Congratulations on a very productive year: no shortage of human capital at the Grand Hotel Abyss!
Regarding unquantifiable inspiration, I was interested to see Christopher Beha defend genius in the NYT recently, putting an egalitarian spin on it by invoking "the old Socratic-mystic idea that genius might visit any of us at any time". Most jobs, however, do not require genius, but competence and diligence, which can be measured rather accurately, so while I understand that reducing the human person to an input into a production process might offend the committed aesthete, it doesn't seem obviously despicable to me to use economic logic when considering the merits of a particular economic policy. This is what I understand by "the human capital worldview", which I don't think is helpful to conflate with the racist worldview of "reducing everyone to gene and lineage", especially because they are on opposite sides of the current immigration debate on the Right.
Talking about cross-cultural interaction, reading Queer after seeing it revealed why the first two chapters (which hewed very close to the novella, minus references to Lee's interest in younger boys) was so much better than the third (which differed wildly from the tale's admittedly unsatisfying unravelling).
And I echo Henry's enthusiasm for The Invisible College 2.0!
But all else is rarely equal and even if one cares only about the wellbeing of American citizens, all serious economists agree that a moderate degree of skilled immigration is a net plus for the country (private enterprise is not a make-work programme). As Smith observed, it is not from individual benevolence that economic benefits are reaped in aggregate. Now if one wants to believe that from Smith onwards “economics” has been a shadowy conspiracy on par with psychology and pharmacology, it’s a free country, as Americans like to say, but I think such suspicions are best kept to the literary realm.
Thank you! Your sensible remarks are almost certainly correct, more correct than my usual flight of fancy. Now, ironically, I suspect they support the MAGA position over the tech right's. If we're not talking about geniuses, then, all else being equal, shouldn't current citizens be preferred for employment? Not on the basis of genes and lineage—current American citizens are already very diverse on that score—just on the basis of the state's responsibility to the citizens and the citizens' responsibility to each other. (Someday we will be, as Tom Paine said, citizens of the world, but, as E.M. Forster said, not yet.) If we are talking about geniuses, then all bets are off, of course, genius being a generally cosmopolitan phenomenon anyway.
Happy holidays! I'm waiting for the 2025 syllabus like people wait for Taylor Swift albums.
BTW while I completely agree that political punditry is a disease, I do think it was in part encountering your writing that helped me chart a path through and take a longer view of the dispiriting excesses of the political scene without becoming some sort of mealy-mouthed Atlantic style centrist. It is helpful to see views that don't easily map onto the usual crude binary. It is present in the lit crit and in Major Arcana too ofc but expressed more subtly. So maybe keep it up, in moderation.
You caused me to go back and re-read MJ Eyre's review in search of "hints of the full-dress ideological critique." One thing that stood out to me is the idea that the book is trying to steer a middle path between extremes: is this the sort of thing you're referring to? It would seem to apply to each of the major themes (gender, art, biology, etc.). And would that ideological critique be positive, negative, or some combination of the two?
Yes, the (negative) critique I'm imagining would focus on the various bourgeois elements: the relative rejection of the artistic avant-garde, the small-business ownership, the pulling back from maximalist claims about gender identity, etc. (There's possibly more, but I will let the hermeneuts of suspicion discover it for themselves.)
Congrats on the year and your achievement with the Invisible College! Whatever self divided critique I offer should be ready to coincide with MA’s rebirth I think. Don’t quit the political commentary, even when it baffles or frustrates it can serve as a stimulating irritant. I sometimes hear about new and strange things in the Polis through your incendiary footnotes!
Congratulations on a very productive year: no shortage of human capital at the Grand Hotel Abyss!
Regarding unquantifiable inspiration, I was interested to see Christopher Beha defend genius in the NYT recently, putting an egalitarian spin on it by invoking "the old Socratic-mystic idea that genius might visit any of us at any time". Most jobs, however, do not require genius, but competence and diligence, which can be measured rather accurately, so while I understand that reducing the human person to an input into a production process might offend the committed aesthete, it doesn't seem obviously despicable to me to use economic logic when considering the merits of a particular economic policy. This is what I understand by "the human capital worldview", which I don't think is helpful to conflate with the racist worldview of "reducing everyone to gene and lineage", especially because they are on opposite sides of the current immigration debate on the Right.
Talking about cross-cultural interaction, reading Queer after seeing it revealed why the first two chapters (which hewed very close to the novella, minus references to Lee's interest in younger boys) was so much better than the third (which differed wildly from the tale's admittedly unsatisfying unravelling).
And I echo Henry's enthusiasm for The Invisible College 2.0!
But all else is rarely equal and even if one cares only about the wellbeing of American citizens, all serious economists agree that a moderate degree of skilled immigration is a net plus for the country (private enterprise is not a make-work programme). As Smith observed, it is not from individual benevolence that economic benefits are reaped in aggregate. Now if one wants to believe that from Smith onwards “economics” has been a shadowy conspiracy on par with psychology and pharmacology, it’s a free country, as Americans like to say, but I think such suspicions are best kept to the literary realm.
Thank you! Your sensible remarks are almost certainly correct, more correct than my usual flight of fancy. Now, ironically, I suspect they support the MAGA position over the tech right's. If we're not talking about geniuses, then, all else being equal, shouldn't current citizens be preferred for employment? Not on the basis of genes and lineage—current American citizens are already very diverse on that score—just on the basis of the state's responsibility to the citizens and the citizens' responsibility to each other. (Someday we will be, as Tom Paine said, citizens of the world, but, as E.M. Forster said, not yet.) If we are talking about geniuses, then all bets are off, of course, genius being a generally cosmopolitan phenomenon anyway.
Happy holidays! I'm waiting for the 2025 syllabus like people wait for Taylor Swift albums.
BTW while I completely agree that political punditry is a disease, I do think it was in part encountering your writing that helped me chart a path through and take a longer view of the dispiriting excesses of the political scene without becoming some sort of mealy-mouthed Atlantic style centrist. It is helpful to see views that don't easily map onto the usual crude binary. It is present in the lit crit and in Major Arcana too ofc but expressed more subtly. So maybe keep it up, in moderation.
Thank you! I will no doubt keep it up in spite of myself, so I'm glad it's helpful. Happy holidays to you as well!
You caused me to go back and re-read MJ Eyre's review in search of "hints of the full-dress ideological critique." One thing that stood out to me is the idea that the book is trying to steer a middle path between extremes: is this the sort of thing you're referring to? It would seem to apply to each of the major themes (gender, art, biology, etc.). And would that ideological critique be positive, negative, or some combination of the two?
I'll let John speak for his review of my review, but I presume it has something to do with calling this middle path "bourgeois"...
Yes, the (negative) critique I'm imagining would focus on the various bourgeois elements: the relative rejection of the artistic avant-garde, the small-business ownership, the pulling back from maximalist claims about gender identity, etc. (There's possibly more, but I will let the hermeneuts of suspicion discover it for themselves.)
Congrats on the year and your achievement with the Invisible College! Whatever self divided critique I offer should be ready to coincide with MA’s rebirth I think. Don’t quit the political commentary, even when it baffles or frustrates it can serve as a stimulating irritant. I sometimes hear about new and strange things in the Polis through your incendiary footnotes!
Thanks! Looking forward to your critique. I will try to keep observing the new and strange in 2025.