Culture

A collection of 292 posts

editor's pick

Kherson by night: On the frontlines in two worlds

Jonathan MS Pearce reports from Kherson, a frontline Ukrainian city that has borne the brunt of Russian aggression and is now suffering the consequences. There is no military benefit to assaulting Kherson. It is an act borne out of deep-seated vengeance. Hope is in short supply.

editor's pick

Crowdfunding a war against autocracy

War in the 21st century can look very different from wars of the past. Now, people can come together to crowdfund the defense of a nation. Jonathan MS Pearce reporting from Ukraine.

editor's pick

Gen Z views are rapidly splitting in half by gender—and the gap is not small

Today's young people (under 30) are going through a rather significant demographic and sociological shift. Young women appeared to be more concerned with and aligned to progressive values and issues, while young men are moving in a more conservative direction. This isn't just happening in the US.

editor's pick

'Tell us where the Jews are': History coins a terrifying rhyme

Antisemitism is raising its ugly head again as the winds of discontent and prejudice circle the globe. A mob hunting for Jewish travelers at a Dagestan airport is just the latest incidence in a rising epidemic.

editor's pick

'Beheaded babies': Horrific atrocity or propaganda?

In the public discourse over the Hamas-Israel conflict, one claim has suddenly taken center stage: that babies not only died in the violence, but that some were beheaded by Hamas. The difference is everything. The former might be a tragic by-product of the indiscriminate violence of war. The latter

crime

The blind defenses of Russell Brand

Comedian, actor, raconteur, and of-late YouTuber Russell Brand has recently been accused of a number of sexual offenses. This has set social and mainstream media alight with opinions ranging from "I told you so" to "say it ain't so" to "stand with Brand.

crime

We are becoming more moral, not less. So why all the moaning to the contrary?

There is no doubt that society is becoming less religious. Statistics from the US, the UK, and many other developed nations show that religiosity is in decline. As a result of this demographic shift, there are those in society (particularly among the religious) who claim that, as a result, we

conservatism

Christians: Jesus is too woke

I recently described why I think "woke" has become a vacuous word that means little more than "libtard" in modern parlance. It seems apropos, then, that Christianity Today also recently released a piece that saw the editor-in-chief claim (in a previous NPR interview) that evangelical Christianity

conservatism

What is 'woke'? It’s my trigger word

There is real confusion about what this now-common word actually means. Conservative author Bethany Mandel recently had a car crash of an interview where she froze, completely unable to define what “woke” means. This is somewhat surprising given that she is an author of a book in which she attacks “

News Brief

Was it right for the US to give Ukraine cluster bombs?

Munitions of every kind have horrific outcomes. The hope in Ukraine is bringing this war to the best conclusion in the quickest timeframe.

Russian invasion of Ukraine

The Kakhovka dam: How we know the Russians were to blame

The destruction of the hydroelectric power plant and dam on the Dnipro River in Ukraine on 6th June will probably have been devastating news to readers at the time but something that many will have forgotten about as we become over-satiated by our fill of daily news. But that catastrophe

inequality

The millionaires who want to tax the rich

The nonprofit group Patriotic Millionaires has lobbied Congress and engaged in public education to raise the minimum wage and to raise taxes on the rich—on themselves.

Putin

The many dilemmas of the war in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is a deadly game of chess, and a series of dilemmas is distracting the players from making clear and decisive moves.

Culture

Canaan begat Israel: What the Bible gets wrong about Hebrew origins

No love is lost between the Hebrews and Canaanites in the Bible. The narrative roots of their antagonism appear early in Genesis, in which we read about the chosen Israelites and shameful Canaanites descending from different sons of Noah. A few books later, in Joshua, we’re told that the

community

What can the secular community learn from Black-majority churches?

As church attendance continues to plummet in the UK, Black churches buck the trend. Is there something seculars can learn from their success?

China

Putin's Russian sacrifice at the Chinese altar

It is no secret that both Russia and China have long sought to wrest US hegemony away from the West and provide an alternative locus of supreme power. However, the ill-advised war in Ukraine has done more damage to Russia's hard and soft power than anything else NATO

News Brief

Putin is issued arrest warrant for war crimes

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, with a focus on the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. This crime is one of 11 that constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and that are applicable only

misinformation

I've been suspended on YouTube for misinformation

My YouTube channel ATP Geopolitics is a calm, measured, and wide-ranging look at the Ukraine war from micro- to macro-level. But as its presenter and curator of sources, I am angry. Very angry indeed. YouTubing is a job for me. Indeed, in my post-teaching life, where multiple sclerosis has restricted

editor's pick

Analysis: Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines?

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has stoked something of a hornets' nest with a recent Substack piece detailing how he thinks the US (together with Norway) was responsible for the explosion on the Nord Stream gas pipelines connecting Russia to Europe in September 2022. If this is the case,

Russia

Yes, it IS a proxy war, and it's one we must win

With the anniversary of the Ukraine-Russia War looming next month, the war is at perhaps its most attritional, most horrific, most heart-breaking. The loss of life there need never have happened. Assuming he survives this war, Vladimir Putin will one day have a lot to answer for. In a court.

Biblical Exegesis

Jesus as the new Moses

Jesus is many things to many people. To the early Christians, authors of the Gospels, he was certainly a construction of sorts. For example, for Matthew, Jesus was written in a way that emulated Moses in order that he appealed to Matthew's Jewish audience. The use of this

Christian music

Are my children missing out on 'True Christmas'?

I am a fully-fledged secular atheist. I also love Christmas. It is probably a learned thing involving decades of cultural normalization following a childhood ensconced in an at least nominally Christian Christmas tradition. What I mean by this is that I, like many people of my era, spent Christmases at

editor's pick

Musk's Twitter polls: the slopey moral shoulders of deferring decisions

The Great Elon Musk Twitter Saga continues. Most recently, Musk reignited the culture wars with his decision to "temporarily suspend" a range of journalists for apparently doxxing his 2-year-old son. Except this is not what they did, and the screenshots of those banned showed it was meant to

Elon Musk

"I'm a free speech absolutist!"*

Free speech is a thoroughly thorny issue, not just because it is divisive in online and offline debates, but because it is philosophically troublesome and potentially an unsolvable quandary. We all have our own lines about what is and isn't acceptable. Everyone has a line somewhere. You would

editor's pick

He shouted too early: The impotence of Putin

The war in Ukraine is just about to have its terrible ten-month anniversary with no immediate end in sight. But even though it is not going to end in the coming weeks (absent a "black swan" event of Putin dying suddenly), there is still no chance of the