Check out these recent articles from around the web:

I Should Have Seen This Coming by David Brooks: “If there is an underlying philosophy driving Trump, it is this: Morality is for suckers. To borrow from Thucydides, the strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must. This is the logic of bullies everywhere. And if there is a consistent strategy, it is this: Day after day, the administration works to create a world where ruthless people can thrive.”

What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal. by David Brooks: “We live in a country with catastrophically low levels of institutional trust. University presidents, big law firms, media organizations and corporate executives face a wall of skepticism and cynicism. If they are going to participate in a mass civic uprising against Trump, they have to show the rest of the country that they understand the establishment sins that gave rise to Trump in the first place. They have to show that they are democratically seeking to reform their institutions. This is not just defending the establishment; it’s moving somewhere new.”

America and Its Universities Need a New Social Contract by Danielle Allen: “Third, a mission of supporting civic strength requires a focus on pluralism and civic education. Pluralism connotes the fact that in this country, we are diverse in our identities and divergent in our ideologies—to paraphrase the founder and president of Interfaith America, Eboo Patel. We also need to learn to relate to, respect, and cooperate with one another across all lines of difference. Regarding the merit threshold I alluded to, college applications should include an expectation that students will have earned a civic-learning seal during their K–12 journey. They should also ask students to offer an account of occasions when they have changed their mind after an encounter with someone else’s experience. Their university journey should then strengthen their ability to understand the institutions, history, philosophy, and global context of American constitutional democracy”

‘Adolescence’ and the Surprising Difficulty of Hugging a Teen Son by Esau McCaulley: “Our physical affection shows them that it is OK to be strong and weak, to love and be loved. It’s one way we can give kids permission to be different. In the absence of healthy models, some boys will try to define their manhood through aggression and sexual conquest.”

Trump’s USAID cuts defy Jesus’ call to love thy neighbor by Chris Coons: “What we’ve seen from this administration, however, are not reforms but wholesale destruction, and our neighbors are suffering. In shutting down foreign aid, this administration has ended lifesaving food aid and disease prevention programs for conditions like tuberculosis and malaria.”

There Are Ways to Die With Dignity, but Not Like This by L.S. Dugdale: “The art of dying well cannot be severed from the art of living well, and that includes caring for one another, especially when it is hard, inconvenient or costly. It is not enough to offer the dying control. We must offer them dignity — not by affirming their despair but by affirming their worth. Even when they are suffering. Even when they are vulnerable. Even when they are, in worldly terms, a burden.”

Will Democrats finally start to place class issues at the center? by Michael Sean Winters: “Trump seized on the disconnect. He may be selling snake oil, but at least he pays attention to working-class people and does not disrespect them or their choices publicly. He shows up at wrestling matches. He never speaks in academic jargon. He identifies working-class grievances and offers up a simplistic explanation or enemy as the source of those grievances. It worked in 2024 and it will keep working unless the Democrats learn what’s on the mind of the people who shower after work.”

Overcoming the diploma divide: Where do Democrats start? by MSW: “Fretting about getting your kid into the most prestigious school is of a different order from worrying about being able to pay for child care. If Democrats learn nothing else from listening to workers, they must learn to empathize with the people who struggle to attain the things upper-middle-class people take for granted. That empathy is the starting point for solidarity.”

The Delusion of Porn’s Harmlessness by Christine Emba: “As a society, we are allowing our desires to continue to be molded in experimental ways, for profit, by an industry that does not have our best interests at heart. We want to prove that we’re chill and modern, skip the inevitable haggling over boundaries and regulation and avoid potentially placing limits on our behavior. But we aren’t paying attention to how we’re making things worse for ourselves.”

Review: Charles Taylor on how poetry expresses our deepest yearnings by James K. A. Smith: “What becomes clear is that Charles Taylor, the philosopher-pilgrim, has been sustained in his quest by poetry. When he expounds on Wordsworth and Keats, Hölderlin and Hopkins, Baudelaire and Milosz, you sense that he is also sharing with you the art that has kept him afloat in the wreckage of modern life. There is an urgency to his endeavor because he wants to invite us all into the life raft he has found in poetry.”