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Category: Society

We are two countries, and neither of them is going to be conquered or disappear anytime soon

We are two countries, and neither of them is going to be conquered or disappear anytime soon

George Packer writes: We don’t yet know the outcome of the election, but its meaning is already clear. We are two countries, and neither of them is going to be conquered or disappear anytime soon. The outcome of the 2016 election was not a historical fluke or result of foreign subversion, but a pretty accurate reflection of the American electorate. The much-discussed Democratic majority that’s been emerging since the turn of the millennium is still in a state of emergence…

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Make America healthy again by paying more attention to nutrition

Make America healthy again by paying more attention to nutrition

Vanita Rahman and Matthew Rees write: Health care and health care policy were centerpieces of the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns. It’s a shame that neither party focused on the underlying issue: the poor health of the American people, largely attributed to poor nutrition. By many measures, the population of the United States is the unhealthiest of any high-income country despite spending much more money, as a share of the economy, on health care. The incidence of chronic disease is…

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Undocumented immigrants may actually make American communities safer – not more dangerous – new study finds

Undocumented immigrants may actually make American communities safer – not more dangerous – new study finds

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that undocumented immigrants cause more crime, but new research suggests the opposite might be true. Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images By Robert M. Adelman, University at Buffalo and Lesley Reid, University of Alabama The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Undocumented immigration does not increase the violent crime rate in U.S. metropolitan areas. In fact, it may reduce property crime rates. These are the key findings from…

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The challenge of reclaiming the commons from capitalism

The challenge of reclaiming the commons from capitalism

Dirk Philipsen writes: A basic truth is once again trying to break through the agony of worldwide pandemic and the enduring inhumanity of racist oppression. Healthcare workers risking their lives for others, mutual aid networks empowering neighbourhoods, farmers delivering food to quarantined customers, mothers forming lines to protect youth from police violence: we’re in this life together. We – young and old, citizen and immigrant – do best when we collaborate. Indeed, our only way to survive is to have…

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The real divide in America is between political junkies and everyone else

The real divide in America is between political junkies and everyone else

Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan write: The common view of American politics today is of a clamorous divide between Democrats and Republicans, an unyielding, inevitable clash of harsh partisan polarization. But that focus obscures another, enormous gulf — the gap between those who follow politics closely and those who don’t. Call it the “attention divide.” What we found is that most Americans — upward of 80 percent to 85 percent — follow politics casually or not at all. Just…

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Hannah Arendt saw totalitarianism rooted in loneliness

Hannah Arendt saw totalitarianism rooted in loneliness

Samantha Rose Hill writes: What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience … – From The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) by Hannah Arendt ‘Please write regularly, or otherwise I am going to die out here.’ Hannah Arendt didn’t usually begin letters to her husband this way, but in the spring of 1955 she found…

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As quality of life has risen across most of the world over the last decade, it has fallen in the U.S.

As quality of life has risen across most of the world over the last decade, it has fallen in the U.S.

Nicholas Kristof writes: This should be a wake-up call: New data suggest that the United States is one of just a few countries worldwide that is slipping backward. The newest Social Progress Index, shared with me before its official release Thursday morning, finds that out of 163 countries assessed worldwide, the United States, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011. And the declines in Brazil and Hungary…

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America’s complexity deficit has trapped us in a pandemic spiral

America’s complexity deficit has trapped us in a pandemic spiral

Ed Yong writes: Army ants will sometimes walk in circles until they die. The workers navigate by smelling the pheromone trails of workers in front of them, while laying down pheromones for others to follow. If these trails accidentally loop back on themselves, the ants are trapped. They become a thick, swirling vortex of bodies that resembles a hurricane as viewed from space. They march endlessly until they’re felled by exhaustion or dehydration. The ants can sense no picture bigger…

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Disdain for the less educated is the last acceptable prejudice

Disdain for the less educated is the last acceptable prejudice

Michael J. Sandel writes: Joe Biden has a secret weapon in his bid for the presidency: He is the first Democratic nominee in 36 years without a degree from an Ivy League university. This is a potential strength. One of the sources of Donald Trump’s political appeal has been his ability to tap into resentment against meritocratic elites. By the time of Mr. Trump’s election, the Democratic Party had become a party of technocratic liberalism more congenial to the professional…

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Seeing human society as a complex system opens a better future for us all

Seeing human society as a complex system opens a better future for us all

Jessica Flack and Melanie Mitchell write: We’re at a unique moment in the 200,000 years or so that Homo sapiens have walked the Earth. For the first time in that long history, humans are capable of coordinating on a global scale, using fine-grained data on individual behaviour, to design robust and adaptable social systems. The pandemic of 2019-20 has brought home this potential. Never before has there been a collective, empirically informed response of the magnitude that COVID-19 has demanded….

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The greatest weakness of American men? Fear of looking weak

The greatest weakness of American men? Fear of looking weak

Alex Abad-Santos writes: Fellas, is it gay to not die of a virus that turns your lungs into soggy shells of their former selves, drowning you from the inside out? Is wearing a mask to avoid death part of the feminization of America? Is it too emasculating to wear a mask to protect the others around you? Does staying alive make you feel weak? According to many American men, yeah. Poll after poll, most recently a Gallup poll from July…

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Trump’s history of racism and the reckoning it has forced

Trump’s history of racism and the reckoning it has forced

Ibram X. Kendi writes: Marine One waited for the president of the United States on the South Lawn of the White House. It was July 30, 2019, not long past 9 a.m. Donald Trump was headed to historic Jamestown to mark the 400th anniversary of the first representative assembly of European settlers in the Americas. But Black Virginia legislators were boycotting the visit. Over the preceding two weeks, the president had been engaged in one of the most racist political…

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In the pandemic, the United States stands out as an exceptional failure

In the pandemic, the United States stands out as an exceptional failure

The New York Times reports: Nearly every country has struggled to contain the coronavirus and made mistakes along the way. China committed the first major failure, silencing doctors who tried to raise alarms about the virus and allowing it to escape from Wuhan. Much of Europe went next, failing to avoid enormous outbreaks. Today, many countries — Japan, Canada, France, Australia and more — are coping with new increases in cases after reopening parts of society. Yet even with all…

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Landlord-leaning eviction courts are about to make the coronavirus housing crisis a lot worse

Landlord-leaning eviction courts are about to make the coronavirus housing crisis a lot worse

Eviction moratoriums have already begun to expire. Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images By Katy Ramsey Mason, University of Memphis The United States is on the verge of a potentially devastating eviction crisis right in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Federal, state and local eviction moratoriums had put most of the pending cases on hold. But as the moratoriums expire and eviction hearings resume, millions of people are at risk of losing their homes. That’s because the court process is…

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A prophet of uncertainty

A prophet of uncertainty

Adam Tooze writes: If it is true that we are now faced with pervasive risks generated and brought upon us by the forces of modernity and yet not accessible to our immediate senses, how do we cope? Until you start suffering from radiation poisoning, until your fetus suffers a horrific mutation, until you find your lungs flooding with pneumonia, the threat of the radiation or a mystery bug is unreal, inaccessible to the naked eye or immediate perception. In risk…

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Countries with levels of police brutality comparable to that in the U.S. are called ‘police states’

Countries with levels of police brutality comparable to that in the U.S. are called ‘police states’

Laurence Ralph writes: Public outcry over the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd earlier this year has ignited mass demonstrations against structural racism and police violence in the United States. The protests have reached every American state and spread to countries around the world; they arguably constitute the most broad-based civil rights movement in American history. Protests against the brutalization of communities of color by the U.S. criminal justice system have been growing for years, but the…

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