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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 13, 2025

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The newest issue of the Atlantic contains an article about our increasing social isolation titled: The Anti-Social Century (You can get behind the paywall here). The author of the article blames our information technologies: TV and more recently cell phones, destruction of third spaces like libraries, parks and neighborhood bars, national and international mobility, and a culture that chooses convience over forging genuine connections over time. In terms of solutions, the author posits that we need a national culture change towards a more skeptical attitude towards new technology like AI and deliberate attempts to be more social. He cites the rapid growth in independent bookstores and board game cafes as a cause for hope in this kind of change.

I'm directionally on board with the diagnosis and prognosis offered in the Atlantic article, but I worry about the vagueness and naivity of the solution. I had similar worries after reading a similar piece, the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, which highlighted the deleterious effects of phones on our attention spans. Hari spends a summer phone free in Provincetown, MA which he really enjoys, and manages to recover much of his attention span. However, upon returning to the "real world" he finds himself sucked right back into the vortex. Hari rightly recognizes that this is an issue he cannot tackle alone, and advocates for collective action on a national or international level. He draws inspiration from movements like women's suffrage, the fight for gay rights, and the campaign against CFCs. Perhaps I am cynical, but I find this level of optimism to be hopelessly naive for a number of reasons.

Firstly, those examples which I just listed were examples in which the forces of capital were neutral (CFCs, gay rights), or in fact in favor of the so-called revolution (women's suffrage). In this case, like that of the fight against climate change, or degrowth, capital is fundamentally against a system that would free our attention, as such a system would reduce profits.

Secondly, I'm not sure democratic change will actually work in this scenario. As we saw with prohibition & the failed war on drugs, people like their vices. I'm not sure my generation would be in favor of something like banning TikTok. Hari even states that his first week on Cape Cod was pretty difficult psychologically without the soothing mind-wipe of scrolling. Faith in democracy also misses the forces of capital arrayed against the interests of the common people who have so clearly been gaming our electoral system since the Civil War. If we can't stop Big Pharma from price gouging insulin, what makes the author think that we could upend the entire media ecosystem?

I think change fundamentally has to come from a level in-between the individual & the state (or global culture). I think many cultural critics miss the very existence of this level of culture, possibly because it has almost totally vanished from our world as an element of social change. I'm talking here about the family, the local community, and to some extent, the parishes/church.

Yet I think this new Atlantic article, and my experiences over the past few years has revealed how frustrating trying to affect change at this level can be. There might well be an explosion of board game bars and independent bookstores, but at least where I live in the US, even thriving institutions have problems with inconsistency and high turnover on the scale of years which makes it very difficult to build real community. A couple examples from my personal life might be helpful.

1). I'm pretty involved in the running community here in Baltimore and in some senses the running scene has never been better. Races are packed and the casual running clubs are seeing more people come out than ever. But the more serious running teams are doing very poorly. We can't get people out for organized workouts, or for important team races. It's very hard to build team camraderie or real friendships in this kind of environment where everyone is a flake.

2). With my local church the problem is similar. Plenty large mass attendence, but people my age aren't interested in the other ministries that the church offers: working with soup kitchen, church garden, and food pantry to help feed the homeless, book clubs, or even social events, many of which take place right after mass. In addition to the flakiness present in the running scene, there's also a geographic transience: many people are here for school or temporary work, and are not inclined to work towards any kind of more permenant community.

There are similar vibes in many of the other hobbies I take part in: gardening, swing dancing, reading: a trend towards pick-and-choose attendence of events, rather than attendence out of any sense of obligation to a particular community. I'm clearly guilty of this too: I would probably be a stronger running club participant or parishoner if I didn't have so many hobbies, although I like to think I lack the worst of the scrolling/TV vices.

I'm kind of at a loss about what we can do about all this. A big part of the problem is clearly the phones,which hopefully the upcoming Tik Tok ban will help with, but I think there's also a large element of constant geographic mobility at play at here too. I grew up in Chicago, went to college in Boston, and currently am doing my PhD in Baltimore. At each stage of life I built or was part of a community, which, in the case of the first two, I have gradually lost. The thought of the same happening with my friends here fills me with dread, but staying in Baltimore is not a rational economic prospect, and also requires that most of my friends here don't leave themselves. But if not going to stay, why would I ever want to sink my roots in deeper?

Any thoughts/advice appreciated. I also think there's a lot of value in online communities that I have found here at the Motte, in my philosophy book club (university friends), and on Substack, and I'm immensly grateful for their existence, but I don't think they can even come close to fulfilling many of the needs that meatspace does. But that's a whole seperate post.

and currently am doing my PhD in Baltimore

Let's have some straight talk about the unspoken expectations of PhD and beyond.

Successfully finishing and defending your dissertation means very little if you haven't used your time while in the PhD program to establish a strong professional network. Without the latter, all you have is an extra line on your CV (or resume), and there are plenty of others out there with a similar or more impressive-sounding line in their CV. This is true even if you turn your dissertation into several publications, and even if those publications actually find readers beyond Reviewers #1 and #2. None of that is a substitute for a strong professional network.

Fortunately, building a strong professional network in graduate school coincides precisely with your desire for a community. Right now, you have fellow PhD students in relatively close physical proximity and in sufficiently close sub-fields / fields, pursuing similar-enough goals. All want to successfully complete their dissertations. All are working on something that (at least at the beginning) they found interesting. Quite a few of them will be your future professional colleagues. Building a strong professional network starts with organizing your fellow PhD students into a mutually supportive network.

Does your department have a weekly graduate student seminar, where grad students can present an interesting article or some partial progress on their dissertation? If yes, attend it and present in it, and hang out afterwards to casually discuss stuff with the presenter. If not, organize it. Ask your department head for pizza funds, chances are pretty good they'd be thrilled that someone is willing to take on the organizational task.

Are you in a program with too few grad students? Well, are there grad students in adjacent programs? It's very useful to be able to talk about your research to people outside of your field, and a bit of cross-discipline pollination goes a long way. Again, ask for pizza funds.

Have the seminar repeat at a regular time, so people get used to it being a thing. If weekly is too frequent, have it bi-weekly. Or first and third Thursday of the month. Invite undergrads that are heading into similar fields. Invite professors; quite a few appreciate the opportunity for low-stress chats about something in or close to their field. If there are local people in the industry that are relevant to your field, invite them too; industry people can bring boots-on-the-ground perspective that academics miss.

Do you or your fellow PhD students take classes? If yes, do they have informal study sessions? If yes, make a point to attend those. If no, organize one. It could start small: just you and one other student, and then make it generally known that others are welcome. Have it at a regular time and place, and be consistent about showing up.

Have you stopped by the office of every professor in your department to chat about their research? Do that. Ask also about the social aspects of their field: Where are the people who work in that field? Is it a more-or-less cohesive group, or are there rival factions? What conferences / forums do people in this field use to informally exchange ideas? Which journals do they value, and which are junk?

Are there local or regional conferences in your field? Do go to those. Preferably, organize some of your fellow PhD students to come with you. If there aren't... maybe there are, but you don't know it. Chat with your professors. Baltimore is plenty big, and it's close to so many other centers of academia.

And yes, by all means go running and attend church. Touch grass. Do what you need to keep healthy and grounded. But understand that, at this juncture, those are unlikely to be the communities that you'll keep.