Culture & Media

Culture & Media

How Sport Can Reduce Racism: An Irish Case Study

Most people would probably agree that we should aspire to live in a world in which race matters less—perhaps even, as Sam Harris has suggested, becoming as inconsequential as one’s…

View Post

View Post

6 min

Culture & Media

Don’t Read This Book

Just when you thought that the Trump literature spreading like ivy on retail bookshelves had finally completed its life cycle, here come Michael Cohen and Sarah Huckabee Sanders with more…

View Post

View Post

13 min

Culture & Media

Own the Filth: Writing Into the Ethical Compromises of Fiction

Novelists these days face difficult working conditions, even the few who land seven-figure deals. Witness this year’s fiercest skirmish on the literary frontline of the culture wars: the clash over…

View Post

View Post

6 min

¡Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos! A Case for a Bilingual America

In elementary schools across the United States, children have been taught that post-indigenous America began with the arrival of the Mayflower. A simple and unbroken narrative beginning on the eastern…

View Post

View Post

12 min

Secrets of the Skin, or, Why Foucault Might Have a Problem with White Fragility

One confesses—or is forced to confess.—Michel Foucault The heartbeat of antiracism is confession.—Ibram X. Kendi I have a racist worldview, deep racial bias, racism patterns, and investments in the racist…

View Post

View Post

6 min

“Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends” by Anne Applebaum

In 1927, Julien Benda published La Trahison des Clercs (The Treason of the Intellectuals), the short book that would become his most famous work. Benda was infuriated with intellectuals who…

View Post

View Post

15 min

Culture & Media

Why We Must Walk Away from Omelas: The Problem with Utopias

The history of Utopian Fiction proves that we can’t even imagine a better world. As progressive politics takes another step towards dominance across the west, there has been yet another…

View Post

View Post

6 min

Culture & Media

Conversation, Not War: A Review of “Making Sense” by Sam Harris

In July, Sam Harris had a bad-tempered Twitter exchange with geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden over her criticism of Harris for having hosted Charles Murray on his podcast Making Sense. Usually,…

View Post

View Post

8 min

Culture & Media

The Afterlife of the Death of the Author

We’re all authors now. Most of us don’t write books—but we blog, we post on Facebook, we tweet, we create TikTok or YouTube videos. Authorship is everywhere, but it’s not…

View Post

View Post

4 min

Culture & Media

Trader Joe’s, Racism and Cancel Culture

Four weeks ago, California high school senior Briones Bedell targeted grocery chain Trader Joe’s via Change.org, asking the company to remove “racist branding” from its international food products. The petition…

View Post

View Post

6 min

Culture & Media

The Real Reason Cancel Culture is Rejecting “Harry Potter”

The obsession of the supporters of cancel culture with J. K. Rowling stems from the fact that they can no longer comprehend—and therefore cannot accept—the darkest elements of the human…

View Post

View Post

10 min

When “The News” Was New

The American news media has spent the past four years in a state of highly public soul-searching about its much vaunted role in maintaining a democratic society. Recent editorial conflicts…

View Post

View Post

5 min

Culture & Media

“A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn

Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States considers the history of the US from the perspective of the underdog: the lower classes, workers, women, immigrants, African slaves and their…

View Post

View Post

8 min

Culture & Media

The Spectre of Atheism: “Leaving the Allah Delusion Behind” by Ibn Warraq

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of…

View Post

View Post

8 min

Culture & Media

James Baldwin’s Ambiguous Legacy

Whether it is conservatives using Martin Luther King Jr.’s colorblind principles to argue against progressive anti-racism, while ignoring his condemnations of white moderates, or leftists using the legacy of Frederick…

View Post

Culture & Media

How Sport Can Reduce Racism: An Irish Case Study

Don’t Read This Book

Own the Filth: Writing Into the Ethical Compromises of Fiction

¡Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos! A Case for a Bilingual America

Secrets of the Skin, or, Why Foucault Might Have a Problem with White Fragility

“Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends” by Anne Applebaum

Why We Must Walk Away from Omelas: The Problem with Utopias

Conversation, Not War: A Review of “Making Sense” by Sam Harris

The Afterlife of the Death of the Author

Trader Joe’s, Racism and Cancel Culture

The Real Reason Cancel Culture is Rejecting “Harry Potter”

When “The News” Was New

“A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn

The Spectre of Atheism: “Leaving the Allah Delusion Behind” by Ibn Warraq

James Baldwin’s Ambiguous Legacy

New to Areo

Join the Discussion

Read by Category