Good job Catherine that was a phenomenal article. I appreciate exactly what you had to say about the educational system knowing people in the ivory league. The ivy league is not exactly the way it used to be. Oh yeah fuck the work shit good job calling out that ridiculous shenanigans.
I keep thinking that the deeper issue isn’t just bad discourse — it’s that the world has fractured into ideological tribes, and each tribe quietly demands loyalty. The moment you step outside the script, you’re treated like a defector. Nuance feels like betrayal, and curiosity reads as heresy.
What you describe here — that impulse to disagree with everyone, that sense of not fitting neatly into any camp — feels like the natural consequence. If the only way to belong is to perform allegiance, then anyone who actually tries to think ends up drifting between tribes, trusted by none.
Maybe that’s why so many of us feel intellectually homeless right now.
I wonder if the hyper-moralised discussions of Nuzzi, age gap etc by digital journalists who mined Tumblr for fan stories circa 2010 etc come from an extent they are adopting a tone counterposed to many of those which had basically no ethics prior to woke and would be wildly inappropriate; similarly porn today is a total wild west, it's like there's this desperate attempt to cordon off anything-goes and everything else. So many ethical discussions are not "visibly contoured" in a world where even during say the 2023 period the same people who were anti-kids on the internet carved out a huge loophole for LGBTQ because that was seen as important for them to be positively affirmed. It would be inaccurate to say it's just who/whom friend/enemy either, it's about borderlessness and specificity of values (of course this dates back ages to the tabloid press, which has in celebrity and related coverage been defined by this hypocrisy and selective morality for eons)
I totally agree that the anti-striver discourse is dumb, but I think there is a kernel of truth to it as well. The issue isn't that you need to be a striver to get into Harvard; trying hard is good! It's the search for "well-rounded" students that's the problem. It means that kids have to shape their whole life, not just education, around the application process. The fastidious approval-seeking people this selects for do make for great employees, but they don't tend to start successful companies, make great art, discover scientific breakthroughs, etc.
How come all of your posters/flyers for the call in shows have been so very good? The image in this letter, the aliens one - is it all the same person putting them together? Super great graphic design, I've saved every single one. x
Oh wow. Well, whatever you’re telling…. IT (lol) - keep doing it..! Hope you’re feeling OK, Call In Shows quickly becoming the highlight of my week and because i’m in the future (Australia) it’s a nice little ‘end of the work week’ symbol for me too. Joy joy joy.
A huge reason for the current drama surrounding the Ivies is the fact that getting into them and graduating *hasn't* revealed any useful information about an individual for at least a decade now.
Great article! I feel I got a shitty education in my childhood (half on me and half on the school). That’s one of the reasons I’m playing catch up with so many subjects
I think Andrews is on to something, but blaming it on such a broad subject like "feminism" strikes me as measuring something with a micrometer and turning around and cutting it with an ax--intellectually lazy after a good start. I think she tries to make the case, but there's something missing. Big accusations against big suspects require a big case; anything less is a disservice to both sides.
To put it another way, she needs to take the additional step with a sharper pencil and figure out precisely what's causing the phenomenon she sees.
Hey KD, I dig the conscientious writhing w/w you write here. Isn't it wild that ppl once enthused that they *dug* something, at the very same moment it was turning them on? I feel turned on, and I can't think of anything i'd rather be! But what is the "correct" response to "can you dig it"? I reckon there is none. You.can only start digging wildly for those "notes between notes" (Sukenick) that Adam Katz, he calls "infra-humaning" And as you say, we flee from that POC (particular online conversation) that appears to have plain turned turtle. Instead of trying to turn us ON, it just lies there capsized, unwoked/OFF and flailing...
fwiw, Nuzzi is mid+ at best, you could've landed some elderchad tail faster than her, but you have scruples. I'm saying it on your behalf so that you don't get accused of sour grapes.
And if it wasn't for you bringing that up, I'd have never heard of it.
Seems like the popularization of therapy and pop psychology were also big drivers in making workplace culture more "feminized". The idea of the "inner child", Meyers-Briggs personality paradigms (my Dad had to read Please Understand Me and take the Meyers-Briggs for a job conference) -- all of it hammered home that you have to communicate with co-workers in a way that respects their internal subjective viewpoint and in the "language" of their personality.
FWIW, I've never considered you anti-woke. I think you're a rare person who doesn't let anyone decide what you believe but you.
I think you make an excellent point about about new age stuff influencing the workplace. I think you're all too young to remember all the (male focused!) new age stuff came out of the 70s and 80s. Est, Scientology/biofeedback, culty yoga, Amway, crystals, trendy Tarot, trendy witches. The wealthy Boomers were empty inside, y'all, and they threw money at all kinds of con men/women to try to fill the void that cocaine, polyester, and ugly shoes couldn't fill.
