Advice to Grads?

This week, we wanted to do a show aimed at graduating students — which is why we booked The WSJ’s Andy Kessler to discuss his column Advice to New Grads: Scale or Bail and Amy “Tiger Mom” Chua (yes, her new book Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations isn’t strictly for grads, but hey, she’s the TIGER MOM). But one of our podcasters decided to hijack that theme and take us on his own magic carpet ride. Still, it’s a good show, chock full of advice, life, hacks, and other illuminating factoids. Happy Memorial Day!

Music from this week’s show: Eye of the Tiger – Bluegrass Tribute To Classic Rock

Subscribe to The Ricochet Podcast in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.

Please Support Our Sponsor!

Harry's Shave

Use Code: ricochet

Now become a Ricochet member for only $5.00 a month! Join and see what you’ve been missing.

There are 51 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. harrisventures Inactive
    harrisventures
    @harrisventures

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    I was surprised that the end of show song wasn’t “Legend of a Mind”.

    Don’t think I know that song.

    Didn’t use one of the many obvious songs about LSD or tripping because I’ve used most of my favorites on other shows where this topic has come up (see GLoP) and I am a big fan of Amy’s and wanted to spotlight her a bit.

    Moody Blues. Come on Blue Yeti… I’m sure even the Abominable Snowman has heard of the ‘House of Four Doors’…

    In Search of the Lost Chord

    • #31
  2. harrisventures Inactive
    harrisventures
    @harrisventures

    filmklassik (View Comment):
    I agree, James. For a modern professor, the cost/benefit calculation in defying Progressive orthodoxy couldn’t be more simple: There’s little to be gained and a great deal — everything, in fact — all that you’ve worked for — to lose. So why rock the boat?

    Which only goes to demonstrate the true courage of Jordan Peterson…

    • #32
  3. A-Squared Inactive
    A-Squared
    @ASquared

    Chua’s new book just became available on the kindle from my library, so I have it downloaded and will read it soon.  As I’ve said on here many times, someone should write a book about the impact of tribalism on politics, I would read it.  

    But I couldn’t help but think about Ricochet when I heard Chua say “it is a relaltively small number of very loud voices on both the extreme right and the extreme left that kind of almost like bully people into having these views.  But if I talk to a large number of students or even just get people from opposite political stripes and just have a conversation over a beer or over lunch as individuals, I think most people are more reasonable and good.”

    Ricochet was intended as that place where we could have a conversation over a beer but it is becoming a forum for a relatively small number of very loud voices that want to bully people into agreeing with them (or at a minimum, stay silent about their disagreements).  Both the EverTrumpers and the NeverTrumpers have grouped everyone that is not completely with them as being completelty against them.  

    It is getting boring, repetitive, and tense. I would bet an overwhelming majority of the 5,000 Ricochet members fall somewhere between the EverTrumpers and the NeverTrumpers, but the conversation about Trump is dominated by those two groups, because they are willing to shout the loudest.   

     

    • #33
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    A-Squared (View Comment):

    Ricochet was intended as that place where we could have a conversation over a beer but it is becoming a forum for a relatively small number of very loud voices that want to bully people into agreeing with them (or at a minimum, stay silent about their disagreements). Both the EverTrumpers and the NeverTrumpers have grouped everyone that is not completely with them as being completelty against them.

    It is getting boring, repetitive, and tense. I would bet an overwhelming majority of the 5,000 Ricochet members fall somewhere between the EverTrumpers and the NeverTrumpers, but the conversation about Trump is dominated by those two groups, because they are willing to shout the loudest.

    Yep.

    • #34
  5. filmklassik Inactive
    filmklassik
    @filmklassik

    harrisventures (View Comment):

    filmklassik (View Comment):
    I agree, James. For a modern professor, the cost/benefit calculation in defying Progressive orthodoxy couldn’t be more simple: There’s little to be gained and a great deal — everything, in fact — all that you’ve worked for — to lose. So why rock the boat?

    Which only goes to demonstrate the true courage of Jordan Peterson…

    And Bret Weinstein.  And a few (a very few) others.  

    It’s frightening.  And the campus ethos that is infecting the country as a whole is something the Right simply refuses to deal with.

    You just wait till these kids are out of college with a spouse and a job and a mortgage and a child, heh heh.  Theeeyyyy’ll come around.  Heh heh.”

