Culture Archives

Inconspicuous Consumption

University of Chicago economists Kerwin Kofi Charles and Erik Hurst… along with Nikolai Roussanov of the University of Pennsylvania… found… insight into the economic differences between racial groups… [that] challenges common assumptions about luxury. Conspicuous consumption, this research suggests, is not an unambiguous signal of personal affluence. It’s a sign of belonging to a relatively poor group. Visible luxury thus serves less to establish … [ Read more ]

Author: Virginia Postrel | Source: The Atlantic (July2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Demographics, Economics | Economy, Excerpts

Pop Psychology

Why asset bubbles are a part of the human condition that regulation can’t cure.

The Irrational Electorate

Many of our worst fears about America’s voters are true.

Author: Larry M. Bartels | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

American Murder Mystery

Why is crime rising in so many American cities? The answer implicates one of the most celebrated antipoverty programs of recent decades.

Author: Hanna Rosin | Source: The Atlantic (July2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Demographics, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

Here’s the science behind the Brexit vote and Trump’s rise

What is the essential dividing line between human beings around the world? The one between the haves and the have-nots? East and west, rural and urban, secular and religious? Or maybe globalists and nationalists – a split purported to explain Putin, Brexit and the rise of Trump? These divisions are all significant, but none provide a consistent way of understanding differences observed from antiquity to … [ Read more ]

Author: Michele Gelfand | Source: The Guardian (September 17, 2018) | Subjects: Culture, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior

The Traffic Guru

An unassuming Dutch traffic engineer showed that streets without signs can be safer than roads cluttered with arrows, painted lines, and lights. Are we ready to believe him?

Author: Tom Vanderbilt | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Summer2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Culture, Environment | Sustainability, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

Legendary Physicist David Bohm on the Paradox of Communication, the Crucial Difference Between Discussion and Dialogue, and What Is Keeping Us from Listening to One Another

“To bother to engage with problematic culture, and problematic people within that culture, is an act of love,” wrote the poet Elizabeth Alexander in contemplating power and possibility. Krista Tippett calls such engagement generous listening. And yet so much of our communication today is defined by a rather ungenerous unwillingness to listen coupled with a compulsion to speak.

The most perennially insightful and helpful remedy for … [ Read more ]

Authors: David Bohm, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (December 5, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Communication, Culture, Excerpts, Life & Society

America the Divided: Why the Great Melting Pot Is Having a Meltdown

Author Mugambi Jouet dissects the causes of deep chasms within American society from an outsider’s viewpoint.

Author: Mugambi Jouet | Source: Knolwedge@Wharton (July 26, 2017) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Culture, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

How Social Media Endangers Knowledge

[The] trend toward rationality and enlightenment was endangered long before the advent of the Internet. As Neil Postman noted in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, the rise of television introduced not just a new medium but a new discourse: a gradual shift from a typographic culture to a photographic one, which in turn meant a shift from rationality to emotions, exposition to entertainment. … [ Read more ]

Author: Hossein Derakhshan | Source: WIRED (October 19, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Communication, Culture, Excerpts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Life & Society, Sociology | Anthropology

Unlearning the Myth of American Innocence

When she was 30, Suzy Hansen left the US for Istanbul – and began to realize that Americans will never understand their own country until they see it as the rest of the world does.

Author: Suzy Hansen | Source: The Guardian (August 8, 2017) | Subjects: America, Culture, Demographics, Excerpts, International, Life & Society, Race Relations, Sociology | Anthropology

What Cannot Be

Certain universal moral precepts may be biologically dictated as well. One such rule is at play in an ethical puzzle known as “the trolley problem.” Researchers pose the dilemma to subjects this way: A trolley barreling down a hill is headed straight for five people who have been tied to the tracks, but you can pull a switch to move the trolley onto a path … [ Read more ]