The Hedgehog Review offers critical reflections on cultural identity, change, and diversity; seeking to understand how we shape culture, and how culture shapes us.  

The Hedgehog Review

Can we maintain a sense of self?

The concern that many have is that mental autonomy is at risk. Through the most influential ideas that surround attention, philosopher Matthew B. Crawford argues that to understand the current crisis, another way of thinking about the language of autonomy is required.

Mark Deakins

How we lost our attention

Why do people commit acts of cruelty?

One answer is "dehumanization", the denial of humanness in others and the cruelty that accompanies it, but this is a considerably complex argument that even the most influential thinkers cannot agree on. Oliver Traldi, a graduate student in philosophy, reflects on why we can learn more from the debate surrounding the theory than we can from the notion itself as it fits into a broader context about the relationship between human rationality and politics.

Emma Powell

The dehumanization debate

Substack and the complicated state of the journalism industry.

Journalists are stepping away from magazines and papers for greener pastures. Alan Jacobs argues that the rise in services such as Substack and Bandcamp, which are supported by the likes of Stripe and Kickstarter, should be seen as a new take on a century-old Roman Catholic influenced economic system proposal.

Chris Brinkley

A new guild system

Patriotism might be holding America back.

Thomas Jefferson’s "pursuit of happiness" is still deeply ingrained in the USA’s cultural aspirations, but can it truly be gained in a modern era? William M. Chace — honorary professor of English at Stanford University — explores the complexities of this famous definition. In this elaborate analysis of American identity, he argues that although another core value may have pushed hopeful aspirations aside, a more philosophical approach to happiness is as important as ever.

The unhappiness of happiness

Does humanity need a break?

"The Trial of Adolf Eichmann", "The Milgram Shock Experiment", and "The Murder of Kitty Genovese" are notorious pop-psychology stories that are used to highlight the cruelty of society. But they are also built on distorted facts. In this interesting analysis, Jackson Arn debunks these moral fables and argues that to successfully tackle the problems of the 21st century, we need to put our trust in the righteousness of humankind.

Michael Satow

Thinking the worst of ourselves

Have our written words lost their significance in modern times?

The simple frictionless design of modern technology has made the world more convenient, but our ability to continuously update our online profiles has also taken away the meaning of our words. Richard Hughes Gibson contemplates the importance of resistance in writing and how it can offer significant opportunities for self-reflection in a world of constant oversharing.

“Frictionless environments give us the false sense that we can stay on top of things all by ourselves. But against that often destructive delusion we can cultivate a healthy sense of humility about what we know, what we ought to share, when we need to speak up. That humility, in turn, may lead us to seek out a still better source of friction, the counsel of others — trusted friends, a fellow writer or scholar, or maybe even an editor — before we weigh in on the topic du jour. The baleful social effects of the frictionless sharing approach are increasingly plain. Now is the time to waste more words in hopes of sharing better ones.”

Gary Furlong

An appeal for friction writing

Whether a crisis of public health or public safety, is the best response increased surveillance?

When the pandemic hit the West in March 2020, Zoom and other types of digital communications became a first-response-type to the crisis it had ensued. Almost a year later, what was a silver lining for human interaction has turned into the thing of nightmares for many. For author Christine Rosen, this highlights one thing: tech doesn't solve deeper human issues. In this piece for The Hedgehog Review, she explains why.

"The appeal of technosolutionism is understandable, particularly in a time of increased political polarization, social unrest, and, now, a public health crisis. Technosolutionism alleviates widespread anxiety by promising certainty when uncertainty prevails. It offers efficient responses to complex problems while eliding thorny questions of ethics, politics, or justice. It gives us the how without forcing us to ask the why."

This story was originally published in The Hedgehog Review in the fall of 2020.

Betsy Foldes Meiman

Technosolutionism isn’t the fix

Anne Applebaum's latest book is a "six-chapter journey of privilege and loss."

