Some Links to Consider

Glenn Loury and Reihan Salam; Armin Rosen on the human rights movement's disarray; Richard Hanania's taste; Some Rob Henderson linkgs; Coleman Hughes on colorblindness;

Glenn Loury talks with Reihan Salam. Salam says,

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that there's some reaction that does not necessarily translate into people voting for Republicans en masse but in thinking that, hey, the Talented Tenth is not what it was in the DuBois era, when you had these intensely segregated cities and you had this professional class that earned its keep by serving this segregated population. Now you have a Talented Tenth that basically swims in the sea of selective higher education and the universe that it creates.

Armin Rosen writes,

“Speaking personally,” said the exiled pro-democracy Hong Kong activist Glacier Kwong during her presentation on the final day of this year’s forum, “the last year has been an incredibly dark period for me, beset by shadows and the torments of my own thoughts.” She had seen an authoritarian regime destroy her society and jail her friends without suffering any consequences. “I’m sorry to say the international community has not honored our sacrifices,” said Kwong. She closed with a statement that, by virtue of its vagueness, might be the most realistic call to action possible in the face of the Chinese communist leviathan: “Honor the sacrifice Hong Kong has made for you.”

Hong Kong used to top the charts in measures of freedom. It is sobering that we did so little when China crushed that country.

…Powerful bad people are defeating powerless good people, just as they have for millennia. Laws, values, and idealism are less immediately tangible than bullets and poison gas. Citizens of the major democracies have demanded their governments turn inward, such that from an American vantage point the atrocities of Aleppo or Xinjiang look like they’re happening farther and farther away from us. The modern world’s various channels of idealism—multilateral organizations, NGOs, democratic governments, technological innovators—are some combination of impotent, cravenly self-interested, or complicit in the broader decline.

Tell us what you really think, Armin. He is becoming one of my favorite journalists.

Richard Hanania writes,

intellectuals who particularly bother me, and Michael Lind is one of them (see here for previous tweets). If I had asked about Bruno Maçães (tweets) or Peter Turchin (tweets), they would’ve also gotten the lowest rating. Now that I think about it, these individuals appear to have three things in common:

1. Pretentious writing styles that cover up a lack of substance. This stylistic point is important. In Turchin’s case, stupid, stupid, stupid graphs create the same reaction in me.

2. A class based view of politics and concern with economic inequality.

3. Anti-woke or neutral towards woke, meaning that they’re not just normal liberals, which would make me dislike them less, probably because liberals are too distant from me to have extreme feelings about.

Of course, in my heart, I know Kim Jung Un is worse than Michael Lind. But Lind annoys me much more.

I find Turchin’s quantitative methods suspect. In my view, economists often abuse data, but other social scientists are much worse.

I agree that expressing concern about economic inequality deserves negative points. Focus on the process of obtaining wealth, not the outcomes. A man getting rich in politics (think Joe Biden or Barack Obama) should annoy you more than a businessman becoming a billionaire.

Mathis Bitton wrote last year,

When aristocrats can no longer justify their privileges by pointing to the ways in which their superior character serves the common good, they construct narratives of desert—divine rights, hereditary titles, and so on—that hide their lack of virtue, tame popular discontentment, and delay the emergence of revolt. Analogously, when meritocracies no longer seem to have evident benefits for the whole of society, the question of desert takes center stage. Critics of meritocracy obsess over the illusory nature of merit while incompetent meritocrats hide behind their credentials to defend their privileges. 

…Ultimately, elite universities should serve this explicitly aristocratic function: a place where the talented can develop a broader historical and moral perspective, away from popular distractions; where aspiring elites cultivate virtues like asabiyyah and courage, not managerial activism; where education shapes statesmen and guardians of high culture, not consultants and Excel spread-sheeters.

Pointer from Rob Henderson. It’s not the Excel spread-sheeters at Harvard and Yale that worry me. The others have a moral vision. It’s just not a good one.

Another recommendation from Henderson: Adam Mastronianni writes,

A pretty good rule of thumb is “don’t do things that make you feel terrible unless you have a very good reason.” I feel terrible when I read the news, because all the headlines are things like “Republicans Vote to Reclassify Plastic as a Vegetable“ or “Birder Murderer Murders Thirty-Third Birder" or “Bradley Cooper Calls Holocaust ‘Big Misunderstanding’”. Sure enough: studies show that reading the news makes people feel bad.

He recommends not reading the news. I recommend only reading it with the mindset, “This story is trying to grab me and outrage me. I should try to resist.”

In an interview with Yascha Mounk, Coleman Hughes says,

The critics of colorblindness are, in a sense, narrowly right about the fact that actually we all do see race. We do. Most people who say that are speaking metaphorically. What they really are saying is, “I try my very best to treat people without regard to race.” Critics of colorblindness often seize on that phrase, “I don't see race,” because it sounds ridiculous on its face, and they say all of these people are pretending to be noble and virtuous in a way that almost nobody but children are. And so they seem like they have a legitimate point of view there. What is true is that, yes, we all see race, but we really should strive to treat people without regard to their race, and we should celebrate that virtue.