The To-Read Pile 6
The To-Read Pile is my regular digest of worthwhile governing- and culture-related essays, articles, and books (with some of my light commentary added). Happy reading.
Reader Note: Governing Right typically comes out Tuesday mornings with an occasional extra Thursday column. My publishing schedule may be a bit erratic for the rest of the summer—for instance, this. Bear with me, please!
Popular Culture
I spent the last five years writing and editing a novel…and then trying to get agents and publishers to care. At the start of the process, I had no idea—honestly, none—that the publishing world today has vanishingly little interest in male writers, male readers, and male characters (much less that discussing this would spark more than a little hostility). I naively thought the creative work of creating fiction would be the hardest part, not navigating the cultural/industry part. If this subject interests you, read this Peter Biles piece in The Dispatch.
A while back I read a headline or two somewhere about someone named Karen Read who’d been on trial for some kind of crime. I scanned the article but couldn’t figure out why the publication was covering this story so energetically. The tone seemed to imply something scandalous, but my 15-second skimming didn’t suss it out. I just moved on. Two weeks later, I happened to come across this long Chris Heath piece in The Atlantic about the whole saga. Gadzooks. It reads like a combination of three Covid-era conspiracy theories, four CBS crime dramas, and five Hollywood whodunnits about institutional corruption.
My favorite of Pearl Jam’s list of drummers is Dave Abbruzzese (when was the last time you watched their 1992 “Unplugged”?). Will he make a comeback now that Matt Cameron, after 27 years, is departing? Probably unlikely And what is it with grunge-era drummers lately?
I was impressed by Andrew Schultz’s ability to handle the NYT interview. For generations now, people have criticized the media for its progressive bias, and yet somehow, journalists are always surprised and offended when someone notes their progressive bias.
A.I.
Almost a year ago, I wrote one of my longest “Governing Right” columns expressing my serious concern that AI was silently destroying teaching and learning, especially related to reading and writing. I got a bunch of criticism that I was being a Luddite or a Chicken Little. My concerns have only grown since then. Read this very good piece by David Brooks explaining the same concerns.
I love recommending things with which I disagree. This Robert Bellafiore essay, in the always excellent The New Atlantis, made me consider a new angle on the relationship between morality and technology. The piece argues that AI is causing an arms-race-like situation, incentivizing us to go all-in lest we slow-play it and allow China to dominate. I found myself disagreeing, thinking, “No, it’s always good to lead with morals. But there are also lots of instances where pursuing a new (pseudo-) scientific advancement was ultimately bad for the state—scientific forestry, certain types of urban planning, online learning, all sorts of technocracy, many instances of behavioral psychology, the one-child policy…” I think fixating on AI is bad for our national soul, but I also think it’s not in the national interest. If China wants to be a techno-police state powered by AI, fine. That won’t have legs. But read Bellafiore’s essay and see what you think.
Great piece by Jonah Goldberg on the “consensus” around AI and then on Grok going off the rails.
Nathan Beacom, smartly, via The Dispatch, on the non-intelligence of AI.
Women and Men
Men are struggling, but neither our public conversation nor our policies have caught up yet (though some are trying to make that happen). Stephen Eide had a terrific essay about men in need and social-service programs in National Affairs. Great insights about how the dominate culture of those initiatives often doesn’t fit men so well and what should change.
With more kids growing up without fathers and women leading more professions, boys are growing up with fewer male in-person role models. Good NYT article by Claire Cain Miller.
Excellent essay about the radicalization of young women by Claire Lehmann in The Dispatch. With so much attention on the radicalization of young men, this subject has gotten little notice. Lehmann argues that the activism of young men and women are treated differently by the media and are affected differently by in-group social pressures.
Decreasing marriage (and dating) rates among women by the WSJ’s Rachel Wolfe. Like the data on decreasing fertility rates and the growing political divide between the sexes, the trends in relationships are affected by and are affecting culture.
