I've been a fan of Richard Hanania's for a couple of years now. I think he's written some really good essays, especially on wokeness, and his new book is very good (so far, just started it). But I think his Twitter troll personality has only intensified since Elon started paying people for driving traffic. He was always a hell of a troll, but now he seems to just throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. I actually couldn't even understand the Shakespeare argument—you laid it out well here—I don't believe he believes that. I just can't, lol.
The rest of your essay is spot on as well; Takeism is killing us. Lebron James doesn't have to tell me what he thinks about Israel. I really don't care. Nobody really cares. They just want to crucify him when he gets it wrong.
Also, condolences on the targeted prostate ads—the Internet's no country for old men.
Hey, I largely agree with your sentiment, but let me offer a couple of counter points.
First, and I realize this may be a rhetorical thing on your part, but I don't think we can just pronounce the death of six centuries of humanism over the cultural trends of barely 20 years, no matter how appalling they may be. I don't have a classical education, but I've slowly learned to really appreciate everything that humanism stands for - depth of empathy for one another's joys and sorrows, an understanding of the emotional complexity and tragic side of the human predicament, but also humor, generosity, gracefulness and the like. My take is that humanism as a concept had to be invented, but what really stands behind it is timeless - which in modern rationalist terms might be reduced to "is as old as the human species itself" - but that's not a little thing!
So, yes, the modern internet's cultural dynamics are very powerful, and not in a good way. I'm starting to entertain the idea that the best thing the EU could possibly still do is to ban all algorithmic feeds altogether. Letting our main mechanism of interpersonal interaction be fine tuned for maximum reaction by each user (which means fine tuned for negativity, human psychology being what it is), with content drawn from the entire pool (instead of just from one's friends and joined groups), basically amounts to spreading maximum toxicity over the entire user population. It's like building a huge poison factory, letting it run wild, and wondering why people get sick around it. I tend to think of myself as anti-authoritarian, but at this point I'd support a full ban on what amounts to digital crack. Open dialogue and direct communication are the internet's strength, but weaponized automatic discovery need not be part of it.
> And outside of academia, where are the intellectuals? Who, among the Americans, could possibly count as an intellectual? Matthew Yglesias? Matt Bruenig? Some other Matt?
I'm not going to defend Hanania, because when I've come across his writings I tend to close the tab rather quickly. But apparently now he's on a crusade against the identity-mongers. Maybe with a bit of luck they can cancel each other.
More seriously though, I'm going to raise a hand for the internet rationalists, or at least some of them. I've been reading Scott Alexander's blog(s) for over a decade now, and I wouldn't hesitate to nominate him a worthy intellectual outside of academia. Yes, he can occasionally do pie charts for/against NIMBY-ism, get into pointless word fights with people not really worth the time, and treat "the coming AI-apocalypse" way more seriously than I would care to. But he's also consistently shown a unique combination of graciousness, clarity of expression, curiosity in all tings human, and willingness to go the extra mile, that I've rarely seen elsewhere, and inspired a whole cohort of aspirants to write some remarkable book reviews and start their own substacks.
To broaden the point... as much as I admire a well rounded and grounded education in the humanities, the reality is that many of us on the internet, and most of the younger generation, got a scientific-technical education instead. We've been taught to value clarity over nuance, and causal structures over emotional depth. So as much as I can see your point about Shakespeare, I also have to admit that I don't find the classics enjoyable to read - it feels awkward, foreign. Little by little however, people like us are finding and putting together our little canon of modern thinkers who can help open up and explain the human. We're the kind of people who have read Dawkins, Haidt, Harari and Henrich, but have probably not read, say, William James, Kant or Freud, or for that matter Flaubert. And make of it what you will, but a surprising many of us have seriously engaged with Buddhism.
People will label themselves "rationalist" or "post-rat", or who knows what. I think the label is a bit unfortunate, but I've been happy to find this group online.
I hope you're able to find a way to get into the classics--to see their foreignness and strangeness as an object of fascination rather than a barrier. A difficult book won't come to you; you have to come to it. But in doing so, your sense of life might be broadened or made more beautiful or vivid. It is worth the work, I think.
