Glenn and John: does Christopher Lasch's idea about the therapeutic sensibility fit into the in-group mentality on parts of the American left today? Lasch characterized this sensibility as far back as the 1970s as a byproduct of the personality disorder (narcissism) that had prevailed on the politics-of-theater left in the 1960s. It seems to apply in almost exact measure to the style of the anti-racist sector today, especially in that Lasch's point was not that therapeutic culture was about people being more selfish. It was about the educated upper class being "weaker", and not being able to confront disagreement or look deeper into social problems that affect the truly disadvantaged.
I'll try to keep this short but it's complicated. I'm a tenured professor of history. I had a severe falling out with a colleague, who I think is psychologically unwell. She's a trans woman who was taunting and trolling me online. I lost my composure and got very angry with her. In turn, she went to the Office of Equity and Civil Rights Compliance and charged me with six counts of harassment and discrimination based on her sexual orientation and gender identity.
I knew I was innocent, and her charges were embellished. Nevertheless it was unnerving to be investigated. They use a "preponderance of evidence" standard, so if my university had concluded that it was just 51 percent likely I was guilty, I would have had a significant, career-damaging problem.
One of her complaints was that I had disparaged black female academics. It was absurd. (I had criticized the scholarship of specific scholars in my subfield: Michelle Alexander and Elizabeth Hinton. I did not broadly disparage "black female scholars" categorically, as a group. Nevertheless I had to answer this charge.)
Another of her complaints was that I oppose affirmative action! I'm not exaggerating. My university literally made me answer to this, too, as if rejecting diversity ideology was potentially a civil rights violation. A third charge was that I said, in a private conversation, that straight white men are a low-prestige group in higher ed. (A statement I consider plainly true.)
It staggers belief that my school made me answer to this. When I met with my university's young lawyer, I could easily see that she misunderstood her role and was over her head. It was unnerving. I had to explain to her that I enjoy academic freedom and that these charges should not be the basis of a civil rights investigation. She should have rejected my colleague's complaints. Making me answer them was a form of harassment.
The good news is that after a nine month investigation, I was cleared of all six charges. Relief!
So then I filed my own complaint. I showed that the scholar who trolled me online about my struggles with substance abuse had violated the ADA. She also mocked me over one of my physical ailments. (I had a hip surgery that nowadays keeps me from distance running, which was one of my lifelong passions.) She compared me to a Hell's Angel (a drug dealing gang).
More significantly, I found about 20 Twitter posts where she ridiculed "white male academics" as privileged, entitled, and annoying. Some of her posts running down white men were accompanied by poop and vomit emojis They are incendiary, offensive, and repulsive to ordinary people. (Incidentally, John, in one of her posts, unrelated to me, she called you a racist. That sure was strange.)
If any professor had run down any other group besides white men in a similar way, they would have promptly been fired. But remarkably, my university declined to even investigate or pursue my complaint. In short, they demonstrated that a clear double standard at work.
I have a draft of an essay wherein I publicly disclose all of this. It's an essay that exposes my colleague as unhinged, and shames my university for its corruption. I have all the evidence I need, and the evidence is shocking.
And this scholar I'm referring to? She would be embarrassed. She's already deleted her inflammatory Twitter posts (which suggests she knows she crossed some lines) but I have the screenshots. Part of me thinks that if my university's Office of Equity and Civil Rights Compliance won't do their job, then I'll let everyone know about it. Again, I have tenure.
On the other hand, the essay I'm pondering finishing would cause a ruckus. I'm not ashamed of having been in treatment for addiction, but I'd have to discuss it. This colleague knows some things about me that I'm not proud of. Meanwhile my department, and my university, would be freaked out. Maybe I should let sleeping dogs lie. Things have cooled down, I'm doing well, and the university has imposed a mutual "no-contact" directive between this colleague and me. I'm finally refreshingly free of this woman's Cluster B personality disorder-related abuse. To be honest, I'm motivated right now in part by a desire for revenge, which I know is not the most attractive quality.
