All Articles

Frank Capra once made popular movies about concentrated wealth, media ownership, political machines, and the institutions ordinary people built to resist them. Later Hollywood taught Americans another valuable lesson: to distrust generals, presidents, intelligence agencies, and secret government power. But while we were watching the state, private economic power was transforming the country. What happened to Hollywood’s ability—and sense of responsibility—to show us how power

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey turns Homer’s ancient law of hospitality into a warning about the fragility of civilization. From the Trojan Horse to the suitors in Ithaca, the film asks what happens when intelligence learns to exploit the conventions that make trust possible.

Power does not corrupt. It removes constraints and reveals character. The problem is not limiting power but developing character, in both individuals and institutions.

Buzzati's Baliverna becomes much more disturbing if the Baliverna represents a world after maintenance has ceased but before collapse has become visible.

The Great Filter may not be a biological barrier or a technological catastrophe. It may be the failure of intelligent species to become morally self-governing before their power becomes planetary.

Human beings learn from catastrophe, but not for long. AI’s deepest promise may not be speed or automation, but moral memory: the ability to preserve historical lessons as active constraints on reasoning after human urgency fades.

Graeme Wood’s critique of shoplifting as resistance points to a deeper problem with America’s moral code. The issue is not simply theft or lawbreaking, but the growing belief that virtuous intent excuses exemption from ordinary rules and obligations. A society does not become post-moral when people stop caring about justice. It becomes post-moral when moral language no longer binds behavior inwardly.

Progressives are often better at disqualifying candidates than choosing among them. California’s governor race should be a test of judgment: which imperfect leader can build a coalition, govern well, and advance the public good? Instead, too often, we search for the flaw that lets us stop thinking.

“The lesser evil is still evil” sounds principled—but in politics, it erases real differences and enables worse outcomes. This critique of moral refusal demonstrates that the question is not whether an option is pure, but whether refusing to choose makes the world worse.

The rush to cancel César Chávez reveals two different moral failures. Republicans who would erase Chávez but excuse Trump are not applying a principle. Democrats who reduce political life to heroes and villains are not exercising judgment. One side exempts its own. The other cannot think in tragic terms.

David Brooks argues that America needs “a Trimmer” — a prudent moderate who balances competing truths and resists ideological excess. But moderation is not a moral principle. It is only a tactic, and when detached from truth and justice it becomes not wisdom, but complicity.

We have more data, more expertise, and more technical capacity than ever—and yet nothing works. This essay argues that the failure is upstream: a collapse of truth’s binding force, shared meaning, and collective agency that no policy can fix on its own.