Results for “knausgaard” 69 found
Why will the important thinkers of the future be religious ones?
Tony O’Connor requests I cover this:
A few times you have said that the important thinkers of the future will be the religious ones. It would be interesting to hear more about what led you to this conclusion.
Concretely, I wonder if this would arise because religious populations within liberal polities are expanding over time (due to higher birth rates), or because there could be a shift from the non-religious population into religion. The potential causes of the latter would be interesting to hear about, if that is your belief.
First of all, I was led to the point by example. For instance, Ross Douthat and Peter Thiel are two of the most interesting thinkers as of late and they are both religious and Christian. I am also struck by the enduring influence of Rene Girard. I am never quite sure “how intellectually Jewish” are our leading Jewish intellectuals, but somewhat to be sure. Even if they are atheists, they are usually strongly influenced by Jewish intellectual and theological traditions, which indicates a certain power to those traditions. In fiction, Orson Scott Card is one of the intellectually most influential writers in the last few decades and he is a Mormon. Knausgaard is drenched in the tradition of the Christian confessional memoir, and Ferrante is about as Catholic a writer as you will find, again even if “the real Ferrante” is a skeptic. Houellebecq I don’t even need to get into.
Second, I see that both secular “left progressive” and “libertarian” traditions — both highly secular in their current forms — are not so innovative right now. I don’t intend that as criticism, as you might think they are not innovative because they are already essentially correct. Still, there is lots of recycling going on and their most important thinkers probably lie in the past, not the future. That opens up room for religious thinkers to have more of an impact.
Third, religious thinkers arguably have more degrees of freedom. I don’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings here, but…how shall I put it? The claims of the religions are not so closely tied to the experimental method and the randomized control trial. (Narrator: “Neither are the secular claims!”) It would be too harsh to say “they can just make stuff up,” but…arguably there are fewer constraints. That might lead to more gross errors and fabrications in the distribution as a whole, but also more creativity in the positive direction. And right now we seem pretty hungry for some breaks in the previous debates, even if not all of those breaks will be for the better.
Fourth, if you live amongst the intelligentsia, being religious is one active form of rebellion. Rebelliousness is grossly correlated with intellectual innovation, again even if the variance of quality increases.
Fifth, I have the general impression that religious idea rise in importance during unstable and chaotic times. Probably the current period is less stable than say 1980-2001 or so, and that will increase the focality of religious ideas, thereby making religious thinkers more important.
Sixth, religious and semi-religious memes are stickier than secular ones. Maybe not on average, but the most influential religions have shown an incredible reach and endurance.
If you are reading a secular thinker, always ask yourself: “what is this person’s implicit theology?” No matter who it is. There are few more useful questions at your disposal.
Richard Davis requests
Here are some answers, I put his questions — from Request for Requests – in bold:
Melancholy among academics.
We’re a pretty sorry bunch, and many of us don’t have so much professionally to live for, at least not at the relevant margin — it is easy to lose forward momentum and never recover it, given the constraints and incentives in the profession and broader pressures toward conformity. Rates of depression in academia, and especially in graduate school, are fairly high. Many of the core processes are demoralizing rather than inspiring. It is remarkable to me how much other people simply have accepted that is how things ought to be and perhaps they believe matters cannot be that different. I view the high rates of depression in academic life as a “canary in the coal mine” that doesn’t get enough attention as an indicator of bigger, more systemic problems in the entire enterprise. What are you doing with your lifetime sinecure?
Your favorite things Soviet.
Shostakovich. And the Romantic pianists, most of all Richter and Gilels. Constructivist art and ballet up through the late 1920s. The early chess games of Tal. Magnitogorsk. War memorials, most of all in Leningrad. Tarkovsky. I admire the “great” Soviet novels, but I don’t love them, except for Solzhenitsyn, whom I would rather read then Dostoyevsky. Probably the poetry is amazing, but my Russian is too limited to appreciate it.