I suppose I'm "going public" about this right now. But should I follow through and tell the whole story, with evidence? I'm confident the essay I'm envisioning would garner plenty of attention. It would be scorching. I would only tell the truth, and the truth puts my university in a terrible light. Can you advise?
For as long as I can remember I have considered the generational poverty found in the inner city to be the single biggest moral challenge we face as a society. I used to wonder: How can we Americans tolerate this segment of our population living in conditions of low income, crime, unemployment, ineffective education and the accompanying despair? I am in my 70’s and sufficiently cynical about us as a country that I no longer wonder how we can tolerate this situation, but it still seems to me that we shouldn’t. Glenn and John, I’d like to know what you think of the following assertions in the context of generational, inner-city poverty:
• While there are many individuals and groups that support people in need, those supports are not adequate to address the inner city problem; something bigger is needed.
• The Great Society legislation of the 60’s was a “big” effort but not ultimately successful. This effort can be thought of as a liberal attempt to address the problem.
• There has yet to be a similarly “big” conservative effort.
• The fate of people in the inner city is a function of BOTH individual effort (agency) AND the nature of their environment (supports—or the lack thereof—in many forms: better schools, more and better jobs, etc.). Any solution must involve both ingredients.
• Any large effort to tackle this problem will be expensive, and goals will likely need to be prioritized. While generational poverty can be found in Appalachia and elsewhere and is worthy of amelioration, slavery and later forms of subjugation/discrimination reflect the government’s historical role in creating what is now the inner city problem and, therefore, brings with it a higher moral debt to be paid.
• Reparations would not solve the problem and ignores the role of individual agency.
Really appreciate both of you. I'm a new paying subscriber because the conversation is always compelling. Thank you both for the time and thought you put into this space.
Question for John: Can you take us a little behind the curtain on your process for writing regular columns? How do you generate your topics, capture ideas, and pace the writing? Any advice for younger writers who might aspire to something like your role?
Territorial expansion was NOT on my radar. What do you guys think about this? Is this just flashy rhetoric or will there actually be an effort to take new lands? What are the consequences of using tariffs or other economic pressures to bully Canada, Greenland, and Panama into submission? (Glenn, will this be good or bad for the price of eggs?)
Also, which territory would you be most excited to acquire? My 2 cents: Panama clearly has the best beaches...
I despise the far-left ideologies undergirding movements like BLM. The ideological purity tests (are you woke enough?), the in-group/out-group mentality (anti-racists vs bigots), and the belief in counterfactual narratives (police are hunting down black men, regardless of what the data says) leads to a religious fervor that I find dangerous. There’s a genuine pain and resentment powering the movement, but the “three-named” leaders only fan the flames of discontent and direct that fervor toward the destruction of our ‘racist’ institutions.
I also despise the far-right ideologies undergirding movements like MAGA. The ideological purity tests (are you loyal to Trump?), the in-group/out-group mentality (MAGA vs RINOs), and the belief in counterfactual narratives (the 2020 election was stolen, regardless of what the data says) leads to a religious fervor that I find dangerous. There’s a genuine pain and resentment powering the movement, but the “three-named” leaders only fan the flames of discontent and direct that fervor toward the destruction of our ‘deep state’ institutions.
Glenn, I admire how you stand up to the illiberal left, but you seem perfectly content to let the illiberal right thrive. Yes, you’ll tepidly acknowledge that Trump went “too far for your liking” during the 2020 election, but I’ve never heard you give an honest account of what transpired. You never confront the claims of widespread ballot fraud head on or highlight Trump’s own attempts at overturning the election. The Republican base has become completely untethered from reality because the conservative thought leadership abdicated their responsibilities and allowed these conspiracies to flourish.
Maybe you saw us as useful idiots. Perhaps you saw the utility in these false narratives; as a tool for defeating the left. Well… mission accomplished I suppose. But where will this weapon be directed next? What collateral damage will we receive?
So here’s my question Glenn: How far is too far? Are there any actions that Trump could take that would require you to stand in opposition? Are you Glenn X. Loury, a “three-named” person of the right? Or are you a conservative thought leader who’s willing to correct, admonish, and guide when necessary?
