Weekly Grounding #1
News, links, writing
Handful of Earth has been on hiatus for quite some time, but that changes now. Below is the first of weekly Friday updates to highlight the most interesting news, links, and writing that I came across during the past week. Please subscribe if you’d like to receive these updates directly in your inbox.
Without further ado, here’s this week’s Weekly Grounding:
“Why Journalists Have More Freedom Than Professors”
In this opinion piece, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argues that we will continue to see ideological conformity among academics even as some journalists—assisted by platforms like Substack—have managed to break free from this tendency. I found the following paragraph particularly insightful: “In an atmosphere of ideological entrenchment and growing political uniformity, this protected setup can effectively shrink the intellectual world that the typical academic inhabits: Professional advancement depends on small networks of potential patrons and allies; becoming ideologically uncongenial to even a small number of key decision makers can redirect or torpedo a promising career; and with extremely rare celebrity exceptions, there is no outside force, no nonacademic audience, whose support or favor can rescue your vocation if the inside game goes against you.”
“Washington’s New Narrative for the Global Economy”
Dani Rodrik is an important mainstream economist who is a perceptive observer of industrial policy. This article demonstrates just how much dominant economic thinking has shifted on globalization and deindustrialization in recent years. Notably, Rodrik observes that “the [Biden] administration’s approach to the world economy reflects a broader intellectual shift. Senior US policymakers now believe that the post-1990 model of globalization, which prioritized free trade and free markets over national security, climate change, and the economic security of the middle class, has undermined the socioeconomic foundations of healthy democracies.”
“Young Americans Are Dying at Alarming Rates, Reversing Years of Progress”
This harrowing article illustrates the intense and persistent impacts of pandemic policy and the broader social crisis on American youth. The Wall Street Journal highlights an analysis of federal death statistics in JAMA, entitled “The New Crisis of Increasing All-Cause Mortality in US Children and Adolescents.” According to this analysis, “between 2019 and 2020, the overall mortality rate for ages 1 to 19 rose by 10.7%, and increased by an additional 8.3% the following year.” The article concludes on the foreboding note that “many public-health experts say they don’t think the end of the pandemic will reverse the rise in death rates among young people,” pointing to the severe impacts that the “new normal” will continue to have on young people in the United States.
“FIRE Statement on Florida’s Expansion of the Stop WOKE Act”
I’ve been a longstanding supporter of FIRE, which began as an advocacy group focused on litigating free speech cases on America’s college and university campuses. In light of the ACLU’s authoritarian turn in recent years, FIRE has expanded its activities beyond higher education. FIRE’s principled opposition to Ron DeSantis’ draconian “Stop WOKE Act” serves as a testament to the organization’s truly non-partisan efforts to protect free speech across the country, even at the risk of alienating a significant segment of its supporters.
“Vivek Ramaswamy's Caste Bias & Revisionist History”
This video presentation by ADOS founder Yvette Carnell provides a provocative perspective on Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s social background, political platform, and campaign rhetoric. For anyone seeking to understand the deep political divide between working class black Americans and “POC” elites, this is a good place to start.
“Elon Musk Appoints Executive Chair of World Economic Forum as New CEO for Twitter”
This reporting by
here on Substack demonstrates just how deeply entrenched Elon Musk is in the global establishment. It is unfortunate that so many American dissidents saw his acquisition of Twitter as an act of divine providence, when his track record clearly demonstrated his technocratic, anti-people ideology. In case Musk’s media war against Substack wasn’t enough, his decision to appoint WEF Executive Chair Linda Yaccarino as Twitter CEO openly displays his true colors.
Did you read anything particularly interesting this week? Feel free to share in the comments!