Friday Finds (Girard, Spirituality, Paradigm Shifts, Prestige)

[Read in your browser here.](=) Hi friends, Greetings from New York! I'm out here for a writer's retreat with Johnathan Bi. We just launched the two newest lectures in our series about René Girard. Both investigate Girard's theories on psychology. One is about [desire and original sin](=). The other explores mimetic rivalry and [why evil exists in the world](=). In a [Twitter thread about Girard today](), I asked: "Why do so many people stick with jobs they hate, even after they've made a lot of money?" Girard's theory of psychology holds some of the answers. He says people desire things less for their intrinsic properties and more for their high-status associations. When people don't investigate their motivations, they end up in jobs they don't enjoy, so they can buy things they don't need, to impress people they don't like. ​ Today's Finds Prestige: E.O. Wilson argued that prestige factors in human psychology because our ancestors lived in semi-permanent home bases that needed to be guarded collectively. People teamed up to protect the fort from enemies and prestige offers a way to measure somebody's value in the eye of their group members. The more prestige somebody has, the more they're seen as a contributor, and the more sought out they are by people around them. When somebody has more prestige than us, we pay them in respect and admiration. Think of celebrities like Taylor Swift and writers like Shakespeare. These articles from Kevin Simler ([article #1 on social status]() | [article #2 on cults and loyalty]()) expand on the theories above. It's peculiar that the original Latin word for prestige, praestigiae, signifies an illusion or mirage. There are two ways to interpret this. Maybe we grant prestige to objects that deserve more social recognition than a purely material analysis would grant them. Or perhaps the act of chasing prestige is an illusion altogether. If so, [we should avoid it](=). ​[How Bureaucracies Squash Culture](): I used to go to Cal and Stanford football games, and their marching bands were strikingly different. Cal's band was orderly and well-dressed. Stanford's was a swarm of chaos. Their live performances were hilarious. Only later did I realize their notorious student-run band pulled pranks like [marching in crass formations](). However, the band is no longer as provocative as their pranks must be pre-approved by a panel of university administrators. This piece makes the case that Stanford's social life has become less vibrant from administrative meddling. Hundreds of social groups have been eliminated. Decade-old traditions have been banned. In the name of equality and fairness, funky names have been torn off buildings. The Sigma Chi house is now just the bland number "550." Stanford's motto (Die Luft der Freiheit weht — "the winds of freedom blow") is no longer evident on campus. Crazy ideas get squashed. Activities that could potentially be considered offensive are instantly banned. Bureaucrats, not students, now run the show and camaraderie is on the decline. Dorm walls are white, doors get locked and hallways that once buzzed with life have gone quiet. Student life is "safe," but meaningless. These same patterns are repeating across our culture: "Stanford’s new social order offers a peek into the bureaucrat’s vision for America. It is a world without risk, genuine difference, or unencumbered joy; without the kind of cultural specificity that makes college, or the rest of life, particularly interesting." [This piece goes into much more detail](). ​[The World Chessboard](): Man, this series of articles is everything that history class should have been. The premise is geography creates certain inevitable outcomes in the game of human achievement. This piece is about America’s advantages. Specifically, it has huge oceans on two sides and more miles of internal navigable waterways than the rest of the world combined. Yeah, you read that right. ​[Paradigm Shifts](=): Our beliefs are governed by paradigms. [The West exists in a Judeo-Christian moral paradigm]( governed by the tenets of the Bible. Scientifically, we live in an Einsteinian moral paradigm governed by his Theory of Relativity. Incremental progress occurs within paradigms. Transformative progress occurs when paradigms are shattered. Faster horses don't cause paradigm shifts. Cars do. Rob Rhinehart writes: "Paradigm shifts come from the spirit world. There are very powerful forces that do not want you to believe this. I do not care if you do or not. But it is true. Every great scientist, is also a mystic." There are all kinds of examples. Robert Oppenheimer was obsessed with eastern religions and quoted the Bhagavad Gita when the first atom bomb detonated. The mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan insisted that he received inspiration from spirits. America's founding fathers were all spiritual. They explicitly created their new nation to escape religious oppression. Steve Jobs thought technology was sacred. He was on a spiritual mission. All these examples make you wonder: "What unconscious tradeoffs follow an embrace of pure reason? What innovations are we missing because they exist beyond the realm of logic?" I'll leave you with one final example from Paul Dirac, one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century. His famous "Direct Equation" didn't come to him in the lab. It was presented out of a fire. He didn't invent it. He discovered it. The flames showed him the equation. Radical Candor: I don't remember the time I enjoyed an "airport bookstore" book so much. Whenever a book blows up, you have to ask why. This one is a response to the collective hesitation to speak openly in the workplace, combined with a cultural shift towards valuing people's emotions more at work. [Radical Candor is a book]() for managers ([article summary here](). The author Kim Scott instructs people to care personally and challenge others directly. It's an antidote to ideas like "Ruinous Empathy" where people don't say what they think out of a fear of hurting feelings and "Obnoxious Aggression" where people come out swinging at their coworkers. So how do these behavioral patterns change with remote work? At [Write of Passage](, we've seen how much it helps to be exceedingly friendly on Slack, especially if you haven't met the person you're communicating with. Emojis go a long way here! Since it can be hard to communicate sincerity in text, I use tools like Loom videos and voice memos — and deliver my message with "High care, high empathy, and low emotion." If you prefer a YouTube summary, [I recommend this one](=). Have a creative week, [David Perell Logo 2x] Thanks for reading! If you’re serious about learning to write, [sign up for my 50 days of writing series.]() I’ll send you a series of emails about every aspect of the craft, from finding new ideas, to editing your writing, to building an email list. If you'd like to update your email settings, choose one of the options below. 1. [Click here]() to unsubscribe from Friday Finds only. 2. [Unsubscribe]( to be removed from all future mailings. That'll make me sad. But hey... I get it. You're busy. Just know that once you click this link you won't receive any more emails from me. If you want to opt-out of Friday Finds and don't see a link above to do so, just hit reply and let me know. I'll take care of it for you personally. 3. If you're interested in subscribing to my other emails, [click here](). In particular, I recommend my weekly [Monday Musings]( email. 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