Cormac McCarthy’s Secret, Against Appistocracy, Feminizing Men, Cultivating Culture, DEI's Demise?
Contra Review #7, I think.
A consistent format for these newsletters has been pretty elusive, but I think this is close to what it will look like. I considered just naming each one “Contra Review #” like I used to because it saves me a headache. You’d be surprised how long it takes to come up with headlines. But it can also be part of the fun.
I hope you enjoy it and consider upgrading to paid if you’re currently a free subscriber.
PODCAST
Promises made, promises kept. We’re back with new episodes of the podcast.
I’ve got a string of guests lined up for topics ranging from the end of the “Resistance” to victims of Big Pharma and how Silicon Valley is destroying our capacity for intimacy, i.e., the American Gooning Conspiracy.
For the latest episode,
of joined me to discuss how he got the story of a lifetime about Cormac McCarthy’s secret source of inspiration. We also hit some notes on artificial intelligence and the inexorable rise of the appistocracy, the name given by to a new class of elites consisting of people like Mark Zuckerberg.As it turns out, Vincenzo also knows a lot about these people and their products. The title of the podcast is a play on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It served as the basis for the Blade Runner films, in which the line between what is human and what is not is blurred.
Also, if you missed the first episode, you’re going to want to check it out.
of joined me to talk about the power of storytelling, why conservatives should not abandon the arts, and what it’s like to deal with publishers who care more about ideology than good writing.In November, Liza published a piece about how high school teachers are utterly failing students by promoting philistinism. A people who abandon cultural inheritance, who outsource their thinking to algorithms, are not much different than drones, and that happens to be how the Zuckerbergs of the world view them.
POST-FINASTERIDE BLUES
In a future podcast, I want to have on someone who has experience with post-finasteride syndrome, a collection of nasty physical, psychological, and sexual side effects associated with the popular hair loss medication. I wrote about it recently.
Finasteride is a sensitive subject. I get why men take it. I also know that some people never experience any adverse effects, and that is great. But for those who do, and there is a growing number of them, there’s little recourse or even understanding from medical professionals. I spoke with someone who said that their doctor basically just ignored them after they explained what they were going through. Imagine dealing with something that has effectively ruined your life or come close to doing that, and the people who took an oath “for the benefit of the sick” could not care less.
I’d like to let someone talk about post-finasteride syndrome in their own words because these people do not really receive much attention from mainstream media. Why would they? Pharmaceutical companies are as powerful as ever.
THE DEMISE OF DEI?
I recently helped
get off the ground. As part of my contribution to that effort, I wrote an article about how Michigan has long been a hub of diversity, equity, and inclusion and how bad that has been, ironically, for a true liberal arts education. One professor faced a withering torrent of outrage because he read a passage that contained the N-word in William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning,” hence the name of and artwork for my piece by Alessandra’s talented artist.Many years ago, Michigan became a kind of incubation chamber for workarounds to Supreme Court rulings against affirmative action. That seems awfully relevant now, as people cheer the demise of DEI. It’s no doubt wounded, but I wouldn’t count the hydra slain. At any rate, we’ve been at the “culture war” for so long that I sometimes think we’ve forgotten the culture part. That is why authors like Faulkner are worth defending.
BIG BROTHER BECOMES LITTLE BROTHER
In a directive signed during the final days of the Biden administration, the leadership of U.S. intelligence quietly acknowledged that private companies, or “non-state entities,” are becoming more powerful than world governments.
Ken Klippenstein has the story on Intelligence Community Directive 406, which calls on America’s spy agencies to enmesh themselves more intimately with Big Tech, even if such arrangements pose a potential “risk” that would presumably be avoided otherwise. Klippenstein writes:
There is an unspoken and unsettling context to this effort: these corporations have become more powerful than many nation states. Top companies are now worth more than the GDPs of most countries. Where the CIA once might have coveted the secrets of Albania, now it is Apple, whose wealth exceeds all but the four richest countries.
Meanwhile, Bill Gates is going around telling people to read a book that says the technology being developed by these corporations will also have a “hugely destabilizing” impact on jobs within the next few years. Strange times ahead.
Hey Pedro, responding to your request/interest regarding interviewing someone about Post-Finasteride Syndrome, please reach out to Mark Millich (the man with facial changes featured in your article) at: moralmedicine2023@gmail.com
He will be an excellent interviewee.
He has been raising awareness of this condition for a few years now, but there are tens of thousands of us suffering hellish torment daily. Any awareness we can raise is greatly appreciated.
Sir, I want to recommend 3 books about WW2. These show the opposition to the WW2 history taught. HW Brands America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh. Tim Bouverie Appeasement: Chamberlain. Jonathan Haslam International Communism and the Origins of World War II.