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Articles by Jonathan Leaf
Why Slowing Down Was the Boldest Move I Made as a New Leader
The first weeks in a new role are not about proving that you have every answer. They are about creating the conditions for better answers: getting close to the customer, learning from the people who know the work best, challenging assumptions and being deliberate about where to act. You cannot wait forever to make decisions, but speed for speed's sake is not prudent, so slow down a bit at the beginning before you start to sprint.
Why Slowing Down Was the Boldest Move I Made as a New Leader
Entrepreneur Media LLC and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some products and services through the links below. Key Takeaways Your playbook got you here, but it was written for a different company in a different year. The fastest way to earn trust in a new role is to admit what you don't know and show how you plan to learn it.
Some Graphical Explanations of Largely Unreported News
As the chart above shows, net U.S. job growth during the past seventeen months has only been through hiring of women. Net male job growth is non-existent. Of course, one reason that the media is not investigating the reasons for this is that they haven’t reported the story in the first place. Last year the U.S. federal government imposed some work requirements for able-bodied food stamp recipients.
The Revolutionary Life of Lafayette
You are probably familiar with the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Such was the course of life of the Marquis de Lafayette. As Americans, we are likely not to understand that the French nobleman's life involved far more misfortune than good luck. A volunteer in the American Revolution, Lafayette rose to the rank of major general and became a surrogate son to George Washington.
The Revolutionary Life of Lafayette
You are probably familiar with the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Such was the course of life of the Marquis de Lafayette. As Americans, we are likely not to understand that the French nobleman's life involved far more misfortune than good luck. A volunteer in the American Revolution, Lafayette rose to the rank of major general and became a surrogate son to George Washington.
More Huge Stories The Media Is Missing Or Getting Wrong
The New York Times has a number of capable and talented business reporters. Among those now on its staff are Den of Thieves author James B. Stewart and CNBC commentator Andrew Ross Sorkin. But when it sends its news and features writers to cover business stories, the results are either incomplete or confused. This was proven again a few days ago when The Times printed a long story on American tariff policies on Chinese-made automobiles.
What's Wrong in Canada? Original
Canadian truckers protesting against COVID restrictions (Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images) Like many Americans, I have a lot of affection for Canada. My stepmother was a Canadian, and she embodied a lot of what makes Americans fond of our northern neighbors. She was polite, intelligent, cultured, and conscientious. But these days something is not right up there. How do I know this? All you have to do is look at some simple statistics.
Jacob Siegel's The Information State Is An Important and Timely Book
Like a lot of people, I was dubious about Edward Snowden from the first time I heard his name. I make the usual — and usually correct — assumption that people in our country who are charged with serious crimes are guilty and deserving of harsh punishment. That goes doubly for those accused of espionage. There’s little doubt at this point of the guilt of the Rosenbergs or Alger Hiss.
The Many Faces of Anti-Semitism
In July 2025, I visited Stanford University. Tacked up all over the campus were leaflets identifying Israel as a leading—possibly, the leading—cause of climate change. The notion that a country of 10 million people could be a principal agent bringing about a global rise in temperatures is, of course, ridiculous. It’s also an ironic assertion in that it singles out a Middle Eastern nation that is not a major oil producer.
Scott Pelley Isn't a Serious Journalist
Original Article Posted By: Hazymac, 6/8/2026 8:32:16 AM A week ago, former 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley arrived for a meeting with his new boss, Nick Bilton, on the CBS News show at which they both work. Pelley took this as an opportunity to lecture and browbeat Bilton. In the meeting, which was recorded and leaked to the press, Pelley publicly accused those whom he works for as lacking credentials as journalists.
Scott Pelley Isn’t a Serious Journalist
Editor’s Note: CBS News fired 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley last week after he berated his bosses and accused them of "murdering" the news magazine and betraying journalistic principles. In the report below, the author, playwright, and journalist Jonathan Leaf holds up a mirror to reveal the sort of axe-grinding journalism 60 Minutes has been producing for decades. This piece first appeared here in a modified version at Jonathan Leaf’s Substack.
