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I thought this piece in The New Republic was germane to our discussions this semester. The author notes a number of ballot measures around the country that suggest growing support for a multiracial America.

Here are a couple of reviews of Pluckrose and Lindsay’s new book.
This one is friendly and borders on fawning: “The Truth According to Social Justice.”
This one is super hostile and may be missing the forest for the trees: “The Cynical Theorists Behind Cynical Theories.”

This is the drawing Benjamin was looking at when he described the Angel of History, which we saw quoted in Anderson chapter nine. It is Klee’s “Angelus Novus.”

This American Scholar essay by an English prof at U. Virginia is right up our alley this week. Like the hoaxsters we’re reading for Thursday, he suggests the spirit of critique and deconstruction in academia may have been taken too far in some cases. Check it out: Mark Edmundson, “Teach What You Love.”

Then if you find that interesting but want an even more esoteric and thorough critique of critique, check out this essay by one of the smartest living people on earth: Bruno Latour, “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.”

Both are calling for a positive affirmation of what we love and cherish as students and humanists.

I know it’s uncharitable to say told-you-so, and I’m sorry they almost got eaten by bears, but this is exactly, precisely what everyone who has taken even three hours of sociology predicts would happen if anyone ever tried to build Galt’s Gulch. Read in New Republic about an Objectivist epic fail: “The Town That Went Feral.”

Apropos Anderson’s characterization of nations as “imagined communities,” take a look at this map. All the made up stories of today’s European countries as containers for timeless nations is given the lie in three minutes 24 seconds.

Some reflection on the national symbolism of Notre Dame after last year’s fire, published in the The Nation: “The Burning of Notre Dame Is Not Just a Tragedy—It’s an Opportunity.” Note the extended consideration of Renan, whom Anderson cites in tonight’s reading.

A student reminded me of this old School House Rock song. I’m sure I haven’t heard it since I was a kid, when it was still on Saturday morning broadcast TV, but it came right back to me! And here I’ve been making fun of other people for being nostalgic. Anyway, watching this now, I see connections to our discussions of national identity, public school curricula, historical revisionism, and more. I suspect a remake today would follow a rather different script. Still makes me sort of nostalgic, though.

Ok, one more on the 1619 Project, since it really is currently at the center of so much agonizing over national identity. Here, one of the more balanced and extensive critiques of the project I’ve come across, an essay from New York Times columnist Bret Stephens: “The 1619 Chronicles.”