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Books on the less-than-famous Max Stirner (1806-1856) are rare, but an intrepid author, Jacob Blumenfeld, has found something of note for the contemporary reader. Stirners only volume, The Ego and Its Own (1844), has been called both the most revolutionary book ever written and the worst book ever written. His thought has sparked the interest of anarchists, libertarians, existentialists, Bohemians, nihilists, and more. Stirner certainly presses a certain form of atheism to its ultimate end. Karl Marx wrote against Stirner in The German Ideology (1846), which may be a good prima facie reason to read Stirner; but, of course, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Given his philosophy, I wonder if Stirner had any friends at all although he did dedicate his book to My Sweetheart. Yet just possibly Stirner can inspire us to adopt a radical iconoclasm that frees us to resist all ideologies and find radical freedom.

Blumenfelds approach is to expropriate Stirners thought in the spirit of Stirner:

I will now reconstruct the strange logic of Stirners argument, step by step. My aim is to give a consistent reading of the text, articulated not in the order Stirner himself laid out, but as I reconstruct it through the text, perhaps even despite it. As Fred Madison said in David Lynchs Lost Highway, I like to remember things my own way. Not necessarily the way they happened. This is one way through the twists and turns of Stirners argument, my way.

Nevertheless, the author does also take pains to explicate Stirner in terms of Stirners own thought. Indeed, in the long Chapter Two, My Stirner, Blumenfeld never seems to correct or amplify Stirner, so its sometimes hard to know if he is using Stirner as raw material for his own views or if he is agreeing with Stirner himself. He does advocate more for Stirner than critique him. And we should, Blumenfeld claims, resist the temptation to criticize Stirner as a philosopher who gave us a system. That was Marxs error. Rather, Stirner is a philosophical provocateur who need not be held to standards of consistency or even intelligibility. Nevertheless, in reading this book, we must ask Is it true that Stirner means X? and Is X true?

It is true that Stirner encouraged his readers to consume his work however they wanted. Consider Stirners view of truth:

Truth is dead, a letter, a word, a material that I can use up. All truth by itself is dead, a corpse; it is alive only in the same way as my lungs are alive namely, in the measure of my own vitality. Truths are material, like vegetable or weed; as to whether vegetable or weed, the decision lies in me (p.105).

Of course, Stirner wants us to take this statement as true as corresponding to reality otherwise there is no reason to write it. The assertion of truth claims as being true is a necessary quality of any discourse even the discourse that denies this fact. Even saying Theres no such thing as truth is necessarily asserting that very proposition to be true. Moreover, if a philosopher contradicts himself, then his philosophy is illogical at that point, since a pair of real (as opposed to superficial) contradictions cannot both be true. And if a contradiction is found, the question then becomes how much that contradiction matters to a philosophical system. Some contradictions are minor. Others bring the whole system down into a pile of ruins. Nevertheless, one might still scavenge a few pieces of rubble for use in another edifice. Myself, I am hard pressed to find any usable stones in Stirners work.

Blumenfeld plies his trade with the tools of the continental tradition of philosophy. He relates Stirners ideas to the work of Foucault, Derrida, Heidegger, Levinas, and Badiou. But he also places Stirner in his historical and philosophical context, which consists largely of his relation to Hegel, Fichte, and Marx. So what was Stirners big idea and what of it?

First, the title of Stirners magnum (and only) opus, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (1844), is difficult to translate. It has been rendered as The Ego and Its Own, but others have translated it as The Unique One and Its Property. Its thesis is that each individual is unique and cannot be subsumed under any broader category even the category of human. In other words, we define ourselves for ourselves, and should not let ourselves be defined by God, the Good, the state, the culture, or anything else. The Stirnerian self is neither a creature of God nor a member of a social class, such as citizen or worker, nor a mere member of a biological species. To be defined or identified by anything alien to oneself is both to be limited, and to be made into the property of someone or something else. To submit to any ideology, religion, or philosophy outside of oneself is to become enslaved to spooks or specters that do not exist. All abstractions applied to the unique one must be rejected. For someone to claim that there are objective abstract categories beyond the unique one, is to suffer alienation from ones own potency as a creator. That is, I am depriving myself of my rightful power through something unreal. Thus, to think I have moral responsibilities say, to not murder a fellow human being simply because I am a human being, is a false reification of a mere idea into an objective (and absolute) reality. Loving your neighbor as yourself becomes doubly impossible: there is no neighbor (a spook) and there are no demands of love (another spook). Stirners solution is the consistent affirmation of the creative nothing of the unique one. When I know that all things are nothing to me, I resist both reification and alienation. The price of this endeavor, however, is the eradication of any given meaning, purpose, or value to life. Heres the rub that Blumenfeld wants to avoid: nihilism.

Perhaps the unique one in the titles translation is better than ego for Stirners use of the German word einzige. This is because Stirner has a particular idea of the individual in mind, as a evaluating entity who subjects all of his experience to his own expropriation and exploitation. In this sense, the unique one takes ownership of its property by its sheer assertion. One thinks here of Nietzsches idea that the strong those who most consistently exercise the will to power create values for themselves. But Blumenfeld notes that Stirner goes further than Nietzsche, since the will to power is for Stirner but another spook another false idealization of whats not there, and the unique one would be subsumed and alienated from its creative energies by employing the idea.

Some have accused Nietzsche of plagiarizing Stirner. But if so, Stirner could not object, since Nietzsche would be thereby exercising his own unique power over an object of consumption, and plagiarism would be only another spook to exorcise through autonomous valuation and expropriation.

