Tag: Peter Levine

  • Resisting the Fatalism of the Behavioral Revolution

    Resisting the Fatalism of the Behavioral Revolution

    I love Peter Levine’s latest post, “don’t let the behavioral revolution make you fatalistic.” “Tversky’s and Kahneman’s revolutionary program spread across the behavioral sciences and constantly reveals new biases that are predictable enough to bear their own names. […] These phenomena are held to be deeply rooted in the cognitive limitations of human beings as creatures who evolved…

  • Any Cook Can Govern: Populism and Progressivism

    Any Cook Can Govern: Populism and Progressivism

    I have lots of feels and lots of arguments about these two pieces by Peter Levine on an alt-left populism: “pluralist populism” and “separating populism from anti-intellectualism.” (This post on identity politics is also relevant.) Peter even goes so far as to call himself a populist, which is a surprising move to restore the term’s…

  • Explainer Journalism Needs Better Explanations

    Explainer Journalism Needs Better Explanations

    Corey Robin got some nice jabs in at the current class of younger non-academic pundits a while back: A lot of these pundits and reporters are younger, part of the Vox generation of journalism. Unlike the older generation of journalists, whose calling card was that they know how to pick up a phone and track down a…

  • Civic Variations on the Fact, Value, Strategy Distinction

    Civic Variations on the Fact, Value, Strategy Distinction

    When civic studies scholars write about civics and citizens, as Peter Levine does today, we will usually mention the following trinity: facts, values, and strategies. Here’s Levine: The citizen is committed to affecting the world. Some important phenomena may be beyond her grasp, so that she sees them but sees no way of changing them. But…

  • Links, Aggregated

    Happiness studies say parenthood is bad for you. Probably this tells us more about happiness studies than happiness. Lisa Feldman Barrett: What Emotions Are (and Aren’t) Five Philosophy Books for Children Emily Oster: Everybody Calm Down about Breastfeeding (But see also) “Knowing whom to ask and also how to ask is also often more valuable than a detailed knowledge…