Rob writes: " Around once a week I’d stop by my high school library after class and browse the shelves."
I often remember fondly the first time I spent a portion of HS lunch-hour in the library (as a sophomore). After milling about a bit, I pulled down "Hitler's Spies" by David Kahn. I never checked it out, but over several subsequent visits I did revisit to read various chapters. Thus began the serendipity of a visit to the Library - any Library. Thousands of stories available for a tug off the shelf. Honestly, providence seems to have brought me there, to that point and my subsequent practice of reading. I can't begrudge today's youth their cellies, Tik Tok and game consoles. But, I do admit to a small sadness over a practice of "reading for joy" that probably never really existed at scale for my generation (X). Rob's got me all sentimental, and that my friends is why I subscribe.
Lucid, unsentimental observations, and why we still read Orwell. Reminds me how and why I strove to become part of the bourgeoisie, damned if I ever want to give it up, but will always be an outsider. And what a gift that is.
Hi Rob, Great observation and really good conclusions!!
You really helped me ...... make sense of my timeline that may become a book.
On the second book it is not time yet but it would be a good book at 45, 55, 65, 75 years old. If you speak real about the interior struggles right in the mist of a successful or recovery or a more balanced then not lifestyle :)
Oh man you can't go wrong with a post of great Orwell quotes. I'd say a monthly Orwell selection would be great. Meanwhile, that fabulous quote about any life viewed from inside being a series of defeats, what is that from?
"One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England...To this you have got to add the ugly fact that most middle-class Socialists, while theoretically pining for a class-less society, cling like glue to their miserable fragments of social prestige."
The more things change...
"and the ready-made clothes were not only ill-fitting but usually followed the upper-class fashions of ten or fifteen years earlier. "
Even as recently as the 1980s, you could still easily tell at a glance which kids had rich parents and which ones did not. I remember how all the rich girls had the fashionable jeans with the tapered legs and the little zippers at the ankle, while we poor kids were still wearing the straight-leg or boot-cut versions because that was all you could get at the discount store. It still took at least a year or two for fashion trends to percolate down to Caldor or Ames [now-defunct local discount chains]. I think that changed at some point during the '90s, when fast fashion and cheap Chinese knockoffs of current styles started becoming widely available.
It is probably not coincidental that we started seeing a dramatic increase in luxury beliefs back in the early '90s. It was called "political correctness" in those days, and while most of it ended up as punchlines for comedians (short people were "vertically challenged," disabled people were "differently abled," etc.) some of it stuck around and metastasized to the point where nowadays you'll hear people say things like "justice-involved individual" with a straight face.
"By 2006 and 2007, I noticed fewer and fewer students actually reading in the library and more and more of them on the desktop computers, watching videos on a new website called “YouTube.” Can’t help but wonder how much streaming videos have reduced interest in reading among young people."
Totally anecdotal, but my elder two kids (born in 2000 and 2002) were voracious readers, while my youngest (born 2005), not so much. My eldest still reads a lot, but I haven't seen my middle or youngest voluntarily crack a book in years. Even in my own case, as a Gen Xer, I found I was reading much, much less than I used to, largely because I was wasting more time online - and more concerningly, when I *tried* to read a book I seemed to have lost the ability to concentrate on it. I ended up deleting all social media and Youtube from my phone, and got back to reading actual books.
Orwell was really prescient about the culture of his day and now history repeats itself: Technology changes, climate changes, but human nature remains the same. Still, Orwell had his own ingrained prejudices as documented in the book The Orwell Mystique by Daphne Patai.
Wow, talk about splitting the Gordian Knot when it comes to autobiographical writing…
“An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”
Great job, great notes & quotes from Orwell & good brief reactions from you. The importance of money for so many people for so often, with the switch from poverty to inequality so significant. The Success Sequence needs to be frequently, tho not constantly, repeated (would your mention of it here been too often? What is the optimal times to repeat an undesirable truth).
Most folk are realistic, thus conservative, about their own personal lives. But luxury beliefs are more about non-personal issues. In thinking about lawfare against politicians, I was thinking there are too many laws, so too many folk are guilty. Maybe the desire for lots of laws, combined with the expectation that the elite supporters of so many laws won’t really be prosecuted, is a luxury belief.
You remain not yet married, so I continue to believe you’re likely missing the most important thing in your life. My marriage, and married family of 4 kids and now 3.5 grandkids (due Ján), remain the most important, yet most normal/ boring/ non-conflicting aspect of my life.
Nevertheless, a decade or so of a “Diary of a Less Troubled Neo-elite” would actually be an interesting book, and especially worth talking about. Most of it you’ve already written or podcast recorded, too often without a transcript (which likely hide s how redundant so much of it is). Troubled may be the high point in your career & public life—lots of solid other writing is still good. ( Many one-hit wonder bands have other good not great songs.)
It’s no surprise that Orwell’s Big Novels, Animal Farm & 1984, are more important than his fine essays (which only now will I start to read.) Novels can have more T truth, about humans and humanity, than any accurate notes about real humans, constrained, oppressed even, by human reality.
Are Christians and Socialists really such terrible advertisements? Rod Dreher & Freddie deBoer come to mind, both of whom write too voluminously for me to read all their posts. Unlike my pleasure at reading your posts, partly as Wen-Dai noted “consistently high insight-to-length ratio.”
Have you put your PhD thesis on-line? I’d be interested in reading it. A link?
A keeper, one of your best ever.
You took the words out of my mouth. :)
Rob writes: " Around once a week I’d stop by my high school library after class and browse the shelves."
