Social Justice and the Language of Elites, TV as a Skeleton Key, and Classism

Some recent appearances and recommendations

Here are three of my recent appearances:

I spoke with Musa al-Gharbi and Kyle Vitale for a Heterodox Academy event:

One thing we stressed throughout the conversation is how political polarization is actually most pronounced among elites, not ordinary people. But elites talk about polarization as if it’s primarily confined to the masses and not themselves. Some weird projection going on there.

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My conversation with Ethan Strauss about TV as a “skeleton key” to understanding social class, including Mad Men, The Sopranos, and Succession:

• On Ethan’s Substack

• Spotify

• Apple Podcast

We also spoke about the ‘90s, and why there were so many bleak movies released in 1999 (The Matrix, Office Space, Fight Club, American Beauty, the pilot episode of The Sopranos and the rise of antihero protagonists).

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Tara Henley interviewed me about luxury beliefs:

• On Tara’s Substack (transcript also available there)

• Apple Podcast

Among other things, I commented on the classism of students at elite colleges, and the subtle ways they look down on the service staff.

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Recommendations:

• Time Lapse (2014). If you’re into indie sci-fi/thriller movies, check this one out. I re-watched it for the first time since its release and it’s better than I remembered.

• The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman. The author mentioned he anticipates there will soon be some revisionist history about what was happening during the 1990s, and this book is to provide a record of what that period felt like at the time for people who were living in it. Interesting to read about this period from my childhood, as I gradually attained sentience as a kid. The era where “Do you YAHOO?” billboards seemed to be everywhere in California.

• Collapse Won’t Reset Society by Adam Van Buskirk (h/t Chris Williamson)

• Theodore Dalrymple reviews Houellebecq’s latest book

• Academic Exile, Two Years On by Bo Wineguard

• The psychology behind Netflix thumbnails by Trung T. Phan