I should give credit where credit is due: I think I wouldn’t have passed my AP European history exam if I hadn’t played the computer game Age of Empires all growing up. The internet or video games can be helpful for acquiring knowledge, obviously. But it can be easy to conflate what you can look up with what you actually know, and emphasizing “technological literacy” and “critical thinking” can paper over vast gaps in knowledge.

The show’s unspoken assumptions — that beauty standards exist, that America is a desirable destination — are no longer politically correct.

As someone who squirms every time I see a couple or family all quietly tapping their cell phones, a room of twenty people talking is a beautiful sight. It is easy to despair at our polarized and atomized society, but I appreciate Gray’s book for giving a clear, achievable step for building community and making friends.

By Ben Christenson For the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God’s sight. —1 Corinthians 3:19 got married last year at 22. In retrospect, I see that my approach to our pre-COVID wedding was so…

The generation with the best mental health across time is the Silent Generation — the most communal, religious, family-oriented generation.

Star Wars always relied on mythical archetypes, but the newest television series descends into occult and pagan realms.

After a decade of constant filming that incentivized promiscuity and duplicity, a life documented rather than lived, little humanity is left.

Some might call ‘Same as Ever’ redundant or self-evident, but there is a comfort in truths well-spoken rather than schemes well-disguised.

To argue smartphones and social media can isolate and immiserate us is a banality, yet our response to these social disruptors continues to be feeble. Devices are ever more compelling, we are now habituated to their ubiquity, and the result is public spaces and informal gatherings that are increasingly inimical to conversation.

Spider-Man now devalues human-scale kindness and decency by questing in the multiverse, and ideological rigidity and swift judgment have replaced his former nuance and virtue-seeking.

Brad Wilcox’s new book, ‘Get Married,’ makes an unfashionable case: For the sake of your health, wealth, and happiness, get married!

What starts as a method to optimize reading, exercise, or relationships becomes an end in itself. The native physiological benefit of the morning walk or bed-making is overshadowed by appeasing the voice of Andrew Huberman or Jordan Peterson.

Ben Christenson writes from Virginia where he lives with his family and four pets. His writing has appeared in Front Porch Republic, The Federalist,

There’s a new “Transformers” movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and reviewers generally agree that it sucks.

Fertility rates are low. After going through the pregnancy of our first child, I’m surprised they aren’t lower. Many young people lack the “why” to endure the cultural pessimism around childrearing.

By contrast, developing skill through direct contact with nature increases our confidence, efficacy, and even patience. Although fry cooks have a shorter learning curve than motorcycle mechanics or hockey players, all three experience the freedom of agency and causal influence on the outcome of their work.

The happiest boomers I know love nothing more than talking with their old friends about their new grandchildren. So, my holiday recipe for fighting loneliness is lots of face-to-face talking–with strangers, family, and everyone between.

We sense that there’s more at stake in a restaurant visit than simply gustatorial or financial gain. Eating out, as Plato might have observed, is a chance to reinforce or undermine the rule of the rational over the appetitive soul.

During college, I became convinced I would become a consultant. I wasn’t pre-Med and didn’t want to join the Peace Corps, so this seemed to be the best (and only other respectable) option.

‘Ted Lasso’ wrestles with family and responsibility with the respect they deserve. Wilde’s film focuses on women’s fulfillment alone.

Oliver Burkeman. St. Augustine taught that the fundamental condition of human beings is ignorance and difficulty. This truth can seem outdated in the age of the supermarket.

The Black Phone is a coming-of-age horror film, a dark yet Christian version of the Pinnochio story.