Contemporary Articles

Why is this worth your time? Regular readers will be aware that I think Dr. Iain McGilchrist is one of the most consequential minds of our times. Last month he published a monster 1,400 page book, The Matter With Things. It’s his masterpiece, and an attempt to comprehensively expand on a thesis that has changed my life. I had the privilege of interviewing him last week.

The University of Virginia Center for Politics, led by Larry Sabato, provides polling results that show deep social, political, and psychological divides between Biden voters and Trump voters. Nowadays, it is common to think that large swaths of other people must be in denial.

In the old days, we argued good policy. Now we theorize one another.

Adam Smith had things to say about denial and self-deceit. Here I draw exclusively from The Theory of Moral Sentiments.  Applications are in your hands—and breast.

Enchantment is essentially an experience of wonder, and like the experience itself, the subject is hard to pin down. So think of this essay instead as a wander through one corner of it, with glimpses farther afield.

Daniel B. Klein September 6, 2021[A version of this piece appeared originally at City Journal.]     Alexis de Tocqueville   “The entire book that you are going to read,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in the Introduction of Democracy in America, Volume One...