Sometime around 1830, a young Frenchman of aristocratic family, with liberal sympathies, got on a boat headed to America. He wanted to see the new democracy in action. He travelled around and reported what he saw: a vigorous spirit of self-government that manifested in a hundred little ways. But he…

“The substance of the good life must be taken into consideration if radical political reform is to become a live option.” — Albert Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life (1984) In 1943, Simone Weil, the French philosopher and activist who was living in England at the time, was…

Let me tell you a story. This story begins in a garden, at the very beginning of all things. All life can be found in this garden: every living being, every bird and animal, every tree and plant. Humans live here too, and so does the creator of all of it, the source of everything, and he is so close…

This is the second in my ongoing series of fortnightly essays. If you’d like to receive all of them as they are published, please subscribe. Otherwise, you can sign up for free to receive some of them. There is no such thing as a perfect society, and anyone who tries to build one will either go mad…

There is a growing consensus among social scientists and philosophers alike that a sense of life’s meaning and purpose is a key aspect of flourishing, and one that is irreducible either to happiness (in the sense of positive emotion) or goodness (in the sense of personal virtue). A group of…

Welcome back, in relatively short order, to the Convivial Society. This is an uncharacteristic installment in that it follow so quickly on the previous one and has, to my mind, a rather blog-ish feel to it (at least in its initial conception). But I hope you’ll indulge me, because the striking…

Welcome to the Convivial Society, a newsletter about technology and culture. Before getting on to the usual business I wanted to note that a few days ago I was more than a little surprised to discover that I had been included in Vox’s Future Perfect 50, a list of “innovators, thinkers, and…

The curtains open, and the stage lights flicker on. The heat of old incandescent bulbs and the dull hum of their analog workings can be sensed by the audience seated in the first few rows nearest the theater stage. There are no actors between the parted curtains. All that is heard is a baby’s cry…

Welcome to the Convivial Society, a newsletter about technology and culture. This is a relatively brief post taking a recent Apple ad as a point of departure. I won’t rehash the criticisms that have already been offered elsewhere, but I did not want to pass on the opportunity to reflect on how we…