Menu
Aeon
DonateNewsletter
SIGN IN

Society

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future
Save

video

Technology and the self

An artist swaps her head with everyday objects in a musing on consumerism

4 minutes

Save

video

Language and linguistics

Messages born of melody – hear the whistled language of the Hmong people

18 minutes

A woman in a pink coat and carrying a pink umbrella walks past a protestor carrying a yellow placard appealing to people to use cash
Save

essay

Economics

Going cashless

It’s not in the interests of the ordinary person but it’s not a conspiracy either. A cashless society is a system run amok

Brett Scott

A figure is silhouetted in an older style apartment block window at night. In the distance are taller modern tower block apartments
Save

essay

Cities

The haunting of modern China

In Nanjing, Hong Kong and other Chinese cities, rapid urbanisation is multiplying a fear of death and belief in ghosts

Andrew Kipnis

A woman and two children dressed in traditional First Nations clothing stand in front of a teepee structure
Save

essay

Language and linguistics

Language is medicine

For First Nations people, health is not a matter of mechanical fitness of the body, but of language, identity and belonging

Erica X Eisen

Save

essay

Cities

Sick city

My dad grew up in Robert Moses’s New York City. His story is a testament to how urban planning shapes countless lives

Katie Mulkowsky

A woman helps another woman to her feet in a clearing among flowers.
Save

essay

Mental health

People not professionals

Training individuals to support one another through difficult times is a profound step forward in our mental health crisis

Arjun Kapoor & Jasmine Kalha

Save

essay

Knowledge

The ends of knowledge

Academics need to think harder about the purpose of their disciplines and whether some of those should come to an end

Rachael Scarborough King & Seth Rudy

Save

video

Technology and the self

Greetings from Green Bank – the small town where modern technology is banned

10 minutes

Save

essay

History of technology

Care from afar

For over a century telemedicine has promised healthcare for all. But will it ever replace seeing a human being in person?

Jeremy A Greene

Save

essay

History of ideas

Sleepwalk to the gift shop

Romanticism once radically challenged conventional pieties. Now it’s little more than marketable schlock. What happened?

Fiona Sampson

Save

essay

Cities

The haunted city

The city, for all its mechanical speed, artificial light and industrialisation, is the most uncanny of human habitats

Azania Imtiaz Khatri-Patel

Save

essay

Thinkers and theories

Philosopher of the apocalypse

From the ashes of the Second World War, Günther Anders forecast a new catastrophe: technology would overwhelm its creators

Audrey Borowski

Save

video

Childhood and adolescence

When Paradise, California burned, its teens became instant climate refugees

23 minutes

Save

video

Demography and migration

In 1980, two feuding professors bet on the fate of humanity. Who won?

5 minutes

Save

essay

Global history

The power of water

Far more potent than oil or gold, water is a stream of geopolitical force that runs deep, feeding crops and building nations

Giulio Boccaletti

Save

essay

Nations and empires

East of Zionism

In 1900 my grandfather’s generation imagined a modernising Arab world, multireligious and progressive. What happened?

Ussama Makdisi

Save

essay

Beauty and aesthetics

Can culture degenerate?

Tempting it might be, but the idea that culture has become vacuous and banal comes with unsavoury implications

Christy Wampole

Save

essay

Neurodiversity

After neurodiversity

We live in a world that must move beyond identity politics and embrace new models of the mind. Enter psydiversity

Bonnie Evans

Save

essay

Nations and empires

The road from Rome

The fall of the Roman Empire wasn’t a tragedy for civilisation. It was a lucky break for humanity as a whole

Walter Scheidel

Save

essay

Nations and empires

Brand India

How a country used myth and mystique to tempt global investors – and seeded a toxic Hindu nationalism in the process

Ravinder Kaur

Save

video

Work

The last of her kind, Gricel regales Cuban cigar-rollers with readings and good humour

10 minutes

Save

essay

History of ideas

The subjective turn

For Hegel, human nature strives through history to unchain itself from tradition. But is such inner freedom worth the cost?

Jon Stewart

Save

essay

History of ideas

The rise and rise of creativity

Once seen as the work of genius, how did creativity become an engine of economic growth and a corporate imperative?

Steven Shapin