Here's a language question for John that also has a contemporary political angle for Glenn to weigh in on as well. It's become common for media and pubic intellectuals to refer to Trump's brand of politics as "populist," and that term has also been applied to similar right-wing nationalist figures around the world. These days, given the anti-Trump leanings of most establishment media and commentators, the term seems to be simultaneously used as descriptive and pejorative. I believe this is yet another example of how language has evolved over only the past 10 years or so. When I was in college 25 years ago studying political science, journalism, and music, populism was not broadly coded as negative nor right-wing. If anything, it was more often associated with left-wing movements, figures, and art. I remember specifically writing a paper on the populism of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Appalachian Spring" without once considering it to be a slur or connected to right-wing politics (that would have been absurd given Copland's own politics). So my questions are, have you noticed this shift in usage of the term as well? Will populism now and for the foreseeable be shorthand for right-wing populism and/or nationalism? Is there a better term we can use to distinguish the politics of Donald Trump from someone like Bernie Sanders?
What are your views on people who advocate to end racism and sexism, and yet continue to practice racism and sexism against whites and men, as if that doesn't really count as racism and sexism?
What do you think of the Trump administration’s initial actions to abolish DEI? Do you think these actions will be successful? Will private sector companies and universities actually follow these directives? What kind of resistance are we likely to see to these policies?
Hi Glenn and John, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Trump's move to end birthright citizenship, especially as a deterrent to illegal immigration. While many have been citing the 14th Amendment, I've recently seen some legal arguments dating back to at least the 1840's defending the idea that any person born on American soil deserves American Citizenship, regardless of the status of their parents. What do you think about this move, given the context of the 14th amendment, which was made to naturalize recently freed slaves, does the Trump administration have a point about it no longer being necessary, and it simply being an incentive to enter illegally and have a child here, in the hopes that their citizenship can protect the parents from deportation. Final note, since discovering your conversations in 2019, you've become a bright spot in my journey for intellectual growth, and I look forward to your biweekly conversations.
I can see arguments for and against birthright citizenship. I think it’s a valid conversation we should have as a country.
One thing that we should all agree on though: The Constitution cannot be overruled by executive order. There’s a process for amending the Constitution. We should abide by it. Letting Trump (or any president) discard it on a whim is a fast track to authoritarianism.
Over the years, there have also been organized efforts to bring pregnant Chinese women to give birth in U.S. and then return home with the kid. The point was to have American citizenship available to the kid should something bad happen in China. (I'm sure others have done the same - I'm not picking on the Chinese.) Then, when Trump was elected in 2016, Sir Patrick Stewart announced that he was taking American citizenship to "join the Resistance." I have also come across individuals (mostly computer engineers from the Middle East) who hold three, four, even five different passports. Should citizenship be treated like toilet paper - to be used and discarded at one's convenience?
These are both great questions. I would expand the subject though. Are there any other countries that have birth right citizenship provisions? Also, is this a matter of law or opinion?
Now that the Trump administration has closed federal DEI offices, do you think this will lead to a decrease in representation of qualified individuals who belong to historically underrepresented groups?
Glenn, which proud boy were you most excited to see released? 😂
Seriously though, I am curious what both of you think about the pardons. Trump is actively trying to rewrite the narrative around Jan 6. In the fullness of time will it be remembered as an attempt to overturn an election? Or will it be seen as a witch hunt? Which would you prefer it to be remembered as?
OK, Glenn (if I may). I got a paid subscription to your newsletter so that I could ask a question, and I think an answer would be of general interest to readers.
I am an affirmative action hire. There were 17 tenured/tenure track members of my department all male when I was hired when women were 20% of PhDs in my profession. I was the first woman ever tenured in my department and since being hired I’ve done better than most of my colleagues on the research side and very well also on teaching and service.
I regularly team-teach an econ/phil ‘women and work’ course with an economist and in the course of that I’ve learnt about empirical data indicating that discrimination against women and minorities, mostly unintentional, is alive and well. I endorse Barbara Bergmann’s consequentialist argument for affirmative action in her old book In Defense of Affirmative Action which is by no means out of date. The aim of affirmative isn’t compensation for past injustices or the promotion of ‘diversity’ (which I hold is of no value) but to ameliorate ongoing discrimination which for practical purposes can’t be done through passive non-discrimination regulations, even if rigorously enforced. Blind review would be great—it’s worked wonders in hiring for symphony orchestras and should be done for admission to colleges and professional programs. But it isn’t feasible in hiring for most jobs, including academic positions.
