Podcasts - Watcha listening to?

[Warren]

I listened to the first episode. Their definition of white is one foreign even to me, and I grew up among upper middle class prep school strivers.

ditto

Chana keeps saying "white parents" when what she means is "wealthy parents" or even just "parents".

There’s a super strange pivot in here I found fascinating.

Can you elaborate on that? I'm not going to listen to any more of this shit waiting for it to get good.

I wonder about the degree this is a New York experience. Nevertheless, in ep 4 I think we learn that the basement of the school she’s following becomes a Success Academy charter school. That’s the famous one with the good test scores but very demanding of parents and students with heavy focus on no disruptions. Reminds me very much of. Japanese school tbh.

Anyway Chana finds out that White boys get suspended from that school. Like, in volume. She watches the school in actin and interviews staff and parents and yup basically they have a system and a set of requirements and everyone is subject to those rules. If a parent fund raises the money gets spread among all success academy schools and there will be no changes to the curriculum or design like you saw with the French program in ep1

So high test scores, white parents don’t get special treatment, can’t buy special programs. It’s - what she’s saying never happens. Now the pivot. But let’s talk about equality vs equity she says - shouldn’t we care about giving disadvantaged kids more? Should we get these parents and their kids to understand their role in racism?

Refocus on the public school upstairs now implementing a bunch of anti racist coaching to put whit parents on notice. Here is another approach - downstairs is equality but this is equity. Blah blah. She’s very self aware in some ways, but she literally drops academic achievement from mattering when she says yeah success academy gets results if you count test scores as results - but literally for the whole time the whole point was the achievement gap, then she saw it go down ... and hated it. It didn’t look right. The anti racism thing must be the right answer, but she kinda never addresses if the newly woke public school actually produces academic achievement. It just looks better. It’s a jarring pivot.

Thanks.


BTW
What motivate you to listen all the way through to get to that?

[thoreau]

Refocus on the public school upstairs now implementing a bunch of anti racist coaching to put whit parents on notice. Here is another approach - downstairs is equality but this is equity. Blah blah. She’s very self aware in some ways, but she literally drops academic achievement from mattering when she says yeah success academy gets results if you count test scores as results - but literally for the whole time the whole point was the achievement gap, then she saw it go down ... and hated it. It didn’t look right. The anti racism thing must be the right answer, but she kinda never addresses if the newly woke public school actually produces academic achievement. It just looks better. It’s a jarring pivot.

The equity people never cared about achievement. They never cared about teaching their subject. They don't even like their subject. Even the ones who teach a human-centered subject don't actually care about the woke revisionist take on their subject as much as they care about the social engineering that they can engage if they have control over an educational system. If they could they wouldn't even stand up and lecture on their woke revisionist take. They would delegate that to someone else and spend their time preening before peers, while constructing rules to determine who is favored, who is disfavored, and what hoops people need to jump through.

[D.A. Ridgely]

Refocus on the public school upstairs now implementing a bunch of anti racist coaching to put whit parents on notice. Here is another approach - downstairs is equality but this is equity. Blah blah. She’s very self aware in some ways, but she literally drops academic achievement from mattering when she says yeah success academy gets results if you count test scores as results - but literally for the whole time the whole point was the achievement gap, then she saw it go down ... and hated it. It didn’t look right. The anti racism thing must be the right answer, but she kinda never addresses if the newly woke public school actually produces academic achievement. It just looks better. It’s a jarring pivot.

The equity people never cared about achievement. They never cared about teaching their subject. They don't even like their subject. Even the ones who teach a human-centered subject don't actually care about the woke revisionist take on their subject as much as they care about the social engineering that they can engage if they have control over an educational system. If they could they wouldn't even stand up and lecture on their woke revisionist take. They would delegate that to someone else and spend their time preening before peers, while constructing rules to determine who is favored, who is disfavored, and what hoops people need to jump through.

You know, Thoreau, I'm beginning to detect a note of disapproving bitterness in your take on this subject.

