Dec 17, 2021·edited Dec 17, 2021Liked by Richard Hanania
I think people would be much more amenable to your critiques on US foreign policy if you also found ways to be critical of China and Russia. I'm not saying you should do so necessarily, because it's good to have strident, focused critiques of US foreign policy and the harm it has caused that isn't coming from the tankie left. But, it's an option if you're concerned with gaining more traction with your ideas about foreign policy, which you seem to be. Whatabout and Yeahbut are very strong reactions for most people to easily silo. On the other hand, any critique, even one qualified alongside critiques of US foreign policy, can and will be absorbed and weaponized to support US hegemony and warmongering. Or perhaps Russia/China really are generally unaggressive good faith actors who deserve to control territories around them because its their right as powerful nations and because they really really want those places.
But everyone knows China/Russia are massively powerful states with all the attendant baggage and mistakes and foibles, so it will strike most people as odd that you don't countenance any of that (yes, even if you are right that it pales in comparison to what the US has done over recent decades, but we're talking rhetorical strategies here). Maybe you think US foreign policy is so disastrous and so harmful that it needs to be uniquely targeted at the expense of just treating other powerful adversarial nations as abstractions, which, you know, fine, but then you just can't be disappointed in a broadly negative response to that. Relatedly, I personally can't tell what your more normative prescriptions for the global state of affairs ought to be--like much of the left when they talk about capitalism, it's reasonable criticism, but just that. Placing your critiques in a broader, coherent vision would likely lessen criticisms. I don't think most people get any sense of that vision from your tweets.
You do seem (pathologically?) drawn to the snark contrarian take, which is perfect for Twitter and which you've noted will rightly garner some admiration among those who are always worrying they care too much about what others think. It is a unique and useful psychology and it's good we have people like you because you do it smartly and you generally target what I think are the right things. I mean, you realize already these are good qualities to have in our current battlefield of ideas.
Ditch Mao: The Untold Story (or anything from those authors), no one takes that seriously. You're right that it's really hard to discern good information/reading on China (99% just don't know a damn thing and anybody who doesn't admit how little they know can be generally discounted). Even people who have spent years and years in the country will still analyze it poorly or find it impossible to overcome their ideological beliefs about democracy, human rights, liberalism, capitalism, development, etc. People in the China studies field, like all fields, are protective of their "expertise" and are critical of others who just read a dozen or so books (and can't read Chinese or haven't lived there) and then pontificate (because even doing that little will make you feel like you're in the 1%), so your China takes will likely continue to face criticism. Of course, most people in the China field are also generally critical of the CCP for a number of historical and ideological reasons and they won't be able to look past Xinjiang/HK/Taiwan as easily as you can considering how many come from or have family/contacts/friends in those spaces (well, the later two).
You're right though that there's a lot to learn from China and the typical media channels cover it ignorantly and ideologically (though I think you'll be pleasantly surprised once you find the right seams to dig deeper into on the academic side). I personally will look forward to your forays and attempt to wrestle with what China's rise means, or ought to mean, for the rest of the world--especially us in the decadent and decaying west. It cannot remain beholden to the experts. Generalists with an audience like yourself have to start trying to make sense of things and affecting opinion. You might enjoy the "reading the china dream" website if you're looking for a way to drink from the faucet more directly, though of course there is curation in terms of what is chosen for translation.
Your Twitter personality is fine, for Twitter. Your psyche and ego can only survive if you treat it like a warzone.
This comes across bizarrely parasocial, but your piece was reflective about yourself to the extent it sounded like you wanted feedback.
Thanks for your comment. I hadn't heard of the "Reading the Chinese Dream" website. I think you're right that I haven't done enough to provide a positive vision of foreign affairs, I of course start with the assumption that as an American, I can have most influence of American foreign policy, and see people much more interested in the harms of the actions of other countries while brushing aside regime change wars and sanctions, with their massive humanitarian costs, as at worst just honest mistakes. But explaining what a more rational American foreign policy looks like is something I've yet to do, and it makes sense to take that on as a project next year.
His view as far as i can tell is that China and Russia are morally superior to the US, and therefore their geopolitical power, including domination of neighboring countries, should be celebrated. Furthermore, powerful states have the right to dominate neighboring countries, and resisting that is evil. The exception to that rule is the US, which is evil for trying to change the regimes of Cuba and Venezuela. If that is mischaracterizing his views he is of course free to correct me.
I'm a huge fan of Richard, but he certainly has a big blindspot with his bias against the US foreign policy and also against Israel. A bunch of his tweets about the US foreign policy and about Israel were inaccurate. I am very anti-neocon but I find a lot of the foreign policy takes sophomoric.
One example is that he said to be a Middle Eastern Christian is to worry the US will overthrow your government and leave you at the mercy of Islamists. That's ridiculous. Syria, sure, Iraq, OK but less direct, but most ME Christians are in Egypt, the US supports them against Islamists, same for other countries like Israel and Jordan. Richard, your family in Jordan are Middle Eastern Christians, you think they are worried the US will overthrow the King and put in Islamists? If you have Palestinian family in the territories, are they worried the US will overthrow the PA and install an Islamist Hamas/PIJ government? If you have Palestinian family in Israel, are they worried the US will destroy Israel and install an Islamist Hamas/PIJ government? I mean, what a blatantly ridiculous thing to tweet.
Also in what way is the US threatening Lebanese Christians? Richard brought up the talking about the FPM going into a (reluctant) electoral alliance with Hezbollah in 2006, but many of the Christians there are anti-Hezbollah. The FPM. Another example is that Richard just has bad tweets on Israel, he has a clear bias against the country. There are many examples. He accused an Israeli driver of intentionally running over a Palestinian (it was an accident and the guy walked off), he mischaracterized David French's anti-BDS stuff which was an application of existing civil rights law, he rightly opposes sanctions campaigns but seems to be obsessed with some (admittedly very stupid) attempts to crush one of them. Richard seems to think it's fine for China to run internment camps in Xinjiang, and thinks it's ridiculous every time someone criticizes it. Would he have a problem with Israel running internment camps in the West Bank?
