Love the review Mari! I too hope many people read this book. I would just add that crime also is psychologically damaging for people. Crime generates anxiety, mistrust, and fear - and its not good to marinate in negative feelings all the time! When you live in a neighborhood with a lot of crime, so much energy goes to vigilance and worry.
Mari your posts are always a joy to read. In this case very much appreciate how you bust through the barriers to understanding that book "blurbing" now creates. Vance and Peterson are "coded" as right wingers, which is apparently all one needs to know for so many people on the left.
But I'd go a bit further here. My motto is: "people are complicated". I try to remember this every time I encounter someone espousing some belief or attitude that I disagree with. I think I have developed this strategy out of necessity because I am a non-lefty academic (an agnostic, I guess, in religion as well as politics); virtually all my colleagues are hard-left politically, and have reflexive beliefs (including luxury beliefs) about many things that they do not actually understand. Also, I am a southerner who now lives in the upper midwest. During my three decades as a transplant, I have found that nobody up here understands the culture of the south, but everyone thinks they do. BUT! I work with these people. We co-teach design studios. We drive thousands of miles around the country with three dozen undergrads every fall. We work on committees that actually accomplish good things. We have a beer together at happy hour every Thursday.
The lesson for me is that no one should be reduced to being "coded"—you embrace that notion here—but also, no one should be represented incompletely and tendentiously. Jordan Peterson may have nutty ideas about diet (I had not heard of this), but he's well-known for big ideas about big things that run contrary to the postmodern/woke catechism. He's an important culture critic; whatever you think of his arguments, he makes thoughtful arguments. Better to refer to him for the substance of his work that to dismiss him for his beefism.
A further quibble: you "beg the question" about climate change. Causation has not been established between anthropogenic climate inputs and weather events or wildfires, but for many this is received wisdom. Al Gore famously stated that "the science is settled". This is not true. For some of us, being skeptical about this is not "luxury beliefs", but a completely honest devotion to open-mindedness.
Mar 6·edited Mar 6Liked by Mari, the Happy Wanderer
Anyone being "put off" because they don't like the recommenders is captured by luxury beliefs. After many years working in universities I still find eye brows raised at working class students. Vance's book describes a chaotic childhood that was much like mine. Luxury belief holders may not like Vance now but he --through the military-- found his grounding. Lliberals will always hold it against people that didn't grow up knowing all the things they know. They find it easier to ID minority groups to assist but find the WC less than. Neither of my parents finished h.s. and my road was much like Hendersons (tho I married a WC carpenter who was in military and not myself in military). But liberal news outlets have succeeded in persuading liberals that Vance is toxic.
My 50-year-old daughter with husband and two teen daughters has been eating nothing but meat and various sources of fat for years now . . . and is remarkably slender and vitally active. The apparently instinctive rejection of that diet should perhaps be reconsidered. The "science" of healthy eating from governmental agencies has been wrong and then wrong, wrong again over the decades. Just because Jordan Peterson says it does not make it automatically wrong . . . just, as you note, because Rob Henderson says something does not make it wrong. And I say this while eating a typical American diet of the moderately obese myself.
Thank you for this. First I asked myself what sort of warped and twisted person would make a decision not to read something because someone they didn't like DID like it.
But then I thought about it a bit more and realized that you are talking about media, and a journalist writing something positive about a work that the Wrong People like may very well be committing career suicide. So I guess it is what kind of warped and twisted system of reward and punishment do we live with.
However, here we have Substack, which allowed my liberal eyes to bypass my own gatekeepers and read your words, otherwise I would never have heard of this work! :-D
You probably know this, but the Chuck Norris quote actually originated with Trotsky. The original: “you might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
I've got two thoughts here, Mari. Like you, my apartment also was robbed multiple times while I lived in Hyde Park and found myself very grateful for the police, who at least weren't indifferent to the damage caused by crimes and stealing. About the book--I don't think I'll read it only because I find books on the topic of damaging childhoods very painful and I can only do so many. I'm thinking also about J.D. Vance and how the smart, fairly thoughtful person who narrated HILLBILLY ELEGY has turned into, as you say, such an incredible right-wing opportunist. I, too, might hesitate to read a book blurbed by Vance because I view him as untrustworthy and no longer thoughtful. That might not be fair, but for me it wouldn't be a political judgement as much as being suspicious of him and his judgement. In contrast, I appreciate how thought-provoking this write-up is.
