Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 513: elite colleges, pathologizing personality, and the fastest woman in the world

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom. I wel­come your sug­ges­tions. If you read some­thing fas­ci­nat­ing please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Elite Col­leges Have Found a New Virtue for Appli­cants to Fake (Alex Bronzi­ni-Vender, New York Times): “[There is] a new ques­tion: ‘Tell us about a moment when you engaged in a dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tion or encoun­tered some­one with an opin­ion or per­spec­tive that was dif­fer­ent from your own. How did you find com­mon ground?’ It’s known as the dis­agree­ment ques­tion, and since the stu­dent encamp­ments of spring 2024 and the Amer­i­can right’s attacks on uni­ver­si­ties, a grow­ing num­ber of elite col­leges have added it to their appli­ca­tions. Car­o­line Kop­pel­man, a pri­vate admis­sions con­sul­tant, has called it the ‘hot new it girl’ of col­lege essays. There’s no evi­dence that civil­i­ty mania will improve cam­pus dis­course, but it seems poised to widen the inequal­i­ties that already plague hyper­s­e­lec­tive col­lege admis­sions. The trou­ble is that the dis­agree­ment ques­tion — like much of the appli­ca­tion process — isn’t built for hon­esty.”
  2. Nobody Has a Per­son­al­i­ty Any­more (Freya India, The Free Press): “Today, every per­son­al­i­ty trait is seen as a prob­lem to be solved. Any­thing too human—every habit, every eccen­tric­i­ty, every feel­ing that’s too strong—has to be labeled and explained. Ther­a­py-speak has tak­en over our lan­guage. It is ruin­ing how we talk about romance and rela­tion­ships, nar­row­ing how we think about hurt and suf­fer­ing, and now, we are los­ing the words for who we are. Nobody has a per­son­al­i­ty any­more.… This is part of a deep­er instinct in mod­ern life to explain everything—psychologically, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly, evo­lu­tion­ar­i­ly. Every­thing about us is caused, cat­e­go­rized, and can be cor­rect­ed. We talk in the­o­ries, frame­works, sys­tems, struc­tures, dri­ves, moti­va­tions, and mech­a­nisms. But in exchange for expla­na­tion, we lost mys­tery, romance, and late­ly, our­selves.”
    • Rec­om­mend­ed by a stu­dent.
  3. Huck­abee threat­ens to declare Israel does not wel­come Chris­tians, as visa row blows open (Lazar Berman, Times of Israel): “Giv­en Huckabee’s long­stand­ing sup­port for Israel and close ties with the cur­rent gov­ern­ment in par­tic­u­lar, the rhetoric in his let­ter rep­re­sent­ed a shock­ing­ly quick dete­ri­o­ra­tion. But the issue at hand — the abil­i­ty of Chris­t­ian groups to tour Israel — is close to Huckabee’s heart, giv­en that he has led count­less such trips as an evan­gel­i­cal pas­tor over the past half a cen­tu­ry.”
    • Rec­om­mend­ed to me by a stu­dent. Quite inter­est­ing.
  4. My health and my pol­i­tics walk into a doctor’s office… (Kim Fell­ner, New York Times): “The vision of a diverse, equi­table and inclu­sive democ­ra­cy that seems the best of Amer­i­ca to me and my com­mu­ni­ty is locked in an exis­ten­tial bat­tle with a MAGA counter-vision that ele­vates White­ness and Chris­t­ian nation­al­ism, and that seems to be col­o­niz­ing insti­tu­tions and cul­ture at warp speed. I did not antic­i­pate, how­ev­er, that the per­son­al and the polit­i­cal would col­lide in my doctor’s office.… Over a series of writ­ten and in-per­son con­ver­sa­tions, we have been shar­ing some of the tenets of our respec­tive faiths and the impli­ca­tions for how we nav­i­gate the world. She and I have sharply diver­gent views about when life begins and what hap­pens after we die. She believes that the only true sal­va­tion lies in accept­ing Jesus as one’s sav­ior.”
  5. A Stark Reminder That Sex Dif­fer­ences Mat­ter in Elite Sport (James Smoli­ga, Per­sua­sion): “The goal was for Kipye­gon to become the first woman ever to run a sub‑4 minute mile. Nike set her up with the very best con­di­tions that any ath­lete could ever expect. Kipye­gon ran a mile in 4:06—a remark­able per­for­mance by any mea­sure, and a per­son­al best, but well short of the sub‑4 minute goal. While Kipye­gon wasn’t direct­ly rac­ing her pac­ers, they were there to pull her to a time that hun­dreds of male ath­letes have already achieved. Rather than charg­ing down the final straight­away alone, leav­ing the best women in her wake, as she so often does, we saw Kipye­gon strain­ing to hang on behind a group of male run­ners who weren’t even near their lim­it, as they turned around to cheer her on. This race mat­ters because it offered some­thing exceed­ing­ly rare: an hon­est, direct com­par­i­son of male and female per­for­mance at the high­est lev­el.”
  6. Israeli Researcher Says Stan­ford Shunned and Sab­o­taged Him After Hamas Attack (Maya Sulkin, The Free Press): “[For­mer IDF offi­cer] Laps alleges that the research assis­tant in the Dan­ny Chou Lab told Laps dur­ing their first inter­ac­tion on his first day nev­er to speak to her. She alleged­ly delayed his orders for lab equip­ment, made him sit else­where at lunch, and reas­signed her cus­to­di­al duties to him. Col­leagues fol­lowed her lead, ostra­ciz­ing him from the lab com­mu­ni­ty, the suit claims. The most explo­sive alle­ga­tion is that the same research assis­tant, Ter­ra Lin, tam­pered with Laps’s research.”
  7. What YouTube Can’t Teach Stu­dents About Jesus (Dylan Muss­er, Chris­tian­i­ty Today): “‘Who (or what) has shaped your faith the most?’ As a cam­pus min­is­ter, I have asked this ques­tion to many col­lege stu­dents over the years. Late­ly, I have noticed a shift in their answers.  This past fall, I sat across from Luke—a fresh­man at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty. We were chat­ting over tacos when I posed the ques­tion. I watched the gears spin in his head. Would it be a church from back home? A great book? An old­er men­tor who dis­ci­pled him? Maybe his par­ents? He leaned back. ‘Youtube.’ I stared blankly, try­ing my best not to show my sur­prise.”
    • The author leads the Nav­i­ga­tors at Van­der­bilt.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