Another example of a bad Hanania foreign policy take is the whole "Enes Kanter US coup" thing. NO the US did not instigate the 2016 attempted coup in Turkey. It wasn't Gulenists either. He's a Gulenist. It was a Kemalist attempted coup. There was a half-retraction. Look I'm also anti-neocon but Richard you really need to stop the absolutely braindead Chomskyite takes on foreign policy. I totally agree with the anti-neocon stance and that US foreign policy is fucked up and captured by defense contractors, but you have a ridiculous bias against the US. And a ridiculous bias against Israel. And a big bias toward China. And a big bias toward the Taliban.
Dec 18, 2021·edited Dec 18, 2021Liked by Richard Hanania
Re monetizing for supporters: This is something I think about a lot! As a creator, you have this fundamental tension between making your digital work as widely available as possible (after all, the marginal cost of distribution is zero), vs recouping your up-front costs (the time and labor going in to writing each post). It's shaped a bit like the problem of funding public goods, and I'm pretty excited by innovation in the crypto world eg https://medium.com/ethereum-optimism/retroactive-public-goods-funding-33c9b7d00f0c
Anyways I've seen a few different supporter incentives that work well for writers:
- Monthly open Q&As with supporters
- Exclusive Discord/Slack community
- Early access to posts (more common among serial web fiction e.g. chapters that come out 3x a week)
These also can do double duty by granting you faster feedback, or advance proofreading/typo checks.
And if you're interested in experimenting with new kinds of incentives: how about play money for prediction markets? At https://mantic.markets, we allow creators to set up and resolve their own prediction markets. One idea we had for tying the currency to something valuable was to partner with authors, granting their supporters e.g. $100 of currency for each $10 donated through Substack. They can then bet on questions like "Will Richard write more than 10 book reviews in 2022? If you're interested at all, let me know!
Dec 20, 2021·edited Dec 20, 2021Liked by Richard Hanania
Hi Richard very interesting. Not that you take requests like radio stations back in the day but a few topics I'd be fascinated to hear you write more about: (1) More predictions of the type you outlined in your Spring 2021 article. I really like the idea of clearly articulating predictions as an accountability mechanism. (2) Your critique of the 'Middle East wars bad but conflict with China good' crowd, specifically the thinking of people like Peter Thiel. (3) Perhaps some advice for people who have heterodox views and don't think academia is a hospitable environment but don't relish the idea of a career in law or business.
Thanks, for (1) I meant to do an update in the fall, just another thing I didn't have time for. I'll aim for a followup to that in January.
I may do (2), it's worth thinking about, you can sometimes reach people by speaking to a specific crowd but I generally like to speak to a wider audience.
As for (3), there's been some advice I've given in CSPI posts explaining what we've been doing, and I endorse what Jonah Davids wrote on the same topic. See here:
I'll say that I've found there to be a huge audience out there for independent work, and with substack, social media, etc. there have never been more opportunities. My experience is that the space of public intellectuals is a lot more meritocratic than other things (especially academia), it's not like there are a ton of people doing mind blowing work on any topic, and those who are very good should be able to support themselves. Get your work out there and if it's good it will be noticed.
Thanks a lot for the reply. On the (1) particularly interested in if you still feel as confident about Biden and Trump's chances of running. So many ''smart" people (pundits lol) claim it's way too early to say whether either one , let alone both, will run again but I still feel pretty sure both will run and win their respective party's nominations. 2024 rematch seems far more likely than most people think.
On (3), thanks a lot. I'll be sure to go over all of this.
Richard, I say this as someone who greatly enjoyed your insights a year or two ago. You are succumbing to polarization. More and more, with each new post you write and each wave of applause you received from "based" readers, you are indulging in hatred and demonization of your political enemies. You express it in a calm and measured way, but it's clear to see all the same.
You've stopped thinking solely in terms of what is correct and joined a team. Who cares what's really right (about vaccines, for example), as long as the other side is worse? That's where you're at now.
If you don't step back from this abyss, in another year or two you will be the next Bret Weinstein. Please let yourself hear your opponents and see them as people, try harder to understand their worldview. Let Scott Alexander be your guide, not the Weinsteins. You can still turn away from this path you are on.
Thanks for the concern. I don't see much likelihood of that, the Weinstein path would be hating the other side so much you convince yourself vaccines must be bad.
My position is yes, vaccines are great, yes, they should be encouraged, but people have to be political realists and understand that either the hysterics or the covid skeptics are going to win, so it's worth thinking about which side is worse. I don't think making a comparison like that is harmful, in fact I think smart people should be engaged with the world and take into account human nature, public opinion, and politics in their analysis.
Once I start believing stupid things because that's the position associated with one tribe, then we're on the road to hell.
I appreciate the thoughtful, good faith reply, and thanks for not reacting too strongly to my hyperbolic tone.
There's a grain of truth to what you say, but also a false dichotomy. In the USA, neither side is going to "win" entirely. The hysterical side will win in some polities, the anti-vaxx side will win in others, and then the Glenn Youngkins will win in some places, the Jared Polises in others. This makes it a little less realistic to think in black and white terms about which side you want to "win."
And the anti-vaxxers are beginning to move against other vaccine requirements. If we end up with lots more measles, mumps and rubella circulating, that complicates the consequences of a red victory on this one. A blue victory, on the other hand, could easily end up like the air travel security hysteria from the 2000s has turned out: inconvenient, but livable. Things are just not as clear-cut as you're suggesting. You were right before: both sides are bad.