So what of the title of this book on Stirner, All Things are Nothing to Me? Blumenfeld takes this phrase as the master concept for Stirner. The unique one grants whatever value there is to anything outside of itself. But all things are no thing in themselves; or, nothing has value power over me, the unique one. So, all things mean nothing to me. Even the unique one is a nothing, since it cannot be categorized abstractly or labeled essentially. Stirner claims it cannot even be named; and thus, like the Buddha, Stirner advocates ineffabilism at the core of his philosophy. This something I know not what (to steal a phrase from John Locke), called for convenience the unique one, is ravenous, rapacious, and utterly singular. And somehow, contrary to the dictum ex nihilo nihil fit (Out of nothing comes nothing), it manages to create meaning out of its own nothingness.

Moreover, Stirners quest for absolute autonomy alienates him from any moral truths outside of his own subjective property-making. Yet to deny objective moral truths is both counterintuitive and counterfactual. It is morally wrong to torture the innocent for pleasure, full stop. Female genital mutilation is an offense against women wherever and whenever it occurs, full stop. Human trafficking is wrong, full stop. Humans have certain inalienable rights, as The American Declaration of Independence puts it. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights (1948) agrees when it affirms the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. These ideas are not spooks, they are truths. Stirners paltry if big-talking ego is helpless to falsify or relativize them. There is such a thing as intrinsic moral meaning. The best I can say about Stirner here, is that at least he recognized that if there is no God and no objective moral values, then the unique one had to be self-referentially confined have no external reference point for its judgements and thus have no recourse to anything beyond its arbitrary positing of value. If this is not nihilism, then nihilism does not exist. But nihilism does exist, and nihilism is false, given the objective existence of the moral truths just mentioned, and many more.

A final chapter assesses Stirners relation to Marx and communism. (Blumenfeld is sympathetic to the communist tradition, having co-translated a book called Communism for Kids.) Marx and Stirner seem in many ways to be opposites, but Blumenfeld takes Stirners to be a kind of prelude to Marxs account of alienation and liberation. Stirner advocated an insurrection against all authority outside the unique one, but Marx went on to identify the particular social forces that subject people to class ideologies. This, at least, was how Marx used Stirner and Blumenfeld tends to agree. But would not Stirner simply disavow Marxism as just another ism another spook needing exorcism since it trades on so many abstractions, such as the party, the proletariat, the state, and the very idea of class, without which concepts Marxism dissolves? Moreover, Marxs theory of history as dialectical materialism, is a Spook of spooks, because it identifies a world-historical process encompassing all societies and individuals. If Stirner held any political doctrine it would be anarchism, which is the opposite of collectivism, the essence of Marxism.

Prof. Douglas Groothuis 2021

Douglas Groothuis is Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary.

All Things are Nothing To Me: The Unique Philosophy of Max Stirner, by Jacob Blumenfeld, Zero Books, 2018, 155pp, 11.99 pb

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All Things are Nothing To Me by Jacob Blumenfeld | Issue 146 - Philosophy Now

(Credit: Phil Rees / Alamy)

Buzzcocksare one of the most influential punk bands of all time. Their music provided an introspective and often funny take on the bleak socio-economic landscape of 1970s Britain. Through encompassing genres such as power-pop and pop-punk, they put a refreshing twist on the genre that had become way too wrapped up in its pretence of nihilism and anti-establishment sentiment.

Dont get me wrong, Buzzcocks were both of those things, but they managed to do it in a way where they really gave you something to think about. Pete Shelley and Steve Diggles lyrics went into more depth about their surroundings than any of their contemporaries could ever have hoped to do, perhaps except for The Clash.

Buzzcocks showed that as a spirit or ethos, when tinkered with, punk could be an even more potent beast than the one the likes of Sex Pistols exuded. Inspired by the likes of Velvet Underground, The Stooges, Can and a lot of the other German stuff, frontman Pete Shelley was always interested in artists that were more on the noisy side but were funny as well, and it showed.

This divergence from the norms is what endeared the band to fans. In addition to being one of the most iconoclastic groups of the first British punk wave, Buzzcocks are also cemented in popular culture for another reason. This is the show they organised on June 4th, 1976, atThe Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester. This wasnt any old show, though. Organised by the then-unknown pair of Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, who were students at Bolton Technical College making their first waves under the moniker Buzzcocks, the show galvanised the city. Those in attendance would go on to become some of the biggest and most important names in British music. These included members of Joy Division, Morrissey, Mark E. Smith and John Cooper Clarke. Hell, even Mick Hucknall of Simply Red was watching on.

Whilst we could go on about those in attendance, the gig was also significant for another reason. It was the band who headlined the show, the vanguard of the nascent British punk movement, who would go on to become one of the most iconic punk bands of all time; Sex Pistols.

Devoto andShelleyhad read a review of one of their London shows in theNMEand were totally enthralled. In a retrospective interview with The British Library back in 2016, Pete Shelley, Steve Diggle and ex-manager, Richard Boon looked back on those momentous days.

For about ten minutes, the trio set the scene. They discussed the dire situation that Britain and Manchester before music found themselves in back in the mid-1970s. Shelley explained: In those days, it was a whole different country, you see. Everybody was into heavy metal, but it wasnt as widdly-widdly, things like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. There was a lot of Blues, and it was all to do with how many notes you could fit into your twenty-minute guitar solo.

Then, the interviewer asked the burning question: What gave you the idea to bring the Sex Pistols up to Manchester?. Speaking of the time they first heard about Sex Pistols, Shelley said: In February, there was one day we were in the coffee bar and Howard had bought a copy of theNME.

He continued: We saw this review, and it said they did a Stooges song. If theyd have said they did a Faces or Small Faces song, wed have flipped over and carried on going. But because they did a Stooges song, we thought, Theres another band who likes The Stooges!'