In The Hedgehog Review, researcher Jonathan D. Teubner reviews Applebaum's "Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism", where the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian charts the evolution of her own centre-right liberalism.

"Our populist narratives, often driven by a kind of economic determinism, would suggest that the haves of Berlin and the have-nots of Brandenburg would clash. Yet there has been very little populist animosity aimed at the citadel of Berlin from the fields of Brandenburg. But why is this? Why do such divisions spark revolt in some regions, while in others, people, well, get on with it? Why do some democracies seem fragile, teetering on the edge of collapse, while others appear robust even in the midst of the unprecedented challenges of widespread disease, joblessness, and general discontent?"

Another betrayal of the intellectuals

Exploring the relationship between a mother and her child through childhood psychoanalysis.

Motherhood is supposed to be all-encompassing and all-transforming. But now, women are also required to maintain their sense of self, through their relationships, their jobs, their bodies — as a sign that they love their children enough to be good role models. Claire Jarvis examines this in The Hedgehog Review.

Andi Arndt

Tell me about your Mother

Ethically, how are we to evaluate the practice of getting stoned?

The public conversation around marijuana seems to have shifted entirely from being about its ramifications in liberal law, to now focusing purely on what does it do to our health. In this interesting piece from The Hedgehog Review, author James Mumford reflects on what change means to society, as well as his relationship with cannabis.

Cannabis as a cultural question

M.F.K Fisher on existing without many of the things we have always accepted as our due.

Laurel Berger, for The Hedgehog Review, revisits How to Cook a Wolf, MFK Fisher’s darkly funny yet practical ‘self-help' book and kitchen guide for the hard-up — which feels especially relevant in a pandemic.

Kelsey Navarro

How to Cook a Wolf under lockdown

Race is an absurdity. Yet as a means of defining and separating people, it retains its power.

W. Ralph Eubanks author of Ever Is a Long Time and The House at the End of the Road, writing in The Hedgehog Review shares this personal story about growing up in an interracial family in America's South.

Ron Butler

What makes me black? What makes you white?

Online shaming, cancel culture. It's easy to turn someone into an instant monster.

Vanessa Place is a lawyer specialising in representing sex offenders on appeal. In The Hedgehog Review, she examines the ease with which we characterise people as monsters — and how this says just as much about us, as them.

Marni Penning

Monstering

Moral growth doesn't just mean looking to the future but reconciling past and present selfhood.

"To test your commitment to the philosophy of no regrets, imagine, as Friedrich Nietzsche suggests, that a demon comes to find you 'in your loneliest loneliness' to tell you that you will repeat all your actions, past and future, in exact sequence, an infinite number of times. Even the demon's visit, and your response to it, will recur forever. 'Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?' Nietzsche asks. 'Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?'" Jonathan Malesic explores in The Hedgehog Review.

Ken Foster

Je regrette tout

"The necessity of physical distancing creates the need to find new ways to be close to one another."

"Distance tends to be conceptualized as either a problem for living in modern societies and so something to overcome, or, conversely, as a solution to some of the problems in modern societies and so something to be cultivated. In the current crisis, we see that these two approaches can go together: There is the necessity of social distancing but also the need to overcome interpersonal, cultural, and spatial distances in an effort to slow the spread of the virus." Author Marie Kolkenbrock analyses in The Hedgehog Review.

Monita Rajpal

The dance of the porcupines

Vampire and zombie stories have dreamt themselves into us for specific reasons.

Associate professor of philosophy at Catholic University in Washington, Antón Barba-Kay, delves deeper into the mythology behind vampire and zombies stories. Here, he analyses how they have become part of a 'new folklore', and why they have resonated so strongly with modern audiences.

Our mindless and our damned

Where does our interest in true crime stories comes from?

"True crime is not all about watching people die, but it does require an interest in the subject." Here, B.D. McClay takes a closer into society's fascination with making entertainment out of death or some form of suffering.

Blood sports

How to confront our biases when it comes to plant intelligence.