So, what do you propose? Without affirmative action, my prospects would have been at best secretarial. Is there something wrong with the extensive data, including correspondence studies with matched fake resumes and the like, that strongly suggest discrimination in employment is ongoing? And if the data is legit, do you have an alternative?
Let me add that I don’t think hiring for academic positions is a problem any longer. I’ve participated in many searches over the years, including recent ones where candidates were required to submit ‘diversity statements’. This is BS—and ChatGPT does a great job composing these statements. But occupational sex segregation hasn’t significantly abated since turn of the millenium and in jobs that don’t require a college degree it remains the norm. And the natural experiment of WWII suggests that the dearth of women in many traditional blue-collar jobs doesn’t reflect either women’s preferences or competence.
So, I agree that affirmative action is being employed in areas where it isn’t needed, or legitimate—in hiring for faculty positions and admission to colleges and graduate programs. But it hasn’t been employed in hiring in the non-college grad job market where the majority of men and women compete, including hiring for staff positions at my university. I put this to a lawyer from our DEI department who had earlier visited my office in response to a student complaint that I had used ‘All mothers are women’ as an example of a categorical proposition in my logic class but he dismissed me as a crank.
OK, Glenn—enough rambling. Discrimination in employment for a range of occupations is documented. Blind review isn’t feasible for most jobs and passive non-discrimination regulations aren’t enforceable: how do you prove that you weren’t hired because you were a woman or minority. What do you propose?
I like your stuff. I’ve even read one of your actual professional articles. So eagerly awaiting a response.
While it has been enjoyable seeing karma fall upon those who promoted the the extreme ideologies in the name of “wokeness”, I think it would be a good idea to not let the extremes of society (left or right) rule over us. Witnessing Elon Musk do a suspicious salute should serve as a wake up call. I understand that the intentions behind that gesture are not clear at this time.
These were a few ideas for such a framework:
1. Acknowledge version 1.0 was a failure.
2. Diversity can be a benefit but I think the problem in the areas of society that pushed diversity had lacked diversity of thought. It created echo chambers where ideas couldn’t really be vetted. For example, does Colin Kaepernick know about Tony Timpa? What would be his response upon learning?
3. Emphasis on understanding a disparity and its causes. Systemic racism just seemed to be a buzzword for “I don’t know.” This is why I think someone young like Coleman Hughes should be elevated since he likes to dive into the nuance of these issues.
4. History is complex and we shouldn’t cherry pick events to learn in order to shape an ideology. I was surprised when I conversed with someone who was very knowledgeable about the Tulsa Massacre but didn’t know anything about John Brown.
Have you not seen the dozens of similar arm movements by Democrats? It's all over X if you'd like to have a look. This is one of the most absurd witch hunts I've seen in social media. There is plenty of serious stuff to address without feeding the trolls.
Interesting question, Jason! Your idea strikes me as aligned with the "integral" or "developmental politics" movement championed by folks like Steve McIntosh (a former Glenn Show guest) and Jeff Salzman. In short, in order to evolve to our next stage of cultural (and political) development, we need to embrace the best parts of previous stages (in this case the good values and byproducts of things like diversity) while discarding the toxic stuff. The trick is figuring out the good from the bad...
I have a question for John. What is the difference between an accent and pronunciation? If I visited the south side of Boston and heard someone talk about a park we all know how the stereotype goes, which I think we'd all say was their accent. I recently read a book where the author went to American Samoa and he was explaining how we all mispronounce Samoa as Sa-moa when it should be Sam-oa. How is this not attributed to their accent versus pronunciation? When someone says carmel for caramel is that a mispronunciation or simply an accent?
