Weekly Roundup and an Interview with Michael Shellenberger
· 5 min read
Dear Quilletters,
I hope you've had a great week and aren't too affected by the wild behaviour of the stock market.
As always, we've prepared a bevy of interesting reads for you this week, including an interview with gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger about what needs to change in California.
When you've got a spare twenty minutes, fill it reading a roundtable discussion with Bo Winegard, Oliver Traldi, Geoffrey Miller and Spencer Case on whether or not moral expertise is possible.
Also, don't miss Stephan Jensen's blazing critique of how the hard Left and populist Right have more in common than they'd like to think.
Have a great weekend.
Zoe Booth
Community Engagement
North American Politics
The Hard Left and Populist Right Agree on All the Wrong Things
The ideas that unite the hard Left and the populist Right against the West itself are the same ones that make them both so excited about culture war.
Stephan Jensen
Can California Change?—An Interview with Michael Shellenberger
In October 2021, environmentalist activist and author Michael Shellenberger published his bestselling book San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities. He is now campaigning to be the next governor of California on an independent ticket and a platform that promises to address the crises he identifie…
Peter Clarke
Canada’s Racial Balkanization
With their newfound fixation on race and bloodline, Canada’s WASP elites are channelling a mindset that I thought I’d left behind in the former Yugoslavia.
Lydia Perović
We Need to Talk About Abortion
It’s not only conservatives who are changing the subject.
Dilan Esper
The White House’s Specious Gender Manifesto
The White House is claiming that the debate about childhood gender medicine is settled—even as numerous international experts are coming forward to say it‘s not.
Bernard Lane
Philosophy
Is Moral Expertise Possible?—A Roundtable
Is moral expertise really a thing—normatively, theoretically, or metaphysically? All three major Western schools of moral philosophy seem to think so, including virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism.
Geoffrey Miller, Oliver Traldi, Spencer Case, and Bo Winegard
The Limits of Narrative
Societal crises of self-confidence can result from distorted and oversimplified narratives.
James Jeffrey
Art and Culture
What Explains Women’s Fascination With BDSM Fiction?
Every generation or so (i.e., roughly every 25 years) a woman (it’s always a woman) writes a book about kinky sex—and a very specific type of kinky sex.
Robert King
Art Is Not Therapy
Something is flattened when our understanding of art is asked to serve the logic of a medical diagnosis, which sees the messiness of the human condition as a malady to be cured.
Jasmine Hu-Hollingshead
Academia
When Disagreement Becomes Trauma
How does one deal with those who claim that debate itself represents an agony beyond human endurance?
Jonathan Kay
Podcasts
Quillette Podcast #188: How Elon Musk Can Promote Free Speech—Without Turning Twitter Into One Big ‘Dumpster Fire’
Veteran technology expert Jim Rutt tells Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay about the hard lessons he’s learned over four decades of creating and implementing content-moderation standards on numerous social-media platforms. Image below: The GameB Home Rules and Norms on Jim Rutt’s GameB site, as ci…
Quillette
27 Rouge: A Quillette Podcast: VII: Ed Latimore On Boxing, Stoicism, and Falling in Love with a Process on Apple Podcasts
Show 27 Rouge: A Quillette Podcast, Ep VII: Ed Latimore On Boxing, Stoicism, and Falling in Love with a Process - 11 May 2022
From Around the Web
Opinion | Warnings From the Crypto Crash
As the Federal Reserve withdraws liquidity to fight inflation, stablecoins won’t be the last casualties.
The Editorial Board
Conversations With Coleman: The Facebook Whistleblower with Frances Haugen on Apple Podcasts
Show Conversations With Coleman, Ep The Facebook Whistleblower with Frances Haugen - May 7, 2022
