#quillette magazine

[grandhotelabyss]

Do you have any "must-read" literary magazines/book publishers/blogs, etc.?

I think the best literary coverage in magazines these days is in Compact and Tablet, because whoever's putting up the money and whatever their agenda has evidently and wisely decided to keep the cultural coverage much more free of overt politics than other venues. I'm not only talking about "wokeness" here but also the nonsense we find in the "anti-woke" venues, like, just to give an example, this tacky "Zombie Reagan" complaint in Quillette that English departments are dying because they teach, and I quote, "Foucault, Judith Butler, Kant, and Gloria Anzaldúa," yes, I repeat, Kant. Whereas Compact gives Gasda free rein to take it to the Oxfordians (not least Yarvin), and let the tech-adjacent neoreactionary politics fall where they may, just as Tablet lets Blake Smith chart the uncharted middle course in subtle essay after subtle essay on queer theory and politics, the very subtlety itself guaranteed to offend activists of all camps. Not to mention that both venues publish interesting free agents like Valerie Stivers and Naomi Tanakia. In the same vein, Unherd is good for political and cultural commentary—pretty unpredictable, if convergent upon what we might call the new center. The Mars Review of Books also seems interesting, but it's too soon to tell. There's still good material in the usual places like LRB, NYRB, The Nation and Harper's—Will Self almost (almost!) persuading me to read a book I've privately been calling Adenoid, for example—but it's been more mixed since the commanding heights crudely tried to requisition the whole of humane culture in reaction to Trump. (Full disclosure: I've written for Tablet a time or two myself.)

In our agitated and ever-shifting media environment, one would have to cover Twitter accounts, Substack and other newsletters, podcasts, and YouTube channels too, across the cultural and political spectrum, so I have both too much and not enough to recommend. I've always thought Katherine Dee had her finger on the pulse of the culture, so her work in various venues is a longstanding recommendation. The renegade and provocateur Justin Murphy is always interesting if often silly or willfully offensive. The aforementioned Matt Gasda's Substack "Writer's Diary" is always compelling. Lately I've been admiring Emmalea Russo's tour of the Divide Comedy with reference to cinema and astrology and modernism and theory and what have you, also on Substack. The collected 1990s-era YouTube lectures on great books and intellectual history by Michael Sugrue and Darren Staloff are also recommendations of long standing, and Sugrue and Staloff also now produce new material, if more casual. My favorite podcasts specifically for literature and the arts are Manifesto! and Art of Darkness.

Favorite book publishers? Not exactly. The go-to answer is NYRB Classics; they publish a lot of stuff that interests me, including things I didn't know would interest me until they published it, especially their nonfiction catalogue, whether Simon Leys's collected essays or Simone Weil on the Iliad or Gillian Rose's incomparable Love's Work, and their attention to major world fiction neglected by other publishers (Platonov, Jünger, Salih). But as I believe Ann Manov once Tweeted, some of those midcentury novels might have been deservedly forgotten; hate me if you must, but I never did finish Stoner. They should reprint the whole of Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage, though who knows what the copyright situation is there. Another publisher recommendation: you'll rarely go wrong reading a classic in the Norton Critical Edition.

[calloftheancestors]

Don’t listen to the Leftist bullshit. Quillette Magazine is THE best online journalism out there. It’s easier to criticize than actually open your mind to truth.

[hazardous-waste-containment]

What Quillette is essentially doing is repackaging these white nationalist ideas in milder, pseudo-intellectual form and selling them to liberals who aren’t reading closely.

[..]

Lehmann told Politico that Quillette’s goal is “to broaden the Overton window”—that is to say, expand the limits of acceptable discourse. She didn’t stipulate that she wants these limits broadened only to the right, but she didn’t have to. Writing in Quillette, Lehmann said the Overton window should be shifted so that people can more openly denounce “immigration,” for example by trumpeting the Muslim heritage of sex-crime suspects.

