Christine Rosen on Jill Biden; Scott Alexander on Nietzsche; Glenn Reynolds on the NYT on JD Vance; Kling and Gill on Seabright's Divine Economy; Mark Koyama on same
The problem with Scott Alexander's argument about architecture is that it's an attempt to infer philosophical causes for events a priori for something in which the facts are both known and have evidentiary value. E.g. "computer, tell Scott what Bauhaus was." When you have ample evidence for some phenomena, you want to start with the evidence that you have and show that you have taken it into account. You don't just fill the gap with your unsupported speculations on what might have happened (unless you are just trying to fill space). Roger Scruton or Christopher Alexander are much more informative on this topic of the aesthetic decline of architecture during the 20th century.
I'm not an SA fan and never have been for this reason: he has a tendency to do a sort of jazz hands routine pretending to be a data-driven thinker on some topics, whereas on other topics he just thinks that he can infer the universe from his own speculations. In this piece, he engages in a self-referential spiral in which he cites bloggers blogging about philosophical topics beyond their ken without engaging with either the primary sources (Nietzsche, or hell, even Ayn Rand) or even fragments of serious commentaries. He even cites his ex-girlfriend for some reason. This is a guy frozen in the past and uninterested in intellectual growth.
Knowing close to zero about Jill Biden and assuming she was no big deal, I was surprised to hear you call her a villain. So I read your linked article and learned that she made reassuring, comforting comments to her husband and stuck up for him during the campaign. My word, that is evil incarnate! And she enjoys eggs benedict and nice clothes while also being a teacher! The horror!
By the time it was published, Rosen's piece on Jill Biden was akin to beating a dead horse. Then she singles out Michelle Obama as a paragon of the ideal 'first lady.' I suppose it is correct to say that her public role was a supportive one, given that she was equally divisive as her husband (as I recall, she said something to the effect that she was proud of her country for the first time in her life after Obama was elected). To me, she was even more self-aggrandizing than Jill Biden, though admittedly the mainstream media played an outsized role in building up her image. Like many women, I pay attention to fashion, and the way Michelle Obama was lionized as a fashion icon was ludicrous. It is difficult to look good in women's clothing when you are built like a linebacker. In contrast, Melania Trump was virtually ignored by the fashion press, as if she didn't exist. It's not for nothing that she was an underwear model before she met and married Trump. If I had had her figure, my life would have been radically different. Not surprisingly for someone associated with National Review, Rosen sticks to the establishment narrative by omitting mention of Melania. It is all so predictable.
I certainly wouldn’t call her a linebacker, more just muscular from working out.
But I agree that style icon was decided in one of those morning memos that shoot around the land.
Because prior to that, perhaps during the campaign, I remember a features writer, probably with NYT, sniffily remarking that her clothing preferences, as also those of her social set in Chicago, were “mom J.Crew” or something. Khakis and cardigans and such.
As First Lady she mostly stuck to sleeveless sheath dresses as I recall. Sometimes from A-A designers, we were told, but generally indistinguishable from Dillard’s.
I don’t care what people wear but I think it’s funny that the sequence is always - “she’s not going to be a traditional (First Lady, or fill-in-the-role)” closely followed by: “Clothes!”
The use of fashion to hype first ladies from the Blue Team (Michelle and Jill), and potential first women presidents (Pantsuit I and now Pantsuit II) was made all the more ludicrous by the silent treatment given to Melania Trump, who unlike the rest of them has a classic hourglass figure that is made for wearing clothes.
True - but true to the stereotype of a model, she didn’t have much personality or if she does, she was not open to sharing it. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard her voice. I don’t believe I have.
I did think she would be more of a hit internationally. And I thought that certain men would vote for Trump because he had a hot wife like a jefe should.
Jill Biden as "villain?" Protagonist rather than "supportive?" I've heard less about Jill Biden than Laura Bush's reading projects or Michelle Obama's nutrition initiatives?
Vance portrayed as devil? No, just weird to be concerned about "cat ladies."
"supportive." If your spouse is a surgeon whose hands tremble, and you encourage your spouse to remain in practice, that is not "supportive." That is evil. I see Mr. Biden as President as equivalent to a surgeon with trembling hands.
Shouldn't centrists such as yourself be worried about plummeting birth rates, also, given that they imperil intergenerational transfers like Social security and Medicare?
"Rich people owe a debt to society for creating the conditions in which they can flourish; by coincidence, this debt exactly matches the current tax rate in their jurisdiction."
What if you think that rate is too high or too low? How would you make an argument?
I feel like you need some kind of objective criteria beyond status quo bias, and it doesn't seem like this offers much protection against the typical Road to Serfdom creep (its always a little bit nicer to increase taxes 1% over and over).
Anyway, I just find it funny that Scott proposes Yglesias is the ubermensch, when I have a hard time thinking of anyone less worthy.
