Magazine
Acts of remembrance
Commemorating those lost in the pandemic has not been possible.
But we can mourn through music
Overrated: Intellect
“An intellectual is someone who looks at a pink party balloon and thinks of Jeff Koons”
Underrated: Instinct
If you are instinctive, you think for yourself, and find chance beautiful
Prophets and messiahs
Deep inequality, a mismanaged pandemic, widespread violence and a tanking economy. How did Brazil get into this mire?
D’où parles-tu? The post-truth world
Power, illusion and the open society: how postmodernism undermines our foundational concepts
Be less kind
‘Common-sense kindness works through the golden rule—do as you would be done by. Wokeness replaces this delicate reciprocal balance with a sort of moral socialism—a blank cheque for whoever shouts loudest’
The importance of talking about nothing
Covid-19 is forcing abrupt change on Japanese office life and traditions
Can a white conservative be trusted?
There is particularly fertile ground for mistrust in an era in which fear has become a dominant public perspective
Tristram Shandy and the consolations of comedy
The story of “A COCK and a BULL . . . And one of the best of its kind, I ever heard”:
How to prevent the next pandemic
‘I have been reporting as a science journalist for years that the world is at increasing risk of pandemics like this; that this was predicted; that we know what we need to do to prepare and we simply haven’t done it; and that more and worse pandemics are coming so we need to do that, now’
Tolerating the intolerant
“For those who thought that a global pandemic would sound the death knell for identity politics, think again”
How to prevent the next pandemic
‘I have been reporting as a science journalist for years that the world is at increasing risk of pandemics like this; that this was predicted; that we know what we need to do to prepare and we simply haven’t done it; and that more and worse pandemics are coming so we need to do that, now’
D’où parles-tu? The post-truth world
Power, illusion and the open society: how postmodernism undermines our foundational concepts