I often remember fondly the first time I spent a portion of HS lunch-hour in the library (as a sophomore). After milling about a bit, I pulled down "Hitler's Spies" by David Kahn. I never checked it out, but over several subsequent visits I did revisit to read various chapters. Thus began the serendipity of a visit to the Library - any Library. Thousands of stories available for a tug off the shelf. Honestly, providence seems to have brought me there, to that point and my subsequent practice of reading. I can't begrudge today's youth their cellies, Tik Tok and game consoles. But, I do admit to a small sadness over a practice of "reading for joy" that probably never really existed at scale for my generation (X). Rob's got me all sentimental, and that my friends is why I subscribe.
Lucid, unsentimental observations, and why we still read Orwell. Reminds me how and why I strove to become part of the bourgeoisie, damned if I ever want to give it up, but will always be an outsider. And what a gift that is.
Hi Rob, Great observation and really good conclusions!!
You really helped me ...... make sense of my timeline that may become a book.
On the second book it is not time yet but it would be a good book at 45, 55, 65, 75 years old. If you speak real about the interior struggles right in the mist of a successful or recovery or a more balanced then not lifestyle :)
Oh man you can't go wrong with a post of great Orwell quotes. I'd say a monthly Orwell selection would be great. Meanwhile, that fabulous quote about any life viewed from inside being a series of defeats, what is that from?
Orwell’s 1944 essay “Benefits of Clergy: Some notes on Salvador Dali“.
George Orwell is one of my favorites.
"One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England...To this you have got to add the ugly fact that most middle-class Socialists, while theoretically pining for a class-less society, cling like glue to their miserable fragments of social prestige."
The more things change...
"and the ready-made clothes were not only ill-fitting but usually followed the upper-class fashions of ten or fifteen years earlier. "
Even as recently as the 1980s, you could still easily tell at a glance which kids had rich parents and which ones did not. I remember how all the rich girls had the fashionable jeans with the tapered legs and the little zippers at the ankle, while we poor kids were still wearing the straight-leg or boot-cut versions because that was all you could get at the discount store. It still took at least a year or two for fashion trends to percolate down to Caldor or Ames [now-defunct local discount chains]. I think that changed at some point during the '90s, when fast fashion and cheap Chinese knockoffs of current styles started becoming widely available.
It is probably not coincidental that we started seeing a dramatic increase in luxury beliefs back in the early '90s. It was called "political correctness" in those days, and while most of it ended up as punchlines for comedians (short people were "vertically challenged," disabled people were "differently abled," etc.) some of it stuck around and metastasized to the point where nowadays you'll hear people say things like "justice-involved individual" with a straight face.
"By 2006 and 2007, I noticed fewer and fewer students actually reading in the library and more and more of them on the desktop computers, watching videos on a new website called “YouTube.” Can’t help but wonder how much streaming videos have reduced interest in reading among young people."
Totally anecdotal, but my elder two kids (born in 2000 and 2002) were voracious readers, while my youngest (born 2005), not so much. My eldest still reads a lot, but I haven't seen my middle or youngest voluntarily crack a book in years. Even in my own case, as a Gen Xer, I found I was reading much, much less than I used to, largely because I was wasting more time online - and more concerningly, when I *tried* to read a book I seemed to have lost the ability to concentrate on it. I ended up deleting all social media and Youtube from my phone, and got back to reading actual books.
Orwell was really prescient about the culture of his day and now history repeats itself: Technology changes, climate changes, but human nature remains the same. Still, Orwell had his own ingrained prejudices as documented in the book The Orwell Mystique by Daphne Patai.
Fantastic!
Wow, talk about splitting the Gordian Knot when it comes to autobiographical writing…
“An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”
Great job, great notes & quotes from Orwell & good brief reactions from you. The importance of money for so many people for so often, with the switch from poverty to inequality so significant. The Success Sequence needs to be frequently, tho not constantly, repeated (would your mention of it here been too often? What is the optimal times to repeat an undesirable truth).
Most folk are realistic, thus conservative, about their own personal lives. But luxury beliefs are more about non-personal issues. In thinking about lawfare against politicians, I was thinking there are too many laws, so too many folk are guilty. Maybe the desire for lots of laws, combined with the expectation that the elite supporters of so many laws won’t really be prosecuted, is a luxury belief.
You remain not yet married, so I continue to believe you’re likely missing the most important thing in your life. My marriage, and married family of 4 kids and now 3.5 grandkids (due Ján), remain the most important, yet most normal/ boring/ non-conflicting aspect of my life.
Nevertheless, a decade or so of a “Diary of a Less Troubled Neo-elite” would actually be an interesting book, and especially worth talking about. Most of it you’ve already written or podcast recorded, too often without a transcript (which likely hide s how redundant so much of it is). Troubled may be the high point in your career & public life—lots of solid other writing is still good. ( Many one-hit wonder bands have other good not great songs.)
It’s no surprise that Orwell’s Big Novels, Animal Farm & 1984, are more important than his fine essays (which only now will I start to read.) Novels can have more T truth, about humans and humanity, than any accurate notes about real humans, constrained, oppressed even, by human reality.
Are Christians and Socialists really such terrible advertisements? Rod Dreher & Freddie deBoer come to mind, both of whom write too voluminously for me to read all their posts. Unlike my pleasure at reading your posts, partly as Wen-Dai noted “consistently high insight-to-length ratio.”
Have you put your PhD thesis on-line? I’d be interested in reading it. A link?
It's available here: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/9e7a355a-c4a1-41e7-96f5-0eb5640ebe91