Re: leaders that like vaccines and hate everything else, Mexico’s AMLO is a good candidate. You did say developed country though, so maybe you already knew that.
I love your substack and sometimes hate(d; I deleted my acc) your twitter. You tweet too much and very often its very obvious culture war stuff that gets repetitive and attracts very stupid boomer cons. You should aim for subtler attacks and do it less often so people dont feel like they are following a Fox News host.
Re university students just always being retarded, I tend to agree. People forget how intertwined nationalism and student groups were in late XIXth and early XXth century Europe. In “The Iron Ring”, which is an excellent book about WW1, it’s made clear that one of the groups very enthusiastically occupying the streets to ask for war was student organizations.
Thanks. Boomer cons go in silly directions with their obsessions, but are right to understand something is deeply wrong! Substack is where I try to make it more constructive, Twitter is more of a place to keep up with the news of the day and highlight the most egregious manifestations of the craziness.
I don’t think the mental illness feature of the left obviously has the causal structure you seem to assume, which is mentally ill groups make mentally ill decisions.
Rather, it seems to me to better show how the language and philosophy of psychological therapy has become so central in left wing institutions, in the same way Judeochristianity can be seen as the soil of aspects of the Enlightenment.
Also it does strike me (at a glance—perhaps the full read refutes this) that the Goldberg evidence might be backwards in its measurement. I think Dave Chapelle has some joke about how black people use drugs, because they can’t afford therapy. And my understanding is that other ethnic groups tend to stigmatize mental illness; conservatives probably do so more as well. So there’s at least an argument that Goldberg’s data doesn’t actually show that liberals have greater mental illness, only that they’re more likely to seek diagnosis. There are also other readings here (e.g., knowing a person with or suffering from an uncontrollable mental illness is something that inherently divorces you from the conservative idea of personal responsibility). I just would hesitate (if I were you) to jump to the reading that your opponents are defective in some way, both on a concern of your likely biases and its ability to potentially lead you towards dehumanizing your opponents (as under a conservative philosophy you might take a mentally ill person’s less-than-full agency as a black mark).
Lastly, haven’t people always been insanely overprotective of children? Think of “won’t someone please think of the children?” from the Simpsons. I know moms who worry about their kids at school still with COVID, so perhaps this is partly the embodiment of that tendency (since parents are often the “true” consumer of schooling, in the same way pet owners are the true consumers of pet grooming).
Not to say I disagree with you about activists often using politics as a means of working through their own issues, and something about left wing institutions causes them to pay these activists excessive regard. Although, on the point activists are often mentally ill, query if this is also the nature of all conversion—churches often draw the most down on their luck individuals; perhaps a similar event happens here.
One, contra Richard I'm not entirely sure it's just that universities collect mentally ill people because wokeness itself can be and likely is causative. Not in the sense of ideological commitments, but because it inculcates in people habits of mind that resemble those of the mentally ill, and which are a polar opposite of the habits things like cognitive behavioral therapy and stoicism try to inculcate in people as a medicine against said insanity.
I more broadly do not like the language that describes things like safetyism as "therapeutic", as is common: Safetyism and "therapeutic" mindsets are not therapeutic, they are the exact opposite of it.
They do try to give people comfort, but therapy gives people comfort by reattaching them to reality, by teaching them to accept the world's imperfections (not that things aren't improvable, but that the world is and always will be imperfect), and building the patient's/reader's own ability to function. The "therapeutic" things in the sense I dislike are actively the opposite, they are more like pacifiers you give to crying babies. Soothing, not curative or strengthening, as medicine should be.
So it's not just the language, it's the thinking habits that are the problem. They don't moor mentally ill people encountering them better into reality, they reinforce the bad thinking patterns and tell them it's okay, they don't have to try to get better, at least not that way. Take the suckle-toy and relax, there are no evil wrongthinkers here...
(You can also see this kind of soothing infantilization at work in things like things that congratulate millenials for "having adulted" as if basic responsibilities were some act of heroism)
Incidentally, "knowing a person with or suffering from an uncontrollable mental illness is something that inherently divorces you from the conservative idea of personal responsibility" is the kind of thing real therapy fights against. How one person I know put it is that you may not be responsible for someone having broken into your house and taking a dump on the floor, but it definitely is your responsibility to clean it up, even if it's not at all your fault.
" And my understanding is that other ethnic groups tend to stigmatize mental illness; conservatives probably do so more as well. So there’s at least an argument that Goldberg’s data doesn’t actually show that liberals have greater mental illness, only that they’re more likely to seek diagnosis. "
This is a plausible, and common objection, but it doesn't hold up. The general left-right pattern is replicated in f.ex. Slate Star Codex's 2020 reader survey. This is important because SSC's readership spanned the gamut in political orientation, but importantly also (at least used to be) much above average in intelligence and education, and the people were reading a blog by a psychiatrist. These should counter the general sense that right-wing people might just be less likely to know about medical diagnoses or seek help. Furthermore, in the SSC survey when people gave their political orientations by ideology, not left-right orientation, self-identified alt righters had slightly higher rates of mental problems than more run off the mill conservative types.
These polls are also not the only converging line of evidence: Leftists have for decades been known to have a more external locus of control than rightists (ie. they're more prone to believe that the environment is acting on them and that they themselves have relatively little agency in their own lives), which lines up with these newer polls.
There are also polls asking people how happy they feel, and as far as I know rightists systematically reply that they feel happy at higher rates than leftists do.
I think, after reading what you're saying, that therapy is at least multifaceted--you're right that CBT and stoicism do fall into a "learn to live without overreaction" approach. But surely the "self care", ego-boosting, self-acceptance aspects of therapy (and which seem deeply tied into leftist culture) are also real. Still, interesting to note that it's only these more sensitive, soothing aspects of therapy that have been taken into leftist institutions. Not sure why.
