five quotes (2.20.26)
five things I read in the eighth week of the year
But this is one of those cases where the agony arises, in a sense, not from getting things out of proportion, but from not taking them far enough. Because for finite humans, it’s not “very difficult” to reach a place of safety from the onrush of events. It’s impossible. The moment of invulnerability never arrives. Even if you were to find a way to feel like a winner, technology-wise, by 2027, there’d be 2028 to worry about. Even if you felt completely secure in your career, there’d be your health, and the health of those you love, to worry about. And even if you and your family were the healthiest people alive, you might get hit by a bus tomorrow. Uncertainty is our basic state of existence, not something to be got through to the certainty beyond.
The reason “you’re not ready for what’s coming next”, in other words, is that we’re never ready for what’s coming next. To quote the splendid title of a book on Jewish spirituality by Alan Lew, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. “This” being, of course, the human condition – not the latest subscription product with which OpenAI or Anthropic hope to justify their wild valuations.
—Oliver Burkeman, “Nobody’s Ever Ready” (The Imperfectionist)
This is such good wisdom. We are prone to think that our era is unique. Mostly, I think we fall into this trap because our challenges are new. No previous generation has had to confront AI as a potential disruptor. Plague, food scarcity, war, raiding bands, the Industrial Revolution, techno music, and bartenders who dress like members of Mumford and Sons, but no one has had to confront this particular challenge. But challenge is living. To be human is to be perpetually on the edge of surprise and unpreparedness. Plus, I just don’t trust those AI dudes with their magical predictions.
There are examples of this juvenile way of thinking about the origins of our political tradition all around us now. It tells us that the founders were just grubby, rich, white men making excuses for themselves; that slavery was all they cared about; that their eloquent words were just cover for naked interest or worse. They weren’t just imperfect—they were perfectly awful. This is the dominant way of understanding the founding among American intellectuals and academics now. It’s puerile and foolish. And it easily bleeds into iconoclasm.
But these are not our only options: idolatry or iconoclasm. There’s another, better, model.
—Yuval Levin, “America’s 250th Isn’t Just a Birthday” (The Free Press)
The context for this quote (read the entire essay) is Levin delineating stages of political development—childhood (my parents/country can do no wrong) ———→ juvenile (my parents/country are the WORST). The other, better model is adulthood. In adulthood, we avoid the jingoism of childhood and the idiocy and judgmentalism of adolescence. We are able to see our country for what it actually is.
At the time, supporters of legalization predicted that it would bring few downsides. In our editorials, we described marijuana addiction and dependence as “relatively minor problems.” Many advocates went further and claimed that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits. They also said that legalization might not lead to greater use.
It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong. Legalization has led to much more use. Surveys suggest that about 18 million people in the United States have used marijuana almost daily (or about five times a week) in recent years. That was up from around six million in 2012 and less than one million in 1992. More Americans now use marijuana daily than alcohol.
—NY Times Editorial Board, “It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem” (New York Times)
Finally. I was on the CSU campus as a student when the man who brought legalized weed to Colorado started his campaigning. He called the intiative SAFER (I don’t remember the acronym), centering his campaign on the idea that marijuana is safer than alcohol. As I have said for 20+ years, this feels less like an argument in favor of marijuana than against alcohol. And, sure, put side by side, they have similarly bad effects. How weed got sold, though, is as a straightforwardly safer substance. It just isn’t. And now, finally, a decade-plus after legalization, people are finally starting to admit it.
There are still variations. Ange was the complex breakup with feelings. But we also have the speed date, the Nuno. Ten minutes eating tapas with a sad Portuguese in a quilted cape. Half an hour of a seasick Thomas Frank. No attachment. No scars. Move on.
It would be wrong to assume this isn’t going to do something to you along the way. So far it has involved an intensifying of the Spurs identity. Has any other club won its first trophy in years, danced in the streets, qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League, while simultaneously sacking two managers and entering a state of crisis and apocalyptic depression? It feels oddly reassuring. If a football club is, in the end, just a feeling, this one remains fiercely true to itself.
—Barney Ronay, “Tottenham job has become a public meat grinder and the fans’ pain is more content” (The Guardian)
Oh, Tottenham. Will we get relegated in the most shameful showing from a major club in modern history or will our finds be able to ironically sing “We are staying up” in an outflowing of genuine relief? The inconsistency is mindboggling: 15th in the Premier League and fourth in the Champions League. Behind Fulham and Everton domestically; ahead of Barcelona, Manchester City, and Real Madrid internationally. And the injury list is harrowing. But still. We are flirting with relegation. In Igor we trust.
This short-lived experiment seems to have died along with Charlie Kirk. TPUSA’s halftime event represents the retrenchment of the cultural lines of the Bush era. The performances of three nobodies and one has-been do not inspire confidence in young people looking for a cultural home. TPUSA and the right in general went back to presenting themselves as a less attractive alternative to the main event. Watching Charlie Kirk’s memorial service felt like witnessing a celebration of conservatism; watching the All-American Halftime Show did not.
—Germán S. Díaz del Castillo, “How Bad Bunny Mogged George Bush” (First Things)
In all of the dumb, stupid, pitiable things produced by the culture wars, competing halftime shows during the Super Bowl has to be on the Mount Rushmore of cringe. If Kid Rock is the best musician you can get to agree to do something, you have already lost. I am old enough to remember when Mr. Rock was a symbol of decadence and debauchery, which I suppose makes him the perfect musical analog to Trump’s political rise.