News Signal
Rob Henderson had a confabulation with Bridget Phetasy on her podcast the other day, in which he described his biography. Rob has fascinated me with his bio, and it’s not only me, either. His newsletter has been quite successful, for instance, where he has been summarizing research from his field of psychology on his way to a doctorate, while telling a lot of stories related to his study from his own bio.
The sub-100-word version is that he was abandoned by his natural parents and grew up in an array of dysfunctional foster homes, was an underachieving school student, but after graduating high school realized he needed to have structure and learn discipline. So he signed up for an eight-year stint in the marines, where he excelled. Thanks to top entrance exam scores, he was accepted to Yale University on the G.I. Bill. This is where he experienced culture shock for the first time, coming into contact with the best and brightest youngsters whose life experiences diverged from his own, to put it mildly.
In the linked clip (2 minutes), he describes the difference between how news is perceived in the working-class setting he grew up in, contrasted with how his fellow Ivy League students at Yale perceived it. Worlds apart, essentially:
Click here for the YouTube clip—silly thing won’t embed in this page.
I’m not sure his working-class experience was all that common, since my impression is that more working-class, blue-collar families consume a lot more cable news than news from the daily newspaper. But interest in news reporting might be a signifier of social class, and categorizing news sources as socially acceptable or not surely signifies political tribe identity. That is, if you’re well versed in understanding news sources and commentators by their politics, you’re probably in high enough society to believe your political beliefs might make a difference. Or at least you feel like part of a political tribe with a realistic potential to make a difference.
The rest of the discussion was interesting to me as a fan of Henderson, but at an hour and three quarters, it is long. What I found interesting was that it was two young people trying to figure out how they fit in with their peers and their dominant culture, which they find alienating. Welcome to my planet, I suppose we might also say.
Rob has said before that talking and worrying about political power is a sign that someone is from a background that wields political power. Similarly, talking and worrying about wealth is a byproduct of having wealth. This, too, strikes me as plausible. I wonder if it’s true.
Also, incidentally: Happy Easter!
Just want to wish everyone here a Happy Easter, whatever your faith or beliefs. I don't think one has to be of any particular religion or even religious at all to believe in hope, which for me is what this holiday ultimately represents.
I wish you all a wonderful and peaceful day.
Happy Easter!