Excellent piece, Ryan, thanks so much for this. As often, your writing has really helped crystallize some of my inchoate reactions to this piece (and the general topic).
One thing I'm still struggling to articulate: you call out the merits of current gatekeepers losing power (here's to the future) and also you bemoan our losing the capacity to respect human dignity (here's to the past) ... but what if those two losses are tightly, even inevitably, coupled? Not the same thing of course, but tied together via a lot of history and (some people's) shared cultural values.
Put another way, can we democratize the gatekeeping *and* grow our respect for human dignity? Or are they at odds? Not sure, tricky stuff.
Also, props for paid subscriptions. I am more than happy to buy you a cup of coffee a month.
I too admire Anne but believe she underestimated her own intelligence and actually got it too right. It all started when Woke were granted the authority to use moral grandstanding in defense of any creativity which placed them in a negative light. Which means the majority of creativity will soon only resonate within the echo chambers of their own causes. She probably caught a good whiff of this studying Stalin, that's why she saw it so clearly ("duller ,less interesting...PREDICTABLE.) Big business, especially Tech absolutely adore the last word because its easier to code. Look I love Anne and I think she's one of the few that is smart enough to change things...but I think she got it right and we're stuck here for a while. She needs to write a book on this
Excellent piece, Ryan, thanks so much for this. As often, your writing has really helped crystallize some of my inchoate reactions to this piece (and the general topic).
One thing I'm still struggling to articulate: you call out the merits of current gatekeepers losing power (here's to the future) and also you bemoan our losing the capacity to respect human dignity (here's to the past) ... but what if those two losses are tightly, even inevitably, coupled? Not the same thing of course, but tied together via a lot of history and (some people's) shared cultural values.
Put another way, can we democratize the gatekeeping *and* grow our respect for human dignity? Or are they at odds? Not sure, tricky stuff.
Also, props for paid subscriptions. I am more than happy to buy you a cup of coffee a month.
I too admire Anne but believe she underestimated her own intelligence and actually got it too right. It all started when Woke were granted the authority to use moral grandstanding in defense of any creativity which placed them in a negative light. Which means the majority of creativity will soon only resonate within the echo chambers of their own causes. She probably caught a good whiff of this studying Stalin, that's why she saw it so clearly ("duller ,less interesting...PREDICTABLE.) Big business, especially Tech absolutely adore the last word because its easier to code. Look I love Anne and I think she's one of the few that is smart enough to change things...but I think she got it right and we're stuck here for a while. She needs to write a book on this