Fables of School Reform
There’s precious little evidence suggesting that the ed tech boom has done anything to improve teaching and learning.
Baffler Archives: Salvos
Columns
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The artifacts of internet life are personal—that is, not professionally or historically notable—and therefore worthless.
The Populist Morass
Populism originated not as a readymade platform for strongman demagogues, but as an economic insurgency of dispossessed farmers
A Conspiracy So Dense
Hofstadter’s “paranoid style” catchphrase has only gained currency as his academic renown has waned.
Sorry to Bother You
For eager recruits to the cause of reform, participation is the most direct path out of the morass of messaging.
American Ghostwriter
This was glorified ventriloquism, in which the Author called upon the American Ghostwriter to play the dummy.
Mayberry Machiavelli
A Face in the Crowd’s primary appeal is to the liberal audience’s sense of superiority
The Tupperware Party
The groups backing lady Dems for office are the ultimate Tupperware parties: they all sell the same molded product.
The Year the Clock Broke
As 1992 drew closer, a specter haunted the Republican Party establishment—the white-robed specter of David Duke.
Tell Me It’s Going to be OK
Self-care and social retreat under neoliberalism.
The Promise of Misery
We are not shocked by naked women. Skinny women. Women forced to field abuses in the bedroom or advances in the workplace, women who have undergone operations to whittle their waists into fine points. But an unhappy woman appalls us, especially if she does not collude in ...
Beyond Goop and Evil
When Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow’s health and wellness empire, launched its first In Goop Health conference last June in Culver City, California, there seemed to be more journalists and eye rollers in attendance than true believers. The day-long celebration of proper chakra ...