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AntiSocial: How Social Media Harms
Take a look at this graph. It shows an increase in young American teenagers’ rates of depression, with a notable uptick, especially in girls, since around 2010. It, and studies like it, are at the centre of a debate around social media and mental health. Findings like this have been replicated in many countries. That…
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Why We’re So Self-Obsessed
One of the best autobiographies ever written happens to be one of the first, one of the darkest, and one of the most creative. The title of Thomas de Quincy’s 1821 classic says it all: Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Yes, it’s about addiction, but he uses the subject to explore something ground-breaking for…
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CONSPIRACY: The Fall of Russell Brand
On the surface, this is a story about Russell Brand, but it’s also a bigger story – about institutions, trust, truth, uncertainty and fear, coverups and questioning, about how we all think. It delves into the most fundamental of human questions – what are the stories we tell ourselves? Who gets to tell those stories?…
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Metaphors We Live By: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
Metaphors We Live By is an influential book by linguists and philosophers George Lakoff and Mark Johnson published in 1980. It has since revolutionised the way we understand language and how we relate our experiences to the world around us. But what exactly are metaphors? Lakoff and Johnson argue that metaphors aren’t just poetry, but…
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Nietzsche: The Genealogy of Morality (Essay 2 – Guilt, Bad Conscience…)
‘Guilt, Bad Conscience, and Related Matters’, the second essay of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, is a difficult, winding and far-reaching essay, but its general argument might be summed up like this: guilt is the price humans have paid for entering civilised society. And morality has its roots in power, not justice. This essay…
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Why Jordan Peterson is Wrong About Responsibility
I know, another Jordan Peterson video. I’m sure you know who he is – the world’s current bestselling intellectual dark web megastar self-help guru – and I’m sure you’ve heard the criticisms – lobsters, feminism, postmodern neomarxism. And yes, we’re already inundated with critiques. But today, I want to look at something that I think…
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How Socrates Beats Bad Habits
Socrates likened the soul to a chariot being pulled by two horses. The rational horse listens to our commands and pulls us upwards towards heaven, and the unruly one, irascible and wild, pulls us down towards earth. We all have two horses. Call one reason, call the other passion, one logic, the other emotion, one…
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Analyzing Tucker Carlson’s Mind
Tucker Carlson has the highest ratings for any cable television news show in history, is probably the most influential conservative in the world, and has been touted as a potential Republican presidential candidate. He’s known for an acerbic wit, biting sarcasm, this gormless expression, and for being the lead spokesperson for a new brand of…
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Introduction to Bourdieu: Habitus
In the 17th century the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz asks us to ‘imagine two clocks or watches in perfect agreement as to the time. This may occur in one of three ways. The first consists in mutual influence; the second is to appoint a skilful workman to correct them and synchronize them at all times;…
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How The Holocaust Happened
It’s 1932. You’re a young poverty-stricken working class German with a starving family. You haven’t had a job for months, your savings have been wiped out, you’re about to be evicted. You fought and saw the unimaginable during the First World War. Two million of your countrymen – including men you and your family knew…
Then & Now
Human(itie)s, in context