Perplexed but excited that another set of people their age were into The Stooges, Shelley recalled: That evening we drove down to stop at Richards. At the time, Boon was studying at Reading University, and that night Sex Pistols were playing locally. Of the experience of seeingSex Pistolsplay live for the first time, Boon said it was just inspiring.

The rest was history. That review and the explicit mention of Iggy and The Stooges helped kick off a wave of music that would completely change British culture. It is a great reminder that music is nothing but linear and a clear reflection of just how pervasive Iggy and The Stooges influence was.

Watch the Buzzcocks interview below.

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How The Stooges are linked to the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and a very famous Manchester concert - Far Out Magazine

With help from Renuka Rayasam and Tyler Weyant

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) speaks to reporters as she leaves the U.S. Capitol. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

PROGRESSIVES PILGRIMAGE It is an article of faith among most Democrats that progressives will always cave to their more centrist colleagues when the time comes to vote on major legislation. And yet, on the brink of a historic bout of congressional chaos, the exact opposite appears to be happening.

Over the past few days, the left has been galvanized by the idea of voting down the bipartisan infrastructure package unless their moderate counterparts first provide some commitments on the party-line social spending and climate bill. That sentiment could change at any moment. But theres one reason it might not: Instead of facing the usual chastisement from prominent Democratic-leaning pundits, progressives are being cheered on for their intemperance.

Kill the Bill, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wrote this morning. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie tweeted his endorsement: Either both bills pass or neither does.

For some in the party, this is legislative nihilism. Shooting the hostage may work as a concept in a Keanu Reeves movie. But in Washington, it is considered a self-destructive hissy fit.

For progressives, however, its been lovely if a bit bewildering to watch.

Its a beautiful sight, Rebecca Katz, a longtime progressive operative, said of liberal lawmakers linking arms, grabbing the detonator, and pointing menacingly at the BIF. This is the most together theyve been. I mean, I cant remember the last time weve seen something like this. Ive been retweeting Jonathan Chait and Hillary Clinton people today. Its very confusing.

During the Clinton and Obama years, progressives routinely swallowed their pride, as Katz noted. The most classic case came during the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Back then, the progressive ecosystem rallied around the public option as a litmus test of the bills intellectual virtue. Then they agreed to pare it back so that states could opt out, then so states could opt in. Then they dropped the concept entirely, replacing it with a provision that would have opened up Medicare coverage for those 55 and older. And when that didnt get the votes, they begrudgingly moved forward without it with one exception.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), a lifelong single payer advocate, was the last progressive holdout on the ACA. Because a number of centrists were already opposed to the bill, his vote truly mattered. To win it, Barack Obama brought him on Air Force One and called him onstage at an event in Cleveland, where the crowd encouraged the congressman to vote yes.

Kucinich did. The bill passed. And, ultimately, Democrats were and are grateful for it.

So why is that model not happening today? Why arent Rep. Pramila Jayapal and the squad bending to moderate senators and centrist House counterparts?

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas for us at [emailprotected]. Or contact tonights author at [emailprotected] and on Twitter at @samstein.

A message from the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network:

The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) provides lifesaving cancer screenings in low-income communities, but fewer than 2 in 10 eligible individuals received breast or cervical cancer screenings through this critical safety net program. Lawmakers must take action to end this divide in access to cancer prevention, early detection and treatment. Increased funding for the NBCCEDP will help more individuals get the cancer care they needand help end this alarming divide.

BLAME (OR THANK) OBAMACARE For starters, the progressive universe is markedly different from the one that existed in 2010, in large part because of Obamacare and its aftermath.

The progressive lawmakers most vocal about stopping the infrastructure bill unless they get assurances on the reconciliation bill first were elected after the passage of the ACA. The progressive writers who covered the Obamacare debate now find themselves leading newsrooms or in prominent perches at opinion pages. And the prevailing view among progressives of that experience is not just that, ultimately, a good legislative outcome was reached, but that the party made perverse, perhaps unnecessary, tradeoffs that did political damage to the law and to the Democratic Party.

The public option was, after all, a popular component of the bill. But the accommodations went beyond that. The bills authors also delayed the distribution of subsidies to buy insurance to, in part, help keep the price tag under $1 trillion, a symbolic number that bothered moderates. That delay meant that no one felt one of the most tangible, positive, impacts of the law for years. As one operative who worked on the bill put it: That was suicidal.

The progressive faction today looks at that history and asks: Why, exactly, should we do that again?

The reconciliation package is popular. It is the Biden agenda. If its passage is materially threatened because moderates having been satiated by getting the infrastructure deal done no longer feel compelled to support it, then the party will once again be taking the suicidal path. Or so progressives believe.

Preserving the Biden political strength and Democratic brand heading into 2022 seems to be held most strongly by progressives here, said Faiz Shakir, a longtime progressive operative and Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign manager. Frankly, it should be held more broadly.

Progressives say they feel no compulsion to fold. Nor do they feel theyve been pressured to do so by the Biden White House. Collectively, they believe their position is essential in preventing Democratic self-sabotage even as others question the sanity of risking both bills for the benefit of one.

PUNDIT IN THE ARENA In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for George W. Bushs 2004 reelection campaign and current television anti-Trump pundit, started thinking about running for office. His resolve built all summer as Texas GOP leaders led special sessions focused on conservative priorities. But Dowd told Nightly's Renuka Rayasam he only recently decided to run for Texas lieutenant governor as a Democrat. Dowd had started his career running campaigns for Democrats, including former Texas Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, but became a Republican and started working for Bush in 1999.

On Tuesday night, Dowd filed paperwork that would allow him to start raising funds for his campaign, and he opened his campaign office this morning. He spoke with Nightly earlier today about his improbable run to beat well-funded, incumbent Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and why he switched parties again. This conversation has been edited.

