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Getting Rid of Bar Exams Won’t Help Anyone

Published by Max Hyams

For years, affirmative-action proponents have urged colleges and universities to reduce (or eliminate) their reliance on standardized tests as a basis for admission. The COVID-19 pandemic has opened up...

August 8, 2020

Crime, Diversity, Law, Top Stories

At a Time Like This, the West Could Use Its Own Vladimir Voinovich

Published by Cathy Young

Two years ago, the world lost a great Russian novelist and essayist whose eye for the surreal would have made him a perfect witness to the current moment—and whose...

August 7, 2020

Books, Top Stories

Lord Over All: Alexander the Great’s Conquered World of Priests and Pagans

Published by F.S. Naiden

Alexander’s Europe emerged from a cataclysm. For many millions of years, North Africa’s Atlas Mountains had reached north across what later became the Strait of Gibraltar and merged with...

August 5, 2020

Books, Top Stories

Cancel Culture and the Republican Concept of Liberty

Published by Chang Che

In June, an opinion piece published in the New York Times by Senator Tom Cotton arguing for federal troops to rein in the protests in Minneapolis sparked a political...

August 5, 2020

At the NHS and BBC, Important Steps Toward Restoring Balance in the Gender Debate

Published by Julian Vigo

In recent months, a sense has emerged that the tide might finally be starting to turn in the gender debate: Things that most everyone believes to be true, but...

August 5, 2020

Activism, Culture Wars, Diversity, Diversity Debate, Feminism, Free Speech, Health, Identity, Language, Politics, Sex, Social Media, Top Stories, Women

The Woke Left v. the Alt-Right: A New Study Shows They’re More Alike Than Either Side Realizes

Published by Zaid Jilani

A common criticism of the ultra-progressive Left is that its culture warriors now resemble the right-wing ideological enforcers of yore, excommunicating those deemed to have sinned or performed heresies....

August 3, 2020

Culture Wars, Free Speech, Top Stories

What Computer-Generated Language Tells Us About Our Own Ideological Thinking

Published by Cameron Harwick

Earlier this year, the San Francisco-based artificial-intelligence research laboratory OpenAI built GPT-3, a 175-billion-parameter text generator. Compared to its predecessor—the humorously dissociative GPT-2, which had been trained on a...

August 3, 2020

AI Debate, Identity, Science, Science / Tech, Tech, Top Stories

My Life Pouring Concrete

Published by Michael Humeniuk

The ritual was to arrive at work half an hour early, so I could gradually wake up in the car listening to the radio, drinking coffee, and eating doughnuts....

August 2, 2020

Nonfiction, Top Stories

August 10, 2020

How to Fight the Enemies of Academic Freedom

According to a 2019 Cato Institute study, 75 percent of immigrants who are American citizens are very proud to...

by Sergiu Klainerman

August 8, 2020

George Orwell and the Struggle against Inevitable Bias

In the bleak post-war Britain of October 1945, an essay by George Orwell appeared in the first edition of...

by Adam Wakeling

August 8, 2020

Getting Rid of Bar Exams Won’t Help Anyone

For years, affirmative-action proponents have urged colleges and universities to reduce (or eliminate) their reliance on standardized tests as...

by Max Hyams

August 5, 2020

At the NHS and BBC, Important Steps Toward Restoring Balance in the Gender Debate

In recent months, a sense has emerged that the tide might finally be starting to turn in the gender...

by Julian Vigo

August 3, 2020

The Woke Left v. the Alt-Right: A New Study Shows They’re More Alike Than Either...

A common criticism of the ultra-progressive Left is that its culture warriors now resemble the right-wing ideological enforcers of...

by Zaid Jilani

August 3, 2020

What Computer-Generated Language Tells Us About Our Own Ideological Thinking

Earlier this year, the San Francisco-based artificial-intelligence research laboratory OpenAI built GPT-3, a 175-billion-parameter text generator. Compared to its...

by Cameron Harwick

August 1, 2020

The Futility of the Conservative War on Pornography

As we head into a tumultuous US election season, it is worth remembering that political parties can get trapped...

by Christopher J. Ferguson

August 1, 2020

Twilight of Democracy—A Review

A review of Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum, Doubleday (July 2020), 224 pages. Historian and journalist Anne Applebaum’s...

