The Top 5: Commodifying feelings, ghosting, end of life dreams, front yard politics
Reclaiming Hope Newsletter is now the Wear We Are newsletter! Still the same newsletter, just a little bit fancier.
Welcome to Wear We Are! If you’re a subscriber of Reclaiming Hope Newsletter, you’re in the right place. We hope you enjoy the new name (though it’s a not-so-new-name for podcast listeners) and the new design. It’s still the same newsletter — we guide you through religion and politics at home in the US and abroad — but just with a new name and design.
We’ll be among the primary sources for thousands of readers who seek to understand the role of faith in the 2024 presidential primaries and general election (as we were in 2020), and we’ll continue to curate news and bring you original analysis regarding faith, politics and culture. All without playing to anger or fear, and keeping politics in perspective.
If you’re interested in our companion podcast, which is part of That Sounds Fun Network, head on over to your favorite podcast platform and listen and rate us. We’re even on YouTube now! This week’s episode is a deep-dive on the foreign policy happenings of the last month with Washington Post editor, Damir Marusic.
Also - another big development for Michael - his newest book, The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life — is now available for pre-order! Preorders are super helpful for publishers and booksellers to gauge how excited readers are for a book, so please do buy it and you’ll be able to look forward to being among the first to receive this “paradigm-shifting” book.
The Top 5 articles for your week
Welcome to your weekly edition of the Top 5 articles we’ve read this week. Each week, we read dozens of articles in the hope we find essays and reporting that speak to big ideas, trends, future looks, and incredible human stories. We hope you enjoy our list, and do always let us know if you have a suggestion or a recommendation! Please also consider becoming a paid subscriber if this is one of those newsletters you open up all the time or look forward to each week. We also greatly encourage gift subscriptions!
“Computer Love” (Comment Magazine)
Because “Today, when people write about computer love—now, more often couched in terms of dating apps and the limbo of never-consummated talking stages—there is a broader acknowledgement that these things are wont to happen. It’s the nature of mediation. We even have a word for it: you pour yourself into someone; it feels real; then the other person ghosts. There’s a part of me that remains unconvinced, though, that the screen is what truly separates us from one another. Somewhere, it seems, there’s something deeper than just mediation that forces all of us—like Dante seeking Beatrice—to wander through a world of ghosts.”
“How Gamers Eclipsed Spies as an Intelligence Threat” (Foreign Policy Magazine)
Because “This leak is not a strange one-off but a harbinger of a future where secret statecraft meets an online world in which, for many people, the virtual is replacing the physical source of companionship, comaraderie, and social clout. This online world is fast replacing traditional espionage as a source of intelligence leaks — a shift that has profound implications for the future of spycraft, especially counterintelligence.”
“End of Life Dreams” (Commonweal Magazine)
Because Paul Lauritzen explores a super fascinating question: “I have spent a lot of time since my wife’s death trying to make sense of this paradox. In the high-tech, evidence-driven world of contemporary medicine, it was a dream that led a physician to conclude that my wife was dying. How was that possible?”
“The Dangerous Rise of ‘Front-Yard Politics’” (The Atlantic)
Because “The front yard is the realm of language. It is the space for messaging and talking to be seen. Social media and the internet are a kind of global front lawn, where we get to know a thousand strangers by their signage, even when we don’t know a thing about their private lives and virtues. The backyard is the seat of private behavior. This is where the real action lives, where the values of the family—and by extension, the nation—make contact with the real world.”
“The Commodification of Self” (Substack - Kyla Scanlon)
Because the last time we included Kyla Scanlon on the Top 5, it was all about the “vibecession.” And now, Kyla is back with a new theory on the commodification of self, of feelings, all while relating it back to economics. She makes complicated economic ideas accessible and funny.