Learning – Page 7 – Christopher Wink

9 Nasty Words by John McWhorter

Vulgarity has gone through three big waves in English: about religion, about the body and now about groups of people.

The etymology and usage of profanity can tell you the most important lesson there is about language: It is always in motion, whether or not you know it, can perceive it or like. That’s the point of linguistics professor John McWhorter’s 2021 book Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever. As he cheekily summarizes: “Profanity, first involved the holy, and only later the holes.”

I’ve read a bunch of McWhorter’s books, including his other recent publication, which veered into the political. This book is far more like his other pure, approachable books on linguistics. I’m a fan of his, and I’d recommend this as much as his others. As he writes: “To understand that language changes without allowing a certain space for serendipity is to understand it not at all.”

For future reference, I have my notes below.

Woke Racism: notes from John McWhorter’s controversial 2021 book

Early Christians didn’t think of themselves as a religion but as bearers of truth. So too do a class of progressive activists that put race at the center of everything, and are unwilling to hear any complicating narrative.

That’s the theme of the 2021 book Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America written by John McWhorter, a linguist and prolific writer on language, whom I have long read (he’s also a native Philadelphian). No surprise given the topic and his stature the book has garnered widespread coverage. Some more thoughtful than others.

I respect McWhorter, and am a genuine fan of his linguistics books, so I’ve gone with him on this ride he’s taken into our political and partisan muck. He was one of the hundreds of academics to sign that Harper’s letter that called for greater civility, which received ample generational criticism.

I don’t suggest his politics align with my perfectly but I do take him to be a good-faith arguer. So I appreciate his book’s overall argument that a class of activists are more interested in virtue signaling among their peers than actually progressing forward. The best way to understand this movement is that they’re adherents to a kind of religion, he argues. They’re no more likely to accept other points of views than a Christian is to accept perspective on Christ from Islam.

Instead, his broad perspective on race in America is that culture outlasts original stimuli (ie true racism). It’s thorny. I share my notes from the book below for my future reference.

Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics

Fair or not, today’s economic theory gets simplified in popular understanding as a binary between two influential leaders: English economist John Manyard Keynes (1883-1946) and younger Austrian-British economist Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992).

One way to understand economic theory then is understand these two men, and how they debated and intersected. That’s the goal of Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Ececonomics, the 2011 book by British journalist Nicholas Wapshott.

Keynesian economics gets simplified as describing government as the spender of last resort; In the face of recession, government spending can reverse those threats (think of the initial pandemic era); Hayek helped establish the Austrian School of economic theory (which greatly influenced the University of Chicago school, including Milton Friedman), which can be simplified as arguing for government to set the rules and little else. Like so many silly binaries, there are lessons from both.

Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

How to have better conversations

“We expect more from technology and less from each other.”

So argues Sherry Turkle, an academic and author, in her 2015 book “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.” Turkle is a professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT. This book is part of a portfolio of hers that examines the impact of technology on human communication and relationships. Turkle argues the increased use of technology in everyday life has changed the way we communicate, and that this shift has had a negative impact on our ability to engage in deep, meaningful conversations. In the ensuing seven years this storyline has only grown.

Turkle argues that our constant use of technology, such as smartphones and social media, is eroding our ability to have meaningful conversations and empathize with others. She suggests that we need to reclaim conversation as a means of fostering deeper connections and understanding. The book also explores how technology is affecting the way we interact with ourselves, and how it can be used to foster self-reflection and self-discovery. Overall, the book is a call to action to put down our devices and engage in more meaningful face-to-face conversations.

Below I share notes from the book.

Fight Like Hell: under told stories of the union movement

What is culturally and statistically counted as work is a political battle. Housework and prison labor remain murky parts of economic records and worker rights efforts.

That’s a big theme from the 2022 book “Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor” by Kim Kelly, a progressive freelance journalist with a specialist on labor movements (and a fellow Philadelphian). Kelly has called it a “people’s history” of the labor movement. Each chapter is dedicated to a key historical period told through the narrative of lesser-known leaders, with a special focus on women, immigrants and Black and indigenous people. The book added context to my understanding of the country’s labor history.

Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

Metaphors We Live By from the influential 1980 book

Metaphor is integral not just to language but to understanding.

So goes the influential book Metaphors We Live By, published in 1980 by a book by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. The book suggests metaphor is a tool that enables people to use what they know about their direct physical and social experiences to understand more abstract things like work, time, mental activity and feelings.

It is a short and approachable book that nonetheless introduced and spread the idea of just how pervasive metaphor is in human language. It helps writers and editors process our phrase choices.

Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

The Data Detective: notes from Tim Harford’s 2020 guide on numeracy

Our preconceptions warp our interpretation about statistics, and our political decisions shape what data we even collect.

It can seem statistics aren’t worth trouble. But statistics show us things we cannot see any other way, like the human or anecdotal scale. So goes economics journalist Tim Harford’s 2020 celebration of and guide through statistical analysis for the layperson, the book The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules To Make Sense of Statistics.

“It’s easy to lie with statistics,” goes the line that gets attributed to American mathematician Frederick Mosteller (1916-2006). “But it’s even easier to lie without them.”

I’ve read a few of Harford’s books, which are friendly, fun and readable. They’re full of stories and collected wisdom for those interested in overcoming statistical trickery.

Below I share my notes from the book for future reference.

Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts and Fake News

Tall tales and blurring the lines between fact and fiction is part of the American identity.

Fake news isn’t new but the latest variation on the theme. So argued Kevin Young in his 2017 book Bunk
The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News.

The book came from a series of articles he wrote for The New Yorker. It mashes culture, journalism, cultural appropriation and Americana. It reads like a collection of interesting tidbits, which can be fun, though I put the book down and picked it back up a few times over the couple years since it was given to me.

It still adds to my understanding of my field and my country. As Young quotes poet Mary Karr as saying: “The American religion — so far as there is one anymore — seems to be doubt. Whoever believes the least wins, because he’ll never be found wrong.”

Below I share my notes from the book for my future reference.

Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few

Pitting the free market against government intervention is a false premise. Free markets can’t last without government intervention. The debate is how much, which is not just an economic but a political challenge to overcome.

That’s a big theme from Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few, a 2015 book from progressive academic Robert Reich, who was President Clinton’s labor secretary. Today he’s a prolific writer, speaker and social content producer. Though I don’t align entirely with his politics, he’s a thoughtful and effective writer. I still recommend the book after all these years.

Below I share my own notes for future reference.

A list of once-great, now closed Philadelphia manufacturing giants

Philadelphia is old enough a city that its business community has lived many lifetimes.

Though its Quakerly tradition shunned ostentatious consumption, there are old roots. In 1732, The Rowland Company became one of the first incorporated businesses in the country (and it still operates in Philadelphia). 1881, Wharton became the first college-level business school. The Philadelphia Contributionship(1752) is the country’s oldest property insurance company; Rawle & Henderson (1783) is the oldest law-firm and (since relocated) D. Landreth Seed Company (1783) is the oldest seed companies (George Washington was a customer).

Philadelphia’s global clout declined in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Many of its prominent manufacturing businesses did not adapt to a changing world. Out of my own curiosity I’ve started a running tab of some of the more prominent closures from that time.