Published n.4: containers and contained
A short review of what's happening in culture to books, trust, and lifestyle.
The ‘published’ series is a regular roundup of links and thoughts. In the next year, I plan to make it an open thread and ongoing AMA in the comments for paid subscribers (along with extra links.)
We all know what junk food looks like—boxes with TOS1-length lists of ingredients, corn syrup and sugar-laden cookies, crackers, cereals, drinks, snack bars, cans, sauces, ready-meals, etc. The ‘junk’ is a not-so-subtle reminder that it’s bad for us.
Junk stands for the highly addictive, artificial, super-unhealthy ingredients that will make you eat piles of it for a dopamine hit. To the detriment of waist lines and arteries. (AI also gobbles lots of chips.)
Most of what comes in a box or a can in America is bad for you. (Have you noticed how in many parts of the world they stopped making chips or crisps with olive oil and use mostly sunflower-oil instead?)
But it’s not called ‘junk’ anymore. Like that airline that plunged into the Florida Everglades2 and killed all people on board, there’s been a rebranding. Junk is now ‘ultra-processed’ (UPF),3 a scientific-sounding name. Producers rejoice.
Once you know what to look for, you can see similar moves in many industries. You won’t even need a pair of glasses to read the fine print—the mere fact that there’s so much of it should tell you—same for the seemingly benign classifications.
Addiction overwhelms attention and focus. From the slow of tradition—read, play, make—to the fast of modern—scan, watch, track—culture has turned everything into a dopamine hit—scroll, swipe, click. What does that do to our brains?
Do we ‘contain multitudes’4 or are we merely ‘contained’5?
On Value in Culture is a reader-supported guide to framing in narrative, language, books, value & culture. Both free and paid subscriptions are available. If you want to support my work, the best way is by paid subscription.
1/8. Since the last round-up, On Value in Culture published:
Old Befana—We can let go of our notions of what it takes to be good enough to share our gifts with each other.
(🔒) The Art of Talk—It’s impossible to have good conversations without learning to speak and to listen well.
On the Reverse—Why we all need to see the backside of work to learn more about culture.
A Puzzling World Drives us to Dig Deeper—How the satisfaction of working on clues is a big clue to meaningful work.
(🔒) How to Read Fiction—A special 4-part series on fiction and its cultural value for supporters.
(🔒) Part 1 of 4—The cultural value of mystery and historical narrative.
(🔒) Part 2 of 4—C.S. Harris’ Sebastian St. Cyr novels explore the social tensions, intellectual and creative developments, and political and military events of Regency-era England.
(🔒) Part 3 of 4—Many layers, depth of characters, valuable dialogue, and beautiful writing—Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series.
(🔒) Part 4 of 4—A sense of place in Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache's Series—Three Pines as a stage and refuge, a sanctuary found by people who are lost.
Are we Doing the Right Kind of Work?—We’re doing more of the work involved in delivering products and services daily. The busyness takes us away from the kind of value we seek.
Ode to Joy—We act in the world, and we expect something to change.
Does Self-Censorship Lower Ambition?—What holds us back from using our voice may be the very same thing that holds back society.
A reminder for supporters that they can access full articles and commentary at The Vault (🔒). Thank you for supporting the work.
2/8. Throughout history, libraries weren’t for the idle pleasure or even the sharing of common knowledge—they were meant for the privileged few. What we know today as public libraries evolved from scholastic monastery collections to university collections and private hoards of book wealth, to subscription libraries.
“The educated and affluent part of our community takes it for granted that public funding of the arts and the facilitation of recreational reading is part of the core functions of government. But the public library – in the sense of a funded collection available free to anyone who wants to use it – has only existed since the mid nineteenth century, a mere fraction of the history of the library as a whole. If there is one lesson from the centuries-long story of the library, it is that libraries only last as long as people find them useful.”
Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library: a Fragile History (2021)
Libraries are enjoying a renaissance in usage, which goes far beyond checking out books. Like my local public library, they’ve evolved into all-purpose community centers, offering everything from skill development courses to Covid tests, off-hours computer access, educational programs for children, yoga for adults, and much more. Some have spaces for meetings and train librarians to teach kids to use technology.
For many communities, they’re the only local organization doing such things. Society depends on them—public libraries add tremendous value to culture. I use my public library for books and foreign television series, to meet people, and attend lectures. But I also support it by donating—books and funds.
Libraries are doing all of the above while battling book bans, physical and verbal assaults, and budget cuts.
In ‘Libraries are on the front lines of America’s problems’ (Axios), American Library Association president Emily Drabinski says: “I’d much rather have these challenges for additional services and pressures than have people saying that our time has passed.”
