The Atlantic’s Post

Violence stalks the president who has rejoiced in violence to others, David Frum writes. https://lnkd.in/evBFCbdi A shooting at a Trump rally on Saturday killed a person nearby, injured Donald Trump, and critically injured others. “It is sadly incorrect to say, as so many have, that political violence ‘has no place’ in American society,” Frum writes. “Assassinations, lynchings, riots, and pogroms have stained every page of American political history. That has remained true to the present day. In 2016, and even more in 2020, Trump supporters brought weapons to intimidate opponents and vote-counters. Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message in the 2024 election.” “To date, Trump has led only a minority of U.S. voters, but that minority’s passion and audacity have offset what it lacks in numbers,” Frum continues. “After the shooting, Trump and his backers hope to use the iconography of a bloody ear and face, raised fist, and call to ‘Fight!’ to summon waverers to their cause of installing Trump as an anti-constitutional ruler, exempted from ordinary law by his allies on the Supreme Court … The appropriate expressions of dismay and condemnation from every prominent voice in American life have the additional effect of habituating Americans to Trump’s legitimacy.” But, Frum argues, Trump should have forfeited his legitimate place in American life beyond redemption on January 6, 2021. “All decent people welcome the sparing of his life. Trump’s reckoning should be with the orderly process of law, not with the bloodshed he rejoiced in when it befell others. He and his allies will exploit a gunman’s vicious criminality as their path to exonerate past crimes and empower new ones. Those who stand against Trump and his allies must find the will and the language to explain why these crimes, past and planned, are all wrong, all intolerable—and how the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy.” Read more here:

“Friendship is … a bulwark against stasis, a potential source of creativity and renewal in lives that otherwise narrow with time,” Jennifer Senior writes. (From 2022)⁠ https://lnkd.in/ei5MYRcU ⁠ Rebecca and Elisa “became close more than a decade ago, spotting in each other the same traits that dazzled outsiders: talent, charisma, saber-tooth smarts. To Rebecca, Elisa was ‘impossibly vibrant’ in a way that only a 30-year-old can be to someone who is 41. To Elisa, Rebecca was a glamorous and reassuring role model, a woman who through some miracle of alchemy had successfully combined motherhood, marriage, and a creative life,” Senior writes. But, slowly, the two friends were torn apart by their differences. ⁠ ⁠ Were friendships always so fragile? “I suspect not,” Senior continues. “But we now live in an era of radical individual freedoms. All of us may begin at the same starting line as young adults, but as soon as the gun goes off, we’re all running in different directions; there’s little synchrony to our lives … Yet it’s precisely because of the atomized, customized nature of our lives that we rely on our friends so very much … What makes friendship so fragile is also exactly what makes it so special. You have to continually opt in. That you choose it is what gives it its value.”⁠ Read more: https://lnkd.in/ei5MYRcU ⁠ 🎨: Oliver Munday

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the entrepreneur Arianna Huffington recently announced a new company called Thrive AI Health, which they believe could help revolutionize health care using generative AI. Charlie Warzel has his doubts—so he asked them about it.

What follows from this incident will depend in part on the way the nation’s leaders react, David A. Graham writes. “Political scientists have found that even voters who hold antidemocratic attitudes are influenced strongly by top political figures. In this fragile moment, the nation desperately needs prudent and wise leadership.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/egg6HA-G

Amid the trials of Hunter Biden and Donald Trump, the lives of Marie Antoinette and Mary Queen of Scots feel newly relevant, Elliot Ackerman writes.

Used well, a dose of solitude can do you a world of good, Arthur C. Brooks writes. https://lnkd.in/ebCNG-qi Brooks traveled to the mountains above Dharamsala, India, to meet with Geshe Lobsang Tsephel, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who has rarely seen another person for the past 25 years. The monk chose this way of life to “raise his level of compassion toward others and improve his equanimity in the face of all things, positive and negative,” Brooks writes. Geshe Lobsang Tsephel told Brooks that he has never regretted his choice—but spending a quarter of a century in a mountain hut might not work for everyone. There is a difference between solitude and isolation, Brooks explains. “Whereas the former concept is usually voluntary and has positive connotations, the latter is associated with separateness from others for negative reasons,” Brooks writes. “For example, scholars studying isolation—that is, the condition of having no companions or confidants—among senior citizens have found that the condition drives down well-being; this finding holds across the social spectrum, independent of demographic factors.” The difference between solitude and isolation can also depend on your attitude. “In a 2023 study of senior citizens, scholars reported that some old people found their time alone to be positive and restorative; others said that they preferred to be alone because they thought social interactions were generally negative and uncomfortable,” Brooks writes. “Matching almost perfectly what Geshe Lobsang Tsephel told me, the main benefits of solitude noted in the study include contemplation (time to think, ponder, or reflect); enjoyable solo activities such as reading; mental repose; autonomy; contentment in peace and quiet; and the ability to focus.” Brooks sees good reasons to incorporate solitude into your life, but with some principles to keep in mind as you do: Make sure to seek the positive, and use solitude to find personal peace, rather than to avoid the cost of others’ company. He also recommends going on a getaway by yourself, or ditching the internet for periods of time. Read his full advice: https://lnkd.in/ebCNG-qi 🎨: Jan Buchczik

Biden “needs to face the reality that the current president might lose, and that Trump might be in a position to make Ukraine lose, and to disrupt America’s relationships with longtime allies in Europe for years to come,” Phillips Payson O’Brien writes:

In 2022, Olga Khazan wondered if she could change her personality: “Being slightly different is still being different—the same you but with better armor.” In The Wonder Reader, Isabel Fattal explores why people are drawn to measuring their personality:

What color is a tennis ball? In 2018, Marina Koren investigated the surprisingly controversial question:

Americans have long equated skin care with self-care, Hannah Seo reports. But the rise of “neurocosmetics” marks a new escalation in the industry’s messaging: Slather our product on your skin, and it will change your brain chemistry for the better. https://lnkd.in/e4QRygiV This kind of rhetoric “draws from the established principle that the well-being of the skin and brain are interlinked,” Seo writes. Some claims are supported by research—such as how acne and psoriasis can flare with stress, potentially exacerbating poor mental health by lowering self-esteem. “But acknowledging the link between mental and dermatological health is an entirely different prospect from claiming (or implying) that the active ingredients in some skin-care products can act directly on the nervous system,” Seo continues. The skin-care company Selfmade offers a kit that will purportedly help you feel more stable and confident in your relationships, all while improving your skin. The kit includes a serum that claims to enhance “safety and comfort with self.” Selfmade says that the company drew on both existing cell-culture and other third-party studies, but extracting conclusions from these can be misleading, one cosmetic chemist told Seo. “None of this is to say that skin-care products can’t affect the mental health of people who use them,” Seo continues. “But they’re almost certainly acting less directly than their labels might imply.” Psychologists have found lotion to be a short-term coping mechanism. Smells, such as lavender and rosemary, can have a calming effect on people, and the texture of lotion can also be grounding. “But such effects have little to do with the chemical makeup of the lotion” and are not “long-term interventions for poor mental health,” Seo continues. “It’s all too fitting that ‘neuro’ cosmetics have taken over at a time when having a therapist, setting boundaries, and being fluent in therapy-speak have become markers of good health and character,” Seo writes. And, as Stephanie Lee, the CEO and founder of Selfmade, told Seo, “self-actualization sells.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/e4QRygiV 🎨: Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Sources: Matucha / Getty; Anna Efetova / Getty.