Your point about enjoyment does raise an interesting point, one which this piece touches on but doesn't investigate at length: is the writing of a "public intellectual" supposed to be enjoyable? What place does enjoyment, fun, etc. play in the work that public intellectuals are supposed to do? Because on the one hand, the social media environment that incentivizes the kinds of crudity peddled by Hanania is designed precisely to be as engaging--that is, as un-boring--as possible. One reason that J. S-R doesn't want to engage in the take economy is that it is "boring." But he also says: "I know already that it will garner much more interest than my freer, more original, non-occasional writing has. This present essay is not experimental. It is not original. You’ve heard all of it from me before. Here I am again, 'ranting'. You love to see it."
Which is true--this kind of essay is, well, less boring, even if it were intellectually thinner than the more literary excursions on this Substack. These lines were cutting to read, because I will admit that I find the "occasional" essays on this newsletter more interesting, more accessible, less, well, boring than the metafictional stuff. I applaud J. S-R's decision to focus on the metafiction--at least, I applaud it in the abstract, but if I'm being perfectly honest, I'm less likely to finish actually reading the fiction than I am to finish an angry essay. I like authorial freedom as an idea, but I'm less likely to be interested in the writing that results from it.
I started this comment by extolling the virtues of difficult reading and end it, then, by admitting that I don't follow my own advice, at least not when it comes to the strange and foreign posts on this particular Substack. But if one is to be a "public" intellectual, rather than just an intellectual or someone who writes merely for their own enjoyment, then it seems to me that the enjoyment of the reader has to be a primary concern. But writing only to engage also seems bankrupt, given that social media and its vagaries have shown us so clearly the endgame of the focus on engagement--Hanania's trolling, which was of course designed to get people to talk about it, or to "engage" with it, as are all doing.
This was great. I know you're moving away from these temporal articles, but they are still very moving, if not for the simple fact that I don't think I would have ever mixed the words 9/11 and performance art in the same conceptual space. This kind of philosophical serendipity is still needed.
Hi Justin, as usual so much to appreciate in your writing (substance and form). Schiller’s claim, “no doubt the artist is a child of his time but woe be unto him if he is its disciple or even its favorite” comes to my mind. Always artists (as Schiller conceives) are rare but I feel never more rare than they are today and that disheartens me to no end. FWIW I find you absolutely an artist.
I think the downfall of the public intellectual is partially a phenomenon of our 'take-professionals' needing to publish more and more different items in order to stay financially afloat. The days of national geographic paying someone enough to live so that they could travel to far-off locales and write 5-6 articles for the magazine are far over. As someone who has arrived to this world after that time, I'd be interested to know what people think is a 'model' of the public intellectual. What is the role? Who were/are the exemplars?
Enjoyed this as well as the James piece, although I was dismayed about your proposed moratorium - Americans in Europe is one of my favorite topics. I think I know the kind of writing you're referring to, however. The classification of different American types reminded me of James Baldwin's essay, "A Question of Identity," in which he categorizes Americans in Paris into three different types. I recommend it to anyone interested in this topic.
I rather enjoyed this recent "take" from the Onion, but it does kind of reinforce your point -
‘The Onion’ Stands With Israel Because It Seems Like You Get In Less Trouble For That
When I first heard Stockhausen's remark my reaction was - well I always thought his alleged music was crap so I have no respect for him anyway. If he had said “the greatest spectacle that ever existed” he might have been correct, but I hold art to a higher standard than spectacle. Maybe that counts as humanism?
"Now, what I want is, Takes. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Takes. Takes alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of twittering animals upon Takes: nothing else will ever be of any service to them."
> Something happens in the world, and everyone who is in on the game is compelled to position themselves in relation to it: that positioning is a “take”.
I hate writing this, Justin, as you have been a sort of big brother figure to me for more than 15 years as I have loyally read your stuff, and you’re much smarter and more clever than I am, and I am ten thousand percent your ally on the Shakespeare issue, but: are you not the self-same Justin Erik Halldor Smith (as you styled yourself at the time) who published, on July 25, 2016, a blog post entitled “Trump is an Agent of Putin”? Because sometimes you make criticisms of other writers that seem at odds with the persona you displayed in that piece, and I wonder if you ever feel silly for having written it, or if in your mind these two personas can be reconciled.
