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Assorted links
1. Ten young progressive intellectuals.
2. International bright young things; the new economic superstars.
3. First Chinese restaurant with three Michelin stars.
4. Best science fiction books of the year; you'll find one list here and another here.
5. Here is Alex Ross's list of the best classical music recordings of the year.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on January 3, 2009 at 07:41 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
"I'm convinced that progressives own the future [...] because the intellectual energy in America today is young and on the Left."
I'm not a progressive but I think that analysis is spot on, for better or worse.
Posted by: Luke G. at Jan 3, 2009 9:11:28 AM
Huh. I feel like I've read a lot of really terrific science fiction and fantasy this year, but none of it seems to be making these lists, and the lists are composed of books that I barely noticed were published (with the exception of Anathem, which is sitting on my shelf waiting for a good chance to read it). To be fair, some of the best books I read weren't from this year -- the first half of Book of the New Sun and Jennifer Morgue come to mind.
Posted by: Sol at Jan 3, 2009 9:16:07 AM
The reason why the intellectual energy is on the Left is because the Right is a bit disillusioned. The Right's favored candidate (Bush) did almost nothing concrete to advance their social agenda (we still have Roe v. Wade, Internet porn, etc.) and presided over a vast expansion of government spending.
If Obama's pragmatic centrism and selection of Clintonite retreads for nearly every position of power and influence is any indication, progressives will get lip-serviced but not much else (and maybe not even that). They will either get co-opted or embittered, with much infighting between the latter and the former camps.
Posted by: at Jan 3, 2009 11:25:10 AM
Luke G:
'Progressive' is really a loaded term though. It is like calling oneself a 'Goodist' and opposing 'Badism'. We will assume that 'Progressive' means 'Left' for convenience sake.
In terms of the American population desiring a police state, now that Liberalism is dead it is only inevitable... the argument between 'Progressives' and 'Conservatives' is really aesthetics. People on the Left, for example, think the government should take over the media and press to "stop the right-wing corporate lies", the Right think that the the government should take over the media and press because "the media are left-wing traitors to our country", but Left or Right both sides agree on the need for absolute government control and censorship of the press and media.
Or, for example, the Right supports sacrificing our civil liberties to fight drugs or 'terrorists', the Left supports sacrificing our civil liberties to fight guns or 'hate'. But both advocate police-state tactics, the only disagreement is what should be the priorities of the police-state.
I don't know if Americans will support left-wing totalitarianism, or right-wing totalitarianism, but ideologically the U.S. is definitely headed towards totalitarianism. For all practical purposes, it doesn't matter which side wins. The likely result of either side winning is economic misery and millions more people behind bars. The Left probably will dominate, but the differences will be entirely superficial, so does it really matter?
Posted by: Rex Rhino at Jan 3, 2009 11:56:05 AM
When was the last time the "right" had any real power over domestic policy at all?
Posted by: josh at Jan 3, 2009 12:48:20 PM
"People on the Left, for example, think the government should take over the media and press to "stop the right-wing corporate lies", the Right think that the the government should take over the media and press because "the media are left-wing traitors to our country", but Left or Right both sides agree on the need for absolute government control and censorship of the press and media."
Conclusion: Rex Rhino understands very little about liberals and probably just as little about conservatives. There is a profound difference between not liking the message and seeking to have it expunged.
Posted by: meter at Jan 3, 2009 1:17:23 PM
Maybe it's because I'm only 21, but I think y'all apply the word "young" rather liberally
Posted by: Robert Olson at Jan 3, 2009 1:51:04 PM
"Conclusion: Rex Rhino understands very little about liberals and probably just as little about conservatives. There is a profound difference between not liking the message and seeking to have it expunged."
Meter,
May I kindly ask your opinion of the continued effort by many on the left to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine?
Posted by: nick at Jan 3, 2009 4:18:14 PM
I'll join whichever ideology offers me a job when I get outta grad school (currently 20 y/o sophomore).
Isn't it all cyclical? What about the hoards of people we heard were young conservatives trained to make their way through federal institutions over the last 20 years. So rather than a generation of Baby Boomers dominating the bureaucracy, we have less idealistic Gen-exers.
Big deal. As long as they constantly cancel each other out over the long run, I'm fine with that.
Posted by: Economic Geography at Jan 3, 2009 6:22:40 PM
Re 2: Stanford & Cal don't know how to recruit or the Economist correspondent too lazy to travel away from the East Coast?
Posted by: ogmb at Jan 3, 2009 7:39:02 PM
Most of the 'exciting' progressives on that list 'bring out racial and gender issues.'
That's just so done. I hope they go that route.
Posted by: Andrew at Jan 3, 2009 9:19:52 PM
I wonder is it possible to be a decentralist leftist?
My heart breaks whenever I listen to one of these thinkers, and realize that underneath it all, they want power/decisionmaking centralized.
And this is from someone who shares a desire for "progressive"* ends
*excellent point about "goodism," Rhino
Posted by: Delirious at Jan 4, 2009 12:48:57 AM
josh,
Who was in charge of the three branches of the US government between 2001 and 2007?
Commies?
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Jan 4, 2009 1:16:22 AM
One night when the satellite remote at my gym died, I was forced to decide between truncating my 30 minute run and watching Rachel Mad Cow. If she's an "intellectual", then the definition of the word has changed. Since she's at the top of the list, I'll assume she's supposed to be among the best of the group-and I do remember Samantha Power's assumed prodigious intellect didn't stop her from inserting her foot in her mouth far enough to have BHO determine she was more trouble than she was worth and tossing her off the hope and change bus while it was speeding along.
