The twisted psychology of the “white saviour”. — Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s troubles began when she was just three months old. Her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, was convinced that Gypsy had sleep apnea and took her to the hospital for tests. When doctors found nothing wrong, Dee Dee self-diagnosed her daughter with a chromosomal defect that required her to…

Honesty, Elon Musk, and the risk of causing offence. — On December 26th, 2021, a modest scandal unfolded on Instagram. Users who uploaded a specific quote by Thomas Paine, discovered that their posts were being automatically removed. Facebook users allegedly received 24-hour account suspensions for the same transgression. …

The trials and tribulations of talking about race. — If you didn’t love your kids, you wouldn’t want to talk to them. They suck at telling stories. They‘re too young to gossip about your favourite TV shows. Their social circle is people who wet their pants and put crayons up their noses. And worst of all, none of this…

What if you don’t need to be angry to save the world? — Anger is like a drug; the adrenaline, the singular focus, the occasional loss of bladder control. As James Averill, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts put it: …anger is one of the densest forms of communication. …

Let’s demistify the “w” word. — From time to time, I like to grapple with life’s big questions. What happens after we die? Why do Adam and Eve have belly buttons? And, most perplexing of all, what is a woman? This last, seemingly innocent question has become a political landmine in recent years. Ketanji Brown-Jackson claimed…

Will Smith, Chris Rock, and our growing culture of cruelty. — There’s no way to adequately express how cool I thought Will Smith was when I was a kid. So I’ll just put it this way: If I’d had an older brother when I was growing up, Will Smith would have ruined his life. Every morning, as we brushed our teeth…

What happens when aggression is met with appeasement? — January 10th, 1920. After the 20 million dead, 21 million wounded, and incalculable destruction of World War I, a consortium of 42 countries forms the League of Nations. Their founding purpose: “to develop cooperation among nations and to guarantee them peace and security.” It doesn’t go well. In 1931, Japanese…

Notes from the dictator’s playbook. — In 1956, three years after Stalin’s death, Russia’s First Party Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, delivered a speech called, On The Cult Of Personality And Its Consequences, in which he roundly criticised Stalin’s foundationally dishonest, authoritarian brand of leadership: The negative characteristics of Stalin, which, in Lenin’s time, were only incipient, transformed…

Let’s talk about Biden’s racist bulls**t. — July 7th, 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson places a private call to Thurgood Marshall, then a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and asks him to serve as Solicitor General in the Justice Department. Johnson is candid about his reasons for picking Marshall: I want you to do…