My feeds are filled with MasterClass ads. For $180 a year I can learn cooking from Gordon Ramsey, science from Bill Nye, writing from James Patterson, comedy from Steve Martin, personal branding from Kris Jenner, acting from Samuel L. Jackson, eating right from Michael Pollan, songwriting from Alicia Keyes, tennis from Serena Williams, singing from Mariah Carey, and guitar from Carlos Santana. I am a 6’8, fifty-six year old man, but maybe if I take Simone Biles’s MasterClass on gymnastics I might have a shot at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028! 🙂
There is also a “White House MasterClass” series. It features Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Laura Bush, and Condoleeza Rice. Writer Sarah Jones watched Bill Clinton’s class on “inclusive leadership” and Hillary Clinton’s class on “the power of resilience.” She reflects at Dissent:
By the end of both MasterClasses, I was ravenous for substance—a thing the Clintons, and MasterClass generally, can’t offer me. The classes are symptoms of a mordant political culture in which power transforms a person into a celebrity. The Obamas, who have entered the entertainment industry for their second act in public life, represent the logical end point of this trend. They and the Clintons occupy the same strata as Anna Wintour, who teaches a MasterClass on creativity and—you guessed it—leadership: their fame is now the most consequential thing about them. They have narrowed themselves, a fate not predestined but chosen.
Fame doubles some people. Just beyond the public self, there is a shadow: an authentic person. The Clintons, meanwhile, have sold their shadows. In American politics it is common to manufacture a personal myth and then inhabit it so strongly there is nothing else left. Watching both classes, I understood the Clintons believe in their own pablum. Maybe it’s all they have left.
Read the entire piece here.