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Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry
The sins of the cognitive elite | Maiden Mother Matriarch 177
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Charles Murray is a political scientist best known for his work on intelligence, socioeconomics, and the American welfare state. In books including 'Losing Ground' (1984), 'The Bell Curve' (1994), and 'Coming Apart' (2012), Murray has offered an interpretation of the world that foregrounds the role of genetic luck in social outcomes. A lot of people dislike this interpretation, to put it mildly. But I'm convinced by the evidence that genetic luck is important, and that we can't ignore this factor when trying to make sense of the world.
One profound problem that we face in the twenty-first century derives from the fact that unusually intelligent people – i.e. people who have lucked out in terms of both their genetics and their environments – are often very bad at understanding how others experience the world. Murray describes a process we've undergone since the end of the Second World War whereby a new cognitive elite has become increasingly isolated – socially and geographically – from the rest of society. This distance encourages feelings of contempt towards people further down the class system, who in turn feel anger at the ways in which they are misgoverned by an elite that feels no sense of noblesse oblige. The result has been bitter political polarisation – one of the many subjects that we discuss in today's episode.
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When hunter-gatherers collide with modernity | Maiden Mother Matriarch 213
01:15:52|Aboriginal people have lived in Australia for at least 65,000 years, surviving as hunter gatherers. 250 years ago, the British arrived, bringing with them industrial modernity, as well as disease and – sometimes – violence. During most of this modern period, British settlers and their descendants adopted what has been called "the great Australian silence", paying little attention to the Aboriginal people they had displaced. Since the 1960s there has been a transformation in how non-indigenous Australians think about indigenous culture and history. One of the key voices in this transformation has been that of the anthropologist and linguist Peter Sutton, who has a particular expertise in Aboriginal languages and has lived and worked with Aboriginal people all over Australia for more than half a century. In 2011, Peter published a book titled 'The Politics of Suffering', in which he argued that decades of liberal policy in outback communities had worsened the suffering of Aboriginal people. Today we discuss what Australians get wrong about indigenous affairs.
The spectre still haunting us
20:25|In this bonus episode for paid subscribers, I spoke with Nina Power about the power of communism as an ideology.
The Status Game | Maiden Mother Matriarch 212
01:16:28|You may think that you don't care about status. You may tell yourself that since you're not bothered about material displays of wealth, that means that you are above petty disputes over where one stands in the social pecking order. The author and journalist Will Storr says you're wrong. Everybody cares about status, he argues, even if we don't realise it. We are evolved to obsess over status, and to immediately recognise it. You don't identify a high status person (solely) through their expensive car or designer clothes. You also notice their more relaxed postures, their better health, the fact that other people interrupt them less often, the fact that they have more friends. Everyone wants to be high status, whether or not they'll admit it. These status games aren't something we can avoid, but by better understanding them we can play them more judiciously. That's what Will Storr's book, The Status Game, is all about.
Are mothers oppressed by their children?
14:41|In this bonus episode, Mary Harrington and I spoke about the public response to the Lindsay Clancy murder case. Be warned, there are some dark themes discussed.
Against Heteropessimism | Maiden Mother Matriarch 211
01:03:25|There is a certain kind of caricature of women that pops up in cultural commentary right now. Modern women, we are told, are inundated with male attention at all times, and all of it is deeply unwelcome. According to this view, says Phoebe Maltz Bovy, “straight women merely put up with men’s advances because we don’t want them to murder us, or because we rely on them for a roof over our heads, or maybe because they seem nice and this is our way of saying thank you.” In a new book 'The Last Straight Woman', Phoebe asks us to forget this caricature of 21st century womanhood, and to take a moment to think of the frumpy, horny women who are often forgotten in this discourse. The women who sincerely and enthusiastically desire men, and find that they get less male attention than they would like. Today we discussed whether #MeToo was only concerned with "hot girls", why so many women are identifying as something other than heterosexual, the politics of female agency, and much more.MMM is sponsored by 321 - a new online introduction to Christianity, presented by former MMM guest Glen Scrivener. Check it out for free at 321course.com/MMM. Just enter your email, choose a password and you’re in — there’s no spam and no fees.
Are young adults actually poor?
05:57|For this bonus episode, I spoke with Johann Kurtz about his viral essay 'Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise', which was partly inspired by a previous MMM bonus episode.
The post-literate society | Maiden Mother Matriarch 210
01:15:01|Samuel Johnson was one of his history's great readers. He read constantly: while he walked, while he ate, while he socialised. He insisted that one ought to read for five hours a day, and to read on every subject one could. This was newly possible for eighteenth century people, who suddenly had access to affordable books. But Johnson understood that he was unusual. "People in general do not willingly read, if they can have anything else to amuse them," he conceded. "The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in it." James Marriott's new book is on the rise and fall of reading. He argues that reading is fundamentally unnatural and difficult, which is why the rise of radio, television, and the internet has so readily displaced books. James also argues that reading has profound effects, not only on our brains, but also on our politics. Democracy and literacy have historically gone hand in hand. As we become post-literate, will we also become post-democratic?James Marriott is a columnist and critic at The Times of London. His new book is titled The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society.
'Woke 1' was crazy. 'Woke 2' will be crazier.
18:13|In this bonus episode for paid subscribers, Rob Henderson and I discussed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's comments on "woke 1" and the shift towards a new kind of progressive politics that's currently underway.
Does populism end in disaster? | Maiden Mother Matriarch 209
01:09:23|Something called 'populism' is on the rise across much of the world. It's difficult to pin down exactly what the term means, but most of us have a sense that we know it when we see it. Trump in the United States, Farage in Britain, Hanson in Australia – all of these politicians have adopted a particular kind of posture towards the public and towards the political establishment. Richard Hanania thinks that populism is a very bad thing, since he argues that it reliably leads to 'kakistocracy' – that is, government by the worst, least qualified, and most unscrupulous. Richard didn't always feel this way. He used to be on the far right and, as a pseudononymous writer, endorsed white supremacist and other radically anti-progressive positions. He later disavowed those views and shifted towards a more mainstream conservative position, gaining influence on the MAGA Right. Recently, he's shifted again, becoming one of the most vehement Right wing critics of MAGA and of populism more broadly. Richard Hanania is an UnHerd columnist, the president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, and the author of a Substack focused on foreign policy, American politics, and social science.