HARPER’S MAGAZINE, the oldest general interest monthly in America, explores the issues that drive our national conversation through such celebrated features as Readings, Annotation, and Findings, as well as the iconic Harper’s Index.
Unplanned Obsolescence What Justin E. H. Smith perceives as the younger generation’s parochial attitude toward art [“My Generation,” Essay, September] is in fact a healthy skepticism regarding claims about universalism and anything as facile as “human liberation.” Millennials and Gen Z-ers take it upon themselves to ask, “liberation for whom?” They recognize the violence of any work of art that lays claim to a totalizing ethos. The young people I know are more concerned with the liberation struggles of real people than they are with cultural posturing in a world where morality and artistic purity have evaporated into the thin air of late-stage capitalism. Aside from a brief mention of Run-D.M.C., Smith writes as though hip-hop—the most important cultural form to emerge from the Eighties and Nineties—never happened, as though…
Some years ago, before I became an American citizen, I held a visa that prompted immigration officials to quiz me about my work. These exchanges often went badly. If you want to visit the little Customs and Border Protection room at the airport, you have only to say the words “literary fiction” and your wish will be granted. Usually, I would get to the front of the line and stumble through an explanation of the novel I was writing, a multistrand story set in the Mojave Desert. The figure behind the plexiglass would curl his lip and interrupt to ask whether any of my books had been made into movies. I’d shake my head, and the situation would go one of two ways. Either the official would pity me, a…
Brian T. Watson is an architect and cultural critic. For twenty-three years, he has been a columnist with the Salem News in Salem, Massachusetts, focused primarily on current affairs and the forces that were and are shaping societies both here and abroad. Independent of the pandemic and war, we are beset by a range of unprecedented developments that together, in this century, threaten the very existence of civilization. The current states of just ten forces — capitalism, technology, the internet, politics, media, education, human nature, the environment, population, and transportation — are driving society in predominantly negative ways. These forces are powerful and interconnected and their combined dynamics will carry us into any number of disasters well before 2100. We have the knowledge and solutions to address our difficulties, but…
[Essay] PRINCIPIA MATHEMAGICA By Anthony Grafton, from Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa, which will be published next month by Harvard University Press. In the sixteenth century, opinions of the famed Doctor Faustus varied. Many considered him a charlatan, but some witnesses spoke in more than one key about his magic. One critic, the Lutheran reformer Philip Melanchthon, glossed his critique of Faustus with an almost admiring remark about the magician’s supernatural patron: “The devil is a marvelous artisan. For by a certain art he can achieve things which are natural, and which we do not know. For he can do more than man.” Here Melanchthon describes the devil’s art as that of a supremely inventive craftsman, a “mirabilis artifex” who could draw out the “occult virtues”…
From The Rebellious CEO, by Ralph Nader, which was published this month by Melville House. Sol Price was the founder of Price Club, whose parent company merged with Costco in 1993. Sol Price never spoke of the past, neither about his business successes and adventures, nor his upbringing, family, or personal life. In nearly a dozen meetings and dinners I had with Sol, he always spoke and asked about the present and the future. The only exception was to recall his jokes. One of his favorites was delivered at a gathering of big-box discount store executives, including the Walmart founder Sam Walton and top managers from Costco, Kmart, Target, Home Depot, and Staples, who praised Sol as the father of this gigantic retail revolution. He replied, “I should have worn…
From an exchange between the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a non-profit organization that promotes animal rights, and the Georgia-based Macon Bacon baseball team in June 2023. PHYSICIANS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MEDICINE: Macon Bacon’s glorification of bacon, a processed meat that raises the risk of colorectal cancer and other diseases, sends the wrong message to fans. You should encourage fans to consume delicious, healthful, plant-based foods instead of menu items like 6° of Kevin Bacon, Bacon Wrapped Bacon, Steak Cut Bacon, Bacon Cheeseburger, Bacon Dog, Bacon Loaded Cheese Fries, Bacon Loaded Mac N Cheese, and Bacon Chips. I also urge you to update the team’s name to Macon Facon Bacon and promote plant-based bacon alternatives, such as Facon Bacon or Mushroom Bacon, which will help your fans stay healthy. As…