[dalishious]

Can you explain what is going on with Greg Ellis and other DA people who are supporting him, or link to a good explanation? I tried to search for myself but I’m not on twitter and I’m finding it really difficult to search/navigate it

So Greg Ellis, AKA Jonny Rees, has a long history as a batshit creep, including but not limited to:

Told people they don’t need medication for mental health issues if they just try positive thinking

Mocked fans for being fat

Routinely ranting about SJW “mobs”

Openly supporting Donald Trump

Said he supports “out of the box thinkers and feelers” and proceeded to roll out a list of examples ranging from low-level fascists to outright white supremacists and nationalists

Called J K Rowling a “hero of our time” for her transphobia

Repeatedly using “all lives matter”, one particularly awful time being accompanied with the staged photo of Devonte Hart, the boy who was later then murdered by his adopted parents

Is a certified abuser apologist - the most recent example being him kissing Johnny Depp’s ass

Is a certified “meninist” who mocks the #MeToo movement

Wrote an entire goddamn article about how women are unfit to raise a family without a man, and blames the States’ problems on “American’s torn familial tapestry”

Seriously, this is the description of his podcast: “a multimedia conversation on positive masculinity; a whodunnit, in which Greg—as both lead detective and key perpetrator—works to track down the co-conspirators of men’s demise and the secrets to their reclamation”

On his podcast he has had the following guests: • Bret Weinstein - Public transphobe and racist • Heather Mac Donald - Fascist, also literally wrote a book called “The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture” • Andy Ngo - Public fascist, among other terrible things • Jonathan Kay - Senior editor of Quillette; a racist, fascist magazine • The motherfucking president of the Proud Boys (a violent white nationalist group)

He himself works with Quillette magazine as a narrator for their own podcast

Sells himself as a life coach, despite having no professional training in therapy, and boasts about travelling to India to teach Indian boys about his bullshit

And I want to also make it very clear that this has gone on for a long time. It’s just that recently he’s gotten bolder and louder with his awful garbage takes.

Needless to say, plenty of Dragon Age fans don’t want to see BioWare write another paycheck out to this fucker.

Some receipts: [Link] [Link] [Link] [Link] [Link] [Link] [Link]

[maaarine]

Reco lecture si c'est pas déjà lu : L. Quillet - Le prix à payer : Ce que le couple hétéro coûte aux femmes

oufti à première vue je croyais que tu recommandais le magazine Quillette et ça m'a fait de la peine

mais merci, je ne connais pas le livre

[shadowfromthestarlight]

The critical race theorists are feeling the heat. Over the past decade, they have had remarkable success in perpetuating the concepts of systemic racism, unconscious bias, white privilege, and white fragility in American institutions, beginning with universities and moving on to schools, government agencies, and multinational corporations. Their campaign began mostly without opposition, as most conservatives were either ignorant of what was happening or dismissed it as a campus fad.

That changed last year. The intellectual movements around the so-called Intellectual Dark Web, Quillette magazine, and the 1776 Unites coalition of dissident black scholars had laid down a theoretical case against critical race theory (CRT). President Trump elevated the debate into the mainstream, denouncing CRT by name at the National Archives, signing an executive order banning CRT-based training programs from the federal government, and sparring on the topic during a televised presidential debate. Since then, investigative journalists, including me, have reported on the negative impact of CRT in government, schools, and corporations; states such as New Hampshire, Arkansas, Iowa, West Virginia, and Oklahoma have introduced legislation seeking to ban CRT programs that promote the concepts of race essentialism, collective guilt, and race-based harassment in public institutions.

This shift in momentum against the new racial orthodoxy, which has now grown beyond America’s borders to England, France, Italy, Hungary, and Brazil, has rattled the American Left. Their first argument against this change is that conservatives are using state power to “cancel wokeness.” New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg recently followed this line, attacking my work “leading the conservative charge against critical race theory,” declaring that the Right wants to ban critical race theory because it is afraid to debate it. This is false, of course. For more than a year, prominent black intellectuals, including John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Wilfred Reilly, and Coleman Hughes have challenged the critical race theorists to debate—and none has accepted. After Goldberg published her column, I called her bluff even further, challenging to “debate any prominent critical race theorist on the floor of the New York Times.” Predictably, none responded, catching the New York Times in a fib and further exposing the critical race theorists’ refusal to submit their ideas to public scrutiny.

The critical race theorists and their enablers at the New York Times and elsewhere want the right to enshrine their personal ideology as official state dogma. They prioritize the “freedom of the state” over the “freedom of the individual”—the prelude, whether deliberate or accidental, to any totalitarian system. 

 The backlash against CRT will likely come as a surprise to many adherents of the intellectual Left, who have become accustomed to dominance over our public institutions. They perceive any challenge to the dominant ideology as an affront, then search to backfill their preferences with high-minded concerns about “free speech” and “academic freedom.” For the woke and their enablers in the media, there is no greater offense than transgression against The Narrative.

