2026-04-16
7 分钟The Economist.
Hi there, it's Jason Palmer here, co-host of The Intelligence, our daily news and current affairs podcast.
This is Editor's Picks.
You're about to hear an article from the latest edition of The Economist read aloud.
Enjoy.
Phantoms were alarming.
In the 18th century a new disease appeared in Britain.
It gnawed at a man's entrails, turned healthy men into thinking phantoms,
caused lethargy, depression and the desire for death.
The name of this disease was boredom and it has been blamed for everything from binge drinking to casual sex,
random shootings and the novels of Henry James.
Boredom, wrote the philosopher Ceren Kierkegaard, is the root of all evil.
Britons used to be heroically bored.
The emotion was a late arrival to the land, but having arrived, it thrived.
Soon anyone who was anyone was bored.
Charles Darwin was bored by barnacles.
George Eliot was bored by Darwin.
Almost everyone was bored by George Eliot.
By the 1840s, boredom had reached epidemic proportions.
By the 1850s, Dickens could describe someone as bored to death.