I do think that mental illness does create some crisis of personal responsibility, in that it separates a person from the mental illness; in so doing, the person learns that they were not the cause of all their wrongdoing, but the mental illness was a primary cause. Of course, once they have taken this lesson to heart, they then become responsible for managing this illness. Still, this is the kind of thing that fractures a person's self-identification, and is at odds with the conservative view which seems to require people be singular, self-moving agents with free will.
Good points on wokeism having a causal aspect, and on the evidence here of leftist neuroticism. I'll think on this evidence, but one thing I've been wondering is why leftism causes the kind of overreaction it does (e.g., with COVID) compared with rightist overreactions (e.g., the war on terror), considering that leftism apparently has a near-monopoly on neuroticism.
"The view held by Jonathan Haidt and others that much of politics can be understood by the fact that conservatives are more afraid of germs has probably fared worse than any other idea in the social sciences over the last two years."
"Now I see mental illness as the horse leading the cart of ideology."
I don't think excess COVID restrictions had anything to do with mental illness; they were pure anti-Trumpism. Any place that honored George Floyd could get an excuse re: COVID restrictions, there was no principled stance behind them at all.
If you want to reduce the influence of universities, look at promotion and relegation in sports. I think a lot of college sports' unusual popularity in America is caused by the major pro sports leagues' central planning keeping the number of high-profile professional teams well below market demand. By comparison by allowing thousands of teams to compete toward getting to the country's top league, promotion and relegation meets market demand for professional teams. If America had promotion and relegation in sports, we'd have professional teams from Little Rock, Des Moines, Louisville, & wherever else there is market demand playing to large audiences instead of "amateur" teams. I know there are minor leagues in America, but it isn't the same if a team isn't allowed to earn their way to the top league versus D1 college teams playing meaningful games against national championship contenders.
I am curious to know how you reconcile your "Sino-optimism" with the belief that masks/lockdowns have little to no significant effect? Clearly, you previously praised China for dealing with COVID better than the US. If you believe that only vaccines are effective, and both countries came about the vaccine at similar moments in time, doesn't that show a more forceful government intervention can lead to better COVID outcomes?
New reader - where’s the line between “healthy skepticism of China” and “anti China” for you? Is it anti China to find what happened in Hong Kong frightening? Do you feel a conquest of Taiwan would be either no big deal or none of our business? Ditto the above vis-à-vis xinjiang?
RE: "The woke are the most aggressive and least civil and tolerant political faction in the country"
Why? Consider, as just one example, war-on-drug-ers. They want to *imprison* all the people doing the thing they disagree with. How are the woke less tolerant than them?
I wonder whether the higher self-reported incidence of mental illness is reflective of actual higher prevalence among liberal academic wokesters, or is simply driven by other factors (wealth, education, greater acceptance of mental health problems amongst college educated urbanites, etc).
My own view on the woke movement as it has extended beyond the margins of academia (where it has lurked since at least the late 60s) is that it fills a void for its adherents that would otherwise be occupied by religion. I now see this view beginning to gain traction elsewhere (McWhorter's book, etc,), although it's unclear to me why it took so long for many to recognize this (fear? a desire to accommodate these movements?).
This new religion shows the influence of Catholicism (the original sin of white privilege and confession thereof), Calvinism (the lack of redemption), fundamentalism (woke as a synonym for being born again and heresy in their demand for absolute adherence to the doctrine), and Judaism (inculcating an identity based on oppression). I have also noted its presence in the world of online dating: Hinge profiles do not simultaneously demand the dismantling of the patriarchy and profess their love of Christianity - the woke god is a jealous deity who will not tolerate rivals. I also saw parallels between the BLM gatherings of summer 2020 and the desire of conservatives (condemned by the left) to gather for religious services at the height of the pandemic.
None of the above entirely discredits the mental-illness theory, but it does call it into question, since there are a large number of individuals on the right who also embrace religion, just in a more traditional form.
Could you clarify your position on masks? I'm confused as to whether you, and Philipe's linked to piece think mask mandates don't work (because, in practice, people don't wear masks, or they wear crappy loose fitting ones) or the masks themselves don't work (because even a perfectly fitted surgical mask doesn't capture all viral particulate and the little that does escape keeps the spread going)
“I don’t like New Year’s Resolutions, because if you’re going to make a categorical rule to do something, you should do it now.”
This is a smart-sounding throwaway remark I often hear from rationalist bloggers, but I think there is value in a yearly tradition of self-improvement that everyone takes part in. It’s easier to make positive changes when others are also trying to do better, and the fact that so many people struggle to fulfill their resolutions only strengthens the opportunity to connect with each other over the reality that we’re all human and fall short of our aspirations. It’s also worth pondering that we don’t know the counterfactual of this tradition, and perhaps individuals would fail to improve even more often without it.
Personally, I struggle to recognize and implement all the goals I have for improving myself in real-time and it is helpful to have a tradition that invites me to pause and reflect on such things.
If one wants to make a living at this, truth-seeker is a very dangerous role to play. It can work for a while as such truths are novel, but it can be very heard to keep an audience when they realize that your are completely untrustworthy as your only loyalty is to the truth (as you see it), not to them.
Even worse, a person who holds a position but points out weaknesses of that position can very easily be weaponized by the opponents of that position. "Prominent x says x are wrong" is a very popular headline, carefully omitting the "about y" in the original articles. "You care more about being right than about helping fix our problems" is a common accusation.
On the plus side, your approach means a lot of very interesting articles, but then I'm a liberal.
I think people would be much more amenable to your critiques on US foreign policy if you also found ways to be critical of China and Russia. I'm not saying you should do so necessarily, because it's good to have strident, focused critiques of US foreign policy and the harm it has caused that isn't coming from the tankie left. But, it's an option if you're concerned with gaining more traction with your ideas about foreign policy, which you seem to be. Whatabout and Yeahbut are very strong reactions for most people to easily silo. On the other hand, any critique, even one qualified alongside critiques of US foreign policy, can and will be absorbed and weaponized to support US hegemony and warmongering. Or perhaps Russia/China really are generally unaggressive good faith actors who deserve to control territories around them because its their right as powerful nations and because they really really want those places.
