Activity

But cultural changes are never random, nor do they befall us as plagues. Trends happen because individuals choose to take up new behaviors. And when we examine the history of cultural change, there are clear patterns in how humans move from one practice to another. Sixty years before the moptop, so…

By contrast technological change is very logical, as innovations provide greater efficiency and conveniences at lower costs. Our ancestors adopted the spinning wheel not as a “fad,” but because it shortened the time required to twist fibers into yarn. From this perspective cultural change appears b…

That weekend, Jamie and I went camping. He had been in the office all month—no fieldwork—and said he wanted to get outdoors. I wasn’t sure that car camping counted, but it was the best we could do, so we drove to a campground, set up our tent on a pre-groomed square of dirt, built a fire in the pre…

“I’ll finish my dissertation,” I said. I had spent so many years working up an argument that the mind was all that mattered. But I had been wrong about that, too. The body was undeniable. I was surprised to find that the idea of going back to the unfinished document on my computer made me excited. …

We entered a vast windowless space, seemingly a ballroom, though who would want to host a ball in this windowless space was a mystery. The room was filled with hundreds of booths, each with a table and a sign, a salesperson or two shilling product that was at least tangentially related to happiness…