I have a few city employee friends, who find it incredibly frustrating to work for politicians who have no clue how policy works. I asked my city administrator how to create better pipelines for civic leadership, and he very much recognized the problem, but he didn't have any good solutions.
I would make the argument that Bill Gates' parents were most definitely part of the WASP/Eastern Establishment class even being from Seattle. Gates himself has much more in common with the Eastern establishment than later tech moguls like Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, etc.
The problem with popular music is that pop "artists" were usually mostly "influencers", before that term existed, then singers/musicians second, then songwriters a distant third, if applicable. And in defense of the NY Times critics, in their own podcast, they note that some pop artists branded themselves as "songwriters", even if they weren't particularly good or prolific songwriters, in order to differentiate themselves from pure industry props OR to give themselves a backstory that deflects from the fact that their parents are wealthy and/or industry insiders like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish.
I do think that the criticism of Billy Joel, specifically, is somewhat accurate, but it was made without the critic recognizing that most of Joel's hits are exceptionally sophisticated pieces of popular music (i.e. high-level music theory). They needed a more rigid definition of "songwriter" before starting their debate - is a songwriter just the lyricist or do they have to write some or most of the music as well? If they are expected to write the music itself, then most of the rappers they chose would need to be given the boot.
Good points on definition of a songwriter. Billy Joel is musically literate and is supposedly able to genuinely compose music (as in write down notes on music sheets). I'm not a good judge of songwriting, but he was also apparently very innovative.
"But the party as a whole moved toward moderation during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency, endorsing parts of the New Deal social welfare safety net as well as policies to educate and empower the workforce — and the result from 1940 to 1970 was both a much faster rate of growth (measured in output per person) and a more egalitarian and cohesive society than in the period from 1870 to 1940"
This may have helped, but the degree to which the post-WWII economic boom was underpinned by the fact that the United States was the only major industrialized country whose core territory was untouched by the war, which gave it economic dominance to the point where for a time it was producing the majority of the world's industrial output *by itself,* tends to be underestimated by the pundits.
The US lost its "only functioning industrial nation" status pretty quickly. Western Europe and Japan rebuilt quickly (with US help). By the 60s both were very much back in the running. Germany even has a word for the rapid recovery from the ashes: Wirtschaftswunder, Economic Miracle. Meanwhile the US managed to retain its bipartisan moderation for another generation. It was deliberate policy changes beginning under Reagan, that destroyed that state and created the galloping inequality and immiseration of the working class (and increasingly of the middle class) we see today.
Yeah, no, you have that backwards. The cracks were already starting to appear in the early 1970s, and by the Carter years things were coming apart already. The end of the bipartisan moderation was the result of the economic problems, not the cause of them.
Yes, there were some problems in the 70s-- good grief of course. But the bulk of those were due to the oil price spike and the energy crises of 1973 and 1979. Nevertheless the consensus still held. It was the 80s that began the sea change in economic and labor policy, and those were very deliberate choices. One change which flew under the radar but had long term baleful effects of the first order: the abandonment of antitrust enforcement as had been done since Teddy Roosevelt's days. It was a rare merger that was told No after that. Hence we got the Too Big Fail banks. Hence also the killing of a vast number of middle class earning jobs in the name of "efficiency" even if this was masked for a while by the proliferation of tech jobs. It was this period too which saw the beginning of the geographical segregation of jobs with a handful of metropolitan areas become meccas for anyone looking for good wages and benefits while whole regions, which had once offered a reasonable if not munificent standard of living, were abandoned to decay and dysfunction. I am not being partisan about this-- the Democrats' embrace of Neoliberalism also had much to do with this from the 90s on. There's blame to go around all over the political spectrum.
> self-critique and even self-loathing within the WASP class
I haven't looked at it in a while, but I think Eric Kaufmann's early book "The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America" cites Randolph Bourne (1916), a Greenwich Village intellectual, as a turning point in the WASPs becoming universalist at the expense of their own ethnic tribe. Kevin MacDonald criticized Kaufmann for not blaming the Jews enough (MacDonald blames the Jews for everything)
But I think that, granted that Bourne represented some kind of turning point, it raises as many questions as it answers. Wasn't Christianity always universalist? Why did Bourne's view become so successful? Isn't the same thing happening in every Western country? Douglas Murray in "The Strange Death of Europe" quoted a Swedish politician as saying "only barbarism is genuinely Swedish. All development has come from abroad.” That sounds very similar. So is it a Protestant thing? But Protestantism coexisted with white supremacy very well for a long time. Much to ponder.
