All From the Editors
CommentaryFinding the hidden gems among the stacksLiterature creates opportunities for readers to discover commonalities with people who might seem quite different. Here’s how the Monitor selects what to recommend to readers.
CommentaryCan comedy help us achieve a kinder society?Cancel culture can veer from an attempt to rebalance the power dynamic to an attempt to be the new arbiters of virtue.
CommentaryWhat if we all learned to think in paragraphs?So much of political discourse happens in oversimplified slogans and labels. Longer, more nuanced discussions bring common ground.
CommentaryThanksgiving reflections on grace and growth for uncertain timesViewed through the lens of day to day, the past few years of social upheaval are disorienting. Zooming out, our society is rethinking its values.
CommentaryFinding what more we can all doIn publishing our Finding Resilience series, we’re making a statement: Out of turmoil, resilience is essential to progress.
CommentaryLessons from Nuremberg, 75 years onPhilippe Sands, the son of a Holocaust survivor, and Horst von Wächter, the son of a Nazi, are both trying to understand their family history.
CommentaryAngela Merkel’s true superpower: Pragmatism.Angela Merkel's brilliance has roots in a German-style pragmatism. She was always in the middle, but that doesn’t mean she was always a moderate.
CommentaryTruth-telling and a path to healingThe Walnut Street Bridge in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was the site of a horrendous lynching in 1906. A new memorial hopes to tell the full story.
CommentaryWhat the Peace Corps meant to meOne can easily log the number of wells built or mothers trained in nutrition classes. It’s harder to measure the impact of cultural exchange.
CommentaryHow we choose to remember 9/11I have two distinct memories relating to 9/11 – one from the ensuing fear, the other from emerging afterward, seeing life return to normal.
CommentaryFor many at the Monitor, Afghanistan is personalThe Monitor has long had close ties with Afghanistan – reporters taken with its beauty and the hospitality that so rarely makes global news.
CommentaryHow to help Haiti? Ask its citizens.Solutions will take money, yes, but also time, patience, and a willingness to recognize the agency and expertise of the Haitian community.
CommentaryVoices that defy the silenceThe voices of those pushing for justice and gender equality in Afghanistan are veritable weapons against the Taliban, whose power relies on silence.
CommentaryCoaxing trust from the tapEach time someone turns on the faucet and it fails, the social contract between citizen and government is broken a bit more. How can we move forward?
CommentaryThe things they carryFor people experiencing homelessness, grabbing a meal or attending a job interview can mean leaving valuables unattended. But solutions exist.
CommentaryA timely lesson from a tiny town long agoCovert, Michigan, wasn't founded as a utopia. Yet from the 1860s onward, Black and white residents farmed, voted, and educated their kids together.
CommentaryEnergy, wildlife, and the myth of the zero-sum gameRenewable energy projects – dams, solar panels, even batteries – sometimes harm the environment around them. But holistic approaches offer a way forward.
CommentaryClass in session, outside: The power of outdoor education.Outdoor preschools encompass more than playing. They’re about building forts, or watching turtles sun themselves; they’re about using nature to learn.
CommentaryWhat does systemic racism mean to you?Disagreements over phrases like “systemic racism” can make it difficult for opposing sides to notice when they share common values.
CommentaryA different view of religion and politicsPolitics is often injected with a religious fervor, a winner-take-all attitude. But religion also has a different function: community building.
