Holy smokes is @tressiemcphd good. The way this weaves together multiple strands of culture to illuminate the world we're living in is just a master class of writing as thinking. nytimes.com/2022/01/10/opi…
It's so interesting to contrast piece linked above with the writing of some of the prominent Substack politics and policy heroes. @tressiemcphd is fundamentally an "illuminator" someone who shines light on a phenomenon in an attempt to understand it better. In contrast...
...we have folks I won't name who act as "debators" are trying to win an argument, often by placing the topic on ground most favorable to them. They must often obscure, rather than illuminate because full illumination would show more complexity & undermine their argument.
As I see it, the debaters fundamentally want the audience to adopt their argument wholesale. They want to win that ground, even if it means obscuring information or knowledge in the process. Illuminators work differently...
You would be hard pressed to write a one sentence summary of @tressiemcphd's central claim here because the presentation is so deep and nuanced. She's not arguing for you to adopt her view. She's illuminating in a way that makes the audience more thoughtful for themselves.
This is the ethos I champion as part of the writer's practice because I fundamentally believe that writing IS thinking. A lot of public writing does not demonstrate the thinking underneath. It actually obscures it in order to argue a limited point. I want the whole thing, though.
I also want students seeing writing as a tool for mining meaning out of their own lives and the world they move through. It's wonderful to be able to collect such an excellent example.
Honestly, it's a good example for me too as I'd like to be this good as an illuminator. I mean, I'm not going to get there, but it's still inspiring.
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