It's not worth getting angry at the left media for its attempts at building up the Democrat ticket. I find it all amusing because I know it doesn't work any longer- it just makes the media look stupid and dishonest.
"There are many ways to do social engineering badly, including just about every method that relies on an attempt to scale up moral philosophy. [... .] I am for government that does a few things very well. I am against government that tries to do many things and does them poorly."
[1] I think the Scott Alexander discussion *was* worthwhile. I think it was Adorno who said something like [paraphrasing] "After Auschwitz there can be no poetry". Leftists in the past have had a pathological disdain for vitalism on the grounds it leads to Auschwitz. Unfortunately I also think the time to fix this has past because that hatred for vitalism has crystalized into hatred for specific ethnic groups irrespective of abstractions like vitalism vs. slave morality.
[2] The architecture thing seems to be driven by the same dynamics that cause corporations to buy popular IPs and proceed to burn them to the ground by assigning the story and script to people who are frequently contemptuous of the source material.. Architecture schools hate beautiful things.
[3] Kamala's polling bump might be a honeymoon thing but It would be incredibly stupid for the Trump campaign not to assume that the Democrats are bringing their A game this time around. No point in whining about the fact that they might decide this time around to simply have wall to wall positive coverage of Kamala and avoid mistakes made in 2016 (or 2020 given that election should have been easier for biden)
Yes, it seems that Jill must be a terrible person. Hunter too, although of course that was already well known when it comes to his personal life. Very fortunate that they lost the power struggle here.
Just to be clear, there is no through line between moral qualms about “destruction of the natural world” - which qualms are at an absolute low point, in terms of the value system of the American power elite and its sycophants - and modern building aesthetics or lack thereof.
This is literally gibberish.
In the downtown of my city and I am certain in yours if it is a town of any size - there is a rather beautiful old building of at least two or several stories - which was the department store for decades.
It is of course no longer a department store, but that was its genesis.
In no sense are the Walmarts with their treeless parking lots on multiple acres - and I don’t mean to single it out except for its “innovation” in this regard - simply using it as a stand-in for the big boxes that repeat every few freeway exits - a sign of “guilt” about the past and a resolve to be less materialistic or more “basic”.
You need not share my values or commitments to find this torture of the language grotesque.
People should not get away with sneaking in flattery of themselves where it is not merely unwarranted but nonsensical and utterly contrary to the truth.
Now that I think about it - if that’s what passes for contrarianism, maybe time to retire that term.
In fact, given that the environmental movement in this country begins - and for the most part this country is where it begins, it’s a very important aspect of the opening of the frontier and the (former) American psyche - with Yosemite, at the state level, and thence with Yellowstone, roughly speaking - continues with the scenery and Good Roads and park and wilderness advocates (sometimes aligned, sometimes not) - through the early 30th century, into the 30s and early 40s, becoming a component of Depression-era employment, then interrupted by the war - and that nearly everything that has been done since - Utah is a particularly salient example - has been an attempt to finish ideas had by others prior to the war - even the great and noteworthy losses in some sense owing to the still-unknown quality of certain Western areas even up to midcentury - it is plain that the inverse of Alexander’s thesis is true.
Aesthetics matter, in some fundamental way that is ill-understood by intellectuals.
I don’t mean this in a reductionist sense. I personally love a woodsy midcentury California bungalow interior. Or a cool Palm Springs mod. This is quite natural given the time of first impressions, for me.
None of that “simplicity” or style has anything to do with the unfortunate, generally cartoonish turn the American built landscape has taken in the past 40 years.
This is one area where a broad binary is pretty useless, and dumbening to borrow SA’s locutions.
"Rich people owe a debt to society for creating the conditions in which they can flourish; by coincidence, this debt exactly matches the current tax rate in their jurisdiction."
Weird - I don't remember if it was news or ads but Harris has been talking up Walz as the initiator of calling Vance weird. Obviously Trump supporters think it is off target. Will sway voters?
Do we feel comfortable with Sleepy Joe Biden and his wife Jill executing these duties?
“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Regardless of people's views of Jill Biden or other First Ladies (we've only had that so far), isn't it the job of the President to define his/her spouse's role? It's great sport in America to have opinions about First Ladies, but if Jill Biden's involvement in the Presidency is inappropriate, that's a criticism of the President. Some Presidents have it 'easy,' in the sense that their spouse gravitates naturally into a very positive role, see Eleanor Roosevelt, Barbara Bush, Michelle Obama. Others not. Melania didn't want to be President. Hillary did. After getting shellacked in the mid-term, Bill Clinton realized his job and did it.
