Contaminated Farms, Individualism, and Art

“Twelve Months to Fall Back in Love with America.” Anarchist, hobo, Coast Guardsman, Catholic, Front Porch Republic conference-goer, and now newlywed A.M. Hickman is traveling America with his wife Keturah and looking for signs of communal vitality: “Everywhere, a rattling juxtaposition between the gutter and Disneyland, between Dickensian ghetto scenes and Botoxed, green-lawn realms of bureaucracy and comfort. As far as I could tell, somewhere along the line, “auld acquaintance” had indeed been ‘forgot.’”

“Why We Don’t Build Beautifully.” Ross Douthat draws on an essay by Samuel Hughes to answer his daughter’s question about why we no longer craft beautiful buildings: “Here is the good news in his argument: What bad ideas made, good ideas can unmake. We don’t necessarily need to repeal the laws of economics or solve Baumol’s cost disease to build as beautifully as our ancestors once did. We just need to see the world more humanistically and mystically, to regard ourselves as stewards and sub-creators once again.”

“Something’s Poisoning America’s Farms. Scientists Fear ‘Forever’ Chemicals.” Hiroko Tabuchi reports on the terrifying scope of PFAS-contaminated farmland across America: “The national scale of farmland contamination by these chemicals — which are used in everything from microwave popcorn bags and firefighting gear to nonstick pans and stain-resistant carpets — is only now starting to become apparent. There are now lawsuits against providers of the fertilizer, as well as against the Environmental Protection Agency, alleging that the agency failed to regulate the chemicals, known as PFAS.”

“Individualism.” Wilfred McClay teases apart the different strains of individualism that run through American history and considers the possibilities for tempering its excesses: “More fundamental, though, is the question of how much strength remains in the primary institutions of family, marriage, church, and local community upon which traditionalist conservatism was built and by which the American penchant for individualism has been restrained in the past. Such fragile institutions, and the habits of reverence, accountability, and rootedness they engender, will have little binding power in a utility-maximizing world, where radical individualism is allowed to run riot.”

“A Sunday Contemplation.” Brian Miller sits quietly with his cigar: “A tractor starts on the far side of the hill. It’s a reminder to me of what still needs doing down the lane. But I am content to leave the hurrying, the toing and froing, to others for now. I sit contemplatively, in penance for my own sad contribution to this made world, trying to understand.”

“Canada as America’s Post-liberal Counterpart.” Paul Marshall looks at Canada as an anti-liberal contrast to America. Loyalist refugees articulated a vision for society centered around the common good rather than individual freedoms and rights, yet Canada now “goes far beyond any U.S. state in its commitment to abortion, transgenderism, ‘medical assistance in dying,’ and other modernist views.” What gives? “As Eric Voegelin has argued, liberalism is not an independent phenomenon but is shaped by often contingent responses to political and other events. An integralist claim that America’s founding in liberal principles has necessarily led us to our present troubles must reckon that an adjacent polity founded on the rejection of these same principles now has these troubles in much stronger measure. History and politics are complex and are more than the expression of ideas working their way through an internal logic, and therein lies both worry and hope.” (Recommended by Gillis Harp.)

“Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art.” Ted Chiang probes the essence of art and human communication and argues AI is most likely to muddy the waters: “The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.”

“Toward the Recovery of American Culture.” Matthew Gasda considers why American culture is so shallow—a mere “samestream”—and where we might start deepening it, both individually and politically: “There are a few places to begin: a child could start to memorize poetry. Parents could read to their children. The wealthy could employ artists and intellectuals; public works could employ craftspeople to beautify public buildings new and old. Churches could return to stone and wood, as could upper-middle-class home builders. People could spend less time on social media, or better, none. Writing letters costs the price of a stamp. Most paperback classics are still one or two dollars at used bookstores. Art galleries could reemploy the canons of beauty—and not simply act as glamorous money-laundering operations. None of these very broad proposals are at all impossible, though none of them are probable.” (Recommended by Adam Smith.)

“Rootedness Over Time and Affection for the Real.” Jason Peters contemplates a recent gathering on his porch: “In the long history of humans making-do during their brief journeys from cradle to grave there isn’t anything especially odd about meat on a table that was once on the hoof out back. And until the age of deracination and hypermobility there would have been nothing remarkable about a few men who were schoolmates more than forty years ago luxuriating in talk over beers on an evening in August. In the long story of humanity there isn’t anything particular about this at all. But now—in what surely are anomalous times, notwithstanding our inclination to regard them as normal—this, clearly, is rare.”

“The Professoriate’s Politics Problem.” The Chronicle asked several people why it is that the overwhelming majority of university faculty are liberal. Musa al-Gharbi, Zena Hitz, Roosevelt Montás, Elizabeth Corey, Tyler Austin Harper, and others take a crack at this question. Here’s a taste of Harper’s response: “what elite universities actually prepare students to do out in the ‘real world’ is to compartmentalize. They teach them to make peace with — and ideally, stop noticing — the ways their big-hearted personal convictions are at direct odds with their sources of employment. And it is liberal professors who model this cognitive dissonance for students: If spouting left-wing talking points while being cheerfully blind to ubiquitous exploitation were a sport, tenured faculty would be Olympic athletes.”