They better get used to it. The “anti-woke” movement is gaining momentum and building an infrastructure to contest this ideology in government, schools, and academia. The critical race theorists’ strategic response—refusing to debate and hoping critics will go away—won’t work. Eventually, the public will recognize their “critical race fragility” for what it is: a prickly refusal to submit one’s ideas to vigorous public debate, often characterized by projection, emotional flagellation, and poor argumentation. Against the critical race theorists, we have begun to marshal investigative reporting, lawsuits, legislation, and parental activism—all in defense of American principles.

[szalacsi]

Debra Soh | Full Address and Q&A | Oxford Union Web Series

Described as a member of the “Intellectual Dark Web” by The New York Times, Soh is a renowned Canadian science columnist, author, political commentator and academic sex researcher. A recipient of the Michael Smith Foreign Research Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and York’s Provost Dissertation Scholarship, Soh’s research indicates that abnormal sexual preferences are results of neurological conditions rather than learned behaviours. Soh has written for Quillette, The Globe and Mail, New York magazine, Playboy, Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. In 2020, Soh published her first book; "The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and Identity in Our Society".

https://www.drdebrasoh.com/book

[a-room-of-my-own]

quillette[.]2019/11/04/meet-the-gay-activists-whove-had-enough-of-britains-ultra-woke-homophobes/ 🙌

Are gay people allowed to meet and organise in defense of their interests? A hard yes, you might have thought. But some apparently disagree.

Witness the response to the London-based LGB Alliance, a newly created British group that asserts “the rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people to define themselves as same-sex-attracted.” The group’s creation has sparked vitriol, not from the traditionalist Christians or social conservatives who might have opposed such groups in the 1980s or 1990s, but from the self-described progressive left.

Readers who aren’t steeped in the most fashionable iteration of identity politics might now be scratching their heads. Unless you’re taking cues from Leviticus, what could possibly be wrong with saying it’s okay to be gay?

The answer is that, in acknowledging the reality of same-sex attraction, you are indirectly acknowledging the reality and importance of biological sex as a driver of attraction. You are also indirectly acknowledging that members of the opposite sex are not members of your dating pool—even if they tell you that they share your gender identity. Which means you have effectively pled guilty to that grave modern thoughtcrime, transphobia.

If you are not on Twitter, have not set foot on a college campus in the last few years, and don’t read woke web sites such as Teen Vogue, where this sort of thing is taken very seriously, you may imagine that I am engaged in some kind of Swiftian send-up of identity politics gone amok. After all, just about every single person reading this knows quite well how sexual attraction works. But I am quite serious: Activist groups that brand themselves as mainstream representatives of the LGBT community not only preach the idea that true attraction is based on gender, they also have sought to de-platform and mob anyone within their ranks who points out that this idea is completely divorced from the way the human brain actually works. In this make-believe world, to be gay—in the way gay people actually experience being gay—is to be a transphobe.

This is not an entirely new development. As gay-rights groups pivoted to become “trans-inclusive” in recent years, this de facto homophobia has emerged in plain sight. Rather than simply combat violence, bullying and discrimination against trans people, and press for better health care and representation for them—all noble and important goals—those groups have taken on an ideological mission. One might even call it quasi-spiritual: They have replaced biological sex with gender identity—an indefinable internal essence that one demonstrates outwardly by adherence to masculine or feminine stereotypes—throughout their literature and activism.

Stonewall UK, for example, was set up in 1989 to fight Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988, which banned schools from “promoting homosexuality” and “pretended” (i.e., gay) “family relationships.” But that same group now defines gay and lesbian people as those who are “attracted to the same gender” (my emphasis), and that evidence of transphobia shall be taken to include “the denial/refusal to accept someone else’s gender identity.” The logical consequence of these distorted definitions is to define same-sex-attraction as bigotry. In 1988, it was conservative homophobes in government claiming that homosexuality was a dangerous, counterfeit identity. Now the homophobes are the progressives running organizations that claim to champion the interests of lesbians and gay men.

