The Three Languages of Politics by Arnold Kling

Now that I think about it, it is not at all surprising that I picked up and read this book.

• I have been intrigued by language (so much so that getting machines to understand language is my day job!) for as long as I can remember.
• Observations that change how I see the world intrigue me.
• How people perceive, understand, decipher and involve themselves in politics has fascinated me over the years. (Go read any of my posts from yesteryears.)
• For the last few years, the breakdown of communication between myself and my family and friends who hold contradictory political ideologies has bothered me.

‘The Three Languages of Politics’ is a short book that I got through in under 2 hours. However, it is an insightful book. Within the first few pages, Arnold King introduces a rather simple framework for interpreting any political argument around you, and boiling it down to a probable set of bases that the person making it is coming from.

In the couple days between when I read the first half and the second half, I started breaking down opinions I saw floating on Twitter, in email newsletters, on blogs and in articles, into not just the ideologies of the person, but in a way that helped me make better sense of what was being conveyed.

Buy it, read it. There isn’t much to lose, but a lot to gain. I’ll leave you with a precious quote:

The only person you are qualified to pronounce unreasonable is yourself. You are qualified to tell other people that they are wrong. You are just not qualified to tell other people that they are unreasonable.

P.S.: I listen to Amit Varma’s The Seen and the Unseen voraciously and this has been recommended across multiple episodes.

‘Hey Jude’ at 50: Celebrating the Beatles’ Most Open-Hearted Masterpiece

If you ask me my favorite Beatles song, I’m going to choke. But I do know ‘Hey Jude’ is in my top 3. It has to be.

I just read this story in the Rolling Stone by Rob Sheffield from a couple years ago, describing the background in which ‘Hey Jude’ came to be, and how it became a signature Beatles song. It truly is one of their greatest.

“Hey Jude” remains a source of sustenance in difficult times — a moment when four longtime comrades, clear-eyed adults by now, take a look around at everything that’s broken around them. Yet they still join together to take a sad song and make it better.

Indeed. Now more than ever, let’s take a sad song and make it better.

The Joys of Being an Absolute Beginner – For Life

Over the last few months, I have been thinking a lot about learning, especially in this last year when there was so much time to just think.

I really liked this piece in The Guardian by Tom Vanderbilt. As I read through it, it hits the right notes for me about (adult) psychology, human behavior, the desire to learn and overcoming inhibitions.

Like the author, I have wanted to learn how to play chess well for a really long time, but haven’t gotten around to it. Similarly, I struggle to follow through on learning Mandarin, despite having made a few attempts over the years. Most recently, I have realized I want to learn how to ski.

This excerpt will stay with me for a long time:

Learning new skills also changes the way you think, or the way you see the world. Learning to sing changes the way you listen to music, while learning to draw is a striking tutorial on the human visual system. Learning to weld is a crash course in physics and metallurgy. You learn to surf and suddenly you find yourself interested in tide tables and storm systems and the hydrodynamics of waves. Your world got bigger because you did.

I’ll be a student for life, yes.