The problem with Scott Alexander's argument about architecture is that it's an attempt to infer philosophical causes for events a priori for something in which the facts are both known and have evidentiary value. E.g. "computer, tell Scott what Bauhaus was." When you have ample evidence for some phenomena, you want to start with the evidence that you have and show that you have taken it into account. You don't just fill the gap with your unsupported speculations on what might have happened (unless you are just trying to fill space). Roger Scruton or Christopher Alexander are much more informative on this topic of the aesthetic decline of architecture during the 20th century.
I'm not an SA fan and never have been for this reason: he has a tendency to do a sort of jazz hands routine pretending to be a data-driven thinker on some topics, whereas on other topics he just thinks that he can infer the universe from his own speculations. In this piece, he engages in a self-referential spiral in which he cites bloggers blogging about philosophical topics beyond their ken without engaging with either the primary sources (Nietzsche, or hell, even Ayn Rand) or even fragments of serious commentaries. He even cites his ex-girlfriend for some reason. This is a guy frozen in the past and uninterested in intellectual growth.
I have a higher opinion of him on the whole, but you're right about this article.
Knowing close to zero about Jill Biden and assuming she was no big deal, I was surprised to hear you call her a villain. So I read your linked article and learned that she made reassuring, comforting comments to her husband and stuck up for him during the campaign. My word, that is evil incarnate! And she enjoys eggs benedict and nice clothes while also being a teacher! The horror!
By the time it was published, Rosen's piece on Jill Biden was akin to beating a dead horse. Then she singles out Michelle Obama as a paragon of the ideal 'first lady.' I suppose it is correct to say that her public role was a supportive one, given that she was equally divisive as her husband (as I recall, she said something to the effect that she was proud of her country for the first time in her life after Obama was elected). To me, she was even more self-aggrandizing than Jill Biden, though admittedly the mainstream media played an outsized role in building up her image. Like many women, I pay attention to fashion, and the way Michelle Obama was lionized as a fashion icon was ludicrous. It is difficult to look good in women's clothing when you are built like a linebacker. In contrast, Melania Trump was virtually ignored by the fashion press, as if she didn't exist. It's not for nothing that she was an underwear model before she met and married Trump. If I had had her figure, my life would have been radically different. Not surprisingly for someone associated with National Review, Rosen sticks to the establishment narrative by omitting mention of Melania. It is all so predictable.
I certainly wouldn’t call her a linebacker, more just muscular from working out.
But I agree that style icon was decided in one of those morning memos that shoot around the land.
Because prior to that, perhaps during the campaign, I remember a features writer, probably with NYT, sniffily remarking that her clothing preferences, as also those of her social set in Chicago, were “mom J.Crew” or something. Khakis and cardigans and such.
As First Lady she mostly stuck to sleeveless sheath dresses as I recall. Sometimes from A-A designers, we were told, but generally indistinguishable from Dillard’s.
I don’t care what people wear but I think it’s funny that the sequence is always - “she’s not going to be a traditional (First Lady, or fill-in-the-role)” closely followed by: “Clothes!”
The use of fashion to hype first ladies from the Blue Team (Michelle and Jill), and potential first women presidents (Pantsuit I and now Pantsuit II) was made all the more ludicrous by the silent treatment given to Melania Trump, who unlike the rest of them has a classic hourglass figure that is made for wearing clothes.
True - but true to the stereotype of a model, she didn’t have much personality or if she does, she was not open to sharing it. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard her voice. I don’t believe I have.
I did think she would be more of a hit internationally. And I thought that certain men would vote for Trump because he had a hot wife like a jefe should.
I guess she’s kind of what you would expect.
"Absolute villains":
- Hitler
- Stalin
- Mao
- Pol Pot
- Jill Biden
Jill Biden as "villain?" Protagonist rather than "supportive?" I've heard less about Jill Biden than Laura Bush's reading projects or Michelle Obama's nutrition initiatives?
Vance portrayed as devil? No, just weird to be concerned about "cat ladies."
"supportive." If your spouse is a surgeon whose hands tremble, and you encourage your spouse to remain in practice, that is not "supportive." That is evil. I see Mr. Biden as President as equivalent to a surgeon with trembling hands.
Do you also think Nancy Reagan was a villain for protecting her husband in his second term, and using astrology to plan his schedule?
As best I remember, he was still cognitively capable and in charge. But I never studied the Reagan Presidency, and you may know more than I do.
Shouldn't centrists such as yourself be worried about plummeting birth rates, also, given that they imperil intergenerational transfers like Social security and Medicare?
"Rich people owe a debt to society for creating the conditions in which they can flourish; by coincidence, this debt exactly matches the current tax rate in their jurisdiction."
What if you think that rate is too high or too low? How would you make an argument?
I feel like you need some kind of objective criteria beyond status quo bias, and it doesn't seem like this offers much protection against the typical Road to Serfdom creep (its always a little bit nicer to increase taxes 1% over and over).