John Kenneth Galbraith was a giant know-it-all who turned a penchant for neologisms and a dearth of actual empirical work into providing intellectual cover for the decidedly anti-intellectual basis of "progressive" politics (lets be honest, the primary reason to embrace redistributionalism is purely emotional)
but he did have HIS OWN ideas, no matter how silly it was to present them as irrefutable and immutable truths. (my personal favorite was his his description of lengthening design cycles of new cars in The New Industrial State-which was promptly blown away by the development of CAD/CAM and other uses of computers in new model development) There's nothing novel about Maddow, she's just another leftist robot spewing out the predictable tedium of the self-important left-even her in-your-face sexuality is hardly novel anymore-with every TV series seemingly being required to incorporate an openly homosexual character.
The fact that the young are expressing their individuality by marching en masse to the tune of a guy whose primary political skill is being a blank slate (his concept, not mine) upon which supporters can draw their ideals isn't terribly surprising. Youth rebellion is always a herd movement and with kids who've grown up getting copious praise for everything because "self esteem" was supposed to be the only objective of growing up in the last 20 years, wouldn't they naturally be attacted to a candidate who would be whatever they wanted?
I routinely run into a great many "millenials" and whatever the generation before them is called due to the presence of a Big 4 consulting team retained by my employer. The common perception is somewhat right-there is a portion that's slightly narcisstic, morally agnostic, self-righteous and all that.
But dwelling under the surface, I often sense a growing resentment of the neat little packages the world has been presented to them. They seemed to have a sense of liberation when I listened to them discuss the "Black Swan" and its critique of modern financial mathematics taught as dogma in many colleges.
Personally, a lot of them know that there's something disordered about working long hours and living on Ramen Noodles to service loans taken to pay institutions where there is much leisure and little fiscal discipline. Unfortunately, its inchoate resentment, not even a suspicion that indentured servitude has found a new lease on life. There's a jaded underside to these kids just waiting to explode when they hit maturity at 30 or 35.
Its going to be tough on "progressives" when the pragmatic Obama decides they have no where to go, so he throws a bone to the rest of the country or when he is revealed to be a human being, not a superman or messiah.
Posted by: Superheater at Jan 4, 2009 1:17:55 AM
Conclusion: Rex Rhino understands very little about liberals and probably just as little about conservatives. There is a profound difference between not liking the message and seeking to have it expunged.
Liberalism is dead... I understand that Liberals only exist as a fringe group. However, 'Progressives' or 'Leftists' or whatever you want to call them seek the government to actively censor political speech, and to strictly regulate the media if not outright control it.
Leftists want to ban anything not politically correct, Rightists want to ban anything not patriotic. But both stand firm in their belief in strict censorship.
Posted by: Rex Rhino at Jan 4, 2009 2:11:26 AM
Well, being a Brit I must admit I'm unfamiliar with nearly all of those top 10 left thinkers. However, what strikes me is the paucity of justification for the label "Intellectual".
One looks in vain through the CVs to find evidence of research work, peer publication; indeed even a book. Mentoring or teaching, with a serious impact on academic thought or public debate, seems to be wholly absent. For nearly all of them there is nothing presented in the way of an ordered corpus of intellectual work. The main requirement for admission seems to be activity in media or the nebulous "community organising".
I feel Superheater was right to invoke odious comparison with JKG. There's no-one in this crowd to compare with him, or Rawls, or Rorty, or even (God help us) Chomsky, Derrida, and Pinter. They are intellectual minnows.
And as to the content of their thought...well. I listened through Van Jones' Green Jobs agenda to hear one broken window fallacy after another. This stuff would get you laughed out of Economics 201. The rest seemed to be praised for "mainstreaming" a mash of race and gender theory. At this point I freely admit I'm so badly disposed to these "theories" on grounds of incoherence, ad hominem, and bad faith that I decline to consider these people seriously. Surely the left can do better than this?
Incidentally, it was a nice point Rhino made about "goodism/ progressive". Such labelling is just "poisoning the well" and not the sign of a mature debate....
Posted by: Alistair Morley at Jan 4, 2009 7:56:54 AM
"Who was in charge of the three branches of the US government between 2001 and 2007?
Commies?"
Just about.
Posted by: The Dirty Mac at Jan 4, 2009 7:58:40 AM
I would say that Alistair is correct. The problem is that in my era conservatives have transitioned from Friedman/Buckley to what is largely anti-intellectualism. I suspect that talk radio moved some people toward conservatism for a while, but then became more a form of entertainment that effectively de-intellectualized the conservative movement.
Posted by: The Dirty Mac at Jan 4, 2009 8:11:39 AM
I would say that Alistair is correct. The problem is that in my era conservatives have transitioned from Friedman/Buckley to what is largely anti-intellectualism. I suspect that talk radio moved some people toward conservatism for a while, but then became more a form of entertainment that effectively de-intellectualized the conservative movement.
Posted by: The Dirty Mac at Jan 4, 2009 8:12:50 AM
Barkley,
Unelected bureaucrats.
Posted by: josh at Jan 4, 2009 11:58:13 AM
Dirty Mac:
If you want to see something anti-intellectual, watch MSNBC, CNN or any of the Sunday talk shows-you'll see that while talk radio definitely incorporates entertainment-its a lot more intellectually stimulating than whats on the boob tube.
Posted by: Phil at Jan 4, 2009 5:38:16 PM
Josh:
Me thinks you nailed it with "unelected bureacrats".
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Posted by: Superheater at Jan 4, 2009 8:08:04 PM
If these are intellectuals, I'm Albert Einstein...
Posted by: jorod at Jan 4, 2009 10:11:34 PM
Alistair: One looks in vain through the CVs to find evidence of research work
In the same vein, Editor of Harvard Law Review is no sign of intellectual firepower, its just a political election. Writing a student note provides evidence of work and intellect (or the absence).
Posted by: guy in the veal calf office at Jan 5, 2009 12:52:42 PM