"Intelligence, however, is more than consciousness; it is also the ability to acquire and apply knowledge, to learn. Marder says that at least some plants can learn, citing a 1999 Dutch study in which lima bean plants were observed summoning insects as allies against organisms harmful to the plants." Amy Wright, writing in The Hedgehog Review, explores.

Sarah Naughton

Learning from plants

Are outdated views holding us back from seeing the world in all its grey?

"There is black and there is white; there is right and there is wrong."  Writing in the Hedgehog Review, Mark Edmundson explains the urgent problem with our tendency to hold increasing rigid and oppositional views - encouraging us, instead, to see the world in all its nuanced complexity.

It’s complicated

By embracing its counter-narrative, the Great American Novel can achieve its potential.

In an era of rising social division, the Great American Novel has found itself back at the fore. Tyler Malone writing in the Hedgehog Review reflects on the literature's ambition of uniting and defining a nation and why it's still so relevant.

Tim Paige

An ever more perfect novel

How do you weigh rehabilitation against the need for retribution, particularly when the crime is murder? 

In this poignant piece, Leann Davis Alspaugh reflects on this question, explaining why we are all more than the worst thing we have ever done. 

The graduate

Paleo, vegan, raw, vegetarian - are the moral and ethical choices we make about food distracting us?

In 2019, the personal diet became not only a cult but a political statement writes James McWilliams in the Hedgehog Review, as he examines whether our focus on individualised acts of social responsibility is distracting us from looking at the real problem: the larger food system itself.

Karl Miller

You are what you (don’t) eat

Why has liberalism lost its defenders?

"Liberalism today finds itself in the strange position of being the political philosophy that everyone lives by and no one wants to defend." Writing in the Hedgehog Review, Rita Koganzon reviews Helena Rosenblatt's "The Lost History of Liberalism", which questions our understanding of what it means to be liberal today.

Liberalism strikes back

Are you a good person? How do you know?

B. D. McClay writing in the Hedgehog Review scours books, films and television shows alike in search of an answer to the age-old question - am I a good person?

Tell me I'm OK

A moving reflection from an imprisoned men on the correctional facility he spent ten years in.

John J. Lennon is currently serving a 28 years to life sentence. In this piece from The Hedgehog Review, he reflects on Heather Ann Thompson’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning book titled Blood in the Water: The Attica Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, about the correctional facility in which Lennon served ten years of his sentence.

Rex Anderson

A legacy of payback: the Attica Uprising

As he reviews Adam Kotsko's book "Neoliberalism’s Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital", Phil Christman finds that we are all neoliberalism’s little demons, making the choices the system requires while absolving it of all responsibility.

Friedman’s Demon

The case for collecting books.

Why do we keep books even though we may never read them, read them again and we only really love a few of them? Nan Z. Da finds in The Hedgehog Review that books, reading, and literature cultivate “a way of being in time.”

Good on paper

Humans come together when we have a shared interest, a shared view or often a common enemy. If we started to embrace the things that make us different, perhaps we could see animals for what—and maybe who—they really are. 

Fellow Passengers - the case for recognising animals as our comrades

For decades, elite-whisperers like Yascha Mounk provided the missing connective tissue between natural rulers and the ruled. The rise in populism appears to be disrupting the 'natural order' of things.

There are only alternatives - how populism is disrupting the elite-whisperers

Greg Jackson, writing in The Hedgehog Review, deconstructs the concept of the social imaginary.

Scott Ciscon

The Inner Life Of A Sinking Ship

Wilfred M. McClay, writing in The Hedgehog Review, argues that ageing is not a problem to be solved, but rather a meaning to be lived out.

Being There: Ageing is Not a Problem to be Solved

Jonathan Malesic, writing in The Hedgehog Review, explains what happens when work and meaning part ways.

When Work and Meaning Part Ways

James Mumford, writing in The Hedgehog Review, considers the true meaning of subscribing to an ideology and the importance of being philosophically consistent.

