The Fallacy of Techno-Optimism
When the telegraph revolutionized communication in the 1850s, Henry David Thoreau was scornful. “We are in a great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas,” he wrote, “but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.” Thoreau, it turned out, was wrong, but his
Steve Bannon Is Wrong, But Not for the Reasons You Think
If you consume prestige media, then it is likely that you believe a number of things about Steve Bannon on faith. For instance, you might believe that Steve Bannon is a white nationalist and an Islamophobe. And you may well believe that he’s a fascist—perhaps even a Nazi.
Should the New York Times Hire a Radical?
If you find yourself in a room full of politically minded people and want to get everyone shouting quickly, start talking about the state of prestige-media opinion writing. Progressives and conservatives are both sure that their team is being systematically excluded from the op-ed pages of gatekeeper institutions like the
Does Paul Krugman Understand Intellectual Diversity?
Earlier this month, New York Times opinion columnist and Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote a striking column that criticized left-leaning publications that hire conservatives in the name of intellectual diversity. Krugman’s argument is simple: these efforts will fail because there aren’t any conservatives worth hiring. Kevin Williamson isn’
Is Political Diversity on the Op-Ed Page Worth Defending?
The Atlantic’s decision to fire the conservative columnist Kevin D. Williamson has occasioned an avalanche of think pieces, the latest of which is a Wall Street Journal article from Williamson in his own defence. All these commentaries swirl around the same question: Exactly how important is political diversity in