Why arent you running against Patrick in the Republican primary?

The Republican Party as all of us knew it is gone. Its no longer a small D democratic party. Its an autocratic party. It is totally supportive of all of these awful things that are being done around the country, especially here in Texas. In my view, an enlightened Republican is something for the history books. And so the only small D democratic party left is the big D Democratic Party.

Have you talked to Beto ORourke?

I have. Hes a friend of mine. Beto was very energetic and supportive of me making the step forward. Im waiting on him to make his final decision and Im sure Ill see him along the trail.

If hes the gubernatorial nominee and Im lieutenant governor nominee, Im sure therell be times we campaign together.

How do you plan to distance yourself from former President George W. Bush, who is not exactly popular among Democrats?

I dont know how I would distance myself more than publicly breaking with him in the front page of The New York Times while he was president of the United States.

But its already an issue. Plus voters who look you up on Wikipedia will see that you helped Bush win reelection.

My political history is public knowledge. They can Google me for 10 minutes and find out all of the things Ive done. Im hopeful and have faith people are going to judge me for who I am right now and not what jersey I wore 15 years ago.

Have you spoken to former President Bush about your Texas run?

I havent talked to former President Bush in more than a decade.

How do you plan on winning in a state that hasnt elected a Democrat statewide in decades?

Im undefeated running Democratic campaigns in Texas.

That was a long time ago.

Texas is going to become a purple state because of the dissatisfaction with the Republicans, combined with the vast demographic change. Obviously, none of those are assured at a moment in time. I think Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott sped that process up. I consider Texas, at best, a light red state. In many ways, its a non-voting state.

Beto got within 2.5 points in the senate race against Ted Cruz. If he had done better among Independents, he had done just slightly better with Republicans, hed be U.S. senator.

But hes not U.S. senator. Its going to be a hard race to win.

Anything good in life is tough.

Congress primed to avert shutdown despite remaining conflicts: The Senate appears on track to prevent a government shutdown in less than 36 hours, as Democrats and Republicans wade through last-minute impediments to a stopgap funding bills speedy passage. Despite lingering issues, the measure could pass the upper chamber as soon as tonight or Thursday, with federal cash set to expire on Thursday at midnight. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a fiscal hawk notorious for blocking spending bills, indicated that he wouldnt object to quickly passing the continuing resolution, which would keep the government funded through Dec. 3. Once the Senate passes the stopgap bill, the House could move quickly to approve the measure, as well.

Trump donor: Corey Lewandowski made unwanted sexual advances: A Donald Trump donor is accusing Corey Lewandowski, one of the former presidents longtime top aides, of making unwanted sexual advances toward her at a Las Vegas charity event over the weekend. Trashelle Odom, the wife of Idaho construction executive John Odom, alleges that Lewandowski repeatedly touched her, including on her leg and buttocks, and spoke to her in sexually graphic terms. Odom said that Lewandowski stalked her throughout the evening.

GOP could split Colorados House seats under new congressional map: Colorados new independent redistricting commission passed a congressional map late Tuesday that would give Republicans a decent shot at controlling four of eight House seats in a fast-growing state. In a marathon, six-and-a-half-hour Zoom meeting, all but one of the 12 commissioners agreed on one of nine proposals just minutes before their midnight Mountain Time deadline. The map now goes to the state Supreme Court, which is almost certain to give its sign-off.

Japanese outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (L) receives a bouquet of flowers from former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, after Kishida was announced the winner of the Liberal Democrat Party leadership election in Tokyo. | Carl Court/Getty Images

Former foreign minister to become new Japanese PM: Former Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida won the governing partys leadership election today and is set to become the next prime minister, facing the tasks of reviving a pandemic-hit economy and ensuring a strong alliance with Washington to counter growing regional security risks. Kishida replaces outgoing party leader Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who is stepping down after serving only one year.

Congressional panel slams more baby food brands over heavy metals: Several leading baby food makers havent done enough to screen for neurotoxic heavy metals like arsenic, lead and cadmium in their products, according to a new House Oversight subcommittee report released today. The report follows up on an investigation from the same panel earlier this year, which found concerning levels of heavy metal contamination across many popular baby and childrens food products on the market, from rice puffs to infant cereals and purees findings that enraged parents and put pressure on the FDA to set some standards.

Nightly asks you: Has the Delta variant led you to change you or your familys Thanksgiving or holiday plans? Use our form to send us your responses, and well include select answers in a future edition.

More than 200,000

The ridership of Washingtons Metro train system on Friday, the first time ridership had topped 200,000 on a weekday since the pandemic began, according to the transit agency.

The view atop Clingmans Dome in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. | Tyler Weyant

ROCKY SHOTS TENNESSEE Nightlys Tyler Weyant writes:

Its my third day back from a vacation in East Tennessee. I posted some pictures of my trip on Twitter. A lovely scenic view hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. One of the many bears I saw, this one hanging from a fence next to our house. Me, making a very weird face that I thought was a frown at the time, attempting to make fun of Tennessee football fans.

But of course, this wasnt really the vacation I went on. When we post our photos on social media, we never show the whole picture. Who wants photos of traffic jams, or 50-minute waits for restaurants?

There were plenty of other incidents that I could have shared: Me walking back to a car to grab a mask I thought I wouldnt need at a Lexington, Va., Sheetz, only to end up with a subpar sandwich because they were out of all chicken. Me nervously removing and redonning my mask at a restaurant where a woman within earshot coughed incessantly. And my family being the only masked people inside the China Bazaar knife and martial arts store (though I shouldve posted the life-sized Thundercats sword).