[JasonL]

I like to listen to stories from inside a tribe other than my own told by people I consider generally careful and thoughtful. Basically I wanted to see what the take was going to be on achievement. Would it be test scores don't matter, do parents feel that way or just reporters and reformers etc.

[Dangerman]

Slavoj Zizek has many hours of lectures on a podcast, and I'm enjoying the first one.

Red Scare continues to be fun, and a useful window into Left (not progressive/liberal) views on contemporary politics in a way that I hated when I tried Chapo.

I don't know if I could deal with Nice White Parents after getting into non-identitarian Left material. I definitely think it's very much a NYC liberal elite Thing and, no thanks.

[Number 6]

What is non-identitarian left material?

[nicole]

What is non-identitarian left material?

communism

[Dangerman]

Class oriented critiques rather than race essentialism. Some post modern derived stuff, which I have been guilty of misunderstanding in the past, I think. I'm not on board yet, but the OG PoMo angles are less screwy than I used to think, if you accept a lot of their premises

I've realized that I identify strongly as a Capital W Worker in a lot of ways. I still don't think Marxist prescriptions are any good, but the critiques are resonating across a lot of axes.

[thoreau]

Class oriented critiques rather than race essentialism. Some post modern derived stuff, which I have been guilty of misunderstanding in the past, I think. I'm not on board yet, but the OG PoMo angles are less screwy than I used to think, if you accept a lot of their premises

I've realized that I identify strongly as a Capital W Worker in a lot of ways. I still don't think Marxist prescriptions are any good, but the critiques are resonating across a lot of axes.

I know a conservative literature professor who identifies as Marxist for analytical purposes, i.e. she sees class as a very useful lens.

She's very much NOT a Marxist for prescriptive purposes, i.e. she doesn't support lefty policy. But for the purpose of analyzing social situations, she considers herself a Marxist.

[Hugh Akston]

Class oriented critiques rather than race essentialism. Some post modern derived stuff, which I have been guilty of misunderstanding in the past, I think. I'm not on board yet, but the OG PoMo angles are less screwy than I used to think, if you accept a lot of their premises

I've realized that I identify strongly as a Capital W Worker in a lot of ways. I still don't think Marxist prescriptions are any good, but the critiques are resonating across a lot of axes.

What aspects of the class critique in particular are you responding to? I sometimes wonder if race/gender/etc distinctions serve as class dividers by another name.

[D.A. Ridgely]

Slavoj Zizek has many hours of lectures on a podcast, and I'm enjoying the first one.

Not to be entirely dismissive of Zizek, because his vita and nonacademic career has certainly been impressive and colorful, but I start with the fact that the man is, indeed, a Marxist (he say "of a sort" but I think that's not far from me describing myself as a dispositional libertarian) and a Freudian (of a sort), and that's the frame through which he filters experience. Anyway, the guy is highly entertaining, not entirely crazy and the two "Pervert's Guide" documentaries are fun to watch even if I did keep booing his oversimplification and axe grinding.

I really have no intellectual problems with someone like the English professor Thoreau mentioned looking at her subject through a Marxist or Post Modern perspective. I only start to scream when they forget that they're looking through a lens they've chosen in contrast to "having found the TRUTH at last!"

[Number 6]

Class oriented critiques rather than race essentialism. Some post modern derived stuff, which I have been guilty of misunderstanding in the past, I think. I'm not on board yet, but the OG PoMo angles are less screwy than I used to think, if you accept a lot of their premises

I've realized that I identify strongly as a Capital W Worker in a lot of ways. I still don't think Marxist prescriptions are any good, but the critiques are resonating across a lot of axes.

I've thought for a long time that many of Marx's critiques, especially regarding the position of labor, are valid and useful. Even some class-based thinking, once anathema to me, is starting to make a lot of sense. I think the mistake, apart from the obviously terrible prescriptions, is focusing on economic factors as the be all end all. I tend to see the conflict as one of the powerful vs. the powerless. Of course, that has to be viewed on a number of different axises.

