Brain-computer interfaces may present threats to cognitive liberty. But with or without them, we often overestimate how independent our own minds are, an ethicist writes.
Young readers report becoming more thoughtful after reading stories that feature characters who face complex challenges.
FG Trade via Getty Images
Gay Ivey, University of North Carolina – Greensboro
Amid calls to ban certain books from libraries and schools, research shows that students benefit when they have the ability to choose which materials they want to read.
Portland, Maine, officials ordered that a park be cleared on Sept. 28, 2022, of people who were homeless and that any trash be removed before a visit by a candidate for governor.
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
Court decisions based on a judge’s discretion rather than the letter of the law are increasingly common. But this risks undermining some basic liberties.
Confidence is a critical component of hip-hop culture.
Manu Vega via Getty Images
The same boldness that enabled hip-hop to endure can benefit teachers in the classroom, a hip-hop scholar writes.
Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers a speech in Iowa City, Iowa, on Aug. 10, 2023.
(Geoff Stellfox/The Gazette via AP)
The hijacking of freedom by far-right politicians like Florida’s Ron DeSantis raises crucial questions about whose freedom is truly at stake in a time of tyranny.
The Bush administration invaded Iraq with plans for it to become a democracy. But according to some social science measures, the country isn’t any more democratic than it was before 2003.
People listen to the national anthem of Ukraine during the funeral of Yurii Kulyk, 27, in Kalynivka, near Kyiv, Feb. 21, 2023. Kulyk, a civilian who was a volunteer in the armed forces of Ukraine, was killed during a rocket attack on Feb. 15 in Lyman in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.
(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
As the year ends, how has New Zealand fared on global and domestic measurements, from social and economic freedoms to tackling poverty and homelessness?
Using language that stresses the “seriousness” or “importance” of climate change in protests and campaigns can lead to counterintuitive results.
(Shutterstock)
Messages about climate change must be adapted to people’s histories, differences and expectations.
Reenactments of Old West gunfights, like this one at a tourist attraction in Texas in 2014, are part of the mythology underpinning the United States’ gun culture.
Carol M. Highsmith via Library of Congress
A scholar of gun culture looks at the roots of Americans’ love affair with firearms – and their willingness to accept gun violence as a price of freedom.
The Uber model hinders any possibility of drivers acting collectively and generates significant cognitive dissonance among them.
(Shutterstock)
Music has often been used as a political tool to urge Kenyans to forget the sins of colonial and post-colonial regimes.
Protesters who think the government is restricting their ‘right to freedom’ misunderstand the way that rights require us to consider how our actions impact others.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nicole Osborne
New research shows a large percentage of Australians value “freedom” as the most important human right – but politicians need to offer a more sophisticated version of that ideal.