TGFI, Volume 542: the humanities backstory and overhyped Chinese academia

You’ve heard of TGIF? This is TGFI: Things Glen Found Interesting

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues likely to be of interest to Christians in college. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions, so if you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. The Multibillion-Dollar Foundation That Controls the Humanities (Tyler Austin Harper, The Atlantic): “Today, no single entity, including the federal government, has a more profound influence on the fiscal health and cultural output of the humanities than the Mellon Foundation. The National Endowment for the Humanities’ grant budget was $78 million in 2024 (its overall budget was less than half of what it was in 1980, when adjusted for inflation). Mellon awarded $540 million in grants that same year; its endowment sits at roughly $8 billion. Mellon’s largesse is badly needed, especially as the Trump administration has threatened further cuts to the NEH. But the foundation’s virtual monopoly on humanities funding means that it has the power to remake entire fields according to its desires. And in recent years, under the leadership of Elizabeth Alexander, who became the organization’s president in 2018, Mellon has embraced an understanding of the humanities that is much more utilitarian, and far more political, than the one put forward by the 1964 commission.” 
    • Unlocked and genuinely shocking to me. One of the key insights: “The humanities aren’t broke because they went woke. The humanities went woke in large part _because_ they were broke. As other donors, the government, and universities themselves all but abandoned these fields, Mellon became a lifeline.”
  2. The Popular Progressive Podcast Calling Evangelicals ‘Cancer’ (Bonnie Kristian, The Free Press): “…it’s impossible to imagine the vitriol she directs at [evangelicals] being targeted at any other religious group by a major media figure with so little consequence. Take one clip that has circulated among evangelicals recently. I assumed its caption on X, ‘White Evangelical Christianity is a cancer,’ was intended to scandalize with the most incendiary quote. I thought wrong. If anything, the caption undersold a slanderous, incurious, unserious screed that informed Welch’s viewers that evangelicals are ‘the worst people in our country.’ They are, Welch says, people who want others to suffer, who belong to a ‘cult.’ And for Welch, this kind of language is par for the course. ‘I detest, with every molecule… in my being, evangelical Christianity,’ she said in May.”
  3. Get Married Young (Brad Wilcox, Compact): “First, the culture is telling you to lean into work and travel. But working for the man and ‘traveling to Thailand’ is not going to bring you the fulfillment you think it will. Second, you will minimize your odds of being miserable and maximize your odds of living a meaningful and happy life by getting married and having kids. So, don’t wait to embark on life’s most important journey. Third, do not assume that you can wait until your thirties to find a spouse and start your family. If you wait, you may miss out.” 
    • Lots of good data in this one. The author is a sociologist at UVA.
  4. Don’t Trust the Rankings That Put China’s Universities on Top (Ariel Procaccia, New York Times): “The gap between the rankings and reality can be explained by Goodhart’s law, which says that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. It’s like trying to cure a fever by icing the thermometer: You’ve cooled the instrument, but the patient is still burning up. China has made success in global university rankings a national policy goal, in the process creating incentives that prioritize the appearance of excellence over the health of the research environment.”
  5. Two articles about prevalent secular sexual ethics: 
    • OpenAI Executive Who Opposed ‘Adult Mode’ Fired for Sexual Discrimination (Georgia Wells & Sam Schechner, Wall Street Journal): “OpenAI has cut ties with one of its top safety executives, on the grounds of sexual discrimination, after she voiced opposition to the controversial rollout of AI erotica in its ChatGPT product.… Before her firing, Beiermeister told colleagues that she opposed adult mode, and worried it would have harmful effects for users, people familiar with her remarks said. She also told colleagues that she believed OpenAI’s mechanisms to stop child-exploitation content weren’t effective enough, and that the company couldn’t sufficiently wall off adult content from teens, the people said.”
    • The Sexbot Revolution Is Already Here (Debra Soh, The Free Press): “Though sex dolls—meaning human‑like, anatomically accurate, anthropomorphic figurines—were once believed to be used only by socially inept weirdos, today nearly 10 percent of men in the U.S. have bought or owned one. And it’s not just the guys; 6 percent of women in the U.S. have done the same.… The average sex doll owner is a middle-aged heterosexual man who is single or divorced, high-school educated, and employed. Research has shown that doll owners have sex with a doll about 11 times a month and sex with a human partner about 2.6 times a month. In contrast, non–doll owners have sex with a human partner about 4.5 times a month.” 
      • I am not convinced the numbers in this article are reliable (ten percent of guys sounds like a lot), but even if the numbers are off this is kinda wild.
  6. It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem (Editorial Board, New York Times): “…supporters of legalization predicted that it would bring few downsides. In our editorials, we described marijuana addiction and dependence as ‘relatively minor problems.’ Many advocates went further and claimed that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits. They also said that legalization might not lead to greater use. It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong.… At least one in 10 people who use marijuana develops an addiction, a similar share as with alcohol. Even some who do not develop an addiction can still use it too much. People who are frequently stoned can struggle to hold a job or take care of their families.” 
    • Unlocked.
  7. A Stanford Experiment to Pair 5,000 Singles Has Taken Over Campus (Jasmine Li, Wall Street Journal): “More than 5,000 Stanford students have used Date Drop at a school with about 7,500 undergraduates. It has spread to 10 other colleges including Columbia, Princeton and MIT, and Date Drop just raised $2.1 million in venture-capital funding. The growth, fans say, reflects a reality about many college kids: They’re intimidated by real-life courtship and overwhelmed by the endless scroll of dating apps. Entrepreneurial students have found huge demand for alternate matchmaking tools.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

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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.

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