The Zeitgeist Weekend Edition – 4.27.2019

Every morning, we run The Narrative Machine on the past 24 hours worth of financial media to find the most on-narrative (i.e. interconnected and central) stories. On the weekend, we leave finance to cover the last week or so in other shifting parts of the Zeitgeist – namely, politics and culture. It’s not a list of best articles or articles we think are most interesting … often far from it.

But these are articles that have struck a chord in narrative world. 


April 27, 2019 Narrative Map – Non-Financial Articles

Source: Quid, Epsilon Theory

A couple observations:

  • A word of warning to those campaigning: Other people don’t care as much about the Mueller Report as you probably think they do.
  • Same thing on NBA playoffs (sorry, Jeremy).
  • The most central topics to our non-financial Zeitgeist are: Crime, Fine Arts and Food / Restaurants. Do with that what you will.

The New ‘Stop Resisting’ [Lew Rockwell]

Three thoughts:

  1. I’m as surprised as you to see a <checks notes> Lew Rockwell blog popping to the top of the Zeitgeist. I have no clever explanation for this (except #3 below).
  2. I had to look up AGW (no, Urban Dictionary, I don’t think it’s that), until I realized that it was assumed in the article that we would get it from the use of the expression “armed government worker.” The emergence of niche community language is fascinating. More on this later.
  3. There’s a wonderful nexus between parts of the left and right on the issue of government-sponsored violence and skepticism of the motivations of, well, armed government workers – never better explained than in this SNL sketch from a few years back.

The Government Shouldn’t Keep the Public in the Dark Just Because Private Companies Ask It to [ACLU Blog]

When it rains, it pours, I guess.

There is some relationship between this topic and one that came up on the regular Zeitgeist about two weeks ago. The earlier article was an opinion piece which argued for the public disclosure of every American’s federal taxes. This one from the ACLU advocates shutting down the tool commonly used by private entities to thwart FOIA-based efforts to disclose data about their government relationships.

Similar, but different.

From a principles (i.e. non-legal) perspective, entering into a voluntary commercial relationship with the government, unlike the involuntary relationship involved in paying taxes under threat of imprisonment, seems to justify public disclosure of much of the nature of that relationship. There is still a Take Back Your Data argument to be made here, but in my opinion it leads toward ‘Be really, really sure before you do business with your government.’


Might be worth reviving the role of the dairyman [Marietta Daily Journal]

Yes, it’s the environmental angle that pushed this one up the list – plastic-bashing is very on-Zeitgeist – but let’s take a moment to sit and appreciate the national treasure that is opinion writing in local newspapers.


Countries buying the most weapons from the US [MSN]

Seems fine.


Beyond the Troll Bridge [Dirtrag]

Source: Brett Rothmeyer, Dirtrag Magazine

I am always reassured when I see discussions of nature, beauty, food, beer and good company rise to the top of the Zeitgeist. It’s hard to feel the pull of the Widening Gyre when you are spending your time and energy on tangible things, things that can’t be abstracted outside of how we describe them after the fact.

This is a travel blog, a trip seen through the eyes and experience of a mountain biking enthusiast, and worth the 5-10 minutes it will take you to read.


It was the perfect solution to The Banks music venue. Until the neighbors found out. [Cincinnati Enquirer]

Feature journalism is always perilous.

Feature pieces are, in a way, the original form of Fiat News. The idea behind a piece like this is to present news in an engaging narrative format that isn’t necessarily expressing opinions directly, but which also doesn’t necessarily purport to take the objective tone we’d expect from standard news reporting. In other words, the GOAL of these pieces is to take us on an emotional journey.

It was the case for this same media outlet’s piece on working class lives in Cincinnati suburbs that popped up in a prior Zeitgeist, and it’s the case here.

The civic problem – and this is true for Explainers and Analysis journalism, too – is that the lines between these pieces and news reporting are fading, or have already faded. I don’t think a reader or consumer of this piece would know, except by vigilance, that they were reading a piece of feature journalism which the author has very clearly structured to tell a particular story he favors. Indeed, the masthead highlights the section in which the article lives. This story is explicitly marked as a part of their news coverage.

The verdict? Yeah, even this harmless-sounding regional fare is Fiat News.


Broadway Revival of Beauty and the Beast in the Works [Playbill]

I saw the original Beauty and the Beast on Broadway coming up on two decades ago. I thought – and still think – it was the worst thing I’d ever seen.

Don’t get me wrong. I liked the movie as a kid. I celebrate Tim Rice’s entire catalog. But the actor playing the Beast sang with the most affected, melodramatic, wide-as-a-Mack-truck vibrato I’d ever heard. It was so silly, such a caricature that I initially thought he was joking. I choked back a laugh when I looked around and saw that everyone else was on the edge of their seats. Rapt.

I had taken my mother and sister, and fully expected that we would all talk about Beast and his ridiculously over-the-top singing style after the end of the show. Before I could open my mouth, I could see that they were in tears, overwhelmed by the beauty of the whole affair. So like any decent human being, I shut my damn mouth.

I told my wife this story later, and with a bit of googling she discovered that the guy playing the role when I took in the show was…super famous. Like, THE guy associated with some of the biggest roles on Broadway.

Friends, the languages we speak – I mean actual languages, the languages of value or growth investing, the languages of liberty and equality, and yes, stylistic languages like the peculiar Broadway style of singing – are powerful forces of both affinity and alienation, depending on our proficiency with them. There’s nothing wrong with liking to see the world through the particular lens of abstraction that is your favored language, but if I learned anything from the Worst Show I Ever Saw, it’s that unchecked cynicism about other languages is neither a source of happiness nor a sign of sophistication.

Comments

  1. “There’s nothing wrong with liking to see the world through the particular lens of abstraction that is your favored language, but if I learned anything from the Worst Show I Ever Saw, it’s that unchecked cynicism about other languages is neither a source of happiness nor a sign of sophistication.”

    When this first happens to you and, then, every single subsequent time it happens to you is both a positive - seeing the world with clear eyes - moment and a sad - you have to suppress your clear eyes to have a full heart (not destroy others’ enjoyment for your own ego) - moment.

  2. Great words of wisdom re expressing an out of consensus opinion. Why? Be-caaawz, never in my lifetime have I seen the level of group-think we now observe, bovine herding at its finest. What’s more, that group-think has been weaponized to shame and browbeat anyone who disagrees (a society of “mean girls”). It’s as if we are confronted by a child/group of children who point(s) at us and says in loud accusing voice “Stranger! Stranger! Stranger!”. This dynamic has caused me to disengage from anything controversial in conversation…even with family members. My response when politics comes up…“You don’t see steering wheels on roller-coasters”. In this statement I refer to both my utter disaffection as well as realization that the social/political process, like a roller-coaster, drives us, not the other way around.

    Get off my lawn! Lol

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