Lyndon Johnson's War

Posted on January 13, 2014
Image:
Few would dispute that America’s war on poverty—declared 50 years ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson in his State of the Union Address—is still a long way from over. With 15 percent of Americans today living under the poverty line, only four percent fewer than when Johnson launched his campaign, many might even agree with Ronald Reagan’s stinging assessment that “poverty won.”
Read more

Is the Distracted Life Worth Living?

Posted on December 12, 2013
Image:
Philosophy is something close to a national pastime in France, a fact reflected not just in the celebrity status of its big thinkers but also in the interest its media show in the subject. So perhaps it's not surprising that several French publications recently sent correspondents, interviewers, and even philosophers to the Richmond, Va. motorcycle repair shop of Matthew Crawford, mechanic, philosopher, and a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.
Read more

Taylorism and the Work of Health

Posted on December 6, 2013
Image:
The principles of Taylorism have had an enduring effect on job design practices. Something very like them is now being applied to the job of health.
Read more

"Where's the Betterness?"

Posted on November 26, 2013
Image:
A lot of our society's overblown technophilia goes on fulsome display at Austin's annual gathering of the hip and innovative, South by Southwest Interactive. Jacob Silverman, an independent writer, travelled to the 2013 festival to cover it for the fiercely contrarian review, The Baffler.
Read more