Look, Ed, it’s a good round-up of links. But I’ve now spent an hour on this and there’s still more to investigate. This theft of my time is actual violence. Also, thanks 🙏
I'd like to express my profound sorry at the hurt I've caused, especially to [lists random groups of people]. I understand many people are hurting. I will do better.
I thought Helen Andrews's piece - which was not really "on fertility" - was underwhelming boilerplate. It made me wonder whether she had any experience of being a mother at any socioeconomic level. According to what I could learn using Google, the answer is no. She seems to be in her mid-30s, and she was married when she was featured in an Australian article five years ago. Don't know about now.
There nothing wrong with a person's writing about topics of which she has, as far as one can tell, no personal experience. I write about wild animals even though I don't get out much. However, I think it would have been more honest if she had informed the audience that she did not, personally, know what she was talking about.
I was slightly puzzled by Helen Andrew's assertion: "It’s no coincidence that the vast increase in female workforce participation has coincided with the reappearance of something that the more egalitarian America of the early 20th century did not have, and that is a servant class."
While Americans didn't think in terms of servant class, there was a lot of household help in the early 20th century, from hired girls to cooks and maids for the more affluent, and even many modest people had a woman come in periodically for heavy cleaning or a laundry woman weekly to help with the laundry. Most stores had delivery boys who delivered the weekly groceries. The whole American tipping culture (excessive as it is today) emerged because of all the service one received everywhere. And, of course, families being much bigger with more children (four was typical for the 1920s) there were older children to help out too. Last, but not least, most mothers didn't work outside the house.
I agree that the "servant class" observation was a bit peculiar. The concept of a "servant" requires a kind of socioeconomic structure that doesn't exist for most people. I don't believe any normal person considers the food-delivery driver to be a "servant," and the driver doesn't think of himself that way. I know families who employ cleaning services, and they consider the cleaner a *benefactor* if she does her job competently on schedule and doesn't steal. Most child-care workers - including school teachers - are employees of a facility, not a nanny or governess directly employed and controlled by the children's parents.
Perhaps Ms. Andrews was simply describing her own feelings toward people who provide services for pay.
I'm not sure what to make of Andrews. She is certainly clever, but she also generalizes and takes cheap shots. Still, any Ivy League grad who bashes the Ivies can't be all bad.
Helen has at least one child. I don't know her personally, only by reputation, and I think she's among the best writers. Think her point about universities and disappointment is definitely true though
He did a lengthy interview about China and the Chinese system where he entirely failed to raise Xinjiang or other minorities, Hong Kong, or mass surveillance.
As someone on the right how can you make statements like below and fail to mention the vicious ways in which the Chinese government violates personal freedoms. Hanania strikes me as someone whose hatred of the woke left has driven him into an intellectually and morally bankrupt form of contrarianism-for-its-own-sake.
"I think it’s fascinating as sort of an alternative model of governance, because if China didn’t exist, I don’t know if we would think that a modern government could work like this, because if you look at all the advanced states, they sort of look similar, right? ...... you have China and it’s just a completely different system, right? ...... it’s at least a proof of concept that something different is possible."
ah cheers. I knew he was unsound on Russia so that doesn't surprise me.
I think he more despises the people who allow wokeness to take over, because they're too weak-willed to prevent something which is obviously untrue and corrosive - and on that he's completely right. But compromised liberal states on a downward trajectory can still outgun totalitarian and authoritarian regimes because the latter are quite inept a lot of the time.
Thanks for your responses. I realise Hanania has a lot of content out there and its tough to keep across everything, and a lot of his topics on his substack look interesting.
“I’m not filled with my usual cheery optimism.” 🤣🤣🤣
Uh you were kind of lucky in that it looks like they cancelled The Simpsons around the time it started to become unwatchable.
