thejdizzler
13hr ago
There are a fair number of married homeowners, but they don't generally tend to do a good job of participating in the community beyond attending mass and doing things like inviting the priests over for dinner.
thejdizzler
14hr ago
Yep, I think this is at the root of much of the problem, even more so than TV, and would explain the early data from Bowling Alone where there wasn't very high TV penetrance.
Looking back I wish I had just gone to the University of Chicago and either got a job in the city afterwards of went to grad school at Northwestern or something. Right now I'm kind of stuck between my parents living in Chicago (and wanting to move back to the UK where my sister lives), my college friends in Boston or the Bay, and others randomly scattered all over.
thejdizzler
14hr ago
Fixed. Thanks!
The newest issue of the Atlantic contains an article about our increasing social isolation titled: The Anti-Social Century (You can get behind the paywall here). The author of the article blames our information technologies: TV and more recently cell phones, destruction of third spaces like libraries, parks and neighborhood bars, national and international mobility, and a culture that chooses convience over forging genuine connections over time. In terms of solutions, the author posits that we need a national culture change towards a more skeptical attitude towards new technology like AI and deliberate attempts to be more social. He cites the rapid growth in independent bookstores and board game cafes as a cause for hope in this kind of change.
I'm directionally on board with the diagnosis and prognosis offered in the Atlantic article, but I worry about the vagueness and naivity of the solution. I had similar worries after reading a similar piece, the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, which highlighted the deleterious effects of phones on our attention spans. Hari spends a summer phone free in Provincetown, MA which he really enjoys, and manages to recover much of his attention span. However, upon returning to the "real world" he finds himself sucked right back into the vortex. Hari rightly recognizes that this is an issue he cannot tackle alone, and advocates for collective action on a national or international level. He draws inspiration from movements like women's suffrage, the fight for gay rights, and the campaign against CFCs. Perhaps I am cynical, but I find this level of optimism to be hopelessly naive for a number of reasons.
Firstly, those examples which I just listed were examples in which the forces of capital were neutral (CFCs, gay rights), or in fact in favor of the so-called revolution (women's suffrage). In this case, like that of the fight against climate change, or degrowth, capital is fundamentally against a system that would free our attention, as such a system would reduce profits.
Secondly, I'm not sure democratic change will actually work in this scenario. As we saw with prohibition & the failed war on drugs, people like their vices. I'm not sure my generation would be in favor of something like banning TikTok. Hari even states that his first week on Cape Cod was pretty difficult psychologically without the soothing mind-wipe of scrolling. Faith in democracy also misses the forces of capital arrayed against the interests of the common people who have so clearly been gaming our electoral system since the Civil War. If we can't stop Big Pharma from price gouging insulin, what makes the author think that we could upend the entire media ecosystem?
I think change fundamentally has to come from a level in-between the individual & the state (or global culture). I think many cultural critics miss the very existence of this level of culture, possibly because it has almost totally vanished from our world as an element of social change. I'm talking here about the family, the local community, and to some extent, the parishes/church.
Yet I think this new Atlantic article, and my experiences over the past few years has revealed how frustrating trying to affect change at this level can be. There might well be an explosion of board game bars and independent bookstores, but at least where I live in the US, even thriving institutions have problems with inconsistency and high turnover on the scale of years which makes it very difficult to build real community. A couple examples from my personal life might be helpful.
1). I'm pretty involved in the running community here in Baltimore and in some senses the running scene has never been better. Races are packed and the casual running clubs are seeing more people come out than ever. But the more serious running teams are doing very poorly. We can't get people out for organized workouts, or for important team races. It's very hard to build team camraderie or real friendships in this kind of environment where everyone is a flake.
2). With my local church the problem is similar. Plenty large mass attendence, but people my age aren't interested in the other ministries that the church offers: working with soup kitchen, church garden, and food pantry to help feed the homeless, book clubs, or even social events, many of which take place right after mass. In addition to the flakiness present in the running scene, there's also a geographic transience: many people are here for school or temporary work, and are not inclined to work towards any kind of more permenant community.
There are similar vibes in many of the other hobbies I take part in: gardening, swing dancing, reading: a trend towards pick-and-choose attendence of events, rather than attendence out of any sense of obligation to a particular community. I'm clearly guilty of this too: I would probably be a stronger running club participant or parishoner if I didn't have so many hobbies, although I like to think I lack the worst of the scrolling/TV vices.
I'm kind of at a loss about what we can do about all this. A big part of the problem is clearly the phones,which hopefully the upcoming Tik Tok ban will help with, but I think there's also a large element of constant geographic mobility at play at here too. I grew up in Chicago, went to college in Boston, and currently am doing my PhD in Baltimore. At each stage of life I built or was part of a community, which, in the case of the first two, I have gradually lost. The thought of the same happening with my friends here fills me with dread, but staying in Baltimore is not a rational economic prospect, and also requires that most of my friends here don't leave themselves. But if not going to stay, why would I ever want to sink my roots in deeper?
