Fighting Disorientation

It's the oligarchy that's deranging society.

At the start of the week I was convinced I was going to write about the discussion between Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates on Klein’s podcast that sent online liberal types (me) abuzz. The conversation in the aftermath of the killing of Charlie Kirk and Klein’s declaration that Kirk was practicing politics “exactly the right way” and Coates’ deconstruction of that notion acted as a kind of litmus test for people who would like to see Democrats win elections, but disagree on how such a goal can be achieved.

I offered up some thoughts in a Substack “note.”

I figured the note was a placeholder for more thoughts here, but as the time has come, I’m less and less interested in parsing the distinctions between Klein and Coates’ world views. What I am thinking about is what we do about something like this:

…in conjunction with this…

I think one of the things that has unmoored Ezra Klein is the fact that empirical evidence and good argument is being consistently routed by what you see above, outright lies and obfuscation. Russ Vought is the architect of Project 2025. Trump repeatedly said he didn’t know the guy. Now, Vought is essentially running the government. In the Klein/Coates dialogue, Klein repeatedly declares himself open to, maybe even advocating for a kind of strategic thinking around issues that doesn’t embrace lying so much, as not telling the truth in order to increase the appeal of Democrats with the people who flopped over to Trump last time around.

Klein may be correct as a matter of political strategy - not my area of interest or expertise - but Coates wasn’t really having it, stating in various ways that the only thing he knows how to do is tell the truth as he sees it.

I am aligned with Coates’ view because I don’t know how to write what I write except as an exercise to figure out what I believe and then share it with audiences. If I knew how to be calculating in a way that would draw more attention, money, etc…I would probably give it a shot, but I yam what I yam.

But what are we supposed to do in a world where people just make shit up and it’s treated as though it’s real, legitimate? Remember that supposed controversy about Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle jeans? Totally made up!

That Cracker Barrel nonsense? Bot-fueled.

I think part of the interest in the Klein/Coates convo was two intelligent, informed people (who are also friends) sitting down and having a forthright conversation rooted in a world that is tied to tangible, verifiable evidence. You almost start to feel like a sucker for believing such things matter where the same family, Larry Ellison and his son David are about to own both TikTok and Paramount, which included CBS News.

CBS News is going to install Bari Weiss as its editor-in-chief after previously paying out a “settlement” to Donald Trump that was such a naked attempt to curry favor that the CBS board worried that the settlement needed to be smaller so it would look like less of a bribe. CBS is going to lay off journalists but will also reportedly pay Weiss $150 million dollars for her Substack publication.

Weiss’s most salient qualifications are not her work in broadcast news (zero), overseeing large organizations (nada), or even producing quality journalism (zilch), but her ideological alignment with company’s owners and penchant for currying favor with the billionaire class to fund her projects, including her fake university, which is significantly backstopped by Harlan Crow, the same guy who keeps Clarence Thomas in recreational vehicles.

Speaking of Weiss’s Substack publication, this week it featured this head scratcher:

“If you wish to see a virgin on-screen this is one of your better chances”?!!! WTF, dude?

Can we just parse that sentence for a second?

1. “If you wish to see a virgin on-screen…”

   What does it mean to say that your favorite actress is a “virgin on screen”? Does it matter more that she is a virgin or that she is on screen? What has warped this person’s sensibilities that he prefers this “actress” because she is young-looking, virginal, and also, nonexistent? What is this man confessing?

2. “…this is one of your better chances.”

   What are the lesser chances, pray tell? How much time has Tyler Cowen spent assessing the likelihood of virgins on screen?

It’s not just pervy economics professors who are losing their good senses over AI relationships. A recent Slate article by Jessica Xing has us “Meet the Women Who Are Falling in Love With Their AI Boyfriends.”

On the one hand I am a believer that adults should be free to live their lives as they please, but also, this is not good. Our lives cannot be defined by finding endless affirmation from our AI partners or, if you’re Tyler Cowen, a ready supply of video virgins.

I look at the items above and all I can see is an obvious, and even deliberate shift away from reality. We have apparently made the real-world so challenging that escape to nonsense like fighting over a chain restaurant logo and amassing an army of bot boyfriends and virgin actresses is preferable.

