My publication schedule may be discombobulated in the coming weeks, as I’m taking some time off work to serve as a junior counselor at American Legion Boys Nation. So I thought I’d pack a lot into this newsletter, including some more unorthodox media types (films, podcasts, and research reports). I hope you enjoy.
Rushmore, a Wes Anderson film.
Fit with a suburban, middle-class, 80s/90s aesthetic, this early Wes Anderson film was aesthetically pleasing as well as thoroughly enjoyable as a film. It is centered around Max, a boy from a family of modest means — his dad is a barber, and his mother in the grave — who has received a scholarship to attend Rushmore, a private school. Max is a conundrum. A terrible student but a magnificent mascot, he has founded or participated in just about every extracurricular activity imaginable. As the late Roger Ebert said in his review of the film, Max is the sort of “kid who could do anything, if he weren't always trying to do everything.”
Early in the film, we are given the hint that Max cares a lot about what others think of him. He has something to prove. He dreams of solving an unsolved math problem in class, with the affair ending in his teacher being amazed, and all the students rushing to the front of the room to applaud and celebrate his achievements. While his reward is never doing math again — he clearly abhors the subject, just like he dislikes his schooling in general — it nonetheless points towards his affinity for public affection.
Sparing you the details (because you should go watch this film for yourself!), Max falls in love with an widowed elementary school teacher, befriends a patron of the school who also owns a large manufacturing company, and is kicked out of Rushmore after one of his many extracurricular designs goes too far. He is relegated to public school, but does slowly work on improving his academic abilities — as well as, of course, becoming the school’s mascot in due time.
In the end, Max’s designs and aspirations do not cease with his realization that a relationship with Ms. Cross (the teacher he had fallen in love with) was impossible nor his exodus from Rushmore. He finds that the designs and aspirations he had become defined by — and the creativity and vitality which give life to these ambitions — can be motivated not only out of a fear of losing others’ favor, but out of a place of contentment.
No longer does he concern himself with notoriety or public perception: at the end of the film, he finally introduces his father as a barber (his true profession), rather than a neurosurgeon (which he had done throughout the film); he finally begins dating Margaret, a former classmate, who he had continually brushed off and instrumentalized (as an actor in one of his plays, as an example) up until that point. Instead, his concern becomes the common good; he is finally able to reach beyond his own skull and out towards those he loves and those who love him.
To his surprise, his contentment in his station does not diminish his happiness nor his drive. His contentment becomes the ground for true happiness and vitality. Rather than accomplishing feats and bringing people together to satisfy his own quest for favor in others’ eyes, Max now can pursue his designs from a place of love.
Perhaps it took Ms. Cross’ rejection for him to finally recognize the world around him. Perhaps it required the demolition of his ego for him to learn to go beyond his own skull-shaped prison cell. Love — and particularly broken hearts — often begin in selfish places: our desire for belonging; our desire to be loved. C.S. Lewis makes this point in The Great Divorce. But sublimated, domesticated, and transformed, our own selfish passion can bloom into true love. And while it happens rarely on this side of Heaven, it does happen, if but for a moment.
It takes suffering — deep, heart-wrenching, soul-sore suffering… the sort of suffering that makes us regret ever having dared to embark beyond the safe harbors of our minds — to find our way to true love. Eros dares us to go beyond ourselves, and to cast ourselves into the deep. It brings us together with others, and beckons us towards combination and reproduction. But it requires domestication. And that domestication is achieved through the crucible of suffering.
To love and to lose or to never have loved at all? Max lived that question, and we, the viewers, are meant to answer it. Wes Anderson makes the choice easy.
“Marc Andreessen on Why AI Will Save the World,” EconTalk (podcast).
Will AI destroy us? Will it make our lives immeasurably better? Questions abound, and only time will render verdicts on the most pressing questions we face as a society regarding artificial intelligence and its use. In this podcast episode, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen — and investor in many AI technologies and related innovations — joins EconTalk to discuss his own views on AI, and why he believes both that triumphalist transhumanists and doomsday cultists are misguided in their assessment of AI and its effects on our culture and survival.
While the conversation truly runs the gamut, here are a few key points:
AI must continue to be considered a tool that human beings can use, not something which directs human action towards particular ends.
AI is fed by humans and our desires. It is not an alien “thing” or “being” which can form its own desires. Those who believe it are, are doomsday cultists who have made a religion out of AI.