I would think universalism as a WASP phenomenon has to be associated with the Social Gospel and liberal theology more broadly.
Christianity is universalist in one sense, but we could also say it is in at least some sense chauvinistic towards Christianity and Christians, in a way that is scandalous to the liberal mind. This also tends to manifest in sincere believers of various Christian sects being at least somewhat chauvinistic towards our own sect, as opposed to the ecumenical impulses of the theological liberal.
A nominal and generally uncatechized (but Mass-attending!) Roman Catholic friend, right-of-center, Country Club Republican, asks: "Are Muslims God's children? Are atheists?"
I explained that they are God's creation and made in God's image, but to call them God's children has a specific meaning; they are not co-heirs with Christ.
He found this answer to be pure bigotry. Although he's not a WASP strictly speaking, I think this is a good representation of the difference between the theologically liberal universalist WASP and the Protestant true believer.
I don't think it's that helpful to look at Christianity in the abstract as universalist in the same meaning as it has today with modern media and travel technology. It is one thing to say something is universal when there are no trains, planes, or automobiles and another thing to say it when physical distance can be abridged with instant electronic communication and rapid travel.
A philosophy of universalism expressed at a time in which most travel is on foot or by coast-borne galley or longship and the only long-distance communication is by letter or messenger has a different fundamental meaning, and it is subject to more significant material constraints. Even the melting pot philosophy had a different set of consequences and meaning because of the technology of the time. Irish immigrants couldn't just Whatsapp their uncle, so they had to assimilate.
Assimilation did not happen quickly back then either. The general rule, then as now, was that it took three generations. The immigrant generation, no matter how successful and enthusiastic about their new home, retained their Old Country culture in many ways-- and their English language ability was only partial. The second generation was often bilingual and had a foot in both worlds, sometimes also marrying out of the parental ethnic group. The next generation generally had little to no ability to speak their grandparents' language, might well have apostasized from their church and become American in nearly all things including intermarriage, with maybe some cuisine preferences from their familial past. And yes, that is still true today. People who complain about immigrants not assimilating are expecting that to happen before their eyes. It won't-- the process is a gradual one transpiring over the better part of a century.
I have a few city employee friends, who find it incredibly frustrating to work for politicians who have no clue how policy works. I asked my city administrator how to create better pipelines for civic leadership, and he very much recognized the problem, but he didn't have any good solutions.
I would make the argument that Bill Gates' parents were most definitely part of the WASP/Eastern Establishment class even being from Seattle. Gates himself has much more in common with the Eastern establishment than later tech moguls like Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, etc.
The problem with popular music is that pop "artists" were usually mostly "influencers", before that term existed, then singers/musicians second, then songwriters a distant third, if applicable. And in defense of the NY Times critics, in their own podcast, they note that some pop artists branded themselves as "songwriters", even if they weren't particularly good or prolific songwriters, in order to differentiate themselves from pure industry props OR to give themselves a backstory that deflects from the fact that their parents are wealthy and/or industry insiders like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish.
I do think that the criticism of Billy Joel, specifically, is somewhat accurate, but it was made without the critic recognizing that most of Joel's hits are exceptionally sophisticated pieces of popular music (i.e. high-level music theory). They needed a more rigid definition of "songwriter" before starting their debate - is a songwriter just the lyricist or do they have to write some or most of the music as well? If they are expected to write the music itself, then most of the rappers they chose would need to be given the boot.
Good points on definition of a songwriter. Billy Joel is musically literate and is supposedly able to genuinely compose music (as in write down notes on music sheets). I'm not a good judge of songwriting, but he was also apparently very innovative.
"But the party as a whole moved toward moderation during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency, endorsing parts of the New Deal social welfare safety net as well as policies to educate and empower the workforce — and the result from 1940 to 1970 was both a much faster rate of growth (measured in output per person) and a more egalitarian and cohesive society than in the period from 1870 to 1940"
This may have helped, but the degree to which the post-WWII economic boom was underpinned by the fact that the United States was the only major industrialized country whose core territory was untouched by the war, which gave it economic dominance to the point where for a time it was producing the majority of the world's industrial output *by itself,* tends to be underestimated by the pundits.
The US lost its "only functioning industrial nation" status pretty quickly. Western Europe and Japan rebuilt quickly (with US help). By the 60s both were very much back in the running. Germany even has a word for the rapid recovery from the ashes: Wirtschaftswunder, Economic Miracle. Meanwhile the US managed to retain its bipartisan moderation for another generation. It was deliberate policy changes beginning under Reagan, that destroyed that state and created the galloping inequality and immiseration of the working class (and increasingly of the middle class) we see today.
