Another Week Ends

1. Back at it after a week off for Mbird’s NYC Conference, which was superlative by any measure. So skip the usual podcasts and have a listen or two this weekend. It’ll be well worth your time.

Leading off this week, let’s talk about shoplifting. Over in the UK, the Times published a provocative ‘confession’ from an unrepentant thief entitled, “I’m a Gen Z Student Shoplifter. Here’s Why I Do It,” in which the anonymous author seeks to defend their regular practice of stealing lunch from the grocery store. To them, pilfering $10 worth of food has less to do with finances, or the rush of getting away with something, but righteousness:

I spent most of my undergraduate degree in a lockdown watching the government flout the rules they were fining my peers thousands of pounds for breaking. We are constantly told that we’re too young to understand, that social media is making us horrible, that we’re going to be living in a fiery inferno by the time we’re 40 and that none of us is going to be able to buy a house. The feeling that we aren’t being shortchanged is hard to find outside the pilfering of an £8 bottle of olive oil. […]

It is easy to dismiss me as another privileged member of Gen Z who should stop with the self-righteousness and do some work. Maybe, but there is no denying the mass youth disenfranchisement going on. We are constantly told that the UK is on its knees, that life is only getting harder and that we’re more likely to be struck by lightning thrice than get a mortgage. The generations before me have stolen my future. All I am stealing is some fancy muesli.

So the next time you see a doe-eyed twentysomething in a sundress mincing around the cheese aisle, look a bit closer. Where you see theft, others may see a rational act of rebellion.

The writer wishes to cloak their sin in virtue, a kind of modern Robin Hood (who conveniently forgets about the giving-to-the-poor part of the story). Now, it might be tempting at this point to revel in the moral decline of “kids these days.” And, to be sure, as a millennial it would be deeply satisfying to remind readers that the moral panic over avocado toast is nothing compared to actual criminal behavior. But such an exercise in self-justifying comparative righteousness is precisely the moral logic used by the shoplifter. In a world full of proverbial Pharisees, everyone else can look like a tax-collector (Lk 18).

2. Next up, Vox published a deep dive into the world of replacement alcohol. As told by Rebecca Jennings, the pursuit sounds a bit like a space race. While booze has, for thousands of years now, been the most socially acceptable form of self-medication, its many health detriments have pushed some to seek alternatives: shrooms, weed, pharmaceuticals, kratom, or some other wellness industry offering.

But why not just skip the drugs? What’s so bad about sobriety? Quoting one author, Jennings notes: “The world is really tough. The world has only gotten more anxiety-inducing and more challenging over the past decade or so. People are looking to numb out, they want to medicate their anxiety.” I mean, maybe? I can think of a host of other non-medicinal alternatives to anxiety. But Jennings concludes with some startling observations about the movement, ones that point well beyond alcohol replacements:

There’s a dream that basically everyone in the world shares. It’s the dream of an alcohol that isn’t quite alcohol but almost is — a substance that will make you feel free and happy and sexy and chatty but also won’t get you addicted, won’t shave years off your life, won’t make you groggy and achy and anxious the next day. It’s the dream of a substance from which taking an entire month off as part of an annual challenge would be laughably absurd because why would anyone ever need a break from it? 

If the above sounds like the search for utopia, you’d be right. But it also sounds like a deeply religious pursuit, in bottle or gummy form. For her part, Jennings is deeply skeptical this utopia is ever possible: “Such a substance could never be more than fantasy because of course human beings would find a way to render it destructive.” Ha!

3. Lots of chatter about “big data” these days. Most of it is far too apocalyptic to be taken seriously. There was, however, one article last week that captures something already going on. Writing in the Atlantic, W. David Maxx notes how internet mass media has made niche knowledge less valuable. Personal recommendations from refined taste (what he calls cultural arbitrage) have been replaced by big data. Or we might say, social media killed the hipster snob.

Individuals gain respect when others find their information useful or entertaining — and repeated deployments may help them build entire personas based on being smart, worldly, and connected.