But did you even read the article you are referencing? The notion presented there, that Trump is an unwitting agent of Putin, is just as true today as it was then. Putin actively wants Trump to be in charge of the United States. This can't really be disputed. If a zero-sum authoritarian wants you in charge, then you are, whether you like it or not, an agent of that zero-sum authoritarian's goals. This does not automatically disqualify a person from being in charge, but we should at least still pause and make sure we understand *why* one of our enemies wants a particular person in charge, even if tangentially related discourse on that topic has been beaten to death in the political arena.
More generally, if we can no longer entertain any notion whatsoever that has been poisoned by the "bad takes" of one side or another, then we must all remain mute on every subject for the duration of our lives.
I'm very sorry, but I think you might be responding to the wrong person. Nothing you've written here bears any resemblance whatsoever to a meaningful response to what I said. I don't even know where to start, frankly, as it appears you quite simply didn't even read my post. I will take at least an equal share of the blame, as this failure is so stark that I was obviously utterly incapable of getting anything close to my point across.
Anyway, let's call it a wash. Good luck out there!
Sorry for my silence -- I am usually strongly opposed to the “infinite jeopardy” the internet allows, where any old statement can be readjudicated at any moment, no matter how irrelevant to the subject at hand. It's not like Biden getting asked about child tax credits or whatever while he's standing next to the president of Poland in Warsaw; it's more like him getting asked while standing in Warsaw in 2023 about the way he voted on some senate bill in 1986. But you both seem like cool guys, and I appreciate notadampaul's jumping in to fill my silence. So, briefly: in many ways I am indeed further than I was in 2016 from the standard center-left Democratic establishment line. I don't know where I've drifted to exactly, but I'm not there. Be that as it may, in 2016 we really did not yet hear the familiar drumbeat of Rachel Maddow-style Russiagate ratings-rousing, or at least I didn't hear it -- in the quoted post I was definitely still just speaking for myself. Was I correct? As has already been pointed out, I did not claim that Trump was a willing agent of Putin, and whether unwilling agency counts as agency at all is a difficult philosophical question. I think there was no doubt then, nor is there any now, that the election of Trump substantially advanced Russian geopolitical interests. The Putin regime was thrilled: I've watched footage of them popping champagne in the Duma on news of his victory. I also saw plenty of pro-Trump videos circulating on social media at the time that were supposed to be from American supporters, but that gave themselves away by mistransliterating “Трамп” as “Tramp”. These could just as easily have been Macedonian teenagers making these videos in order to make a buck, and I probably rushed too quickly at the time to the conclusion that they were coming from what's-his-name's troll factory in Petersburg. But that Trump's victory advanced Putin's interests, on that my overall view hasn't changed. By 2017 or 2018 I would have been wary of using the language of agency, out of a desire not to buttress MSNBC's official line, but the substance of the view I had back then remains the same. I hope this helps!
Also, that is a terrifically clear-sighted review of your delectable scrutable book! I think "The ancient and medieval world was enmeshed in allegory whereas the modern world is enmeshed in algorithms" largely cuts to the heart of things. If I believe in a Fall I'd largely position it as being that shift. The argument at the heart of my own book on Czech animation, never directly stated, was that political praxis needs more allegory!
I imagine some future super AI intended to reconnect us to lost treasures - after all, we recorded the entire divorce! Let's just rewind - only for us to discover that Shakespeare is dead and we have murdered him.
Thanks for coming, Monsieur de Combourg (pseudonym borrowed from Chateaubriand?)! The lady in question was not planted there by us, no, though it certainly did seem as if she was! The Franprix soundtracks are still a mystery -- perhaps best if they stay that way. As for the book -- we were as straightforward as could be last night about its asymptotic relationship to truth.
