arguing for and against: ablerism.micro.blog
@ablerism When I first read your post, I thought “Okay, I’ve never thought of putting the Hog Blog in the ‘unhelpful writing/doing hamster wheel’ category (and definitely not in the “secret Orbanist” category!), but I do have a growing category of unhelpful-writing/doing-hamster-wheel activity, and I could be convinced the Hedgehog is worthy of the critique, if not the subscription chopping block.” But now that I’ve read Kanakia’s post, I have oh so many complaints that I may have to (gulp) blog about it. 🤓
(eg, I loved Catherine Moon’s piece on Edith Stein and Kanakia’s confusion about it seems weirdly forced; and Gary Saul Morson’s piece on Russian translation was very helpful to me and even helped a friend and I settle on Katz as a modern translation for Brothers K)
I guess I wanted to nod with the critique but I’m wary of a kind of “whoever is not for us, in the way I want them to be, is against us.” Kanakia wants to say that the Hedgehog people have an “ambiguous, indecipherable approach [that I’m not so subtly implying is all about money]” and complain that it’s “as if the authors were reaching for big ideas and finding only the conventional wisdom.” (Heaven’s no! Not … conventional wisdom. 🤓) But one of the reasons why they “would never say” what she seems to really want to insist they do secretly want to say is because what the folks at the Hog Blog support, by my reading, is reform over revolution and thoughtfulness over choosing sides. And maybe that will always look like “just words — a waste of time” to someone like Kanakia.
Forgive the lengthy comment but I don’t actually want to blog about it right now 🙂. Definitely interested in following this conversation more and in reading any more thoughts you have about it. Also, “in addition to” seems a powerful parenthesis — and, by my reading, correction to whatever Kanakia is up to. So was your essay
@tinyroofnail @ablerism I’ve fallen behind on reading the Hedgehog Review, so I cannot agree or disagree with Naomi Kanakia. But is the idea that our big problem is antihumanism (or half-hearted humanism) a 2026 high-tone version of prior bugaboos like “secular humanism” or “gnosticism”?
I remember days when you couldn’t avoid one of those terms, in the conservative-leaning Christian spaces I frequented.
@ReaderJohn Possibly. Even probably. A fair warning, for sure. (I would say the gnosticism tag has stood the test of time — ie, served as better critique than the others. But lazy tags of “nihilism” I have utterly balked at.)
Comment’s recent issue (that Hendren published in) took up the topic “The Anti-Human” and I have found the essays excellent. I certainly do think the questions around AI warrant a serious look at “anti-humanism.” Anne Snyder opens the editorial with a reference to Peter Thiel’s long stumbling pause when asked by Ross Douthat if he believes the human race should endure… like, at all. She also admits that the issue is darker than usual, but not without hope. And hope is definitely something Comment is better at than the Hedgehog people, but that shouldn’t really be surprising. I even suspect that much of the trouble here boils down to exactly that, which seems a far cry short of the subtle, “just sayin” accusations of post-liberalism — that other bugaboo buzzword.
@tinyroofnail I’m so glad you reminded me that conventional wisdom does so much work in the world; needed to hear that! I often find myself looking back on my own writing and thinking: Really? That’s it? Feels pretty squishy, in the end. But maybe there’s much to be said for the ways that small pubs remind us all of some big sanities, period. FWIW Kanakia does have a reasonable exchange in the comments where someone says: A strong unified point of view PLUS great writing is actually really hard to achieve, and anyway comes with tradeoffs. Kanakia acknowledges this; I actually like her project of trying to anatomize the work of the small cultural mag. And no apologies for your lengthy comments! I’m always glad to hear what you have to say and hope you’ll blog. :)
@tinyroofnail I’ve fallen behind on Comment, too. I’m still working through a queue of its articles on institution-building. If the “trans-human” hubris is included in the anti-human, I’d better make it a point to read that issue.
@ReaderJohn I’m two-thirds through the issue and I haven’t seen them really target that. Hubris, certainly, but not “trans-humanism” specifically. Though Snyder did say they were “confronting not so much a culture that openly despises humanity as one quietly tempted to transcend it.” Heck, beyond the cover and editorial, I don’t think they’ve even targeted “anti-humanism” per se. Each of the essays has, helpfully, had a more specific focus under that umbrella.
Funny enough, I forgot, and realized yesterday, that I already cut my Hedgehog subscription. More generically trying to do more and read less kinda thing than anything else. Plus, @jabel is helping convince me to pivot toward stuff like Mortis & Tenon mag over all this other chatter :)
@tinyroofnail Nothing could be more countercultural, in the best sense, than replacing “this other chatter” with the small, the local, the humble.
I maybe have moved millimeters in that direction, but I fear I’m locked into the notions of civic responsibility I learned during the Cold War in the home of a WW-II veteran first-generation “learned professional” and in an evangelical boarding school in über-prosperous DuPage County Illinois.
These are not the foundations of a contentedly subsistence life.