Andreessen believes that AI will make our lives easier, enabling us to do more “fulfilling” and uniquely “human” work often referred to as “knowledge work.” It will also give us more leisure time. I am more skeptical of the absolute goodness of this outcome, considering that human beings are meant not just to think and do knowledge work, but also use our bodies and engage in physical labor. Perhaps we will simply have to be more conscientious about our physical exertion in the future, as we already are in some cases with gyms and community centers.
I’m still very new to thinking about AI. What do you all think? Feel free to send in responses, and I can publish them in the next newsletter.
“Could News Bloom in News Deserts?,” a report from the American Enterprise Institute’s Howard Husock.
For those who have known me for a long time, my interest in media and local journalism should come as no surprise. In January of 2022, I launched the Western Tribune — a local news media nonprofit — with my business partner and best friend, Clay Robinson, alongside some of my other best friends. The thesis of our business model was threefold:
Local journalism is dying.
Legacy media is biased by coastal attitudes, and relies on cookie-cutter formulas to produce their media coverage.
The spirit of the American West has something to offer to national and international audiences and news consumers.
In our launch article, I make these points clearer:
Our society desperately requires the dynamism that cultivates genius. A true restoration of this zeitgeist will be forged not only through new institutions, but through a new generation of doers and dreamers. The culture, we must be reminded, is us.
Real journalism can thrive within dynamic institutions, and it is time for a renewal — a renaissance that obstinately refuses to relegate thoughtful journalism into obscurity.
Excellence has not disappeared, but it has been stifled. Innovation is not dead, it is asleep. Institutions are not dead-ends, but they require restoration.
I still believe this argument holds true. And I still believe that the maintenance, reinvigoration, and creation of new institutions — local, regional, and national — are integral to our national wellbeing, and to human flourishing in our time. This is all to say that this report from AEI’s Robert Husock was of particular interest to me, and its insights (and prescriptions) ought to be taken very seriously.
Early in the report, Husock makes an intriguing point: “Since 2016, even as 216 local newspapers have closed, 112 local papers or internet-based, locally focused news sites have been established.” Despite the proliferation of news deserts and the hollowing out of local news rooms, more and more people are opting to form new local news operations. These local news entrepreneurs — builders, in the fullest sense of the word! — are finding new and intriguing ways for local journalism to flourish in a digital age.
The widespread availability of the internet has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for would-be journalists. It is far easier to set up a WordPress and invite your friends to subscribe than it would be to buy printing presses — or access to printing presses — and concern yourself with gathering news, compiling it into a digestible physical format, and then subsequently delivering it to your customers. Perhaps this digital path to news production will prove to be an avenue for local journalism’s restoration. Perhaps it gives smaller operations a real chance at competing against remaining local newsrooms that have been bought out by larger conglomerates.
The report also documents how local news operations are changing their funding schemes. This is particularly interesting because as news media made the shift into the digital space, revenue became much more difficult to generate. Whereas before you would simply sell space in a physical paper, the advent of digital advertising has complicated ad sales. Margins on such advertising are quite slim, and the power has shifted entirely towards advertisers: whereas before advertisers would glance at a publication’s circulation, now advertisers can see everything from how many independent viewers saw an ad, to how many clicked on it. In response, local operations are diversifying their funding streams, and often times opting for nonprofit status. The growing number of local news media operations going the nonprofit route aligns with personal experience: the Tribune officially received 501(c)(3) nonprofit status earlier this year.
“As the US ponders how to sustain a dynamic democracy, the future of local journalism must be part of the discussion,” the report concludes. That’s correct. While I’m not sure the answer includes some of the policies suggested by the paper — such as federal tax credits specifically carved out for local newsrooms — it certainly involves more people creating and supporting local journalistic institutions in their communities.
One example of a great local news media operation I can think of in my own backyard is the Arizona Agenda. While its coverage is almost completely political, it has expanded since its creation just a short time ago, and it provides news consumers in the state — and particularly the state’s political community — with tailored, high quality news. Its coauthors are clear about their bias up front (they lean center left), and they make money from voluntary subscriptions. Such operations are worthy of our attention and either our support or emulation.
A quick round-up:
Here are a few shorter pieces I’ve read that you should check out.
Recovering Congress, Fred Bauer
When Will the Southwest Become Unlivable?, Ruxandra Guidi
Have a wonderful week!