I posted Instagram photos of the fun we had at Hillbilly Golf, a mini golf course on the side of a hill that requires a tram to get to. But I didnt quite get around to finding a shot of the bucket of hand sanitizer that you had to dip your golf club into. Speaking of hand sanitizer, I shouldve had someone capture one of the approximately 9 trillion times I sought a dispenser at Dollywood.

We all know the images of our lives on social media, while maybe not complete lies, are seen through the rosiest of spectacles. Our decision-making on what to post makes us something like one-person TV showrunners: How much pandemic do people want to see in their living rooms, or, um, on their toilets, if any?

Im tired of Covid, and so is everyone who follows me. So we end up with a sanitized version of reality, minus the sanitizer. And we feel a bit hollow afterward.

Then again, there is a solution to this problem: Never tweet, especially on vacation.

A message from the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network:

For every person who has cervical cancer detected early through the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP), nine others dont have the chance. We must end this divide.

The NBCCEDP provides lifesaving cancer screenings in low-income communities and to uninsured and underinsured Americans, but fewer than 2 in 10 eligible people received breast or cervical cancer screenings through this critical safety net program. Increased funding for the NBCCEDP can help ensure more people get the care they need from the program and may even save states money on treatment costs when cancer is detected at earlier stages.

Tell Congress to take action and prioritize health. Tell Congress to increase funding for the NBCCEDP.

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Why progressives really may kill the bill - Politico

It has long been a central tenet of mainstream economic theory that public fears of inflation tend to be self-fulfilling.

Now though, a cheeky and even gleeful takedown of this idea has emerged from an unlikely source, a senior adviser at the Federal Reserve named Jeremy B. Rudd. His 27-page paper, published as part of the Feds Finance and Economics Discussion Series, has become what passes for a viral sensation among economists.

The paper disputes the idea that peoples expectations for future inflation matter much for the level of inflation experienced today. That is especially important right now, in trying to figure out whether the current inflation surge is temporary or not.

But the Rudd paper is part of something bigger still. It reflects a broader rethinking of core ideas about how the economy works and how policymakers, especially at central banks, try to manage things. This shift has also included debates about the relationship between unemployment and inflation, how deficit spending affects the economy, and much more.

In effect, many of the key ideas underlying economic policy during the Great Moderation the period of relatively steady growth and low inflation from the mid-1980s to 2007 that also seems to be a high-water mark for economists overconfidence increasingly look to be at best incomplete, and at worst wrong.

It is vivid evidence that macroeconomics, despite the thousands of highly intelligent people over centuries who have tried to figure it out, remains, to an uncomfortable degree, a black box. The ways that millions of people bounce off one another buying and selling, lending and borrowing, intersecting with governments and central banks and businesses and everything else around us amount to a system so complex that no human fully comprehends it.

Macroeconomics behaves like were doing physics after the quantum revolution, that we really understand at a fundamental level the forces around us, said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in an interview. Were really at the level of Galileo and Copernicus, just figuring out the basics of how the universe works.

It requires more humility and acceptance that not everything fits into one model yet, he said.

Or put less politely, as Mr. Rudd writes in the first sentence of his paper, Mainstream economics is replete with ideas that everyone knows to be true, but that are actually arrant nonsense.

One reason for this, he posits: The economy is a complicated system that is inherently difficult to understand, so propositions like these the arrant nonsense in question are all that saves us from intellectual nihilism.

And from that starting point, a staff economist at the worlds most powerful central bank went on to say, in effect, that his own employer has been focused on the wrong things for the last few decades.

Mainstream policymakers, very much including Mr. Rudds bosses at the Fed, believe that inflation is, in large part, self-fulfilling that what people expect future inflation to look like has an ability to shape how much prices rise in the near term.

In the common telling, the Great Inflation of the 1970s got going because people came to believe inflation would keep spiraling. The surge in gasoline prices wasnt simply a frustrating development, but a harbinger of things to come, so people needed to demand higher raises, and businesses could feel confident charging higher prices for most everything.

In this story, the great achievement of the Fed in the early 1980s was to break this cycle by re-establishing credibility that it would not allow sustained high inflation (though at the cost of a severe recession).

That is why todays discussions over the inflation outlook often spend a lot of time focusing on things like what bond prices suggest inflation will be five or 10 years from now, or how people answer survey questions about what they expect.

Mr. Rudd argues that there is no solid evidence that the conventional story of the 1970s describes the real mechanism through which inflation takes place. He says theres a simpler explanation consistent with the data: that businesses and workers arrive at prices and wages based on the conditions theyve experienced in the recent past, not some abstract future forecast.

For example, when inflation has been low in the recent past, workers might not demand raises as they would in a world where inflation was high; after all, their existing paychecks go pretty much as far as they used to. You dont need some theory involving inflation expectations to get there.

Some economists who are sympathetic to the idea that central bankers have overly fetishized precise measurements of inflation expectations arent ready to fully dismiss the idea.

For example, Mr. Posen, a former Bank of England policymaker, says there remains a simple and hard-to-dispute idea about inflation expectations supported by lots of history: that if people distrust a countrys monetary system, inflation shocks can spiral upward. Economic policy credibility matters. But that isnt the same as assuming that some survey or bond market measure of what will happen to inflation in the distant future is particularly meaningful for forecasting the near future.

It has been a noble lie that has become a critical part of the catechism of global monetary policy, that long-term inflation expectations are not just interesting but are a decisive determinant of real-time inflation, said Paul McCulley, a former Pimco chief economist, commenting on Mr. Rudds paper.

This isnt the only way in which basic precepts underlying economic policy are shifting beneath economists feet.

Particularly prominently, for years central bankers believed there was a tight relationship between the unemployment rate and inflation, known as the Phillips Curve. Over the course of the 2000s, though, that relationship appeared to weaken and become a less reliable guideline for how to set policy.

