Peculiar Institutions
The Evolution of Noblesse Oblige
Andrew Carnegie:
We’ll buy a lot of books, and build a lot of places where working people can go and read them. This will help them better themselves, and in the process provide a more civilized future for all of us.
Bill Gates:
The country is not producing enough of the kind of people we’ll need for the future we’re creating. Beneficial change will require us to seize control of the school curriculum from clueless education experts and teacher’s union officials — an annoying, but essentially trivial task. First, we’ll buy their compliance. Then, if necessary, we’ll buy their gratitude.
Can it really be this simple? Probably not. Still, if you have kids, this might be a good time to take more seriously your own contribution to the world they’re going to be living in.
Presidential Appointees (In No Particular Order)
Jeff Sessions: Looks like Alfred E. Neuman, thinks like John C. Calhoun.
Steve Bannon: What stupid people think a smart person ought to sound like.
Betsy DeVos: A government-run education system will never be able to produce the amount of ignorance this country needs.
Jared Kushner: Once you grab the right one, hang on.
Mike Pence: The Taliban had some good ideas.
Michael Flynn: Die Politik ist eine bloße Fortsetzung des Krieges mit anderen Mitteln.
Andrew Puzder: You do want fries with that.
Rex Tillerson: Extreme unction.
Reince Priebus: Not being careful what you wish for has consequences.
Neil Gorsuch: There are only two crimes — existence, which is a misdemeanor, and presence, which is a felony.
Tom Price: Don’t get sick. If you do, die quickly.
Scott Pruitt: The cabin doesn’t leak when it doesn’t rain.
Ben Carson: You have too many neurons. I can help you with that.
The Spiritual Gorbachev
Pope Francis would do well to reflect on what happened the last time a frustrated figurehead attempted to impose glasnost and perestroika on a moribund institution. Once he succeeds in driving all the money changers from the temple, he may find that they were the only ones holding it up.
Righteous Eloquence
Reparations for Ferguson by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
All that needs to be said.
Simon Johnson versus the Scumbags
In a pivotal scene from a recent episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones, Lord Petyr Baelish hints at his knowledge of a secret potentially fatal to the Queen Mother, Cersei Lannister, and smugly warns her that knowledge is power. Her response is to order one of her bodyguards to cut his throat.
With his attention newly focused by the razor-sharp dagger under his chin, she reminds him that power is power, and that he’d do well to remember it.
Both are right, of course, but in politics, context is everything. That’s why I find it refreshing to watch Simon Johnson, MIT professor and former Chief Economist at the IMF, go after the academic economists who not only shill for the financial industry, but wax indignant when anyone calls attention to their shenanigans.
Back in 2006, Brad DeLong rejoiced that the Left had escaped its destructive embrace of Marxism. Reading Johnson’s appeal six years later, one wonders if someday we’ll be able to rejoice that the neoliberal academy has escaped its destructive embrace of Capitalism. That day may be nearer now than it was back in 2006, but I’m not breaking out the champagne just yet.
Discomforting the South
From Ta-Nehisi Coates, this eloquent re-statement of fundamental American principles still being trampled on by a legion of racist Dixie apologists. It should be read aloud from every pulpit in the nation. Re-light Frederick Douglass’s torch — here’s someone more than worthy to carry it forward.
History is identity. When we erase the painful portions, we lose texture, color and we are reduced. Patriotism, in my eyes, has always been about the strength of seeing those rough spots, of considering your home at its worse, and remaining enthralled, nonetheless. That is how we love our daughters, our husbands, our mothers. That is how we make family.
I have come to a fairly recent regard for Lincoln. He rose from utter frontier poverty, through self-education and hard work, to the presidency and the upper reaches of American letters. His path was harsh. His wife was mentally ill. His son died in office. He was derided in newspapers as ugly, stupid, a gorilla and white trash. For his patience, endurance, temperance and industry in the face of so many troubles, Lincoln was awarded a shot to the head.
Now in some sectors of the country for which Lincoln died, patriotism means waving the flag of his murderer. The party he founded supports this odious flag-waving and now gives us a candidate who would stand before that same flag and peddle comfortable fictions. What hope is there when those who talk of patriotism brandish the talisman of bloody treason?
The matter falls to you. Don’t [be] conned. Don’t be a mark. Live uncomfortable.
Amen, brother Coates.