The challenges Is it OK to smack, spank or physically punish your children? Billions of parents care deeply about this question. But answering it is very difficult, because it comes with horrible methodological problems. Obviously, there is a huge problem of reverse causality. Suppose children who are regularly spanked are naughtier. Did the punish…

I’ve been away for a while. While I write something more serious, here’s a snack: ten passages that struck me while reading, with no particular theme. Voylà pourquoy, en cette incertitude et perplexité que nous aporte l'impuissance de voir et choisir ce qui est le plus commode, pour les difficultez que les divers accidens et circonstances de chaque…

Here at last is the third in a series of articles laying out the pessimistic case for democracy’s future. Their aim is not to spread alarm and despondency, but to encourage a bit of forethought. Let’s talk macro. Here is government debt for the G7: Thanks for reading Wyclif's Dust! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Source…

Most comments are a waste of time to read and write. Yet online debate is now central to politics and culture. So, making people better at commenting would be a useful thing to do. Some commenting guidelines aim to benefit the forum, by encouraging you to be more polite or respectful. This guide aims at your self-interest. It wants to make you a mo…

I’m in Heidelberg, enjoying a week visiting my friend Christoph Vanberg on the banks of the Neckar, staying in an Airbnb with the book collection of a true Bildungsburger: literature in four or five languages, philosophy from Marx to Derrida, you name it. The dog is reading Hegel, in the original of course. I am reading Max und Moritz. I like Germa…