Philanthropy
Another tragic instance—here Zuckerberg’s massive initiative per Schleifer, Tan, and Isaac for NYT—of philanthropists choosing progressive boards and staffs to oversee their giving…and then realizing too late that it was a mistake. Philanthropists: Hire more conservatives!
Michael Hartmann penned a very good essay on the populist backlash to big philanthropy. The list of 8 things-to-know is excellent, as is his general take on the politics of these massive organizations.
K-12 Education
If you care about K-12 education law and policy but have never read the majority opinion in San Antonio v. Rodriguez (1973), you should. I just re-read it for a course I’m teaching this summer, and I’m still staggered by how close SCOTUS came to creating a fundamental federal right to education (and therefore strictly scrutinizing all sorts of school policies). Thankfully, the Court kept those powers and obligations at the state level (in a very good decision). But it was a close call. Marshall’s dissent would’ve had federal judges nationwide engaging in the particulars of school funding, zoning, teacher licensing, accountability, and more. Given that this was the era of brash rights-creation by SCOTUS (the same year as Roe), it’s remarkable that the Court took the federalism-republicanism path.
Just a year later, David Tyack wrote what might be the best book on K-12 education of the last 50 years, The One Best System. It should be required reading not just for education-policy students but anyone in a policy school…and anyone interested in governing “expertise” and/or progressivism in action. Centralization, bureaucratization, and professionalization are almost always meant to help struggling communities but we need to be aware of the hubris and limitations of those “helping” and the effects of that “help” on pluralism, efficacy, and democracy.
Higher Education
With the growing interest in civics, it's worth understanding the expanding, maturing field of "civic thought." This short piece by AEI's Jenna and Ben Storey is a great introduction. These institutions, as reported by IHE, have a leg up in a federal competitive-grant competition thanks to well-written program priorities. IMO, these centers/institutes are invaluable. They could do a great deal for higher education. I’m glad they’re getting support.
Indiana’s public universities are ending and consolidating low-enrollment programs. This will save money, but I’m not sure it’s good for the mission of higher education.
For ages, conservatives have implored institutions of higher education to do something about their lack of ideological diversity…to no avail. But the Trump administration’s actions may have convinced Harvard to take this issue seriously. Important WSJ reporting by Belkin, Chung, Glazer, and Andrews. Related: the US Dept of Ed finds that Harvard’s treatment of Jewish and Israeli students violated students’ civil rights.
Though nearly all of the Trump administration’s higher-education ire has been aimed at America’s most elite private universities, UVA found itself in the mix. Believing that Virginia’s flagship—long recognized as among the nation’s best public universities—has not followed federal rules on DEI, the administration has successfully pushed for the president’s ouster. States don’t like getting pushed around by Uncle Sam, so watch for Virginia’s Dems’ response.
Law and Governing
“Governing Right” is ultimately about good governing. As such, I occasionally criticize courts that stand in the way of American governing, for instance by limiting democratic decision-making, conjuring up rights, weakening the separation of powers, weakening federalism, weakening civil society, etc. This 2017 law article by Jud Campbell does a great job of explaining the relationship between founding-era leaders’ commitment to natural rights and republicanism:
Retained natural rights were aspects of natural liberty that an individual could give up only through his own consent, either in person or by his representative, and only in the public interest. Most retained natural rights were therefore individual rights that could be collectively defined and controlled by legislatures, with virtually no room for judicial oversight. In the end, Founding-Era natural rights were not really “rights” at all, in the modern sense. They were the philosophical pillars of republican government.
The National Review editors on America three years after Dobbs ended Roe and Casey.
Notre Dame law professor Samuel Bray—much cited in the big universal-injunctions decision by SCOTUS—took to the pages of the NYT to explain what that decision did and didn’t do and why the Court’s majority voted and wrote as it did.
David French on why senators should reject Emil Bove’s nomination as a federal appeals court judge. It’s one thing to allow President Trump to stack his administration with loyalists; it’s another to give such individuals lifetime judicial tenure.
This is one of my favorite things about your substack. Thanks for curating these lists.