Any thoughts/advice appreciated. I also think there's a lot of value in online communities that I have found here at the Motte, in my philosophy book club (university friends), and on Substack, and I'm immensly grateful for their existence, but I don't think they can even come close to fulfilling many of the needs that meatspace does. But that's a whole seperate post.
thejdizzler
16hr ago
This sounds like Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora which I have been meaning to read for a while.
thejdizzler
17hr ago
No this is the first Lem book I've read. Would you recommend?
thejdizzler
1d ago
Just finished In the Land of Israel by Amos Oz I found this in a Free Little Library in Baltimore where I live and picked it up because I lived in Israel in 2019 and heard good things about the author, Amos Oz who is a famous fiction writer in Israel. This isn't your usual Amos Oz book, or even a work of fiction. Rather, it is a group of roughly transcribed interviews of Jews and Arabs across the territory of Israel, including the occupied West Bank, in the aftermath of the 1982 Lebanon War, and the phalangist massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut (for more on this war I would recommend the Israeli film Waltz with Bashir: I have never seen an animation style like it, and it also follows a similar interview format to this book).
These interviews serve to highlight the diversity of opinion and culture among the Jews and Arabs of Israel and the occupied territories. The book opens with a description of the ultra-orthodox demographic takeover of the old city of Jerusalem, follows a winding route through the newly occupied West Bank (where Jewish settlements have already sprung up), the Galilee, and endsin the city of Ashdod on the Medditerranean Sea. Oz is an anti-nationalist former Labour Party member who favors a two (and eventually one) state solution, but he honors the opinions of all the people he interviews (even the crazy, unnamed Z who advocates for explicit genocide against all Arabs, not just the ones in Palestine) by transcribing their words truthfully, and not distorting their arguments with his own judgements. Everyone, including the afformentioned Z, came off as rational under the strokes of Oz’s pen, and at least somewhat sympathetic.
This book should shatter your conceptions of the entirety of Israel or the Jewish people as some kind of elite mastermind class controlling global events or a people who want to take over the entire Middle East. There are certainly some Jews who advocate for that: the citizens of the newly minted Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, as well as Z, certainly do so. Others, like the Ultra-Orthdox in Jerusalem have no interest in such worldly things, or frankly anything other than studying Torah. Kibbutzniks, like Oz and the “Cosmic Jew” he interviews in the last chapter of the book, are more distraught about the influence of American money and weapons on destroying the original agrarian character of the Zionist movement, while still others, many who live in Tel Aviv, basically just want to party and be secular Westerners.
In the 40 years since this book was written, many things have changed. There is now a wall between Israel and the West Bank, settlements have sprung up all over Judea and Samaria, and slowly but surely all the people of Gaza are all being killed. Yet the same divisions exist in Israeli society (or did in 2019 when I was there), and none of these fundamental problems are any closer to being solved. This, I think would sadden Oz. It certainly saddens me: Israel is a beautiful country, and its seems like the biggest threat to its continued existence is not Hamas or other Arab countries, but civil war.
Now I'm reading Solaris (or really listening to it) by Stanislaw Lem. One of the most genuinly creepy science fictions stories I've read. It's about a research station on a sentient planet where the planet communicates with the researchers by reflecting their worst memories back at them in a manner that's impossible to avoid. In Spanish I'm reading Las Palabras Rotas by Luis Garcia Montero. It's a mixture of poetry and prose that's reflecting on how certain words have become corrupted by our politics and needed to be reclaimed personally, if not on a societal level.
thejdizzler
5d ago
Great will try this out!
thejdizzler
5d ago
Any suggestions on how to get started? I looked into Zettlekasten a little and it seems to be pretty impossible without some kind of digital note taking system which I don't want to do
thejdizzler
5d ago
What chapter books are you reading your kids? If I ever find a woman who will tolerant my weirdness, I'm planning on reading Harry Potter, the Hobbit, the Wizard of Earthsea and probably some others from my childhood.
thejdizzler
5d ago
About 75% of my books come from the university libary unfortunately, so no marking up for me there. Sounds like I need to get cracking on that other 25% though.
thejdizzler
5d ago
Couldn't have put it better myself. I once dated a philosophy PhD student, and while she had a very deep understanding of the nitty gritty in her specific subfield, her understanding of other (very important mind you) philosophers was very much a paragraph level hot take. Pissed me off to no end.
thejdizzler
5d ago
The first three books are going to be very hard. I took some highschool Spanish and basically took a break for ~7 years before starting to get serious about the language in 2020. The first thing I read was Harry Potter and it was decidely not fun until book 3. If you're interested, I keep a pretty detailed log of my spanish learning here. Here is the first post in the series, which may be the most useful to you.
thejdizzler
5d ago
In strong agreement with all of these. You can find some really good translations of Ancients from the turn of the last century that aren't too tedious. My translation of The Histories and The Republic were both done by some guy in 1898.