I've been a fan of Richard Hanania's for a couple of years now. I think he's written some really good essays, especially on wokeness, and his new book is very good (so far, just started it). But I think his Twitter troll personality has only intensified since Elon started paying people for driving traffic. He was always a hell of a troll, but now he seems to just throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. I actually couldn't even understand the Shakespeare argument—you laid it out well here—I don't believe he believes that. I just can't, lol.
The rest of your essay is spot on as well; Takeism is killing us. Lebron James doesn't have to tell me what he thinks about Israel. I really don't care. Nobody really cares. They just want to crucify him when he gets it wrong.
Also, condolences on the targeted prostate ads—the Internet's no country for old men.
Hey, I largely agree with your sentiment, but let me offer a couple of counter points.
First, and I realize this may be a rhetorical thing on your part, but I don't think we can just pronounce the death of six centuries of humanism over the cultural trends of barely 20 years, no matter how appalling they may be. I don't have a classical education, but I've slowly learned to really appreciate everything that humanism stands for - depth of empathy for one another's joys and sorrows, an understanding of the emotional complexity and tragic side of the human predicament, but also humor, generosity, gracefulness and the like. My take is that humanism as a concept had to be invented, but what really stands behind it is timeless - which in modern rationalist terms might be reduced to "is as old as the human species itself" - but that's not a little thing!
So, yes, the modern internet's cultural dynamics are very powerful, and not in a good way. I'm starting to entertain the idea that the best thing the EU could possibly still do is to ban all algorithmic feeds altogether. Letting our main mechanism of interpersonal interaction be fine tuned for maximum reaction by each user (which means fine tuned for negativity, human psychology being what it is), with content drawn from the entire pool (instead of just from one's friends and joined groups), basically amounts to spreading maximum toxicity over the entire user population. It's like building a huge poison factory, letting it run wild, and wondering why people get sick around it. I tend to think of myself as anti-authoritarian, but at this point I'd support a full ban on what amounts to digital crack. Open dialogue and direct communication are the internet's strength, but weaponized automatic discovery need not be part of it.
> And outside of academia, where are the intellectuals? Who, among the Americans, could possibly count as an intellectual? Matthew Yglesias? Matt Bruenig? Some other Matt?
I'm not going to defend Hanania, because when I've come across his writings I tend to close the tab rather quickly. But apparently now he's on a crusade against the identity-mongers. Maybe with a bit of luck they can cancel each other.
More seriously though, I'm going to raise a hand for the internet rationalists, or at least some of them. I've been reading Scott Alexander's blog(s) for over a decade now, and I wouldn't hesitate to nominate him a worthy intellectual outside of academia. Yes, he can occasionally do pie charts for/against NIMBY-ism, get into pointless word fights with people not really worth the time, and treat "the coming AI-apocalypse" way more seriously than I would care to. But he's also consistently shown a unique combination of graciousness, clarity of expression, curiosity in all tings human, and willingness to go the extra mile, that I've rarely seen elsewhere, and inspired a whole cohort of aspirants to write some remarkable book reviews and start their own substacks.
To broaden the point... as much as I admire a well rounded and grounded education in the humanities, the reality is that many of us on the internet, and most of the younger generation, got a scientific-technical education instead. We've been taught to value clarity over nuance, and causal structures over emotional depth. So as much as I can see your point about Shakespeare, I also have to admit that I don't find the classics enjoyable to read - it feels awkward, foreign. Little by little however, people like us are finding and putting together our little canon of modern thinkers who can help open up and explain the human. We're the kind of people who have read Dawkins, Haidt, Harari and Henrich, but have probably not read, say, William James, Kant or Freud, or for that matter Flaubert. And make of it what you will, but a surprising many of us have seriously engaged with Buddhism.
People will label themselves "rationalist" or "post-rat", or who knows what. I think the label is a bit unfortunate, but I've been happy to find this group online.
I hope you're able to find a way to get into the classics--to see their foreignness and strangeness as an object of fascination rather than a barrier. A difficult book won't come to you; you have to come to it. But in doing so, your sense of life might be broadened or made more beautiful or vivid. It is worth the work, I think.
