Culture
How One Contrarian ‘Broke’ Jeopardy! and Won $1.7 Million
James Holzhauer doesn’t skirt the rules, he just plays unconventionally—a good tableau for life.
Brian Sims and America’s Abortion Endgame
There’s no middle road. Very soon, either pro-lifers or pro-choicers will suffer a devastating loss.
Blue Laws Won’t Fill America’s Churches Again
People have stopped worshipping because their values have shifted. Prohibiting work on Sundays isn’t going to change that.
The Show That Captured Our Post-Cold War Anxiety
Counterpart explores what happens when freedom wins without ever being fully defined.
Struggling To Find That ‘Greatest Generation’ Sequel
The Army brings back its ‘pinks and greens’ uniform, but it will take more than nostalgia to revive this era.
Happy Birthday, Simpsons, But I Wish You Were Dead
It was going downhill at least 20 years ago and now it’s a shambling embarrassment to its former self.
Is Demography Destiny?
Experts know that eventually, minorities will outnumber whites in the U.S. and Europe. So how do we talk about it?
MORE IN Culture
When Did Online Dating Become Like Drone Warfare?
Both are ruthlessly efficient yet far from effective at winning hearts and minds in the long term.
On the Passing of Les Murray, Our Greatest Poet
He was a Catholic who loved his native Australian bush and didn’t want the Nobel. RIP.
Dearborn, Michigan: An Arab-American’s Culinary Mecca
Food, unlike any other cultural medium, has the ability to communicate the memories and emotions that language often can’t.
Slacker and the Failed Promises of the Internet
The movie is an artifact, hearkening back to a time when people were weird and algorithms weren’t in control.
Fighting for Wisdom Inside the Ring
This boxer’s memoir is a good corrective to the “follow your dream” mantra—when the discovery is in losing, not winning.
When Tech Elites Lose Their Religion
If they no longer have faith in the digital empire they’ve created, who will?
The Black Keys’ Search for God
The rock band has consistently shown an awareness of the transcendent, shaped by their working-class roots.
The Meaning of Notre Dame in a Humanist Age
A country whose revolution tried to erase history has drawn us mercifully back to our past.
The OA and Today’s Secular Prison of Self
The latest season of the Netflix show is brilliant but also confined to a world denuded of transcendence.
Pete Buttigieg, Vanguard for the Christian Left?
Progressive and openly gay, the 2020 hopeful from Indiana has taken his challenge straight to Mike Pence.