State of Mindlessness
Timeless stories from our 175-year archive handpicked to add context to the news of the day.
Fundamental Freedoms
[ F E B R U A R Y • 1 9 8 8 ]
“But how can you boast of your free speech if you suppress mine? How can you listen to the shoemaker’s or the tanner’s views when you debate justice in the assembly, but shut me up when I express mine?”
Read I.F. Stone’s reconsideration of the trial of Socrates
[ J A N U A R Y • 2 0 1 9 ]
Kevin Baker on the shaky foundation of American democracy.
Read “The Crisis of Our Constitution” by Kevin Baker
[ M A R C H • 2 0 1 8 ]
“The country has witnessed a broader retreat from the long-standing aversion to restricting free expression, both on campuses and in statehouses where legislators have worked to criminalize anti-corporate speech.”
Read Ian MacDougall’s report on the price of dissent
Love Thy Northern Neighbor
[ J U N E • 1 9 3 6 ]
A Canadian examines the state of neighborliness.
Read “Canada Looks South” by Leslie Roberts
[ M A R C H • 1 9 6 1 ]
“The Canadian identity can mean nothing much to Americans, but to us it means what yours means to you.”
Read Hugh MacLennan’s Easy Chair column on anti-Americanism in Canada
[ J A N U A R Y • 1 9 8 9 ]
On Canada’s national culture, identity, and the free-trade agreement: “Political unity with a more aggressive and powerful country may not mean the death of the essence of one's own country. But such a link could be dangerous and in some respects depleting.”
Read “Signing Away Canada’s Soul” by Robertson Davies
The End of the Grand Tour
[ N O V E M B E R • 1 9 3 2 ]
“Though an economic disaster has reduced many an academic and foundation budget, the scholastic exodus is still great.”
[ O C T O B E R • 1 9 5 3 ]
“The most significant factor of the individual's participation is stated to be his continuing effects or influences ‘in the direction of ultimate World Peace.’”
Read George Rippey Stewart’s account of his federally-funded Fulbright scholarship to Greece
[ S E P T E M B E R • 2 0 1 3 ]
“My chances of getting one were good: the German government, understandably intent on promoting international cooperation after the Second World War, contributed heavily to the Fulbright program, which, as a result, seemed to give nearly as many fellowships for Germany as for the rest of the world combined.”
Tell Tale Swine
[ J U N E • 1 9 8 6 ]
“He didn’t yet have the details of all the relevant genetic engineering, and he didn’t expect custom-tailored pigs to appear in time for the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalogue, but the new day was dawning a lot sooner than most people supposed.”
Read “A Pig for All Seasons” by Lewis H. Lapham
[ M A Y • 2 0 0 6 ]
“Although artificial insemination is by no means the worst indignity inflicted on the modern pig in the course of this transformation, it is a fair symbol for all the other indignities we have visited on it.”
Read Nathanael Johnson on the making of the modern pig