Issue 47
Culture
At Persuasion, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Loukianoff write about the way in which businesses have been dragged into the culture war, and the reasons and ideas for resisting these developments.
In The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf writes about university administrators’ tendency to promote, if not impose, their own views as purported institutional responses to controversial events.
Also in The Atlantic, Graeme Wood examines the case for the ever more popular “land acknowledgments” and finds it entirely wanting.
At Wrong Side of History, Ed West compares the woke, and more broadly the young, to Victorians―earnest, abstaining from vice if not practising virtue, and insufferably censorious.
At Persuasion again, Adrian Wooldridge defends meritocracy against critics on the left and the right.
Politics
At EconLog, Bryan Caplan argues that politics is, above all, about cruelty:
“Cruelty is the main emotion that politicians pander to. And cruelty is what every politician strives to deliver. They don’t want to make everyone happy. They want to make their friends happy by making their enemies suffer.”
Regulation
At EconLog, Bryan Caplan examines the causes and likely consequences of the attacks on Big Tech as an alleged monopoly, including “[c]reating monopolies where none existed”.
History
On We the People, Kate Masur and Sean Wilentz discuss the Gettysburg Address.
On New Books in History, Mark Mazower discusses the Greek Revolution of the 1820s, and its repercussions for European and even world history.
Technology
The BBC’s Bernd Debusmann Jr reports about NASA’s long, costly, and not terribly successful quest to design modern spacesuits for its comeback to the moon. The private sector may finally get the job.
People Are Idiots
The BBC reports on an Italian ― a health worker, no less ― who turned up for a covid vaccination appointment with a silicone mold over his arm in the hope that the needle wouldn’t get to his actual body.
Sport
The BBC’s Andrew Benson has the obituary of the late Sir Frank Williams, the iconic founder of what used to be one of motorsports greatest teams.
Photography
The BBC has a selection of winning pictures from this year’s Historic Photographer Awards.
Music
Oscar Peterson and his quartet, “Requiem”