Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Anne Applebaum’s Twilight of Democracy is another deeply instructive study of the illiberal drift of so many democracies across the globe.3 However, like so many others, Applebaum’s view proceeds from a default assumption that democracy is a discrete system. But that assumption prevents us from understanding democracy as a constantly evolving cultu
... See moreZac Gershberg • The Paradox of Democracy
As Elon Musk, a government contractor, sets fire to our civil service and makes decisions about the departments that regulate him; as the FBI and the Justice Department are captured by partisans who will never prosecute their colleagues for corruption; as inspectors general are fired and rules about conflicts of interest are ignored, America is spi... See more
Anne Applebaum • The Hungarian Model
Algorithm-driven echo chambers ensure that we only ever hear from people we already agree with. It’s not that people don’t argue anymore—we argue constantly —but the nature of the debate has changed. The goal is no longer to explore or challenge ideas, but to perform intelligence and “win” whatever discourse is currently relevant. The effect is an ... See more
The death of the public intellectual
While Mr. Goldhaber said he wanted to remain hopeful, he was deeply concerned about whether the attention economy and a healthy democracy can coexist. Nuanced policy discussions, he said, will almost certainly get simplified into “meaningless slogans” in order to travel farther online, and politicians will continue to stake out more extreme positio... See more
nytimes.com • Opinion | Michael Goldhaber, the Cassandra of the Internet Age - The New York Times
accused their vanishing
Martin Gurri • Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
- There are two ways by which the spirit of a culture may be shriveled. In the first, the Orwellian culture becomes a prison. In the second, the Huxleyan culture becomes a burlesque.
- What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countena