The Undercurrent

“When infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult whose hands are full and who needs assistance opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, they will immediately help” Michael Tomasello writes in “Why We Cooperate,” a book published in October.

Monica Sanford rehearses the cliché that consumerism and materialism have corrupted the “true significance” of Christmas. Though Sanford is not a Christian, she trots out the artificial meaning Christians have assigned to the holiday to support the cliché.

In her article, Lori Bell portrays the classic positions of the Right and the Left on immigration. The Right wants a slower influx of immigrants, and wants measures in place to ensure that they will not receive government aid. ...

President Obama has received praise from left and right for his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Commentators applauded Obama’s recognition that force and war are sometimes necessary to secure peace. ...

Elliot Gerson, secretary of the Rhodes trust, points to an interesting trend: In the past thirty or so years, Rhodes Scholars have disproportionately chosen to go into Wall Street careers. He writes:

Matthew Robare says that President Obama has not delivered “hope” or “change” in foreign policy, as he promised. Robare is correct: Obama has not distinguished himself from Bush on the war.

Last month, Major Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and wounded several others in a massacre at Fort Hood. Newly revealed details depict an outrageously delicate handling of Hasan preceding the killings. For ...

What do a wasteland full of weeds, Pfizer, and the Supreme Court have in common? The answer is the power of eminent domain. In the 2005 case of Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court ruled that ...

In your recent editorial, “Health care reform vital for all Americans,” you applaud the proposed healthcare bill for its efforts to “reform the broken health care system,” but you never mention who broke it in the first place.

Throughout the health care debate, Republicans and Democrats have argued over many points, such as which kinds of reforms would most effectively give all Americans access to health care and how much we should be willing to spend on such programs. ...

Does feeling guilty help make you a better person? This is a question universities have recently been attempting to answer through psychological experiments. The results, according to researchers, demonstrate that guilt is essential in helping “children become considerate, conscientious adults.”