Those of us who advocate for peace are not blind to the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7. But without the ideological filter that holds them as irredeemably evil, we are able to see a larger set of circumstances. We are able to ask, “What are the conditions that bred such an outlash? What breeds that kind of desperation?” We are not satisfie... See more

if you don’t have a Black woman on your board, I better not see a Black woman on your billboard.” –Aurora James,

Hannah Arendt powerfully explained “the constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people who can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and w... See more

Idols of the Theater are those errors that arise from the totalizing theories and abstract formulations that we construct to explain the human experience. To remedy this, we should embrace intellectual humility, rightly sizing the scope of human ambition, and be wary of those who claim to have found all the answers.

Elenchus

Plato and his students were not narrow specialists, not pedants, not ideologues; they were rather propelled to dispute, to discover, everything there was to know, and to test the boundaries of knowing itself.

This is a generation that is both highly conflict-averse and virtually allergic to risk, particularly when it comes to markers of autonomous adulthood like driving, working, or sex. The bosses of Gen Z employees report that they can’t make eye contact, take criticism, or even ask questions when they don’t know how to do something. The post-work dri... See more

In infants, the chief causes of outrageous behavior — impulsivity, grandiosity, attention-seeking, and a sense of entitlement — are considered normal, but in adults they’re key symptoms of the “cluster-B” personality disorders. All four such disorders — narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial and borderline — are characterized by overemotionality and ... See more

The antidote is imagination, which is the essence of the inner self. The more imaginative power we have, the more we are able to rethink the world, see beyond the mimetic rivalries that can become so constraining.