A Dozen-Plus Stimulants, Gathered for Your Edification and Inspiration
Dear Intelligent American,
Boomers, Xers, Yers, Zers, Millennials—have we forgotten one?—need to make room because those kids that have initiated living (outside the womb) this year are a new bunch: “Beta.” Even a ding dong will know that’s Greek for the ancient tongue’s second letter. But even a whiz kid might not know its way-back meaning is “house."
Might we wonder: By the time the first of this new generational demographic reaches adulthood (will prolonged adolescence mean the age of 30, or 2055?), will the American Dream of owning a β? Will even a handyman’s special—3-bed, 1-bath, as-is small cape—be achievable as in days of yore?
Let’s hope this new generation is plentiful. It might be if the current craze to “terminate” (the World Health Organization is now estimating 73 million annual induced abortions globally) tires of the ungodly blood lust. Oremus.
Hey: Until just now Your Humble Correspondent didn’t even know there was a “Generation Alpha!” Who’s calling who a ding dong?!
Now, to channel The Mikado . . .
1. At Law & Liberty, fan favorite Daniel J. Mahoney kicks off an important forum reconsidering the conservativism of the late Roger Scruton. From the essay:
As the fifth anniversary of his death approaches, it is fitting to pay renewed attention to Scruton’s elevated (and elevating) conservatism, his eloquent defense of beauty and high culture, as well as his fierce opposition to scientism, totalitarianism, and every ideological effort to deny the ensouled human person. Scruton’s conservatism was much more than oppositional, however, and never merely aesthetic, even if it gave pride of place to sustaining the beautiful things that are never simply in the eye of the beholder. His conservatism informed his profoundly countercultural conception of patriotism and humane national loyalty, while at the same time, his patriotism informed his conservatism, and imparted to it a remarkable breadth and depth. The fact that Scruton wrote so well, like a fine draftsman of the human soul and of the intimations of transcendence, aided him greatly in his task of conveying the full range of human experience occluded by fashionable ideologies, whether utopian or cynical and nihilistic, that have no place for the most important thing: the human subject or person accountable to himself, to society, and to a moral law not of his making.
Scruton became a full-fledged conservative in the 1970s, and his first effort to provide a comprehensive articulation of that philosophy was his 1980 work The Meaning of Conservatism. That work was influenced by the non-historicist Hegel (the author of The Philosophy of Right), who rooted freedom and the ethical life in a conception of “membership” equidistant from “the dust and powder” of pure individuality (as Edmund Burke called it) and every collectivist effort to suppress freedom as it had come to sight in the modern world. That work is full of gems, even if it lacks the full clarity and finesse of his later writing. In this earlier incarnation, Scruton was more adamantly anti-liberal, rejecting the whole edifice of modern liberal political philosophy with a polemical edge largely absent from his mature writings.
2. At The American Conservative, Evie Solheim says this infant “Generation Beta” already needs a rebrand. From the piece:
Generation Beta needs a rebrand, and they haven’t even been born yet.
That’s right, the market research firm McCrindle just announced the arrival of Generation Beta, whose members will be born from 2025 to 2039. According to McCrindle, this generation will make up 16 percent of the global population by 2035, and they will likely live into the 22nd century. Babies born in 2024 are now the youngest members of Generation Alpha—lucky them. Gen Beta just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Gen Alpha evokes courage, leadership, and strength. It’s the first letter of the Greek alphabet, after all. Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet, yes, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the best fit for this upcoming generation. Thanks to Internet memes, goofy comedians, and the modern world’s incel problem, the name “Gen Beta” evokes weakness, infirmity, and passivity. And of course, long before “beta male” was the punchline of a joke, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World divided the gray-wearing Alphas, who were the most intelligent members of society, from the maroon-wearing Betas, who always played second fiddle.