Malk Williams

Package-Deal Ethics: Do Our Moral Beliefs Have to Be Consistent?

Think of the name of a famous living scientist. Most people would probably come up with just a couple of names like Neil deGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye. Brendan P. Foht writing in The Hedgehog Review examines why there are so few scientists today that are as widely recognised as Stephen Hawking or Einstein.

Simon Mattacks

Farewell to the Olympian Scientist

Untimely meditations on transitioning.

"Economics is not the only depressingly unscientific science in which ideology controls the show from behind the curtain."Deirdre Nansen McCloskey —  an economic historian— reflects on her transition in the world of academia in the mid-nineties.

Melissa Moran

Straight man to queer woman

In Christian music, the line between sacred and secular can be blurred.

Paul W. Gleason, writing in The Hedgehog Review, offers an analysis of the 2018 book, The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock ’n’ Roll, by Randall J. Stephens.

Shout at the devil: How Christians inspired, condemned, and embraced Rock ’n’ Roll

American food critic Jonathan Gold, who passed away in July 2018, was considered by many an intellectual. Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, writing in The Hedgehog Review, considers what it really means to be a true ‘intellectual’.

Andy Field

Intellectuals are ordinary: on the late food critic Jonathan Gold

Masculinity is a moving target, shifting through the sand of time. Phil Christman, writing in The Hedgehog Review, undertakes defining what it means to be a man.

What Is It Like to Be a Man?

What would happen to our politics if everything were possible? B.D. McClay, writing in The Hedgehog Review, laments how reality can limit what we imagine. 

The art of the possible: why limit our political imaginations?

In an era when it pays to go against the liberal mainstream, Steve Lagerfeld, writing in The Hedgehog Review considers the meaning of contrarianism. 

In with the Out Crowd: Contrarians, Alone and Together

That Edvard Munch never met Friedrich Nietzsche is one of history’s great missed encounters. Although it would appear that they did meet—in spirit. Leann Davis Alspaugh, writing in The Hedgehog Review, sketches out the influence of the great German philosopher on the Symbolist painter. 

Allyson Johnson

Ecce Homo: Munch Paints Nietzsche

Despite living with his family in Michigan, Phil Christman still struggles to define exactly what the Midwest is like. Writing in The Hedgehog Review, he tears down the problematic stereotypes surrounding the region and grapples with the true identity of the Midwest.

On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality 

Is the term “curation” used too loosely nowadays? Do those who use it understand its meaning, or are they merely chasing the illusion of prestige, cultivation and finesse that the word is linked to? Wilfred M. McClay, writing in The Hedgehog Review, shares his observations about the pretentious and mystifying notion of “curation”.

Curate: is there anything more smug and self-congratulatory than a curator?

Are you a cat person or a dog person? Perhaps you find yourself on the fence in this classic debate. If that’s the case, then Matthew Denton-Edmundson, writing in The Hedgehog Review, explains why you might very possibly be...a goat person.

For the love of goats: pets for the indecisive

We’re encouraged to dream big. We idolise the likes of Elon Musk launching their red Teslas into space with Bowie playing on the radio. But sometimes we must look back and take caution from the tales of those who dreamt big and then failed. J.N. Campbell, writing in The Hedgehog Review, reviews ‘A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov', by Peter Bowler.

Minority Report: Futurologists Need Historians

With 1899’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, did Joseph Conrad predict it all? Terrorism, multinational capitalism, technological disruption? Sunil Khilnani, writing in The Hedgehog Review, reviews Maya Jasanoff’s book “The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World”.

The Last Universalist: Joseph Conrad and the modern world

Monopoly and culture in the Digital Age.

They distort financial markets, endanger innovation and intrude on your privacy. Google; Facebook; Apple; Amazon; Microsoft. How afraid are you of the Frightful Five? Edward Tenner reveals in The Hedgehog Review, the true implications of the largest tech companies’ growing monopolistic power.

Who’s afraid of the frightful five?

