Archive

Live from the Hadal Zone

Are We Ready to Be Governed by Artificial Intelligence?

Experts Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders explore how Artificial Intelligence is already shaping the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, showing that we are already, at least in part, governed by AI—with more likely to come.

Reflecting on Tragedy: From Brown University to Bondi Beach

Senior editor Jonathan Church, writing in the wake of horrific shootings in Rhode Island and Australia, reflects on the death of his own mother, wringing meaning from tragedy, and what it is to live in a grief-laden world.

Grace

Reflection: My Interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Then-contributing editor Vahaken Mouradian’s May, 2021 interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali has taken on increasing urgency amid the growing number of reports of rape in Europe by migrants, especially as two Afghan asylum seekers were sentenced this week for the assault on a 15-year-old English girl.

Animal Instinct

Today a Cooper’s Hawk perched itself outside our bedroom window on a low branch of a small tree not twenty feet away. The courtyard of our condo complex. Frequented by all sorts of wildlife: sparrows and wrens, mourning doves, juncos, hummingbirds, now and then a cardinal, chipmunks, rabbits, lots

COLLECTION III

Published December 8, 2025

Can "Deliberative Polling" Solve Polarization?

As Washington emerges from a historic shutdown, Stanford’s James Fishkin outlines how Deliberative Polling offers a path toward rebuilding trust across the partisan divide. His decades of work suggest that genuine deliberation can still depolarize American politics.

Wonder Me

Orchard Season

Pray Silence (The Mind of the Meeting)

Three Elegies for the Everyday

Public Servant in Name Only: Rob Bresnahan Hardly Alone

A young congressman elected on promises of integrity has quickly become one of Washington’s most prolific stock traders, writes editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince. Is it any wonder why so many Americans feel nothing ever really changes at the Capitol?

Why We Should Return to Ivan Turgenev’s "Fathers and Sons"

In this essay, Sadhika Pant helps us to see why Turgenev’s fourth novel remains the most enduring portrait of Russia’s 19th-century ideological storm. More than a mere history, the novel continues to resonate as an antidote to the revolutionary spirits of today.

FLATLAND

In the Valles Caldera

If Being Virtuous Feels Easy, It Could Be Junk

Although no one likes to admit to doing it, virtue signaling is a practice that is a natural part of being a human. Yet, in this essay, philosopher Jimmy Alfonso Licon advises caution by comparing the practice to the culinary equivalent of junk food–tempting but counterproductive.

Bubble of Loneliness

Agnosticism Is Not Reasonable

Refusal to make a choice is a choice of its own. Although often presented as the intellectually humble third option between belief and atheism, Stuart Doyle argues that agnosticism presents a false middle path that is neither coherent nor practical.

Ancient Cooperation

Easter Plum

Pistachios

The Conservatism of Russian-Speaking Jews

Simon Maass, a German writer of Soviet Jewish descent, contends that Jews who left the Soviet Union often hold distinctly conservative views—and are steadily shaping politics in their new homes.

Ars Poetica: or, Benzaitan’s Rules for Poems (That She Told Me In A Dream)

The Oldest Hatred, the West’s Latest Test

Following the October 2nd terrorist attack in Manchester, England, Gerfried Ambrosch examines the ideological convergence between the Western left and Islamist movements—and calls for renewed resolve in confronting anti-Semitism in all of its forms.

Why We Need Better College Rankings

As the saying goes, what gets measured gets managed. In this interview, Washington Monthly’s editor argues we should stop equating a college’s worth with its U.S. News & World Report ranking and instead use a ranking system that holds schools accountable for real-world outcomes.

Is the Current Era of Free Speech Over?

Considering the rest of the developed world, it is a miracle that the First Amendment continues to reign in the United States. Tracing the precarious history of free speech in the country, legal scholar Eric Heinze writes that shifting bipartisan attitudes are placing it under threat.

