Where do blog posts come from?

Here, they start with an idea. I usually get them while I read the news or books.

Then I write a note like this:


richard iii w/ lady anne cf harvey and joker [eom]

Then, often within a few days, I consider if that idea was important and how long it would take to flesh it out. My oldest "draft," which is really just a series of notes about character strengths, is over a month old.

I got the idea for this blog when I read that garbage in my e-mail. But one day I hope to explain what I mean to remind myself of.

The Snob Test

Yesterday I asked whether J. K. Rowling should get the next Nobel Prize in Literature.

The answer, obviously, is yes. No author is more widely read and enjoyed than Rowling. She also uses her books to promote human rights causes (see: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) which, some say, figures into the discussion.

But something that trivial isn't the point. The point is that that question is one part of my patented "Quick Check, Self-diagnostic Snob Test." If you answered "no" you might be a pretentious fuck, or you could just be under the influence of one.

I'm not sure when I'll publish the full list. I'm actually not even done with it, and I feel it needs to be calibrated with a set of people who refer to soccer as "football" or "futbol" by which they mean "I'm a refined cosmopolitan" which is code for "I'm better than you."

Return of the Jedi

Lawrence Kasdan wrote the scripts for The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, which both stand out for having the best dialogue in their respective series. But he also wrote the script for Return of the Jedi, which is plagued throughout by clunkers. What happened?

Wikipedia explains:

Unusually, the screenplay itself was not created until rather late in pre-production, well after a production schedule and budget had been created by Kazanjian and Marquand had been hired. Instead, the production team relied on Lucas's story and rough draft in order to commence work with the art department. When it came time to formally write a shooting script, Lucas, Kasdan, Marquand, and Kazanjian spent two weeks in conference discussing ideas; Kasdan used tape transcripts of these meetings to then construct the script.

Reading

Some reads are just fun, human interest pieces that leave you feeling pensive and satisfied even though you can't identify what you learned. I think there is value in this kind of reading--from time to time--and a favorite example from recent years is There and Back Again: Soul of a Commuter.

Other reads are complete tripe. One type is bad because the author don't make an argument. They are often dealing with a trade-off that necessities thinking about the costs on one hand and the benefits on the other, but they fail to see the big picture and obsess over benefits (if they are pro) or costs (if they are con). This "assessment" of Teach for America is a good example.

Another type of tripe masquerade as being about some important issue--global governance, ethics, religion--but makes trite, unverifiable, and often poorly formed claims. This deeply unsatisfying, but popular, piece from Ross Douthat fits that bill. Conservatives love it for pouring oil on the fire of their unexamined prejudices, but if you're a deep thinker that should be anathema.

The best reads are concise and make an explicit argument. They benefit from giving a sense of the big picture, but their value comes from teaching you something you didn't know before or only had a vague sense of. They can be particularly helpful if you've asked the question they ask but never found an answer. They are hard to find because good ideas don't grow on tree, but if you look in the right places you'll probably find a few each week. This paper, by Angrist and Pischke, is the best I've read the past few days, but I'd only recommend it for people who write empirical economics papers.