I'm slowly building up my reread all the time list. There are at least four in fiction: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Magicians by Lev Grossman, The Lord of the Rings, and A Song of Ice and Fire (also Harry Potter but this is for language learning, not deep philosophical content). In non-fiction, the only book I have consistently reread is Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson: this is usually an annual thing. I would like to reread some of the philosophy I've read this year; Fear and Trembling, Master & His Emissary, and The Tragic Sense of Life come to mind. I'm especially excited for the second one: as I read more philosophy, learn more languages and study more history and art, McGilchrists ideas will hopefully become more and more understandable and sollid.
In terms of marginalia, I try to journal for 5 minutes after every reading session. I'm slowly unlearning my fear of "defacing" books, so with the stuff I buy, especially for philosophy book club, the books are slowly filling up with notes.
thejdizzler
5d ago
The teleology of the technology is completely different. Books (and inernet blogs) shape us to follow logical, thought out arguments. The teology of video games is different. Video games put you in the drivers seat, which can be extremely valuable (for example I don't think you could recreate the same thematic coherence of Dark Souls in a book). However, video games cannot put you in the head of someone else the way a novel can. The Medium is the Message.
I think those books certainly count, and I harbor a certain amount of jealousy that you have kids to share that with. I do not envy the lack of leisure time however! Grass is greener I suppose.
Edit: Thank you for that substack recommendation! Sounds perfect for me!
thejdizzler
5d ago
Thanks for the detailed comment. It is very easy to Goodhart yourself. For the first week of 2025, I had my goodreads goal set to 100 books. I quickly noticed how this was influencing my reading decisions. I was going for shorter books, and planning my reading in a way that didn't leave much room for what whim or interest. I quickly decided to change this back to the usual 52.
I like to think of reading as an alternative to scrolling and as a workout for my mind. In the same way that it's probably good to do some kind of cardio three times a week, I think it's good to sit for ~1-2 hours at least a couple times a week and read (I like to do every day). More reading than that is either for an assignment (these days philosophy book club or Spanish), or as an alternative to scrolling (although I am realizing that there are numerous house and life chores that probably should take precedence over that). This year I would like to dedicate one complete evening or afternoon to reading a week to see if it helps me focus or get into a book more (3-4 hours) but otherwise keep my amount of overall reading unchanged. Like you say, all things in moderation, and too much reading means neglect of other duties.
thejdizzler
5d ago
I haven't actually read Twilight: we tried on a roadtrip when I was in middle school, but my mom turned it off after about an hour. Sounds like I need to check it out now though. I stand by my hatred of Fourth Wing and ACOTAR.
thejdizzler
5d ago
Congrats on the running! I also too run around 7 hours a week (although I would like to run closer to 10-11, injury prevention is holding me back). I agree it's very hard to balance more than a few hobbies. I'm struggling with this as I try to learn Italian on top of my English and Spanish, and also with fitting in biking and swimming during triathlon season (swimming is the real problem because I have a stationary bike in my bedroom).
thejdizzler
5d ago
So I had a similar experience with spanish where my reading (and percieved language level actually) went down as my language ability went up. You notice a lot more detail and words that you just skimmed over before you now have the ability to try and parse out because you understand the surrouding context. Luckily at least for me this effect seems to be temporary, my reading speed has rebounded and continues to get slightly faster (although when I'm tired Spanish still is very hard to read). For context I've read ~86 books in Spanish all the way through. I would imagine this would all take a lot longer for Japanese, which is a langauge much further away from English.
thejdizzler
5d ago
I tend to avoid popular non-fiction for this exact reason
thejdizzler
5d ago
Wow! Those numbers put me to shame!
thejdizzler
5d ago
Glad I could help. The 2-3 paragraph reviews (and longer content on substack) are absolutely essential for retaining what I read.
thejdizzler
5d ago
The literary establishment is totally off the rails. Out of the NYT's List of Best books of 2024, I think I knew of someone who read 1, and seen maybe 4 or 5 of the books in an actual book store (and I am a frequent bookstore visitor). What the literrati want the proles to like I think is less relevant than ever.
That said, it does disturb me that the most popular books these days seem to be some variety of the same fantasy smut tropes. Basically porn for women. Think fourth wing, A Court of Thorns and Roses, Twilight if you want a throwback. This is dissapointing and sad to because books can and should be so much more than a vessel for you to act out your own fantasies. For me, reading is about experiencing the other, or in other words culture shock. If all you want to read is basically self-insert porngraphy, I think there's something wrong.
Congrats on the 35-40 books. That's a really good amount, especially if they are long ones!
Maybe I'm an outlier, but this is not true at all for my community in Baltimore. Every single person I know, except for my boss who moved his parents here when their health started to decline, lives more than 18 miles from their mom.
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