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A Sadistic Master Storyteller
In his 1881 masterpiece, Epitaph of a Small Winner, the Brazilian novelist Machado de Assis instructs his readers to memorize the phrase “the voluptuousness of misery.” “Study it from time to time,...
View ArticleFacebook Remade the Internet in Its Hideous Image
Fifteen years ago today, Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook—then known as TheFacebook—out of his Harvard dorm room. It now has more than two and a half billion users across its applications, including...
View ArticleRalph Northam’s Trumpian Lack of Shame
Ralph Northam still has the lawful power to exercise his constitutional duties as governor of Virginia. Over the last four days, however, he has forsaken whatever moral or democratic authority he once...
View ArticleStop Looking for Meaning in Brexit
In Alan Bennet’s play The History Boys, a charismatic history teacher at a state school in 1980s northern England attempts to tutor students for the entry exams of Oxford and Cambridge. “How do you...
View ArticleEverybody’s a Suspect in Everybody Knows
The camera accompanies a man down several stories in a rickety elevator. As he leaves the building, we stay inside, watching through cracked, dirty glass as he kicks a car and attacks a woman wearing a...
View ArticleWhat a Waste
President Donald Trump, fresh off a humbling defeat in November’s midterms and a humiliating retreat in the shutdown standoff with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month, opted for a bipartisan message...
View ArticleThe Story Behind the Green New Deal’s Meteoric Rise
On November 13, 2018, just days after Democrats reclaimed the House of Representatives, dozens of young activists filed silently into Representative Nancy Pelosi’s office on Capitol Hill. Some sat down...
View ArticleIt Will Take More Than Congress to Cure America’s War Addiction
Is Congress finally asserting itself in foreign policy? In January, legislators reintroduced a resolution that directs President Trump to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition’s catastrophic war...
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What Is the Legacy of Communist China’s Fine Art?
In a tiny gallery on Henry Street last week, the young artist Chang Yuchen taught me one of her father’s drawing lessons: “There is no line in the real world.” A subzero wind blew outside as she held...
View ArticleToday Is a Momentous Day for Abortion Rights
It’s been a relatively quiet term at the Supreme Court since the justices reconvened last October. The court has some important cases on its docket this year, notably on tribal reservations in...
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How a Demon-Slaying Pentecostal Billionaire Is Ushering in a Post-Catholic...
The headquarters of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God does not resemble your typical megachurch. Its eighteen stories dwarf the big-boxes of the Texas and Missouri exurbs. Behind pillared...
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The Battle for Silicon Valley’s Soul
Last year, as Big Tech drew comparisons to Big Tobacco, and the industry’s CEOs were hauled before Congress to explain why government propaganda and harassment had been allowed to continue unchecked on...
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The False Promise of Silicon Valley’s Quest to Save the World
Companies in Silicon Valley are wonderfully fond of describing themselves as “mission-driven.” Palantir has raised nearly $2 billion “working for the common good” and “doing what’s right.” At...
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Google Is Struggling to Remake Itself for the #MeToo Era
As in so many cases of sexual harassment, it was not the incident that sparked the most outrage, but the employer’s response. In 2012, Andy Rubin, the Google executive who developed the Android...
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The Stark Political Divide Between Tech CEOs and Their Employees
Two years ago, two Stanford professors teamed up with a journalist to survey more than 600 “elite technology company leaders and founders” about their political views. The average executive, they...
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Big Tech’s Unholy Alliance With the Pentagon
In September 2017, Google began work on Project Maven, a Pentagon program that provides artificial intelligence software for drone warfare. More than ten employees were tasked with building a highly...
View ArticleIs Germany’s Far Right Getting Less Racist—or More Strategic?
Alexander Gauland is a one-man Godwin’s Law. He has warned of an “invasion of foreigners,” argued a German minister should be “disposed of” in Turkey, and echoed an address Hitler gave in 1933 by...
View ArticleTrump’s Attack on Socialism Is a Colossal Blunder
Donald Trump is perhaps the most unpopular president in recorded history, and he will soon face the most daunting re-election campaign in recent memory. Dogged by investigations and hamstrung by a lack...
View ArticleThe United States’ Role in China’s Persecution of the Uighurs
Kamaltürk Yalqun’s father was sentenced to 15 years in a Chinese prison early last year. As a prominent Uighur scholar and writer, he was among the first to be swept up in October 2016 as China...
View ArticleThe Media Is Blowing Its Coverage of Warren’s Native American Claim
The Iowa caucuses are still more than a year away. The first Democratic primary debate won’t occur until this June. But some journalists are already declaring that one of the party’s 2020 frontrunners,...
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