Millennial/empowerment/choice-choosing feminism lasted five years at most (2009 - 2013ish) before it started getting both a lot of pushback and a tendency to eat itself. I am fairly confident that group did not ruin the workplace.
Oooh, and striver discourse, too. I am trying to get the striver inside me back, but she is tired.
On the one hand, the general "feminization of everything" is totally real, except that it's much lower key and subtle, like a bass beat behind everything. It laid the foundations in the 70s and continues to today, it just had the flashy front page headlines in the '09-13 era, but the influence is profound and unyielding. There are articles out there and maybe I'll remember to find one for you when I'm not tired and buzzed (actually if you read New Right Poast, look for the diatribe on X from Wokal Distance this week for a decent example).
On the other hand, I'm open to hearing about this New Age influence. Especially since you mention how much sway it had on men in that era. I was born in the early 80s, came of age in the 90s, and I def remember a lot of New Age hippie shit, dated a few, picked out crystals and incense on dates at the mall and what not, even heard an ex cast a hex on me. But I wasn't old enough to be in a professional environment and see what kind of influence it had there, that's really interesting to imagine. And I can't remember if it was Dee or Whitney Webb (probly a combo of both) who elaborated to me the long long history and connection going back to the late 1800s between hardcore Zionism, Satanism, and New Age-ism which are kinda all really the same thing with overlapping founders. So please elaborate there, especially in workplace scenarios!
I'm ten years ahead of you, I was born in '71. To be clear, I don't think crystals and est ruined the workplace, either. Good old fashioned greed ruined the workplace, and greed isn't gendered.
That being said, one of my earliest "real" jobs was in caretaking, and I worked for a lady with an office full of healing crystals who kept giving me books about spiritual sex and a former Est guy who quit to work on a pit crew for car racing, he gave me Ken Kesey books.
Going back a bit further, and probably stretching the definition of New Age, in my neck of America, the Masonic Lodges have always had an outsized influence in deciding who can get power in a tiny pond. (And, tbf, a bunch of dealership owners cosplaying as King Solomon is pretty woo.)
Good job Catherine that was a phenomenal article. I appreciate exactly what you had to say about the educational system knowing people in the ivory league. The ivy league is not exactly the way it used to be. Oh yeah fuck the work shit good job calling out that ridiculous shenanigans.
I keep thinking that the deeper issue isn’t just bad discourse — it’s that the world has fractured into ideological tribes, and each tribe quietly demands loyalty. The moment you step outside the script, you’re treated like a defector. Nuance feels like betrayal, and curiosity reads as heresy.
What you describe here — that impulse to disagree with everyone, that sense of not fitting neatly into any camp — feels like the natural consequence. If the only way to belong is to perform allegiance, then anyone who actually tries to think ends up drifting between tribes, trusted by none.
Maybe that’s why so many of us feel intellectually homeless right now.
I think you’re totally right
I wonder if the hyper-moralised discussions of Nuzzi, age gap etc by digital journalists who mined Tumblr for fan stories circa 2010 etc come from an extent they are adopting a tone counterposed to many of those which had basically no ethics prior to woke and would be wildly inappropriate; similarly porn today is a total wild west, it's like there's this desperate attempt to cordon off anything-goes and everything else. So many ethical discussions are not "visibly contoured" in a world where even during say the 2023 period the same people who were anti-kids on the internet carved out a huge loophole for LGBTQ because that was seen as important for them to be positively affirmed. It would be inaccurate to say it's just who/whom friend/enemy either, it's about borderlessness and specificity of values (of course this dates back ages to the tabloid press, which has in celebrity and related coverage been defined by this hypocrisy and selective morality for eons)
I totally agree that the anti-striver discourse is dumb, but I think there is a kernel of truth to it as well. The issue isn't that you need to be a striver to get into Harvard; trying hard is good! It's the search for "well-rounded" students that's the problem. It means that kids have to shape their whole life, not just education, around the application process. The fastidious approval-seeking people this selects for do make for great employees, but they don't tend to start successful companies, make great art, discover scientific breakthroughs, etc.
How come all of your posters/flyers for the call in shows have been so very good? The image in this letter, the aliens one - is it all the same person putting them together? Super great graphic design, I've saved every single one. x
I make them but AI helps! It’s a collaboration
Oh wow. Well, whatever you’re telling…. IT (lol) - keep doing it..! Hope you’re feeling OK, Call In Shows quickly becoming the highlight of my week and because i’m in the future (Australia) it’s a nice little ‘end of the work week’ symbol for me too. Joy joy joy.
A huge reason for the current drama surrounding the Ivies is the fact that getting into them and graduating *hasn't* revealed any useful information about an individual for at least a decade now.
