The conspiracy theorist’s dogmatism often distracts from the objects of his skepticism, and it is the latter that I believe are more revealing. The ideas or events that provoke his strongest doubts show us what he flees, what he trades away so many mental comforts to avoid. - Guernica
Let's be honest: "Assertions about our glorious history usually don’t quite check out—they tend to be based on misunderstandings, disputed or outdated scholarship, or outright fabrications long ago passed off as historical record. But that doesn’t stop people." - The Atlantic
The Middle Ages are a chimera, a fantasy, all but impossible to define or date, at least at a global level. The conventional chronological markers used to define them are deeply problematic. - History Today
Can we really justify the idea that some lives carry more ethical weight than others in general, and that human lives carry more ethical weight than nonhuman lives in particular? And even if so, does it follow that we should prioritise ourselves as much as we currently do? - Aeon
Whether or not you have a “future-oriented mindset” – in other words, how much money you save and how likely you are to invest in your education – can, he argues, be partly traced to what kinds of crops grew well in your ancestral homelands. - The Guardian
Though horribly abused and exploited by various New Age fads over the years, the old intuition still holds: vibrations reveal a lot about life, consciousness and the integrity of matter. - The Spectator
As many cities today grapple with unprecedented housing shortages and cost-of-living issues, the degree to which historic-preservation laws can function as a pretext for preventing change entirely is clearer than ever. - The Atlantic
January 6th was an extreme attack. But it was not a coup d’état. Because a coup d’état is not a demonstrative action, where you go around shouting obscenities and doing noisy things. It’s a thing where you have figured out the control levers of the system and how you can physically dominate them. - The Point
China's growing clout in global media extends beyond movies to the entertainment industry generally. Capital investments by U.S. firms in ventures such as the Shanghai Disney Resort and the Universal Beijing Resort give Chinese officials still more levers with which to control U.S. media conglomerates. - Journal of Democracy
One wood turner: "Well, you know, tradition is not just something in the past. It’s something that we’re making. ... I hope that I’m making things that 100 years from now people will say are traditional." - Slate
The legendary studio are hosting, live, the Davids - Italy's Oscars. "There are symbolic elements of various types: the Italian film community is back together in person at Cinecittà ... when we’ve managed to fill up the studios." Now Italian movies just need their audience back. - Variety
We are so quick to equate pessimism with passivity or fatalism or despair, and to reject it on that basis – for, of course, we do not want a philosophy that tells us to give up. But is that really what pessimism means? - Aeon
Children are sophisticated thinkers, more than capable of abstract thought. They’re creative too. Indeed, in some ways, kids make better philosophers than adults. They question things grown-ups take for granted. And they’re open to new ideas. We can learn a lot from listening to kids—and from thinking with them. - The Atlantic
Invoking Moses is easy shorthand for a legacy of racist urban planning—a shameful history but, like legal residential segregation, one many view as consigned to the past. The problem with this narrow obsession is that while Moses may be the paradigmatic racist urban planner, he was certainly no outlier. - The Baffler
