reaction: The Crisis of the Disillusioned Fellow-Travelers of Bolshevism Is Not the Same as a “Crisis of Marxism” (Trotsky 1939) The Intellectual:…
Muellerisms
The following is a collection of statements published in the New York Times about Robert S. Mueller, from 2001 to today.
Comedy Studies
The following are actual titles of papers published in peer-reviewed academic journals.
The Crisis of Language Project
alt right: i) right-wing racists who use leftist rhetoric. ii) establishment.
The (Updated) Dictionary of Received Ideas
Classics, the: force of oppression. Know enough to despise ~: “Plato was an authoritarian.” “Aristotle condoned slavery.”
The Revolution Will Be Telegrammed
Hong Kong is again in the news with Beijing seeking to pass anti-dissent national security laws; crucially, it plans to do so via the National…
Simple Hearts
Much of what Dave taught me had to do with the sympathy and intelligence he applied to varieties of experience that that were alien to…
Difficult Characters
The following is an excerpt from “Mona,” a newly translated novel by the Argentinian writer Pola Oloixarac. This excerpt will be published in our spring…
Foreword
Pola Oloixarac is a bitch. I’m certainly not the first to make this observation—Oloixarac’s satirical fiction and pugnacious political journalism have earned her more than…
Little Things Are Big Again
Integrated love didn’t have to bear the weight of such a grim outlook. He’d try, and I’d try, and together we might create something immersive,…
The Life of the Mind
By some indicators we are entering a new Dark Age: anti-intellectual fervor is raging, suspicion of experts is at an all-time high and appeals to…
Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America arrives at an auspicious time. The French sociologist came initially to America to prepare a report on criminal justice,…
Back to Real Life
This is the first column in the fourth round of Reading Room, a collective column on reading and life. In each round, the contributors respond…
Restless Minds
This is the third column in the third round of Reading Room, a collective column on reading and life. In each round, the contributors respond to a prompt…
Guilt Lit
This is the second column in the third round of Reading Room, a collective column on reading and life. In each round, the contributors respond to…