Great article! I feel I got a shitty education in my childhood (half on me and half on the school). That’s one of the reasons I’m playing catch up with so many subjects
I think Andrews is on to something, but blaming it on such a broad subject like "feminism" strikes me as measuring something with a micrometer and turning around and cutting it with an ax--intellectually lazy after a good start. I think she tries to make the case, but there's something missing. Big accusations against big suspects require a big case; anything less is a disservice to both sides.
To put it another way, she needs to take the additional step with a sharper pencil and figure out precisely what's causing the phenomenon she sees.
I really respect Ryan Lizza for throwing a curve ball and revealing just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Me too
Landmark specifically is quite litigious so maybe that's how they've managed to offload blame.
Hey KD, I dig the conscientious writhing w/w you write here. Isn't it wild that ppl once enthused that they *dug* something, at the very same moment it was turning them on? I feel turned on, and I can't think of anything i'd rather be! But what is the "correct" response to "can you dig it"? I reckon there is none. You.can only start digging wildly for those "notes between notes" (Sukenick) that Adam Katz, he calls "infra-humaning" And as you say, we flee from that POC (particular online conversation) that appears to have plain turned turtle. Instead of trying to turn us ON, it just lies there capsized, unwoked/OFF and flailing...
fwiw, Nuzzi is mid+ at best, you could've landed some elderchad tail faster than her, but you have scruples. I'm saying it on your behalf so that you don't get accused of sour grapes.
And if it wasn't for you bringing that up, I'd have never heard of it.
LOL, I don't think I'd get accused of that! And I'm not especially interested in older men.
Seems like the popularization of therapy and pop psychology were also big drivers in making workplace culture more "feminized". The idea of the "inner child", Meyers-Briggs personality paradigms (my Dad had to read Please Understand Me and take the Meyers-Briggs for a job conference) -- all of it hammered home that you have to communicate with co-workers in a way that respects their internal subjective viewpoint and in the "language" of their personality.
FWIW, I've never considered you anti-woke. I think you're a rare person who doesn't let anyone decide what you believe but you.
I think you make an excellent point about about new age stuff influencing the workplace. I think you're all too young to remember all the (male focused!) new age stuff came out of the 70s and 80s. Est, Scientology/biofeedback, culty yoga, Amway, crystals, trendy Tarot, trendy witches. The wealthy Boomers were empty inside, y'all, and they threw money at all kinds of con men/women to try to fill the void that cocaine, polyester, and ugly shoes couldn't fill.
Millennial/empowerment/choice-choosing feminism lasted five years at most (2009 - 2013ish) before it started getting both a lot of pushback and a tendency to eat itself. I am fairly confident that group did not ruin the workplace.
Oooh, and striver discourse, too. I am trying to get the striver inside me back, but she is tired.
Excellent digest, lots to think about.
On the one hand, the general "feminization of everything" is totally real, except that it's much lower key and subtle, like a bass beat behind everything. It laid the foundations in the 70s and continues to today, it just had the flashy front page headlines in the '09-13 era, but the influence is profound and unyielding. There are articles out there and maybe I'll remember to find one for you when I'm not tired and buzzed (actually if you read New Right Poast, look for the diatribe on X from Wokal Distance this week for a decent example).
On the other hand, I'm open to hearing about this New Age influence. Especially since you mention how much sway it had on men in that era. I was born in the early 80s, came of age in the 90s, and I def remember a lot of New Age hippie shit, dated a few, picked out crystals and incense on dates at the mall and what not, even heard an ex cast a hex on me. But I wasn't old enough to be in a professional environment and see what kind of influence it had there, that's really interesting to imagine. And I can't remember if it was Dee or Whitney Webb (probly a combo of both) who elaborated to me the long long history and connection going back to the late 1800s between hardcore Zionism, Satanism, and New Age-ism which are kinda all really the same thing with overlapping founders. So please elaborate there, especially in workplace scenarios!
I'm ten years ahead of you, I was born in '71. To be clear, I don't think crystals and est ruined the workplace, either. Good old fashioned greed ruined the workplace, and greed isn't gendered.
That being said, one of my earliest "real" jobs was in caretaking, and I worked for a lady with an office full of healing crystals who kept giving me books about spiritual sex and a former Est guy who quit to work on a pit crew for car racing, he gave me Ken Kesey books.
Going back a bit further, and probably stretching the definition of New Age, in my neck of America, the Masonic Lodges have always had an outsized influence in deciding who can get power in a tiny pond. (And, tbf, a bunch of dealership owners cosplaying as King Solomon is pretty woo.)
I scanned Wikipedia for more on est, and apparently est and Scientology were in a war in the 80s. Ironic, lol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training
No one ever went broke trying to sell meaning and purpose to a bunch of meatsacks.
I could go on and on, but that wouldn't be fun for either of us, and I have a very long todo list today. Thanks for engaging!