To Homer, as to the rest of the ancient world, what became the Christian idea of personal resurrection was preposterous. “You must endure, and not be brokenhearted,” Achilles tells Priam in the 24th book of the “Iliad,” perhaps the West’s most moving evocation of the tragic nature of life. Achilles, who has killed Priam’s son Read more
The first self-aware discovery I made as an adult transitioning out of extended college adolescence was that exercise made me happy. I discovered it accidentally at first, and marveled at the direct, immediate correlation between the days I exercised and the days when I’d think, “Today was a good day.” The wonder quickly gave way Read more
Privacy: When something is free, we are the product. Mark Zuckerberg might believe the world is better without privacy. He’s wrong. It will be fantastically satisfying to see the boy genius flayed. All the politicians—ironically, in search of a viral moment—will lash Mark Zuckerberg from across the hearing room. They will corner Facebook’s founding bro, Read more
For people high in introversion, life is good when they can sit back and let others take front and center. There are times, however, when they’re called upon to be the ones in the spotlight. Perhaps they ran for an office in a volunteer group and, much to their surprise, actually won the election. Now Read more
It has become one of the most commonplace and influential ideas about religion: that it is the cause of much, if not most, of the conflict and violence in the world. While this is not a new idea — religious passions have long been deemed suspect for their potential to causes divisions — the notion Read more
Recently, for a talk in Chicago to parents of high school boys, I had to update my knowledge based on a 2009 review of the effects of pornography. On this issue the world has changed a lot in less than ten years: the use of pornography has escalated and the effects are alarming. The most telling effect, Read more
For a few nights in April last year, astronomers linked up eight radio telescopes in the United States, Chile, Spain, Mexico, and Antarctica for a little photo shoot. Their goal was to piece together an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Black holes, one of the most Read more
A native-Spanish speaker who grew up with Italian-speaking relatives in Argentina, Pope Francis at five years has a striking way with words. Bringing a background in literary themes and devices with him to the papacy five years ago, the pope has shown himself to be a master of metaphor and allegory. His cross-cultural and eclectic Read more
Whenever Pope Francis visits prisons, during his whirlwind trips to the world’s peripheries or at a nearby jailhouse in Rome, he always tells inmates that he, too, could have ended up behind bars: “Why you and not me?” he asks. That humble empathy and the ease with which he walks in others’ shoes have won Read more
Munroe Bergdorf probably hates you. Certainly if you are white she will think you are pretty disgusting. She thinks that you, like ‘all white people’, partake in ‘racial violence’. She thinks you have built your ‘existence, privilege and success’ on ‘the backs, blood and death of people of colour’. In short, you’re scum: you are Read more