Scott Pelley Isn’t a Serious Journalist
Editor’s Note: CBS News fired 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley last week after he berated his bosses and accused them of "murdering" the news magazine and betraying journalistic principles. In the report below, the author, playwright, and journalist Jonathan Leaf holds up a mirror to reveal the sort of axe-grinding journalism 60 Minutes has been producing for decades. This piece first appeared here in a modified version at Jonathan Leaf’s Substack.
Why Are Israel's Young So Conservative and Ours Are Left Wing? (Revised)
(Please accept my apologies if you received a blank copy of this before. This is what you should have received.) For most of human history, governments did not run the schools. Socrates and his student Plato were proponents of the idea, but for millennia afterwards nowhere was it put into practice. Instead, many of the great minds of history were educated at home, either by their parents or private tutors. A great many more attended private academies.
Monkey Business | Interview: Jonathan Leaf
For years, Jonah Goldberg’s enemies, acquaintances, and wife have accused him of being little more than a slightly advanced proboscis monkey. Today’s guest, author Jonathan Leaf, is here to prove them definitively wrong. Jonah and Jonathan explore how similar humans and apes actually are, while also touching on warlike animals, humans and the herd, chimp violence, the Jets, polygamy, language, hardwiring, Jane Goodall, and preferential homosexuality along the way.
The latest essay every day.
Whenever I visit a zoo, there inevitably comes that awkward moment when I make temporary eye contact with a primate. It’s particularly strange with that closest of relatives, the chimpanzee. After all, the chimp, as we have been told since grade school, is man’s closest living relative per fossil evidence and DNA sequencing. In that brief unspoken exchange, I can’t help but wonder if I am staring into the eyes of one of my distant kin.
How Did The Arab Oil States Get Rich? (Revised)
Oil was first discovered in Persia (modern Iran) in 1908. But it wasn’t found in Iraq until 1927 and in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait until 1938. All these countries were dominated by the British. In fact, the United Arab Emirates and Oman didn’t cease to be British protectorates until 1971. Jonathan’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
A Fantastically Important Political Novel
Last week, The Washington Free Beacon revealed that the leading candidate for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th district, Adam Hamawy, was a longtime friend and supporter of the so-called “Blind Sheikh.” That’s the Muslim cleric who was behind the 1994 World Trade Center bombing. It also turns out that Hamawy was present when the Blind Sheikh asked another of his followers to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. That’s substantiated by FBI records and direct eyewitness testimony.
A Fantastically Important Political Novel
Last week, The Washington Free Beacon revealed that the leading candidate for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th district, Adam Hamawy, was a longtime friend and supporter of the so-called “Blind Sheikh.” That’s the Muslim cleric who was behind the 1994 World Trade Center bombing. It also turns out that Hamawy was present when the Blind Sheikh asked another of his followers to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. That’s substantiated by FBI records and direct eyewitness testimony.
News That's Been Drowned Out By The Sound of Battle, Part IV
I’ve been gratified by the response to this column. Here’s still more news that has gone virtually unnoticed — or even unreported — amidst the blanket media coverage of the Iran War: Murder rates have fallen across the country, but the decline in Washington, D.C. is startling. In 2024, it had 274 murders. This year, it’s on a pace for 42 murders. (It’s had just 12 so far.) That’s a decline of almost 85%. There have been as many deaths from traffic accidents in the nation’s capital as murders.
A New Evolutionary Understanding – Jonathan Leaf
I have been grateful for the my new book, The Primate Myth: Why the Latest Science Leads Us To a New Theory of Human Nature, has generated in both scientific and literary circles. Larry Arnhart, reviewing it for Law & Liberty, does not seem to share this appreciation for it. So I’m thankful to the magazine for allowing me to respond.