We’re in a kind of magic moment—both uncomfortable and extremely promising— where we could redesign the role of libraries beyond information access hubs and quiet spaces. I find what Pettegree and der Weduwen say thought-provoking:
“[…] The uncomfortable truth of libraries throughout the ages: no society has ever been satisfied with the collections inherited from previous generations. What we will frequently see in this book is not so much the apparently wanton destruction of beautiful artifacts so lamented by previous studies of library history, but neglect and redundancy, as books and collections that represented the values and interests of one generation fail to speak to the one that follows.”
Public libraries could be the safe spaces where to hatch new knowledge that fits the current culture and zeitgeist. But only if we make it happen.
3/8. To me, reading is akin to eating—I see the nourishment of books essential. Which is why Ilya Kaminsky’s article on ‘Reading Dante in Ukraine’ (Asymptote) caught my attention. Kaminsky talks about the value of poetry in times of distress.
Opening Dante’s Inferno enrolls the reader in a millennium-long class in surviving hell with poetry, through music, imagery, and poetry’s willingness to look without flinching at the details of both terror and wonder: in a strange way, this book is a call to courage.
and
In the underworld Dante meets his enemies and heroes—great thinkers, murderers, poets, politicians—but no one is too monumental. They are all trying to stay relevant to a living man, all too human, fragile, grotesque, not unlike ourselves, trying to say something that still matters.
Poetry is a private language between you and the writer. I know this is not a popular stance in contemporary American culture. But Dante has been around more than 700 years. He’ll continue to be there when our generation has gone.
Each year, talented writers try their hand at translating his work—a mantra for humans who are as lost as he was on their journey.
4/8. We could use some help reading beyond the best-seller list. Our perspective on issues comes from the confines of American culture. I agree with Canadian journalist Dan Gardner who says ‘Don’t Trust the Trust Decline’ (Substack.)
“In cultural terms, the US is a black hole drawing all things, even light, toward it.
So if the US is suffering a serious, long-term decline in trust, if the US is the most polarized and bitterly divided it has been in modern times, if the US is on a scary trajectory, you get countless foreigners talking about declining trust, and polarization, and the scary direction things are headed. Do that enough and lots of those foreigners will start to blur the distinction between the US and their country. American reality becomes their reality.”
Gardner cites data drawn from the World Values Survey, a major international initiative that has been operating for decades (Policy Institute at King’s College London.)
While levels of social trust are higher in Norway, China, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Britain, Germany, and Spain than in America, I wasn’t surprised to see Italy and France trailing below.
But, I don’t know the context and positioning of the survey’s questions. Could there be a cultural difference in language? When you ask someone how they’re doing in Italy, you get a conservative non c’e’ male (things are not bad) and France likely a non-committal ça va (things are going), rather than the over the top ‘great’ in America.
It’s interesting that Britons, French, and Italians would trust people of other nationalities more than their own.
But see what happens with people met for the first time—interesting! Americans trust people they meet for the first time more than overall other people. For Italy it’s about the same.
There’s value in a broader view.
5/8. Perhaps Americans are once again in peak ‘Europecore’ escapism. Laura Pitcher (Nylon) talks about how the young react to a vacant American culture by creating a European state of mind in their environment.
“The romanticization of living in Europe by Americans is nothing new, with French and Italian designers long serving as ambassadors of culture and fashion. However, the current obsession with ‘Europecore’ and European life seems to run a little deeper. After years of political heartbreak and a sense that American culture is vacant, many young people are rebuking being American, which is reflected in how they dress. ‘Why is life in Europe so much easier than in the US?’ wrote one creator on TikTok. ‘Planning outfits for my European summer to escape current reality,’ another New York creator posted last month.
For many people searching for a much-needed sense of escapism from the realities of the economic issues and political unrest, Europe has come to represent not simply a continent, but also a state of mind—a place to put on a flowy skirt and live a slower life. Unfortunately, none of that exists beyond a vacation or TikTok packing video. ‘It shows how hard U.S. life is right now,’ says Suen. ‘What they do not realize is that it’s pretty bleak over here, too.’”
Fashion is a definite improvement in most parts of Europe.
As for life, things are hard in Europe, but in different ways—for example high energy bills, lower wages, less space. However, the opportunities for social interaction, to enjoy good food and libations with ease (without the pressure of tips), and lifestyle make up for the hardships.
We’re social creatures. In America there are far fewer opportunities to hang out without an agenda.
6/8. What’s capturing the attention of British Gen Z and millennials (BBC) post-Brexit and the Black Lives Matter narrative? Surprisingly—folk culture. Ethnomusicology professor Fay Hield at the University of Sheffield says there’s “huge, huge enthusiasm” “for a kind of England or a kind of Englishness that they’re proud of.”
