What do we mean, in a social and political sense, by “we”? Generally, we’re referring to our shared identity as a community: the collective understanding that enables us to discuss, deliberate, and arrive at decisions on matters that affect all of us. ...

“Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know,” the 18th-century British writer Lord Chesterfield advised his son. But common sense doesn’t stay that way. While it appears to most people to be something solid and steady, it changes from age to...

Social movements are powerful engines for change, and they coalesce around a vast range of issues, causes, and communities. But they fall into two basic categories: inclusionary and exclusionary. ...

The U.S. and many other societies are cycling into situations of toxic polarization today; discussion, let alone consensus, often appears impossible and the advantage goes to exclusionary social movements built on malignant rather than goodwill impulses. As Heritage Foundation president Keith Roberts stated...

Political polarization—the inability of groups such as political parties, religious sects, and cultural identity groups to cooperate even in basic, essential matters—has been a worry and a threat since American democracy began, and for many centuries before. James Madison called it “faction,” and in The...

Archaeology isn’t what it was in Indiana Jones’s heyday. The traditional image of the khaki-clad researcher scrambling over an excavation site with rock hammer and camel-hair brush has been supplemented by aerial and satellite photography, CT scanners and 3D modeling, and lidar that can isolate...

Do conservative and liberal brains work differently? What once might have been a semi-serious topic for kitchen-table discussions of political differences has burgeoned into a lively area of research for neural scientists. Increased ability to observe brain structure and function makes this possible, but the...