Glenn and John: does Christopher Lasch's idea about the therapeutic sensibility fit into the in-group mentality on parts of the American left today? Lasch characterized this sensibility as far back as the 1970s as a byproduct of the personality disorder (narcissism) that had prevailed on the politics-of-theater left in the 1960s. It seems to apply in almost exact measure to the style of the anti-racist sector today, especially in that Lasch's point was not that therapeutic culture was about people being more selfish. It was about the educated upper class being "weaker", and not being able to confront disagreement or look deeper into social problems that affect the truly disadvantaged.
I'll try to keep this short but it's complicated. I'm a tenured professor of history. I had a severe falling out with a colleague, who I think is psychologically unwell. She's a trans woman who was taunting and trolling me online. I lost my composure and got very angry with her. In turn, she went to the Office of Equity and Civil Rights Compliance and charged me with six counts of harassment and discrimination based on her sexual orientation and gender identity.
I knew I was innocent, and her charges were embellished. Nevertheless it was unnerving to be investigated. They use a "preponderance of evidence" standard, so if my university had concluded that it was just 51 percent likely I was guilty, I would have had a significant, career-damaging problem.
One of her complaints was that I had disparaged black female academics. It was absurd. (I had criticized the scholarship of specific scholars in my subfield: Michelle Alexander and Elizabeth Hinton. I did not broadly disparage "black female scholars" categorically, as a group. Nevertheless I had to answer this charge.)
Another of her complaints was that I oppose affirmative action! I'm not exaggerating. My university literally made me answer to this, too, as if rejecting diversity ideology was potentially a civil rights violation. A third charge was that I said, in a private conversation, that straight white men are a low-prestige group in higher ed. (A statement I consider plainly true.)
It staggers belief that my school made me answer to this. When I met with my university's young lawyer, I could easily see that she misunderstood her role and was over her head. It was unnerving. I had to explain to her that I enjoy academic freedom and that these charges should not be the basis of a civil rights investigation. She should have rejected my colleague's complaints. Making me answer them was a form of harassment.
The good news is that after a nine month investigation, I was cleared of all six charges. Relief!
So then I filed my own complaint. I showed that the scholar who trolled me online about my struggles with substance abuse had violated the ADA. She also mocked me over one of my physical ailments. (I had a hip surgery that nowadays keeps me from distance running, which was one of my lifelong passions.) She compared me to a Hell's Angel (a drug dealing gang).
More significantly, I found about 20 Twitter posts where she ridiculed "white male academics" as privileged, entitled, and annoying. Some of her posts running down white men were accompanied by poop and vomit emojis They are incendiary, offensive, and repulsive to ordinary people. (Incidentally, John, in one of her posts, unrelated to me, she called you a racist. That sure was strange.)
If any professor had run down any other group besides white men in a similar way, they would have promptly been fired. But remarkably, my university declined to even investigate or pursue my complaint. In short, they demonstrated that a clear double standard at work.
I have a draft of an essay wherein I publicly disclose all of this. It's an essay that exposes my colleague as unhinged, and shames my university for its corruption. I have all the evidence I need, and the evidence is shocking.
And this scholar I'm referring to? She would be embarrassed. She's already deleted her inflammatory Twitter posts (which suggests she knows she crossed some lines) but I have the screenshots. Part of me thinks that if my university's Office of Equity and Civil Rights Compliance won't do their job, then I'll let everyone know about it. Again, I have tenure.
On the other hand, the essay I'm pondering finishing would cause a ruckus. I'm not ashamed of having been in treatment for addiction, but I'd have to discuss it. This colleague knows some things about me that I'm not proud of. Meanwhile my department, and my university, would be freaked out. Maybe I should let sleeping dogs lie. Things have cooled down, I'm doing well, and the university has imposed a mutual "no-contact" directive between this colleague and me. I'm finally refreshingly free of this woman's Cluster B personality disorder-related abuse. To be honest, I'm motivated right now in part by a desire for revenge, which I know is not the most attractive quality.
I suppose I'm "going public" about this right now. But should I follow through and tell the whole story, with evidence? I'm confident the essay I'm envisioning would garner plenty of attention. It would be scorching. I would only tell the truth, and the truth puts my university in a terrible light. Can you advise?