But everyone knows China/Russia are massively powerful states with all the attendant baggage and mistakes and foibles, so it will strike most people as odd that you don't countenance any of that (yes, even if you are right that it pales in comparison to what the US has done over recent decades, but we're talking rhetorical strategies here). Maybe you think US foreign policy is so disastrous and so harmful that it needs to be uniquely targeted at the expense of just treating other powerful adversarial nations as abstractions, which, you know, fine, but then you just can't be disappointed in a broadly negative response to that. Relatedly, I personally can't tell what your more normative prescriptions for the global state of affairs ought to be--like much of the left when they talk about capitalism, it's reasonable criticism, but just that. Placing your critiques in a broader, coherent vision would likely lessen criticisms. I don't think most people get any sense of that vision from your tweets.
You do seem (pathologically?) drawn to the snark contrarian take, which is perfect for Twitter and which you've noted will rightly garner some admiration among those who are always worrying they care too much about what others think. It is a unique and useful psychology and it's good we have people like you because you do it smartly and you generally target what I think are the right things. I mean, you realize already these are good qualities to have in our current battlefield of ideas.
Ditch Mao: The Untold Story (or anything from those authors), no one takes that seriously. You're right that it's really hard to discern good information/reading on China (99% just don't know a damn thing and anybody who doesn't admit how little they know can be generally discounted). Even people who have spent years and years in the country will still analyze it poorly or find it impossible to overcome their ideological beliefs about democracy, human rights, liberalism, capitalism, development, etc. People in the China studies field, like all fields, are protective of their "expertise" and are critical of others who just read a dozen or so books (and can't read Chinese or haven't lived there) and then pontificate (because even doing that little will make you feel like you're in the 1%), so your China takes will likely continue to face criticism. Of course, most people in the China field are also generally critical of the CCP for a number of historical and ideological reasons and they won't be able to look past Xinjiang/HK/Taiwan as easily as you can considering how many come from or have family/contacts/friends in those spaces (well, the later two).
You're right though that there's a lot to learn from China and the typical media channels cover it ignorantly and ideologically (though I think you'll be pleasantly surprised once you find the right seams to dig deeper into on the academic side). I personally will look forward to your forays and attempt to wrestle with what China's rise means, or ought to mean, for the rest of the world--especially us in the decadent and decaying west. It cannot remain beholden to the experts. Generalists with an audience like yourself have to start trying to make sense of things and affecting opinion. You might enjoy the "reading the china dream" website if you're looking for a way to drink from the faucet more directly, though of course there is curation in terms of what is chosen for translation.
Your Twitter personality is fine, for Twitter. Your psyche and ego can only survive if you treat it like a warzone.
This comes across bizarrely parasocial, but your piece was reflective about yourself to the extent it sounded like you wanted feedback.
Thanks for your comment. I hadn't heard of the "Reading the Chinese Dream" website. I think you're right that I haven't done enough to provide a positive vision of foreign affairs, I of course start with the assumption that as an American, I can have most influence of American foreign policy, and see people much more interested in the harms of the actions of other countries while brushing aside regime change wars and sanctions, with their massive humanitarian costs, as at worst just honest mistakes. But explaining what a more rational American foreign policy looks like is something I've yet to do, and it makes sense to take that on as a project next year.
His view as far as i can tell is that China and Russia are morally superior to the US, and therefore their geopolitical power, including domination of neighboring countries, should be celebrated. Furthermore, powerful states have the right to dominate neighboring countries, and resisting that is evil. The exception to that rule is the US, which is evil for trying to change the regimes of Cuba and Venezuela. If that is mischaracterizing his views he is of course free to correct me.
I'm a huge fan of Richard, but he certainly has a big blindspot with his bias against the US foreign policy and also against Israel. A bunch of his tweets about the US foreign policy and about Israel were inaccurate. I am very anti-neocon but I find a lot of the foreign policy takes sophomoric.
One example is that he said to be a Middle Eastern Christian is to worry the US will overthrow your government and leave you at the mercy of Islamists. That's ridiculous. Syria, sure, Iraq, OK but less direct, but most ME Christians are in Egypt, the US supports them against Islamists, same for other countries like Israel and Jordan. Richard, your family in Jordan are Middle Eastern Christians, you think they are worried the US will overthrow the King and put in Islamists? If you have Palestinian family in the territories, are they worried the US will overthrow the PA and install an Islamist Hamas/PIJ government? If you have Palestinian family in Israel, are they worried the US will destroy Israel and install an Islamist Hamas/PIJ government? I mean, what a blatantly ridiculous thing to tweet.
Also in what way is the US threatening Lebanese Christians? Richard brought up the talking about the FPM going into a (reluctant) electoral alliance with Hezbollah in 2006, but many of the Christians there are anti-Hezbollah. The FPM. Another example is that Richard just has bad tweets on Israel, he has a clear bias against the country. There are many examples. He accused an Israeli driver of intentionally running over a Palestinian (it was an accident and the guy walked off), he mischaracterized David French's anti-BDS stuff which was an application of existing civil rights law, he rightly opposes sanctions campaigns but seems to be obsessed with some (admittedly very stupid) attempts to crush one of them. Richard seems to think it's fine for China to run internment camps in Xinjiang, and thinks it's ridiculous every time someone criticizes it. Would he have a problem with Israel running internment camps in the West Bank?
