OnPoint Subscriber Exclusive
Longer Reads provide in-depth analysis of the ideas and forces shaping politics, economics, international affairs, and more.
Men Overboard
With conservatives feeling besieged by acceptance of same-sex marriage, gender fluidity, and multiplying pronouns, a key practical question for them is how to restore the patriarchal family to its rightful, protective place between the market and the state. A spate of recent books, including two by US senators, all reach the same frightening answer.
https://prosyn.org/GofB8yT
NEW YORK – Long ago, before writing based on alphabets, knowledge was stored and conveyed across generations acoustically, by word of mouth arranged in rhythmic patterns that could be memorized and then recited whenever collective instruction called for it. All knowledge was formulaic and compulsively repetitive, because innovation – originality, or creative departure from received tradition – meant the erasure of previous truth. Novel facts signaled unwelcome danger or deviation, not exciting new possibilities.