[Dangerman]

Class oriented critiques rather than race essentialism. Some post modern derived stuff, which I have been guilty of misunderstanding in the past, I think. I'm not on board yet, but the OG PoMo angles are less screwy than I used to think, if you accept a lot of their premises

I've realized that I identify strongly as a Capital W Worker in a lot of ways. I still don't think Marxist prescriptions are any good, but the critiques are resonating across a lot of axes.

What aspects of the class critique in particular are you responding to? I sometimes wonder if race/gender/etc distinctions serve as class dividers by another name.

I would say that I respond to the division in power between those who own and control Capital and those who they depend on to actualize the process of production with that capital. I have become much more pro union-type-things (in theory) and feel that raising the social status of, and dividends paid to, workers is, first, in *my* best interest narrowly, and also in the interest of a cohesive and functional society broadly. This applies to brick and mortar and knowledge workers, although the need for physical capital in the former case is much different than the latter, which accentuates my intuition that the people who can physically affect the world are, at the end of the day, more important to maintaining a baseline of wealth for the world than those who attempt to impose coordination schemes through information, which has marginal (although sometimes profound) impact.

I've taken in a lot of information and perspective on the last few months, and haven't really digested it, so this set of posts is really a first pass at the topic for me.

[Dangerman]

Slavoj Zizek has many hours of lectures on a podcast, and I'm enjoying the first one.

Not to be entirely dismissive of Zizek, because his vita and nonacademic career has certainly been impressive and colorful, but I start with the fact that the man is, indeed, a Marxist (he say "of a sort" but I think that's not far from me describing myself as a dispositional libertarian) and a Freudian (of a sort), and that's the frame through which he filters experience. Anyway, the guy is highly entertaining, not entirely crazy and the two "Pervert's Guide" documentaries are fun to watch even if I did keep booing his oversimplification and axe grinding.

I really have no intellectual problems with someone like the English professor Thoreau mentioned looking at her subject through a Marxist or Post Modern perspective. I only start to scream when they forget that they're looking through a lens they've chosen in contrast to "having found the TRUTH at last!"

So far, I'll cosign this as my impression as well.

[Dangerman]

Class oriented critiques rather than race essentialism. Some post modern derived stuff, which I have been guilty of misunderstanding in the past, I think. I'm not on board yet, but the OG PoMo angles are less screwy than I used to think, if you accept a lot of their premises

I've realized that I identify strongly as a Capital W Worker in a lot of ways. I still don't think Marxist prescriptions are any good, but the critiques are resonating across a lot of axes.

I've thought for a long time that many of Marx's critiques, especially regarding the position of labor, are valid and useful. Even some class-based thinking, once anathema to me, is starting to make a lot of sense. I think the mistake, apart from the obviously terrible prescriptions, is focusing on economic factors as the be all end all. I tend to see the conflict as one of the powerful vs. the powerless. Of course, that has to be viewed on a number of different axises.

I think if you replace "economic factors" with "incentives", it brings their perspective closer to one that a libertarian might understand.

[Hugh Akston]

Class oriented critiques rather than race essentialism. Some post modern derived stuff, which I have been guilty of misunderstanding in the past, I think. I'm not on board yet, but the OG PoMo angles are less screwy than I used to think, if you accept a lot of their premises

I've realized that I identify strongly as a Capital W Worker in a lot of ways. I still don't think Marxist prescriptions are any good, but the critiques are resonating across a lot of axes.

What aspects of the class critique in particular are you responding to? I sometimes wonder if race/gender/etc distinctions serve as class dividers by another name.

