{"id":15501,"date":"2022-08-23T12:01:41","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T16:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=15501"},"modified":"2022-08-23T12:01:45","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T16:01:45","slug":"episode-501-william-deresiewicz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-501-william-deresiewicz","title":{"rendered":"Episode 501 – William Deresiewicz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 501:
\nWilliam Deresiewicz<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_501_-_William_Deresiewicz.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“I like to say that our age is characterized by two kinds of phenomena: things that can’t get worse, but keep getting worse, and things that can’t happen, but happen.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Author & critic William Deresiewicz<\/a> joins the show to celebrate his new book, THE END OF SOLITUDE: Selected Essays on Culture and Society<\/a> (Holt). We get into the selection process for more than 30 years’ worth of his pieces, what he noticed about the changes in his writing and viewpoints over that span, what real leadership is and why most institutions are terrified of it, and the house of cards of higher (especially elite) education. We also get into the progression of political correctness and identity politics at the expense of class solidarity, how one can (and should) criticize the il<\/em>liberal left without becoming a right-wing fellow traveler, why his ideal Presidential candidate is Bernie Sanders, the way things that “can’t get any worse” somehow keep getting worse, the failures of academia, and why he sees teaching as a pastoral vocation. Plus, we discuss his most controversial position \u2014 or least the position that garnered the most vituperative response from readers \u2014 that food is not art<\/a>. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read The End of Solitude<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“Everything I see now [in terms of political correctness] is a linear descendant of what I experienced starting in 1989. What’s happened between now and then is that this ideology has managed to propagate itself through the institutions. It’s broken out of campus . . . into media, the non-profit world, the arts.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n