I don’t begrudge Ezra Klein his disorientation, but I don’t think the solution is to triangulate democratic positions in order to accommodate the transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and misogyny that seem to animate much of the present administration’s actions. I think we have to just keep describing things as they are in the plainest language possible not because it’s good politics, but because it’s the only way to keep yourself from feeling like you’ve become untethered from reality.

When President Donald Trump muses out loud on a stage in front of our military leadership about how the military should train in our nation’s cities you have to pause and ask yourself if this is really happening.

I wish we were characters in a movie in the midst of a nightmare hallucination that can be dispelled by chanting, “this isn’t real, this isn’t real,” over and over, but what is happening is very real.

Lately, I’ve been modestly encouraged that Trump’s full authoritarian project is not going to succeed, at least as long as we manage to make it to a free and fair election. He’s clearly failing and flailing. What he’s doing it incredibly unpopular and if the Democrats knew how to act like an opposition party, that would be even more apparent.

But I’m also increasingly concerned about what I think as the deeper threat, a threat that’s clearly fueling Trump and will also remain even when Trump is gone.

I’m talking about oligarchy. The ultra wealthy have grown tired of sharing society with the rest of us and are using every lever at their disposal to seize control. The Ellisons above are an example of what’s happening in media consolidation, but there’s a couple of examples from higher education that are likely on fewer radars.

You might have read about a Trump administration “compact” for higher education, essentially a list of extortionate demands that institutions must sign in order to not be excluded from federal funding. This “deal” is the brainchild of a guy named Marc Rowan, a billionaire who thinks universities should not be places of free inquiry, but instead subject to his own desires.

Another billionaire and Trump ally, Stephen Schwarzman is at the center of an effort to get Harvard to capitulate to Trump’s extortion. New York Times reporting says that Schwarzman is involved at the behest of Harvard. The Harvard community - students, faculty, staff, a majority of alumni - stand against making any deal, but the power of the billionaire class stand above democracy.

I wonder if Ezra Klein would be comfortable recognizing that at the bottom of this mess we find the same oligarchs that he’s courting for his abundance agenda.

I often think of these newsletters as a search for understanding, starting from a place of confusion, or even distress. I’m afraid I’ve made negative progress this week.

What are we supposed to do?

Links

At the Chicago Tribune, I wrote about the powerful reading experience of Freddie deBoer’s new novel The Mind Reels.

At Inside Higher Ed I reported on some of the very encouraging things I’ve seen on my campus visits when it comes to “Making Progress on Teaching in a World with AI.”

A long, but interesting read for book buyers from Fisher the Bookseller on “who decides what goes on bookstore shelves.”

Brian Klaas offers a compelling “defense of Dan Brown.”

Sean deLone unpacks what makes John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, (the Theranos story) a modern classic.

The Chicago Review of Books has announced its book awards shortlists.

This has been getting a lot of play and commentary in my circles, “The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem” by Tajja Isen.

McSweeney's Ben Greenman is on top of Tyler Cowen’s favorite AI virgin with “AI-Generated Reviews of AI-Generated Actor Tilly Norwood’s AI-Generated Movies.” (Oops, I hope “on top of” doesn’t offend Prof. Cowen’s sensibilities. Clearly no one has been on top of, or beneath, or behind, Tilly Norwood.

Recommendations

1. The Art of Hunger by Paul Auster
2. Fonseca by Jessica Francis Kane
3. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
4. The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater
5. The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young

Julie R. - Monroe, GA

Julie indicates that she’s a teacher, so I’m going to recommend a novel that is deeply invested in the weird power dynamics of high school, Cyclorama by Adam Langer.

1. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
2. So Far Gone by Jess Walter
3. The Postman by David Brin
4. Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
5. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

Beth D. - Rio Rancho, NM

I see Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi on my bookshelf, and that’s a book everyone should read, so that is my recommendation.

For those of you in the Iowa City area, I’ll be appearing at the Iowa City Unesco City of Literature Book Festival on Wednesday, October 8th, 7pm at the Iowa City Public Library. Come say hi!

For those of you working in higher education, I’ll be pitching More Than Words as a candidate for common book/first-year experience programs as part of a webinar with the authors of two other very fine books. Sign up information is in the image below.

Stay strong, my friends. See you next week when I will share some of the books that have gotten on my radar, but haven’t otherwise been able to cover, a thing I promised to do this week, but, well…things change.

JW
The Biblioracle