Love the review Mari! I too hope many people read this book. I would just add that crime also is psychologically damaging for people. Crime generates anxiety, mistrust, and fear - and its not good to marinate in negative feelings all the time! When you live in a neighborhood with a lot of crime, so much energy goes to vigilance and worry.
Mari your posts are always a joy to read. In this case very much appreciate how you bust through the barriers to understanding that book "blurbing" now creates. Vance and Peterson are "coded" as right wingers, which is apparently all one needs to know for so many people on the left.
But I'd go a bit further here. My motto is: "people are complicated". I try to remember this every time I encounter someone espousing some belief or attitude that I disagree with. I think I have developed this strategy out of necessity because I am a non-lefty academic (an agnostic, I guess, in religion as well as politics); virtually all my colleagues are hard-left politically, and have reflexive beliefs (including luxury beliefs) about many things that they do not actually understand. Also, I am a southerner who now lives in the upper midwest. During my three decades as a transplant, I have found that nobody up here understands the culture of the south, but everyone thinks they do. BUT! I work with these people. We co-teach design studios. We drive thousands of miles around the country with three dozen undergrads every fall. We work on committees that actually accomplish good things. We have a beer together at happy hour every Thursday.
The lesson for me is that no one should be reduced to being "coded"—you embrace that notion here—but also, no one should be represented incompletely and tendentiously. Jordan Peterson may have nutty ideas about diet (I had not heard of this), but he's well-known for big ideas about big things that run contrary to the postmodern/woke catechism. He's an important culture critic; whatever you think of his arguments, he makes thoughtful arguments. Better to refer to him for the substance of his work that to dismiss him for his beefism.
A further quibble: you "beg the question" about climate change. Causation has not been established between anthropogenic climate inputs and weather events or wildfires, but for many this is received wisdom. Al Gore famously stated that "the science is settled". This is not true. For some of us, being skeptical about this is not "luxury beliefs", but a completely honest devotion to open-mindedness.
Anyone being "put off" because they don't like the recommenders is captured by luxury beliefs. After many years working in universities I still find eye brows raised at working class students. Vance's book describes a chaotic childhood that was much like mine. Luxury belief holders may not like Vance now but he --through the military-- found his grounding. Lliberals will always hold it against people that didn't grow up knowing all the things they know. They find it easier to ID minority groups to assist but find the WC less than. Neither of my parents finished h.s. and my road was much like Hendersons (tho I married a WC carpenter who was in military and not myself in military). But liberal news outlets have succeeded in persuading liberals that Vance is toxic.
My 50-year-old daughter with husband and two teen daughters has been eating nothing but meat and various sources of fat for years now . . . and is remarkably slender and vitally active. The apparently instinctive rejection of that diet should perhaps be reconsidered. The "science" of healthy eating from governmental agencies has been wrong and then wrong, wrong again over the decades. Just because Jordan Peterson says it does not make it automatically wrong . . . just, as you note, because Rob Henderson says something does not make it wrong. And I say this while eating a typical American diet of the moderately obese myself.
Thank you for this. First I asked myself what sort of warped and twisted person would make a decision not to read something because someone they didn't like DID like it.
But then I thought about it a bit more and realized that you are talking about media, and a journalist writing something positive about a work that the Wrong People like may very well be committing career suicide. So I guess it is what kind of warped and twisted system of reward and punishment do we live with.
However, here we have Substack, which allowed my liberal eyes to bypass my own gatekeepers and read your words, otherwise I would never have heard of this work! :-D
Great review.
You probably know this, but the Chuck Norris quote actually originated with Trotsky. The original: “you might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Whole heartedly agree with an endorsement of reading his book, wholeheartedly disagree with your depiction of Jordan Peterson.
I've got two thoughts here, Mari. Like you, my apartment also was robbed multiple times while I lived in Hyde Park and found myself very grateful for the police, who at least weren't indifferent to the damage caused by crimes and stealing. About the book--I don't think I'll read it only because I find books on the topic of damaging childhoods very painful and I can only do so many. I'm thinking also about J.D. Vance and how the smart, fairly thoughtful person who narrated HILLBILLY ELEGY has turned into, as you say, such an incredible right-wing opportunist. I, too, might hesitate to read a book blurbed by Vance because I view him as untrustworthy and no longer thoughtful. That might not be fair, but for me it wouldn't be a political judgement as much as being suspicious of him and his judgement. In contrast, I appreciate how thought-provoking this write-up is.
Working through this book now. Juggling with The Coddling of the American Mind at the same time.