Similarly, interest rates and inflation fell worldwide, for reasons that scholars are still trying to understand fully. That implied a lower neutral interest rate, or the rate that neither stimulates nor slows the economy, than was widely believed to be the case as recently as the mid-2010s.

In many ways, the Feds policies just before the pandemic were aimed at incorporating those lessons and embracing sustained lower interest rates and the possibility of lower unemployment than many in the mainstream thought reasonable a few years earlier.

In the realm of fiscal policy, some conventional wisdom has also been upended in the last few years. It was thought that large government debt issuance would risk causing a spike in interest rates and crowd out private sector investment. But in that period, huge budget deficits have been paired with low interest rates and abundant credit for businesses.

All of this makes it a challenging time for central bankers and other shapers of policy. If youre a policymaker and you dont have robust confidence in the parameters of the game you are managing, it makes your job a whole lot more difficult, Mr. McCulley said.

But if you are in charge of making economic policy that affects the lives of millions, you cant simply shrug your shoulders and say, We dont know how the world works, so what are we supposed to do? You look at the evidence available, and make the best judgment you can.

And then, if you think it turns out you were wrong about something, publish a sassy paper to try to get it right.

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How Does the Economy Work? A New Fed Paper Suggests Nobody Really Knows - The New York Times

Were stuck in a cycle of production and consumption, and were getting sick of it

Greenwashing strategies from the worlds best marketing agencies have successfully commodified the environmental justice movement. Our culture has a shopping addiction, and its going to kill us.

Even those of us that are self-aware about this fact can have a difficult time denying manufactured desires. We have been trained to collectively consume both media and products before we could think for ourselves. Can we really be blamed for finding it a hard habit to kick?

Capitalism pushes the belief that if we cannot consume, we should aim to produce. Our society doesnt exactly place a great value on simply being. The 21st century has brought forth the first period in creative history in which artists are creating content rather than their own art. Its created an insular experience that focuses on aesthetics and a culture of fashion micro-trends that develop at increasingly rapid rates. And its become more and more difficult to source clothing in order to keep up with these rapidly changing trends. Its hard to tell if the emergence of fast fashion retailers like Shein are a response to the problem or the source of it. We could easily blame influencers, but under late-stage capitalism, I cant really blame anyone for taking a shot at joining the ranks of celebrity, C-list or otherwise.

We are far too aware that there is a divide between economic classes, and with the democratization of media and a produce or consume mindset, its not surprising that more and more people are choosing to seek power by producing content in the hopes of attaining at least a modicum of fame. Celebrity, or at least influence, seems to be the go-to escape plan from the collective paralysis we feel about our climate.

What is it about our culture and celebrities? We are fascinated by them and appalled by their existence. Theyre our inspiration and the evidence of our downfall. Celebrity is the aristocracy of the postmodern world. They represent something beyond the entertainment industry, the characters they play, or the stories they write. They represent the small part of the worlds most powerful population that is public to us. Rarely do they hide their material wealth because, unlike other members of the one per cent, they do not have the luxury of keeping their finances or their lives private. They are public figures, and to us, the dazzling glamour can make it difficult to recognize them as real people.

Our relationship to fame is one in which we transform individuals into God-like figures. This process has been democratized, and average citizens and politicians can often reach the ranks of the most famous elite. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a unique example of this practice of glorification. AOC has done a lot of great work in the United States political system, but with that said, why was she at the Met Gala?

The relationship between political figures and celebrity status is a sore topic in the newly post-Trump world. Why risk violating the principles upon which you were elected just to join the ranks of the rich and famous? The Met Gala is an event designed for the most elite population in the fashion world, an industry that famously is one of the greatest drivers of climate change. Why align yourself with an industry that is exacerbating the effects of climate change, when you yourself are advocating for climate reform?

The thing is, the climate crisis we have spent our whole lives anticipating is here. Its already happening, and we still cannot take concrete action to prevent it from getting worse. This really isnt our fault, we were born into this mess, but our leaders dont seem to be doing a great job either. Were living in a state of paralysis, caught between the desire for the life we were promised and the reality facing us all.

The stability and wellbeing of our planet hinges upon either the embrace or abandoning of capitalism, therefore it shouldnt come as a surprise that economic instability impacts our ability to advocate for better. Climate anxiety is our collective nihilism pushing us to take action, but we continually find ourselves with little we can do. Our collective hopelessness about systemic change has pushed us to a point of ecological nihilism.

Ecological nihilism is the acceptance of the climate crisis, and that it will be the beginning of a societal collapse. Its the final sign that we have moved from paralysis and fear to complacency. It might feel like the end of the world, but if theres still a chance; we cant look to celebrities or fiction for solutions.

Last Friday, there was another climate march here in Montreal, which demonstrates that people are still coming together to demand change. Community organizers are not demanding impossible change, it is the failure of our government that refuses to take reasonable action to combat the violence of the climate crisis. We cannot depend on government approval to take action against climate change. The power remains with the people, and it isnt time to give up yet.

Graphic by James Fay

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It's over, consumption: celebrity culture and climate anxiety - The Concordian

Thoughtful news consumers might have read last weeks announcement of an audit of the 2020 election results in four Texas counties and pondered its purpose. Why would former President Donald Trump call for such an audit after losing badly in almost 100 previous recounts, audits and lawsuits aimed at finding widespread voter fraud? Why would he make such a play in Texas, a state he won? Whats the endgame here?

Serious conservatives who are willing to put principle before politics people like Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley know that this audit wont change the outcome of an election that is almost a year old.

The conspiracy theorists who want to come up with all these ways or reasons why this election wasnt right they might very well find something else [to doubt], Whitley told The Texas Tribune. Its time to move on.

