Links to Consider, 9/24/2024
Robbie George on expressive individualism; Randall Bock and me on finding truth; Rob Henderson is part of Jordan Peterson's academy; Tyler Cowen on mainstream economics
The distinguished legal scholar Carter Snead usefully describes expressive individualism as follows:
“It takes the individual, atomized self to be the fundamental unit of human reality. This self is not defined by its attachments or network of relations, but rather by its capacity to choose a future pathway that is revealed by the investigation of its own inner depths of sentiment.”
Among their primary motivations for embracing expressive individualism was that it represented an affirmation of various crucial aspects of the sexual revolution. But that was a conscious, deliberate and thoroughly ideologically motivated choice that the old-school liberals made. They certainly didn’t have to embrace expressive individualism to defend racial equality or freedom of speech.
In a podcast, Randy Bock and I discuss several things. But one issue that I am pondering is the way the information ecosystem deals with mainstream vs. contrarian views.
we can sort of uh you know overly censor people who disagree with the elite consensus … that is repress…useful information that's outside of the elite consensus or we could under censor it … people could believe crazy things and conspiracy theories …how do you minimize both types of Errors I don't have an the answer to that one by the way
I delivered six lectures in front of a live studio audience, exploring the psychology of social status, examining its evolutionary roots, developmental origins, and the fundamental role it plays in shaping human behavior. We examine individual differences in status-seeking, the evolutionary reasons behind status pursuit, and the complex relationships between status, envy, emotions, and intrasexual competition for romantic partners. We also investigate the dynamics of social status in relation to stories, plot lines, and arenas of competition, and concludes by discussing the concept of luxury beliefs and their impact on society.
His lectures were for Jordan Peterson’s academy, which costs $500. It has several lecture series, with many more coming. I have not enrolled.
I think of this as entertainment, for people who like ideas. But I think of education as something other than consuming content by watching videos. You can go back to my network education proposal to see how I would approach trying to revamp higher education.
economics is a relatively mature science, and even surprising results are typically consistent with the laws of supply and demand. Innovations tend to be subtle — they could also be described, less generously, as underwhelming — concerning the relative size of effects. So it is hard for radical new ideas to come out of nowhere, and that does lead to some geographic concentration, centered in the highest-reputation schools…
Can economics come up with truly novel remedies or ideas? Probably not.
So in terms of economic ideas, there are no $20 bills on the sidewalk waiting to be picked up. Even if that is true, I don’t think it would hurt for the economics profession to let in a bit of fresh air. As it stands, the trend is to do more and more research and race and gender. That is certainly not going to yield anything truly novel or society-improving.
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Regarding expressive individualism, the atomized self has been the ideal of the Progressives, as it was of the other revolutionaries of the 20th century, who see intermediary institutions as standing in the way of their utopian dreams. For them, the ideal society is that composed of the state (controlled by them) on the one hand, and the isolated individual on the other. The great conservative sociologist Robert Nisbet's book The Quest For Community is the book to read.
Re: "So in terms of economic ideas, there are no $20 bills on the sidewalk waiting to be picked up."
There are plenty of $20 bills on the sidewalk, namely, *neglected* economic ideas. For example, an economist might neglect the Coase Theorem whereas a physicist can't ignore basic ideas.