The Best of The Baffler
10+ most popular The Baffler articles, as voted by our community.
Political and cultural criticism, satire, and salvos. Since 1988. Online and in print.
The Baffler on Astrology
Astrology Year Zero
Interest in astrology can be tracked from alternative social media spaces and blogs, through more popular memes and viral astrology accounts, to merch at Urban Outfitters.
The Baffler on Bodybuilding
Macho Macho Men | Benjamin Weil
Bodybuilding is routinely presented as the very apex of male heterosexuality—but its history is a bit gayer than you might think.
The Baffler on Books
A Good Death | Kristen Martin
Books like Adina-Talve Goodman’s “Your Hearts, Your Scars” bring us visions of death, but they do not bring us any closer to understanding it.
The Ghost of the Feast
By drawing on Susan Taubes’s novel “Divorcing,” a recent biography of the rabbi and scholar Jacob Taubes tests the limits of the genre.
The Baffler on Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is Dead
In cyberpunk, the physical configurations of human bodies tend to express their own utopian political dimension.
The Baffler on History
Who Still Needs the Carnivalesque?
What would a new carnivalesque even look like, if it’s not to be found at Burning Man or on Twitter, in a comedy club, or the Dark Web?
Drinking from the Original Fountain
Until the nineteenth century, “The Iliad” had only been translated into European languages. But Suleiman Al-Bustani brought it into the Arabic.
The Baffler on India
India’s Beef with Beef
India’s ruling party claims that the consumption of beef is practiced only by foreigners, invaders, and miscreants—but history tells another, more complex tale.
The Baffler on Metoo
Surely You’re a Creep, Mr. Feynman
#MeToo has not much altered the science professions, and it likely won’t until the culture of science is dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up.
The Baffler on Society
Real Magic | Lauren Collee
Eschewing any concrete political stance, Transcendental Meditation deals in vagaries: world peace, widespread happiness, perfect government.
Heavenly Bodies | Olivia Church
“The death of my grandma wasn’t funny until I thought about sending her into space.”
The Baffler on Trump
The Look of a Loser
In the wake of electoral rejection, the orange beast of Mar-a-Lago slouches toward another run for the White House.
Popular
These are some all-time favorites with Refind users.
The Despotism of Isaias Afewerki
Afewerki’s attack on Tigray is the culmination of the Eritrean dictator’s ambition to become master of the Horn of Africa.
Rattling the Cage
The nameless protagonist of Henry James’s 1898 novella “In the Cage” finds her counterpart in the modern-day social media manager.
Speaking of Memory
Memories are what we are made of.
«Plato marked the difference between hypomnema (material memory, the importance of keeping a record) and mnemo (remembrance). Hegel used the term Gedächtnis to refer to anamnesis, and Erinnerung to denote the actual things that are recalled. But this is far from the rule.»
Care Tactics | Laura Mauldin
Caregivers and disabled people have been left to hack their way through a world indifferent—if not outright hostile—to their actual needs and desires.
Bitter Fruit | Alessandra Bergamin
The cycle of palm oil production relies on the violence of extraction to succeed.
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. is one of more than 10k sources we monitor.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
200k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.