How to live cynically
The penetrating gazes of La Rochefoucauld, Gustave Flaubert and Allan Bloom.
Matt Pearce
Essayist on power, media, democracy and literature. Opinions my own. May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
Live Last read · last published · next check
Latest posts
The labor analysis of "some bullshit" in journalism
The modern problems of working in the news.
Making the most of an imaginary community
Ursula K. Le Guin, Machiavelli and finding your community.
Christopher Nolan's "Odyssey" and the cinema of stiff upper lips
Christopher Nolan's "Odyssey" and the art of decline.
"With what, in this modern democracy, will you meet the demands of your soul?"
Francis Fukuyama, Allan Bloom and the Straussians in democratic society.
What if people just prefer bowling alone?
Civic renewal in the isolation of American democracy.
No more American aristocrats
On birthright citizenship and Gordon S. Wood's "The Radicalism of the American Revolution."
It’s not journalism’s job to make AI more accurate
Why public policy will be necessary to support "a learning society" under AI.
A society that wants to understand itself probably wouldn't act like this
Revisiting "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology” (1992) by Neil Postman.
The logic of a termination
On Scott Pelley; on AI and the mathematical replaceability of workers.