Look, Ed, it’s a good round-up of links. But I’ve now spent an hour on this and there’s still more to investigate. This theft of my time is actual violence. Also, thanks 🙏
I'd like to express my profound sorry at the hurt I've caused, especially to [lists random groups of people]. I understand many people are hurting. I will do better.
Apologies for not responding yesterday, I was travelling all day
I thought Helen Andrews's piece - which was not really "on fertility" - was underwhelming boilerplate. It made me wonder whether she had any experience of being a mother at any socioeconomic level. According to what I could learn using Google, the answer is no. She seems to be in her mid-30s, and she was married when she was featured in an Australian article five years ago. Don't know about now.
There nothing wrong with a person's writing about topics of which she has, as far as one can tell, no personal experience. I write about wild animals even though I don't get out much. However, I think it would have been more honest if she had informed the audience that she did not, personally, know what she was talking about.
I was slightly puzzled by Helen Andrew's assertion: "It’s no coincidence that the vast increase in female workforce participation has coincided with the reappearance of something that the more egalitarian America of the early 20th century did not have, and that is a servant class."
While Americans didn't think in terms of servant class, there was a lot of household help in the early 20th century, from hired girls to cooks and maids for the more affluent, and even many modest people had a woman come in periodically for heavy cleaning or a laundry woman weekly to help with the laundry. Most stores had delivery boys who delivered the weekly groceries. The whole American tipping culture (excessive as it is today) emerged because of all the service one received everywhere. And, of course, families being much bigger with more children (four was typical for the 1920s) there were older children to help out too. Last, but not least, most mothers didn't work outside the house.
I agree that the "servant class" observation was a bit peculiar. The concept of a "servant" requires a kind of socioeconomic structure that doesn't exist for most people. I don't believe any normal person considers the food-delivery driver to be a "servant," and the driver doesn't think of himself that way. I know families who employ cleaning services, and they consider the cleaner a *benefactor* if she does her job competently on schedule and doesn't steal. Most child-care workers - including school teachers - are employees of a facility, not a nanny or governess directly employed and controlled by the children's parents.
Perhaps Ms. Andrews was simply describing her own feelings toward people who provide services for pay.
I think she recently had a child.
I'm not sure what to make of Andrews. She is certainly clever, but she also generalizes and takes cheap shots. Still, any Ivy League grad who bashes the Ivies can't be all bad.
Maybe. An Ivy League grad who bashes the Ivies may just be disingenuous. It's easy to bash the credential farms when you've got yours.
Helen has at least one child. I don't know her personally, only by reputation, and I think she's among the best writers. Think her point about universities and disappointment is definitely true though
Chacun à son goût.
Please stay away from Hanania, he is a fan of Chinese authoritarianism and ignores the crimes of that regime.
isn't he quite critical of them? especially their covid and mask thing
He did a lengthy interview about China and the Chinese system where he entirely failed to raise Xinjiang or other minorities, Hong Kong, or mass surveillance.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/the-future-of-humanity-is-ivf-babies?s=w
As someone on the right how can you make statements like below and fail to mention the vicious ways in which the Chinese government violates personal freedoms. Hanania strikes me as someone whose hatred of the woke left has driven him into an intellectually and morally bankrupt form of contrarianism-for-its-own-sake.
"I think it’s fascinating as sort of an alternative model of governance, because if China didn’t exist, I don’t know if we would think that a modern government could work like this, because if you look at all the advanced states, they sort of look similar, right? ...... you have China and it’s just a completely different system, right? ...... it’s at least a proof of concept that something different is possible."
ah cheers. I knew he was unsound on Russia so that doesn't surprise me.
I think he more despises the people who allow wokeness to take over, because they're too weak-willed to prevent something which is obviously untrue and corrosive - and on that he's completely right. But compromised liberal states on a downward trajectory can still outgun totalitarian and authoritarian regimes because the latter are quite inept a lot of the time.
Thanks for your responses. I realise Hanania has a lot of content out there and its tough to keep across everything, and a lot of his topics on his substack look interesting.