Happy New Year, dear readers! Whether you’re new to the newsletter or a have been with me since the beginning, I want to thank you for reading! :)
In this week’s edition, I’m highlighting some areas of research that I want to explore this year, and particularly in this spring semester. Topics include the idea of the “public” in public policy, mass media and public opinion, and the idea of a 21st century industrial policy. But before I turn to that, here are some items to note.
First, I am thrilled to announce that this spring I will be a research intern at Brookings Institution where I will be serving remotely on Dr. Andre Perry’s team in the metropolitan policy program. In August of 2020, I had reviewed Dr. Perry’s book Know Your Price, which is about black property values in black majority cities. I am thrilled to get to work with such a thoughtful scholar, and I’ll keep you posted on how that work goes.
Second, yesterday Netflix released the latest season (3) of Cobra Kai. I’m already halfway through, and plan on finishing it over the weekend because I have no self-control. If you’re not familiar, Cobra Kai follows Daniel and Johnny, the original protagonist and antagonist in the original Karate Kid film (played by the original actors!) who are now adults teaching karate in the valley and dealing with plenty of obstacles including each other. It’s a fun show, and the nostalgia doesn’t get in the way of good story beats and solid character arcs. I highly recommend it.
Third, I fully endorse the following tweet:
Research Areas for 2021:
I’ll keep this brief, as it’s still a holiday. Here are some areas of interest that I hope to read about, and write about in 2021:
1: The Public - What constitutes the “public” as an idea, and how to we differentiate the public from “mass society”, “mob”, and “collective”? Is the public an aggregate best understood through representative surveys? Is the public an aspiration of citizenship? Does the public include every person who lives in the nation, or only the nation’s citizens, or only the nation’s citizens who are actively engaged in the political process?
2: Disinformation - What causes people to be vulnerable to conspiracy theories or political propaganda? Is political alienation cause or symptom? Or is this better explained by the erosion of norms and mores?
3: Public Opinion - Leo Strauss famously divides political life and its reliance on public opinion from the philosophical life and its quest for truth: does this distinction hold, and is there really no room for philosophy in the political life? Strauss (and Socrates before him) maintained that it is impossible to educate large audiences because rhetoric (as opposed to sophistry) happens person to person and that doesn’t scale well. Are they right? If so, what does that say about all public political discourse in our context? Is there a way to redeem broad political messaging?
4: Industrial Policy - a topic that is increasingly talked about, but often ill-defined. How should we conceive of this broadly, and also what are specific policy proposals that express this vision? At least on the Right, we can be confident that no one wants to see Soviet-style central planning. And yet it does seem like we need to think about political economy, and about the incentive structures for manufacturing and innovation. Fans of industrial policy typically fall into two broad categories, those who are concerned about disenfranchised American workers and those who are concerned about the national security risks of falling behind nations like China. What are the best arguments from both circles, and are they compatible? (If not, what should our priorities be)?
That’s the main topics, but here are a few more:
given land scarcity, what are the constraints on new construction and how does that affect the possibilities for housing?
what are best-practices in state and local finance? (taking a class on this)
modern monetary policy: seems like a faulty framework, but to be fair, what actually causes inflation and how should we think about the wildly low rates of inflation that have held steady these last couple decades? (taking a class on macro)
in light of all the strong opinions regarding the 1619 Project, how ought we think about the pedagogical aims in teaching history?
what does it look like to be prepared the next pandemic, and what does effectual government look like in times of public health crisis?
Anyway, at least some of these topics will probably serve as the basis for future editions of the newsletter! If you’re particularly interested in one of these topics, feel free to let me know and I can make sure I get to it!
Happy New Year! I hope your year is filled with lots of great reading! :)
What I Am Reading Elsewhere:
Every once in awhile, Congress can actually pass meaningful legislation. Politico reports, “Congress clinches deal to restore Pell grants for prisoners 26 years after ban” - a long needed response to one of the worst provisions in Clinton’s crime bill, this legislative victory represents the hard work of coalitions across the political spectrum.
This may be the only time I link to Gamespot, but this headline and subtitle is just… “Trump Pardons Congressman Who Spent Campaign Money On Steam Games: The vaping politician spent $1,302 on video games.” - whomst among us?
Via Philadelphia Inquirer, Developer’s condos would destroy South Philly’s famed Black ‘Doctors’ Row’ - “With its huge inventory of sturdy 19th and 20th century townhouses, the city once excelled at renovations and adaptive reuses of older buildings. Now zoning and tax incentives increasingly reward teardowns."
In the New Republic, here’s a great review of Michael Sandel’s new book on meritocracy: “[Sandel] critiques the [meritocratic] ethic on grounds similar to those that caused him to question John Rawls’s doctrine of the priority of the right over the good: It is corrosive, if not preclusive, of community, since it enfeebles the sense that 'we are all in this together.’”
Did you see the Elle piece on the journalist Christie Smythe who upended her life after falling in love with the sociopathic Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli? It’s a…doozy. Here are two standout quotes: 1. "In the visitors’ room, unsure of what Shkreli liked, Smythe spent $30 on vending-machine snacks." 2. "She asked if she could kiss him, and he said yes. The room smelled of chicken wings, she remembers."