Pathways

Each month we keep track of the different paths modern life is taking and how writers are keeping up. Here are some routes we found in July that opened new vistas on what it means to be modern and how we became that way.

Science is stuck with metaphor. Maybe because old ways of talking are essential ways of talking? The New Atlantis

The marvels of modern life require us to trust things we don't understand. But that trust can be lost. The Week

What, exactly, does history lose when an archive-worthy text is destroyed? The Atlantic

Was Trumpism a new fascism? And what does that word even mean? Dissent Magazine

Forget the nation state—the future is going to be owned by the social media state. Noema

If we are to understand 21st-century Catholic thought, we have to see its antecedents in the 20th century. Church Life Journal

On the modernity of the 15th century Indian philosopher and mystic Kabir. The Wire

Her family owned slaves. How can she make amends? The New York Times

Before modernity, there was a modern feminist who was a priest and far more progressive than we are. The Atlantic

If you are going to understand modern times, you better pay attention to the history of finance. American Affairs Journal

The battle is not between memory and forgetting but between history and anti-history. The Atlantic

We need Romantic curators again. London Review of Books