Harrison Blackman

A shamus of a tiger sort. Word work @PrincetonSPIA, @californiapost, @pawprinceton. WGA, Fulbright🇨🇾, MFA. Writes THE USONIAN. Upcoming podcast PASSPORT NOIR.

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

Excited that my new book coedited with Gonda Van Steen, GREECE AT THE TURNING POINT, is coming soon—in time for the 80th anniversary of the Marshall Plan! https://t.co/NwpB0UCqta

[County Highway @countyhwy]

A reminder that for all the inequities of American life, the poorest state in America — Mississippi — has nearly the exact same GDP per capita as the weathiest state in Europe, Germany with cheaper food and housing.

Americans on both the left and the right who stoke resentment for votes appear to have lost contact with the reality of the obscene material abundance that we all enjoy compared with the rest of the planet.

Generation Z is richer than any previous American generation was at the equivalent stage of their lives, not poorer.

The many diseases that we suffer from are mostly the self-inflicted wounds of abundance.

What we do with the opportunities we are given is up to us. We can all eat better, read more, and help those in need.

Pretending that those opportunities and the accompanying wealth they offer don’t exist is an obscene insult to the 90% of humanity that has to toil all their lives for basic subsistence at a level that Americans are too sheltered and self-involved to recognize.

The future is still being invented here. We will shape it together, either through our imagination and hard work or through cosplay resentment, willful ignorance and hate.

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

A joy to participate in AllRecipes' celebration of a hundred years of Route 66 cuisine. Read here: https://t.co/7UbYVRt4N0

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

The best New Mexican food on Route 66 can be found in a Shell Station. Thrilled to participate in AllRecipes' exploration of Route 66 cuisine in honor of the Mother Road's 100th anniversary. https://t.co/CD72iPSP5b

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

Great piece on the fall of the clickbait empire, Medium https://t.co/pYqUahUEsV

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

What it's like to be a ghost editor + learn about my book development consultant services here https://t.co/KvXBbFXs9b

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

On May 23, 1960, the evening before the Greek consulting planning firm Doxiadis Associates presented its plan to the Pakistani authorities for the design of their country’s new capital of Islamabad, Constantinos Doxiadis proposed a footrace. https://t.co/vDKX3MYzVy

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

Within one of Princeton's iconic arches there's the inscription, “Here we were taught by men and Gothic towers democracy and faith and love of unseen things that do not die.” To that, Billy Shellman rejoined, “You cannot learn democracy from a building.” https://t.co/BlufFs2FJq

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

Can you believe THE USONIAN has been kicking for FIVE YEARS? To celebrate the Substack’s first big anniversary, new and returning paid subscribers will receive a gorgeous COMMEMORATIVE PENCIL! https://t.co/i63Sv3dB0J

[County Highway @countyhwy]

Humans live in epistemic bubbles created by language, which is the medium in which we form and share our thoughts. The language we use inevitably shapes the reality we perceive; as a result, we need to keep correcting for the excesses and quirks of our language in order to maintain our connection to reality.

This pretty basic phenomenon explains why objectivity was such a crucial governing value for the press to hold, even if no one is actually ever entirely “objective.” The point was to at least try and establish practical benchmarks and processes — like fact-checking - that reporters and editors could employ to keep their account of reality from drifting into outer space or sterile group-think.

The attack on objectivity and the Orwellian weaponization of processes like fact-checking did more than destroy the credibility of the press. It left the rest of society without a mirror by which they could determine at least the outlines of a shared reality. Thats what we are living in today.

In the absence of any common allegiance to “objectivity,” both “sides” now imagine they will impose their reality on the other side — often through threats of violence and personal destruction. “Reporting” has become a weapon in this fight.

But reporters don’t have to use language that way, and neither do you. And you should understand that anyone who does — whether though supporting left violence and personal attacks or engaging in right-wing, often foreign-sponsored conspiratorial lunacy - is actively destroying the social fabric that makes our collective reality-based existence possible.

A mind is a terrible thing to lose. Being part of a society in which large numbers of people have collectively lost their minds to mass hallucinations isn’t much of a future.

[David Benedict 🏳️‍🌈🕎 @eggsbened]

There are days when I miss being an editor and I particularly loved writing headlines. Whoever did this, I hope they took the rest of the day off.

[County Highway @countyhwy]

There are lots of people who want to choke off American culture at its roots. Some call themselves the left, others say they’re on the right. The underlying reason for their hostility is always the same: America is too multifarious and contradictory to pass their purity tests. They need to shrink it down to their own size, so they don’t feel small.

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

Japanese novelist is Kobe Abe is well-known for his Kafkaesque “The Woman in the Dunes.” But he should be better known for “Inter Ice Age 4,” the strangest climate thriller I’ve ever read, featuring fish-people and a malevolent AI. https://t.co/xE4599ph27

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

Saddened to hear of the loss of Jorge Sarmiento, Nobel Prize-winning oceanographer. I learned so much in his course. https://t.co/dNmnzub7qZ

[County Highway @countyhwy]

One of the reasons highly educated people tend to be so remarkably stupid and destructive is that they don’t know anyone who functions in the real world their ideas are intended to change. They have ideas about war without having ever seen war, and without knowing anyone who actually fought. They have ideas about crime without having committed crimes themselves or knowing hard-core criminals. They have ideas about justice without having been victimized, and without knowing cops. They have ideas about capitalism without having ever started a bricks and mortar business or knowing anyone who had. Its a giant tower of bullshit.

The fantasy world they live in is removed from human mess. Some of them are insulated by inherited wealth. Others are ambitious social climbers who are taught to reject their families of origin as bigots as the price of admission. They understand religion as primitive superstition and as a result have zero understanding of human life. They see themselves reflected in the shrinking mirrors of elite opinion and prestige institutions that tell them they are beautiful and righteous, even as those institutions themselves are rotting away.

We all know these people. We spend our lives being condescended to by them, while they destroy what it took others decades or centuries to create. Their record of unrelieved failure doesn’t seem to make any impact on what has become a closed culture which continues to congratulate itself on its genius while blaming the rest of society for its escalating failures.

Twenty years ago, there was still a widespread awareness that this was a bad situation — if only because the Democratic Party still thought that talking to the middle of the country was the only way to win elections. Bill Clinton was the model, however flawed, of how to reconcile the meritocrats and their chain-smoking slot-machine playing aunts. Plenty of Republicans followed that model. It involved a lot of fakery. But it created at least some common ground, which in turn offered a way out.

Now you have the moronic radicals on the left at war with the radicalized morons on the right. Together, they represent at most 30% of the American public. But the tools of coercion and division that they have at their fingertips are only growing more powerful.

The remaining 70% still wants to enjoy life and make new stuff. Thats where hope lies. But we need to build more, better, and faster — and to make new friends.

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

Lin King is an International Booker Prize winner! Much congratulations. Pick up "Taiwan Travelogue" today!

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

I started my career in the newsroom, and I'm excited to return to the newsroom at the brand-new @CaliforniaPost. I’ll be part of @capostopinion, where I’ll be holding up a mirror to California, one of the most complex states in the union.

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

Colonial Princeton had a lot less in the way of extracurriculars, but there was apparently way more partying (due to poor water quality), per Dan Caprera https://t.co/yZCjsr6jK0

[Harrison Blackman @HWBMan]

In college, I read Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. My professor told me, like the series of conflicts between Sparta and Athens, one day the U.S. wars in Iraq would all be conflated as a single conflict. This month's Usonian+ exclusive post: https://t.co/NQblYUuDaS