Culture
Celebrating the Texts of Those ‘Dead White Males’
A debate Columbia University has some hating on the Western canon, while others apologize for it. Why not embrace it?
The Student Loan Trap
College was supposed to help everyone but the data shows a generation crushed with debt and stunted in growth.
Into the Dark Needs Less Wokeness, More Evil
Really good horror is not just about zeitgeist, but sinking to the depths of myth and fear.
Remembering a Reluctant Irishman
The writer’s grandfather traded in martyr complexes and despair to become a proud American.
How Michael Jackson Became the Thriller Monster
A new documentary forces us to look at this broken Peter Pan and wonder how we can ever hear him the same way again.
The Conquest of Opium
From the Fertile Crescent to the hills of Appalachia, a new book documents our complicated history with the poppy.
Contemplating the Complete Kafka
His writing was like a secular prayer, transcending his own neurotic mind into something like universal truth.
MORE IN Culture
The Oscars Stop Bashing Trump and Start Leading by Example
It was a diverse set of winners on Sunday night, even if it still attracted the ire of the woke.
When Did Social Media Become a Prison?
With more real-world social rules, we can make Twitter and Facebook work for us if we try.
Choosing to Spend Your Vacation…Behind Bars
In South Korea, going to jail to relax is a hot new trend. What does that say about humans today?
When Irish Eyes Are Closed to History
If Ireland stops teaching its past, are they doomed to repeat it?
Generation Airbnb is Ruining the Foreign Travel Experience
Remote bookings, generic coffee shops, carefully vetted spaces and interactions—why leave home at all?
Falco’s Carmela Always Hit the Complex Note in ‘Sopranos’
20 years later, her decision to compromise morality by breaking bread with a murderer still intrigues.
Ted Bundy and the Banality of Evil
Netflix’s new docu-series about the famous killer has no there there—and that’s exactly the point.
The Diminishing Authority of the Bourgeois Culture
We’ve replaced its emphasis on tradition and hard work with a self-loathing left-wing moralism.
In Defense of Cultural Appropriation
The good news is that it’s here to stay, no matter how many angry Twitter mobs come to kill it.
Pulp Rules: How Sundance Made Indie Movies Mainstream
Two years, 1989 and 1994, sparked a movement that has been all but absorbed by Hollywood today.