COLLECTION II

Published October 3, 2025

Dream Person

The Morning News

Heat of a Bayou

Interview: The Man Who Dared to Imagine If God Were an Investor

At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, a pair of believers envisioned an investing firm whose goal was not limited to maximizing returns, but to make the world better. Founded before ESG came into vogue on Wall Street, the company manages billions today and shows no signs of slowing down.

Caste Remains the True Test of Inclusion in Corporate India

Across boardrooms from Bangalore to Delhi and inside Western corporations staffed by an increasing number of Indian employees, caste continues to influence who advances and who does not. Ignoring this reality, writes Indian scholar Disha, makes all other efforts at fostering inclusivity ring hollow.

The State Sovereignty Question Again Rears Its Head

Tom McDonough argues that Governor JB Pritzker’s recent appeal to “state sovereignty” misreads the Constitution. Revisiting the works of Orestes Brownson, McDonough warns that treating the Constitution as a tool of convenience risks reviving old errors about sovereignty and federal authority.

Dämmerschlaf, or, Twilight Sleep

What You Could Not Spare

Let's Teach Young People Hope—Not Doom

Education expert Bruno Manno argues that when educators present social and ecological problems as intractable, this can foster hopelessness in students. This school year, he urges, we should teach students that problems can be solved, not merely bemoaned.

The Perennial Allure of Political Violence

Writing from across the Atlantic, Gerfried Ambrosch condemns both the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the disturbing celebrations that followed, ending with a forceful defense of free expression.

Why Today’s Atheism Requires a Leap of Faith

Who commands intellectual authority between believers and secularists? Rather than dismissing faith as irrational, Michel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies invite readers to consider whether atheism itself withstands logical scrutiny.

Alan Dershowitz: On His Magnum Opus, The Preventive State

In this, his 57th book, the legendary law professor presents a framework he's been working on since his 20s that grapples with the trade-off between infringing liberty and preventing harm.

Emergency Room

We Ought Not Tolerate Reckless Driving

Our editor-in-chief argues that reckless driving must be treated as the urgent social ill that it is. Driving is dangerous enough already, and those who wantonly flout traffic safety need to be consistently held accountable.

From Austerity to Arms: Europe’s Recurring Escape from Deflationary Paralysis

Europe’s turn from austerity to rearmament recalls an older pattern: economic stagnation broken by military spending. This essay traces the parallels—and the risks—for the European Union’s future.

Not Quite Touching Sestos

Why We Should Reacquaint Ourselves with William Blake

Mark Vernon, the author of a recent book on William Blake, urges us to rediscover the wisdom contained in the writings and artwork of the great British polymath.

A Silencing

The Machiavellian Keir Starmer

British writer Seamus Flaherty, channeling Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund's new book, dissects the Machiavellian approach British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has brought to his political career and now premiership.

Crepe Myrtles

Revisiting "The Classical Liberal Case for Israel"

Walter E. Block and Alan G. Futerman's book, which was published in 2021, has taken on ever greater import since the October 7th attacks. In this essay, historian Paul Gottfried questions some of the book's assumptions and its use of history.

Deny Your Surface Self

Who Pays for "Free" Speech?

Law professor Eric Heinze reminds us that for all the rhetoric about free speech, demonstrations and protests often impose on the public costs of millions of dollars.

Văcărești

I Wake Up Daily Which Cannot Continue Forever.

Engineering Morality in the Age of Driverless Cars

Once the realm of ivory tower thought experiments, the trolley problem is increasingly relevant in the real world as algorithms replace the human behind the wheel, argues philosopher Jimmy Alfonso Licon.

A Prison Love Story

An unconventional love story, but a love story just the same.

How to Write a Poem

While We Were in Motion

Exit Terra

Porschegasbord

Visions of Hell: What One Man Sees in October 7th

How does a French filmmaker best ivory-tower experts and global intelligence agencies? In this interview spanning both geopolitics and moral reckoning, Pierre Rehov shares the insights—and warnings—that led him to anticipate Israel’s surprise strikes on Iran in June.

