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If Books Could Kill IBCK Premium
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- Gesellschaft und Kultur
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4,8 • 59 Bewertungen
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The airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds
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Hillbilly Elegy
In 2016, J.D. Vance informally launched his political career with "Hillbilly Elegy," a memoir that blames the relative poverty of Appalachian and Rust Belt populations on their own culture. Despite its reactionary premise, mainstream and liberal press outlets were so enamored by the book that they accidentally made Vance a senator.
Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod
Where to find us:
TwitterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseSources:
Appalachian Reckoning America’s Divided Recovery What Did Hillbilly Elegy Get Wrong? J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America Hillbilly ElitismWelfare Queens and White Trash Consumer Expenditures in 2016 Household Expenditures and Income CFPB Data Point: Payday Lending Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song! -
The Coddling Of The American Mind
TRIGGER WARNING: if you're a SNOWFLAKE college professor afraid of how your students are expressing themselves, you might need a SAFE SPACE, because Michael and Peter are discussing "The Coddling of The American Mind," a book about campus culture that's light on facts and heavy on cherry-picked anecdotes.
CORRECTION: The Socrates quote mentioned at the end of this episode is apocryphal. We thank the listeners who pointed this out for refusing to coddle our American minds.
Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod
Where to find us:
TwitterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseSources:
The Miseducation of Free Speech (https://www.virginialawreview.org/articles/miseducation-free-speech/)College and the “Culture War”: Assessing Higher Education’s Influence on Moral Attitudes (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00031224211041094)The Myth of the Campus Coddle Crisis (https://academeblog.org/2018/12/28/the-myth-of-the-campus-coddle-crisis-the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/)What ‘Safe Spaces’ Really Look Like on College Campuses (https://www.chronicle.com/article/what-safe-spaces-really-look-like-on-college-campuses/?bc_nonce=peduocnzcslb08jxmt1dlb&cid=reg_wall_signup)Are College Campuses Really in the Thrall of Leftist Censors? (https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/03/hypersensitive-campus-progressives-judith-shulevitz-is-half-right-but-takes-her-criticisms-too-far.html) Speaking Freely: What Students Think about Expression at American Colleges (https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/student-attitudes-free-speech-survey) ‘Not all cultures are created equal’ says Penn Law professor in op-ed (https://www.thedp.com/article/2017/08/amy-wax-penn-law-cultural-values) How Right Wing Media Has Tried to Stifle Student Speech at Evergreen State College (https://psmag.com/education/the-real-free-speech-story-at-evergreen-college)I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me (https://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid)In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html)Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song! -
The New York Times's War On Trans Kids [TEASER]
The nation's most prestigious newspaper insists on asking a very stupid question. So for this month's bonus episode, we decided to answer it.
To hear the rest of the show, support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod
As we mentioned at the top of the episode, we're donating this month's support to three of our trans journo-friends! They've been unbelievably patient with Mike as he's navigated the science and politics of this issue over the last year. Here's where to find and support their work:
Parker Molloy (readtpa.com) Katelyn Burns (patreon.com/katelynburns)Evan Urquhart (assignedmedia.org) -
The New York Times's War On Trans Kids
The nation's most prestigious newspaper insists on asking a very stupid question. So for this month's bonus episode, we decided to answer it.
A special thank you to Parker Molloy, Katelyn Burns and Evan Urquhart, three of our trans journo-friends who've been unbelievably patient with Mike as he's navigated the science and politics of this issue over the last year. -
The Clash of Civilizations
"If your thesis doesn't hold up to obvious criticisms, there's a chance that your thesis sucks."
Thanks to Paul Musgrave and Alex Cruikshanks for helping us fact-check this episode!
Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod
Where to find us:
TwitterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseLinks!
Huntington’s 1993 articleStatistics on deaths in state-based conflicts The Clash of Civilizations: An Islamicist’s CritiquePaul Musgrave’s Roundtable on Clash of Civilizations “The Hispanic Challenge” The “Arab Street”? Public Opinion In The Arab World The Clash of Ignorance Can Civilizations Clash? -
The End of History
Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" changed political discourse forever. Peter and Michael peel back his muddled history and fluffy rhetoric, revealing several more layers of muddled history and fluffy rhetoric.
Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod
Where to find us:
TwitterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseSources:
Reflections on the End of History, Five Years Later (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2505433)More Proof That This Really Is the End of History (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/francis-fukuyama-still-end-history/671761/)Francis Fukuyama Postpones the End of History (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/03/francis-fukuyama-postpones-the-end-of-history)Endism: why 1989 was not the 'end of history' (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/endism/)The End of the End of History (https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/maximillian-alvarez-end-end-history/)It's Still Not the End of History (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/its-still-not-the-end-of-history-francis-fukuyama/379394/)Bring back ideology: Fukuyama's 'end of history' 25 years on (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/21/bring-back-ideology-fukuyama-end-history-25-years-on)Francis Fukuyama's Shrinking Idea (https://newrepublic.com/article/152668/francis-fukuyama-identity-review-collapse-theory-liberal-democracy)
Kundenrezensionen
Substance and style
Spot on critical analysis, hilariously delivered
New reflex
Every time a new episode pops up in my feed I find myself clapping like a seal.
Smug but correct
I couldn’t push past the delivery of the content.
Particularly in the inaugural episode about Freakonomics, I found myself realizing part of the way through that Hobbes was basically just dragging me for the entire episode. It’s also feels like the beats are „omg, and here’s ANOTHER thing these idiots obviously did wrong“ and I mean… I didn’t pick up on all of these issues. I thought the book made some decent points, and weirdly enough it’s because of books like Freakonomics that I feel like I agree with several of the points that this podcast is broadly making (because the whole point of Freakonomics in my mind was that our intuition about large scale systems is likely wrong and warrants using data and more critical thought.) So now I end up feeling like an idiot. Maybe that’s the point?
Again, I don’t think the analysis in this podcast (or other Hobbes podcasts like maintenance phase) is incorrect. It‘s just delivered in a way that feels like smug, intellectual bullying. I imagine this is a hard line to balance, because I think there’s some real problems that come from the laziness of analysis in pop science books, hence the frustrated tone. But I think it just ends up being a podcast for people who disliked the books anyway, rather than one for people who are attempting to understand the issues with them.