Two items to explore today.
I just finished writing up the book ABUNDANCE, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, and it seems Thompson has a Substack (doesn’t everyone? or a blog?). And his topic today, I think seen via Facebook, is, coincidentally, right on target with one of my recent thoughts.
Substack, Derek Thompson, 14 Jul 2026: A Philosopher’s One-Word Theory to Explain Why the World Feels So Weird, subtitled “Once you learn what the “uni-context” is, you won’t stop seeing it everywhere”
Here are some questions that I consider self-evidently compelling about the modern world:
- Why is the news media so interested in telling you how much the world sucks all the time?
- Why are so many of us obsessed with distraction and managing our attention?
- Why is it so hard to stop comparing ourselves to others?
- And why does everything in art and design seem the same these days?
A week ago, I didn’t think these questions were related. I’m not sure I would have told you I had a good answer to most of them. And I certainly wouldn’t have made the audacious and borderline bonkers claim that one single theory could begin to explain all of them, at once.
But then I had the pleasure of speaking to Agnes Callard, the University of Chicago professor, about her new theory called “the uni-context.” It’s easily one of them most interesting conversations I’ve had all year. And once you’ve heard or read it, I think you might find it hard to think about anything else.
One way to prepare your mind for Callard’s theory of the uni-context is to think about the better-known concept of “context collapse.” If you post something to social media, it will be simultaneously visible to your boss, your parents, your ex, and total strangers. So, while your offline life might be distinct with each of these groups—you might be differential to your boss, childish with your parents, and bawdy with your friends—all of those distinctions are flattened on the internet. That’s context collapse, and you can think of it as the answer to a question: How do informational norms change when we’re all living in the same universal room?
And so on. This is precisely my notion that humans “flatten” different levels of understanding into a single, human-centric context. If people have a father, so must the universe. Look at the myths from around the world, and their explanations of natural phenomena are always about warring gods, or demons, or devils — personifications of human motivations. Whereas the actual universe is so much more complex than that, in ways we can sometimes understand (how physics and chemistry and biology are understood in different ways, while all remaining true) and sometimes we cannot (we intellectually understand quantum mechanics, but no one “knows” it intuitively).
Another way I’ve been using this “flattening” idea — it’s how the religious apologists latch on to this or that philosophical notion, e.g. the cosmological theory of god, or the argument from the supposed “fine-tuning” of the universe, as if validating that idea would prove everything about their own religion, up to Jesus answering prayers. No, all those claims are independent. (And ignore all the claims of rival religions.) You can understand this in the sense that religion is an atavism that served tribal humanity well. But hasn’t the species grown up by now? No, I suppose; growing into a global civilization only makes the conflict worse, between those who cling to tribal stories, and those with the ability to take the universe at face value and understand humanity’s place within it. Or, another sign of the limitations of human cognition.
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I’m noting this not because it’s about the new film, but for the political takes.
Salon, Alex Galbraith, today: The real reason conservatives hate Nolan’s “Odyssey”, subtitled “Christopher Nolan’s adaptation centers on emotions they aren’t allowed to feel”
The most-quoted line from Al Franken’s 2003 bestseller “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” attempts to draw a distinction between conservative and liberal forms of patriotism.
“Conservatives love America like a four-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups,” wrote Franken, a comedian who would, only five years later, would be elected U.S. senator from Minnesota as a Democrat. “To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow.”
A good take. I’ll add it to my chart.
To the point:
Twenty-three years on, the right still has that infantile view of America. Under the thumb of Donald Trump and his MAGA agenda, it has grown even more petulant. Conservatives won’t tolerate any information that complicates their desire for flag-waving. The United States is a one-of-a-kind nation, and its history one of uninterrupted excellence. There’s no room for nuance and no time for reflection. Any mention of the perverse institution of slavery or of the many bloody, pointless conflicts the nation has led or joined, particularly in the last 50 years, is treated by the right like a “Yo Momma” joke, an intentionally offensive attack on a saintly figure that could not and cannot do wrong.
And so on.
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As briefly as possible:
- JMG, today: NYT: No Money Or Connections Means No Pardon
- If you want a pardon, you have to *pay him*. Isn’t this like the definition of corruption? MAGA apparently doesn’t care.
- JMG, today: Kathy Lee Gifford: I Met Jesus When I Was Six
- No, you had some experience which your parents told you was Jesus.
- JMG, today: WH Ends Funding For HIV Prevention Programs
- Of course they did. This is about people MAGA, white supremacists, don’t like.
- Right Wing Watch, Peter Montgomery, yesterday: Doug Wilson: I’m Pushing the Overton Window to Combat Feminism
- Again, tribalism strives to reign.
- Primitive tribalism.
- JMG, today: Hegseth’s Pastor Lays Out Plan To Execute Gay Men
- Slate, Nitish Pahwa, today: Why Trump Wants Smoke With Canada—but Not From It, subtitled “The wildfire haze that blanketed the U.S. last week gave the president a familiar target to punish—while ignoring the real problem.”
- Title on homepage: Trump Has Finally Discovered Climate Change. He’s Blaming Canada for It.
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Tonight: Mahler 3. Bernstein, 1962.
(Sorry, there are brief commercials at critical moments.
