Reading – Page 8 – Christopher Wink

The Human Tide: How Population Shaped the Modern World

In the 1798, English economist Thomas Malthus described a common phenomenon: successful societies tended to increase their populations until food systems couldn’t keep, triggering population collapse.

He correctly described much of recorded history before him. Ironically though, just as he was writing, the first few rich states were escaping the “Malthusian trap” with the rapid improvement in food production efficiency. For the next two centuries, successive waves of countries beat the trap, and saw their populations soar. Only now do demographers look out into the future and expect population decline by 2100, thanks to slowing birth rates.

The remarkable acceleration and now deceleration of population growth is the human tide that is described in the 2019 book by demographer Paul Morland called “The Human Tide: How Population Shaped the Modern World.” I’m fixated by how big global trends like these shape empire, and Morland’s book does a fine job explaining the trend. I recommend it. Below I share my notes

What do we do with the art of monstrous men? Whatever you need to do with it

Consuming a piece of art is the collision of two biographies: the artist who can shape the viewing and the consumer who views. This makes evaluating art created by people who have done heinous things in their personal lives especially subjective.

Hemingway and Picasso, both of whom were especially cruel and vicious to the women in their lives, are the 20th century icons of this tricky question. Hemingway’s third wife Martha Gellhorn wrote that the great artist needn’t be a monster but rather monsters can only hide behind art: “A man must be a very great genius to make up for being such a loathsome human being.”

In the end, which art we set aside, and which we can still enjoy is up to the viewer, and the time period. (Chuck Klosterman writes about how art is reinterpreted by each new generation). Admittedly, if you have the choice of hiring or elevating a creative today who is cruel, you might choose differently. But in terms of consumption, well, that’s up to you.

“The way you consume art doesn’t make you a bad person, or a good one. You’ll have to find some other way to accomplish that.” Or so argues culture critic and essayist Claire Dederer in her book from this spring called Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma.

I first came across Claire and her writing in her 2017 essay “What do we do with the art of monstrous men?” It seems to me one of the defining questions of the last few years, so I appreciate the effort she put into shaping mine and other’s perspectives. I recommend it. Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

Bullshit Jobs

Two-fifths of jobs in the rich world are bullshit, not including those – such as office cleaners – that service the bullshit jobs. These legal, financial and clerical roles don’t add any economic value. Note the difference between “bullshit jobs” (they’re meaningless) and “shit jobs” (you’re not treated well).

They’re capitalism’s equivalent to Soviet communism’s needless roles to maintain high-employment. Or so argued anarchist-anthropologist David Graeber’s 2018 book Bullshit Jobs. The book came five years after an essay the author wrote on the topic went viral. He struck a chord.

The book’s criticism centered on how much time Graeber spent on definitions for a definitionally murky topic — relying heavily on subjective surveys to define what a “bullshit job” really is. Still the term entered lexicon and so is worth reading. After Graeber’s early death in 2020, I resolved to finally get to it, which I did. Below I share my notes for future reference.

Lessons on writing from four Russian masters (and George Saunders)

We live our life letting only some instruments in the orchestra play, so when we write fiction we can explore the rest. To create great fiction, we must emphatically pursue our “radical preference,” and remove everything else

Few do it as well as the greats from a 75-year period of Russian masters. So argues George Saunders, today’s most celebrated American fiction writer and a well-regarded writing professor, in his 2021 book: “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life.”

He shares stories from four greats and intersperses his notes, based on a course he teaches. It’s approachable and generous. Below I share my notes for future reference.

What if We’re Wrong: by Chuck Klosterman

Beliefs today, both objective and subjective, won’t necessarily be true in the future.

Discoveries upend scientific truths. Culture shifts in surprising ways. Art is used to interpret today and it’s repurposed later to interpret history of that future time, and these don’t need the same things. That’s why artists popular in one era aren’t necessarily remembered in the future, and so we might predict that the artists remembered from this era won’t be the ones celebrated in the future.

That’s among the big themes from But What If We’re Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past, a quirky and charming 2016 book by media critic Chuck Klosterman.

Below I share my notes for future reference.

How poverty in America works

Poor Americans seem so perplexing to rich Americans because they live in different worlds.

We have two housing and two banking systems. We ask why don’t poor people make different choices but the whole point is they don’t have other choices.

“The system isn’t broken. It’s bifurcated,” writes journalist Matthew Desmond in his 2023 book Poverty, By America. Below I share my notes for future reference.

Gradual: The Case for Incremental Change in a Radical Age

Too often we seek big, dramatic and comprehensive change when the far more common and effective way to make change in a democratic system is through a grinding and collaborative approach.

One way that’s the case is because making real change requires three stages (the politics, the policy and implementing the practice) but we commonly forget that third step. All told, incrementalism gets a bad rap. Nearly all lasting change has happened gradually, not boldly. The world is complex, no coalition is ideologically cohesive and those implementing change are flawed.

That’s the case made in the 2023 book “Gradual: The Case for Incremental Change in a Radical Age,” written by two longtime advocates in criminal justice reform, Aubrey Fox and Greg Berman. Below I share my notes for future reference.

Humanity is on ‘The Precipice’: How can we think about lasting a million years more?

Humanity is at a crucial moment in which our technologies are advanced enough to have created our own existential risks and secure enough to consider a longterm enough future in which natural risks pose true threats. This moment can be called the Precipice, the name of a 2020 book by Toby Ord.

I enjoyed it, came to it around organizing I’ve done toward longtermism, and another buzzy book on the topic.

Below I share my notes for future reference.

Inciting Joy

Late in his fall 2022 book Inciting Joy, essayist and poet Ross Gay confronts criticism he’s received for the writing he’s done on Joy. Most of it amounts to, the author says: how can a black man write about flowers in a time like this?

Earlier on, he gives his answer: Sorrow doesn’t need any help; “I think sorrow’s gonna be just fine.”

It’s an energizing and beautiful collection. I strongly recommend it. I share my notes for future reference below.

Advice on ‘the creative act’ from Rick Rubin

One of the most celebrated music producers alive can’t play an instrument.

Instead he follows and teachers creators to create. Rick Rubin published back in January a charming book called The Creative Act: A Way of Being. It reads like a book that any creator could pick up and source inspiration. I strongly recommend it.

My notes for future reference are below.