The Faith of Systemic Racism
The radicals, always livid, always demanding more, insist that all this is window dressing. A sham.
Peter Savodnik
· 7 min read
Art and Culture
A collection of 747 posts
Interview with Slavenka Drakulić—the East-West Doyenne of the 1990s
Living under a totalitarian regime one knows censorship in and out. One can smell it from far away and I smell it in this terror of political correctness—or, if we turn it around, in the danger of expressing different, unpopular views.
Robin Ashenden
· 13 min read
The Accomplishments of Black Conservative Thought
As a black conservative man, I will add one final note. None of the points made in this essay—about the over-hyping of victimhood in modern America or the cultural issues in working-class black and white communities—is meant to imply that racism does not exist.
Wilfred Reilly
· 7 min read
A Toast to Randolph Bourne
There is much we can learn from Bourne, not only from his joie-de-vivre, his ideas about cultural diversity and disability, but perhaps most of all, from his toughness, his willingness to criticize associates.
Russell Jacoby
· 7 min read
Historical Racism Is Not the Singular Cause of Racial Disparity
The popular vision of race in America seems to be incapable of breaking the gridlock that places the fate of black Americans in the hands of white society and then condemns that society to the wasteland of history.
Samuel Kronen
· 26 min read
The Strange Rehabilitation of the Black Panther Party
Isn’t it a little late for the rehabilitation of the Black Panther Party (BPP)? After all, the organization that first caught the public’s attention in 1969 was already in its death throes by the early 1970s, beset by internal splits, criminal prosecutions, and violent faction-fighting. Yet, five decades
Ronald Radosh
· 18 min read
Huxley, Burroughs, and the Church of Scientology
Like it or not, hidden within those influential texts are the bizarre jargon and lunatic assertions of a mendacious madman.
David S. Wills
· 13 min read
Blessed Are the Sense-Makers
Years from now, if anyone looks at a line graph (in the OED or Google dictionary) tracking the frequency with which a word is mentioned in print, they may notice the current affinity for the word “narrative.” An already overworked word (by virtue of its abstractness), it is now almost
Jared Marcel Pollen
· 11 min read
A Conversation with Daniel Elder, the Choral Music Composer Who Was Cancelled for Opposing Arson
If you’re willing to endure the painful trial of self, you will be better for it in the end. And, with enough of us, the world will be better, too.
Quillette
· 9 min read
The Purposeless Society
Without faith or nation, there is no greater whole beyond the individual.
Sam Ashworth-Hayes
· 9 min read
To Skate—Perchance to Soar
Skateboarding is simple and complex, pointless and transformational.
Damian Platt
· 16 min read
Death of an Old-Fashioned Clown: An Obituary of Fred Willard
Fred Willard was a kind of Holy Fool even among fools.
Simon Evans
· 7 min read
As Common Sense Returns to the Gender Debate, Radicals Set Upon Their Own Allies
The entire argument was about whether one particular trans ally had become too famous at the expense of more worthy and authentic competitors.
Jonathan Kay
· 12 min read
The Purpose of Imaginative Fiction
“What’s it about?” is usually the first question we ask when someone recommends a new book, and it’s the wrong question.
Elena Shalneva
· 9 min read
COVID-19 Betrays America’s Curdled Cult of Optimism
A philosophy of optimism was central to the flourishing of the American project. But it’s also useful to consider whether insisting that success and greatness lie around every corner can become a maladaptive response to problems that are complex and brutal.
Daphne Merkin
· 5 min read