Is the Negative World Coming to an End?
Joe Rogan covers Christianity; the virtue of reconciliation; the relationship recession and more in this week's digest.
In response to my linking to a woman’s tweet about how her friends aren’t having kids or additional kids because of the risk of autism or severe disability, a reader wrote to say:
I have multiple children with autism and yes, this is real. I have had someone say, basically, "the more children you have, the higher the odds something will be wrong with one of them." Looking around my traditional Catholic parish...they are not wrong.
And about my mention of the rise of the “kidulting” phenomenon, a reader wrote to say:
I had a brief stint on the indie pro-wrestling scene 12 years ago. It’s a world made for children and their fathers, but I began noticing how, alongside kids and dads, adult fans were becoming more common — men in their 30s without kids going to the shows. As a cohort, they weren’t necessarily going to drink beer and get rowdy. I can respect that. The types I’m talking about were marks. Fans of wrestlers, the way a child might have been a fan of Hulk Hogan in the 80s. And this cohort has only grown since then.
Following up on my piece earlier this week about the great Panda Express debate, the Wall Street Journal reports that even Harvard MBAs are having trouble finding a job. I hear there are assistant manager openings at Panda Express.
A Thaw in the Negative World?
The internet was abuzz over the appearance of Christian apologist Wesley Huff on Joe Rogan’s podcast. It has 4.9 million views just on Youtube. I am not familiar with Huff and have not listened to that podcast, but reports suggest he did a great job.
Rogan has historically been hostile to Christianity. An X user who goes by Jake Rattlesnake compiled a series of Rogan clips on Christianity showing his evolution over time.
With Rogan and other secular figures either converting to Christianity or becoming Christian friendly, is the Negative World I identified coming to an end? The Gospel Coalition wrote about an anti-progressive vibe shift, which certainly seems to be in the air.
When we stake ourselves on something, or put forward some idea or claim, it can be difficult to back down on that or change our minds around it. Typically, people keep doubling down. Or, if they change, they do it without ever explaining.
As someone committed to the pursuit of truth, I don’t want to be like that. I want to be open to having my prior positions challenged, including the idea of the Negative World. I wrote about this before, but will address it again.
What I see is a conservative shift in the culture. The far left overplayed their hand, and there’s a correction in a more right wing direction. We see it Silicon Valley. We see it in the institutional acceptance of Donald Trump’s victory. We need it in the views of center-left Democrats who are attacking progressives and what they call “the Groups.” The idea of a conservative shift after a progressive “awakening” is a historical pattern found by sociologist Musa al-Gharbi.
I also think there will be a new openness to Christianity by some people, because they see it as a bulwark of a Western culture they wish to defend, because they are seeking meaning in life, because of the shift towards re-enchantment or other matters.
I do think the more overt forms of hostility to Christianity will abate in this new environment. There are still some of these attacks, such as those against Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth over his Jerusalem Cross tattoo for being an “extremist symbol.” But I expect them to decline.
However, I do think there will continue to be widespread hostility to most socially conservative legislation apart from marginal items where there’s broad public support (e.g., limiting access to online porn by minors). Try to ban abortion and see what happens.
I also think the culture will be resolutely post-Christian in terms of its ethical values. Again, we see this in the second Trump campaign and administration, which mostly adopted socially moderate positions. Porn, pot, gambling, etc. remain popular. The norms around things like expecting marital fidelity in political leaders are probably not coming back anytime soon.
Nevertheless, I think we can be glad that some forms of aggressive hostility have declined. Whether that means we’ve entered a new era that deserves a new label is yet to be seen.
Speaking of the Negative world, my book got a great review in the Federalist this week
And Ryan Burge looks at whether Americans are particularly distrustful of religion.
Negative World Missiology
Josh Howerton and Josh McPherson released episode five of their podcast on Negative World missiology.
The mainstream megachurch world is actually the part of evangelicalism I know the least. As I’ve started paying more attention, I’ve had to revise my assumptions about it. One thing I’ve had to personally repent of - and I’d say my view is common in some circles - is the belief that the skinny jeans megachurch pastor whose sermon clips you see online is a very charismatic speaker but probably an intellectual lightweight.
In reality, as you can see from this podcast, they are often impressive strategic thinkers and operators, even if they are stylistically different from the Kelleresque cultural engagement style. Note how, for example, they discuss the various considerations around who should and should not be on a church board. (I recorded a podcast on this topic myself if you are interested).
They’ve also released episode six, though I haven’t watched it yet.
Real Elite People Reconcile and Move On
This is a follow up to a post from October about how real elite people end unproductive conflicts and move on. Venture capitalist Marc Andreesen had apparently made a number of tweets critical of Pat Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the LA Times. So Soon-Shiong sent this tweet:
Is this you, [Marc]? Are you hedging your endorsements? But you’re not the only one who makes mistakes. I’ve made some—like endorsing Karen Bass. And that’s a big reason we didn’t endorse Kamala. I don’t have the luxury of a hedge. Now is the time for leadership, and I’ll welcome you to join our editorial board to be a part of the solution. I hope you will.
