Our Times

The concept of efficiency — how much one can accomplish per unit of time (or per dollar, etc.) — requires a quantitative numerator as well as a denominator. It requires a metric. Therefore, it tells us nothing about results we cannot quantify or measure. When we gear our society around efficiency, we produce more and more of the measurable, while t... See more

Multiple studies have now shown that the Syrian crisis was triggered in part because of the fallout and mismanagement following one of the worst droughts in centuries—linked to shifting rainfall patterns due to a warming planet. Along with the pure and immediate horror that humanized a refugee crisis many people knew of only via statistics, the pho

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So floriert oberhalb einer relativ niedrigen Einkommensschicht fast überall da, wo beschleunigter Konsum zur Normalität geworden ist, eine nichtssagende Nettigkeit – und zwar nicht nur in bestimmten sozialen Schichten, Berufs- oder Altersgruppen. Paul Valéry glaubte schon in den zwanziger Jahren vorauszusehen, dass die technokratische Zivilisation

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Paul Bogard’s 2013 The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light is probably about as a good a survey of the consequences of light pollution as you’re likely to find. Bogard traces the rise of the regime of artificial lighting and its less than benign consequences for both humans and non-humans, from the well-docume

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In Anatomy of Fascism, Robert Paxton includes in his concise definition “the belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external.” The myth of Russian humiliation at Western, especially American, hands fits the victimhood model perfectly. The fals

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Books matter. Making them is a combination of craft and insight. Publishing them is a generous act of faith. Adding to the corpus of shared knowledge is important. Books change the culture when people act on them, even if they don’t sell many copies. And sometimes the backlist surprises the accountants.

But the economics of new books have nothing to... See more

Millions of people — and white people in particular — would rather endure physical isolation, generalized loneliness, caregiving exhaustion, and financial precarity than relinquish some of their societal power. That’s a far less optimistic foundational myth than individualism. But it’s a far more honest one.

I think that this whole smartphone scrolling, content consuming, ubiquitous posting, Extremely Online thing is going to go the way of the Fedora, or the Marlboro smoked at cruising altitude in economy class. In the end it is all going to fade. This may not happen for a good number of years, but I truly believe it will happen. I think we’ll look bac... See more

By way of contrast, the ideal of limitlessness consumption serves the modern economy quite well, but it does not serve the person well at all. [2] This ideal imparts to us all a spirit of scarcity that darkens our experience: not enough time, not enough attention, not enough capacity to care. But upon what does this spirit feed? It feeds, in part,

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