Of course, doctrinaire trans-rights activists might attack straights with equal vigour—since straight men and straight women are just as focused on the reality of biological sex as gay men and lesbians. But all bullies seek out the weak and vulnerable, which is why they now rail against the LGB Alliance with more fury than they direct at society as a whole. That’s why the LGB Alliance’s launch meeting was an invitation-only affair, held at a secret location—the sort of security precaution that one might implement when moderate Muslims break away jihadists. “This is an historic moment for the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual movement,” tweeted Allison Bailey, the criminal-defence barrister who chaired the event. “LGB Alliance launched in London tonight, and we mean business. Spread the word, gender extremism is about to meet its match.”

Based on the reaction from defenders of the new gender orthodoxy, you would have thought Bailey were a Cossack leader announcing a pogrom. “This is frightening and nasty. There is no LGB without the T,” tweeted Owen Jones, who is perhaps Britain’s best-known gay journalist. (This is not new behaviour for Jones, who often starts pile-ons against anyone he regards as transphobic—especially women.) Anthony Watson, an advisor to the opposition Labour Party, said he was “horrified and disgusted,” and described the Alliance as a “#hategroup.” Linda Riley, the editor of Diva, a lesbian magazine that proclaims itself “trans-inclusive,” adapted Martin Niemöller’s famous 1946 confession, First They Came, Tweeting, “First they came for the T…”—thereby suggesting that refusing to prioritize the artifice of gender ideology over inborn sexual orientation is the first step toward some kind of real or metaphorical Holocaust.

Trans activists also used a despicable tactic that now has become a common feature of these cultish campaigns: attempting to beggar those they disagree with. Gendered Intelligence, a non-profit group that works exclusively with trans people (and apparently sees no irony in attacking an organisation focused exclusively on the rest of the LGBT grouping), urged followers to write to Bailey’s law chambers in London, “expressing your concern with the barrister in question and with the new group.” This same mob also sent equally spurious complaints to JustGiving, which hosted the Alliance’s fundraising page. The company panicked and temporarily suspended the Alliance’s account.

The original mover behind the Alliance was Kate Harris, a lesbian and veteran civil-rights campaigner, who a decade ago was a Stonewall fundraiser. She had become increasingly enraged by the harassment of lesbian women that was tolerated, even encouraged, by such groups. Harris and Beverley Jackson, another veteran campaigner, had been writing to Stonewall executives for months, seeking a discussion about the malign impact of gender-identity extremism. They asked Stonewall’s chief executive at the time, Ruth Hunt, whether she was worried about the enormous increase in the number of teenage girls attending GIDS, Britain’s gender-identity clinic for under-18s, and what she would say to the growing number of “de-transitioners”—people who abandon their trans identity and return to an identity corresponding to their biological sex. Many of these girls (as most of them are) describe themselves, with hindsight, as having been motivated by internalised homophobia.

“What upsets me most is that this is all based on the legitimacy we created,” Harris told me. It was this anger that inspired her to gather a group of notables, some of whom had been involved in Stonewall during its early days, to draft an open letter to the group’s current management and board for publication in the Times of London on October 4, 2018. The signatories included Simon Fanshawe, one of Stonewall’s founders, novelist Philip Hensher, actor James Dreyfus, feminist campaigner Julie Bindel, and several trans people who regard Stonewall’s divisive approach as likely to harm the interests of the trans community in the long run.

“We urge Stonewall to acknowledge that there are a range of valid viewpoints around sex, gender and transgender politics, and to acknowledge specifically that a conflict exists between transgenderism and sex-based women’s rights,” the authors wrote. “We call on Stonewall to commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate.”

In response, Ms. Hunt pretended that the letter writers were inventing some kind of non-existent tension. “The petition also asks us to acknowledge that there is a conflict between trans rights and ‘sex based women’s rights,’” she wrote. “We do not and will not acknowledge this. Doing so would imply that we do not believe that trans people deserve the same rights as others.”

A year after this fruitless exchange, it had become clear no change of direction was forthcoming. Ms. Hunt had stepped down, and Stonewall was looking for a new CEO. One potential candidate who was approached by a recruiter disclosed that exploratory questions about whether it might be possible to soften the organisation’s dogmatic position on gender were dismissed out of hand. Many of the signatories of the 2018 open letter decided it was time for a decisive break from an organization that, while pretending to represent L, G,B and T alike, had come to prioritize the most extreme T faction.