Your point about enjoyment does raise an interesting point, one which this piece touches on but doesn't investigate at length: is the writing of a "public intellectual" supposed to be enjoyable? What place does enjoyment, fun, etc. play in the work that public intellectuals are supposed to do? Because on the one hand, the social media environment that incentivizes the kinds of crudity peddled by Hanania is designed precisely to be as engaging--that is, as un-boring--as possible. One reason that J. S-R doesn't want to engage in the take economy is that it is "boring." But he also says: "I know already that it will garner much more interest than my freer, more original, non-occasional writing has. This present essay is not experimental. It is not original. You’ve heard all of it from me before. Here I am again, 'ranting'. You love to see it."
Which is true--this kind of essay is, well, less boring, even if it were intellectually thinner than the more literary excursions on this Substack. These lines were cutting to read, because I will admit that I find the "occasional" essays on this newsletter more interesting, more accessible, less, well, boring than the metafictional stuff. I applaud J. S-R's decision to focus on the metafiction--at least, I applaud it in the abstract, but if I'm being perfectly honest, I'm less likely to finish actually reading the fiction than I am to finish an angry essay. I like authorial freedom as an idea, but I'm less likely to be interested in the writing that results from it.
I started this comment by extolling the virtues of difficult reading and end it, then, by admitting that I don't follow my own advice, at least not when it comes to the strange and foreign posts on this particular Substack. But if one is to be a "public" intellectual, rather than just an intellectual or someone who writes merely for their own enjoyment, then it seems to me that the enjoyment of the reader has to be a primary concern. But writing only to engage also seems bankrupt, given that social media and its vagaries have shown us so clearly the endgame of the focus on engagement--Hanania's trolling, which was of course designed to get people to talk about it, or to "engage" with it, as are all doing.
This was great. I know you're moving away from these temporal articles, but they are still very moving, if not for the simple fact that I don't think I would have ever mixed the words 9/11 and performance art in the same conceptual space. This kind of philosophical serendipity is still needed.
Hi Justin, as usual so much to appreciate in your writing (substance and form). Schiller’s claim, “no doubt the artist is a child of his time but woe be unto him if he is its disciple or even its favorite” comes to my mind. Always artists (as Schiller conceives) are rare but I feel never more rare than they are today and that disheartens me to no end. FWIW I find you absolutely an artist.
I think the downfall of the public intellectual is partially a phenomenon of our 'take-professionals' needing to publish more and more different items in order to stay financially afloat. The days of national geographic paying someone enough to live so that they could travel to far-off locales and write 5-6 articles for the magazine are far over. As someone who has arrived to this world after that time, I'd be interested to know what people think is a 'model' of the public intellectual. What is the role? Who were/are the exemplars?
Enjoyed this as well as the James piece, although I was dismayed about your proposed moratorium - Americans in Europe is one of my favorite topics. I think I know the kind of writing you're referring to, however. The classification of different American types reminded me of James Baldwin's essay, "A Question of Identity," in which he categorizes Americans in Paris into three different types. I recommend it to anyone interested in this topic.
Israel invest? Seriously?
I rather enjoyed this recent "take" from the Onion, but it does kind of reinforce your point -
‘The Onion’ Stands With Israel Because It Seems Like You Get In Less Trouble For That
When I first heard Stockhausen's remark my reaction was - well I always thought his alleged music was crap so I have no respect for him anyway. If he had said “the greatest spectacle that ever existed” he might have been correct, but I hold art to a higher standard than spectacle. Maybe that counts as humanism?
"Now, what I want is, Takes. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Takes. Takes alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of twittering animals upon Takes: nothing else will ever be of any service to them."
> Something happens in the world, and everyone who is in on the game is compelled to position themselves in relation to it: that positioning is a “take”.
I hate writing this, Justin, as you have been a sort of big brother figure to me for more than 15 years as I have loyally read your stuff, and you’re much smarter and more clever than I am, and I am ten thousand percent your ally on the Shakespeare issue, but: are you not the self-same Justin Erik Halldor Smith (as you styled yourself at the time) who published, on July 25, 2016, a blog post entitled “Trump is an Agent of Putin”? Because sometimes you make criticisms of other writers that seem at odds with the persona you displayed in that piece, and I wonder if you ever feel silly for having written it, or if in your mind these two personas can be reconciled.
