The Cost of Irrationality
Many of the phenomena we today describe as decadent or signs of decline—phenomena we fear might one day destroy our civilization—look very different when examined more closely. The developments that…
Progress Turned Pathological
Some troubling signs of decline are hard to fight precisely because they ride on top of centuries-long trends that are, in many ways, genuinely positive. We’ve seen a long-term drop…
Power Without Excellence
The editors of major media outlets and the public figures who appear in them as “officials” and “experts” speak a language different from that of ordinary people in everyday life.…
Measuring Corporate Power
Matthew Yglesias recently published a sharp-edged essay arguing that all the talk about “corporate power” and the need to rein it in amounts to little more than empty sloganeering. If…
Education in Heaven
If it were possible to implement an optimal educational program for children and young people—one aligned with their psychological development and attentive to what human beings actually need in life—it…
Power Over Rules
The idea that fair rules are binding in themselves is largely an illusion. The powerful can be compelled to honor agreements only by someone more powerful still—and no one, in…