Despite all the harassment to which LGB Alliance already has been subject, the group still got off to a flying start. Its JustGiving page has been reinstated, and is on course to hit a £25,000 initial target. The attacks on Bailey sparked widespread outrage and sympathy. Gendered Intelligence deleted its outrageous tweet about her. (Such a personal and highly politicized attack is unlikely to have gone down well with the Charities Commission, which regulates non-profits). Even fans of Owen Jones think a witch hunt against Bailey—a black lesbian from a working-class background—was a low blow. Several publications have written about the LGB Alliance, painting it as everything from a saviour of left-wing politics from its own worst elements, to a front for U.S. evangelicals seeking to export America’s culture wars. The articles in praise were pleasant to read; those lambasting the group neatly underscored the urgency of its mandate. All in all, the Alliance can be said to have arrived. So what next?

Like many of us, Bailey saw parallels with the actions of an abusive spouse. “Just think about what this means LGB,” she Tweeted. “The T has said that this is a marriage that we cannot leave, even if the T becomes abusive. If we try to leave, we will be threatened. If we do manage to leave, we will be starved of cash.”

On its agenda will be protecting women’s sex-based rights—including the right to have certain services offered in spaces free of male bodies. The group will also be campaigning against legislative changes that would compromise female safety.

Stonewall and other trans groups frequently misrepresent Britain’s Equality Act of 2010, which states clearly that single-sex spaces and facilities are perfectly lawful provided they are a “proportionate means to a legitimate aim.” They insist, falsely, that separately stipulated protections against discrimination and harassment for trans-identified people ensure that they can access all spaces intended for the opposite sex. Under such false guidance, Girlguiding UK and Sport England have gone “trans-inclusive,” a euphemism used to describe policies that enable males and females to “self-identify” into spaces intended for the opposite sex. Anyone with even the faintest grasp of biological reality will see immediately why such policies impact most heavily on girls and women.

The Alliance also will lobby for a change of tack at GIDS, Britain’s gender-identity clinic for under-18s, which is under fire for being too quick to affirm children’s claims of a cross-gender identity. It will disseminate unbiased information on the risks of transition and the evidence that gender confusion in children usually resolves itself during puberty, so that young people and their parents have an alternative to a gender-identity narrative based wholly on mechanical affirmation of a child’s claims. It will also seek to give a voice to detransitioners, whom trans activists often accuse of never having been trans in the first place (a claim that completely contradicts these same activists’ insistence on a policy of unfettered self-identification, which equates thinking you are trans with being trans).

If the Alliance flourishes, it could help forge a new consensus on trans rights, one that doesn’t rely on a denial of the reality of biological sex or sexual orientation. And who knows? If sanity prevails, the LGB and T communities may one day find rapprochement.

Helen Joyce is finance editor for The Economist.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Some people believe the earth is flat. Some people believe climate change is a myth. Some people believe the justice system is colour-blind. All of those people are dangerously wrong.

There is no question that the justice system — starting with the police, through the court system and into our jails — is a deeply flawed institution infected by overt and systemic racism.

For those living in willful ignorance of this sad truth, the last month must have made for a rude awakening. In two separate judgments, the Supreme Court of Canada cast a spotlight on racism in the justice system. And then the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls revealed that persistent and deliberate rights violations were the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence against Indigenous women.

The National Inquiry opened its report with a bombshell, calling Canada’s historic and current treatment of First Nation, Inuit and Metis people a genocide. It was a word that caused many to recoil in ignorant self-defence. Retired general Romeo Dallaire, who witnessed the Rwandan genocide, said of the use of the g-word in the report, "I'm not comfortable with that.” The Globe and Mail, in an unsigned editorial, also brushed off the genocide label. And, of course, Canadian journalist and a senior editor at the faux-intellectual online magazine Quillette, Jonathan Kay jumped into the debate writing that the use of the word genocide strips the term of any meaning.

That is until you look at the actual meaning of the word genocide and the National Inquiry’s analysis of the stark horror of Canada’s history.

Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word "genocide" in 1943, defined the term as the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group through the “disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.”

Genocide is defined in the Genocide Convention as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Canada’s recent history with Indigenous people, a history that is in living memory and, in some cases, is still ongoing, is one of residential schools, family separations, forced and coerced sterilization and destruction of language and policies designed to crush culture.

Can there really be a question, under any definition, that this is genocide?

These are the policies and conditions that have led to thousands of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. These are the policies that have led to a disproportionate number of Indigenous people who are chewed up and spit out by the justice system.

Continue Reading.

