The Ideas Letter
We lead Issue 33 with a tale about Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, the noted (and notorious) gene-editing technology better known to us mortals as CRISPR. Science writer and researcher Melanie Challenger employs here the concept of pollution, a term of art from an earlier Industrial Revolution, to make sense of the externalities inherent to this new transformational moment.
The LSE Law Professor Siva Thambisetty, immersed in the arcane world of treaties and conventions, follows, raising the thorny question: What do we mean by “equity” when we debate global governance? As she makes abundantly clear— it’s not as clear or fair as it should be.
Our last commissioned piece comes from LuHan Gabel, who considers some of the assumptions of the essay penned by Nicholas Bequelin for our last Ideas Letter, on the diminished power of human rights institutions. Gabel brings a new angle to some of Bequelin’s observations, and her suggestive critique widens the aperture on his argumentation. (We anticipate a Bequelin response in a future issue.)
Our curated pieces begin with a hotly-debated cover story in Harper’s by Dean Kissick. Entitled “The Painted Protest,” it is an obvious play on Tom Wolfe’s scandalous book from the 1970s on modern art, The Painted Word. The piece has been receiving, unsurprisingly, much discussion.
We follow with an incisive essay from Sagar, a Bihar-based writer, published in The Baffler: It is a cogent essay on the intense role that caste still plays, despite all, and the way it continues to insinuate itself into so many aspects of life in India, generally for the worse.
We are glad to feature the writer Mana Afsari who,
Featured Essays
What is The Ideas Letter
Welcome to The Ideas Letter, a publication that prizes the unconventional. We are not in the business of persuading. We won’t try to convince you of anything—other than that the world is complex and reality ever-shifting. We are not here to advocate. What you will find, and we hope embrace, are contributions from across ideological aisles, from a broad range of disciplines and a true cross-section of thinking. If catholicity is your métier, and you are uneasy with banging the drum but would rather hear its many sounds, this is the place for you.
We really like critique. Not the mean-spirited or spiteful kind, but rather commentary that raises tough questions, unpacks assumptions, sometimes calls people on the carpet, and always provides opportunity for discussion. That is what we are really after—facilitating, augmenting, furthering, and bolstering debate around issues of consequence.
You’ll find here articles, essays, and criticism that will challenge you to think. Let us know your thoughts, and make sure to tell a friend. Or even someone with whom you disagree!