Well done, EJ.

Why won't those annoying Christianists just go away...

Now, honey, where did you put the Sunday New York Times?

</sarcasm>

Pseudo, I salute you for standing up for both Christianity and philosophy (and logic, heh).  You have a heart like Socrates'.

To all the naysayers, think of it this way: how will working in this area hurt things?  Adam is not consuming tens of millions of dollars of GOP capital.  And even if he was, that's frankly a drop in the bucket to the billions that will be spent the next cycle.

Once a candidate emerges, these things matter.  And also consider this: why couldn't a true Tea Party like conservative deploy messages refined by research to really reach people?  Messaging that reaches people like say the way Milton Friedman did back in the day?  Messages of that level of effectiveness are what we need to turn the country around, and we need to keep a level of messaging like that for decades to do so.  That will only happen if we can build up some intellectual capital in this area and use it.

If the Left does so and we don't, we really are the stupid party.  If it works for Coca Cola, it can work for Freedom as well.

We know our philosophy is better; we just need to sell it better.  In doing so there is no reason why the philosophy itself must be compromised.

Novel uses of technology.  What's of interest in 100 years?  The technology.  They may get a mention in a list of notable recording artists, but I don't expect much else.  Also, let me add that new does not equal worthy of rememberance.

Why do they deserve any more mention than the great recording artists of the 50 years before the Beatles?  How many artists of the 1920s do you know of?  How many great ones do you think there actually were?  Quite a few.

100 years is a long time; also, point me at any popularized covers of Beatles songs that have really lit the world on fire.

With all that said, though, I'm willing to concede that the historical trends so far may be corrupted by copyright laws which are preventing their music from being performed more widely by other bands--such practice will be what ensures their durability if they are to have any.

Now get off my lawn. =)

I think this video is interesting from an historical perspective; but, I don't get what my parents were thinking in liking the Beatles so much (12 and 14 at the time, and they remember watching this): while the Beatles can play, the music isn't very interesting at all.  Paul and John's lyrics are the main attraction-- and I'll admit that compared to what we get today they're actually interesting.

However, even the highly catchy "I want to hold your hand" is still about the same worn out topics of naive love that rock hasn't much advanced from in +50 years.

What will the historians say about the Beatles a century from now?  Did they develop anything novel musically or lyrically?  Generally speaking, I think not; they just copied what Elvis and Motown had already popularized and applied Paul's marketing genius lyrics to that structure.

The Beatles are interesting as a symptom of a culture in the midst of radical change due to continuing technological progress and the effects of modern strains of philosophy (both intertwined of course), not an agent of change in the culture itself.  And thus, not worthy of future memorial.

Nous sommes trahis!

Also: "And the core message of the policy is: trust me."

This is the essence of one of the defining features of Progressivism, which Jonah Goldberg has been arguing for years.

Maybe cold reality will teach Sullivan to bone up on his intellectual history so he can better understand who Obama has been all along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG_dA32oH44

This is music, but it's not good music.

I'm ashamed to admit I do laugh at it, though--at least those two are smart enough to understand what they're doing is ridiculous and play up the humour.  The movie clip cut into the "song" is just a more obvious way of winking to the audience than the racist line that precedes it:

"What does that even mean?

No one knows what it means.  But, it's provocative; it gets the people going."

Exactly.

With that said, there should be another discussion here on what constitutes good music; or, more generally, what constitutes good art.  Surely as conservatives we can agree that the position of relativists that all music or all art is equal is bunk.  I think the inclination to say rap isn't music is partly a fallacy derived from the relativist position.

But, back to Rap: low culture is a part of the human condition--the lack of a strong counterbalance from higher culture is what really portends the end of Western Civilization.

(PS: The editor of that video linked above is a skilled artisan)

How did this thread last this long without mention of Allan Bloom?  His devastating critique of pop music in The Closing of the American Mind only becomes even more true by the day.

Low culture in the absence of a living high and middle culture can only degenerate into the depths; we're living that descent now.

Is the additional weight a quality tune can impart to a poor, destructive message one of the reasons why the Philosopher King does in Plato's first hypothetical Republic casts out all the poets?

While I like art, it can cultivate a soul both well and poorly.  Or, similarly, there is good and bad art, and most of the pop music of the past 60 years qualifies as the latter.

I agree with all of your points.  China will drift on, producing the worlds consumer goods, until its population ages to the point where the number of workers begins to shrink.  Then, things may get interesting.

Unless they have a banking crisis, of course.  A collapse of their economy, even for a short while, might be a great enough spark to ignite a real conflagration.

Yes, I fully support this and cannot 'like' it enough.  Let's have an "Econtalk" of Political Philosophy.  Prof. Rahe, you could bring in guests from the academy.  It would be excellent!

Off the wall suggestion: have a Ricochet contest where the winners get a reader's copy of Prof. Rahe's latest book.  I'll enter!  =)

The most life-changing class that I took during my time at the University of Chicago was a seminar by Prof. Nathan Tarcov (distantly former student of Harvey Mansfield) on The Prince.  Grappling with the subtle contradictions that Machiavelli intentionally placed throughout The Prince was educational and opened my mind up to a new plane of philosophy and politics; however, in doing some side research in preparation for the paper due at the end of the class I also read Leo Strauss' Thoughts on Machiavelli.  With the preparation of having examined The Prince in detail already complete the full force of Strauss arguments could sink in, and I was hooked on his thesis regarding esoteric and exoteric writing by the great philosophers.

If you follow the Prof. advice and read The Prince, read Thoughts on Machiavelli; you won't regret it.

Prof. Rahe, I'm looking forward to your new book a great deal.  When is it due out?

I'm glad to hear you've hired a business manager in your new CEO; it is essential to separate strategy and execution from vision, and it sounds like you're on that right track now.

Once you can manage your P&L better than you have been and can keep this place open, I'm very eager to see what direction you go in next in building out the product.

What is there's a predisposition that many women inherit to think this way?  Maybe there was some logic in one household, one vote which mitigated the faults of both sexes?

If I'm wrong, please explain why.