The publication of Get Out the Vote! was part of a conscious effort by Gerber and Green to step out of the academy and ensure that lessons from these studies reached a nonscholarly audience. The authors believed they had made this populist mission apparent through the inclusion of an exclamation mark in the book’s title. […]
Entries Tagged as 'Culture'
Exclamation Marks Mean Accessibility – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg
November 30th, 2012 · Comments Off on Exclamation Marks Mean Accessibility – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg · Elitism, Politics
Tags:Academic Journals·Academics·Political Science·Politics·University
Hedgehogs and Forecasting – “The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction”, Nate Silver
November 17th, 2012 · Comments Off on Hedgehogs and Forecasting – “The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction”, Nate Silver · Elitism, Prediction, Statistical Inference, Statistics
In fact, a little knowledge may be a dangerous thing in the hands of a hedgehog with a Ph.D. One of Tetlock’s more remarkable findings is that, while foxes tend to get better at forecasting with experience, the opposite is true of hedgehogs: their performance tends to worsen as they pick up additional credentials. Tetlock […]
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Tags:Academics·Education·Elites·Experts·prediction·Universities
I Said Meaninglessly – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner
November 9th, 2012 · Comments Off on I Said Meaninglessly – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner · Art, Dialogue, Elitism, Poetry, The Media
“The language of poetry is the exact opposite of the language of mass media,” I said, meaninglessly.
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Tags:media·poetry·Pretense
An American Free Space – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner
November 8th, 2012 · Comments Off on An American Free Space – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner · American, Culture
…making contact with authentic Spain, which I only defined negatively as an American-free space
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Tags:Authenticity
Infinite Disdain – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner
November 8th, 2012 · Comments Off on Infinite Disdain – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner · Elitism, USA, War
On the highway to Toledo we passed several tour buses full of what looked like Americans, digital cameras already in hand, and as we drew past them I expressed infinite disdain, which I could do easily with my eyebrows, for every tourist whose gaze I met. My look accused them of supporting the war, of […]
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Tags:america·Americans·Anti-Americanism·Empire·Tourists·Travel
The Disconnect Between My Experience of Actual Artworks and the Claims Made on Their Behalf – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner
November 6th, 2012 · Comments Off on The Disconnect Between My Experience of Actual Artworks and the Claims Made on Their Behalf – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner · Art, Criticism, Culture, Poetry
Insofar as I was interested in the arts, I was interested in the disconnect between my experience of actual artworks and the claims made on their behalf; the closest I’d come to having a profound experience of art was probably the experience of this distance, a profound experience of the absence of profundity.
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Tags:art·Art Appreciation·Culture·Experience
Less a Particular Poem than the Echo of Poetic Possibility – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner
November 6th, 2012 · Comments Off on Less a Particular Poem than the Echo of Poetic Possibility – “Leaving the Atocha Station”, Ben Lerner · Criticism, Culture, Poetry
Although I claimed to be a poet, although my supposed talent as a writer had earned me my fellowship in Spain, I tended to find lines of poetry beautiful only when I encountered them quoted in prose, in the essays my professors had assigned in college, where the line breaks were replaced with slashes, so […]
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Valuing Employment – “Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets”, Sudhir Venkatesh
November 4th, 2012 · Comments Off on Valuing Employment – “Gang leader for a day: a rogue sociologist takes to the streets”, Sudhir Venkatesh · Crime, Culture, Economics, Policy, Sociology
J.T. once asked me what sociologists had to say about gangs and inner-city poverty. I told him that some sociologists believed in a “culture of poverty”—that is, poor blacks didn’t work because they didn’t value employment as highly as other ethnic groups did, and they transmitted this attitude across generations. “So you want me to […]
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Tags:Employment·Equality·inequality·Intergenerational Poverty·IR·poverty·sociology
Loyalty and Judgement – “A Moveable Feast”, Ernest Hemingway
November 4th, 2012 · Comments Off on Loyalty and Judgement – “A Moveable Feast”, Ernest Hemingway · Criticism, Quotes, Writing
He liked the works of his friends, which is beautiful as loyalty but can be disastrous as judgement.
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Tags:criticism·Culture·Friendship·nepotism