3. At Minding the Campus, Liza Libes explains why the Ivies are in crisis. From the analysis:
It is no secret that the Ivy League has been broken for decades. While a number of factors have contributed to its downfall, among the most egregious offenders is the nebulous admissions process, whereby students are expected to roleplay corporate CEOs or lose nights of sleep over memorizing the Krebs cycle in hopes of securing a spot amongst the supposed American intelligentsia. Increased scrutiny of the Ivy League admissions process, furthermore, incited by Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, a 2023 landmark supreme court case that de jure abolished the practice of affirmative action, has sparked some insightful conversation about the declining role of meritocracy in this fraught selection process or the necessity for an Ivy League education in the first place. Indeed, amidst a resurgence of campus anti-Semitism that culminated in the 2024 wave of pro-Hamas encampments—which originated at my alma mater, Columbia University—many students have abandoned their Ivy League dreams entirely.
In my view, there are three primary factors responsible for the recent decline of the Ivy League: the far-left propaganda machine, the resurgence of anti-Semitism, and the ridiculous standards of the college admissions process. For one, an uptick in Marxist academics since the 1980s has left many students who hold centrist, conservative, or libertarian viewpoints to feel shunned and alienated from both classroom discussions and campus affinity groups. These students, many of whom once regarded the liberal arts education system of the Ivy League as the epitome of open intellectual discourse, feel rightly disillusioned by the Soviet-style censorship on campus, leading them to collectively turn away from the liberal arts education as a whole.
Jewish students feel similarly snubbed.
4. At The European Conservative, Zsófia Tóth-Bíró finds that the Brussels EU establishment—fixated on silencing conservative critics—is losing its grip on democratic debate. From the article:
In fact, the pervasive cancel culture demonstrated by these 2024 incidents is evident in the Left’s grip on language. This is a sort of semantic autocracy in which certain words are expropriated so that they can be used against whoever dares to think differently. Typical examples are ‘disinformation,’ ‘far-right,’ or ‘inclusive.’ Decoding these words, it is obvious that ‘disinformation’ often refers to any unwelcome truth, ‘far-right’ equals any conservative viewpoint outside the center, and ‘inclusive’ means anti-conservative, anti-native, and anti-Christian.
This false dichotomy manifested through language was also used to justify blatantly anti-democratic decisions in the name of defending democracy, such as excluding the only conservative candidate due to take part from the final TV debate before the EU elections. Presumably pressured by the mainstream parties, the European Broadcast Union banned the one real opposition speaker from being on the same stage as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen—resulting in something that can hardly be called a debate.
At a time when Big Tech is often operating in cahoots with Brussels, removing ‘offensive’ posts from social media, conservatives have often felt obliged to exercise self-censorship for fear of their message being suppressed or outright canceled by hostile algorithms and biased authorities. This is a less visible but equally detrimental form of attacking free speech.
5. At National Affairs, Jonathan Hartley considers the “neo-populist economic consensus” and its various components, including the idea of American “industrial policy.” From the essay:
The bottom line here is that industrial policy is a recipe for economic inefficiency, if not disaster. While industrial-policy tactics may have some value when used to achieve non-economic objectives — such as pursuing national-security interests amid renewed great-power competition or obtaining ventilators and personal protective equipment during a global pandemic — they can hardly be taken seriously as a strategy to promote economic growth and opportunity. As Larry Summers recently observed in an interview by the Peterson Institute:
The best generals are the ones who hate war the most but know that it occasionally must be fought; and the best industrial policy advocates are those who recognize just how problematic these interventions are and believe that they should be kept to a necessary minimum to achieve non-economic objectives and not to fall victim to the . . . fallacy that industrial policy is some kind of . . . route to prosperity for the middle class.
Unless policymakers are willing to sacrifice economic growth to achieve some greater, non-economic purpose, those hoping to spur the American economy and restore manufacturing and other middle-class jobs would do better to keep the lessons of neoliberalism in mind. In the meantime, neoliberals can take comfort in the possibility of bipartisan permitting-reform efforts that, if adopted, could cut much of the red tape that prevents various industries in the United States from expanding. And of course, we should all have faith in the American promise of technological and economic innovation, which will continue to provide opportunity for Americans in the future.
6. At National Review, amigo Jay Nordlinger renders a brilliant remembrance of his great amigo, William F. Buckley Jr. From the article:
Critics called him “effete,” “elitist,” and worse. What he was, was himself—his wonderful, warm, wide-ranging self. He referred to caviar as “cav,” true. But he also loved Kentucky Fried Chicken. One New Year’s Eve, the household staff had the night off and we drove to KFC to pick up chicken. You never saw a happier eater than he.