Of Apes and Men - Larry Arnhart
Skulls in a row. (JuliusKielaitis/Shutterstock) Humans shouldn’t take their bearings from other primates—and evolutionary biologists are often the first to tell you so. If man was “created from animals,” as Charles Darwin wrote in one of his notebooks, from what animals was he created?
Demystifying Islam’s Golden Age – Jonathan Leaf
Many in the Islamic world continue to believe that the answer to their struggles is the restoration of the old caliphate system. Hamas, for instance, called for this in its founding charter. This was also the impassioned dream of Osama bin Laden. Spurring these beliefs are a series of widely-held notions about the past. Given the powerful present-day interest, attraction, and obsession with the idea, we need to arrive at an accurate estimate of the caliphates.
Why Do Men Have Beards?: An Evolutionary Explanation
One of the mysteries of human evolution is why men have beards. I have an answer to that question. But to grasp it we need to throw out the primate models for human thought and behavior that have dominated anthropology for decades. The gist of my argument is below. More immediately, please permit me to note that my book on the subject of human nature and human evolution received another laudatory review yesterday.
Humans are more than just apes
Revolutions in science happen like Mike’s bankruptcy in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises: slowly, then suddenly. For the past two decades, neuroscientists have been interested in the ways that the human brain differs from those of other primates. The prevailing assertion among primatologists was that our genome is only 1 to 2 percent distinct from chimps’.
Humans are more than just apes
Revolutions in science happen like Mike’s bankruptcy in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises: slowly, then suddenly. For the past two decades, neuroscientists have been interested in the ways that the human brain differs from those of other primates. The prevailing assertion among primatologists was that our genome is only 1 to 2 percent distinct from chimps’.
Jane Goodall’s work is helping upend our understanding of human nature
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Jane Goodall’s work is helping upend our understanding of human nature Original
Jane Goodall died Wednesday. As she was universally regarded as the greatest living expert on chimpanzees, her passing is a momentous event. It’s one that comes at a time of upheaval in the field she helped create. Goodall’s career commenced when she traveled to Tanzania in 1960 and began studying chimps in the wild. Some of her revelations, like the discovery chimps can make simple tools, showed their commonality with us.
Jonathan Leaf | Substack
Jonathan Leaf is a playwright and novelist. His new book The Primate Myth was recently selected by Engelsberg Ideas as one of the Best Books of 2025 and named by Joel Kotkin as one of three books to read for 2026.
Jonathan’s Substack
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What The Press Hasn't Told You About Daniel Ortega and Nicaragua
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Recent Book On New Frontiers In Physics Expanded My Consciousness (As Much As Is Possible Anyway)
“God does not play dice with the universe.” You may know that Albert Einstein said that in response to the discovery of quantum mechanics. What particularly bothered him was the idea, which he referred to as “spooky action at a distance,” that two particles could be entangled. This means, for example, that the spin of one particle might be connected to the spin of another which is “non-local” – far away.
A short, CRITICAL History of Philosophy (Chapter 36)
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My Upcoming Talk On What Philosophy Is
On Wednesday, August 14 at 1:30 pm Eastern Time, I'll be giving a ninety-minute online talk through Interintellect. (That’s next Wednesday.) The talk is entitled "What Is Philosophy?: And How Does Plato Fit Into This?" If you've been reading my series of articles on the subject or you’re simply interested in philosophy, join us. We'll review the history of the field to build a real understanding of why the discipline has strayed so far from the subject that gives rise to its name: wisdom.
Painting from life
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Kirkus Recommends City of Angles As One of the Best Novels of 2023
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Must Armenia Cede Itself into Nonexistence?
In late 2020, war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Two months later, peace was achieved on condition that the ancient Christian nation cede its ancestral lands in Artsakh, internationally known as “Nagorno-Karabakh,” to its Muslim neighbor.
