Prosperity paradox
Picture for a moment a world where technological innovation and industrial automation have finally brought us an era of unprecedented material prosperity. Picture it…
Society & Culture
Essays, interviews and ideas from New Philosopher.
More articles
Making the hamster love its wheel
If you ever visit Copenhagen, you’ll probably find yourself trekking out to Langelinie to the statue of The Little Mermaid, and you’ll probably feel…
The lost art of happiness
Sitting around the kitchen stove with his family, a man from Ladakh, better known as “Little Tibet” describes the tourists that he’d seen in…
The Media Effect
Sociologists have long known that most of us are pretty nice. We work well in groups and take care of one another. We generally…
Pleasure spots
By George Orwell Some months ago I cut out of a shiny magazine some paragraphs written by a female journalist and describing the pleasure…
The value of boycott
In July 1846, the American writer Henry David Thoreau went to prison for refusing to pay his poll tax. He couldn’t abide the thought…
Superhero of the mind
To see a person taking in the wonders of the sky is a rare sight when all but a few are staring at their…
The ladder of true understanding
How well do you understand the world? Do you think you’ve got a good grasp of reality or not? Greek philosopher Plato famously offered…
13 questions with Michael Leunig
1. What is the biggest threat to our minds? Our minds. 2. What is freedom? Non-compliance and creativity. 3. What illusion do you suffer…
The identity toolkit
Sum yourself up in a couple of words. Users of social media do it to introduce themselves online. “Surfer, father, writer, film director.” “Yogi,…
Achieving good work
If I were to ask people around the world what they admire, I am confident that high on the list would be two items:…
Freedom of thought: the media and propaganda
Please answer True or False: 1. During World War I, the Germans ran a factory to boil down the battlefield corpses of their own soldiers,…
