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The cause of mental disorders such as depression remains unknown. However, the idea that neurotransmitter imbalances cause depression is vigorously promoted by pharmaceutical companies and the psychiatric profession at large. We examine media reports referring to this chemical imbalance theory and ask reporters for evidence supporting their claims. We then report and critique the scientific papers...
Nothing effects modern society more than the decisions made in the market place, especially (but not only) the judgments of consumers. The designation of market relations in modern societies as the “moralization of the markets” represents a novel stage in the social evolution of markets. Market theories still widely in use today emerged in a society that no longer exists. Today, growing affluence,...
The situations of nineteenth century dock workers and today’s immigrant day laborers bear striking similarities and challenges, especially for those seeking to organize them into labor unions. The obstacles confronting such organizing efforts also underscore the legitimate concerns many Americans have about the threats to social order posed by immigrants today.
This article scrutinizes the inconsistencies in the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger Supreme Court decision which upheld the University of Michigan’s law school affirmative action policy. The decision, which now governs university admissions policies in all 50 states, ruled that “diversity” remains a compelling state interest that legally justifies discriminating between individuals on the basis of their...
Václav Havel, the ninth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989–1992) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003), is author most recently of To the Castle and Back (2007).
This meditative essay by a writer and professor reflects on the milestone of reaching 50 years of age. The author relates his own experiences and those of his elder literary friends and colleagues who have felt comparable anxieties and coped with similar challenges toward aging and death. He records their own milestones on life’s journey as well as their insightful and often quite hopeful, if not...
When a New York City man risked his own life to save a stranger on the subway tracks, the New York Times interpreted his behavior not in terms of virtue but as a product of certain ‘hard-wiring’ he happened to possess. In denying virtue, the Times followed a school of thought that is pervasive in social science (referred to in this paper as the ‘individualists’) who, for example, explain charitable...
Over the past year, several published volumes have argued that American politics is careening out of control, toward a slippery slope of twenty-first century theocracy. Most of these books present tendentious interpretations of contemporary politics as matter-of-fact analysis. The reader is assumed to hold the same interpretive bias and warned of the dangers of a new and powerful American “fundamentalism...
David Riesman, the Harvard sociologist, rose to eminence in the 1950s as one of America’s most influential “public intellectuals,” gaining renown as principal author of the must-read sociological classic of the time, The Lonely Crowd. In that work, Riesman accounted for something of a sea-change in American life, marked by his famous distinction between inner-directed and other-directed character-types,...
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