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Why you shouldn’t want to always be happy0
- Economics
- August 12, 2016
In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness squarely at the center of psychology research and theory. It continued a trend that began in the 1960s with humanistic and existential psychology, which emphasized the importance of reaching one’s innate potential and creating meaning
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Why Women (Still) Aren’t Funny0
- Culture
- August 12, 2016
January will mark the 10-year anniversary of Christopher Hitchens’ famous (notorious?) essay, “Why Women Aren’t Funny.” In the impolite article, Hitchens, as only he could do, delivered a devastating exposé explaining the causes behind “the humor gap.” The article enraged female comedians and sparked a slew of indignant (and unfunny) letters to the editor. Looking back,
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Why Grad Rates are Meaningless0
- Education
- August 12, 2016
In a recent Intellectual Takeout piece, Daniel Lattier pointed out that colleges are now having to deal with incoming “book virgins”. To gain admittance to college in the 17th century, students had to be able to read and translate various Latin authors on sight. 100 years ago, students were required to have read various classical works
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What happened when a Muslim student went to Cambridge in 18160
- Education
- August 12, 2016
Two hundred years ago, there arrived in London the first group of Muslims ever to study in Europe. Dispatched by the Crown Prince of Iran, their mission was to survey the new sciences emerging from the industrial revolution. As the six young Muslims settled into their London lodgings in the last months of 1815, they
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Is Contemporary Liberalism Creating a Soulless Monoculture?0
- Culture
- August 12, 2016
I was once called a “cracker” by a member of the Nation of Islam. It was in the mid-1980s and I was driving through Washington, D.C., in the kind of neighborhood that conservatives call dangerous and liberals call “transitioning.” I saw a member of the Nation of Islam, bow tie and all, on the corner
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Does High School Financial Literacy = Debt Improvement?0
- Economics
- August 12, 2016
In recent years we’ve given students the following message: go to college at all costs. If you can’t afford it, take out student loans. It will be worth it in the long run. Many believe that this message has led college costs to rise at an astronomical rate, a jump which economist Mark Perry describes
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‘Romeo and Juliet’ is not a Romance0
- Culture
- August 12, 2016
Romeo and Juliet is not the only Shakespeare play that the modern world, modern critics and modern teachers get wrong. Truth be told, Shakespeare abuse is rampant. Just about every play is being mistaught and misrepresented. Romeo and Juliet is, however, taught more often than most, probably more often than any other of the Bard’s
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The American Republic and the Long Shadow of Rome0
- Education
- August 11, 2016
“Beware the Ides of March!” Thus the soothsayer warned Emperor Julius Caesar on the 15th of March, 44 B.C. On that day, Caesar, who had overturned the Roman republic and made himself a tyrant, was assassinated by a group of Senators, including his friend, Brutus. In the eponymous play by William Shakespeare, the Senators begin
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Stalin Erased His Enemies From History (Literally)0
- History
- August 11, 2016
It’s no secret that governments in the 20th century killed a lot of people, but few did it with greater efficiency than Joe Stalin, whose policy of forced collectivization killed an estimated 14.5 million people between 1930-1937. Stalin employed terror with a zeal and skill few could match, marginalizing rivals such as Leon Trotsky, who was expelled from the
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