Under Pressure
A few minutes on power, belonging, and paying attention.
Under enough pressure, systems will always show their true faces: platforms chasing growth, regimes amassing power. It’s hard finding places where belonging doesn’t demand moral surrender and goodwill doesn’t melt into easy ambivalence.
Art as an Engine of Freedom
We’ll start with this note from John Warner. It’s specifically about Substack, but it’s also about everything else.
It should not need to be said, but every hot new platform for the last 20 years has gone through the “this will bring parity, watch it roll down” phase. And we get excited and we hope it’s true because all of this is hard.
But the only way through it is through it.
I do think Substack is better than old Twitter and X. I also know there are millions and millions of dollars tied up in the thing. There is venture capital at stake, not to mention the careers of venture capitalists and the fates of their 8th homes in Vail. Always remember that.
The act of doing what you love to do (what you simply must do) is a locus, perhaps even an engine, of freedom.
We all want to be successful. We all want to have bigger platforms. We all want people to read the things we spend so much time on. But apps and social media platforms, even the best ones, are not here to liberate us or even help us break through. They are tools. Many folks use them well, but most of your favorite creatives doing incredible things are not making a living this way. But they are living, and so is their work. That’s the point.
Bid Me Discourse
If you were part of Covid-era writer Twitter, you know all about The Discourse. But here’s a really wonderful, cogent thread about the resolution of plot in modern fiction, kicked off with an insightful, much-appreciated note from Lincoln Michel:
And this from Connor Wroe Southard:
At some point, though, AI is going to lose all of its tells. I’m not sure what we’ll do then.
A Little Less Chipper
Spencer Strider has spoken against the militarization of ICE. Chipper Jones has decided to go the other way. If there’s anything funny about his terrible take (“less talk, more handcuffs”), it’s the typo he made in the word asswipe, adding a whimsical h, as in asswhipe, which I actually like. I spelled “borders” (no one supports open borders) with an a on a reel with 15,000 views, so we’ll just talk ideas and not nitpick spelling.
A new study suggests MLB players are statistically more conservative than athletes in other professional leagues. I think there are some obvious systemic reasons for that. Of course, conservatism and statism were never supposed to go together, but there I go assuming words mean things. Whords, if you like. (I kind of do).
Speaking of baseball. We’re something like 10 days out from Spring Training. Cardinals and blue jays have literally been spotted together. I’m reminded that while we cannot and must not condone uncritical kinds of belonging politically, there’s always the Phillies. They are my access point for what Nick Hornby calls “the value of investing time and emotion in things I cannot control, and of belonging to a community whose aspirations I share completely and uncritically.”
We’re critical of 10,000 losses, blown saves, poor at bats. We’re even critical of our own fidelity. What don’t we question? That’s simple. Our shared aspirations. Win the whole thing. Preferably at the expense of the Mets. That’s a mostly healthy way of having something like uncurious, uncritical belonging, and we probably need more of those opportunities. But not when we’re making policy or picking presidents. It shouldn’t need saying, but I’ve heard tell of folk applauding summary executions on American streets.
Did Alex Pretti kick out a tail light eleven days before his murder? It’s starting to look that way. Does it it matter? It shouldn’t. That’s a bit of uncritical fandom, not of Pretti or “the Left.” Just of the Constitution.
Remember, you can execute laws without executing people. That’s actually the whole point of having laws in the first place. Some other simple math is that you can’t uphold or protect the law when you think it doesn’t apply to you. These are not political statements. These are not partisan statements. These are patriotic statements that Americans have always said we believed despite other differences. (Thank you for your attention to these matters.)
A Bit of Trivia
There are runners are first and second, no outs. One pitch ends the inning cleanly. How is this accomplished?
My wife’s coworker, fresh from Phillies Fantasy Camp, can tell you. I’ll give you Mickey Morandini’s 1992 unassuming, unassisted triple play.
Extending the Metaphor: An Exhausted David Rothkopf on A Punch Drunk Trump
The analysis and imagery in this piece from Rothkopf at The Daily Beast are almost completely spot on. But something feels off. Maybe the cadence? The actual writing feels unfished, rushed. From a technical perspective, it feels like the second draft of something what would sing with a few more revisions.
I’ll submit this: Rothkopf is exhausted, and he’s not worried about letting you know it. The administration is, of course, trying to tire everyone out. And the urgency is part of the point.
Why does he write like he’s running out time?
Yesterday, the FBI seized Georgia ballots from the 2020 presidential election. The election no one in Trump’s orbit will say Joe Biden actually won. If you think someone high up isn’t looking for a reason to undermine (if not suspend) the midterms, I’m afraid you’re not paying attention.
Autocracy is almost always incremental. There are patterns. They are knowable. They can be thwarted, but not if well-meaning people (struggling with their own everyday issues, of course) don’t open their eyes.
The failsafes will fail if we let them. The Republic is not guaranteed.
See you Monday.
