The general public in the United States sees intellectuals as disconnected from their everyday struggles and concerns. From this perspective, intellectuals don’t actually work like the laborers amongst us, but are engaged in a kind of elitist moralizing. - 3 Quarks Daily
"Multiculturalism was the response to civil rights demands, which required a revised narrative of U.S. history. For this scheme to work—and affirm U.S. historical progress—Indigenous nations and communities had to be left out of the picture or somehow woven into the story." - Boston Review
Death catches too many of us unawares and unprepared these days, because we prefer to look away, to deny the approach of the one most undeniable event. - The Point
Despite this surge in support for privacy, we’re looking at a situation where routine surveillance of citizens will continue to become normalized—not through coercion, but through convenience. - Fast Company
Since we are considering whether extinction might be better than continuing to exist, the question arises whether some pains could be so great that they outweigh any number of pleasures and other goods. - New Statesman
The account by the Greek historian and general, Thucydides (460-400BC), of how the Athenians responded to their virulent plague in the fifth century, directly or indirectly influenced how many later historians in antiquity described plagues. - The Conversation
The pressure to try to adopt positivity as a constant state of being has begun to feel exhausting. Some have gone as far as to call it “toxic positivity,” which may seem contradictory. - The Walrus
Dare to dawdle; to create without purpose; to be mediocre, even outright bad, at whatever it is you want to try. In short, let yourself waste time, as if you were young again and too immortal to know any better. Yes, this can and will be terrifying. - The New York Times
The framing of the brain–body complex as a borderless thinking apparatus is interesting, bringing together a wide range of research, from education and business practice to psychology and cognitive neuroscience. - Nature
It hardly matters how committed you are to making the best use of your limited time if, day after day, your attention gets wrenched away by things you never wanted to focus on. - The Guardian
If you want to make digital art, you need to learn to code. A training in film will help with moving-image art. So much is obvious. But today we’re in thrall to a vacuous Romanticism that insists artists are born not made. - The Guardian
No Pythonesque general is demanding we choose between plain and patterned plates. But it does feel like the finger-wagging minimalism that informed the housewares and home design market for over a decade is losing relevance while its opposite is gaining currency. The Walrus
