Culture

The RI State House in the middle of a plantation

A recipient society produces the government plantation.

By Justin Katz | January 4, 2024 |

So much of Rhode Island’s predicament can be explained by incentives.  People who rely on government for their prosperity, for instance, have a great deal of incentive to manipulate the processes thereof, whereas our community lacks institutions with incentive to counterbalance them politically.  Something similar and related — though much broader on a social scale…

A water drop and ripples

Let’s keep parents’ real responsibility in mind.

By Justin Katz | January 3, 2024 |

The following chart is definitely interesting, but I fear our society has lost appreciation for the fact that parents’ fundamental responsibility is the blue line.  If that’s down, they’re failing, no matter what the red line does.

A water drop and ripples

Could things we now think of as bullying have had positives?

By Justin Katz | December 6, 2023 |

That’s a deliberately provocative statement, but it points to a common error in our thinking.  When aspects of our culture strike us as bad, or at least wrong, we tend to think of them as lingering shadows from our benighted past.  We see more clearly these days, right? But some of those things — maybe…

A water drop and ripples

Does RI media not know how to process this… or not want to?

By Justin Katz | December 6, 2023 |

We’re descending to a place, in the United States and Rhode Island, in which controversy is not permitted over certain subjects, as Erika Sanzi points out: Of course, several trends probably all come together. Media outlets don’t have the business model to fund all that they used to, and most journalists don’t have the legal…

A water drop and ripples

URI shows what we’re training younger generations for.

By Justin Katz | December 4, 2023 |

Yes, of course, we’re decades into college radicals provoking tutting responses from the normies with events like “Sex Fest,” details of which Anthony De’Ellena shares here, and it’s getting boring and cliché: A significant development, though, is that these events are now developed and promoted by official centers of the institution, which deliberately promote activities…

A water drop and ripples

Musk’s truth bomb is a flag in the cultural ground.

By Justin Katz | November 30, 2023 |

Yes, there’s a language warning.  Yes, Musk is an imperfect messenger, but when it comes to the concluding statement, his articulation of the point of this clip as it comes to its final words may prove to be an historical moment: MUSK: “The judge is the public.” SORKIN: “And you think that the public is…

An colonial elite looks in a broken mirror while leaving the scene of an assault

With Thanksgiving for our national inheritance, let’s turn away from the turmoil progressive division will create.

By Justin Katz | November 22, 2023 |

As we all prepare (if only nominally) to recall the gratitude we ought to feel for the establishment of the beacon of freedom into which we were born, with a specific nod to a moment of shared humanity on Thanksgiving, take a moment to play with a fancy interactive infographic Bloomberg published in September. The…

A water drop and ripples

A passing thought on Washington Trust’s recent troubles in Rhode Island.

By Justin Katz | November 20, 2023 |

Conversations related to the Washington Trust settlement with the government, requiring the bank to address alleged racial discrimination on its part, indicate two views or standards for handling blame in society. One side is convinced that somebody is to blame for the circumstances of life and that the job of society (particularly government) is to…

A water drop and ripples

Our first imperative is to figure out how to reconvince young Americans that learning how to think is desirable.

By Justin Katz | November 1, 2023 |

I believe in humanity’s ability to adapt and recover, but it typically comes at the expense of a lot of waste and pain.  I’m increasingly worried that we’ve cheated younger generations of the ability to think.  Not only are schools failing to teach it, but our emphasis on schooling has drawn many children and young…

A monster with many eyes eats a college professor

Politics This Week: Warning Signs of a Cultural Monster

By Justin Katz | October 16, 2023 |

John DePetro and Justin Katz discuss Rhode Island politics and the unsettling reaction to atrocity.