    ”It’s only a tiny percentage of radicals, so, nothin’ to worry about!

    ”Hey, the Right’s doing fine, just fine.  We’ve got X number of governorships and have you seen the polls lately? — we’re on track to hang on to the Senate and 27 seats in the House and blah blah blah blah…”

     

    • #35
  6. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    I was surprised that the end of show song wasn’t “Legend of a Mind”.

    Don’t think I know that song.

     

    Dude…Seriously?  You’re unfamiliar with the classic works of the Moody Blues?  

     

     

     

    • #36
  7. harrisventures Inactive
    harrisventures
    @harrisventures

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    I was surprised that the end of show song wasn’t “Legend of a Mind”.

    Don’t think I know that song.

     

    Dude…Seriously? You’re unfamiliar with the classic works of the Moody Blues?

    I went looking for a youtube for ‘Legend of a Mind’ and ended up finding a Moody Blues documentary. Over 2 hours long. Stayed up way past my bedtime to watch it.

     

     

     

     

    • #37
  8. Blue Yeti Admin
    Blue Yeti
    @BlueYeti

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    I was surprised that the end of show song wasn’t “Legend of a Mind”.

    Don’t think I know that song.

     

    Dude…Seriously? You’re unfamiliar with the classic works of the Moody Blues?

    I do not Fear The Reaper.

    • #38
  9. Buckpasser Member
    Buckpasser
    @Buckpasser

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    I was surprised that the end of show song wasn’t “Legend of a Mind”.

    Don’t think I know that song.

     

    Dude…Seriously? You’re unfamiliar with the classic works of the Moody Blues?

    I do not Fear The Reaper.

    What?  Are you in a cult?

    • #39
  10. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Blue Yeti (View Comment):

    Buckpasser (View Comment):

    I was surprised that the end of show song wasn’t “Legend of a Mind”.

    Don’t think I know that song.

     

    Dude…Seriously? You’re unfamiliar with the classic works of the Moody Blues?

    I do not Fear The Reaper.

    What? Are you in a cult?

    In the spirit of the bluegrass version of  Eye of the Tiger, I offer this, from the album Moody Bluegrass:

     

    .  

    • #40
  11. filmklassik Inactive
    filmklassik
    @filmklassik

    A-Squared (View Comment):

    But I couldn’t help but think about Ricochet when I heard Chua say “it is a relaltively small number of very loud voices on both the extreme right and the extreme left that kind of almost like bully people into having these views. But if I talk to a large number of students or even just get people from opposite political stripes and just have a conversation over a beer or over lunch as individuals, I think most people are more reasonable and good.”

    Yeah.  A relatively small number.  Meanwhile …

    — Brilliant, equal-opportunity-offender comedians (Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, etc.) can no longer play college campuses because so many students are offended by their speech.  

    —And corporate America is now adopting the PC Leftist ethos.

    —And identity politics now informs every aspect of pop culture, including film, publishing and most scripted TV.  

    —And for the first time, a majority of America’s young people now favor legislation that would criminalize “hate speech” in the public sphere (just as Canada and the nations of Western Europe have done).

    This is the trend now.  

    Does this really rate a “meh” with you?  

     

     

    • #41
  12. TedRudolph Inactive
    TedRudolph
    @TedRudolph

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    They have hijacked the job signaling function of college. Credentialism enables progressivism. A complete Frankfurt school take over.

     

    You make it sound like there’s some sort of bad history with allowing Progressive Germans to run things unhindered…..

    • #42
  13. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    TedRudolph (View Comment):

    RufusRJones (View Comment):

    They have hijacked the job signaling function of college. Credentialism enables progressivism. A complete Frankfurt school take over.

    You make it sound like there’s some sort of bad history with allowing Progressive Germans to run things unhindered…..

    IMO, this topic is a very big deal. 

    Is there such a thing as “cultural Marxism”? If so, what is it? And what was the Frankfurt School, and what was it trying to accomplish? Paul Gottfried, who holds a Ph.D. in history from Yale and has written extensively on these subjects, joins me to get to the bottom of it all.

    FYI, this is honestly kind of a hard listen. Wood’s show is usually much more accessible.

    Dennis Prager is always point out this stuff, too.

    • #43
  14. A-Squared Inactive
    A-Squared
    @ASquared

    filmklassik (View Comment):

    This is the trend now.

    Does this really rate a “meh” with you?

