In the popular imagination, both Jewish and Gentile, the story of Chanukah is the saga of outnumbered but plucky Jews battling the more numerous and nefarious Greeks and their alien culture. In truth, it’s about much more than that.
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Scarlet A Lacks a High-Quality Abortion Debate
Public Discourse is launching two new features: short book notes and longform essays. They'll run occasionally, on Saturdays and Sundays. Today is our first book note. In it, Charles K. Bellinger reviews Katie Watson's Scarlet A, arguing that books about abortion often fail to address deeper and broader issues.
Facing the World Squarely: Understanding the “History of Now”
In The Best of Times, the Worst of Times, historian Michael Burleigh refuses to play favorites, calling on all conscientious citizens to demand the highest possible standards from their leaders. He does not always tell readers what they want to hear, only what they need to hear—and for that they should be very thankful.
Private Equity: How it Serves the Common Good
To serve the common good, private equity managers need the virtues of humility and magnanimity. If they exhibit these virtues, their companies will grow, increasing human capital and wealth.
“These and Those Are the Words of the Living G-d”: What Traditional Jewish Pedagogy Can Teach Us About Viewpoint Diversity
True peace is not merely the absence of struggle or strife. Only through engaging with one another in debate and even disagreement can we arrive at the highest truths.
Man Does Not Live By Economic Growth Alone
“Economic piety” has led to an overemphasis on consumption, writes Oren Cass in The Once and Future Worker. If we value family and community life, we need a labor policy that is explicitly intended to sustain them.
When Young People Aren’t Having Sex, Something’s Wrong
When something as natural and ordered as erotic love is no longer being pursued, there is something deeply wrong with our society. Kate Julian’s Atlantic article “Why are Young People Having So Little Sex?” presents incontrovertible evidence that the experiment of “free love” without consequences, based solely on pleasure, has failed.
Who Wants to Limit the Power of the Courts?
Perhaps the real source of liberal anxiety is not simply that a conservative-dominated Supreme Court will become activist in the opposite direction. Rather, a more far-reaching consequence for the American left would be a repositioning of the judicial branch as equal—not superior—to the legislative branch.
Just Tariff Theory
The notion that tariffs are bad has been supported by world-renowned economists for centuries. Yet we are currently in the midst of a trade war. Maybe what we need is a Just Tariff Theory: a system to weigh the economic harms of tariffs against the political benefits they may have.
The Human Space Between Activism and Objectivity in American Sociology
If by “objectivity” we mean approaching social research with no pre-commitments and no need for interpretive work, then true objectivity is impossible. Still, sociology should not be merely a vehicle for enacting a particular moral and political vision. It should be the systematic, disciplined pursuit of the truth about human social life.
A Pact with a Thief, a Deal with the Devil: The Vatican’s Pending Agreement with China
The Vatican should not cede selection of bishops in China to the Communist Party.
The New York Times Reveals Painful Truths about Transgender Lives
Why should a doctor perform surgery when it won’t make the patient happy, it won’t accomplish its intended goal, it won’t improve the underlying condition, it might make the underlying condition worse, and it might increase the likelihood of suicide? Sound medicine isn’t about desire, it’s about healing.