Hmm, I guess my reaction is a point of anecdata in favor of your conclusion- I'm Catholic and I indeed (purely going off what you've quoted here) don't really see anything objectionable in Evie's stated aims and intention with the project. I don't see it fitting in the 'liberalism of 20 years ago' framing either. This sort of content has existed for a long time- Sheila Gregoire, Christopher and Wendy West, people before them; both evangelicals and Catholics have written books that don't shy away from *specific* and therefore, unavoidably, somewhat *explicit* answers and advice.
Just as a heads up, it's probably a good idea to be careful with Burge's numbers, since he can be reckless in his rush to push out content.
For example, when he ran the article on Exvangelicals a while back, I dug into his data because his results looked sketchy compared to other scholars. His methodology (raw survey responses) has been rejected by every major sociologist of religion that I've read because they skew the results toward sensationalist claims. I understand why he does it; doing this research correctly is expensive and difficult, while straw polls are cheap and easy to interpret. He's probably heavily constrained in what he can actually accomplish due to his budget.
In short, I'm not saying that he's a bad guy or a fraud, but don't take his surveys as anything other than an interesting point to ponder. They're not scientifically valid and possess substantial error. I wish he was clearer about this point, but I understand why he wouldn't want to suppress his own click-stream.
I'd say 99.5% of what's posted on the internet is basic analysis of data or surveys. Almost no advanced methods, or even taking account of things like margins of error, are used outside of formal academic papers.
And that's unfortunate because it's the only access most people will ever get to real research on a lot of these topics. Even my article in First Things last year, summarizing some of the major findings in Sociology of Religion on 21st C. conversion trends, probably doesn't get the circulation of some of these LinkedIn straw polls. It's a recipe for the motivation reasoning and conspiracy theorizing that dominates discourse on social media.
Off-topic, saw a couple of things on X that may be of interest to folks here:
1. A couple of writers for glossy magazines (GQ, Rolling Stone) reflecting on how thoroughly that segment of the culture has "lost" young men. Even the coastal chattering classes are starting to notice:
2. The problem of getting trees into new subdivisions. Seems to implicate political economy, short-term vs. long-term thinking, tragedy of the commons, skin in the game, etc. etc. etc.
Basically trees are beautiful but they cause a lot of problems and nobody has an incentive to plant new ones at this point. Thus, much of the new housing in the Sun Belt is really ugly. But this seems like something where an enlightened political leadership could figure out a way to get more trees in the ground (e.g. a Carmel, Indiana-type leadership). It goes back to Mr. Renn's earlier American Affairs article about Indiana, pointing out that bare-bones "GOP standard" policy, i.e. low taxes and low services, is not necessarily ideal in all cases (even if preferable to parasitic Dem governance e.g. Chicago). In this case, "the market" sans intervention yields many miles of treeless, ugly Sun Belt suburbs.
1. The most interesting thing about the McDermott tweet was when he said that guys like Andrew Tate are "even more toxic than the male role models of the past." Not to put too fine a point on it, but I have to ask what role models he's talking about here. Is it guys like Steven Tyler, Keith Richards, and the various other hedonistic junkies that magazines like Rolling Stone promoted through the '60s and '70s? Because if so, I'm not convinced that Tate is more "toxic" than they were, but that he's equally toxic in a different way.
2. Trees really do make a lot of difference--if nothing else, they make things much less sterile, and, I would argue, probably would result in energy savings due to the shade they provide. I'm also not convinced that they actually cause problems except to the "all the lawns must look alike" types, who as far as I am concerned can all just move into a subdivision together and enjoy their weird little cult while the rest of us enjoy a more arboreal existence.
Hmm, I guess my reaction is a point of anecdata in favor of your conclusion- I'm Catholic and I indeed (purely going off what you've quoted here) don't really see anything objectionable in Evie's stated aims and intention with the project. I don't see it fitting in the 'liberalism of 20 years ago' framing either. This sort of content has existed for a long time- Sheila Gregoire, Christopher and Wendy West, people before them; both evangelicals and Catholics have written books that don't shy away from *specific* and therefore, unavoidably, somewhat *explicit* answers and advice.
Just as a heads up, it's probably a good idea to be careful with Burge's numbers, since he can be reckless in his rush to push out content.
For example, when he ran the article on Exvangelicals a while back, I dug into his data because his results looked sketchy compared to other scholars. His methodology (raw survey responses) has been rejected by every major sociologist of religion that I've read because they skew the results toward sensationalist claims. I understand why he does it; doing this research correctly is expensive and difficult, while straw polls are cheap and easy to interpret. He's probably heavily constrained in what he can actually accomplish due to his budget.
In short, I'm not saying that he's a bad guy or a fraud, but don't take his surveys as anything other than an interesting point to ponder. They're not scientifically valid and possess substantial error. I wish he was clearer about this point, but I understand why he wouldn't want to suppress his own click-stream.
I'd say 99.5% of what's posted on the internet is basic analysis of data or surveys. Almost no advanced methods, or even taking account of things like margins of error, are used outside of formal academic papers.
And that's unfortunate because it's the only access most people will ever get to real research on a lot of these topics. Even my article in First Things last year, summarizing some of the major findings in Sociology of Religion on 21st C. conversion trends, probably doesn't get the circulation of some of these LinkedIn straw polls. It's a recipe for the motivation reasoning and conspiracy theorizing that dominates discourse on social media.
Off-topic, saw a couple of things on X that may be of interest to folks here:
1. A couple of writers for glossy magazines (GQ, Rolling Stone) reflecting on how thoroughly that segment of the culture has "lost" young men. Even the coastal chattering classes are starting to notice:
https://x.com/mcdermott/status/2027068302212931988
2. The problem of getting trees into new subdivisions. Seems to implicate political economy, short-term vs. long-term thinking, tragedy of the commons, skin in the game, etc. etc. etc.
https://x.com/lymanstoneky/status/2027048811504324701
Basically trees are beautiful but they cause a lot of problems and nobody has an incentive to plant new ones at this point. Thus, much of the new housing in the Sun Belt is really ugly. But this seems like something where an enlightened political leadership could figure out a way to get more trees in the ground (e.g. a Carmel, Indiana-type leadership). It goes back to Mr. Renn's earlier American Affairs article about Indiana, pointing out that bare-bones "GOP standard" policy, i.e. low taxes and low services, is not necessarily ideal in all cases (even if preferable to parasitic Dem governance e.g. Chicago). In this case, "the market" sans intervention yields many miles of treeless, ugly Sun Belt suburbs.
A couple of notes:
1. The most interesting thing about the McDermott tweet was when he said that guys like Andrew Tate are "even more toxic than the male role models of the past." Not to put too fine a point on it, but I have to ask what role models he's talking about here. Is it guys like Steven Tyler, Keith Richards, and the various other hedonistic junkies that magazines like Rolling Stone promoted through the '60s and '70s? Because if so, I'm not convinced that Tate is more "toxic" than they were, but that he's equally toxic in a different way.
2. Trees really do make a lot of difference--if nothing else, they make things much less sterile, and, I would argue, probably would result in energy savings due to the shade they provide. I'm also not convinced that they actually cause problems except to the "all the lawns must look alike" types, who as far as I am concerned can all just move into a subdivision together and enjoy their weird little cult while the rest of us enjoy a more arboreal existence.