In Search of Dreams

At the Cardiologist’s

Mystifying Answers to Magic 8 Ball Questions Regarding Recent Political Events

The Clash and the Quest

In this essay, Alexander Zubatov traces how the stories that fill the boundless canvas of Western canon are, in essence, reflections of two contrasting Homeric archetypes. Venturing beyond the literary, the motifs offer the frames through which one can interpret existence itself.

Bad Angel's Home

Solaria

An Alternate Ending

Gilgandra, 1963

Words Unheard

When Therapy Fails Artists

As a challenge to conventional advice about rest and recovery, poet Nada Faris explains the importance of working amid suffering for those who derive meaning and inspiration from their craft. Shakespeare, Woolf, and Orwell did some of their best work in times of despair, after all.

Summer in the Mountains

The Enduring Question at the Heart of Gone with the Wind

Sadhika Pant revisits the 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, a book recently targeted for cancellation by certain activists. Pant suggests that Scarlett O’Hara and Ashley Wilkes represent two dueling approaches to living, and this dichotomy invites nothing short of civilizational questions.

Haberdasher

What an Exiled 19th-Century Economist's Letters Tell Us about the Tariff Debate

Perhaps there truly is nothing new under the sun. Robert Rich revisits the writings of Friedrich List, whose pragmatic views on economics were eclipsed by classical orthodoxy but, amid today’s debate over free trade and American exceptionalism, prove surprisingly resonant.

Four Questions to Ask Before Using Artificial Intelligence

Professor Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin, an expert on artificial intelligence, provides a four-point framework for thinking about whether or not to employ new AI technologies in day-to-day life.

Mother-in-Law

The Supreme Court Takes a Welcome Stand against Reverse Discrimination

Jonathan Church, a long-standing critic of the excesses of the critical social justice movement, examines how a recent ruling dismantles the legal double standard that required some Americans to meet a higher burden of proof in discrimination cases.

Stealing Baby Jesus

The headline in today’s Inquirer shocked me to my very soul: “Baby Jesus Stolen from the Shrine of St. John Neumann,” Northern Liberties neighborhood, Fifth Street & Girard. In broad daylight, too. Okay, it was only a plaster figurine, not expensive, though very much beloved— according to the shrine’

The Movement James Burnham Began

David Byrne, the author of a recent biography of the mid-century conservative intellectual James Burnham, traces the thinker's influence on Goldwater, on Reagan, on Musk.

Ice Skating on Lake Estancia

Shahuhude (Foolish)

Rousseau, the Letter Writer

A new book by Christopher Kelly and Eve Grace explores the letters of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, including many previously left unpublished. These letters provide insight into the mind of the French thinker, a man whose ideas influenced revolutions and political thinking the world over.

The Teacher Retires

A Manifesto Against Manifestos

Johnny Payne questions the idea of manifestos in poetry, preferring his own mantra: “Write poetry first with the ear, second with the eye, third with the mind.”

The Sound of Silence

Like a Rock

Cheers

"God could be shaking a cocktail for me and I’d still/have a complaint."

The Unfair Safety Net for Success

Rinzen Widjaja, a writer in Australia, wonders if for the children of the wealthiest Americans, it is almost too hard to fail.

The Endless Vitality of "Ode to the West Wind"

Merion West arts editor Johnny Payne reflects on why Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” endures over the centuries as one of the finest works written in English.

At Woodlawn

As I Think about Pope Francis

Joe Weil, a poet, professor, and Catholic, reflects on the death of Pope Francis, what he loved about the man, and what he hopes the late Pope sees differently on the other side of this world.

Why America?

Originally published in late 2020—a year when many called for a national "moral reckoning"—this personal essay by Alexander Zubatov draws on his family's journey from the Soviet Union to New York in the 1970s to illuminate why America, to him, remains exceptional.

Three Haiku

The curved universe reflected in this puddle Let us break our stride