Will Wilkinson
Contributor, Big Think
Recent Activity
-
The Boston Review is hosting a forum centered the claim of Michael Sandel, a Harvard political theorist, that "markets crowd out morals." Sandel's essay is well worth reading. He clearly gives voice to a number of common intuitions about markets that too often remain inarticulate. Mostly, though ... Read More
-
As I've written before, I'm a skeptical of claims, like Jonathan Gottschall's, about the power of stories to make us better people. Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker is skeptical too. Gopnik argues that Gotschall's more central claim—that stories increase our empathy, and “make societies work ... Read More
-
Conor Friedersdorf doesn't understand why Andrew Sullivan gushes so much about President Obama given the heavy importance Sullivan seems to place on a number of issues on which Obama has been objectively awful. Andrew sticks up for himself, noting that he is often very harshly critical of Obama on ... Read More
-
This lecture on "diagnostic inflation" or the over-diagnosis or mental disorder by Allen J. Frances, the chair of the DSM-IV task force, is important. Watch it. Frances lays out absolutely staggering levels and rates of change in the recent diagnosis of mental disorder and argues that ... Read More
-
Arthur Brooks, president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wants to help you, a stalwart supporter of the free enterprise system, to prevail in the coming Thanksgivings' dinner table debates. Here's how he thinks the debate will go if you're ill-prepared: You’ll say something ... Read More