[probablyasocialecologist]

In 2017, a Portland State University lecturer, Alexander Reid Ross, coined the term “fascist creep” to refer to “the crossover space between right and left” through which, “at least in its early stages, fascists often utilize ‘broad front’ strategies…to gain access to mainstream political audiences.” One fact progressives ignore at their peril is that fascism is opposed to the democratic capitalist state. Many fascists use the slogan “neither left nor right” because they want to convey a deep antagonism to the current political structure without actually supporting left-wing ideas like popular democracy or a society without hierarchies. Instead, fascism courts liberals by defying norms while defending what it considers the natural hierarchies under which we should be ruled. (Whites, men, and other “natural” elites should dominate all others). When it comes to class, Quillette endorses a disturbing premise of fascism: The “best” wind up with the most wealth and social power if they are not otherwise constrained.

Quillette is Reid Ross’s fascist creep par excellence; it’s fascism creeping so close to liberalism that the radical ethicist Peter Singer was willing to write a short statement for the magazine condemning a protest against a racist professor, and erstwhile liberal Steven Pinker praised it as “a gust of fresh air.”

[sumpix]

Free Speech is a Value, not a Right - Quillette

Michael Shermer pointed out in the latest “Skeptic” magazine issue, is that “cancelling” speakers denies other people the right to listen to those speakers. You should be dedicated to listening to those you dislike, but you cannot be forced to. However, you can exercise the right not to listen simply by not coming to the talk. The problem is, censors deny others people the right, or even (if Mill is correct) the duty, to listen to the disagreeable speaker if they so choose.

(via Free Speech is a Value, not a Right - Quillette)

[calloftheancestors]

Gosh I’d love to see this young man run for President one day!

[kontextmaschine]

So Penthouse Magazine is relaunching with an antiwoke editorial line, opening with a package going after Judd Apatow for, basically, betraying (his own) comedy to perform wokeness in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the mob

Penthouse Australia I hear has been running a while as a lad mag with an alt-lite tone, I don’t know whether there’s a relationship, Penthouse has been bought and sold and licensed out a few ways in the last decades

This represents the second publication (after Quillette) I can recall to specifically launch as antiwoke (since Trump’s election there has been a subtler shift in tone from The Atlantic and Harper’s and NY Mag, and indeed the linked author’s has a column at NY Mag’s women’s vertical), meanwhile you may have noticed woke brands shedding writers as they slim or close

Again, I don’t know the relationship to other institutional manifestations of “Penthouse”, but when you think of publications capable of keeping their funding and distribution channels open even in the face of moralizing activist pressure, you do kinda think of Penthouse, so I suppose there’s a synergy there.

[cleanarchitectures]

Where do you read about those topics? Can you recommend me books to read?

An online magazine I’d love for more people to read is Quillette; the work they do really interests me. I recommend Robert Greene’s books for quality “self-help”. As for wellness, I follow dieticians whose books I half-read and capture their main idea.

[arcticdementor]

Since the end of the Second World War,  middle- and working-class people across the Western world have sought out—and, more often than not, achieved—their aspirations. These usually included a stable income, a home, a family, and the prospect of a comfortable retirement. However, from Sydney to San Francisco, this aspiration is rapidly fading as a result of a changing economy, soaring land costs, and a regulatory regime, all of which combine to make it increasingly difficult for the new generation to achieve a lifestyle like that enjoyed by their parents. This generational gap between aspiration and disappointment could define our demographic, political, and social future.

In the United States, about 90 percent of children born in 1940 grew up to experience higher incomes than their parents, according to researchers at the Equality of Opportunity Project. That figure dropped to only 50 percent of those born in the 1980s. The US Census bureau estimates that, even when working full-time, people in their late twenties and early thirties earn $2000 less in real dollars than the same age cohort in 1980. More than 20 percent of people aged 18 to 34 live in poverty, up from 14 percent in 1980. Three-quarters of American adults today predict their child will not grow up to be better-off than they are, according to Pew.

…

Few metrics demonstrate the end of aspiration better than the decline in home ownership. The parents and grandparents of the millennial generation (born between 1982 and 2002) witnessed a dramatic rise in homeownership; in contrast, by 2016, home ownership among older millennials (25-34) had dropped by 18 percent from 45.4 percent in 2000 to 37 percent in 2016. Without a home, these millennials will face a “formidable challenge” in boosting their net worth. Property remains central to financial security: Homes today account for roughly two-thirds of the wealth of middle-income Americans; home owners have a median net worth more than 40 times that of renters.