The optimal number of math PhDs worldwide.
I would think fairly few. I am happy having lots of mathematicians, with independent tests of quality. But is the Ph.D such a great test or marker of quality? Did Euclid have one? Euler? Does it show you will be a great teacher? Maybe we should work toward abolishing the math PhD concept, but out of respect for the profession, not out of hostility toward math.
What historical works of art were anticipated to be great prior to creation, were immediately declared to be great at creation and have continued to be judged great ever since?
Overall it is striking how popular how many of the great revolutionaries have been. Michelangelo was a major figure of renown. Mozart was quite popular, though not fully appreciated. Beethoven was a legend in his time, and every Wagner opera was an event. Goethe ruled his time as a titan. A significant percentage of the very best writers were well known and loved during their careers, though of course there was uncertainty how well they would stand up to the test of time.
The future of Northern New Jersey.
Much like the present, plus defaults on the pension obligations and over time the Indian food may get worse, due to acculturation. The Sopranos will fade into distant memory, I am sorry to say, as will Bruce Springsteen. So many young people already don’t know them or care. I feel lucky to have grown up during the region’s cultural peak.
Who are the greats that still walk among us (other than McCartney)?
The major tech founders and CEOs, Stephan Wolfram, Jasper Johns and Frank Stella and Richard Serra and Gerhardt Richter and Robert Gober, a number of other classic rock stars (Dylan, Brian Wilson, Jagger, Eno, etc.), Philip Glass, Richard D. James, and note most of the greatest classical musicians who have ever lived are alive and playing today (Uchida anyone?), at least once Covid goes away. Many of the major architects. Ferrante and Knausgaard and Alice Munro. Many of the figures who built up East Asia and Singapore. Perelman. Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. Magnus Carlsen and all sorts of figures in sports. A bunch of other people whom Eric Weinstein would list.
Why
Why not?
“And what a decade it was”
From Alex X.:
With the decade coming to a close, I would be curious on everyone’s favorite of the decade [gives list of categories]:
Without too much pondering, here is what comes to mind right away:
Film: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, or A Touch of Sin. Might Winter Sleep by next? It was probably the best decade ever for foreign movies, the worst decade ever for Hollywood movies (NYT).
Blockbuster/action film: Transformers 4? Big screen only, live or die by CGI!
Album: Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Single: I don’t see an obvious, non-derivative pick here that really stands out. Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” probably is the mainstream choice, but do I ever go over to the stereo to put it on? Janelle Monae’s “Make Me Feel” is another option, but is it such a big step beyond Prince? Lorde or Beyonce? LCD Soundsystem seems more about the entire album, same for Frank Ocean. Something from Kanye’s Yeezus? To pull a dark horse option out of the hat, how about Gillian Welch, “The Way It Goes“? Or Death Grips “Giving Bad People Good Ideas“? I’ve spent enough time on Twitter that I have to opt for that one.
TV Show: Srugim, Borgen, The Americans.
Single Season: Selections from same, you know which seasons.
Book Fiction: The Ferrante quadrology and Houllebecq’s Submission.
Book Non Fiction: Knausgaard, volumes I and II.
Athlete of the Decade: Stephen Curry or Lebron James.
What are your picks?
“Two big names in European writing win literature Nobels”
I chuckled at that FT headline, fortunately the on-line version names Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke in its header.
Can you imagine a sports header: “Big name wins NBA most valuable player award.” No, they would name the “big name” because that big name is in fact big.
I still think Stephen King should get one. I didn’t enjoy trying to read Tokarczuk, though I suspect she is a very good writer in Polish. By Handke I can recommend his Sorrow of Dreams, a memoir of his mother dying, and also a book that influenced Knausgaard. But mostly I am find him boring, pessimistic, and nasty, perhaps consistent with his support for Milosevic and the tyranny in Serbia. I don’t think that disqualifies him from the prize per se, but neither do I see him as an author who had to win, though he is indeed “a big name in European writing.” The thing is, he is nothing more than that.
