Worth your time. Noah Eckstein, Harvard 2026:
The older concepts of civic virtue emphasized self-mastery, conquering your impulses to serve a higher cause. Today’s politics treats self-mastery as suspect, a form of fakery or selling out, while asinine self-exposure is proof of depth and authenticity. The older republican tradition asked whether a man could govern himself before entrusting him with power. The new authenticity politics asks whether he seems sufficiently ungoverned to be trusted. [See, e.g., Graham Platner]
“Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law” is the line from “America the Beautiful.” That idea is a joke…, increasingly, in Washington.
N.B. The next line, “Thy Liberty in Law,” is also a (cruel) joke in Washington these days.
A very David-French-y column (that’s a positive adjective in my personal dictionary):
In fact, as the show [Hacks] illustrates, concentrating on differences and even mutual interests is a bit beside the point. The question isn’t “How much are we alike?” Rather, it’s “Can I appreciate and even love the person you are?”
Matthew Crawford, via Damon Linker
Capital is concentrated to the point that it operates in quasi-governmental ways, abetted by ever more powerful information technology. Arguably, one of the most important functions of the (actual, elected) government, now, is precisely to restrain and regulate the explosion of unaccountable governmentality in our dealings with outsized commercial enterprises.
Ah! If only…
Finished reading: Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford 📚
Praise him in all the postcodes, thinks Ben.
’______________________________________________________________________Praise him on the commuter trains: praise him upon the drum and bass. Praise him at the Ritz: praise him in the piss-stained doorways. Praise him in nail bars: praise him with beard oil. Praise him in toddler groups: praise him at food banks. Praise him in the parks and playgrounds: praise him down in the Tube station at midnight. Praise him with doner kebabs: praise him with Michelin stars. Praise him on pirate radio: praise him on LBC and Capital: praise him at Broadcasting House. Praise him at Poundland: praise him at Harvey Nichols. Praise him among the trafficked and exploited: praise him in hipster coffee houses. Praise him in the industrial estates: praise him in leather bars. Praise him on the dancefloors: praise him on the sickbeds. Praise him in the high court of Parliament: praise him in the prisons and crack houses. Praise him at Pride: praise him at Carnival: praise him at Millwall and West Ham, Arsenal and Chelsea and Spurs. Praise him at Eid: praise him at High Mass: praise him on Shabbat: praise him in the gospel choirs. Praise him, all who hope: praise him, all who fear: praise him, all who dream: praise him, all who remember. Praise him in trouble. Praise him in joy. Let everything that has breath, give praise.
Wonderful. Highly recommend.