Nor will the audit ensure more accurate counts in future elections. That issue was explored thoroughly by the state Legislature this year, resulting in a host of new voting rules, many of which this newspaper supported. Elected bodies of seated public servants are the proper venue for such considerations.

But if this election audit isnt about changing the last election or improving future elections, what is it about?

In a word, cynicism.

This stunt, like so many that have tried to pass for public service in recent years, is about feeding the monster of populist nihilism. And the Republicans in charge of the state should know better.

But over the past 12 years, extending back through the Trump administration and to the birthers and pizzagate loonies during the Obama administration, too often folks on the right have given quarter to those peddling conspiracy.

Republicans have always fostered a healthy skepticism about government effectiveness. We remember President Ronald Reagans timeless quip in 1986: The nine most terrifying words in the English language are Im from the government and Im here to help.

But now, more than a third of a century after that quote, too many representatives of Reagans party have traded healthy, small-government skepticism for pugnacious, anti-government disillusion. The results are predictably devastating. A negative virtue can never produce a positive vision, so the candidate who can carry the cynics of a party is not the candidate who can best light the way forward, but the one who can sow the most turmoil.

Republicans havent cornered the market on undermining public confidence in elections without first proving wide-spread fraud in court. Lets not forget that progressive standard-bearer Stacey Abrams still hasnt conceded a 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia. But many Republicans have elevated this tactic to virtuoso levels.

As journalists, we welcome a healthy dose of skepticism, especially for politicians. But theres a difference between skepticism that asks probing questions and cynicism that denies plain facts.

And that is where this action is taking voters. This is not an audit; its a training drill, a catechism in denying reality and exalting fear.

This audit wont make our elections fairer or more accurate. But it will encourage many Americans to dismiss facts, disrupt the functions of government, and denigrate public service. And in that regard, what we all should fear is that it will succeed.

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Election audit will build cynicism, not fairness - The Dallas Morning News

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Weve seen this coming for years, and it finally has arrived. The attempted assassin of President Ronald Reagan, John Hinckley Jr., will be released from all court supervision in June 2022 if he continues to follow the existing rules until that time.

The Associated Press reports, Since Hinckley moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, from a Washington hospital in 2016, court-imposed restrictions have required doctors and therapists to oversee his psychiatric medication and therapy. Mr. Hinckley has been barred from having a gun. And he cant contact Mr. Reagans children, other victims or their families, or actress Jodie Foster, who he was obsessed with at the time of the 1981 shooting.

He moved to Williamsburg to live with his mother, who died in July of this year. He has since left the home he shared with her. The government is not communicating with the public where Mr. Reagans attempted assassin lives now. This release from oversight means none of the parameters controlling his life and behavior will remain.

We are also assured that Mr. Hinckley has shown no signs of mental illness in 20 years. Considering the medication and parameters to which hes been subjected, thats like crowing a child molester hasnt repeated his crime while in prison. As this columnist noted several years ago in these pages, Mr. Hinckleys behavior remains a concern for many raising red flags throughout the time weve been told hes fine, just fine.

I reported at the time about an occurrence during the original granted expanded conditions period from The Washingtonian: When he did venture out, there were breaches and deceptions. In 2011, Hinckley repeatedly went to a Barnes & Noble when he was supposed to be at the movies. On one occasion, Secret Service agents watched as he stood before a shelf of books about presidential assassinations, including an account of the moment he severely wounded Reagan and press secretary James Brady An agent said the scene gave him goosebumps.

As disturbing, I warned about how the Daily Mail reported in 2009, 28 years after the attempted assassination, that Mr. Hinckley was obsessing over his hospital dentist, was researching her on the Internet, and lied about it when confronted. He also tried to see her by feigning injury.

As you might imagine, one of the restrictions Mr. Hinckley has been living under is never to see Jodie Foster films, pursue or attempt to see her. Yet, 32 years after the attempted assassination, and despite the restrictions, Mr. Hinckley went to a Jodie Foster film. CNN reported, He is forbidden from contacting Jodie Foster or seeing her movies. That became a problem during one visit home in 2013. Hinckley went to the theater with his brother to see the film Elysium, according to notes from one of his therapists. Just a few minutes into the movie, Foster appeared on the screen. Hinckley leaned into his brother and whispered, We have to leave.

This wasnt a mistake. This was a Foster film, and she was billed as its star. Thirty-two years after an assassin attempt driven by his obsession for an actress, there he is, breaking the rules pursuing his trigger for mass violence.

We dont have to imagine what a freak like this will do with absolutely no oversight. We will find out precisely what happens when this unconditional release from supervision happens.

Mr. Hinckleys freedom by a Washington establishment that is supposed to keep us safe comes on the heels of a California legal system also determined to unleash murderers among us. The California parole board keeps trying to set free Manson family convicted murderers. That has only been stopped by governors denials. But that is not enough in a system infected with leftist nihilism. The California parole board is now recommending the release of a successful presidential assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. The fate of Robert F. Kennedys murderer is now in the hands of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Two of Mr. Kennedys family members have agreed with the parole boards decision everyone else has made it clear there appalled at the suggestion, including his widow Ethel. Considering his apparent contempt for the average person, we can only hope that the Kennedy familys opinion matters to Gavin Newsom.

Across the board in our great country, the cancer of liberal nihilism is impacting all of us. The release of mass murderers, assassins of presidents, local miscreants, gang members, and even murderers under cancerous bail reform laws sends a message that the system is no longer interested in justice, law and order, or keeping the normals safe.

Violent offenders arrested and released, roaming the streets with no real repercussion, sends a message that society believes it should be punished. The lackadaisical attitude toward Hickley, Van Houten, or Sirhan, are significant symptoms of cancer ruining lives every day in every city.