It takes a certain mood to accuse someone of being privileged. Matthew Crawford, writing in The Hedgehog Review, unearths the rhetoric of Revolutionary France to cast a suspicious eye on the privilege-bashing tendencies of today’s most privileged campuses. 

Privilege: the history of a controversial term

This is the Thoreau we need right now: a scientist, a moralist, a radical democrat, and an artist who might stir us to realize the highest ideals of self and nation. Jonathan Malesic, writing in The Hedgehog Review reviews “Henry David Thoreau: A Life” by Laura Dassow Walls. 

Out of the woods—a review of "Henry David Thoreau: A Life" by Laura Dassow Walls

In our neoliberal world, by “pursuing their dream”, each person becomes a little firm with assets, debts, and a credit score—a success or a failure. Jackson Lears, writing in The Hedgehog Review, examines how the supposedly apolitical free market has come to jeopardize liberal democracy. 

Rhett Samuel Price

Technocratic vistas: the long con of neoliberalism

Imagine there are no countries…

"We have not found an adequate substitute for the nation-state, whether by seeking it through the consolidation of existing polities into ever more massive postnational entities like the EU, or by allowing nations to disaggregate into homogeneous and even tribal entities." Wilfred M. McClay considers in The Hedgehog Review the fading vision of a world without nations.

Why nations matter: the state of belonging

Should the monuments of history's darkest figures be pulled down?

James McWilliams writing in The Hedgehog Review explores the debate and the argument that statues to Confederate generals and famous slaveholders should stand tall in order to force white people to feel shame. 

Shame: an argument for preserving 'those' monuments

Our criminal justice system is built on the idea that once they have served their time, prisoners should be able to return to civil society. We accept that people deserve a second chance, but what if their second chance is a Ph.D at Harvard? Lisa Lorish looks at the case of Michelle Jones, a murderer who became a historian.

Ashley Klanac

Once and always a criminal? From prison to PhD

Populism here, populism there. The word is used to describe political firebrands of every hue, but does it stand for anything more than a rebellion against the status quo? Wilfred M. McClay contemplates the meaning of a term that can just as easily describe Occupy Wall Street activists as Tea Party enthusiasts. 

The meaning of populism

Media coverage of terror events is often caught between the need to document and the risk of glamorising tragedy. Marta Zarzycka looks at how the photography of terrorism can so easily be misrepresented and exploited.

Terror, photographed

Corporations are coming to our rescue. At work, we can now feel at home and be social, we can feel safe and we can share in a common culture. James Poulos reflects on how the power of the corporation belies the failings of our traditional institutions. 

The last association standing: community in the workplace

Easily disparaged and seen as the lowest of the lows, housework is often confined to the shadows. It is work we would always rather someone else do. But Mary Townsend considers the intrinsic value of domesticity and the underappreciated mental skill required to perform effective housework.

Jan Cramer

Housework: there's so much more to a chore

You enjoy yourself, pushing beyond your inhibitions. But the sobriety of the next day punishes you. So is the hangover a  spiritual or biological experience? 

The metaphysics of the hangover

Born over two centuries ago, Thoreau's legacy still inspires awe.

Was Henry David Thoreau a beacon of righteousness in morally dubious times, spearheading abolitionist and transcendentalist literature, or an inconsistent misanthropist? James McWilliams writing in THR explores the leading transcendentalist's legacy.

Being right: The legacy of Henry David Thoreau

There are billionaire orphans and moody detectives, but how many of your heroes were historians?

We need a (historian) hero

Confessions can be psychologically healing but they are also very healing and for that reason, extremely fun to watch. A look at the confession as genre.

Sharon Bott

Why We Confess: From Augustine to Oprah

Any life-long reader will be familiar with the joy of holding and revisiting a cherished tome. 

Friendship by the book

If libraries are dying, do they deserve saving? 

Libraries: no ordinary place

When did we accept that superheroes could be villains too?

The Groot gang: superheroes, politics, and art

Can you build a geopolitical empire out of business ethics? 

