How then, do you distinguish the sane members of the leftist tribe from the whackos? You start to recognize both versions–the sane and the pathological–by their voices. The sane speak with self-awareness and usually some self-doubt. Irony infuses what they […]
Commonplace Book
Commonplace Book #320
When we analyze how systems and institutions operate in concrete terms rather than just waving our hands at ‘”the system,” “history,’” or related abstractions, we can see that inequalities within institutions tend to be produced and sustained by everyday practices […]
Commonplace Book #319
Within symbolic capitalist circles, the term [“Latinx”] is increasingly regarded as the correct way to refer to people of Hispanic or Latino origin. Its use has grown increasingly pronounce in outputs by nonprofits, think tanks and advocacy groups, academics, journalist, […]
Commonplace Book #318
Symbolic capitalist and affiliated institutions ritualistically describe themselves as racist, sexist, and so on in a paradoxical bid to demonstrate their virtue. However, to have others brand one as a bigot, and to be treated as a bigot, is a […]
Commonplace Book #317
…studies have found that educating people about “white privilege” does very little to change anyone’s attitudes or behaviors toward African Americans or other minorities. Instead, the training primarily leads white elites to hold poorer whites in even lower esteem–it convinces […]
Commonplace Book #316
Should consecrated minority voices produce content that is genuinely challenging or threatening for mainstream symbolic capitalists–something that is actually unpleasant for them to engage with, something that powerfully calls into question rather than affirming their preferred values and narratives, something […]
Commonplace Book #315
Far from using their elite position to meaningfully help genuinely disadvantaged members of the groups they claim affiliation with, symbolic capitalists typically attempt to leverage collective identities in the service of their individual benefit. Discussions turn on what I am […]
Commonplace Book #313
Within a victimhood culture, challenging a purported victim’s claims or failing to comply with their demands is often recast as a form of abuse–a type of revictimization. To extend compassion, sympathy, curiosity, or understanding toward accused wrongdoers–to press for nuance, […]
Commonplace Book #312
…sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning argue, a different moral culture has hold among contemporary symbolic capitalists–a “victimhood culture.” Victimhood cultures, they argue, operate by a different set of rules and norms as compared to moral cultures oriented around “honor” […]
Commonplace Book #311
When someone works for less pay than she can live on–when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently–then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of […]
Commonplace Book #310
Granted, today, thanks to platforms like Patreon, YouTube, or Substack, there is a possibility to become a sort of “populist” influencer–to retain a voice and a livelihood independent of mainstream gatekeepers and patronage via crowdfunding (particularly for those who have […]
Commonplace Book #309
Consider the myriad cases where policies and initiatives intended to benefit historically marginalized and disadvantaged groups end up primarily serving elites from those groups, while the people from the target populations who actually need help end up benefiting far less, […]
Commonplace Book #307
Though the North’s triumph in the Civil War followed by the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution were great and necessary achievements, the laws could do only so much work. A new solidarity was imposed […]
Commonplace Book #306
On all sides, key public intellectuals, activists, politicians, and the various institutions they represent have, for all practical purposes, given up trying to work through their differences. Few, it would seem, have the appetite for it. What, they might plausibly […]
Commonplace Book #305
While many worry about fragmentation, polarization, and the potential for violence, among leading political actors, the idea of a common good sought through common hopes is nowhere invoked, much less pursued. The ethical boundaries that define solidarity are erected and […]
Commonplace Book #304
Puritan perfectionism has, in fact, survived its pluralization into faiths other than Calvinism, and it has survived its pluralization into faiths other than Calvinism, and it has survived its secularization into movements that are self-consciously nonreligious. That ethos endures and […]
Commonplace Book #303
Outrage against a grievance caused by others, then, becomes the source of authentic identity and authentic action. In this strange calculus, the more rage the better. In turn, rage, hatred, and the desire for revenge that emanate from injury become […]
Commonplace Book #301
The question of moral worth of the human person, as I have posed it, is the fundamental question for any society that imagines itself to be–or aspires to become–genuinely humane. It is definitional and yet it is also a moving […]
Commonplace Book #300
In its totality, public discourse in America over the most important and often the most trivial issues of the day is not discourse at all. Under the conditions of late modernity, public discourse as a rational exchange of competing positions […]
Commonplace Book #298
Protests notwithstanding, the social media industry itself seems mostly indifferent to the loss it has contributed to. A large part of this change in disposition was due to the business model upon which the industry was established. Profitability was driven […]