Compared to What?
What debates and research about the effects of digital technologies on our lives so often lack is historical perspective.
Human Freedom and the Art of Nudging
Richard Williams, director of policy research at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, recently argued that the Obama administration's growing interest in using behavioral economics signifies a renewed and creeping enthusiasm for massive government oversight and coercion of its citizens. Like many libertarians before him, he traces this critique back to an overall anxiety that a "nanny state" will interfere with our lives, and take away our natural freedom.
Lyndon Johnson's War
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.”
Christmas and the New Cult of Images
Images continue to matter in a culture thoroughly saturated by them.
Is the Distracted Life Worth Living?
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.
Taylorism and the Work of Health
Posted on December 6, 2013
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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.