    3 comments:

    1. It was Chua’s point that it was only a relatively small number of people on the left with really loud voices, not mine.  But I’m not convinced that her statement and your list of outcomes are inherently contradictory.  Of the universe of college professors, the number of really loud Womyn studies professors is really small.  The problem is not that everyone is shouting at the top of their lungs about womyn studies, but that no one in the common sense middle is telling the crazy womyn studies professors to go stuff it when they start talking crazy stuff.  I could be wrong and could easily be convinced I’m wrong, but just posting the list you posted does not convince me Chua was wrong.
    2. My primary point was about the very small number of people with extreme views on Trump who do their best to shut down all dissenting views about Trump on Ricochet.  If I take your list as a serious problem, then it would be a REALLY bad idea to let the Pro-Trump and Anti-Trump extremists do the same thing to Ricochet that the extremists on the left have done to broader society.  Unfortunately, not enough people in the middle are willing to tell the extremists to go stuff it when they start talking crazy stuff.  I don’t see that changing anytime soon because of the loudness of both Pro-Trump and Anti-Trump extremists.
    3. It is not my site and I have no input into the processes, all I can do is choose to pay my membership fee or not.   The site will become what its loudest members want it to be, and the loudest members will certainly not miss my contributions.
    • #44
  15. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    Higher education = cultural marxism

    The End. 

    The whole thing needs to be atomized 

    • #45
  16. RufusRJones Member
    RufusRJones
    @RufusRJones

    This country has jumped the shark on inflationism, centralization, and cultural marxism. It’s understandable that Trump got elected. Act accordingly. 

    • #46
  17. filmklassik Inactive
    filmklassik
    @filmklassik

    A-Squared (View Comment):

    filmklassik (View Comment):

    This is the trend now.

    Does this really rate a “meh” with you?

    My primary point was about the very small number of people with extreme views on Trump who do their best to shut down all dissenting views about Trump on Ricochet. If I take your list as a serious problem, then it would be a REALLY bad idea to let the Pro-Trump and Anti-Trump extremists do the same thing to Ricochet that the extremists on the left have done to broader society. 

    Here’s where we disagree:  

    Donald Trump, like Barack Obama, is a symptom of where we are as a culture, he is not the cause. Not by a long shot.  

    In other words, Trump is reflective, not transformative.

    Parents are transformative.  The elementary and high schools are transformative.  Colleges and graduate schools are transformative.  The media is transformative.  Scripted TV and movies are transformative.

    But Trump himself is not transformative.

    Which is why we need to stop obsessing about who’s pro-Trump and who’s anti-Trump and Trump this and Trump that and TrumpTRUMPTrumpTRUMPTrumpTrump!!  

    It’s insane.

    Trump.  Is.  Reflective.

    But the values held by our college students today will become the baseline values of America tomorrow.  

    In other words, it’s the culture.  It is all about the culture.  

    And nothing else … nothing else!  … matters.  Nothing.

     

     

    • #47
  18. A-Squared Inactive
    A-Squared
    @ASquared

    I’m not talking about Trump, I’m talking about the behavior of a fairly small number of people on this site.

    • #48
  19. filmklassik Inactive
    filmklassik
    @filmklassik

    A-Squared (View Comment):

    I’m not talking about Trump, I’m talking about the behavior of a fairly small number of people on this site.

    Forgive me.  I thought the behavior you were talking about was in the way this small number of people were choosing to discuss the President.  

    Glad I was wrong!  

    • #49
  20. A-Squared Inactive
    A-Squared
    @ASquared

    filmklassik (View Comment):

    A-Squared (View Comment):

    I’m not talking about Trump, I’m talking about the behavior of a fairly small number of people on this site.

    Forgive me. I thought the behavior you were talking about was in the way this small number of people were choosing to discuss the President.

    Glad I was wrong!

    How people discuss Trump is not Trump.

    • #50
  21. filmklassik Inactive
    filmklassik
    @filmklassik

    A-Squared (View Comment):

    filmklassik (View Comment):

    A-Squared (View Comment):

    I’m not talking about Trump, I’m talking about the behavior of a fairly small number of people on this site.

    Forgive me. I thought the behavior you were talking about was in the way this small number of people were choosing to discuss the President.

    Glad I was wrong!

    How people discuss Trump is not Trump.

    Oh my God.

    Good night.  

    • #51
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.