The Idler will help you lead a more fulfilled life through the exploration of topics that range from ancient philosophy to meditation to bread baking.

The Idler

The influential documentary maker's view on the so-called power of tech titans.

As Adam Curtis’s new series "Can't Get You Out Of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World" is released this month, the Idler's editor Tom Hodgkinson revisits his very peculiar 2018 interview with the influential documentary maker.

Malk Williams

Adam Curtis: social media is a scam

Is Winnie-the-Pooh a mascot for mindfulness? Writing in the Idler, Idler staff share a few lessons the cuddly and contemplative character can teach us.  


Nick Camm

Why we could all use a Winnie-the-Pooh in our lives

"Huxley is the greatest analyst I know of this central domain of human experience."

Jules Evan looks in The Idler at philosopher and writer Aldous Huxley. A man whose fascination with understanding how modernity would affect our sense of self-led him to investigating the human urge for transcendence.

Aldous Huxley and the urge for transcendence

Popular intellectuals such as Steven Pinker and Yuval Noah Harari are setting forth their own grand theories about human civilisation and seem keen on tearing down those that previously stood in their place. Mark Vernon, writing in The Idler, recalls the teachings of Carl Jung, the psychiatrist who pinpointed the dangers of such cultural self-abuse. 

Rex Anderson

Why Jung Would Not Approve Of Jordan Peterson

Is Bitcoin the social currency of a libertarian dream, or the route to freedom from exploitative banks? Thinkers on both the left and the right see a utopian potential in blockchain technology. But Andrew Smart, writing in The Idler, just sees delusion. Like any existing monetary system, there will always be those who have more leverage than others.

The liberating promise of Bitcoin is a fantasy

Our unconscious is infinitely intimate but unbearably frightening. Mark Vernon, writing in The Idler, looks at Freud’s little discussed beliefs in telepathy and the eternity of the human psyche.

Why everyone has got Freud wrong

In Autumn 2017, as the heavens tore open and raged down on the coastal regions of the US and the Caribbean, Andrew Smart, wrote in The Idler and reflected on the abundance of ‘rescue apps’. Will they help hurricane survivors, combat climate change or just profit from disaster?

Michael Bott

Why apps will never save the world

It’s hard enough to get a job straight after graduating, it’s even tougher when your first job provides a vision of a dystopian nightmare. Rebecca Gualandi, writing in The Idler, describes her time working for Amazon.

Penny Andrews

My year of hell working for Amazon

There’s a demon inside you, how are you going to let it out? Through faith or psychology?

Simon Mattacks

Speaking of the devil

"Ideas for frugal living are nothing new."

Minimalism has gone from being artistic terminology to the description applied to baking recipes and fashion blogs—can it be redeemed?

In defence of minimalism

Is the banking world on the verge of a revolution? Dominic Frisby, writing in the Idler explains why financial institutions are waking up to blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin.  ​

Why are banks suddenly taking Bitcoin seriously?

Does focusing only on the things that you can change work only when you believe in a God?

David Riley

Why modern Stoicism misses the point

The importance of ecstasy, both physical and spiritual.

Why we need to lose control

What is the most dangerous thing you do each day? It could be going to the office.

Emma Powell

Work seriously damages your health, say scientists

Karoshi is a Japanese word that means “death from overwork”. As overwork becomes the norm in many professions, the serious health consequences of this practice must be acknowledged and a policy debate should follow, writes Andrew Smart in The Idler.

Sharon Bott

Work Kills: Japanese government addresses overwork epidemic

Learning how to find pleasure in thoughts rather than actions.

Cognitive scientist Andrew Smart writes in The Idler about the culture of workaholism and the following psychiatric conditions that it results in. Turning to philosophy and allowing ourselves the idle time to find pleasure in thought rather than in action, can help wean us away from this dangerous addiction, he writes.

The cure for workaholism is philosophy

Novelist, travel writer and journalist Duncan Fallowell writes in The Idler about the romance of old hotels, and highlights his search for one such hotel in Rome.

The romance of old hotels

He was the foremost radical intellectual of the late 18th century, was married to Mary Wollstonecraft and was Mary Shelley’s father. Professor Pamela Clemit writing in The Idler magazine introduces us to William Godwin, whose vision for society was rooted in leisure, rather than in constant work.

Jan Cramer

On William Godwin and the “leisure of a cultivated understanding”

Parenting has become increasingly competitive, adding more and more pressure on children. But, warns Tanith Carey writing in The Idler, when you treat members of your family like pawns in a game of economic growth, it dehumanises us all.

Leave those kids alone: a case against competitive parenting

Anna Beer, a biographer of the poet John Milton, writes in The Idler about the libertines and the avant-garde artists he encountered when he took a trip to Italy in 1638; and in particular about the remarkable female composer Barbara Strozzi 

John Milton, sex and the private academies of 17th century Italy

Gustav Temple writing in The Idler laments the state of the European male’s wardrobe today and the dull uniformity that seems to pervade through the wardrobes of men of all ages. Whatever happened to dandyism, he wonders, longing for it to make a comeback.

Whatever happened to dandyism?

"Why do millions cram on coasts and islands during these warm weeks? Fun, for sure. But I suspect the sea delivers something the soul loves too." ​

Why the soul loves the sea

A reflection on poverty from 1886 re-published by the Idler: this is “On being hard up” by Jerome K. Jerome

Jerome K. Jerome on being poor

As scientists attribute the long life of the world’s oldest living shark to its leisurely pace of life, Andrew Smart writing in The Idler ponders laziness as evolutionary strategy.

On the survival of the laziest

Andrew Smart writing in The Idler reflects on the victory of Donald Trump and tells us how it is a protest against neoliberalism and is a call for liberals to reflect.

Trump’s Victory is a protest against neoliberalism

Pamela Clemit writing in The Idler celebrates that old gesture of physical and intellectual freedom – walking.

Kings of the road: celebrating the physical and intellectual freedom of walking

Duncan Fallowell was the self-proclaimed inventor of electric fiction, and defined his own work as cyber longhand. 

Cyber Longhand: towards a definition of style

Unemployment has become a major cause of concern the world over. And there is a push to get people more gainfully employed for longer periods. But are longer working hours the answer? We revisit Tom Hodgkinson’s 2014 essay from The Idler, where he shows us that we should be striving for a four-day work week.

Jonathan Booth

Bring on the four day working week

Dr. Mark Vernon delivers a Sunday sermon in The Idler to tell us that if we’ve ever fallen in love, we have already discovered the essence of philosophy.