This post is a new piece by David Brooks, recently published online at Atlantic. Here's a link to the original. He's writing about the way the meritocratic elite -- grounded in exclusive educational credentials -- has upended the American class structure. The class structure of Western society has gotten scrambled over the past few decades. … Continue reading David Brooks: How the Meritocrats Broke America
This post is a piece by Francis Fukuyama published February 8 in American Purpose. Here's a link to the original. What I particularly like about this brief analysis is the way he uses his own experience trying to work with an engineering design and manufacturing software to throw light on the recent invasion of the … Continue reading Online Gaming Is Teaching Us that We Live in a World Without Constraints
This post is a lovely essay by Michael Lind, which was recently published in Tablet magazine. Here's a link to the original. In this piece, Lind provides a rich analysis of the history of the American elite. The key to this story is that the elite used to be plural -- a set of local … Continue reading Michael Lind — The New American Elite
This post is a transcription of a piece by Sam Harris, published in his podcast Making Sense on the day before the election. It's the most stunning analysis I have seen about the key to Trump's appeal. I've seen some good things about the way he has tapped into the resentments of middle and working … Continue reading Harris — The Key to Trump’s Appeal
This is a lovely essay by Clare Coffey from the summer issue of Hedgehog Review. In it she explores the extremes in contemporary American life through the medium of two recent books: those who have been shunted aside in the knowledge economy and destined to deaths of despair, and those who occupy the flashiest reaches … Continue reading Clare Coffey — Closing Time: We’re All Counting Bodies
This post is a commentary on Colin Woodard's book American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Woodard argues that the United States is not a single national culture but a collection of national cultures, each with its own geographic base. The core insight for this analytical approach comes from … Continue reading Colin Woodard: Maps that Show the Historical Roots of Current US Political Faultlines
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 