History Readings

The political right’s dual move — claiming the mantle of Christianity but not its values — is a threat to Christianity as radical as it is indirect: It risks stripping the religion of its spirituality.

So far, the Christian churches have contributed to the problem. By failing to clearly distance themselves from the cultural ultranationalist right-wing parties that have co-opted the Christian idea of Europe to block the integration of Muslims, they have enabled more secularization still, as well as allowed the betrayal of religious values in the name of xenophobia.

the churches of Europe should reassert the fundamental values of their religions. Going beyond him, they should try to build a vast coalition with Muslims and Jews to promote the free exercise of religion, any religion.

“How do we deal, as a global civilization, with a problem that is decades in the making and is caused by everything we do?”

“It’s the challenge of our time, and there is no road map.”

total emissions of carbon into the atmosphere must be kept below one trillion tons if global warming is to be held to tolerable levels. More than half that amount has been emitted since the beginning of the industrial era, and at the rate emissions are going up, the limit will be reached in 30 years or less.

Opportunities for extremely rich people to purchase quantum leaps in their reputation and renown are so rare—and their social, psychological, and emotional rewards so incalculable—that it's impossible to properly use terms like "worth" and "value" when you're looking at these sort of numbers.

It's highly debatable that $2 billion for a basketball team is the best use of money for Los Angeles, or California, or the broader world. In the game of utilitarianism, malaria nets beat alley-oops every day. But it might be the best use of money for Steve Ballmer. As psychologists and economists have written exhaustively in the last few years, happiness is hard to buy, but if you're going to try to do it, buy experiences. Owning an ascendent NBA team in a glamorous city that's ready to hail you as the fabulously un-racist savior of their most exciting professional franchise? That's some experience. For $2 billion out of Steve

Ballmer's deep pockets, it's practically a steal.

Mark Carney, the Canadian governor of the Bank of England, lays into unfettered capitalism. “Just as any revolution eats its children,” he says, “unchecked market fundamentalism can devour the social capital essential for the long-term dynamism of capitalism itself.”

All ideologies, he continues, are prone to extremes. Belief in the power of the market entered “the realm of faith” before the 2008 meltdown. Market economies became market societies. They were characterized by “light-touch regulation” and “the belief that bubbles cannot be identified.”

“Prosperity requires not just investment in economic capital, but investment in social capital,” Carney argues, having defined social capital as “the links, shared values and beliefs in a society which encourage individuals not only to take responsibility for themselves and their families but also to trust each other and work collaboratively to support each other.”