Another time, he was going to have lunch at his usual place, Paone’s, in Murray Hill (Manhattan). He called me from the car, saying, “Let’s do something offbeat.” We went to a barbecue place I knew, with a jazz club attached. He loved it. The manager insisted on showing him the jazz club, down in the basement, after lunch. I could tell that Bill was daunted by the stairs, at that stage. But he refused to say anything, and let himself be led down the stairs, and then back up.
I sometimes think of Bill’s words: “do something offbeat.” I really should. And usually don’t.
He dealt with the gravest subjects, political and otherwise. But he also loved amusement. He would head an e-mail “Pour t’amuser”—“To amuse you.” (A reader told me that he had canceled his subscription to NR, earlier in his life, “after too much untranslated French.”) WFB was just big. That’s how I often answer when people ask, “What was Bill Buckley like?” If I want to say something quick, I say, “He was big: big of heart, big of mind, big of appetite—appetite for life.” Big, and glorious.
7. At Front Porch Republic, Austin Hoffman argues that classical schools should embrace AI. From the article:
If classical schools insist on banning AI in all forms, their kids will be left behind. The job market is shifting to AI-centered workflows. Most tasks have already been replaced by AI. If our students don’t know how to write business proposals, mission statements, budgets, timelines, or code using AI, they will be overshadowed by others who can use these tools. Even professional coders use AI to create functions, logic, and programs—or at least to check their own work for flaws. Students who don’t know how to type, “write a sales contract with net 60 terms for Mujin,” will be unable to compete in the global job market.
Further, we need to recognize that AI is an incredible time-saver, not only for composing work documents, but also for interpreting and summarizing them. Perhaps you’ve seen the Apple Intelligence commercial where the employee scoots his chair out of the meeting to ask AI to summarize the prospectus. He quickly returns and begins reading off his prompts. Imagine how much more time could be saved if AI not only wrote, but read business documents? We have forklifts to carry heavy weights; there is no need to burden yourself with a barbell.
8. At RealClear Books&Culture, Oliver Bateman laments what has become of the funless NBA. From the piece:
The NBA thinks it's protecting the product. Technical fouls for staredowns, ejections for emotions, and all the left-wing politics you can eat. They give out techs like Halloween candy—Giannis Antetokounmpo gets one for looking at Al Horford wrong, Jokic gets tossed for nothing at all. The refs have more highlights than the rookies, more game impact than the All-NBA first team. Even the League Pass is a maze of blackouts and restrictions, making fans jump through hoops just to watch their home team.
Want more? Paul George has posted more podcast episodes than games played in 2024. Zion Williamson—once my great hope for a genuine throwback star, a massive bruiser in the Shawn Kemp mold—talks about how hard it is to diet with millions in the bank and nagging injuries constantly sapping his Bunyanesque strength. The players treat the league like a stepping stone to their guaranteed contracts, their brand, their social media, their next venture. Understandable in a mercenary, money-obsessed world like ours, but it means the passion's gone AWOL with the post moves.
9. At The Center Square, Dan McCaleb reports that celebrity endorsements have bupkis impact in elections. From the story:
But an overwhelming majority of American voters say celebrity endorsements of the 2024 presidential candidates had no influence on who they voted for and, among some voters, such endorsements helped them decide who not to vote for.
A poll of 1,000 registered voters from Napolitan News Service asked two specific questions about celebrity endorsements: "Did celebrity endorsements make you more or less likely to vote for Donald Trump?" and "Did celebrity endorsements make you more or less likely to vote for Kamala Harris?"
Voters overwhelmingly said “no” to both.
“Celebrity endorsements in the 2024 election cycle were an inauthentic reach out to the American people, showing just how out of touch politicians are with what matters most to everyday Americans,” Napolitan News Service said in a statement accompanying its top-line results.
