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Friday links! Systems of belief edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links September 5, 2014 1 Comment

Juggalos appropriate iconography of clown culture

Juggalos appropriate iconography from clown, gang, drunk culture

One of the best aspects of modern culture is that we are exposed to so many other people’s weird beliefs. Plenty of people in our daily lives hold different opinions and even core values from ours, but rarely are these ideas arranged into whole systems. To encounter an entirely alien worldview, you used to have to travel. But now you only need the internet, which will happily ship stories and images of Earth’s totalizing theories directly to your house. Today is Friday, and the world is a patchwork of non-overlapping magisteria. Won’t you deride the unfamiliar with me?

Combat! blog eats questionable Chinese, isn’t useful

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized September 4, 2014 0 Comment

Don’t watch the video above if you did what I did last night, which is eat Montanan delivery Chinese and have a gastrointestinal experience. I am like a wet flute. There is no Combat! blog today, because I am prey to whatever bacteria can be borne on fried noodles. Fortunately, you have the whole internet to amuse you during my convalescence. You could read, for example, James Baldwin’s painfully convincing takedown of William Faulkner, asshole. Props to Caroline for the link. We’ll be back tomorrow with scads of other fun stuff and, God willing, a more reliable large intestine.

Deresiewicz on “hereditary meritocracy”

By Dan Brooks in Class Warfare September 3, 2014 2 Comments

A New Yorker cartoon by Barbara Smaller, owned by Conde Nast

Halfway through this interview with Salon, critic of the Ivy League (and Ivy-League critic) Michael Deresiewicz discusses the way that our ostensibly meritocratic college admissions system serves to “launder privilege”:

Instead of saying, “You get to go because you’re born,” which is obviously unfair, we say, “You get to go because you have really great scores and grades and you’ve done a million extracurricular activities.” But the only way to get to that point is if you have rich parents. I mean, again, there are exceptions, but there are not a lot of exceptions.

Approximately 35,000 kids apply to Harvard each year, and 2,000 get in. When I was an SAT tutor, more kids submitted perfect scores to Yale than there were total admissions slots. As selective colleges become more selective, admissions become an arms race of adolescent achievement—one that demands more money than lower- and even middle-income families can afford. But we are invested in believing this system rewards merit, because the Ivies and so-called junior Ivies produce so many of our leaders.

Like Santa Claus or love, Arby’s Meat Mountain may be a beautiful lie

By Dan Brooks in Narrative Watch September 2, 2014 0 Comment

The Meat Mountain, a sandwich containing all meats available at Arby’s

The internet likes nothing better than a stunt food, so Arby’s Meat Mountain has gotten a lot of coverage over the last two weeks. Over at Slate, however, LV Anderson wonders whether the ostensibly grassroots demand for this wad of processed protein wasn’t manufactured by corporate. First of all, this story on whether people really want a particular Arby’s menu item appears in Slate’s “Brow Beat” section, ostensibly devoted to high culture. That’s not the kind of high I thought they meant. Second, a technical note: because possessive nouns are difficult to pluralize in American English, this post will use the generally accepted plural of Arby’s, “landfills.”

Dems get free Senate election to say whatever

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized August 28, 2014 2 Comments

Democratic Senate nominee Amanda Curtis runs afoul of an alligator.

Probably, Amanda Curtis is not going to be the next senator from Montana. The late replacement for John Walsh trails Republican Steve Daines by 20 points and several million dollars. Basically, Curtis won a contest. She gets to speak and debate like a viable candidate for the next two months, with the understanding that she will not go to Washington at the end. Curtis and the Democratic Party of Montana should take this peculiar opportunity and run with it. They should say what they think, for once, instead of triangulating their messages to what they think Montanans want to hear. That’s the gist of my column in this week’s Missoula Independent, which is what you get instead of a blog for the next several days. I’m going to Idaho to watch The Polish Hammer get hitched and/or run from the altar in fright. We’ll be back Tuesday(!) with more conjecture, or maybe a commercial for a big pile of meat.