In the past, tastemakers in the worlds of fashion, art, and music established careers through this sort of arbitrage — plucking interesting developments from subcultures to dangle as novelties in the mass market. […]

But the internet’s sprawling databases, real-time social-media networks, and globe-spanning e-commerce platforms have made almost everything immediately searchable, knowable, or purchasable — curbing the social value of sharing new things. Cultural arbitrage now happens so frequently and rapidly as to be nearly undetectable, usually with no extraordinary profits going to those responsible for relaying the information. Moreover, the sheer speed of modern communication reduces how long any one piece of knowledge is valuable. This, in turn, devalues the acquisition and hoarding of knowledge as a whole, and fewer individuals can easily construct entire identities built on doing so. […]

In the past decade, some observers have wondered whether cultural innovation is slowing down. They’ve pointed to the stultifying effects of legacy IP at the box office, the way fast fashion has flattened any genuine sense of clothing trends, the indefatigability of Taylor Swift’s ongoing pop-chart dominance. The devaluing of cultural arbitrage — and the decrease in instances of hybridization — is certainly an additional factor to be considered. This is not just a problem for hipsters, however; it ends up affecting everyone who enjoys participating in popular art with other people. The wider entertainment industry always needs new ideas, and with reduced instances of cultural arbitrage, few that come to mainstream consumers now feel particularly valuable.

Big data, in this way, replaces one means by which humans have found connection between themselves, whether it be niche subcultures or the personal esteem garnered by recommending a favorite restaurant to a friend (who then reflexively looks up Google reviews). But it has also undermined a previously reliable form identity: the expert. Or better, it has upped the righteousness ante by pushing expertise into the increasingly obscure and eccentric.

4. One good use of all that Spotify data? Daniel Parris’s analysis on getting old and musical taste. I can still vividly remember driving around with my grandfather in his boat of a Cadillac, listening to old tapes of big band music. Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington blared nonstop, as if rock and roll had never been invented. Big band music was most popular in the 30s and 40s, around the time my grandfather was a teenager. I always enjoyed the trumpet solos, but wondered why he never took to Elvis. It turns out, he’s not alone. If you, like my grandfather, are still listening to the same music you were when you were a teen, so is everyone else. Looking at a variety of surveys, Parris writes:

YouGov survey data indicates a strong bias toward music from our teenage years, a phenomenon that is consistent across generations. Every cohort believes that music was “better back in my day.” 

It’s strange how much your 13-year-old self defines your lifelong artistic tastes. At this age, we’re unable to drive, vote, drink alcohol, or pay taxes, yet we’re old enough to cultivate enduring musical preferences. 

The pervasive nature of music paralysis across generations suggests that the phenomenon’s roots go beyond technology, likely stemming from developmental factors. So what changes as we age, and when does open-eardness decline?

Survey research from European streaming service Deezer indicates that music discovery peaks at 24, with survey respondents reporting increased variety in their music rotation during this time. However, after this age, our ability to keep up with music trends typically declines, with respondents reporting significantly lower levels of discovery in their early thirties. Ultimately, the Deezer study pinpoints 31 as the age when musical tastes start to stagnate.

So why do musical tastes stop evolving in your thirties? For Parris, ever the statistician, the answer has to do with having less time to devote to find and listen to new music. Kids, Job, etc., etc. And that makes some sense. But I’ll add that the music we discover in our teens and twenties coincides with wider, dynamic life changes that set in motion who we will be for the rest of our lives.  We are historical beings, after all, predisposed to being who we’ve become. The teen years are those whose reverberations are felt for decades to come. So maybe accepting that you’ll always have a soft spot for Nirvana, Beyonce, or the Killers is part of coming to terms with getting older and the life you have. Parris again:

Maybe music paralysis is a feature, not a bug. Running on a never-ending treadmill of cultural exploration may be a recipe for discontent. There is nothing inherently wrong with “liking what you like.” Is it my waning music discovery that’s making me unhappy or the fact that I’ve yet to accept this reality?

5. For a humorous take on big data, the Hard Times reports that “Shazam to Add Feature That Tells User Whether It’s OK to Like a Song.” Elsewhere, McSweeney’s Millennial Captcha Test was an inspired (and fun) exercise. And Reductress has some spot-on self-righteousness humor with their, “Why Everyone Else’s Cough Is Gross but Mine Is Actually No Big Deal Don’t Worry“:

I want to warn you in advance that, yes, I have a cough and, yes, you’re going to hear it a bunch over the several hours we’re about to spend together. But I also want to assure you that my cough is unlike the other common, disgusting coughs you’ve heard around at the grocery store or on the bus. Those are hefty, rude coughs that suggest someone else should have stayed home, and that they’re being extremely inconsiderate by walking among the rest of us. My cough is different, though. Here’s why everyone else’s cough is gross, but mine is actually no big deal, so you shouldn’t worry about it.