…

Historically, opposition to suburban lifestyles was based largely on aesthetic, social, or even economic considerations. Today, opponents are preoccupied with “green” and “sustainability” concerns. The environmental magazine Grist envisioned “a hero generation” that will escape the material trap of suburban living and work that engulfed their parents. One magazine editor proudly declared herself to be a part of the GINK generation (as in “green inclinations, no kids”) which not only afforded her a relatively care-free and low-cost adult life, but also “a lot of green good that comes from bringing fewer beings onto a polluted and crowded planet.”

This view is widely shared by both the oligarchy and the upper echelons of the planning clerisy. Like their medieval counterparts, they wish to see a more “ordered” planet, but in ways that do not threaten their own power or quality of life. Those at the top of class pyramid can purchase “indulgences” for their consumption by investing in forests, driving electric cars, solarizing their homes, while their wealth allows them to purchase expensive inner-city flats.    

…

This sets a stage for a future political conflict. Even in the teeth of policies that seek to discourage suburban growth, in most high-income countries, including Canada, Australia, and the US, suburban tastes remain predominant, and are likely to become more so. In America, among those under 35 who do buy homes, four-fifths choose single-family detached houses. According to a recent National Homebuilders Association report, over 66 percent, including those living in cities, actually prefer in the future to purchase a house in the suburbs.

…

This receding horizon is generating an ever more feudalistic mentality among the young—those with wealthy parents are far luckier to own a house and enter what one writer calls “the funnel of privilege.” In  America—like Australia, a country whose mythology disdains the power of inherited wealth—millennials are increasingly counting on inheritance for their retirement at a rate three times that of the boomers. Among the youngest cohort, those aged 18 to 22, over 60 percent see inheritance as their primary source of wealth as they age.

…

Ultimately, this poses a threat to the powerful democratic ideal that arose in the second half of the last century. Instead of spreading the wealth, many of the leading Silicon Valley oligarchs’ solution to marginalization is to have the state provide housing subsidies as well as unconditional cash stipends to keep the peasants from rising against their betters.

The oligarchs understandably do not want a populist rebellion from below; the Trump victory and Brexit were demonstrations of that threat. But nor do they worry all that much about being burdened by a call for societal generosity. Such people tend to be skilled at tax avoidance, so they won’t be picking up the bill. Instead, as occurred in the Middle Ages, the taxes will be paid by the remaining middle- and working-class residents, while the regulatory clerisy, both in government and the universities, enjoy cushy pensions and other protections unavailable to the masses.

The erosion of upward mobility threatens a deepening conflict between the middle orders and the elites. It also threatens the future of liberal democracy. A strong landowning middle order has been essential in democracies from ancient Athens and the Roman and Dutch Republics to contemporary Europe, North America, and Australia. Now with fewer owning land, and many without even a reasonable expectation of acquiring it, we may be entering an era portrayed as progressive and multicultural but that will be ever more feudal in its economic and social form.

[fivedollarradio]

Yet there is a curious dissonance between the message activists are promoting—that an offensive gesture from 35 years ago should permanently end a man’s career in politics—and their campaign around America’s system of mass incarceration. When it comes to criminal-justice reform, progressives are preaching that the aim of the system should be rehabilitation, not punishment, and that criminal behaviour is forged by social influences, rather than the result of bad choices by flawed individuals. They preach a Christian message of hating the sin but loving the sinner. -- “Why Does Ralph Northam Deserve No Mercy?”

This is from Quillette, a heterodox online magazine I used to link to quite frequently, but stopped as it started becoming associated with the alt-right, even though I know it’s not anything close to alt-right. In the society we live in now, just linking to the wrong thing (even if that thing isn’t “wrong”) can have personal or professional consequences. But in fact, that speaks to my larger point. Should something symbolic be viewed as an offense on the level of actively discriminating against minorities, or, given that he’s a politician, supporting and promoting policies that discriminate? Because no one has accused him of the latter. Even asking such a question is dicey because anything less than outright, vehement condemnation is also a same-level offense and it’s easy to see why it’s easier to say “resign, resign, resign.” As I said yesterday, there’s no point in his staying on as governor, but it does make me think, is this really where the left wants to take itself?