Switzerland, a Prison? A few days ago, I came across a short video from Switzerland. Perhaps fifty seconds long. The first time I watched it...

Finally, a Problem I am a social worker and a single father. My daughter lives with me at least 90 percent of the time, probably closer to 9...

What If Society Can't Get Much Better? We have grown accustomed to judging society by its failures. Wars, violence, mental illness, lone...

Kennedy’s Been Shot. Please Tell Me It Wasn’t One of Our Own Men I am currently reading The Ghost by Jefferson Morley, a book about James ...

The Man Who Pulled the Plug In mid-October, I was on my way for a swim at Bruggerhorn in St. Margrethen, a small lake with a campsite near t...

A Human Being Is Not a Diagnosis We increasingly live in a world in which almost every form of human behaviour is given a psychological expl...

Counterintelligence in Everyday Life James Jesus Angleton, the longtime head of counterintelligence at the CIA, had an unusual intellectual ...

What Was Hitler’s Word Worth? In a recent conversation with Jacob Rees-Mogg, Tucker Carlson asked a question that quickly became more radica...

The Royals, Just Like Us There are moments when history makes you wonder whether some of Europe's great political catastrophes might hav...

Hide Behind the Protocol This morning I read a strange piece of news from Tennessee. The state had tried to execute a woman by lethal injec...

Freedom Without a Price Tag During Covid, I learned something about freedom. The strange thing is that I barely noticed it at the time. I wa...

Swiss Problems: Switzerland Dispatches Police After Child Loses Booger While wars continue, governments quarrel and international instituti...

Real Life Not long ago I came across an Instagram profile in which someone wrote that they were interested in real life. I liked the phrase ...

Ukraine: Where Are the Children of the Rich? I do not always have myself entirely under control. Occasionally I find myself on a news websi...

When the Solution Invents the Problem We like to think that institutions exist to solve problems, and very often they do. Yet institutions a...

Meta-Montaigne: The Eye Cannot See Itself I love Montaigne. I have read the Essays from beginning to end at least twice and keep returning t...

My Life Is My Hobby People occasionally ask me what my hobbies are. It comes up in those conversations where two people are trying to establ...

Not Next Time After Covid, a lot of people eventually said something you hear surprisingly often once something is over: Next time, we won’t...

Growth Through Friction Mandeville had an uncomfortable idea: a society does not live economically only from its virtues, but also from its ...

When Dissent Becomes Conformity Modern Western societies have a peculiar relationship with dissent. We admire the person who questions. Sc...

Your Thing Is Kind of Slow A few days ago, the timing chain on my motorcycle snapped. The bike had very low mileage, absurdly low mileage ...

The Product Is Shopping Too Not long ago, I went on a date with a woman. We took a walk around a lake. She was in her early fifties and had ...

Throwing Snowballs at the World When I was living in Kenya, I read Ivo Andrić’s Bosnian Chronicle, and one of its characters stayed with me....

Replacing God With Followers Leo Braudy describes in *The Frenzy of Renown* something much older than Instagram. People want to be seen. Ale...

A Hierarchy of Seriousness There are things in life that deserve to be taken seriously. A child is ill. Someone you love is in danger. A fri...

Talk to Strangers! This may sound like a rather modest challenge. I decided to start talking to strangers. Not for dating. Not for netwo...

What Do I Know When the Machine Knows for Me? Montaigne asked one of philosophy’s smallest and most durable questions: Que sais-je? What do ...

The Chätsy Effect Mark Twain once wrote: “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.” That was in 1887. Tw...

On Using Tinder for Executive Research There are sentences that should be kept in museums. Not because they are especially wise. Because the...

Freedom Has No Reset Button I had another one of my weak moments and opened a tabloid. The great sensation of the day was that a mid-forti...

Multiculturalism Needs a “We” The best vision of a multicultural society is not one in which people erase their differences. It is one in wh...

Change the Context A few days ago, I bought a second-hand wetsuit for almost nothing. I want to swim in natural lakes more often this autumn...

 Moral Theatre There are professions in which you are asked what you can do. And there are professions in which you are asked who you are. S...

 I’m tinkering with a new project. Take a look at dots.report .

The Sleepwalkers Today, on a Sunday, I only wanted to buy a few yogurts. Instead, I found myself watching a small experiment in human nature...

Context Is the Real Product A few weeks ago, the first 24-hour Migros store in Switzerland opened in my town. It is a small supermarket wit...

The Courage to Intervene One of the first things I learned as a social worker was that techniques are overrated. Not because they are useles...

The Pilgrimage I have been listening to a lecture series by the historian Teofilo Ruiz. His own life is remarkable. As a young man in Cuba, ...

Oversteering Yesterday, while I was on holiday in Istria, Croatia, a man suddenly collapsed in the restaurant where we were having dinner. H...

Switzerland Should Not Exist  Years ago, while studying in Zurich, I wrote a paper about William Tell. At the time, I argued that Tell was o...

The Question Nobody Wants to Ask At some point, I realized that I am often preoccupied with a different question than most people. Not becau...

The Goal Is Not Obedience One of the first disappointments of childhood is discovering that your parents do not know nearly as much as you o...

The Dreamer There is a bakery near where I live. The pastries are good, the coffee is good, and the service is efficient. Yet if I am honest...

The Bible Shelf The other day I visited Aligro, a Swiss cash-and-carry supermarket. If you have never been to one, imagine a place where e...

Beyond Authenticity Authenticity is one of the great ideals of our time. We are told to find ourselves. To follow our inner voice. To discov...

Friendly Faces When I was a child, it was usually obvious who the authority figures were. The teacher was the authority. The police officer ...

Build Systems That Can Correct Themselves Many people spend their lives looking for the answer. The right philosophy. The right diet. Th...