Another example of a bad Hanania foreign policy take is the whole "Enes Kanter US coup" thing. NO the US did not instigate the 2016 attempted coup in Turkey. It wasn't Gulenists either. He's a Gulenist. It was a Kemalist attempted coup. There was a half-retraction. Look I'm also anti-neocon but Richard you really need to stop the absolutely braindead Chomskyite takes on foreign policy. I totally agree with the anti-neocon stance and that US foreign policy is fucked up and captured by defense contractors, but you have a ridiculous bias against the US. And a ridiculous bias against Israel. And a big bias toward China. And a big bias toward the Taliban.
Re monetizing for supporters: This is something I think about a lot! As a creator, you have this fundamental tension between making your digital work as widely available as possible (after all, the marginal cost of distribution is zero), vs recouping your up-front costs (the time and labor going in to writing each post). It's shaped a bit like the problem of funding public goods, and I'm pretty excited by innovation in the crypto world eg https://medium.com/ethereum-optimism/retroactive-public-goods-funding-33c9b7d00f0c
Anyways I've seen a few different supporter incentives that work well for writers:
- Monthly open Q&As with supporters
- Exclusive Discord/Slack community
- Early access to posts (more common among serial web fiction e.g. chapters that come out 3x a week)
These also can do double duty by granting you faster feedback, or advance proofreading/typo checks.
And if you're interested in experimenting with new kinds of incentives: how about play money for prediction markets? At https://mantic.markets, we allow creators to set up and resolve their own prediction markets. One idea we had for tying the currency to something valuable was to partner with authors, granting their supporters e.g. $100 of currency for each $10 donated through Substack. They can then bet on questions like "Will Richard write more than 10 book reviews in 2022? If you're interested at all, let me know!
Hi Richard very interesting. Not that you take requests like radio stations back in the day but a few topics I'd be fascinated to hear you write more about: (1) More predictions of the type you outlined in your Spring 2021 article. I really like the idea of clearly articulating predictions as an accountability mechanism. (2) Your critique of the 'Middle East wars bad but conflict with China good' crowd, specifically the thinking of people like Peter Thiel. (3) Perhaps some advice for people who have heterodox views and don't think academia is a hospitable environment but don't relish the idea of a career in law or business.
Thanks, for (1) I meant to do an update in the fall, just another thing I didn't have time for. I'll aim for a followup to that in January.
I may do (2), it's worth thinking about, you can sometimes reach people by speaking to a specific crowd but I generally like to speak to a wider audience.
As for (3), there's been some advice I've given in CSPI posts explaining what we've been doing, and I endorse what Jonah Davids wrote on the same topic. See here:
https://cspicenter.org/blog/cspi/the-overwhelming-underwhelmingness-of-academia-three-reasons-to-leave/
https://cspicenter.org/blog/cspi/welcome-to-cspi/
https://cspicenter.org/blog/cspi/new-mission-at-cspi/
I'll say that I've found there to be a huge audience out there for independent work, and with substack, social media, etc. there have never been more opportunities. My experience is that the space of public intellectuals is a lot more meritocratic than other things (especially academia), it's not like there are a ton of people doing mind blowing work on any topic, and those who are very good should be able to support themselves. Get your work out there and if it's good it will be noticed.
Thanks a lot for the reply. On the (1) particularly interested in if you still feel as confident about Biden and Trump's chances of running. So many ''smart" people (pundits lol) claim it's way too early to say whether either one , let alone both, will run again but I still feel pretty sure both will run and win their respective party's nominations. 2024 rematch seems far more likely than most people think.
On (3), thanks a lot. I'll be sure to go over all of this.
Richard, I say this as someone who greatly enjoyed your insights a year or two ago. You are succumbing to polarization. More and more, with each new post you write and each wave of applause you received from "based" readers, you are indulging in hatred and demonization of your political enemies. You express it in a calm and measured way, but it's clear to see all the same.
You've stopped thinking solely in terms of what is correct and joined a team. Who cares what's really right (about vaccines, for example), as long as the other side is worse? That's where you're at now.
If you don't step back from this abyss, in another year or two you will be the next Bret Weinstein. Please let yourself hear your opponents and see them as people, try harder to understand their worldview. Let Scott Alexander be your guide, not the Weinsteins. You can still turn away from this path you are on.
Thanks for the concern. I don't see much likelihood of that, the Weinstein path would be hating the other side so much you convince yourself vaccines must be bad.
My position is yes, vaccines are great, yes, they should be encouraged, but people have to be political realists and understand that either the hysterics or the covid skeptics are going to win, so it's worth thinking about which side is worse. I don't think making a comparison like that is harmful, in fact I think smart people should be engaged with the world and take into account human nature, public opinion, and politics in their analysis.
Once I start believing stupid things because that's the position associated with one tribe, then we're on the road to hell.
I appreciate the thoughtful, good faith reply, and thanks for not reacting too strongly to my hyperbolic tone.
There's a grain of truth to what you say, but also a false dichotomy. In the USA, neither side is going to "win" entirely. The hysterical side will win in some polities, the anti-vaxx side will win in others, and then the Glenn Youngkins will win in some places, the Jared Polises in others. This makes it a little less realistic to think in black and white terms about which side you want to "win."
And the anti-vaxxers are beginning to move against other vaccine requirements. If we end up with lots more measles, mumps and rubella circulating, that complicates the consequences of a red victory on this one. A blue victory, on the other hand, could easily end up like the air travel security hysteria from the 2000s has turned out: inconvenient, but livable. Things are just not as clear-cut as you're suggesting. You were right before: both sides are bad.
Re: leaders that like vaccines and hate everything else, Mexico’s AMLO is a good candidate. You did say developed country though, so maybe you already knew that.
I love your substack and sometimes hate(d; I deleted my acc) your twitter. You tweet too much and very often its very obvious culture war stuff that gets repetitive and attracts very stupid boomer cons. You should aim for subtler attacks and do it less often so people dont feel like they are following a Fox News host.
