A collection of 98 posts
Middlebrow movies weren’t just two-hour escape pods, they functioned as a civic glue, a source of shared language, cross-generational references, and indeed, contemporary American myth.
Press-led hysteria and institutional cowardice are inflicting needless damage on higher education.
Why prosperity breeds guilt, how status incentives reward critique, and what happens when function is replaced by moral performance.
Why artists, academics and others should not exploit the presence of a captive audience.
The Arabs still believe that they are fighting a colonial war against Israel. But they are not.
Quillette’s editors choose their favourite essays of the year.
How Margaret Mead’s romanticised account of Samoan life became the founding myth of cultural determinism—and why it endures despite having been thoroughly debunked.
Tech companies stand to benefit from widespread public misperceptions that AI is sentient despite a dearth of scientific evidence.
The Westman school massacre, explained.
The “Gaza genocide” calumny has become the Left’s equivalent of the “stolen election” hoax on the American Right—a baseless accusation that signals ideological allegiance precisely because it defies logic and evidence.
Trump’s peace plan brings the hostages home and halts fighting in Gaza, but Hamas’s refusal to disarm and Israeli concerns about Palestinian statehood threaten the deal’s long-term survival.
What the Hughes/Smith debate tells us about the podcast era.
Criminal-justice reformers like to say that it is better to be ‘smart on crime’ than ‘tough on crime.’ But sometimes being tough is the smart choice.
A new report from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies separates verifiable facts from politically motivated fiction in Gaza.
If liberalism is to recover it must find a way to create the conditions for a better future.