by John Lloyd

August 1, 2020

The Piety of the Impious

Writing with not a little insight, commentators have observed a deeply intriguing dimension to the protests currently convulsing the...

by Scott Buchanan

July 31, 2020

Journalism’s Death by a Thousand Tweets

Upon further reflection, it’s clear that the broken system is ad-driven media on the Internet. It simply doesn’t serve...

by Thomas Moller-Nielsen

July 31, 2020

Lessons from the Last Empire of Iran

By the mid-620s, the Persian king Khusro II had conquered most of the Eastern Roman Empire. A final push...

by Michael Bonner

July 29, 2020

Our Oppressive Moment

As one of the signatories to the much-discussed “Open Letter” in Harper’s magazine, I’ve been bemused by the objection...

by John McWhorter

July 29, 2020

I Was Invited to Testify on Energy Policy. Then Democrats Didn’t Let Me Speak

Today, shortly after giving expert testimony to Congress about energy policy, I had the startling experience of being smeared...

by Michael Shellenberger

July 29, 2020

Understanding Totalitarianism

In recent years, amid concern about a possible resurgence of totalitarianism, a number of books and articles have appeared...

by Brent Holley

July 29, 2020

Cultural Revolution in the Renaissance?

It is a striking feature of our historical moment that vast numbers of cultural institutions, universities and professional associations...

by James Hankins

July 27, 2020

The Myth of Pervasive Misogyny

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. ~Timothy Leary Many feminists and progressives argue that the...

by Cory Clark and Bo Winegard

July 27, 2020

Remembering Cancel Culture’s 40-Year-Old Stepfather

The worst-case scenario for a film that falls afoul of the morality police is that its release is scrapped...

by Adrian Nguyen

July 27, 2020

Princeton University is One of the Least Racist Institutions in the World

Reflecting on recent events in Princeton starting with the July 4th “Faculty Letter” to the president, Professor Joshua Katz’s...

by Sergiu Klainerman

July 26, 2020

Humanity’s Great Urban Adventure Didn’t Begin With Greece and Rome

The spectacular story of the growth and withering away of ancient Mediterranean urbanism is often drowned out by the...

by Greg Woolf

July 24, 2020

Of Heroic Deeds and Hysterical Masses

Perpetual progress is no more possible than perpetual motion, an axiom unwittingly vindicated by the benighted throngs that currently...

by David A. Eisenberg

July 23, 2020

Why Have So Many American Conservatives Embraced COVID-19 Pseudoscience?

With almost 150,000 COVID-19 deaths, the United States, putative leader of the free world, now is competing with Brazil...

by Nidra Poller

July 20, 2020

Denunciation Staged as ‘Dialogue’: A Review of Claudia Rankine’s &...

On March 10th, just days before the lockdown would shut down the theater business in New York City (and...

by Nick Comilla

July 17, 2020

In Canada’s Version of Portland, Cancel Culture Comes for ‘Steve-O-Reno’...

Last year, writer Nancy Rommelmann wrote a widely shared Quillette article entitled “The Internet Locusts Descend on Ristretto Roasters,”...

by Jonathan Kay

July 16, 2020

As Statues Fall, What’s the Best Way to Evaluate History’s Heroes?

The United States is in the midst of an orgy of literal iconoclasm, with activists and local officials toppling...

by Steven D. Hales

Bad Vibrations: The Lies Universities Tell Their Students about Sex

Published by Samantha Harris and Michael Thad Allen

Universities today bombard students with two contradictory messages about sex, effectively encouraging them to carry a dildo in their pocket, while lugging a fainting couch behind them. On the...

June 17, 2020

Education, Recommended, Sex

Woody Allen’s ‘Apropos of Nothing’—A Review

Published by David Evanier

A Review of Apropos of Nothing by Woody Allen, Arcade Publishing (March 2020) 400 pages Rolling Stone has pronounced Woody Allen’s new memoir, Apropos of Nothing, “horrendously ugly.” The...

April 21, 2020

Books, Recommended, Review

The Coming Age of Dispersion

Published by Joel Kotkin

As of this writing, the long-term effects of the coronavirus pandemic remain uncertain. But one possible consequence is an acceleration of the end of the megacity era. In its...

March 25, 2020

COVID-19, Economics, Health, Politics, Recommended