Jitter

What discussions of male loneliness and its symptoms miss is a deep social problem that is coming for everyone, but which has just hit men first — a loss of transcendence. Institutions that previously offered this to men have been gutted, leaving them completely on their own. And what could be more lonely than pure interiority?

On Little Liberties An interesting news clip from the 1980s has been making the rounds showing initial reactions by Californians to the implementation of a law that reduced the legal maximum blood alcohol content for operating a motor vehicle from 0.15 to 0.10 (still well above today’s 0.08). In the clip, we are treated to… Continue reading In Defense of Drunk Drivers →

As sadness has lost its cultural cache, the cult of psychopathology has continued to grow, and in the transition we've lost sight of a terribly important condition: melancholia.

Just as it was for the surrealists of the early 20th century, serious political work has been subsumed by the instinctual and libidinal. Is it surprising, then, that self-satisfaction has become the reward sought by the most politically extreme?

For a certain type of cultural critic, the apparent sexlessness of contemporary American film is a real concern. We still have hot movie stars, and cultural norms have shifted such that more than ever can be shown onscreen, but something seems to be missing. So what is it?