Happy Friday,
I am so excited to share this week’s links with you. Lots of good stuff here.
Ted Goia on nostalgia, how little it costs to actually fund creativity, and responsibility of music journalists.
The Folklore of Industrial Society: This journal article from 1992 by Lawrence W. Levine was posed a critical question in cultural studies. Prior to its publication, many historians looked at anything and everything existing in pop culture as a record of what the audience broadly thought. As Levine argues, this is a short sighted view, because the audience chooses winners and losers from among what is made. Further, if one is aiming to understand the people represented by a particular time in pop culture, it is not enough to simply understand what they read or listened to, but why they enjoyed those things. For example, what about Charlie Chaplin made him popular with audiences in the 1940s?
Why does learning feel like so much work and dread for so many? Why, despite our understand that so many breakthroughs happen when we are relaxed and not actively working, do we feel guilty about not actively working? The folks over at Farnam Street blog have some thoughts about resolving that guilt.
Jonathan Haidt on the multi-faceted danger of monomania – the tendency and obsession to view all issues through “one true lens,” regardless of how inaccurate or inept the lens may be – and how this makes smart people stupid. This piece is a good introduction to Haidt’s thinking, further detailed in his critical book with Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind.
Finally, I loved this piece following a Ukrainian and a Russian athlete running a 3,100 mile race together around NYC advocating for peace between their home nations. Not only does the race’s purpose appeal to our better angels, but the runners’ comments about perseverance, discipline, and making adjustments on the fly were inspiring as well.
Have a creative weekend.
Currently reading: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving
Image credit: “Spooky Screech Owl”, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, 1919.
Used under Creative Commons License.