He calls out Andreesen, but admits his own mistakes and extends an olive branch, inviting Andreesen to join the LA Times editorial board. Andreesen responded:
Removed my xeets critical of Dr. Soon-Shiong. It's time for a big tent for people who are figuring things out. We all learn.
This is how the big boys operate. They frequently - though not always of course - avoid getting mired in pointless conflict that isn’t related to some core objective.
The Relationship Recession
John Burn-Murdoch at the Financial Times has another killer data driven column, this one on the relationship recession.
Between 1960 and 1980, the average number of children born to a woman halved from almost four to two, even as the share of women in married couples edged only modestly lower. There were still plenty of couples in happy, stable relationships. They were just electing to have smaller families.
But in recent years most of the fall is coming not from the decisions made by couples, but from a marked fall in the number of couples. Had US rates of marriage and cohabitation remained constant over the past decade, America’s total fertility rate would be higher today than it was then.
The central demographic story of modern times is not just declining rates of childbearing but rising rates of singledom: a much more fundamental shift in the nature of modern societies.
…
When pictured as a rise in happily childless Dinks (dual income, no kids couples) with plenty of disposable income, the social trends accompanying falling birth rates seem benign.
But the rise of singledom and relationship dissolution is a less rosy story, especially considering the drop in relationship formation is steepest among the poorest. Of course, many people are happily single. The freedom to choose how to spend one’s life and who with (or without) is to be celebrated. But the wider data on loneliness and dating frustrations suggests not all is well.
You can click over to read the whole thing. The FT has a hard paywall, so I quoted as liberally as I could justify.
Here’s one of the many great charts in this piece:
You can view the rest of the charts in this X thread about the article.
Best of the Web
The Telegraph/Yahoo News: Young, single men are leaving traditional churches. They found a more ‘masculine’ alternative - An article about the Orthobro phenomenon.
Literary Hub: My Babies Are Richer Than Yours: On the Lie of the Online Tradwife
LA Review of Books: What Would Becky Buy? - An essay about a history of Contemporary Christian Music. It talks about how a certain generation of women became the target market for this.
All the consumerism created mountains of data, and executives soon began to talk of their prototypical record buyer as “Becky,” a mother of two who lived in the heartland. The evaluation of a new artist or song depended on whether Becky was going to go for it. “They knew what Becky drove, where she lived, her marital status, the size of her household, where she went on a special night out for dinner, and where she took her children to the drive thru,” writes Payne. The armies of minivan Beckys voted with their money, and in turn, the CCM [Contemporary Christian Music] industry gave them what they wanted: a hopeful message, a friendly Christ, and a message of sexual purity.
Lastly, I’ll note that the Texas Public Policy Foundation put out some really interesting survey results about Texas identity and values.
New Content and Media Mentions
I was mentioned by the Gospel Coalition, the Federalist, Joel Carini, and the Philadelphia Citizen.
New this week:
My podcast was with AEI’s Matthew Continetti on his history of conservatism.
Andrew Tate or Panda Express: Which Way Young Man? - What a fast-food debate tells us about masculinity, social class, and Spiritual Boomerism
Subscribe to my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Youtube, or Spotify.
I don't see any evidence that we are leaving the negative world. All that we are witnessing is that prominent liberals, who previously adopted a progressive persona in order to have freedom to navigate, have sensed a shift in high places toward conservatism. So they are playing along. Acting more conservative is now the safer course, especially if Trump or the republican congress could potentially inflict damage on their activities. These are the liberals who are not liberal because of ideology but because they seek freedom from interference (Zuckerberg and Bezos, for example). Their businesses are susceptible to government action so they are maneuvering to avoid problems. Costco, on the other hand, is continuing unabated with its woke policies, probably because there is lower possibility of any action being taken against it. As for the liberal ideologues, they are pouting but looking for every opportunity to continue their woke policies below the radar, even in companies that are now supposedly jettisoning woke policies.
So while the negative world may have a new wardrobe, it hasn't changed course.
It would take a major movement for our society to change course. And it would almost certainly have to be led by men who are unapologetically ready to pursue extensive reform. It was men who capitulated to feminism over the last century and enabled the woke monster we have today; it will take men to overthrow it.
That series of charts from FT is fascinating. On the US chart, you can see a gap where the coupling rate remains elevated starting around mid-2010's but the fertility rate continues to decline. To me, this data suggests that couples in the US really are *electing* to have fewer children, and that this differs from other countries experiencing a dropping fertility rate where coupling and fertility are much more tightly correlated.