But did you even read the article you are referencing? The notion presented there, that Trump is an unwitting agent of Putin, is just as true today as it was then. Putin actively wants Trump to be in charge of the United States. This can't really be disputed. If a zero-sum authoritarian wants you in charge, then you are, whether you like it or not, an agent of that zero-sum authoritarian's goals. This does not automatically disqualify a person from being in charge, but we should at least still pause and make sure we understand *why* one of our enemies wants a particular person in charge, even if tangentially related discourse on that topic has been beaten to death in the political arena.
More generally, if we can no longer entertain any notion whatsoever that has been poisoned by the "bad takes" of one side or another, then we must all remain mute on every subject for the duration of our lives.
I'm very sorry, but I think you might be responding to the wrong person. Nothing you've written here bears any resemblance whatsoever to a meaningful response to what I said. I don't even know where to start, frankly, as it appears you quite simply didn't even read my post. I will take at least an equal share of the blame, as this failure is so stark that I was obviously utterly incapable of getting anything close to my point across.
Anyway, let's call it a wash. Good luck out there!
Sorry, I was being an asshole. Mea culpa.
Happens to the best of us. The internet is a fallen place.
Sorry for my silence -- I am usually strongly opposed to the “infinite jeopardy” the internet allows, where any old statement can be readjudicated at any moment, no matter how irrelevant to the subject at hand. It's not like Biden getting asked about child tax credits or whatever while he's standing next to the president of Poland in Warsaw; it's more like him getting asked while standing in Warsaw in 2023 about the way he voted on some senate bill in 1986. But you both seem like cool guys, and I appreciate notadampaul's jumping in to fill my silence. So, briefly: in many ways I am indeed further than I was in 2016 from the standard center-left Democratic establishment line. I don't know where I've drifted to exactly, but I'm not there. Be that as it may, in 2016 we really did not yet hear the familiar drumbeat of Rachel Maddow-style Russiagate ratings-rousing, or at least I didn't hear it -- in the quoted post I was definitely still just speaking for myself. Was I correct? As has already been pointed out, I did not claim that Trump was a willing agent of Putin, and whether unwilling agency counts as agency at all is a difficult philosophical question. I think there was no doubt then, nor is there any now, that the election of Trump substantially advanced Russian geopolitical interests. The Putin regime was thrilled: I've watched footage of them popping champagne in the Duma on news of his victory. I also saw plenty of pro-Trump videos circulating on social media at the time that were supposed to be from American supporters, but that gave themselves away by mistransliterating “Трамп” as “Tramp”. These could just as easily have been Macedonian teenagers making these videos in order to make a buck, and I probably rushed too quickly at the time to the conclusion that they were coming from what's-his-name's troll factory in Petersburg. But that Trump's victory advanced Putin's interests, on that my overall view hasn't changed. By 2017 or 2018 I would have been wary of using the language of agency, out of a desire not to buttress MSNBC's official line, but the substance of the view I had back then remains the same. I hope this helps!
>take
https://katherinestasaph.itch.io/take
Also, that is a terrifically clear-sighted review of your delectable scrutable book! I think "The ancient and medieval world was enmeshed in allegory whereas the modern world is enmeshed in algorithms" largely cuts to the heart of things. If I believe in a Fall I'd largely position it as being that shift. The argument at the heart of my own book on Czech animation, never directly stated, was that political praxis needs more allegory!
I imagine some future super AI intended to reconnect us to lost treasures - after all, we recorded the entire divorce! Let's just rewind - only for us to discover that Shakespeare is dead and we have murdered him.
Thanks for coming, Monsieur de Combourg (pseudonym borrowed from Chateaubriand?)! The lady in question was not planted there by us, no, though it certainly did seem as if she was! The Franprix soundtracks are still a mystery -- perhaps best if they stay that way. As for the book -- we were as straightforward as could be last night about its asymptotic relationship to truth.