Re university students just always being retarded, I tend to agree. People forget how intertwined nationalism and student groups were in late XIXth and early XXth century Europe. In “The Iron Ring”, which is an excellent book about WW1, it’s made clear that one of the groups very enthusiastically occupying the streets to ask for war was student organizations.
Thanks. Boomer cons go in silly directions with their obsessions, but are right to understand something is deeply wrong! Substack is where I try to make it more constructive, Twitter is more of a place to keep up with the news of the day and highlight the most egregious manifestations of the craziness.
I don’t think the mental illness feature of the left obviously has the causal structure you seem to assume, which is mentally ill groups make mentally ill decisions.
Rather, it seems to me to better show how the language and philosophy of psychological therapy has become so central in left wing institutions, in the same way Judeochristianity can be seen as the soil of aspects of the Enlightenment.
Also it does strike me (at a glance—perhaps the full read refutes this) that the Goldberg evidence might be backwards in its measurement. I think Dave Chapelle has some joke about how black people use drugs, because they can’t afford therapy. And my understanding is that other ethnic groups tend to stigmatize mental illness; conservatives probably do so more as well. So there’s at least an argument that Goldberg’s data doesn’t actually show that liberals have greater mental illness, only that they’re more likely to seek diagnosis. There are also other readings here (e.g., knowing a person with or suffering from an uncontrollable mental illness is something that inherently divorces you from the conservative idea of personal responsibility). I just would hesitate (if I were you) to jump to the reading that your opponents are defective in some way, both on a concern of your likely biases and its ability to potentially lead you towards dehumanizing your opponents (as under a conservative philosophy you might take a mentally ill person’s less-than-full agency as a black mark).
Lastly, haven’t people always been insanely overprotective of children? Think of “won’t someone please think of the children?” from the Simpsons. I know moms who worry about their kids at school still with COVID, so perhaps this is partly the embodiment of that tendency (since parents are often the “true” consumer of schooling, in the same way pet owners are the true consumers of pet grooming).
Not to say I disagree with you about activists often using politics as a means of working through their own issues, and something about left wing institutions causes them to pay these activists excessive regard. Although, on the point activists are often mentally ill, query if this is also the nature of all conversion—churches often draw the most down on their luck individuals; perhaps a similar event happens here.
Two points here partly to you, partly to Richard:
One, contra Richard I'm not entirely sure it's just that universities collect mentally ill people because wokeness itself can be and likely is causative. Not in the sense of ideological commitments, but because it inculcates in people habits of mind that resemble those of the mentally ill, and which are a polar opposite of the habits things like cognitive behavioral therapy and stoicism try to inculcate in people as a medicine against said insanity.
I more broadly do not like the language that describes things like safetyism as "therapeutic", as is common: Safetyism and "therapeutic" mindsets are not therapeutic, they are the exact opposite of it.
They do try to give people comfort, but therapy gives people comfort by reattaching them to reality, by teaching them to accept the world's imperfections (not that things aren't improvable, but that the world is and always will be imperfect), and building the patient's/reader's own ability to function. The "therapeutic" things in the sense I dislike are actively the opposite, they are more like pacifiers you give to crying babies. Soothing, not curative or strengthening, as medicine should be.
So it's not just the language, it's the thinking habits that are the problem. They don't moor mentally ill people encountering them better into reality, they reinforce the bad thinking patterns and tell them it's okay, they don't have to try to get better, at least not that way. Take the suckle-toy and relax, there are no evil wrongthinkers here...
(You can also see this kind of soothing infantilization at work in things like things that congratulate millenials for "having adulted" as if basic responsibilities were some act of heroism)
Incidentally, "knowing a person with or suffering from an uncontrollable mental illness is something that inherently divorces you from the conservative idea of personal responsibility" is the kind of thing real therapy fights against. How one person I know put it is that you may not be responsible for someone having broken into your house and taking a dump on the floor, but it definitely is your responsibility to clean it up, even if it's not at all your fault.
" And my understanding is that other ethnic groups tend to stigmatize mental illness; conservatives probably do so more as well. So there’s at least an argument that Goldberg’s data doesn’t actually show that liberals have greater mental illness, only that they’re more likely to seek diagnosis. "
This is a plausible, and common objection, but it doesn't hold up. The general left-right pattern is replicated in f.ex. Slate Star Codex's 2020 reader survey. This is important because SSC's readership spanned the gamut in political orientation, but importantly also (at least used to be) much above average in intelligence and education, and the people were reading a blog by a psychiatrist. These should counter the general sense that right-wing people might just be less likely to know about medical diagnoses or seek help. Furthermore, in the SSC survey when people gave their political orientations by ideology, not left-right orientation, self-identified alt righters had slightly higher rates of mental problems than more run off the mill conservative types.
These polls are also not the only converging line of evidence: Leftists have for decades been known to have a more external locus of control than rightists (ie. they're more prone to believe that the environment is acting on them and that they themselves have relatively little agency in their own lives), which lines up with these newer polls.
There are also polls asking people how happy they feel, and as far as I know rightists systematically reply that they feel happy at higher rates than leftists do.
Interesting points!
I think, after reading what you're saying, that therapy is at least multifaceted--you're right that CBT and stoicism do fall into a "learn to live without overreaction" approach. But surely the "self care", ego-boosting, self-acceptance aspects of therapy (and which seem deeply tied into leftist culture) are also real. Still, interesting to note that it's only these more sensitive, soothing aspects of therapy that have been taken into leftist institutions. Not sure why.
I do think that mental illness does create some crisis of personal responsibility, in that it separates a person from the mental illness; in so doing, the person learns that they were not the cause of all their wrongdoing, but the mental illness was a primary cause. Of course, once they have taken this lesson to heart, they then become responsible for managing this illness. Still, this is the kind of thing that fractures a person's self-identification, and is at odds with the conservative view which seems to require people be singular, self-moving agents with free will.
