The Beautiful Game Enhances Its Beauty
This story reminds the reader of what is possible when groups of people who are separated by oceans, continents, and lived experiences share a love for the same sport.
Society & Culture
Why Latin America Dislikes the United States
The deep-seated cause of this feeling of hostility does not spring from the actions of Americans who go to Latin-America but from the treatment accorded to Latin-Americans who come to the United States. In truth, the whole question is involved in our own national and local Negro problem.
Do We Have to Monetize Everything?
The monetization mindset extends far beyond hobbies. Taking the marketplace as our model, we cheerfully objectify ourselves and one another in all sorts of contexts.
Marriage is an Institution for the Rich
While most proponents of marriage frame the problem correctly—as if it was not already obvious that married people are less likely to be lonely—they grab this thorny dilemma by the wrong end of the stick.
Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Have Evolved Yet Again
Rev. Billy started preaching in the late ’90s, outside the Disney store in Times Square, using the company as a symbol of mindless, life-destroying consumerism and unethical practices including sweatshop labor.This act, if it was an act at all, evolved in the two decades since 9-11 to become The Church of Stop Shopping and The Stop Shopping Choir.
How Esther Perel Figures People Out So Fast
Esther Perel knows both pain and resilience: her parents were the only members of their families to survive Nazi camps. She is not afraid, as I often am, to cut into the pain.
Should Emotional Labor Be Reimbursed?
Real emotional labor is not about fragility, just humanity. It does not make us snowflakes; it keeps us resilient. It should not require a false self, only a considerate one that refrains from inflicting its internal dissatisfactions on others. And if more of us did emotional labor, that extra compassion and thoughtfulness would become a lovely habit.
The Beloved Poet-King Eddie Balchowsky
Eddie Balchowsky’s lifestyle had its romance. But it also meant periods of homelessness, nights curled up in a friend’s bathtub to sleep, periods of depression so deep he had to be hospitalized. None of that tore away his kindness.
Goodwill to All
After a time the bin contents blurred into a single substance the color of meat hash. I grew up with food insecurity and unlivable housing, and the deep misery of poverty is always accessible to me.
How Zero-Sum Thinking Divides Us
Zero-sum thinking shows up all over the place. It puddles in the Congressional aisle no one dares cross. It puts up trade barriers, panics at trade deficits, and insists on protectionism, isolationism, nationalism. It builds walls, both literal and figurative, to keep out strangers.