Our democracy would be hard for any of the Founders to recognize, especially Thomas Jefferson, who believed the only "safe repository" for "ultimate power" was--and is--we, the people, a conviction rooted in his fierce faith in the power of education...
There are few words in the English language that provide better fodder for oxymorons than "intelligence." And yet it's never been more important to understand what it is...
So many of our current disputes between left and right ultimately come down to differing definitions of just one word: freedom. Which is not surprising because, with apologies to Kris Kristofferson, it means *everything* to lose...
Fall is the time when high school and college graduates return to their almae matres and come together to share what they've learned and hope for. The recent elections felt something like a homecoming on the political and existential front: are they?...
If love of it is, as the Bible says, "the root of all evil," what does it mean that we as a nation value money so much? And what might we choose as our cultural currency instead?...
Mental health has always been a problem for a segment of Americans. The pandemic, political polarization, and now inflation have increased the size of that segment substantially, turning what Freud called the "oceanic experience" of oneness into relentless waves of PTSD...
As the Founders created their new form of government, they quickly realized the need for checks on its power, from which emerged, most sweepingly, the 1st Amendment. But as our democracy comes under fire, the role of the media as defender has been subject to...
Many of our earliest flags and symbols were arboreal for good reason; like a tree, our democracy has sheltered us from the elements and spread wide to embrace all denizens, but some today fail to understand the common imperative of trees and democracy, seeing the...
We've been told repeatedly in recent years that we're living in an increasingly Orwellian Brave New World, which might be true if Orwell and Huxley had been dropping acid as they wrote. Fiction is becoming stranger than truth--and being perceived as true in the eyes...
All across the country, it's commencement season again, and leaders are fanning across the country to give advice. When it comes to careers, the future may never have been so compelling...
