The Failure of Imagination
It’s strange how often a conversation about fairness ends with someone saying, “What are you, a communist?” as if that closes the subject. The irony is that neither label in that old debate, capitalism or communism, captures the full reality. What most Americans call “communism” was never the stateless, classless society described in theory, but rather the state-run systems that claimed its name. Yet that misunderstanding still defines how we frame every discussion about what is possible. We have been taught to think in opposites instead of possibilities.
The Lure of Complexity, the Freedom of Simplicity
We often find ourselves tangled in the threads of complexity, drawn to the idea that a fuller life must be a more complicated one. It’s a deeply human instinct, this subtle pull toward filling our days with more commitments, more possessions, more friction. It’s as if complexity itself were a measure of meaning.
When Critical Thought Turns on You
Critical thought is almost always imagined as an outward act, a way of evaluating someone else’s claims, spotting the bias in their reasoning, exposing the flaws in their evidence. What’s almost never discussed is its inward form: using the same discipline to interrogate the architecture of our own beliefs.