Paris Radical

Subterranean Paris

Félix Nadar | MIT Press Reader | 6th February 2023

Extract from the memoir of a 19C photographer. He describes a trip down into the sewers and catacombs of Paris and the experiments he conducted with different kinds of portable artificial light so that he could capture what he saw in these subterranean ossuaries. "In the egalitarian confusion of death, a Merovingian king remains in eternal silence next to those massacred in September 92" (4,368 words)

The Radical Idea That People Aren't Stupid

Adam Mastroianni | Experimental History | 24th January 2023

Psychology is good at identifying cognitive biases and we are very good at turning them into a general presumption that most other people are stupid. This is both not the case, it is argued, and would not be a useful way to approach the world even if it were. It can also be dangerous: "The idea that people are stupid and that only an elite few can handle the truth has led to some nasty places" (2,900 words)

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