Michael Bott

Empire's regrets

John J Lennon is serving a sentence of twenty-eight years to life, currently at Attica Correctional Facility. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times and PEN America and he place second in the PEN America Prison Writing Contest. In this very personal article in The Hedgehog Review, he tries to view things from his mother’s perspective and how it may be for her to be a murderer’s mother.

The Murderer's Mother: a murderer tries to view life from his mother’s perspective

When their bodies are frail, can love sustain the ones we care for?

Lessons of Mother Love

God might be dead, the influence of religion subliminal, but guilt nonetheless persists—why?

The Strange Persistence of Guilt

I think I’m much more humble than you would understand. This was actually said by Donald Trump in response to a comment that he wasn’t known to be a humble man. In an age of twitter wars and alternative facts, Leif Weatherby, writing in the Hedgehog Review, wonders if there is any space left for irony. ​

Irony goes to Washington

Mark Edmundson writing in The Hedgehog Review meditates on whether the body exists if we do not have souls, and the related questions of the apparently dichotomous desires of the body and the soul. Are the desires of the body antagonistic to the “higher” desires of the soul? Or are they actually just one?

Body and Soul: We came, we saw, we enjoyed

Technology has made relationships and privacy so fragile. A leading social theorist describes the side-affects of what he calls 'liquid modernity'.

David Riley

Privacy, Secrecy, Intimacy, Human Bonds–and Other Collateral Casualties of Liquid Modernity

Becca Rothfeld, writing in The Hedgehog Review asks why waiting appears as such an inextricable part of women’s relationship with relationships.

Ladies in Waiting: is waiting an inextricable part of women’s relationship with relationships?

Unemployment numbers continue to rise across the world making the need for a solution more and more urgent. Carrie M Lane writing in The Hedgehog Review wonders whether the solution may not be in propping up the ailing traditional job but, instead, in adopting more self-assembled careers.

Molly Ward

The self-assembled career

One of the reasons many people voted for Donald Trump is because of his claims of being a successful businessman. We revisit an article by Lisa Ann Cockrel and Micah Lott from The Hedgehog Review, published after Trump’s nomination as the Republican party candidate. Even without going into the veracity of his claims, Cockrel and Lott ask the question “does being a successful businessman qualify you to be president?”

Diane Piron-Gelman

Running the country like a business

Both sides of the political spectrum exist in vengeful bubbles intent on silencing their opponents. What is the root of this rising illiberalism? B.A. Brown, writing for the Hedgehog Review suggests that the death of religion and reason have contributed to an intellectual climate condemned to intolerance.

Illiberalism Rising: What is the root of this rising illiberalism?

Was the social transformation that took place in the 1960s really that radical?

The Summer of Love

Where medieval manuscripts and illustrations find him towering and glowering, seething with hot, rancid breath and countless animal fangs, the go-to depiction of the Devil, humankind’s ancient enemy, is today often of a being polished though flawed, and a little tragic, more cordial than hypnotically tempting character. Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig says that that’s a great shame. ​

The Devil we know

Can you measure wonder? In an academic world dominated by data and prediction models, the humanities appear to be in crisis.

On the value of not knowing everything

The late, great journalist William McPherson penned a harrowing account of living in relative poverty.

Falling: from Pulitzer to poverty

Is hypocrisy a moral vice? Does unmasking it necessarily make the world a better place? ​

How bad is hypocrisy?

A review of Nobel-prize winning Orhan Pamuk thoughts on the elusive art of fiction. 

The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist

Our lives online are becoming eternal. Is there no room for mistakes anymore? 

On the Need for Erasure

Self-help books are to be found aplenty and they have also attracted immense criticism – especially that they encourage self-absorption or a withdrawal from civic engagement. But Joseph E Davis writing in The Hedgehog Review argues in favour of self help literature, telling us that they help people respond to a real felt need and navigate real problems. And not just that, even the most crassly self-centered books advocate doing something for others.