My new post is an essay by David Brooks that provides one of the best analyses I've read about the Trump victory. It appeared right after the election in the New York Times. Here's a link to the original. It explores some of the themes that I developed in my slide-show post 10 days ago. Voters … Continue reading David Brooks: Voters to Elites — Do You See Me Now?
This post is about how the last election can be understood as a rebuke to America's leaders in the Democratic Party. As David Brooks put it in the headline of his first column after the election: Voters to Elites: Can You See Me Now? I want to explore this issue at two levels, arguing that: … Continue reading Voters Give a Big Thumbs Down to America’s Leaders
This post is a smart and timely essay by Johann Neem, which was recently published in The Hedgehog Review. Here's a link to the original. As we wait for the Supreme Court to issue its ruling on the Harvard admissions case, it's a good time to think about how elite universities manage the makeup of … Continue reading Johann Neem — The Model Minority Might Be Too Good at the Game
This post is a recent essay by Eric Levitz, which was published in New York Magazine in October. Here's a link to the original. He explores an issue that has been a major concern of mine in recent years, the role that higher education has had in exacerbating political divisions in the US and elsewhere in … Continue reading Eric Levitz — The Diploma Divide
This post is about an overlooked classic of American literature, which I stumbled upon by accident through an old essay by Tom Cox. It's the debut novel by Evans Connell, Mrs. Bridge, which was published in 1959. It's unlike anything I've ever read. The sheer simplicity of Connell's prose is paralleled by the simplicity of … Continue reading Mrs. Bridge — On the Quiet Desperation of Ordinary Life
This post is a reflection on Dutch philosopher Johann Huizinga's classic 1955 work, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. In this stunning book, Huizinga argues that play is central to civilization, that in fact it precedes and forms the basis for human culture. At the start, of course, he needs to define … Continue reading Johan Huizinga on the Centrality of Play
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
