The Point is a magazine of philosophical writing on everyday life and culture. Rather than having a political or social agenda, it tries to explore different points of views.

The Point

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to lead a life of abstinence?

"The life of the monk is a life of longing, of not yet entirely consummated love for God. The ecstatic eroticism of the Song expresses something of the intensity of the soul’s love story with God." In this personal piece for The Point magazine, Cistercian monk Edmund Waldstein reflects on his love of God, as well as his chosen life of celibacy.

Chris Brinkley

A deeper longing

A new strategy for dealing with damnation.

Writer Meghan O'Gieblyn reflects in The Point magazine on the elasticity of Hell as a concept, exploring why it still remains one of society's most resilient metaphors for the evil both around and within us.

This story was originally published in The Point in November 2014.

"The various depictions of hell over the centuries tend to mirror the earthly landscape of their age. Torture entered the conception of hell in the second century, when Christians were subjected to sadistic public spectacles. Roman interrogation methods included red-hot metal rods, whips and the rack — a contraption that distended limbs from their joints. The non-canonical Apocalypse of Peter, a product of this era, features a fierce and sadistic hell in which people are blinded by fire and mangled by wild beasts. Dante’s Divine Comedy has traces of the feudal landscape of fourteenth-century Europe. Lower hell is depicted as a walled city with towers, ramparts, bridges and moats; fallen angels guard the citadel like knights. The Jesuits, who rose to prominence during a time of mass immigration and urban squalor, envisioned an inferno of thousands of diseased bodies 'pressed together like grapes in a wine-press.' It was a claustrophobic hell without latrines, and part of the torture was the human stench."

Andi Arndt

Hell

What is so special about humanity and our ability to think?

Reflecting on the book "Thinking and Being", by Israeli philosopher Irad Kimhi, associate researcher at Worcester College in Oxford, Steven Methven, argues in The Point magazine against a whole tradition of philosophical thought.

"Why is thought so special? Consider the natural world, which consists just of things and how they are: the breeze is warm, the lawn is lush, the bees buzz. Thinking, however, is not only about how things are — the warm breeze and the buzzing bees — but also about how they aren’t. Though the weather is fine, I can think of it being grim — I can think what is false. And while the breeze is warm, I can think, truly now, of many ways that it is not — for instance, chilly — simply by thinking that it is 'not' chilly. When I entertain a falsehood, or consider how things are not, what I think is not anywhere out there in the world. So it seems that thought, which involves what 'is not' as well as what 'is', may be nowhere in nature. In which case, what is it?"

Emma Powell

Parricide

Exploring the late David Graeber's thoughts on why we work.

"His book, Bullshit Jobs, is one of many contributions to this rethinking. Slapdash and anecdotal, it reads like a parody of a pop-business manual, an anarchist take on Charles Duhigg or Malcolm Gladwell." Jonah Galeota-Sprung analysis of the late David Graeber's writings for The Point magazine offers as much wisdom now as it did upon publishing in 2019.

Simon Mattacks

Bullshit jobs

Greil Marcus’ book is a fascinating insight into the distinctly crass and fleeting modern American dream.

Inspired by Marcus' book "Under the Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby", Jackson Arn reflects for The Point magazine on the seemingly intrinsic connections between F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic, "The Great Gatsby", and American patriotism.

"This little book about another little book wouldn’t be worth the trouble if Marcus weren’t right on the main point: the recent history of the American Dream is a history of people reading The Great Gatsby. To tell stories about wealth, passion, crime and power is to stand in Fitzgerald’s shadow, whether you know it or not. But not all Gatsby-infused art is created equal, and the recent examples, taken together, suggest some disturbing truths: that the pursuit of happiness, celebrated for its own sake and unchecked by duty to family, community or God, leads to a country of three hundred million islands; that, if we’re not at that point yet, we’re pretty damn close; that no country can go on this way for long. Marcus knows this, or at least senses it. But his response, by and large, is to do what previous generations have done: mourn the American Dream so intensely he winds up worshipping it."

Karl Miller

American greatness

Analysing the sexual libertinism of the Weimar Republic, and why it's celebrated in contemporary cultures.

In a world that both celebrates queer sexual freedom yet ruthlessly punishes the slightest perceived infraction, historian Samuel Clowes Huneke reflects for The Point magazine on how we can learn from the homosexual rights movement of 1920s Berlin.

Sean Crisden

Seduced by respectability

A marvel that stops us in our tracks becomes only an apparent marvel once explained.

"Therein lies the paradox of wonder: it is the beginning of inquiry (Descartes remarks that people deficient in wonder 'are ordinarily quite ignorant'), but the end of inquiry also puts an end to wonder." Lorraine Daston considers in The Point magazine the consequences that transformations of wonder have for scientific inquiry.

Wonder and the ends of inquiry

A reflection of the worker and the artwork.

Sophie Beck toiled over Joan Miro and his work. She was looking for something worth telling about the Catalunyan artist who kept working without pause from age 19 to 90 — interestingly, it is in this precise detail that she understood how the incomprehensible can also be beautiful. She explains how for The Point magazine.

Sharon Bott

Regarding Joan Miró

A remarkable, personal reflection on understanding where we come from.

"I always wonder how I first learned that we were different, that we didn't come from the city we had always known but from a faraway, perfect place, of which maps were framed and hung on our walls or around our necks. This was a place, we were led to believe, where injustice, misfortune and even our daily-life problems would have not existed. A place "where none of this can happen," as Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani wrote in his novella Returning to Haifa." Riham Alkousaa shares her personal story in The Point Magazine.

Monita Rajpal

Returning to nowhere

Is a declining human population really something to regret?

In an increasingly insecure world, more people are making the decision not to have children. And the debate is sparking some uncomfortable truths about what the world will look like if we want humanity to survive. Samuel Scheffler explores in The Point Magazine.

The Point magazine

A world without children

Is New Work going to change the world?

Tim Peters writes in The Point Magazine about tracking down Frithjof Bergmann, the man behind the social and economic philosophy called “New Work” culture, and his conversations with Bergmann. What exactly does he find?

Scott Ciscon

New Work: The man behind the social and economic philosophy called 'New Work'

Stories can connect us, and often changes us. So why not teach it at work?

"I rediscovered short stories several years ago when I began working for a nonprofit called Books@Work. During the Thursday lunch hour, every other week for eight weeks, I discussed Steinbeck stories with employees at a manufacturing company in Lorain County, Ohio." Laura Baudot writes in The Point magazine.

Betsy Foldes Meiman

Closer reading

A thoughtful essay on being a parent and a commitment to the passing of generations.

Surprised by his own atypical reaction to his daughter's birth, Jonny Thakkar writing in The Point magazine contemplates what it means to raise a family. Examining both ancient philosophers and smug parenting books he comes to understand parenting in a new and peaceful light.

Quiet time

The renowned author's explanation of the 2008 crash offers lessons for today's economic landscape.

Hannah Rosefield, writing in The Point Magazine, dissects the writing of Michael Lewis and contrasts his approach with the approach of those who brought his bestseller, "The Big Short" to the big screen.

Who did it: Michael Lewis and The Big Short

A reflection on Iran's modern history through the life of activist and filmmaker Haroun Yashayaie.

From his youthful outspoken activism to his later life revolutionary patience, his life and work encapsulate a period of huge political transformation. Written by Nargol Aran in The Point magazine.