A short, CRITICAL History of Philosophy (Chapter 13)
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Herd Immunity (Chapter 14)
All his life Stillman Hawking had been plagued by two things: bashfulness and sudden plunges in mood. Long hair had helped with the reticence he felt in meeting people. Women were now approaching him. That was doubly true when he performed. The lows were trickier. He never knew when they might appear. They were like the thunderstorms that drew in from the Gulf. One minute there was a bright yellow sun, and the next sheets of rain were descending, and a curtain of water covered everything.
Rediscovering Our Everyday Freedom | Jonathan Leaf
Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society by philip k. howard rodin books, 128 pages, $18.95 Donald Trump’s election in 2016 exposed a truth that our country’s mandarins were busy denying not only in newspapers and on television but to themselves: Much of the country was furiously angry. People were enraged by growing inequality, bad and dangerous schools, massive illegal immigration, and many other problems.
Why De-Accreditation? – Jonathan Leaf
Conservative intellectuals perpetually complain that the universities have closed off opportunities for the expression of Conservative opinions on college campuses. They aren’t imagining things. There’s a wealth of data to show that bias against conservatives is real. A 2022 survey revealed that only one percent of the Harvard faculty identify as “conservative,” but 37 percent self-identify as “very liberal.” Ironically, the era of diversity has turned out to be one of ideological uniformity.
Avi Shlaim’s Revision Chic
Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, one figure has been most ubiquitous and most determined in his assertions that Israel is actually to blame: British academic Avi Shlaim. His op-eds or his comments have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, EL PAÍS (Spain), Al-Quds, the Wire, the Irish Times, the Islam Channel, the Africa News Network, Prospect, the Times Higher Education Magazine, NPR, and the Daily Mail. They have appeared in Apple podcasts. They have been featured in TikTok videos.
Rethinking the "Danger" of Public Christianity – D.G. Hart
In 1923, a middle-aged professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary, J. Gresham Machen, produced a book that asserted liberal Protestantism was not simply a defective version of Christianity but a different religion altogether. Talk about provocative. Was Machen trolling liberal Protestants? One hundred years later, white conservative Protestants in the US spent a good chunk of last year commemorating Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism. The reasons are not hard to imagine.
A Search for the Economics GOAT – - John O. McGinnis
Teaching the basics of a subject and inspiring students to become its devotees are not easily combined. Even a great textbook has the space only to cover the current knowledge in its field. But most of us are more easily inspired by the stories of people and their great discoveries. Economics provides a good example of the problem.
Cass Sunstein’s Limitless Liberalism – Gregory M. Collins
The full complexity of the liberal tradition has always escaped the sound and fury of its most strident critics.
Feeble Forays Against Free Trade – - Donald J. Boudreaux
Oren Cass has fired a broadside against free trade. He accuses free traders of being not just severely mistaken, but also tendentious, in both their history and theory. This serious accusation deserves a serious response. Space, unfortunately, prevents me from addressing certain errors, especially his grievous misreading of nineteenth-century American economic history. Readers interested in sound accounts of that era can consult Douglas Irwin and Phil Magness.
Adding Aristotle to Foreign Policy – - Graham McAleer
John Mearsheimer is renowned among those in government, think tanks, and universities who reflect on strategy and foreign affairs. Despite that, he is something of an outlier. It is not merely that he is a realist where most are idealists, but that the account of rationality he relies on in his work is at odds with the majority theory. The R.
Time to Tear Out the Shag Carpeting – Nicole Stelle Garnett & Tim Rosenberger
A series of recent Supreme Court decisions, culminating last year in Carson v. Makin, emphasized that government-sponsored religious discrimination, “is odious to our Constitution.” These decisions articulate the Constitutional right of religious organizations to participate fully in public programs that enlist the cooperation of private individuals and organizations to advance the common good.
Saving Ourselves from Party Rage – Aaron Alexander Zubia
David Hume has something to teach us about party politics. We flatter ourselves that we live in unprecedented times. But the eighteenth-century Scot tells us otherwise. He too lived in an era of “party rage.” For more than a year, Americans have said the country is on the wrong track. Even more striking, a majority claims the “other party’s agenda will destroy America.” Voters are using apocalyptic language.
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