Good points on wokeism having a causal aspect, and on the evidence here of leftist neuroticism. I'll think on this evidence, but one thing I've been wondering is why leftism causes the kind of overreaction it does (e.g., with COVID) compared with rightist overreactions (e.g., the war on terror), considering that leftism apparently has a near-monopoly on neuroticism.
"The view held by Jonathan Haidt and others that much of politics can be understood by the fact that conservatives are more afraid of germs has probably fared worse than any other idea in the social sciences over the last two years."
It was always false: https://news.gallup.com/poll/189161/americans-cite-cyberterrorism-among-top-three-threats.aspx
"Now I see mental illness as the horse leading the cart of ideology."
I don't think excess COVID restrictions had anything to do with mental illness; they were pure anti-Trumpism. Any place that honored George Floyd could get an excuse re: COVID restrictions, there was no principled stance behind them at all.
Why is China remaining one country so important to you?
Divided it falls, look at the impotence of Europe. A united China is a bulwark against American imperialism, including sanctions.
Do you think Europe would be better off as one country?
The E.U. might be the worst of all options, as it both constrains local nationalism and is incapable of acting with unity.
If you want to reduce the influence of universities, look at promotion and relegation in sports. I think a lot of college sports' unusual popularity in America is caused by the major pro sports leagues' central planning keeping the number of high-profile professional teams well below market demand. By comparison by allowing thousands of teams to compete toward getting to the country's top league, promotion and relegation meets market demand for professional teams. If America had promotion and relegation in sports, we'd have professional teams from Little Rock, Des Moines, Louisville, & wherever else there is market demand playing to large audiences instead of "amateur" teams. I know there are minor leagues in America, but it isn't the same if a team isn't allowed to earn their way to the top league versus D1 college teams playing meaningful games against national championship contenders.
Germany as an example with its federal system mixing national with regional & state league systems: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_football_league_system
I am curious to know how you reconcile your "Sino-optimism" with the belief that masks/lockdowns have little to no significant effect? Clearly, you previously praised China for dealing with COVID better than the US. If you believe that only vaccines are effective, and both countries came about the vaccine at similar moments in time, doesn't that show a more forceful government intervention can lead to better COVID outcomes?
New reader - where’s the line between “healthy skepticism of China” and “anti China” for you? Is it anti China to find what happened in Hong Kong frightening? Do you feel a conquest of Taiwan would be either no big deal or none of our business? Ditto the above vis-à-vis xinjiang?
RE: "The woke are the most aggressive and least civil and tolerant political faction in the country"
Why? Consider, as just one example, war-on-drug-ers. They want to *imprison* all the people doing the thing they disagree with. How are the woke less tolerant than them?
I wonder whether the higher self-reported incidence of mental illness is reflective of actual higher prevalence among liberal academic wokesters, or is simply driven by other factors (wealth, education, greater acceptance of mental health problems amongst college educated urbanites, etc).
My own view on the woke movement as it has extended beyond the margins of academia (where it has lurked since at least the late 60s) is that it fills a void for its adherents that would otherwise be occupied by religion. I now see this view beginning to gain traction elsewhere (McWhorter's book, etc,), although it's unclear to me why it took so long for many to recognize this (fear? a desire to accommodate these movements?).
This new religion shows the influence of Catholicism (the original sin of white privilege and confession thereof), Calvinism (the lack of redemption), fundamentalism (woke as a synonym for being born again and heresy in their demand for absolute adherence to the doctrine), and Judaism (inculcating an identity based on oppression). I have also noted its presence in the world of online dating: Hinge profiles do not simultaneously demand the dismantling of the patriarchy and profess their love of Christianity - the woke god is a jealous deity who will not tolerate rivals. I also saw parallels between the BLM gatherings of summer 2020 and the desire of conservatives (condemned by the left) to gather for religious services at the height of the pandemic.
None of the above entirely discredits the mental-illness theory, but it does call it into question, since there are a large number of individuals on the right who also embrace religion, just in a more traditional form.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Your insights into "miserable" people, and their influence on both a personal and societal level, are my favorite of yours.
Here's to you always keeping your integrity, cheers!
Could you clarify your position on masks? I'm confused as to whether you, and Philipe's linked to piece think mask mandates don't work (because, in practice, people don't wear masks, or they wear crappy loose fitting ones) or the masks themselves don't work (because even a perfectly fitted surgical mask doesn't capture all viral particulate and the little that does escape keeps the spread going)
“I don’t like New Year’s Resolutions, because if you’re going to make a categorical rule to do something, you should do it now.”
This is a smart-sounding throwaway remark I often hear from rationalist bloggers, but I think there is value in a yearly tradition of self-improvement that everyone takes part in. It’s easier to make positive changes when others are also trying to do better, and the fact that so many people struggle to fulfill their resolutions only strengthens the opportunity to connect with each other over the reality that we’re all human and fall short of our aspirations. It’s also worth pondering that we don’t know the counterfactual of this tradition, and perhaps individuals would fail to improve even more often without it.
Personally, I struggle to recognize and implement all the goals I have for improving myself in real-time and it is helpful to have a tradition that invites me to pause and reflect on such things.
If one wants to make a living at this, truth-seeker is a very dangerous role to play. It can work for a while as such truths are novel, but it can be very heard to keep an audience when they realize that your are completely untrustworthy as your only loyalty is to the truth (as you see it), not to them.
Even worse, a person who holds a position but points out weaknesses of that position can very easily be weaponized by the opponents of that position. "Prominent x says x are wrong" is a very popular headline, carefully omitting the "about y" in the original articles. "You care more about being right than about helping fix our problems" is a common accusation.
On the plus side, your approach means a lot of very interesting articles, but then I'm a liberal.