The Water Dipper

Suffering, Happiness, and Baseball

“How Tech Despair Can Set You Free.” In a rich essay on Jacques Ellul, Samuel Matlack faces the dangers of our technological society squarely...

Soil, Friendship, and Laughter

“Why Putin is no Hitler.” Daniel McCarthy warns against falling into wrongheaded patterns of thinking as war takes place in Europe: “Certain reflexes remain...

Wendell Berry, Urban Planning, and Gleaning

“Wendell Berry’s Advice for a Cataclysmic Age.” In a surprisingly sympathetic essay—surprising given its appearance in the New Yorker, a publication not known for...

Boys, Protests, and the Metaverse

“Big Business Games the Supply Chain” Rose Adams describes how companies like Amazon and Walmart are better positioned to profit from supply chain snarls...

Shakespeare, Maus, and Mushrooms

“‘Aw, Partners, It’s Been a Bitch.’ A Letter from Ken Kesey After His Son’s Death.” Ken Kesey’s letter to Wendell Berry and other mutual...

Idols, Democracy, and Communion

“The Migration of the Holy.” Paul Kingsnorth weighs England’s purported secular culture and finds it wanting. As he argues, “everything is religious,” and when...

Social Media, Hyperbole, and Walking

“Can Our Campuses Be Reasonable?” Zena Hitz praises Jonathan Marks’s Let’s Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case for Liberal Education, but she calls for a...

Trees, Old Books, and Local Politics

“The Trees at the Heart of Creation.” Andrew Peterson and Tim Mackie (from the Bible Project) talk about the role of trees in the...

Great Books, Pecans, and Local Bars

“My Pandemic Book Club Changed the Way I Think about Literature — and Community.” Christopher Frizzelle writes about the goods that came from a...

Friendship, Hospitality, and the Food System

“I Practise Philosophy as Art.” Gesine Borcherdt talks with philosopher Byung-Chul Han about his recent book: “I think trust is a social practice, and...