Shanghai, free speech, & the new reading environment
Some news, recs, and new work from me
Hi there. It’s officially summer here in Pennsylvania, and I’m officially done at The Week, and I’ve officially got my first case of COVID (it’s mild; I’m fine), so all in all, an eventful time.
On the book front, my publisher made me some fancy promotional graphics, so I’ll be trickling those out in coming weeks.
Relatedly, if you run a podcast or work at a think tank (or other ideas-driven organization) focused on politics, the internet, and/or Christian life and thought, get in touch if you’d like me to come talk. I’m already scheduling Untrustworthy-themed speaking engagements near the book launch (Oct. 11), so let’s discuss dates ASAP.
Since winding things down at The Week, I’ve started freelancing again while figuring out what I’ll do next. It’s so good to be writing again! Having all my time eaten up by Sisyphean administrative work was pretty soul-killing. Here are a couple initial pieces:
1. Only the Constitution stands between us and Shanghai-style lockdowns | Reason
[Our post-9/11] rapid acceptance of major new intrusions into our lives is why trusting that Americans won't take tyranny "lying flat" is naive. There are substantial cultural and political differences between the United States and China, yes, but relying on something as amorphous as culture to stave off authoritarianism is a fool's errand. Cultures change. People get scared, and sometimes fear prompts them to protest government overreach, but sometimes it prompts them to beg for it.
2. The confusion in our free speech debate | Christianity Today
Maybe someday someone will develop the perfect moderation policy, along with artificial intelligence sophisticated enough to ethically enforce it. Or perhaps Musk’s freewheeling approach will win out, and we’ll accept legality as the new standard of online discourse. All of that, realistically, is outside of my control—and yours. And increasingly I think the more pressing question for Christians is not what external constraints we should accept but what internal constraints we can develop.
I’ve got three other articles close to publication, but they’ll hold for my next note. In the meantime, a few recommendations of other people’s work:
1. The new reading environment | N+1
[T]he new style is simultaneously careful and strident, low-key and declarative. Articles are luridly headlined and. Extravagantly. Punctuated. Arguments sit right at the top, just like we were taught to do in high school—except now the enemy is not lack of clarity, it’s impatience. Axios, whose name is a cross between a defense contractor and an aggressive men’s deodorant, has dispensed with everything but theses and bullet points. Transparency about readership has led, in turn, to formal transparency, an internet house style that conceals nothing but delivers no pleasures. Agreeing with something has never felt less gratifying.
2. What killed cultural aspiration? | The Lamp
I have fond memories of my first books: the Dell Yearling editions of Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, for example, which had once belonged to my mother; later an ancient Doubleday Pride and Prejudice that I began reading on the school bus the day before Thanksgiving break in 2002 and a poorly typeset Works of John Keats (to which the suitably upmarket phrase “Cambridge Edition” had been appended) that I carried in a walking swoon for the better part of a year. … What exactly do pretentious teenagers care about these days? Does being painfully highbrow have a future?
3. Eyes on the Right, by Damon Linker
My erstwhile colleague at The Week just launched a Substack! He’ll be writing, critically but sympathetically, on the illiberal right, both at home and abroad. Check it out and subscribe!
That’s it from me for now. I’ll be in touch again soon with additional new work—I’m very excited about one of those three articles I mentioned and really hope it happens as planned—and, soon, details on talks I’ll be doing in Chicago, Arkansas, and Texas this fall.
Best,
Bonnie
