(Responding to the intro, not the podcast. Haven’t read the transcript yet). I wonder if the survey asking what professions are elite is granular enough. At the very least, there are absolutely some journalists I would consider elite, but I’m not sure I would extend that to the whole profession.
Matt discussed this a bit, which is that "celebrities" is clearly the correct characterization of whether a journalist or professor is an elite or not- as in, a famous professor or journalist is elite, whereas some beat reporter for a local paper or adjunct at a state college is not.
Jerusalem really missed how Barbie producer (and star) Margot Robbie advanced the discourse:
2017 produces and stars in Oscar winning film about class and gender discrimination (I Tonya)
2019 co-stars in Oscar winning film about workplace harassment (Bombshell)
2020 produces Oscar winning film about sexual assault (promising young woman)
2023 produces and stars in openly anti-patriarchy Oscar winning film that grosses $1.4b.
Really hard hitting films rarely dominate the box office. But she did do them, and early. They just didn’t get famous. They influence other cultural leaders and the Oscar wins and nominations (and modest box office success) suggests they had some success.
Barbie transmits those ideas to a mass audience. Including people who aren’t up to speed with the discourse. Which is most people! The average person is very much not a highly online media professional.
There is actually a feminist podcast about another somewhat groundbreaking Robbie production, Birds of Prey, about an all female superhero team.
I strongly suspect that if the white paper expanded its study out to marching bands, frats/sororities, and other such close-knit multi-year college organizations and expanded the search well beyond the Ivy league, they would find very similar effects everywhere. The reason you don't see the tech bros showing up here is that the Ivy League actually isn't the production engine of tech bros, they primarily come from Stanford and the UC system at large. I was in a UC marching band and you would be surprised how many of my fellow alumni I encounter in the tech world generally.
The mechanism here is that hiring managers tend to tap into their own networks to look for good candidates. Maybe you post on LinkedIn: "hey, I'm hiring for a sales admin, here's the link to apply." Perhaps none of the band alumni in your direct network want this job, but they are connected to other band alumni who are different in age than you, and they say "oh, maybe so-and-so who's 3 years younger than me would be good, I know she's looking for work," they forward the link to so-and-so, she says "oh yes I'd love to apply!" and then the connection facilitates the whole deal.
The reason why Jerusalem specifically feels like the Ivy League degrees are so important is because she went into journalism, which is highly dominated by the Ivy League networkers. Many fields that are not based in the Northeast are dominated by different college networks. I imagine east coasters don't think about Cal Poly as an important school, but anyone in California engineering does.
The idea comes down to the idea that there are “the people tm” and “elites” who have alien customs and values. I wonder if you did a follow up poll asking if certain groups mentioned in the podcast typically labled as elites “journalist”, “academics” etc. “have similar values and want what’s best for America” etc. we’d see results closer to the typical Ruffo theory prove true.
While they might not perceive them as elites do they perceive “them” as good actors, neighbors and working towards the common good?
If you've never read Road to Serfdom before you'll probably come out surprised that it's such a right wing touchstone given that Hayek isn't all the reactionary in it.
Is there a feed of this podcast without the ads? Y'all have had some truly godawful ones recently, especially the one for a mobile gambling app(?!). I thought your ethical commitments would at least prevent that kind of ad.
I'm a paying subscriber to both The Argument and Slow Boring so would be disappointed if there is no way to avoid them.
Also a paying subscriber to both podcasts, I listen through the slow boring private feed on the overcast app, and I don't hear any ads. It's your setup
(Responding to the intro, not the podcast. Haven’t read the transcript yet). I wonder if the survey asking what professions are elite is granular enough. At the very least, there are absolutely some journalists I would consider elite, but I’m not sure I would extend that to the whole profession.
Matt discussed this a bit, which is that "celebrities" is clearly the correct characterization of whether a journalist or professor is an elite or not- as in, a famous professor or journalist is elite, whereas some beat reporter for a local paper or adjunct at a state college is not.
Jerusalem really missed how Barbie producer (and star) Margot Robbie advanced the discourse:
2017 produces and stars in Oscar winning film about class and gender discrimination (I Tonya)
2019 co-stars in Oscar winning film about workplace harassment (Bombshell)
2020 produces Oscar winning film about sexual assault (promising young woman)
2023 produces and stars in openly anti-patriarchy Oscar winning film that grosses $1.4b.
Really hard hitting films rarely dominate the box office. But she did do them, and early. They just didn’t get famous. They influence other cultural leaders and the Oscar wins and nominations (and modest box office success) suggests they had some success.
Barbie transmits those ideas to a mass audience. Including people who aren’t up to speed with the discourse. Which is most people! The average person is very much not a highly online media professional.
There is actually a feminist podcast about another somewhat groundbreaking Robbie production, Birds of Prey, about an all female superhero team.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-bechdel-cast/id1180733925?i=1000475296661
Having trouble finding the ad free feed. Is there a specific link for it somewhere??
Same I thought it was just me but I can’t find the Substack link to the podcast
Yeah, I really hope there is
I feel like Anya Taylor-Joy is Matt's go-to actress. Was he like a huge fan of The Queen's Gambit?
The Mars family was a major player in developing modern tax loopholes so I’d say they are elites.
I strongly suspect that if the white paper expanded its study out to marching bands, frats/sororities, and other such close-knit multi-year college organizations and expanded the search well beyond the Ivy league, they would find very similar effects everywhere. The reason you don't see the tech bros showing up here is that the Ivy League actually isn't the production engine of tech bros, they primarily come from Stanford and the UC system at large. I was in a UC marching band and you would be surprised how many of my fellow alumni I encounter in the tech world generally.
The mechanism here is that hiring managers tend to tap into their own networks to look for good candidates. Maybe you post on LinkedIn: "hey, I'm hiring for a sales admin, here's the link to apply." Perhaps none of the band alumni in your direct network want this job, but they are connected to other band alumni who are different in age than you, and they say "oh, maybe so-and-so who's 3 years younger than me would be good, I know she's looking for work," they forward the link to so-and-so, she says "oh yes I'd love to apply!" and then the connection facilitates the whole deal.
The reason why Jerusalem specifically feels like the Ivy League degrees are so important is because she went into journalism, which is highly dominated by the Ivy League networkers. Many fields that are not based in the Northeast are dominated by different college networks. I imagine east coasters don't think about Cal Poly as an important school, but anyone in California engineering does.
The idea comes down to the idea that there are “the people tm” and “elites” who have alien customs and values. I wonder if you did a follow up poll asking if certain groups mentioned in the podcast typically labled as elites “journalist”, “academics” etc. “have similar values and want what’s best for America” etc. we’d see results closer to the typical Ruffo theory prove true.
While they might not perceive them as elites do they perceive “them” as good actors, neighbors and working towards the common good?
If you've never read Road to Serfdom before you'll probably come out surprised that it's such a right wing touchstone given that Hayek isn't all the reactionary in it.
Is there a feed of this podcast without the ads? Y'all have had some truly godawful ones recently, especially the one for a mobile gambling app(?!). I thought your ethical commitments would at least prevent that kind of ad.
I'm a paying subscriber to both The Argument and Slow Boring so would be disappointed if there is no way to avoid them.
Also a paying subscriber to both podcasts, I listen through the slow boring private feed on the overcast app, and I don't hear any ads. It's your setup
Excellent, thanks!
The correct term is bourgeoisie but if we use it the working class will suddenly start speaking Russian and resort to torture
They don’t control society but they’re close enough to “making it” that they insist we continue as normal while quietly sabotaging each other