I would say that I respond to the division in power between those who own and control Capital and those who they depend on to actualize the process of production with that capital. I have become much more pro union-type-things (in theory) and feel that raising the social status of, and dividends paid to, workers is, first, in *my* best interest narrowly, and also in the interest of a cohesive and functional society broadly. This applies to brick and mortar and knowledge workers, although the need for physical capital in the former case is much different than the latter, which accentuates my intuition that the people who can physically affect the world are, at the end of the day, more important to maintaining a baseline of wealth for the world than those who attempt to impose coordination schemes through information, which has marginal (although sometimes profound) impact.

I've taken in a lot of information and perspective on the last few months, and haven't really digested it, so this set of posts is really a first pass at the topic for me.

Inb4 JasonL reminds us that knowledge workers produce quite a bit of value, which, along with specialized skills, are why they are paid so much. The knowledge worker vs stuffmaker distinction is part of the city mouse vs country mouse paradigm that drives the culture war in this country. But people have been growing food, extracting resources, and making things for thousands of years, and for most of that time the world has been dirt poor. But since the manufacturing, design, logistics, and marketing of that stuff has become professionalized over the past couple hundred years, living standards have risen dramatically. IOW it's the complex emergent transactional matrix of a developed economy (driven by knowledge workers) that gives the stuff produced by resource workers its value. So if anything the two classes are interdependent.

That being said, it's worth remembering that knowledge workers are not Capital owners either. We're just as powerless as resource workers are relative to wealthy and well-connected individuals, companies, and governments. We're just as dependent on them and just as enthralled to them because of the heavy debts needed to live a modern lifestyle.

I'm skeptical of unions, personally. I'm afraid I would just be trading one faceless, powerful institution for whom I am nothing but an exploitable resource for another. Especially in closed shop situations. But I'm not sure what other means there are to rebalance power away from the powerful.

If you're interested in union-type things, you should look into the German system. Unions there are less adversarial than they are here and France, and more ingrained parts of decision-making processes.

[JasonL]

Zizek is just a straight communist and is generally subject to the normal criticisms of straight up communists. The power and oppression lenses are definitely useful ways to interrogate events if you don't insist they are the only ways to analyze outcomes. I think that under careful scrutiny most of the Marxist critique dissolves. IOW - if you think the reason person A and person B are paid differently is mostly about power structures and oppression and very little about the tradeable value of output from A vs B, you basically don't understand the world very well. I don't think there is a coherent take on what "should" be worth more - it's just value projection on an emergent system. The most important question when looking at a surprising disparity in market values is "what is the actual demand here" not "who tricked these people into wanting The Wrong Thing". Marx can never be forgiven for the false consciousness argument, it is monumental garbage.

[dhex]

I was tickled to find out Ben Dreyfuss and I share the same theory of persuasion wrt the sports bar effect on social media.

[Warren]

I was tickled to find out Ben Dreyfuss and I share the same theory of persuasion wrt the sports bar effect on social media.

I listened to that. Can't remember that particular bit though. My take away is "Ben needs and intervention".

[Warren]

Any Audible subscribers? I signed up for one book and now can't decide on my next book to listen to.

Any recommendations?

[Hugh Akston]

Any Audible subscribers? I signed up for one book and now can't decide on my next book to listen to.

Any recommendations?

Anything where Stephen Fry reads Stephen Fry

[Warren]

Any Audible subscribers? I signed up for one book and now can't decide on my next book to listen to.

Any recommendations?

Anything where Stephen Fry reads Stephen Fry

Ahhhhh Stephen Fry...
The thing is, after Fry'd America I find him annoying. Not Nicolas Cage level annoying, but punchable annoying nonetheless.
I might get over that eventually. But I don't think I could take a whole book of his voice.

[Ellie]

The Dresden Files and Discworld offerings on Audible are all very well read! Also Curse of Chalion/Paladin of Souls, and To Say Nothing of the Dog: Or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last.

[Ellie]

Also I remember really enjoying the Carl Hiassen audio books if you're into him.

[lunchstealer]

Also I remember really enjoying the Carl Hiassen audio books if you're into him.

It took me a couple minutes to figure out that this wasn't just me mis-hearing Mara Liasson for all these years.