Podcast 138: Literary Critic Leon Wieseltier on His New Magazine, the Meaning of Forgiveness, and His Favorite Car-Chase Movies
Quillette‘s Jonathan Kay talks to long-time New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier about Liberties, the ambitious literary journal...
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The Podcaster Who (Single-handledly) Made Me Love History
This is an instalment of Simple Pleasures, an occasional Quillette series about some of the new joys that our writers have discovered as a...
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My Generation Isn’t Suffering Enough
An age of happiness is quite impossible, because men want only to desire it but not to have it, and every individual who experiences good...
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The Evolutionary Advantages of Playing Victim
Victimhood is defined in negative terms: “the condition of having been hurt, damaged, or made to suffer.” Yet humans have evolved to...
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To Skate—Perchance to Soar
Nairobi, January 2021. Saturday morning. I whizz joyfully around the multi-coloured skatepark. Beneath my feet, the board responds with...
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The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Conor McGregor
Thou knowest this man’s fall, but thou knowest not his wrassling. ~James Baldwin One of the truest tests of a person’s character is how...
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The Problem With ‘Indigenizing the University’
The idea that academics need to “Indigenize” the Canadian education system has become popular in recent years. The Congress of the...
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Remembering Karl Popper
It’s the end of the wartime workday at 14a Westenra Terrace in the Port Hills of Christchurch, New Zealand, high above the southern...
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Podcast 137: Sociologist Nathalie Heinich on French Academics’ Opposition to America’s Race-Based Ideologies
Jonathan Kay speaks to eminent French sociologist Nathalie Heinich, founder of a new organization that opposes the spread of America’s...
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Can Governments Stop Bitcoin?
Since its creation more than 12 years ago, Bitcoin is undefeated. Its price has leaped from $5 to $50 to $500 to $5,000 to now past...
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Thinking Critically About Critical Thinking
Michael J. Fox, the third president of the United States, was responsible for establishing Presbyterianism as the state religion of the...
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Environmentalism, Trumpism, and the Working Class
The inauguration of President Biden as the 46th US President hasn’t produced quite the catharsis that Democrats (and others) had hoped...
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Towards Practical Empowerment
The following critique of anti-racism is intended to empower people of color and stave off the modes of disempowerment I see in my field...
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Accommodating Trans Athletes Without Rejecting the Reality of Human Biology
“As a social psychologist, I understand why using women’s sports to argue against transgender rights works,” tweeted behavioral scientist...
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The Narrative and Its Discontents
Human history in two sentences: in pre-modern times, material goods were hard to come by, but small communities offered kinship and their...
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Do Lockdowns Work? Only If You Lock the Borders Down, Too
For almost a year, the central policy debate in most Western countries has been whether—and for how long—to impose lockdowns. Advocates of...
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PODCAST 136: Social Media Network Creator Brian Amerige: If You Could Create a New Network from Scratch, What Would It Look Like?
Quillette’s Jonathan Kay talks to Brian Amerige—a former team leader at Facebook, and now the CEO of Thoughtful—about the...
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Scott Alexander, Philosopher King of the Weird People
If you (like me) spend an unhealthy amount of time reading about morality and politics online, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Scott...
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COVID-19 and the Ongoing Global Workplace Revolution
For most of the recent past, economic geography has shifted to ever-larger cities across the globe. By the end of the last decade, many...
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Struggling with Pixar’s ‘Soul’
In the COVID era, my wife and I are homeschooling our small children. Their endless questions often send me to Google. Why do clouds...
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