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Trolling or Debating?
Trolling isn’t the same thing as debating. But we feel like we have to honor the troll’s arguments as valid. But we don’t.
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Naomi Osaka proves that something is wrong with sports and the media
Naomi Osaka withdrew from the 2021 French Open. She isn’t injured. There is no family emergency. It is simply that she wouldn’t make herself available to the media. Organizers for the French Open fined her. Then threatened to expel her. In a world obsessed with motives for dissent, the simple fact that any player would…
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Sometimes a Joke Is Timeless
When Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, he was bringing us back from an extreme position. It is also really important to notice what that position is in extreme contrast to. I’m not into Freud, but anyone who has taken a psychology class knows why this phrase exists. Precisely because Freud…
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Rushing the Tipping Point
It’s true. We all want to be first. We do not want to be last. There is a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). And certainly there is a sense of being tired of doing what we’re doing. That’s four reasons why we are “opening” before the tipping point has actually arrived. Of course, there isn’t…
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Please stop saying “The Science”
When your child asks why she should brush her teeth, do we ever simply say “because the science says to”? Of course not. That’s ridiculous. While your kid is really trying to get out of brushing her teeth, she is also doing so because she doesn’t have any context for oral health. She hasn’t seen…
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Cascading Responsibility
After the virus itself, the most devastating contagion was a particular kind of leadership failure: not taking our responsibility.
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The Truth Is We All Wear Masks
None of us likes wearing masks. We wear them for utility. Their primary function is to protect us and those around us. They also have other functions. And one of those functions is that it sends a signal. Yes, it signals a way of seeing the world. But that view isn’t generally based in partisanship…
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The Dignity of Work
The dignity of work is a strange phrase. It is almost never used as an abstract truth, though it intends to be. Otherwise we would hear related truths: The dignity of leisure. …of sleep. …of walking your dog. Or even more telling:The dignity of driving while black. …of sleeping on the sidewalk. …of walking in…