The Ape in the Basement
Why is masturbation so shameful?
Robert Lynch
· 13 min read
Richard Landes on Jihad and the Apocalyptic Mind
A medievalist on apocalyptic movements, shame–honour cultures, and why he believes the Western press has spent twenty-five years reporting jihad backwards.
Pamela Paresky, Richard Landes
· 47 min read
Our Foreign Aid System Is Broken. Thanks to Trump, We Have a Chance to Rebuild It
During my three-decade career as a diplomat and international-development manager, I saw the sector become more wasteful, frivolous, and ideologically self-serving.
Mark McDowell
· 12 min read
The Real End of the Arab–Israeli Conflict?
The strategic case for Syria–Israel normalisation.
Aurele Tobelem
· 8 min read
Israel's Most Consequential Election
Israelis go to the polls on 27 October. After seventeen years of Netanyahu, former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot is in the lead.
Benny Morris
· 15 min read
Bad Criticism
Name-calling, guilt-by-association, and other unscrupulous methods of argument are polluting our discourse.
Rosalind Arden
· 11 min read
A Bright September Day
Reflections on a morning that changed the world as we knew it.
Jesse Inman
· 6 min read
The Retro Fashion of the Wealth Tax
Every few decades, the ideas with the worst track records come back into style.
Kristian Niemietz
· 8 min read
Antizionist City
A community that embraces a set of shared beliefs is not necessarily a bad thing, but the value of solidarity depends entirely on the merits of the cause in question.
Brian Stewart
· 7 min read
This Is the Way the World Ends
Sex is declining because the options seem endless. This is counter-intuitive, but biologically it makes sense.
Robert King
· 17 min read
Measuring the Economic Cost of Affirmative Action in Academia
A new report on the Canada Research Chairs program analyses the reduced standards applied to scholars belonging to ‘equity groups.’
Jonathan Kay
· 8 min read
Literary Studies Without the Literature
English departments are increasingly ignoring the great works of the past, in favour of popular literary works that reflect activist themes and nonliterary works of political and social theory.
Gary Saul Morson
· 6 min read
Last Man Standing
Francis Fukuyama’s new memoir assesses an intellectual life devoted to the health of the liberal-democratic idea.
Matt Johnson
· 12 min read
The Learning Crisis Begins Before the Classroom
Differences in height between men and women—a biomarker of stressor exposure in childhood—suggest that poor early health and nutrition constrain what children are achieving at school.
David C. Geary, Lewis G. Halsey
· 5 min read