For as long as I can remember I have considered the generational poverty found in the inner city to be the single biggest moral challenge we face as a society. I used to wonder: How can we Americans tolerate this segment of our population living in conditions of low income, crime, unemployment, ineffective education and the accompanying despair? I am in my 70’s and sufficiently cynical about us as a country that I no longer wonder how we can tolerate this situation, but it still seems to me that we shouldn’t. Glenn and John, I’d like to know what you think of the following assertions in the context of generational, inner-city poverty:
• While there are many individuals and groups that support people in need, those supports are not adequate to address the inner city problem; something bigger is needed.
• The Great Society legislation of the 60’s was a “big” effort but not ultimately successful. This effort can be thought of as a liberal attempt to address the problem.
• There has yet to be a similarly “big” conservative effort.
• The fate of people in the inner city is a function of BOTH individual effort (agency) AND the nature of their environment (supports—or the lack thereof—in many forms: better schools, more and better jobs, etc.). Any solution must involve both ingredients.
• Any large effort to tackle this problem will be expensive, and goals will likely need to be prioritized. While generational poverty can be found in Appalachia and elsewhere and is worthy of amelioration, slavery and later forms of subjugation/discrimination reflect the government’s historical role in creating what is now the inner city problem and, therefore, brings with it a higher moral debt to be paid.
• Reparations would not solve the problem and ignores the role of individual agency.
Really appreciate both of you. I'm a new paying subscriber because the conversation is always compelling. Thank you both for the time and thought you put into this space.
Question for John: Can you take us a little behind the curtain on your process for writing regular columns? How do you generate your topics, capture ideas, and pace the writing? Any advice for younger writers who might aspire to something like your role?
Territorial expansion was NOT on my radar. What do you guys think about this? Is this just flashy rhetoric or will there actually be an effort to take new lands? What are the consequences of using tariffs or other economic pressures to bully Canada, Greenland, and Panama into submission? (Glenn, will this be good or bad for the price of eggs?)
Also, which territory would you be most excited to acquire? My 2 cents: Panama clearly has the best beaches...
I have a question for both John and Glen.
How far is a black owned full service food market from where you live?
I despise the far-left ideologies undergirding movements like BLM. The ideological purity tests (are you woke enough?), the in-group/out-group mentality (anti-racists vs bigots), and the belief in counterfactual narratives (police are hunting down black men, regardless of what the data says) leads to a religious fervor that I find dangerous. There’s a genuine pain and resentment powering the movement, but the “three-named” leaders only fan the flames of discontent and direct that fervor toward the destruction of our ‘racist’ institutions.
I also despise the far-right ideologies undergirding movements like MAGA. The ideological purity tests (are you loyal to Trump?), the in-group/out-group mentality (MAGA vs RINOs), and the belief in counterfactual narratives (the 2020 election was stolen, regardless of what the data says) leads to a religious fervor that I find dangerous. There’s a genuine pain and resentment powering the movement, but the “three-named” leaders only fan the flames of discontent and direct that fervor toward the destruction of our ‘deep state’ institutions.
Glenn, I admire how you stand up to the illiberal left, but you seem perfectly content to let the illiberal right thrive. Yes, you’ll tepidly acknowledge that Trump went “too far for your liking” during the 2020 election, but I’ve never heard you give an honest account of what transpired. You never confront the claims of widespread ballot fraud head on or highlight Trump’s own attempts at overturning the election. The Republican base has become completely untethered from reality because the conservative thought leadership abdicated their responsibilities and allowed these conspiracies to flourish.
Maybe you saw us as useful idiots. Perhaps you saw the utility in these false narratives; as a tool for defeating the left. Well… mission accomplished I suppose. But where will this weapon be directed next? What collateral damage will we receive?
So here’s my question Glenn: How far is too far? Are there any actions that Trump could take that would require you to stand in opposition? Are you Glenn X. Loury, a “three-named” person of the right? Or are you a conservative thought leader who’s willing to correct, admonish, and guide when necessary?