Young Britons still want to be proud of their country. And they do want to spend time with each other. Thus, they’re embracing the rituals of folk culture. Hield notes that outdoor festivals help people to go to a place (mentally and physically) where they can connect with their roots.
Traditional folk music is thus experiencing a resurgence in popularity among GenZ and millennials, even inspiring young people to form their own folk bands. The songs, music, and dance of folk music often serve as a way to connect with midsummer, Pagan festivals, and ceremony.
7/8. Anil Dash says ‘the Internet is about to get weird again (Rolling Stone), the good side of me wants to believe it’s true. Because the alternative is a noisy mess in the hands of few commercial entities with vested interest in driving their agenda.
“amidst it all, the human web, the one made by regular people, is resurgent. We are about to see the biggest reshuffling of power on the internet in 25 years, in a way that most of the Internet’s current users have never seen before. And while some of the drivers of this change have been hyped up, or even over-hyped, a few of the most important changes haven’t gotten any discussion at all.”
Regulators are now part of the picture to temper the power of a handful tech corporations, for example.
8/8. But regulations and laws seem to trail technology by years. Is it fair that any one of us with expertise and years of hard work is robbed and impersonated at the same time?
It’s happened to me in the early days of the blog—people built sites to publish scraped content without permission, insulted the writers when they reached out to inquire, and eventually sold (they positioned it as ‘exited’) these so-called ‘SEO wonders’ to private equity.
It’s happening now to scholars and experts through AI. Ted Gioia found books scraped and published in his name and that of other notable musicians. As it was the case with questionable SEO tactics, authors and experts have the added burden to flag the pirated material for take-down.
“AI advocates could end these scams by offering transparency. Just tell us when AI is used. That's a simple, fair request.
But it won’t happen unless we force the issue. The AI business model is currently based on deception. Demand collapses if they're honest.
That’s why the scamming problem will get worse—much, much worse—unless we take prudent steps. Otherwise scams will drive the economics for this powerful technology.
Is that what we want?”
Do you care when a replica of your ideas makes more money from your work for the scammers than for you? Because you can bet on distraction and ubiquity to favor the scammers and AI.
We end as we started with the question of how much junk are we willing to swallow—physically and intellectually. Are we becoming barely human at all? The lack of relationships I notice is astounding, the silence speaks volumes.
We’re in a deep cultural crisis, a value-less crisis. More is going into making less. We won’t make any real progress until we acknowledge how stuck, harried, friendless (the machine is not our friend), and isolated (an attempt at insulating?) we’ve become.
We need a sense of place, to be rooted6 to a human understanding of the world. Perhaps our culture is already dead, and we’re in denial. I’m an optimist, I think we can see we’re in an tired narrative and find again something deeper than us.
P.S. For extra credit, here’s an essay by Paul Kingsnorth (part two here) with four better questions concerning the Internet. Warning: it will make you think.
References:
Pettegree, Andrew, and der Weduwen, Arthur, The Library: a Fragile History (Basic Books, 2021)
Owolade, Tomiwa, The is not America: Why Black Lives Matter in Britain (Atlantic Books, 2023)
Weil, Simone, The Need for Roots (1943; Routledge, 2001)
Tern of Service (TOS), those pages and pages you and I agree to, often without reading. They are binding, alright.
ValuJet Flight 592 was a regularly scheduled flight from Miami to Atlanta. On May 11, 1996, 10 minutes after departing Miami, as a result of a fire in the cargo compartment possibly caused by mislabeled and improperly stored hazardous cargo, the plane crashed into the Everglades. All 110 people on board were killed.
Subsequently, ValueJet was rebranded AirTran Airlines after joining forces with AirTran Airways. Like others, it tried to lose its past.
‘Ultra-processed’ is a term introduced by the Brazilian scientist Carlos Monteiro in 2010 to try to identify foods that undergo many processing steps, often with artificial ingredients, resulting in ‘food-like substances,’ as Michael Pollan once described them.
Made mostly from substances extracted from foods, such as fats, starches, added sugars, and hydrogenated fats. They may also contain additives like artificial colors and flavors or stabilizers.
A reference to Walt Whitman’s (1819 - 1892) ‘Song to Myself.’
Adjective, restricted in space. I worked with neurologists who maintained that the brain is the only organ enclosed in a defined space (the skull) that still has infinite capacity to grow (by use.)
In 1942 Simone Weil fled France along with her family, going firstly to America, then to London in order to work with Charles de Gaulle. Published posthumously The Need for Roots was a direct result of this collaboration. Its purpose was to help rebuild France after the war.
The book is addressed to political leaders, and it would take a very extraordinary person to apply all Weil’s ideas. But we can reflect on them, and contribute more value to our own community.