Desire and Rejection
A colleague accuses me of getting evolutionary principles wrong. We are arguing over whether women’s unavailability increases men’s interest, and whether women really use it that way. In fact, these…
Who Controls the Streets?
We discuss what leads young people to wreck cities, overturn cars, and set buildings on fire. But that is only a small part of the problem. The heart of the…
The New Conformists
The French youth are supposedly staging a revolution. Really? Today’s seventeen-year-olds are doing exactly what their liberal teachers and liberal parents taught them to do, if they come from liberal…
The End of Market Fundamentalism
I am preparing a lecture on some of the most interesting figures in contemporary American political thought. As I work through their ideas, which naturally diverge in many directions, I…
How Habits Take Root
Healthy habits are more important for one’s future life than the mere acquisition of knowledge and skills. This principle should guide educational reform and government policy more broadly. But how…
Beyond Local Explanations
A common logical error is to explain general phenomena by pointing to problems that affect only particular cases. If a chemical behaves the same way in experiments conducted at every…