123 Posts found for Source: The Atlantic

We are living with a new kind of regime that didn’t exist in Orwell’s time. It combines hard nationalism—the diversion of frustration and cynicism into xenophobia and hatred—with soft distraction and confusion: a blend of Orwell and Huxley, cruelty and entertainment. The state of mind that the Party enforces through terror in 1984, where truth becomes so unstable that it ceases to exist, we now … [ Read more ]

Author: George Packer | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Concepts, Information, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

Unfreedom today is voluntary. It comes from the bottom up.

Author: George Packer | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Concepts, Freedom | Liberty, Life & Society

Orwell never intended his novel to be a prediction, only a warning. And it’s as a warning that 1984 keeps finding new relevance.

Author: George Packer | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: Life & Society, Literature | Arts, Politics & Public Policy

Orwell never intended his novel to be a prediction, only a warning. And it’s as a warning that 1984 keeps finding new relevance.

[…]

Unfreedom today is voluntary. It comes from the bottom up.

[…]

We are living with a new kind of regime that didn’t exist in Orwell’s time. It combines hard nationalism—the diversion of frustration and cynicism into xenophobia and hatred—with soft distraction and confusion: … [ Read more ]

Author: George Packer | Source: The Atlantic (June 8, 2019) | Subjects: Excerpts, Life & Society, Literature | Arts, Politics & Public Policy

The thing is, the immune system is very complicated. Arguably the most complex part of the human body outside the brain, it’s an absurdly intricate network of cells and molecules that protect us from dangerous viruses and other microbes. These components summon, amplify, rile, calm, and transform one another: Picture a thousand Rube Goldberg machines, some of which are aggressively smashing things to pieces. Now … [ Read more ]

Author: Ed Yong | Source: The Atlantic (August 5, 2020) | Subjects: Excerpts, Health & Medicine

Matt Miller is right that “localist” arrangements in education deliver maximum power to teachers’ unions (“First, Kill All the School Boards,” January/February 2008 Atlantic), which can draw on national resources and political connections, stultifying attempts at real improvement. But in a national system, the fashionable, counterevidential theo­ries of the technocratic elite remain beyond correction since, being national, they have been removed from competition.

So try … [ Read more ]

Author: M. T. Pearse | Source: The Atlantic (April2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Education | Scholarship, Excerpts, Politics & Public Policy

Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted … [ Read more ]

Author: Jonathan Rauch | Source: The Atlantic (March2003) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Psychology | Behavior

A new book argues that the emotion happens in “micro-moments of positivity resonance.”

Author: Emily Esfahani Smith | Source: The Atlantic (January 24, 2013) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Love, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

How Yasir Arafat destroyed Palestine.

Author: David Samuels | Source: The Atlantic (September2005) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, International, People, Politics & Public Policy

What is “the American idea”? It is the fractious, maddening approach to the conduct of human affairs that values equality despite its elusiveness, that values democracy despite its debasement, that values pluralism despite its messiness, that values the institutions of civic culture despite their flaws, and that values public life as something higher and greater than the sum of all our private lives.

Source: “77 North Washington Street” by The Atlantic Monthly Editors | Source: The Atlantic | Subjects: America, Culture

Tocqueville noticed this back in the 1830s … almost every political question is turned into a question about rights, because the idea of rights and of individual rights [is] so deeply ingrained, not only in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights, but also in American public culture, in the political culture.

We cannot argue so much in the name of the good society, or … [ Read more ]

Author: Michael Sandel | Source: The Atlantic (October2007) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Law | Legal, Politics & Public Policy

Human beings have never lacked for things to fight over, but for the last two millennia, they have fought the most over ideas involving the divine. Politics, technology, military capacity, and diseases have all played decisive roles in shaping history, yet it is impossible to understand the rise and fall of empires, the clash of civilizations, and the evolving balance of power without appreciating the … [ Read more ]

Author: Alan Wolfe | Source: The Atlantic (March2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Religion

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

The election of Barack Obama is just the most startling manifestation of a larger trend: the gradual erosion of “whiteness” as the touchstone of what it means to be American. If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like—and how will white Americans fit into it? What will it mean to be white when whiteness … [ Read more ]

Author: Hua Hsu | Source: The Atlantic (January2009) | Subjects: America, Excerpts, Race Relations

How has America changed since 2000?

Author: Timothy Lavin | Source: The Atlantic (January2009) | Subject: America

Who is responsible for the past eight years of dismal American governance? “George W. Bush” is a decent answer. But we should reserve some blame for the Founding Fathers, who created a presidential office that is ill-considered, vaguely defined, and ripe for abuse. Here’s how to fix what the Founders got wrong—before the next G. W. Bush enters the Oval Office.

Author: Garrett Epps | Source: The Atlantic (January2009) | Subjects: Excerpts, History, Politics & Public Policy

What the Internet is doing to our brains.

Author: Nicholas Carr | Source: The Atlantic (July2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Education | Scholarship, Information, IT | Technology

In a new book, the writer Alan Jacobs looks at why it’s impossible for people who disagree to hold a civilized conversation.

Author: Emma Green | Source: The Atlantic (October 15, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy, Psychology | Behavior

When people want to believe that the world is just, and that bad things won’t happen to them, empathy can suffer.

Author: Kayleigh Roberts | Source: The Atlantic (October 5, 2016) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Ethics | Integrity | Morality, Excerpts, Psychology | Behavior

Since the election of Donald Trump, there’s been no shortage of theories as to why America’s social contract no longer seems to work—why the United States feels so divided and dysfunctional. Some have focused on how hyper-partisanship has dismantled traditional checks and balances on public decision-making, how Barack Obama’s rise to power exacerbated the racist tendencies of embittered reactionaries, and how former churchgoers have embraced … [ Read more ]

Author: Jonathan Kay | Source: The Atlantic (July 17, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, International, Politics & Public Policy, Taxation