But this week’s “Best Law-Gospel Humor Article” award goes too … the Onion’s “Skydiving Instructor Not Opening Parachute Until You Change Tone“:

Stressing that he did not need to put up with that kind of attitude, a local skydiving instructor reported Monday that he was not going to open the parachute until you changed your tone. “To be honest, I feel like I deserve more respect than what you’re giving me right now, especially when you’re the one asking me for a favor,” midair parachute operator Chip Lorenz said in a polite but firm voice, explaining that your screams were not only unnecessary, but also highly inconsiderate. “I hear what you’re saying, and I can see this is very important to you. While the concern and anxiety you’re experiencing right are totally valid, that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to take those feelings out on me. You’re doing a lot of yelling as we plummet toward the ground, but nowhere in all those shouts have I heard the word ‘please.’ Now I’m going to need to hear an apology, or we’re just going to continue our current free fall at approximately 120 miles per hour.” At press time, source confirmed Lorenz had sighed and opened the parachute after deciding “Please, please, please, I don’t want to die, don’t let me die, please!” was the best he was going to get.

6. Not an article (one is coming soon!), but this film looks great:

7. To close out, let’s turn to Alan Noble’s (qualified) appreciation for “cultural Christianity,” published recently by Christianity Today. At its core, cultural Christianity seeks to reap the benefits of Christian practice, while remaining agnostic over Christianity’s actual beliefs. Cultural Christians are nominally Christian, perhaps going to church and participating in its community, maybe even finding within Christianity seeds of wisdom and broader values worth preserving amid broader secularization trends or the advance of Islam in the West (aka Richard Dawkins). Cultural Christians, however, would never see themselves as outright believers. Cue Noble:

What these arguments have in common is the recognition that Christianity is tangibly good for the human person and society. It improves our sex lives, mental health, and social networks, and it gives us a stability, order, and foundation for liberty and justice that the contemporary secular world can’t replicate. These are powerful reasons to become a Christian and encourage the spread of at least a superficially Christian culture — one that assumes the ethos of Christianity even if it doesn’t accept the orthodoxy of Christianity. After all, the data seems clear: A more Christian culture would produce more human flourishing.

If one can receive the material benefits of Christianity without actually believing the gospel, then why bother dying to self and living in radical obedience to Christ? […]

But is it necessarily the case that those attracted by the material benefits will fail to adopt a deep, personal, orthodox faith? Is it possible that people concerned about a world gone insane could come to faith via this mundane path — first drawn to the God-designed order that is inherent in Christianity, and then drawn to God himself? Is it possible that people who are lonely and depressed could come to faith by first being drawn to the God-designed community inherent in the church?

I see the real risks of cultural Christianity. But I believe unbelievers who are first attracted by the benefits, not the gospel, may yet stumble into the faith. They may seek God “and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:27).

There is danger here, and we must be wary of encouraging a superficial, denatured Christian culture. But we find ourselves with a remarkable opening to proclaim the gospel. Whether people come to church to socialize or out of obedience to God, they need to hear the gospel. Whether people show interest in Christianity because of their fears about progressive culture or because they are convinced about the historicity of the Resurrection, they need to hear the gospel.

The challenge is to invite those who see the benefits of our faith to see that these are perfect gifts from the Father, not merely positive outcomes from an optimized lifestyle. The gospel is that invitation. Proclaiming it is how we can explain to our neighbors that Christian culture is good because it comes from a loving God who “richly blesses all who call on him” (Rom. 10:12), a God who desires them to repent and turn to him.

As Noble contends, there is justifiable skepticism over whether one can, in fact, plunder Christianity for what already seems good and true. The existential and cultural benefits of the gospel are irreducibly bound to the gospel as vine depends upon its branch. Christianity is not a “lifestyle option” or worse, a way to self-optimize, but its gospel is nevertheless therapeutic. It would be a mistake, nay, a heresy, to insist that one must accept the veracity of the dogmas of faith — that Jesus was born of a virgin, raised from the dead, and reigns forever at the right hand of God — independent of any consideration for their personal significance.

Strays:

• Jerry Seinfeld has a new movie out today on the invention of the Pop Tart (see above). To promote the movie, he gave a wide-ranging interview with the New Yorker that touched on everything from the Curb Your Enthusiasm finale to his beginnings as a standup comedian.
• A review of the book Soul by Soul in the Wall Street Journal.
• The Defrocking of Father AI.
• The Internet Has Ruined True Stories.