  • The Joy of Cook­ing Your Sprite (Jenée Desmond-Har­ris, Slate): “After a day walk­ing around the dusty grounds, rid­ing a giant swing, and dress­ing up for old-timey pho­tos, we made it back to the car exhaust­ed and thirsty. And in the back seat (I don’t know if it had been pur­chased as part of post-out­ing lunch or was just rolling around back there) was a six-pack of Sprite that had been, well, cook­ing all day. We each cracked one open, and that’s when I real­ized some­thing impor­tant was hap­pen­ing. It was so good! The soda was hot but some­how still refresh­ing. The sweet­ness was soft­ened and the bub­bles felt big­ger and more luxurious—not like the sharp, sneeze-trig­ger­ing ones you get when it’s cold. We locked eyes and smiled mis­chie­vous­ly. It felt rebel­lious (look, we were very shel­tered kids) and wild­ly inno­v­a­tive. ‘Cooked Sprite’ was born.” 
  • What Is ‘Aura Farm­ing’? This Tween Will Show You. (Ben­jamin Hoff­man, New York Times): “On Tues­day, the gov­ern­ment in Riau, cit­ing the impact of the video and the fact that he had been ‘inspir­ing local kids to embrace and pre­serve their tra­di­tions,’ named Dika as a tourism ambas­sador for the province, and its gov­er­nor, Abdul Wahid, award­ed him a schol­ar­ship for 20 mil­lion rupi­ah (around $1,200) for his edu­ca­tion. Dika also per­formed a ren­di­tion of his dance along with Gov­er­nor Wahid and oth­er offi­cials.”

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar pro­duced shrewd war­riors “who under­stood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a sim­i­lar way, we need to become wise peo­ple whose faith inter­acts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion. To para­phrase anoth­er min­is­ter: we are not about the donkey’s agen­da and we are not about the elephant’s agen­da — we are about the Lamb’s agen­da. Hav­ing said that, I read wide­ly (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ide­o­log­i­cal Tur­ing test and in part because I do not believe I can fair­ly say “I agree” or “I dis­agree” until I can say “I under­stand”) and may at times share arti­cles that have a strong par­ti­san bias sim­ply because I find the arti­cle stim­u­lat­ing. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with every­thing an author says in an arti­cle I men­tion, much less things the author has said in oth­er arti­cles (although if I strong­ly dis­agree with some­thing in the arti­cle I’ll usu­al­ly men­tion it). And to the extent you can dis­cern my opin­ions, please under­stand that they are my own and not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of Chi Alpha or any oth­er orga­ni­za­tion I may be per­ceived to rep­re­sent. Also, remem­ber that I’m not report­ing news — I’m giv­ing you a selec­tion of things I found inter­est­ing. There’s a lot hap­pen­ing in the world that’s not mak­ing an appear­ance here because I haven’t found stim­u­lat­ing arti­cles writ­ten about it. If this was for­ward­ed to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Leave a Reply