The New Anarchy
America faces a type of extremist violence it does not know how to stop.
April 2023
In This Issue
The new anarchy, the Terminator’s last act, the end of U.S. naval supremacy, and Judy Blume, poet laureate of puberty. Plus the case against euphemism, going To the Lighthouse, your age in your head, Sebastian Barry, nicknames, new fiction by Mona Simpson, and more.
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Judy Blume Goes All the Way
A new generation discovers the poet laureate of puberty.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Last Act
What happens when the Terminator turns 75
The Age of American Naval Dominance Is Over
The United States has ceded the oceans to its enemies. We can no longer take freedom of the seas for granted.
Fiction
Katherine Lam Second Life
A story
Dispatches
Gabriela Pesqueira The Moral Case Against Equity Language
What’s a “justice-involved person”?
Illustration by Klaus Kremmerz The Puzzling Gap Between How Old You Are and How Old You Think You Are
There are good reasons you always feel 20 percent younger than your actual age.
Wesaam Al-Badry / Contact Press Images ‘We Belong Here’
Documenting Arab American and Muslim American life without stereotypes
Culture & Critics
Lauren Tamaki The Freakish Powers of Miley Cyrus and Lana Del Rey
The id of California—the id of America—is strong in both of them.
Robbie Lawrence I Actually Went to the Lighthouse
Searching for Virginia Woolf on the Isle of Skye
Lucy Jones The Oscars’ Incredible Knack for Being Wrong
Despite a history of embarrassment, the Academy has somehow managed to hold on to its prestige.
Illustration: Karlotta Freier You Should Be Reading Sebastian Barry
Ireland’s fiction laureate has a special understanding of the human heart.
Photo-illustration by Trevor Davis. Sources: Courtesy of Matthew Pratt Guterl; Phillip Spears / Getty. The Family Who Tried to End Racism Through Adoption
Bob and Sheryl Guterl saw their family as a kind of “ark for the age of the nuclear bomb” and attempted to gather “two of every race.”
Departments
The Atlantic The Commons: ‘Progress Ought to Feel Beautiful’
Readers respond to stories from our January/February 2023 issue.
Tim Lahan An Ode to Nicknames
What yours says about you
Poetry
Gabriela Pesqueira / The Atlantic; NYPL
