Capitalism’s Paradox
Why prosperity breeds guilt, how status incentives reward critique, and what happens when function is replaced by moral performance.
Sarah Wooten
· 5 min read
Reader Favourites
A collection of 111 posts
The Uninvited Sermon
Why artists, academics and others should not exploit the presence of a captive audience.
Holly Lawford-Smith
· 8 min read
The Arabs’ Anti-Colonial Delusion
The Arabs still believe that they are fighting a colonial war against Israel. But they are not.
Hannes Stein
· 6 min read
Editors’ Choice 2025
Quillette’s editors choose their favourite essays of the year.
The Quillette Editorial Board
· 10 min read
The Sexual Paradise That Never Was
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.
Patrick Whittle
· 19 min read
Tech Wants You to Believe that AI Is Conscious
Tech companies stand to benefit from widespread public misperceptions that AI is sentient despite a dearth of scientific evidence.
Nadav Neuman
· 8 min read
We Need to Talk About Trans-Identified Killers
The Westman school massacre, explained.
Forest Romm, Kevin Waldman, Zoe Sankey
· 6 min read
They Don’t Believe It Either
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.
Maarten Boudry
· 13 min read
An Uneasy Peace
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.
Benny Morris
· 15 min read
The Problem with Alt. Media
What the Hughes/Smith debate tells us about the podcast era.
Matt Johnson
· 14 min read
The Melbourne Crimewave
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.
Andrew Bushnell
· 10 min read
The Genocide Libel
A new report from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies separates verifiable facts from politically motivated fiction in Gaza.
Andrew Fox
· 24 min read
The Masses and the Market
If liberalism is to recover it must find a way to create the conditions for a better future.
Joel Kotkin
· 11 min read
The Post-Kirk Clampdown
The current frenzy of right-wing cancel culture recalls the progressive lunacy that followed the murder of George Floyd. But the current iteration is more dangerous because it is backed by state power.
Patrick Frey
· 22 min read
Brainrot, Not Ideology
The assassination of Charlie Kirk shows how Discord, memes, and “online brainrot” may motivate disaffected youth more than ideology.
Claire Lehmann
· 6 min read