culture

Artificial intelligence is already killing off important parts of the human experience. But one of its most consequential murders—so far—is the demise of a longstanding rite of passage for students worldwide: an attempt to synthesize complex information and condense it into compelling analytical prose. It’s a training ground for the most... See more

The inhabitants of /lit/ see themselves as the victim of anti-canon efforts, as the academy has sought to “decolonise” and expand the curriculum over the past decade. And /lit/’s reaction is hardly unreasonable: there’s a difference between great books (well-written, perhaps undiscovered) and Great Books, which stay in the accepted canon because... See more

Luxury surveillance is a phenomenon where "some people pay to subject themselves to surveillance that others are forced to endure and would, if anything, pay to be free of." You might buy a GPS bracelet to track your biometric data (which will be used by other firms), while others might be forced to wear one (and still pay for it) as part of their... See more

Girard believes that this concept permeates every aspect of society. “Enlightenment concepts of the individual persist all the way into existentialist thought,” he argues. In espousing equality between all men, the Enlightenment propagated the belief that the individual should not be subsumed to another. Indeed, the individual should not be... See more