Thorstein Veblen died in 1929, broke and largely forgotten, in a cabin outside Palo Alto. He would have appreciated the irony. The man who spent his career dissecting how the wealthy perform their wealth could not have imagined that nearly a century later, teenagers on a Chinese social media app would prove his theories with […]
The Cult of the “Old Money” Aesthetic: A Veblenian Analysis of TikTok Trends Read More »
You probably believe you are a good person because you have thought carefully about right and wrong. You have weighed your options. You have reasoned through dilemmas. You have arrived at conclusions about justice, fairness, and decency through the disciplined application of your rational mind. David Hume would like a word. The Scottish philosopher, writing
Morality is a Muscle Memory: Why You Do Not Think Your Way to Being Good Read More »
There is a phrase that floats around self help culture like a benevolent ghost, showing up in graduation speeches, Instagram captions, and the bios of people who sell online courses. That phrase is “follow your passion.” It sounds noble. It sounds liberating. It sounds like the kind of advice that could never steer you wrong.
Why Kant Would Tell You to Stop “Finding Your Passion” and Start Finding Your Duty Read More »
Voltaire never actually said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That line was written by his biographer, Evelyn Beatrice Hall, summarizing his attitude. Which is fitting, really. We live in an age where misattributed quotes travel faster than verified ones, and where the
The Holy War of Words: Is Political Correctness the New Inquisition? Read More »
You did not choose your face. You did not select the angle of your nose, the width of your jaw, or the particular way your ears sit slightly too far from your skull. These were handed to you without consultation, like a uniform on the first day of a job you never applied for. And
There is a peculiar cruelty in the way we treat people who succeed without our permission. Not without our help. Without our permission. Because somewhere deep in the architecture of human psychology, we have appointed ourselves the gatekeepers of who deserves what. And the fastest way to fail that invisible audit is to show up
Why We Are Programmed to Hate Success We Did Not Witness Read More »
Carl von Clausewitz died in 1831. He never saw a smartphone, never doom scrolled through Twitter, and never watched a TikTok video of someone explaining geopolitics over a makeup tutorial. Yet his most famous strategic concept, the “center of gravity,” describes the modern social media landscape with an accuracy that should make every living strategist
You woke up this morning as a reasonably decent person. You recycled. You held the door for someone. You even let that car merge in traffic, which practically makes you a saint. Then you opened Instagram, scrolled for eleven minutes, and somehow ended up coveting your neighbor’s kitchen renovation, resenting your best friend’s vacation, and
Why Your Moral Compass Resets Every Time You Open Instagram Read More »
There is a particular kind of pride people take in calling themselves perfectionists. They say it in job interviews. They whisper it like a confession that is actually a brag. “I just care too much about quality.” It sounds noble. It sounds like the mark of someone who refuses to settle. But Herbert Simon, a
Why Being a “Perfectionist” is Actually Irrational (According to a Nobel Prize Winner) Read More »
Imagine a man who takes forty five minutes to explain why you should not lie to a murderer standing at your door asking where your friend is hiding. Now imagine that man on Twitter. Welcome to the nightmare of Immanuel Kant in the age of hot takes. Kant was born in 1724 in Königsberg, a
Why Kant Would Be the Most Hated Man on Twitter/X Read More »