Top Of The Week: Cult, Slaver, Right, Manet, Nun
How Do The Pros Get You Out Of A Cult?
Nic M Neves | Guardian | 19th November 2025 | U
By manipulating you until you think that leaving is your own idea. Essentially. There's a lot more to it than that, as this pair of world-leading "cult interventionists" explain in this interview. Their method is unorthodox, even in such a tiny field. They embed as friends of the cult member's family to build a rapport and orchestrate "chance" meetings with experts that change minds. It can take years (4,500 words)
The Slavers Call For Reparations
Wilfred Reilly | Pacific Research Institute | 8th November 2025 | U
The African Union is demanding slavery reparations from the EU. Ironic, it is argued here, given their role in the supply side of the trade. The Aro Confederacy in present-day Nigeria and Ghana’s Ashanti Empire were leading slave exporters to Europe and the Americas. Most of Benin was the former Dahomey Kingdom, whose king once noted that “the slave trade is the ruling principle of my people” (1,700 words)
The Problem Of Knowledge
Cyril Hédoin | The Archimedean Point | 14th November 2025 | U
The challenge of designing a system of rights boils down to a problem of knowledge. In diverse societies with sufficiently specialised labour, people pursue different plans based on private and dispersed knowledge. Some of these plans will inevitably be incompatible and cause conflict. “Disputes about rights are mostly due to the fact that we disagree about what counts as externalities and how to value them” (3,100 words)
The Uses And Abuses Of Manet’s Olympia
Todd Cronan | Nonsite | 3rd January 2025 | U
Édouard Manet's Olympia caused a "firestorm" when first exhibited in 1865. Its subject matter — white model Victorine Meurent formally poses on a bed in the nude while her black maid Laure brings her flowers — provoked over a century of commentary, primarily about the nudity, not the racial dynamics. The "staging and artifice" of Olympia prevents the viewer indulging in false empathy for its figures (2,900 words)
Nepo Nuns
Ana Garriga & Carmen Urbita | Dirt | 13th November 2025 | U
Glimpse inside an exalted religious order: the Poor Clare nuns of the Royal Discalced in Madrid. Founded in 1559, it attracted noble women who brought with them vast dowries and art collections, so that despite the order's vow of poverty it became one of the richest palaces in Europe. There, a royal daughter could devote fifty years to her Baby Jesus figurines, untroubled by her father's marital machinations (1,700 words)
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Podcast: Why Are There So Many Shipwrecks in the Great Lakes? | There's More To That. Maritime archaeologist explains the fascinating process of diving, recovering and documenting shipwrecks, which she considers to be "time capsules" (32m 39s)
Video: Shanti Rides Shotgun | Vimeo | Voyager | 8m 18s
Heartwarming feature about a take-no-prisoners style driving instructor in New York City.
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