[contextly_auto_sidebar id="garKPKQO2s6Wcq12fnP4ZbWsAHkTgfpv"] FILE under the law of unintended consequences: Because journos pride themselves on being disinterested observers without bias or investment -- the old "objectivity" business -- they are reticent to stand up for their own peers and profession. I found this out the hard way when I lost my job, and every editor I asked about a first … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2015
Culture’s Perfect Storm: CC on the Radio
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="CN8b3Y5FZAeQMTZTsTtc0tupQqcwaJ9l"] WHAT do recent changes in technology, economics and social norms mean for the art, culture and the creative class? These are the topics that drive my book, Culture Crash, and they're subjects I discussed with the Jeff Schnechtman, the Napa, CA-based radio host whose show is called Specific Gravity. Here it is. I may … [Read more...]
Postmodernism and the Human Condition
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="4fl6TsMH8aaXBjpQRlz6uE4TNBUnTl8E"] ONE of our favorite controversies over the last few moths has been the tussle over Excellent Sheep, the William Deresiewicz book that criticizes the obsessive pragmatism and money worship that's come to define the Ivy League experience. Simultaneously, one of our least favorite recent developments has been the destruction of the … [Read more...]
The Dark Vision of Neil Postman
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="9SH7Jz0T3AVOjswZ9pMhaO2BBpIbBBbX"] ONE of my all-time favorite social critics is the late, great author of Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. (I'm even fonder of his book Technopoly, which came out in the early '90s but remains one of the great books about what the Internet would do to us.) So my senses were stirred when I … [Read more...]