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Yale

God and Man at Yale at 75 

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In a postmodern and increasingly siloed society that now lacks any universal moral codes or even reference points, it isn’t clear that the value of humanity itself can be successfully defended—at Yale or anywhere else.  
James Madison

“Liberty Preserved”: The Foundation of Our Freedom 

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The Founders understood humanity’s inherent corruption and recognized that both civil and religious liberties rest on the common principle of faithfulness to God. If we lose sight of fidelity to God, we risk losing the moral foundation on which our liberties are built.  
factory workers

The Best Protection for Workers is the Market

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The lesson here is as simple as it is profound. The market, meaning the right to quit and get another job on better terms, is the best protection for the worker.
therapy

Trauma’s Triumph, Trauma’s Traps 

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Trauma-informed care promises to reveal and resolve the connection between present aberrant behavior and past mistreatment by others. But its political corollary valorizes victimhood, and its questionable logic has the potential to trap rather than free those who suffer from past wounds.  
Federal Reserve

The Nation That Cried, “Debt!” 

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What are the ethical issues surrounding government debt? This is a good time to start taking that question seriously.
religious freedom

The Friendship That Changed International Religious Freedom for America and the World 

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A friendship begun in 1985, forged in shared Christian faith and encounters with human misery driven by animus toward religion, would become the ground on which a historic legacy would be built.
abandoned soviet building

Postliberalism’s Rebellion Against Reality 

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It is good to oppose communism. It is not good to oppose communism out of support for clerical fascism. 
China

Why China Will Never Democratize 

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China’s rise forces scholars and policymakers to confront an uncomfortable reality: that modernity no longer belongs to the West.
SCOTUS

Libel and Law-Office History 

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American self-government has not benefited from two generations of the Sullivan standard. 
grave

Whatever Happens at all, Happens as It Should 

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There is something severe in this kind of wisdom, but also merciful. We cannot command that the past return what it has rightfully taken. We cannot bargain with time, or exempt ourselves, or those we love from the common fate of all mankind. We can only determine what shall be made of the days that remain to us. Stat sua cuique dies (“each has his appointed day”) as Jupiter spoke in Virgil’s Aeneid, reflecting on the mortality of mankind. That appointed day comes for each of us; what remains within our power is not to escape the limits of our nature, but to determine how we shall live within them. 
smartphone

The Bookshelf: A Post-Literate Age? 

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The New Dark Ages, which I hope will be widely read, is a brief, brisk, and persuasive book about the damage our screen life is doing to our social and political life. He puts the matter starkly in his introduction: “As reading fades I believe that we may find ourselves facing a post-literate future that resembles the pre-literate past: mystical, tribal, and autocratic.”
Robots and job interview

The Virtue of Letting Skills Die 

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AI will make many cognitive techniques obsolete, and preserving them for their own sake would mistake difficulty for formation. Schools and workplaces should instead preserve or rebuild the learning functions that cultivate judgment, prudence, and human agency. 
Sartre

Theory’s Rise and Fall  

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Theory, though it blazed brightly for a time, was doomed to burn out. It simply could not give a deep account of the human condition and of those things that are most important to being human—e.g., love, altruism, friendship, gratitude—that fully reflect the human experience. 
Talmud

America Saved the Jews. Can the Jews Save America? 

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Americans are fighting over who decides what’s true. Jews once argued for truth itself. Can Jews teach America how to argue yet remain united? 
political parties

A Democrat’s Ideological Journey on Abortion 

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So long as the pro-life movement is part of the GOP coalition, the attractiveness of the pro-life message is affected by the attractiveness of the GOP. And it’s hard to grow the pro-life tent if the pro-life movement is bound up with a hard-right GOP that is repellent to centrist and center-left voters. 
Odyssey

Homer Against the Attention Economy  

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What modern culture discards as redundant, the ancient poets understood as the foundation of memory, identity, and human connection. 
Constitution

The American Pope and the American Constitution 

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In his day, Brownson advocated for a “long-term, multi-pronged rediscovery of the true Constitution,” an ordered liberty founded on a balance of unity in diversity based on natural law and the pursuit of the common good. He challenges us to “rediscover the true Constitution.” Now would be an appropriate time to follow his advice. 
stressed out office worker

The Unravelling of The American Employment Compact 

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An economy that continually makes demands of its workers while offering little security in return cannot escape the consequences of social disintegration.
Adam Smith

Adam Smith and the Value of Connectivity 

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Adam Smith’s timeless perspectives on connectivity still help make sense of the world 250 years after he first published The Wealth of Nations.

Labor, Leisure, and Public Discourse

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Labor Day gives us an important opportunity to reflect not only on the meaning of our work but also on how we choose to spend our leisure time.
person teleworking on a laptop

AI, Automation, and the Meaning of Work 

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Abuse is no argument against proper use. But AI’s challenges and opportunities are bound up with identifying the scale and scope of proper use as well as the consequences of abuse, and how to distinguish one from another.
E pluribus unum

E Pluribus Unum, Yesterday and Today

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If America’s unity frays, the problem is probably not its diversity, but that America needs its many cultural groups—and perhaps new ones—to contribute more of their special strengths to public life. 
child using social media apps

The Origins and Consequences of Big Tech’s “Tobacco Moment”  

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It is up to American courts and legislators to create solutions that balance constitutional liberties with the need to protect children from preventable tragedies.
sad woman looking at her phone alone

Today’s Dating App Users Aren’t Happy. Technology Is Not Our Problem.  

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Technology is not our problem. Our problem is an obsessive concern for our own good, our distrust of others, and the terror of losing ourselves. No algorithm will solve this.