Happy New Year! (No rant)
2021 was an incredible year. I am so thankful you take a moment to engage with me now and again. I will keep this short.
I have big plans for 2022 and so much more to say, as I am sure you imagine.
Especially about my favorite city! And for all their wealth, still, their tallest tower is a Salesforce building.
There is one more thing before you spend the next 10-15 seconds looking at the picture below. If you had a favorite post, a comment you read, or something you vehemently disagreed with, I would love to hear from you.
Please take it to the comments!
See you there if you feel so inclined.
Happy New Year!
Still my fave city after being my home for over two decades; plan to return after the smoke clears. Looking forward to leaving 2022 better than we found it. Cheers!
Really enjoyed your ~10 mins of audio in your last post. It was a good complement to this: https://christophersweat.substack.com/p/black-intellectuals-in-response-to
... and whet my appetite for your forthcoming convo with Brian Keating.
As you noted, most "intellectuals" are products of the academy. The vast majority of people hear that word and think of some professor in a blazer who quotes esoteric tomes from memory and confidently delivers TRUTH and WISDOM to the midwitted masses from on high.
But I mean, is anyone under the impression that Michael Eric Dyson is somehow "above" someone like Charlamagne or Chris Rock in any meaningful way simply because Dyson uses words like "apotheosis" and has a Ph D.? The latter two don't have bachelor's degrees or professorships, but have obviously had a FAR bigger impact on what and how the public thinks about a ton of different issues, including but by no means limited to racial ones.
No knock on Dyson or other classic "intellectuals" at all – my point is simply that I'm skeptical of the utility of the term as we all conceive of it. Maybe we should just focus on new descriptors rather than redefining this one.
I'd pay to listen to you and Glenn Loury talk about this.