Here's a language question for John that also has a contemporary political angle for Glenn to weigh in on as well. It's become common for media and pubic intellectuals to refer to Trump's brand of politics as "populist," and that term has also been applied to similar right-wing nationalist figures around the world. These days, given the anti-Trump leanings of most establishment media and commentators, the term seems to be simultaneously used as descriptive and pejorative. I believe this is yet another example of how language has evolved over only the past 10 years or so. When I was in college 25 years ago studying political science, journalism, and music, populism was not broadly coded as negative nor right-wing. If anything, it was more often associated with left-wing movements, figures, and art. I remember specifically writing a paper on the populism of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Appalachian Spring" without once considering it to be a slur or connected to right-wing politics (that would have been absurd given Copland's own politics). So my questions are, have you noticed this shift in usage of the term as well? Will populism now and for the foreseeable be shorthand for right-wing populism and/or nationalism? Is there a better term we can use to distinguish the politics of Donald Trump from someone like Bernie Sanders?
What are your views on people who advocate to end racism and sexism, and yet continue to practice racism and sexism against whites and men, as if that doesn't really count as racism and sexism?
What do you think of the Trump administration’s initial actions to abolish DEI? Do you think these actions will be successful? Will private sector companies and universities actually follow these directives? What kind of resistance are we likely to see to these policies?
Hi Glenn and John, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Trump's move to end birthright citizenship, especially as a deterrent to illegal immigration. While many have been citing the 14th Amendment, I've recently seen some legal arguments dating back to at least the 1840's defending the idea that any person born on American soil deserves American Citizenship, regardless of the status of their parents. What do you think about this move, given the context of the 14th amendment, which was made to naturalize recently freed slaves, does the Trump administration have a point about it no longer being necessary, and it simply being an incentive to enter illegally and have a child here, in the hopes that their citizenship can protect the parents from deportation. Final note, since discovering your conversations in 2019, you've become a bright spot in my journey for intellectual growth, and I look forward to your biweekly conversations.
I can see arguments for and against birthright citizenship. I think it’s a valid conversation we should have as a country.
One thing that we should all agree on though: The Constitution cannot be overruled by executive order. There’s a process for amending the Constitution. We should abide by it. Letting Trump (or any president) discard it on a whim is a fast track to authoritarianism.
Over the years, there have also been organized efforts to bring pregnant Chinese women to give birth in U.S. and then return home with the kid. The point was to have American citizenship available to the kid should something bad happen in China. (I'm sure others have done the same - I'm not picking on the Chinese.) Then, when Trump was elected in 2016, Sir Patrick Stewart announced that he was taking American citizenship to "join the Resistance." I have also come across individuals (mostly computer engineers from the Middle East) who hold three, four, even five different passports. Should citizenship be treated like toilet paper - to be used and discarded at one's convenience?
These are both great questions. I would expand the subject though. Are there any other countries that have birth right citizenship provisions? Also, is this a matter of law or opinion?
Hi Glenn and John,
Now that the Trump administration has closed federal DEI offices, do you think this will lead to a decrease in representation of qualified individuals who belong to historically underrepresented groups?
DEI was invented to bypass qualified individuals, who thought they were competing on merit alone, with a politically correct halfwit.
Glenn, which proud boy were you most excited to see released? 😂
Seriously though, I am curious what both of you think about the pardons. Trump is actively trying to rewrite the narrative around Jan 6. In the fullness of time will it be remembered as an attempt to overturn an election? Or will it be seen as a witch hunt? Which would you prefer it to be remembered as?
OK, Glenn (if I may). I got a paid subscription to your newsletter so that I could ask a question, and I think an answer would be of general interest to readers.
I am an affirmative action hire. There were 17 tenured/tenure track members of my department all male when I was hired when women were 20% of PhDs in my profession. I was the first woman ever tenured in my department and since being hired I’ve done better than most of my colleagues on the research side and very well also on teaching and service.
