Every American learns it from a young age — the Constitution is our most important document, the longest-lasting constitution in the world.

We can take some justifiable pride in the fact that our system, conceived in the 1780s, is still (mostly) functioning in the era of the internet. But, among all of our hosannas to our founding document — and our political class loves nothing more than to praise the Constitution — we have forgotten one of the things that has made the document work for all these years.

The secret to our system’s success is that we have changed…

You may be familiar with the big moneybags of the late 1800s — the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and Morgans. But the most fascinating character of the era was not a steel baron or railroad builder. In fact, it wasn’t even a man: she was the “Witch of Wall Street,” Hetty Green. Through hard-nosed, intelligent investing, she amassed a fortune worth over $3 billion in today’s money. She was also the Guinness-certified “greatest miser” in the world. Her eccentricities — and her gender — made her a feared and despised figure in nineteenth-century New York.

Green wasn’t entirely self-made. She was born…

1. Homo Sapiens has existed as a distinct species for about 200,000 years (some scientists would argue that it’s closer to 300,000). We have lived in cities for about 6,000 years (.03% of our history as a species). We have known how to write for 5,000 years (.025%). We have been burning fossil fuels for energy for 200 years (.001% of our history).
2. The Great Pyramid of Khufu was built around 2560 BCE. More time passed between its construction and the lifetime of the last pharaoh, Cleopatra (69–30 BCE), than has passed between the death of Cleopatra and your lifetime.
3. The…

In recent years, American culture has glorified the “hustle” (sometimes known as the “grind”). As this perceptive essay by Erin Griffith explains, we — especially Millennials — praise excessive effort in the service of our jobs. We’re bragging when we talk about how busy we are at work or how much our work lives overflow into our personal time. Our employers become disappointed if we don’t show enough dedication to the corporations we work for. It seems somehow shameful to simply relax and “neglect” your work.

Much of this is modeled by the wealthy — there’s a kind of performative…

When I was a teenager in the ’90s, my dad always — always! — listened to Rush Limbaugh in the car. Dad drove, so he picked the radio station; it wasn’t even a question. Rush was the backdrop to any vacation trip.

He was always on at noon, for three hours, in the brutal middle part of a long drive. You know, the part of a road trip where you are too far away from your start in the morning for the trip to be novel anymore, and too far from your arrival at our destination for hope to bloom…

Everyone involved in the American educational system — parents, students, and teachers — can agree on one thing: this has been a terrible school year. Our educational system — usually ignored or quietly disparaged in our national conversation— has become a central issue in our politics and our discourse. The truth is that there are no good options this year — in-person school can be unsafe (and, frankly, not that effective given the fact that masking, plexiglass, and distancing make many of the best parts of school impossible). Virtual school is a lonely, enervating slog for students and teachers.

We…

Confucius, China’s most influential philosopher, lived in a chaotic time. The philosopher, who lived from 551–479 BCE, witnessed an ugly period in China’s history. The ruling Zhou Dynasty, though it still officially held the throne, had lost effective control over most of China. Noble families essentially began ruling their own territories; the dozen or so small kingdoms that emerged fought wars against each other. These wars became more savage over time as the old arrangements that had stabilized society fell apart.

In short, Confucius felt the way a lot of us feel these days — he was a witness to…

Feeling angry? I know I am — more than usual these days. Anger is a part of all of our lives, and it was certainly a big feature of life in the ancient world.

After all, there was a lot to be angry about — short lifespans, widespread poverty, and unequal social systems to name just a few. The Romans and Greeks both built societies where a man’s worth was based on his honorable reputation; therefore, any slight was good cause for an angry response.

But ancient people argued, as we do today, about what should we do with our…