It is what the sick left wants and is not shy in advocating. The reality is, no one else wants this garbage, and those who do advocate for defunding the police and assail the rule of law in general, usually find a way to protect themselves from the result. Their private security hired guns, and homes in the hills protected by walls tell you everything you need to know about the intention of todays political class.

Tammy Bruce, the author, host at Fox Nation, and contributor at Fox News, is a radio talk-show host.

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Releasing John Hinckley, Jr. is an abomination - Washington Times

Closing out the end of summer 2021, Governors Ball kicked off its 10th anniversary on Friday, Sept. 24 to a crowd of approximately 50,000 attendees daily. Running through Sept. 26, the festival was rescheduled from 2020 due to COVID-19 and relocated from Randalls Island, its previous setting since its inception in 2011, to the Citifield baseball stadium in Queens, New York. Governors Ball kicked off strong with opening night headliner Billie Eilish, A$AP Rocky on Day 2, and Post Malone closing out the final night of the fest.

Returning back to some normalcy at full capacity, all attendees were required to show proof of vaccination upon entrance.

This year, the festival brought in artists like Future Islands, Orville Peck, Kehlani, RfsDu Sol, Portugal. The Man, and Leon Bridges, Megan Thee Stallion, Phoebe Bridgers, J. Balvin, Charlotte Lawrence, Big Thief, King Princess, and 21 Savage, Ellie Goulding, Young Thug, Carly Rae Jepsen, Dominic Fike, Caroline Polachek, and more.

These are some of the performances that stunned and captivated at Governors Ball 2021.

Suited up in black Guccilater revealing a cropped beaded top, with her band donned in the now-familiar Thom Browne-designed skeletal wear, first worn during their Saturday Night Live performanceon Day 2 Phoebe Bridgers captivated the audience from the moment she stepped on stage, keeping the audience singing to every word from opening Motion Sickness through her 13-song set, including a cover of Bo Burnhams That Funny Feeling. Halfway through her set, Bridgers stopped playing when she noticed an audience member who may have needed medical attention. Continuing on, Bridgers drifted through Punisher and Stranger in the Alps tracks. This song is about atheism, not nihilism because nihilism is fucking stupid, said Bridgers moving into Chinese Satellite, a song written with Conor Oberst. As night fell on the ballpark, Bridgers played on with the band, incorporating trumpets adding more ambiance to the night. This song is about fighting in a Whole Foods parking lot then crying, said Bridgers before singing through ICU.

A$AP Rockys mummified masked crew walked out to part the shoulder-to-shoulder packed audience, creating matching mosh pits on either side of the main stage. Then, a blow-up Jeep was carried out center stage and left atop the audience with one of Rockys crew in the drivers seat with a blow horn. And A$AP Rocky still wasnt on stage. Coming out to Fuck 12 and No ID Rocky, Rocky hit LSD and the remainder of an 18-song set, closing on Yamborghini High.

Billie Eilish played her first NYC show since releasing her sophomore album Happier Than Ever in early 2021. The first night headliner, Eilish moved through a 20-song set, including tracks off 2019 debut When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and newer songs Lost Cause, My Future, and NDA. Singing through the tens of thousands in the crowd, the biggest headlining crowd of all three nights at Governors Ball, Eilishs sound system couldnt match the roar of the audience, only making her vocals audible halfway back in the crowd.

Paying homage to the 30th anniversary of Nirvanas debut Nevermind, Portugal. The Man played their rendition of In Bloom, but not before opening the show with a Beavis and Butt-Head video and a metal medley of Metallicas For Whom the Bell Tolls and Cowboys From Hell by Pantera. Pulling Julia Cumming of Sunflower Beans on stage to join for another cover of David Bowies Moonage Daydream and Len song Steal My Sunshine, frontman John Gourley asked Cumming, Do you want to join our band. The band played on, moving through their set, closing onFM4 Sound selection 36 track Feel It Still.

Jack Antonoff and co. took over the main stage on Day 2 bringing his own E Street Band, complete with two saxophonists, even breaking into a thunderous cover of Bruce Springsteens 1985 song Jersey Girl. This song is about growing up in New Jersey, and I have dreamed about playing it at Governors Ball, said Antonoff. Urging the audience to get on one anothers shoulders. This is a festival, get on each others shoulders, Antonoff kept repeating until, one by one, more audience members were on the shoulders of their friends and partners in attendance.

On Day 1, Orville Peck was one of the first performers to hit the Governors Ball stages, bringing a blazing performance to the packed crowd, running through an hour-long set, including No Glory in the West, off his second album Show Pony (2020), mixing in earlier Pony tracks like. This song is about blazing your trail and carving your ownpath because sometimes theres no path, said Peck playing Legends Never Die, with bandmate Bria Salmen taking Shania Twains place on the duet.

Future Islandsburst through their set, playing new song Peach and closing with a rare track theyve only started playing live recently Little Dreamer.

King Princess, who performed Holy, a song shes never played live before, shared her own Governors Ball memories from her teen years. This is my favorite fest, she said. I came here every year in high school blackout drunk.

Megan Thee Stallion asked Where my hot girls at? Where my hot boys at? twerking with her dance crew along to Hot Girl Summer with the words Hot Girl Shit plastered on the stage backdrop. The sun was still out when DJsArmand van Helden and A-Track (aka Duck Sauce) created a thumping dance party in the center of the field on Day 3.

Closing the final night, Post Malone starting off on the rafters of the main Governors Ball stage, dressed casually in cut-off jeans and a striped t-shirt, Malone said I can here to play shitty songs and get fucked up at the same time, taking a swig from his plastic red cup and moving through the remainder of the night.

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Check out our photo gallery from Governors Ball 2021

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Governors Ball 2021: 5 Most Memorable Moments and More - American Songwriter