Not Dark Yet
In ‘Twilight of Democracy,’ Applebaum offers an overly pessimistic account of Western conservatism’s populist turn.
John Lloyd
· 13 min read
Top Stories
A collection of 1205 posts
The Piety of the Impious
The largely ineradicable character of the religious instinct means that it persists, even upon the apparently disenchanted landscapes of modern secular culture.
Scott Buchanan
· 9 min read
Journalism's Death by a Thousand Tweets
Perhaps journalists don’t in fact like using Twitter any more than the average person, and their heavy use of the platform is simply a reflection of professional pressure coupled with its highly addictive nature.
Thomas Moller-Nielsen
· 12 min read
Lessons from the Last Empire of Iran
Despite the uncertainties and tensions that characterize modern political life, we would do well to remember that the future we want is never the future we actually get, and that civilisation will outlast the fragility of politics.
Michael Bonner
· 11 min read
Our Oppressive Moment
The Harper’s letter is a declaration intended to resist the poisonous atmosphere suffocating those who don’t enjoy our platforms and profiles.
John McWhorter
· 7 min read
I Was Invited to Testify on Energy Policy. Then Democrats Didn't Let Me Speak
What, exactly, had I said that was so dangerous as to lead Democrats to engage in character assassination and undermine liberal democratic norms? Nothing I hadn’t already said last January when I testified before Congress about climate change and energy.
Michael Shellenberger
· 6 min read
Understanding Totalitarianism
Totalitarian regimes begin in mass movements, but it should be noted that not all mass movements are totalitarian. The American Civil Rights movement was a mass movement and undoubtedly a hugely positive force for urgently needed change.
Brent Holley
· 16 min read
Cultural Revolution in the Renaissance?
The problem with this picture of the Renaissance is not that it has no truth to it—it certainly has some—but that it is perversely unbalanced.
James Hankins
· 8 min read
The Myth of Pervasive Misogyny
Contrary to expectations from the pervasive misogyny theory, across a variety of topics, samples, and research teams, recent findings in psychology suggest that such biases often favor women.
Cory Clark, Bo Winegard
· 11 min read
Remembering Cancel Culture’s 40-Year-Old Stepfather
"Cruising" faced protests and boycotts from gay activists and the LGBTQ+ community, but later became a cult hit.
Adrian Nguyen
· 7 min read
Princeton University is One of the Least Racist Institutions in the World
In his declaration of independence published in Quillette, Katz, a chaired professor in the Classics department, defends the importance of free speech in academia and accuses the authors of the letter of trying to impose unreasonable changes at Princeton.
Sergiu Klainerman
· 6 min read
Humanity's Great Urban Adventure Didn't Begin With Greece and Rome
Even in the darkest period of economic and political collapse, the chain of urban societies that stretched across the Old World was never broken.
Greg Woolf
· 8 min read
Of Heroic Deeds and Hysterical Masses
Much of today’s madness results from the failure to impart that lesson, a failure in which those ostensible repositories of enlightenment (the nation’s institutions of higher learning), obstinately committed to inflaming self-pity and self-importance, are indisputably and indefensibly complicit.
David A. Eisenberg
· 8 min read
Remembering Reinaldo Arenas and His Enduring Lessons on Repression, Torment, and Exile
All in all, more than 130,000 set sail on rafts and boats made of rotten wood, house doors, truck tires, and anything else that could float.
Jorge C. Carrasco
· 7 min read
COVID-19 Will (Finally) Force American Universities to Reinvent Themselves
Polarization is baked into the current system, and no reform program will completely level the playing field.
Eric R. Terzuolo
· 6 min read