Autocracies

“In the short to medium term, the techno-autocracies often did well. Louis XIV, Napoleon, imperial Germany, Hitler, Tojo and Stalin all had some good years. But time and again the poisonous isolation that absolute power imposes on its wielders blunted the edge of...

Mishaps

“Mishaps are like knives that either serve us or cut us as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.” – James Russell Lowell

Community Morals

“Tim Keller gave a thought experiment I find helpful here. Imagine a man who has two strong desires: the first desire is to have sex with men. The second desire is to kill men. If that man is born in Manhattan, his friends, family, and therapists will tell him one of...

Public Schools

Until public schools abandon an orientation that treats mediocrity as success, they will remain complicit in the very inequities they claim to oppose. – Rabbi Yosie Levine

Trials

“We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.” – Helen Keller