Friday links! Unexpected results edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 0 Comment

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_MJM_V82T8

Everything makes sense in retrospect, which instills the false confidence that the world is an ordered place. Consumed in real time, however, life is unpredictable and curling irons are suddenly, inexplicably hot. The distinguishing feature of human experience is incoherence, because what are we distinguishing it from? Fiction, the realm of ideas, religious narratives, rocks—all the things human experience isn’t make perfect sense to us, for the simple reason that they are products of our understanding. Life is the part we understand backwards, and so it surprises us anew. Today is Friday, and all manner of unexpected stuff has happened. Won’t you say you knew it all along with me?

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Friday links! Disintegration of ethics edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 7 Comments
Marcus Aurelius, 121—180 AD

Marcus Aurelius, 121—180 AD

You don’t need ethics to survive. By “you” I mean you personally; a society totally needs ethics to survive, in the same way a body needs hemoglobin. Yet the most materially successful societies are not always the most ethical. When it comes to food and shelter and high-resolution video, our society is kicking ass, but it’s hard to argue that we are individually or collectively more ethical than certain of our forebears. Is that an illusion? Can one age be more ethical than another, the way we think of imperial Rome as generally conniving and WWII America as generally good?*Screen Shot 2013-07-26 at 9.09.35 AM Today is Friday, and America is either per capita less concerned with doing the right thing or less uptight about appearing so. Won’t you excuse yourself with me?

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Friday links! Freedom is a choice edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 5 Comments
Russians exercise their right to Bully Face.

Russians exercise their right to Bully Face.

Here’s how they do in Moscow: Vladimir Putin puts his enemy in jail, Russians riot, and Putin lets him out again. Meanwhile, in the country that invented freedom, we can’t get into the streets for a universal domestic wiretap. It’s summer, people. Where’s the raucous spirit of American liberty that I am told could not be contained when the people who tell me that were young? Whither the groovy protest summer of ’13? Freedom is a choice, and if you expect to be free by going along with stuff you’re doing it wrong. Today is Friday. The world is full of people who do not personally care if you spend the next 12 years in a secret prison. Won’t you basically do that to yourself via the computer with me?

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Friday links! Culture war edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment

 

Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!

Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!

Let’s call this thing what it is: a war between two cultures that have somehow emerged from the same nation. Class warfare obviously isn’t happening. The average net worth of a US congressperson is just shy of $8 million dollars, which is approximately 100 times the median net worth of US households. This rich/poor thing is settled. Now we must lock ourselves in mortal struggle to resolve the conflict between tradition and modernity, ruralism and urbanity, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Community. Today is Friday, and America is on its H.L. Mencken, except for the half that’s on its William Jennings Bryan. Won’t you man the barricades with me?

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Friday links! Intrusion of reality edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 2 Comments
Reality

Reality

What a cold bath is July 5th. (Except for Mom. Happy birthday, Mom!) I spent all day yesterday lounging about a lake and drinking Coronas, arguably the most American beer. Freedom seemed another word for nothing left to do, and America seemed poised in the catbird seat of history. Just one day later I am back to work, and the catbird seats seems more like a chair with an actual cat and a bird in it—in a word, discomfiting. Today is Friday, and reality intrudes. Won’t you pause to remember the fireworks, then return to packing your child’s finger in ice with me?

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