The Water Dipper

Patriotism, Realtors, and Men

“The Big AI Risk Not Enough People Are Seeing.” Tyler Austin Harper draws on Ivan Illich to distinguish between technologies that empower us and...

Reading, Undset, and Tariffs

“Hope for the Organization Kid.” Joshua Hochschild revisits David Brooks’ classic 2004 essay on college students and considers what’s changed in the two decades...

Reading, Chatbots, and Home

“Our Draymond Green Problem.” Elizabeth Stice draws on Draymond Green and Hannah Arendt to consider what responsibilities we might have for our allies: “What...

Hipsters, Cellphones, and Mondragón

“Is Ethical Shopping Only for Hipsters?” Kate Lucky wrestles with ethical shopping, effective charity, and the upside down extravagance of the Kingdom of God:...

The Midwest, Adderall, and Avian Flu

“Ending Agriculture isn’t the Climate-Crisis Solution Some Think It Is.” Taras Grescoe weighs in on the debate about lab-grown protein and makes a sensible...

Conservation, Inflation, and Boeing

“‘This Will Finish Us.’” I finished reading Wendell Berry’s Unsettling of America this week with a group of students, so this heartbreaking essay by...

Refuge, Levitation, and Hospitality

“The Liberalism of Refuge.” I think that Bryan Garsten’s notion of “refuge” isn’t robust enough to do all the work he’s asking it to...

Hands, Surveillance, and Church

“Angry Farmers Are Reshaping Europe.” While this New York Times article predictably frames European farmers’ frustrations through the lens of the “far right” and...

War, Conversation, and Regrets

“In ‘Barons,’ Austin Frerick Takes on the Most Powerful Families in the Food System.” Twilight Greenaway interviews Frerick on the depressing stories of corporate...

Doubt, Fungi, and Water

“What New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman Gets Wrong About Rural America.” Wendell Berry responds to Krugman’s column about a new book on “white...