Anyway, I just find it funny that Scott proposes Yglesias is the ubermensch, when I have a hard time thinking of anyone less worthy.
It's not worth getting angry at the left media for its attempts at building up the Democrat ticket. I find it all amusing because I know it doesn't work any longer- it just makes the media look stupid and dishonest.
"There are many ways to do social engineering badly, including just about every method that relies on an attempt to scale up moral philosophy. [... .] I am for government that does a few things very well. I am against government that tries to do many things and does them poorly."
The keys to political wisdom!
[1] I think the Scott Alexander discussion *was* worthwhile. I think it was Adorno who said something like [paraphrasing] "After Auschwitz there can be no poetry". Leftists in the past have had a pathological disdain for vitalism on the grounds it leads to Auschwitz. Unfortunately I also think the time to fix this has past because that hatred for vitalism has crystalized into hatred for specific ethnic groups irrespective of abstractions like vitalism vs. slave morality.
[2] The architecture thing seems to be driven by the same dynamics that cause corporations to buy popular IPs and proceed to burn them to the ground by assigning the story and script to people who are frequently contemptuous of the source material.. Architecture schools hate beautiful things.
[3] Kamala's polling bump might be a honeymoon thing but It would be incredibly stupid for the Trump campaign not to assume that the Democrats are bringing their A game this time around. No point in whining about the fact that they might decide this time around to simply have wall to wall positive coverage of Kamala and avoid mistakes made in 2016 (or 2020 given that election should have been easier for biden)
Yes, it seems that Jill must be a terrible person. Hunter too, although of course that was already well known when it comes to his personal life. Very fortunate that they lost the power struggle here.
Just to be clear, there is no through line between moral qualms about “destruction of the natural world” - which qualms are at an absolute low point, in terms of the value system of the American power elite and its sycophants - and modern building aesthetics or lack thereof.
This is literally gibberish.
In the downtown of my city and I am certain in yours if it is a town of any size - there is a rather beautiful old building of at least two or several stories - which was the department store for decades.
It is of course no longer a department store, but that was its genesis.
In no sense are the Walmarts with their treeless parking lots on multiple acres - and I don’t mean to single it out except for its “innovation” in this regard - simply using it as a stand-in for the big boxes that repeat every few freeway exits - a sign of “guilt” about the past and a resolve to be less materialistic or more “basic”.
You need not share my values or commitments to find this torture of the language grotesque.
People should not get away with sneaking in flattery of themselves where it is not merely unwarranted but nonsensical and utterly contrary to the truth.
Now that I think about it - if that’s what passes for contrarianism, maybe time to retire that term.
In fact, given that the environmental movement in this country begins - and for the most part this country is where it begins, it’s a very important aspect of the opening of the frontier and the (former) American psyche - with Yosemite, at the state level, and thence with Yellowstone, roughly speaking - continues with the scenery and Good Roads and park and wilderness advocates (sometimes aligned, sometimes not) - through the early 30th century, into the 30s and early 40s, becoming a component of Depression-era employment, then interrupted by the war - and that nearly everything that has been done since - Utah is a particularly salient example - has been an attempt to finish ideas had by others prior to the war - even the great and noteworthy losses in some sense owing to the still-unknown quality of certain Western areas even up to midcentury - it is plain that the inverse of Alexander’s thesis is true.
Aesthetics matter, in some fundamental way that is ill-understood by intellectuals.
I don’t mean this in a reductionist sense. I personally love a woodsy midcentury California bungalow interior. Or a cool Palm Springs mod. This is quite natural given the time of first impressions, for me.
None of that “simplicity” or style has anything to do with the unfortunate, generally cartoonish turn the American built landscape has taken in the past 40 years.
This is one area where a broad binary is pretty useless, and dumbening to borrow SA’s locutions.
"Rich people owe a debt to society for creating the conditions in which they can flourish; by coincidence, this debt exactly matches the current tax rate in their jurisdiction."
I don't see the logic of this claim.
Weird - I don't remember if it was news or ads but Harris has been talking up Walz as the initiator of calling Vance weird. Obviously Trump supporters think it is off target. Will sway voters?
Do we feel comfortable with Sleepy Joe Biden and his wife Jill executing these duties?
“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/
Regardless of people's views of Jill Biden or other First Ladies (we've only had that so far), isn't it the job of the President to define his/her spouse's role? It's great sport in America to have opinions about First Ladies, but if Jill Biden's involvement in the Presidency is inappropriate, that's a criticism of the President. Some Presidents have it 'easy,' in the sense that their spouse gravitates naturally into a very positive role, see Eleanor Roosevelt, Barbara Bush, Michelle Obama. Others not. Melania didn't want to be President. Hillary did. After getting shellacked in the mid-term, Bill Clinton realized his job and did it.