Habits of a Free Mind

In a culture that cares about protecting the powerless, who is more powerless than very young children? To some, the answer is a mother who killed hers. The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, a woman who killed her three young children, has set off nationwide discussions not just about postpartum psychosis, but about the suffering of mothers more broadly, and “how the mental health system treats women.” Clancy has become a cause célèbre.

Below is a version of my recent article for the Jewish Journal. (If you prefer to read it on their website, you can do so here.) Most of us understand what America gave the Jews. In The Jews and the Left, Batya Ungar-Sargon writes about what the Jews gave America. Habits of a Free Mind is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

More than seven years after writing the bestseller, both co-authors are targeted for cancelation. On June 14, Free Speech Advocate Greg Lukianoff, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind will be awarded an honorary degree by Dartmouth College. for his outsized impact on his field. Lukinoff may have had a particularly positive impact on Dartmouth, itself.

Free speech isn’t just a legal right, according to Greg Lukianoff. It’s a psychological necessity. That’s why he says today’s culture of silencing, shouting down, and canceling isn’t just a political problem. It’s a mental health one. Greg Lukianoff at Ted, 2025. ©Ted | photo byGilberto Tadday As a lawyer and the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Lukianoff has spent 25 years defending campus speech.

Below is my recent article for the Jewish Journal. (If you prefer to read it on their website, you can do so here.) In December 2019, there was a series of violent attacks on visibly Orthodox Jews in New York City during Hanukkah.

It’s been an interesting 26 days. I’ll write something about the experience of being in Israel during the war when I’ve had enough sleep to be cogent. In the meantime, below are my interviews and articles from the past few weeks. First is The Western Spirit podcast in which I was, uncharacteristically, the interviewee rather than the interviewer. Below that, in reverse chronological order, are my video interviews for the Quillette podcast, and then links to a few articles.

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness was not meant to describe comfort, affirmation, or emotional safety. It named a moral aspiration: the conditions under which human life can flourish. Yet, in an age increasingly organized around identity and belonging, we have lost sight of a more demanding requirement of flourishing: mattering. Habits of a Free Mind is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

On Jan. 4, 2026 The New York Times published a news story about Mamdani’s revocation of executive orders intended to protect the city’s Jews. Here’s the headline: “Inside Mamdani’s Decision to Revoke Executive Orders That Backed Israel” (emphasis mine). Did the executive orders “back Israel?” The article referred to three specific EOs. One was described as banning “city agencies from boycotting Israel.” Another came about as a response to a protest right in front of the Park East Synagogue.

Is there something you’d like to accomplish this year? According to one study, you’re 10 times more likely to accomplish it if you make it a New Year’s resolution. And yet, resolutions have an abysmal track record. John Tierney, co-author of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength (with psychologist Roy Baumeister), predicts that by the end of January, a third of resolutions will already be broken. By July, more than half will be abandoned.

Every holiday season brings with it the same warning: Unless everyone around the table is politically the same, leave politics at the door. Every few years, I write yet another article explaining that rather than trying to convince your wrong-headed relatives to change their minds, listening with genuine curiosity is a game-changer.