I regularly team-teach an econ/phil ‘women and work’ course with an economist and in the course of that I’ve learnt about empirical data indicating that discrimination against women and minorities, mostly unintentional, is alive and well. I endorse Barbara Bergmann’s consequentialist argument for affirmative action in her old book In Defense of Affirmative Action which is by no means out of date. The aim of affirmative isn’t compensation for past injustices or the promotion of ‘diversity’ (which I hold is of no value) but to ameliorate ongoing discrimination which for practical purposes can’t be done through passive non-discrimination regulations, even if rigorously enforced. Blind review would be great—it’s worked wonders in hiring for symphony orchestras and should be done for admission to colleges and professional programs. But it isn’t feasible in hiring for most jobs, including academic positions.
So, what do you propose? Without affirmative action, my prospects would have been at best secretarial. Is there something wrong with the extensive data, including correspondence studies with matched fake resumes and the like, that strongly suggest discrimination in employment is ongoing? And if the data is legit, do you have an alternative?
Let me add that I don’t think hiring for academic positions is a problem any longer. I’ve participated in many searches over the years, including recent ones where candidates were required to submit ‘diversity statements’. This is BS—and ChatGPT does a great job composing these statements. But occupational sex segregation hasn’t significantly abated since turn of the millenium and in jobs that don’t require a college degree it remains the norm. And the natural experiment of WWII suggests that the dearth of women in many traditional blue-collar jobs doesn’t reflect either women’s preferences or competence.
So, I agree that affirmative action is being employed in areas where it isn’t needed, or legitimate—in hiring for faculty positions and admission to colleges and graduate programs. But it hasn’t been employed in hiring in the non-college grad job market where the majority of men and women compete, including hiring for staff positions at my university. I put this to a lawyer from our DEI department who had earlier visited my office in response to a student complaint that I had used ‘All mothers are women’ as an example of a categorical proposition in my logic class but he dismissed me as a crank.
OK, Glenn—enough rambling. Discrimination in employment for a range of occupations is documented. Blind review isn’t feasible for most jobs and passive non-discrimination regulations aren’t enforceable: how do you prove that you weren’t hired because you were a woman or minority. What do you propose?
I like your stuff. I’ve even read one of your actual professional articles. So eagerly awaiting a response.
Do we need a Woke 2.0?
While it has been enjoyable seeing karma fall upon those who promoted the the extreme ideologies in the name of “wokeness”, I think it would be a good idea to not let the extremes of society (left or right) rule over us. Witnessing Elon Musk do a suspicious salute should serve as a wake up call. I understand that the intentions behind that gesture are not clear at this time.
These were a few ideas for such a framework:
1. Acknowledge version 1.0 was a failure.
2. Diversity can be a benefit but I think the problem in the areas of society that pushed diversity had lacked diversity of thought. It created echo chambers where ideas couldn’t really be vetted. For example, does Colin Kaepernick know about Tony Timpa? What would be his response upon learning?
3. Emphasis on understanding a disparity and its causes. Systemic racism just seemed to be a buzzword for “I don’t know.” This is why I think someone young like Coleman Hughes should be elevated since he likes to dive into the nuance of these issues.
4. History is complex and we shouldn’t cherry pick events to learn in order to shape an ideology. I was surprised when I conversed with someone who was very knowledgeable about the Tulsa Massacre but didn’t know anything about John Brown.
Have you not seen the dozens of similar arm movements by Democrats? It's all over X if you'd like to have a look. This is one of the most absurd witch hunts I've seen in social media. There is plenty of serious stuff to address without feeding the trolls.
Interesting question, Jason! Your idea strikes me as aligned with the "integral" or "developmental politics" movement championed by folks like Steve McIntosh (a former Glenn Show guest) and Jeff Salzman. In short, in order to evolve to our next stage of cultural (and political) development, we need to embrace the best parts of previous stages (in this case the good values and byproducts of things like diversity) while discarding the toxic stuff. The trick is figuring out the good from the bad...
I have a question for John. What is the difference between an accent and pronunciation? If I visited the south side of Boston and heard someone talk about a park we all know how the stereotype goes, which I think we'd all say was their accent. I recently read a book where the author went to American Samoa and he was explaining how we all mispronounce Samoa as Sa-moa when it should be Sam-oa. How is this not attributed to their accent versus pronunciation? When someone says carmel for caramel is that a mispronunciation or simply an accent?