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“This is like, the Founding Fathers’ house and they’ve got a fuckin’ Monster-sponsored octagon in the middle of the... Read More

When was America great? Despite all that divides Americans today, I suspect a large cross-partisan majority of us, if pressed, would locate... Read More

Édouard Louis was only twenty-one years old when his debut novel, The End of Eddy, became an overnight sensation. Taking its cue from... Read More

It’s been an uneasy start to summer. Ticks are legion. The weather is unpredictable. The Iran war drags ludicrously on. Inflation is... Read More

Bo Nickal, his face shiny with Vaseline, had just finished pounding the nose and eyes and ears of his opponent, Kyle Daukaus, who lay on his... Read More

Every generation gets the horror films it deserves. In the 1950s, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” pulsed with postwar fears... Read More

I know her face, and so do you. I know how her Breck-girl blowout falls around the gold cross at her throat. And I know the way she enters a... Read More

Americans are not Luddites, except on behalf of software engineers. In our latest poll, The Argument asked respondents whether they would... Read More

The psychic malady governing the last century’s greatest literature was neurosis: a nervous, depressive, or aggressive inability to... Read More

It is hard to avoid wondering whether the shocking news of the ghastly accidental death of historian Gordon S. Wood, struck down by a... Read More

On Female Survival in the World of Jane Austen Read More

It was a crops farm upon a few dozen acres of upland surrounded by swamp (yes, I am a genuine “Swamp Yankee”) in a little New... Read More

When the Belgian-born author Jacqueline Harpman died in 2012, her slim, bleak novel I Who Have Never Known Men, first published in 1995, had... Read More

As pandemic schooling reminded us, all schooling is subject to the changing winds of politics and public policies (not to mention... Read More

Five years ago, I accompanied Gabriel Moked to an assisted-living facility. He was suffering from ulcerated bedsores and shrieked in pain... Read More

Why isn’t this being shown on TV? That’s the question I found myself asking after watching a recent performance by the great jazz... Read More

I was on a train from NYC up to Rhode Island to give a talk on Saturday when I was floored by this recent blog post from Tim Ferriss, author... Read More

Donald Trump’s UFC fight at the White House is a sign of far-reaching changes in American culture and politics. To understand just how... Read More

The Stepford Wives was once a horror story in a nice dress. However, that horror is becoming reality as we sit at our laptops and ask... Read More

Now 79, Steven Spielberg has spent the past few years dredging up his roots. His previous film, The Fabelmans, was a cinematic version of an... Read More

Friday, March 27, 2026 When I waded into the Florida humidity, Mom and Mimi were waiting for me at curbside pickup, three hours after the... Read More

On a temperate Sunday morning this past March, a few dozen people gathered at an underpass in Mexico City for a pick-up soccer game. After a... Read More

I was standing in line at Chaucer’s Books, my local indie, when it occurred to me that the line was longer than usual. This has been... Read More

The first public online community was created in Leopold’s Records, in Berkeley, California, in 1973, eleven years before I was born.... Read More

A buff, working-class white man wearing a plaid button-down shirt and large black shades pokes around a convenience store. He hears a dry,... Read More

In 1973, Yale sociologist Kai Erikson visited the ruins of several coal-mining towns in Logan County, West Virginia. The previous February, a... Read More

Since 2020, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has been transformed from what was basically a leftist academic theory into a protest.... Read More

If you haven’t seen Obsession yet, where the hell have you been? 20-year-old directorial wunderkind Kane Parsons might’ve also... Read More

Throughout our history, Americans of all stripes have crafted and recrafted the country’s origin story, fervently recommitting... Read More

It was always bold, impudent even, to insist that material substrates or elementary particles could have what it takes to anchor reality as... Read More

The year was 1889. The thirty-six-year-old artist and illustrator Howard Pyle had burst on the artistic scene in the 1870s with illustrations... Read More

At a recent dinner with conservative college students, the conversation turned quickly to their generation’s disillusionment with not... Read More

Conscious consumption has moved from niche to mainstream. According to PwC’s 2024 Voice of the Consumer Survey, shoppers reported a... Read More

I wasn’t supposed to like Yesteryear, which is why I was surprised, and a little embarrassed, to discover how much I enjoyed... Read More

After my parents divorced, my dad started his own advertising agency in Manhattan and determined that his efforts to woo clients would be... Read More