Here you can buy The Stand for $8.30, by the way I love Houllebecq but the new one isn’t very interesting, as sadly it reads like a parody of his earlier, superior work. Submission remains one of the truly great novels of recent times.
Saturday assorted links
What I’ve been reading
1. Sarah A. Seo, Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom. “The revolution in automotive freedom coincided with an equally unprecedented expansion in the police’s discretionary power.”
2. Allison Schrager, An Economist Walks into a Brothel, and Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk. My blurb: “Allison Schrager’s An Economist Walks Into a Brothel is the best, most readable, most informative, most adventurous, and most entertaining take on risk you will find.”
3. Marlon James, Black Leopard Red Wolf. While the author of this new budding fictional series seems quite talented, this is more a book to admire than to enjoy. I can’t imagine that people will read it fifteen years from now. I’ve also read a bunch of reviews which try to praise it, without every telling the reader it will hold their interest.
4. Rachel M. McCleary and Robert J. Barro, The Wealth of Religions: The Political Economy of Believing and Belonging. A good overview of their work together on economics and religion, and also more generally a take on what the social sciences know empirically about the causes and effects of religion (not always so much, I should add).
5. The Bitter Script Reader, Michael F-ing Bay: The Unheralded Genius in Michael Bay’s Films. There aren’t enough enthusiastic, intelligent fanboy books, but this is one of them.
For prep for my Conversation with Knausgaard, I read a good deal of Ivo de Figueiredo, Henrik Ibsen: The Man & the Mask, and was impressed by how much new material he had uncovered.
Ben S. Bernanke, Timothy F. Geithner, and Henry M. Paulson, Firefighting: The Financial crisis and its Lessons: your model of this book is what this book is.
Arrived in my pile are:
Thomas Milan Konda, Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America.
Uwe E. Reinhardt, Priced Out: The Economic and Ethical Costs of American Health Care. Uwe is gone but not forgotten.
Marion Turner, Chaucer: A European Life. This one may not please the Brexiteers.
Marie-Janine Galic, The Great Cauldron: A History of Southeastern Europe seems impressive, though I have not had time to read much of it.
Best fiction of 2018
This year produced a strong set of top entries, though with little depth past these favorites. Note that sometimes my review lies behind the link:
Varlam Shalamov, Kolyma Stories.
Gaël Faye, Small Country. Think Burundi, spillover from genocide, descent into madness, and “the eyes of a child caught in the maelstrom of history.”
Madeline Miller, Circe.
Karl Ove Knausgaard, volume six, My Struggle. Or should it be listed in the non-fiction section?
Can Xue, Love in the New Millennium.
Anna Burns, Milkman, Booker Prize winner, Northern Ireland, troubles, here is a good and accurate review.
Homer’s Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson.
Uwe Johnson, From a Year in the Life of Gessine Cresspahl. I haven’t read this one yet, I did some browse, and I am fairly confident it belongs on this list. 1760 pp.
Which are your picks?
Tuesday assorted links
1. Swedish “Future Skills” podcast: “Tyler Cowen – Economist and Master Generalist on: Economic Outlook, Social Change, and Future Cities.”
2. My 2006 take on Jane Jacobs.
3. Joshua Rothman interviews Knausgaard (New Yorker).
4. Kim and Kanye hire private firefighters.
Thursday assorted links
Saturday assorted links
What I’ve been reading and browsing
1. Gaël Faye, Small Country. Short, readable, and emotionally complex, one of my favorite novels so far this year. Think Burundi, spillover from genocide, descent into madness, and “the eyes of a child caught in the maelstrom of history.” Toss in a bit of romance as well.
