Culture and Society

It’s fascinating to watch CEOs launch into contentious political and social debates. Here at JLF, we’ve devoted two of our Shaftesbury Society presentations to the issue. Last month, Duke Professor Aaron Chatterji told us about his research on CEO activism. Last June, then JLF Senior VP Jon Pritchett, along…

Metaphors, stories, and parables help us glimpse the unseeable, touch the unapproachable, and plumb the unfathomable. We learn from experience and example. As knowledge of the world grows more specialized, the cost and likelihood of isolation also grow. Samuel Matlack explains in an elegant essay that “if it mattes…

North Carolinians pay less of their paycheck each month on credit cards, student loans, and housing than people in most states around us and across the country, according to data compiled by lending marketplace Credible.com. Michigan has the lowest monthly debt-to-income ratio (25.27%) and Hawaii has far and away the…

Some great conversations made my time in the car much better this week Steven Teles is one of the most insightful people writing about conservatism and government, from the Federalist Society to the kludgy way government has evolved. He’s a liberal working with libertarians at the Niskanen…

I am struck by how many people today choose to mock and insult those who hold a different point of view. I see it across the ideological and political spectrum. From Left to Right, the response of choice these days is to spew. In today’s Daily Journal, John Hood writes…

Charles Fain Lehman of the Washington Free Beacon documents a new measure of social capital. A new index … tracks social capital in America, showing the distribution of the nation’s togetherness in a time when many worry it is coming apart. The index is a product of the Social…

The American Enterprise Institute has compiled an interesting set of essays touting the virtues of pursuing local solutions to society’s major challenges. Some of the contributors assess the merits of local governing itself and suggest that, paradoxically, solving big problems may work better with smaller units of government. Others…

Some truths span cultures, even if we forget them from time to time. When somebody rediscovers one of these truths, it starts to show up everywhere. Consider the importance of waiting to have children until marriage, which should come after completing education and beginning work (or post-secondary education). The Journals…