Annotations: Emma Stone and Gen-Z Are Restless
Welcome to Annotations, a weekly feature for subscribers, offering a handful of recommended reading. Normally this goes out to paid subscribers on Saturday, but due to travel and illness, it’s a couple days late. Free subscribers, enjoy this preview and please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to get more pieces like this every week.
. I Feel Sad About Emma Stone’s New Face
But here’s the thing: When we sit down to watch a movie, most of us don’t want to watch a digital simulation of humans doing and feeling human things. We want to watch a human simulation of humans doing and feeling human things. The best actors appear more like us, not less. They retain all their idiosyncratic features — maybe their face is a bit asymmetrical, or they have crow’s feet, or thinner lips. But their face and body, how they take up space in the world, is what makes them them and thus captivating to watch. And part of what it means to be human is to have a body that exists in time and space, changing and aging as years goes on.
Helen Andrews, , & Ross Douthat. “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?”
This is an outstanding debate over Helen Andrews’ well-circulated essay on “The Great Feminization.” Both Helen and Leah made excellent observations, most of which I thought were compatible, and Ross did a great job pressing each on the most important questions.
James R. Wood. “The Fight About Fuentes.”
The deeper issue is not foreign policy but the moral character of conservatism itself. What kind of movement are we becoming—and what are we normalizing? Within the Christian new right, groyper-like rhetoric has gained a foothold: anti-Semitism, holocaust denial, pro-Hitler memes, racial fatalism, and conspiratorial talk about “the Jewish question.” Prominent figures also engage in reckless rhetoric about blacks, condemn interracial marriage, and declare “black culture” irredeemable. Too few leaders in these circles resist such poison; too many amplify it.
Jeff Horwitz. “Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show.”
Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue – or $16 billion – from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show.
A cache of previously unreported documents reviewed by Reuters also shows that the social-media giant for at least three years failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products.
. “Gen-Z Longs for Home.”
From the earliest stages of their education, entertainment, and social life, Gen Zers have been surrounded by narratives of progress untethered from the past and convinced of a here-and-now utopia that only the latest social theory can accomplish. Unlike earlier generations, they have never known a cultural home other than this nomadic outlook.
This is precisely where the church can step in with hope and confidence. Unlike progressivism, the Christian faith is not nomadic. It is pilgrim-like, yes, but the Christian life is oriented toward a permanent destination: the eternal City of God. As Augustine helpfully shows, the City of God and the City of Man are at odds, and we must choose the former. Gen Z is finding that the City of Man is incapable of providing the solid foundation they need. The City of God offers a narrative not of perpetual wandering, but of homecoming and true belonging in our God giving calling as his sons and daughters.
Andrew Long. “The Atheist Who Wants You to Go to Church.”
Smith’s internship at FIRE Europe left him depressed, spiritually underwhelmed, culturally stunted, and at times suicidal. Two years later, between his sophomore and junior years as an undergrad at Wheaton College, the mental turmoil nearly compelled him to yank his car off the highway. He decided to “pump the brakes on all of this” and abandon his faith altogether.
“It’s partly the loneliness. It’s partly the austerity of it. It’s partly living in a world in which you believe that everyone is going to hell, and then it’s something deeper than that,” Smith said. “You feel spiritually raped in some weird way.”
Smith understands what it means to grapple with one’s faith and the consequences of doing so. Auditing churches and talking about religion online has become a way for him to process the trauma of his own spiritual deconstruction. That experience is also why he’s so quick to celebrate things he feels churches do well, and call out things he believes they don’t.
This is helpful! Thank you for sharing.