10. At the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, Ashlynn Warta reports on the infantilizing of college students. From the piece:
In the case of Baltimore, the community colleges in question clearly believe that students will put in the effort to succeed only if they are enticed with an allowance. The Baltimore Sun’s coverage quotes Debra McCurdy, president of BCCC, who says that the $50 perk, while not a large sum, is a “way to maintain enrollment.” But McCurdy also acknowledges that students are “getting the dollars for doing what [they’re] supposed to” be doing. What a concept, getting a perk for looking after one’s own future. What’s next? Paying students to show up to class and do their homework?
Students entering the world of higher education should be aware of the commitment they are making. The only way for them to truly have success is to take personal responsibility for their education. If a student is expected to meet with a career advisor, then he or she should be held responsible for doing so and should likewise be held responsible for the consequences. Once they enter the workforce, students will presumably not be paid extra to show up to staff meetings or given an allowance for getting to work on time. There are certain expectations one is held to as an employee, and it would be beneficial to students and employers if colleges would return to holding students to similarly high standards.
At the end of the day, if students do not take college seriously enough to meet with freely provided career counselors, then maybe they should not be in school. Better to learn early on that they are not cut out for the demands of higher education than to be helped along for multiple years, only to find themselves unable to navigate the real world.
11. At The Public Discourse, Robert Lowry Clinton says the reframing of the Constitution as a “living” document is a revolutionary act by progressive intellectuals. From the essay:
The success of Darwinism in Europe was not lost on another group of progressive intellectuals in the U.S. In the early twentieth century, Woodrow Wilson and others employed another duplicitous variant of Strategy Three to launch another revolutionary transformation, and this time, the target was the Constitution. Like most modern progressives, Wilson swears fidelity to the Constitution. But it is not the Constitution of 1787 that claims his loyalty. For Wilson, the Constitution is, or should be, a malleable instrument subject to manipulation by progressive policymakers to impose their version of the common good on everyone. Bringing this about would require making constitutional change much easier via circumvention of both the Article V amendment process and the checks-and-balances system.
The American founders—who were no enemies of progress—believed that the only way to effect legitimate change was via deliberation, by “reflection and choice” (i.e., Strategy One). To this end, they carefully constructed a constitutional amendment process to ensure a wide consensus in support of any proposed constitutional change. This process is spelled out in Article V, which requires extensive participation of both houses of Congress as well as the legislatures or special conventions in the states. This means that the founders regarded constitutional development as a profoundly democratic process. The founders also established a balanced governmental framework in which no branch of government can claim ultimate authority to determine the constitutional power of another, a fact of which Wilson was keenly aware and greatly disapproved. In a book Wilson wrote and published a few years before his first presidential run, he acknowledged that the framers “constructed the federal government upon a theory of checks and balances which was meant to limit the operation of each part and allow to no single part or organ of it a dominating force,” concluding that “no government can be successfully conducted upon so mechanical a theory.”
12. At NOLA.com, Jeff Duncan reports on the swift charitable response to bloodshed. From the beginning of the story:
The New Orleans Saints and NFL plan to donate $1 million to the relief efforts for the victims of the New Year's Day attacks on Bourbon Street, Saints officials announced Saturday.
Saints owner Gayle Benson's donation of $500,000 to the Greater New Orleans Foundation and United Way will be matched by the NFL Foundation, the league’s philanthropic arm. The funds are aimed to assist local organizations that are directly supporting victims and their families, the release said. . . .
Benson has donated more than $4 million to GNOF efforts over the years through the Gayle Benson Community Assistance Fund, which provided $1.9 million in grants to workers adversely affected by the pandemic.
"Our community has experienced an unimaginable tragedy, and our collective hearts are broken as we mourn for the victims and survivors on the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans,” Benson said in a statement. “Our focus has always been on providing aid quickly and effectively, and we are grateful for the collaboration with both the Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF) and United Way to ensure that these funds reach those who need them most.”
Lucky 13. At Washington Free Beacon, John Podhoretz is loving the new bio-pic about Bob Dylan. From the review:
Why? Because the movie offers an inadvertent revelation that provides me with more than simply Zionist common ground with Bobby Zimmerman (fellow alumnus of Herzl Camp in Wisconsin, founded by my grandparents, by the way). The hidden story of A Complete Unknown is that Bob Dylan is a slayer of Communists—maybe not because they’re Communists, but I’ll take what I can get.
