Digest, 1/1/2022: The First Day of the Rest of Our Lives
the thirty-second digest post
New year for all of us. Sure, it’s an arbitrary marker. So is most every other marker in human life. It’s useful all the same. So let’s get after it.
New book club upcoming! If you didn’t already see, our next selection is No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield. It’ll be the first time I’m reading a book for the first time as we go, which has me excited and apprehensive. I’ll have an introductory post this Wednesday, the 5th, and the first analysis and discussion post will be the following Wednesday, the 12th. For the 12th, I’ll be asking you to read the prologue and chapters One through Four, as the chapters are quite short. Join in! It’s a lot of fun.
Random recommendation: my secret Santa gave me the Disney-themed board game Villainous and my girlfriend and I really love it. I’m someone who gets very tired when confronted with the complexity of modern board games, and I had that sinking feeling when I first started looking at the rules. But it’s actually quite intuitive once you get used to it, and I find the way that the individual goals and dynamics for the different villains interface with the shared elements in a really elegant way. A lot of fun. As with any game I encourage you to watch a YouTube explainer before playing if you find it difficult to learn new games (like me).
This Week’s Posts
Monday, December 27th - Perhaps High School is Not Always a Relentlessly Brutal Nietzschean Hellscape
Some people are bullied in high school and it sucks and I have immense sympathy. And some high schools have a rigid popularity caste structure. But I think the prevalence of these tropes in movies is totally out of proportion with real life.
Tuesday, December 28th - Wanting to Convince People to Support You is Not “Popularism”
I complain about the popularism debate, particularly the notion that the only people who care about a broadly popular agenda and effective messaging are centrists.
Thursday, December 30th - The Party’s Over
A look at digital media and the will to be a writer. Definitely one of those classic “some people love it, some people are filled with rage by it” posts.
Friday, December 31st - My Favorites of 2021 (subscriber only)
One of those year-end listicles with best-ofs. I had a lot of fun.
We also had our first-ever AMA this week, for subscribers, which will become a regular feature here in 2022.
From the Archives
I have developed a reputation as a pro-testing kind of guy, thanks to my defenses of the SAT, but that’s a bit simplistic. The question is always which tests, for what students, in what context, for what purpose? Here’s a piece I wrote for the New American foundation a half-decade ago that explores those themes.
Song of the Week
Substack of the Week
I linked to my interview with the Default Friend newsletter this week, but I want to plug the newsletter again here anyway. I confess I didn’t know anything about it before I was asked to interview, but since I was I’ve explored a little and found Katherine Dee to be interesting and wise. I can’t do much better at explaining the newsletter than she does herself in the linked post above, so check that out. She describes her project as “an intellectual and emotional scrapbook,” which is definitely something I’m into. Let’s make 2022 a year of writing that transcends stale genre lines and conventions. Give her stuff a read, and consider supporting Dee financially.
Book Recommendation
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005, Thomas Ricks, 2007
I don’t like Thomas Ricks, it’s fair to say. He’s got annoying normie politics and though he frequently criticizes the missteps and failings of our “defense” apparatus he also fundamentally believes in American military exceptionalism and the myth of our good intentions. But integrity demands that I admit that, as someone who has read over a dozen books on the disaster in Iraq, no other text did such a good job at explaining exactly what the disaster was and why it happened. I think this is especially important reading for Zoomers who did not follow the disaster in real time as it unspooled; it’s so essential that they understand.
NFL Picks of the Week
For the record I’ve made picks for the past five years or so and I finished (slightly) above .500 each time. So of course the first year I start sharing my picks publicly they’re terrible. A 3-0 week last time I made picks makes the record a little more respectable. Maybe I can crawl back over .500 by the end of the regular season.
I like the New York Giants (+6.5) over the Chicago Bears. The Giants are indeed terrible and banged up, but it’s precisely the kind of late-season game that’s meaningless for two losing teams that ends up going weird, and 6.5 seems high.
I’m picking the Cincinnati Bengals +4.5 to win outright, so of course I’m taking the points at home. The Chiefs are on a long winning streak, have sewn up their division, and almost certainly have a loss in them before season’s end. The Bengals just need it much more and have the firepower to win at home.
I like the Indianapolis Colts (-7) over the Las Vegas Raiders. The Colts have a lot to play for; the Raiders just want to go home.
Win-Loss-Push: 11-13-0
Comment of the Week
I want to plug two more journalists I discovered in 2021: Jerusalem Demsas (who is at the hated Vox but is doing excellent work there on housing policy) and Jay Caspian Kang at the New York Times who is trying to gently pull progressives back to reality on race. - Rick Gore
Agreed on both counts. Here’s to 2022! I do want to reiterate what I said in the year-end post, which is that your patronage of me and my work is a gift I will never, ever take for granted. Onwards in gratitude. Cheers.
Digest, 1/1/2022: The First Day of the Rest of Our Lives
I appreciate this lil haven on the internet. Great ideas, great debate, good fun.
Just wanted to encourage everyone to join in for book club. I really enjoyed “No One Will Miss Her” and I think lots of people here will like it too.