Forgive the missed weekly email, dear reader: I spent the Fourth of July in a bubble. Not one of those covid protection groups or in an isolated, personalized algorithm, but in a zone of intense focus on a home improvement project. It's the last bit of our 2023-4 home renovation: an exterior chimney, framed and functional, but as-yet unclad. You've probably seen what it looked like: that plywood covered in a green coating and sealed with thick black tape. Our chimney had sported that green for just over two years and we'd finally come up with an affordable solution to finishing it: me on a ladder with a hammer. The project is going fine, but it's been all-consuming. Even with days off for Sunday and rain, I've been focused exclusively on the chimney for a week. In a chimney bubble.It's interesting, though, that while in my chimney bubble, the most helpful ideas for the chimney came from people outside of it. My friend from down the street showed me how to make a better guide board (a thing you use to get the courses of material to be evenly spaced); my spouse helped me not waste any more than half a day on broken tools (you just gotta buy the right one); another friend at dinner on Sunday asked about my fasteners and confirmed that my third attempt was the right one (where was he on Friday?); my spouse nudged me towards the Urgent Care when my job-site safety went awry. They had a perspective I didn't and were really helpful to my chimney bubble's goal. Don't get me wrong: I'm still very much in the bubble. Someone's gotta think about the joint where we go from a seventy degree wall back to the normal ninety, and when better to think about it than one of these interminable soccer games! But bubble outsiders see things I don't—can't—see, because they're outsiders. Their perspective is different.
It's an interesting idea, that someone with a different perspective has they key to solve your puzzle. At best we shy away from it; we tend to live oppositely, with our rich people-only neighborhoods, blue states, and gatherings specifically for the like-minded. In doing so, we're depriving ourselves of more than tough conversations or contested local elections, costly as those are to lose, we're depriving ourselves of understanding.
Understanding things takes a variety of perspectives. This week, we have a essays about the opposite of that: progressives not quite understanding the positive qualities of a "tough guy," the elite not understanding how things "really" work, and real estate developers not quite understanding how to make real places. Enjoy the reading, which I collected with the intention of talking about America for the Fourth of July. Here's to another 250 years, etc.
When is it ok to be the old kind of tough guy?
How the most educated among us understand so little.
Inside the conservative plan to chart a new political future, one town at a time.