His rebellion against the elders in the folk movement of the 1960s was a rebellion in part against the static conformity and dreary humorlessness of the far-left politics that had dominated that corner of the music world for a quarter-century.
That is the secret hidden text of A Complete Unknown, the biopic in question, even if cowriter and director James Mangold might not completely grasp it. The not-so-hidden general theme of the movie is that Dylan is the inceptor of the new American age of the 1960s because he rebels against and ultimately rejects the expectations of elders and authority figures. What Dylan’s mentors, users, financial exploiters, and groupies want is the voice of social justice inveighing as he does against “Masters of War”—but a social-justice warrior is not what he wants to be. And this guy simply will not be what other people want him to be. In a genuinely brilliant performance, Timothée Chalamet captures Dylan’s combination of insolence, petulance, self-assurance, and hunger for authenticity without ever once trying to make the man even remotely endearing. In an equally brilliant performance, Edward Norton plays Pete Seeger, seemingly kindly but deeply self-satisfied, the mentor from whom Dylan must break away to be free. Their dynamic is the beating heart of A Complete Unknown.
Bonus. At Quadrant, Pastor de Lasala pipes up on behalf of the French classical organ, preferred over its English and German cousins. From the essay:
In 1995, after six years of restoration of the Poitiers organ, I contacted Jean-Albert Villard, the organist for the past fifty years, and I was cordially invited to play the famous Clicquot for myself. Maître Villard’s conviction was unshakable: he had devoted his life to promoting what his contemporaries disparagingly viewed as a museum piece. Villard brought back to life music which had been abandoned two centuries ago. Moreover, he improvised in that style and this is how he presented his instrument to me—truly an astonishing experience. My visit to Poitiers fulfilled a three-fold ambition: meeting the fabled Villard, seeing the most famous eighteenth-century organ in France, and playing from cover to cover the entire Clérambault organ book. That tiny spark had become a veritable blaze.
The French liturgy esteemed the organ as a voice which alternated with the voices of the schola cantorum in the choir. This was the practice of alternatim, harking back to an ancient Jewish custom of antiphonal singing. In its French incarnation, the Latin texts of the Mass or Magnificat were divided between the organ and the schola, with the organ taking the lead. The use of the organ was strictly regulated as to when it was allowed to intervene in the liturgy. For this purpose, a Cæremoniale was produced for each diocese in France. Only half the words of the sung liturgy would have been heard. The organist’s task was to improvise pithy versets encapsulating the meaning of the unsung text prior to the schola resuming the audibly chanted text. The “unheard” words were chanted quietly. The organist was obliged to end his improvisation on the correct note for the schola to continue their chant. Therefore, the music alternated from the east and west ends of the church. The organist would intervene no fewer than twenty-one times in a Mass. The only extended pieces would be the Offertoire and possibly the Elévation. According to the feast day celebrated and, as laid out in the Cærimoniale, the organist was obliged to incorporate the chant of the chosen Gregorian Mass setting for the first verse of the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei. Various combinations of stops were standardised and these complemented the mood of the versets. Several seventeenth- and eighteenth-century organ books included precise instructions—le mélange des jeux—veritable “recipes” which left the player in no doubt as to the tonal colours required. This can be contrasted with the paucity of registration comments left by J.S. Bach and the contemporary German organ school.
For the Good of the Cause
Uno. The Center for Civil Society hosts its important “In the Trenches” Master Class on Strategic Planning this January 30th, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. (Eastern, via Zoom). Nonprofit leaders who are contemplating the need for, and the benefit of, having an actionable strategic plan would be well advised to attend. Get more information right here.
Due. At Philanthropy Daily, the great Lorna Bernhoft reviews the site’s 2024 offerings and recommends some top pieces. Find it here.
Department of Bad Jokes
Q: Why was the pig disgruntled?
A: Because he lost his voice.
A Dios
We’re big about the late Bill Buckley in these parts. National Review Institute is holding a conference March 20–21 to assess the legacy of the man who created the modern conservative movement—you may wish to attend. Find out more information right here.
May We Commit to Not Forget Auld Acquaintances,
Jack Fowler, whose outpost in the ether is jfowler@amphil.com.