Yeah, no, you have that backwards. The cracks were already starting to appear in the early 1970s, and by the Carter years things were coming apart already. The end of the bipartisan moderation was the result of the economic problems, not the cause of them.
Yes, there were some problems in the 70s-- good grief of course. But the bulk of those were due to the oil price spike and the energy crises of 1973 and 1979. Nevertheless the consensus still held. It was the 80s that began the sea change in economic and labor policy, and those were very deliberate choices. One change which flew under the radar but had long term baleful effects of the first order: the abandonment of antitrust enforcement as had been done since Teddy Roosevelt's days. It was a rare merger that was told No after that. Hence we got the Too Big Fail banks. Hence also the killing of a vast number of middle class earning jobs in the name of "efficiency" even if this was masked for a while by the proliferation of tech jobs. It was this period too which saw the beginning of the geographical segregation of jobs with a handful of metropolitan areas become meccas for anyone looking for good wages and benefits while whole regions, which had once offered a reasonable if not munificent standard of living, were abandoned to decay and dysfunction. I am not being partisan about this-- the Democrats' embrace of Neoliberalism also had much to do with this from the 90s on. There's blame to go around all over the political spectrum.
> self-critique and even self-loathing within the WASP class
I haven't looked at it in a while, but I think Eric Kaufmann's early book "The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America" cites Randolph Bourne (1916), a Greenwich Village intellectual, as a turning point in the WASPs becoming universalist at the expense of their own ethnic tribe. Kevin MacDonald criticized Kaufmann for not blaming the Jews enough (MacDonald blames the Jews for everything)
https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/the-triumph-of-asymmetrical-multiculturalism
https://www.academia.edu/15303282/ERIC_KAUFMANN_S_THE_RISE_AND_FALL_OF_ANGLO_AMERICA
But I think that, granted that Bourne represented some kind of turning point, it raises as many questions as it answers. Wasn't Christianity always universalist? Why did Bourne's view become so successful? Isn't the same thing happening in every Western country? Douglas Murray in "The Strange Death of Europe" quoted a Swedish politician as saying "only barbarism is genuinely Swedish. All development has come from abroad.” That sounds very similar. So is it a Protestant thing? But Protestantism coexisted with white supremacy very well for a long time. Much to ponder.
I would think universalism as a WASP phenomenon has to be associated with the Social Gospel and liberal theology more broadly.
Christianity is universalist in one sense, but we could also say it is in at least some sense chauvinistic towards Christianity and Christians, in a way that is scandalous to the liberal mind. This also tends to manifest in sincere believers of various Christian sects being at least somewhat chauvinistic towards our own sect, as opposed to the ecumenical impulses of the theological liberal.
A nominal and generally uncatechized (but Mass-attending!) Roman Catholic friend, right-of-center, Country Club Republican, asks: "Are Muslims God's children? Are atheists?"
I explained that they are God's creation and made in God's image, but to call them God's children has a specific meaning; they are not co-heirs with Christ.
He found this answer to be pure bigotry. Although he's not a WASP strictly speaking, I think this is a good representation of the difference between the theologically liberal universalist WASP and the Protestant true believer.
I don't think it's that helpful to look at Christianity in the abstract as universalist in the same meaning as it has today with modern media and travel technology. It is one thing to say something is universal when there are no trains, planes, or automobiles and another thing to say it when physical distance can be abridged with instant electronic communication and rapid travel.
A philosophy of universalism expressed at a time in which most travel is on foot or by coast-borne galley or longship and the only long-distance communication is by letter or messenger has a different fundamental meaning, and it is subject to more significant material constraints. Even the melting pot philosophy had a different set of consequences and meaning because of the technology of the time. Irish immigrants couldn't just Whatsapp their uncle, so they had to assimilate.
Assimilation did not happen quickly back then either. The general rule, then as now, was that it took three generations. The immigrant generation, no matter how successful and enthusiastic about their new home, retained their Old Country culture in many ways-- and their English language ability was only partial. The second generation was often bilingual and had a foot in both worlds, sometimes also marrying out of the parental ethnic group. The next generation generally had little to no ability to speak their grandparents' language, might well have apostasized from their church and become American in nearly all things including intermarriage, with maybe some cuisine preferences from their familial past. And yes, that is still true today. People who complain about immigrants not assimilating are expecting that to happen before their eyes. It won't-- the process is a gradual one transpiring over the better part of a century.