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
Top Stories
A collection of 1204 posts
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
COVID-19 Is Not the End of 'The End of History'
As COVID-19 suffocates the global economy, borders remain closed, and tensions mount between EU countries, the US and China, etc., Fukuyama’s critics are taking the opportunity to dismiss the “The End of History?” while ignoring its basic premises.
Matt Johnson
· 13 min read
COVID-19's Gender Gap
This negative narrative around men risks exacerbating the gender empathy gap, part of a wider unconscious bias against men, recently identified as an aspect of gamma bias.
John Barry
· 5 min read
Easy Rider: 50 Years Looking for America—A Review
Bingen is right about one thing, though: Easy Rider really is an important movie—much more important than a simple measure of its quality would suggest—which is probably why the American Film Institute, among others, continues to rate it so highly.
Graham Daseler
· 14 min read
Long-Distance Love during Lockdown
Love, it turns out, remains an enduring mystery.
Marilyn Simon
· 7 min read
Candace Owens Is Dangerously Misinformed about Vaccines
Ever wonder why a man that builds computers, both predicted the pandemic two months before it happened, is suddenly featured on the news every day instilling fear into hearts of Americans, and is now demanding that nothing be reopened until vaccines are mandated?
Matt Johnson
· 9 min read
Nineteen of the Loneliest Films Ever Made
Some of them are stylish pop art or lowbrow trash—depending on how initiated you are with their appeal. But they will also make you cry or simply stare at the screen with a detached jaw as you begin to rethink their implications behind your sterilized walls.
Art Tavana
· 12 min read
Viral Politics
The lockdowns have impacted different classes differently.
Joel Kotkin
· 11 min read
Lessons in Death and Life from the Diaries of Samuel Pepys
In Pepys’s time a scarlet cross on the door denoted an infected household and sentinels stood guard outside to keep people inside.
Colin Fleming
· 8 min read
Board-gaming in the Age of Isolation
In normal times, when we’re not all inside waiting out a pandemic, physical self-isolation can be both a symptom and cause of depression and alienation.
Jonathan Kay
· 10 min read
Rethinking Human Ecology in the Age of COVID-19: Lessons from a Fish Market
Twelve of the viruses that Geoghegan and her co-authors detected are potentially novel strains.
Jonathan Kay
· 13 min read
Searching for a COVID-19 Test in America
Most people were now wearing masks, and a few were obviously nervous about inadvertently drifting too close.
Diana Lambert
· 16 min read
Moral Injury and the Battle against COVID-19
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has become the public face of such anxiety disorders.
James Jeffrey
· 7 min read
Do COVID-19 Racial Disparities Matter?
If anyone bothers to look, there will probably be disparities between Catholics and Protestants.
Coleman Hughes
· 5 min read