Category: Technology
Putting on Avatars, Putting on Christ: Reflections on “American Democracy in the Internet Age”
G. K. Chesterton was once asked to publish a response to the question “what is wrong with the world?” With characteristic wit and aplomb, he sent the editors back four words: “Dear Sirs, I am.” The story, sadly, is apocryphal....
An Intercourse with Ghosts: The Unabomber, Irony, and Terror
1. To write about Theodore J. Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, is to sit for a moment with the ghosts of his victims peering over your shoulder. The dead and the maimed, both. Just as much as you try to...
We’re All Truman Now: On Shoshanna Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
It’s been over twenty years since the release of The Truman Show, directed by Peter Weir. Truman, the star of the show, is unaware that the show even exists. Billions of people around the world watch his every move, tracked...
Beyond Gunpowder: A Rational Perspective on Cloning
Hunting is either a discipline or a confused slaughter. Walking home this morning I thought first, not of hunting, but of my usual route along the road. I was also thinking about writing a paper on Johannes Kepler and emerging...
A Call to Remembrance: Notre Dame and the Internet Age
By Sean O’Hare Mere weeks have passed since the burning of the cathedral in Paris. All of us, each for their own reasons, were gripped by the flames that engulfed Notre Dame. Few recent events seem to have been saturated...
The Real Place for Conflict: On Keeping Controversy Close to Home
By Justin Frank Social media gives unprecedented opportunities to know about and engage in controversy. Many of these controversies are rooted in places far from us; involve people we’ve never met (and will likely never know); and grow out of...
Mere Orthodoxy Best of 2018
We ran our list of the best feature writing in 2018 yesterday. Today I wanted to recap the written work we have done at Mere O this year. Due almost entirely to changes with Facebook’s algorithm, our traffic numbers are...
The 2018 Eliot Awards
We started this last year and I’m going to continue it this year because of how much fun I have putting it together. Here’s my list of the year’s best magazine writing. If you have other nominations, mention them in...
Asynchronous Citizens: Addressing Flaws in Digital Citizenship
The 2011 Pew Research Center study, “Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites” is one of many evaluating the experience of the young on social media. Given ongoing concerns about the effects of social media on young people, the...
Book Review: The Power of Silence by Robert Cardinal Sarah
The modern world has a curious way of stripping something away and then selling it back to us at a premium. Or, to put it another way, of transforming formerly public goods into a private luxuries. I’m sure you can...