2. David Edgerton, The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth Century History. I’m only on p.34, but this one is spectacular and I expect to read it closely all the way through. You’ll probably hear about it more in future blog posts. He takes on many myths about British postwar decline, for instance, arguing that British business actually did pretty well in the 1950s and 60s. Right now it is out only in the UK, but the above link still will get you a copy. Here is a good Colin Kidd review in New Statesman: “Every so often a book comes along that the entire political class needs to read.”
3. Karl Ove Knausgaard, Inadvertent (Why I Write). 92 short pp. on how he thinks about writing, consistently high in quality, the contrast between Kundera and Hamsun was my favorite part.
Laurence M. Ball, The Fed and Lehman Brothers: Setting the Record Straight on a Financial Disaster is a very serious and useful book. The Fed could have saved Lehman Brothers and didn’t, partly because of political pressures, and partly because they underestimated the damage it would cause to the economy. Ball documents what I have supposed from the time of the event.
Cass R. Sunstein, The Cost-Benefit Revolution. Not since the 1970s has cost-benefit analysis been as underrated as it is right now.
Joy Lisi Rankin, A People’s History of Computing in the United States appears to be interesting. It tries to liberate the history of American computing from the usual emphasis on Silicon Valley, and offers greater focus on Dartmouth, Minnesota, and other less studied locales.
What I’ve been reading
The Virtue of Nationalism, by Yoram Hazony. Falls into the “contrarian, but shouldn’t need to be contrarian” category. It makes good points, but I felt it was interior to my knowledge set.
Karl Ove Knausgaard, Spring, a comeback for Knausgaard.
Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Quran and the Bible: Text and Commentary. I won’t have the time soon to work through the thousand pages of this book, but it appears to be a major achievement and of very high quality. Here is the book’s home page. Here is a good piece by Reynolds on related topics.
Nick Polson and James Scott, AIQ: How People and Machines are Smarter Together, is a new and (believe it or not) original and very good take on this theme.
Heiner Rindermann, Cognitive Capitalism: Human Capital and Wellbeing of Nations perhaps covers too much ground, but is still a very useful 500 pp. plus survey of exactly what the title suggests.
Jan Assmann, The Invention of Religion: Faith and Covenant in the Book of Exodus. One of the best introductory works on the best and most important book ever written.
Monday assorted links
What I’ve been reading
1. Karl Ove Knausgaard, Autumn. While this volume of very short essays does reflect a literary sensibility, I didn’t find it fun or insightful to read. By the way, “Vomit is usually yellowish and can range from pale yellow to yellowish-brown, with certain areas of quite different colours, like red or green.” So I suppose the Knausgaard canon really is just the first two volumes of My Struggle.
2. Alex Millmow, A History of Australasian Economic Thought. A very good introduction, New Zealand too. There is no problem filling a book with substance on this topic, in fact it left me wanting more.
3. Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., John D. Jackson, and Robert D. Tollison, The Economics of American Art: Issues, Artists, and Market Institutions. A useful overview and survey of the role of economics in the development of art markets in American history.
4. Cynthia Estlund, A New Deal for China’s Workers? The best book I know on labor unions and labor policy in China: “It surprises many Westerners to learn that the labor standards established by Chinese law on the books, apart from actual wage levels, track modern Western (especially European) labor standards rather closely in many respects…Professor Gallagher has described China’s labor standards regime as one of “high standards-low enforcement.””
5. Beowulf, translated by Stephen Mitchell. I cannot judge veracity, but to read this is in the top tier of Beowulf renderings to date. The Old English is presented on the opposing page, this book I will keep.
6. Orhan Pamuk, The Red-Haired Woman. Eh. Contrived.
Arrived in my pile are:
Robert Wuthnow, American Misfits and the Making of Middle Class Respectability.
Jean Tirole, Economics for the Common Good, with nary an equation in sight.
Saturday assorted links
1. By the Book with Knausgaard (NYT).
3. A very useful web site for tracing the Simon vs. Ehrlich bet, in various forms and over various time horizons, recommended.
4. Does Ireland’s story still make sense? Does anyone’s?