Welcome to “Stuff Happens” by HistoryBoomer (@HistoryBoomer on Twitter).
There’s no reason for yet one more dang Substack except that there is stuff I’d like to say that won’t fit on a tweet, or twenty tweets. What stuff? I was a fan of Vox's “explainer journalism” approach when it first appeared in 2014. A calm not-too-biased (but still left-of-center) voice explaining the world in clear smart almost condescending prose. It was every teacher’s dream! Then somewhere around 2015-2016, I felt a vibe shift and not-too-biased became a heavy editorial thumb slanting articles in a direction that some folks were calling “woke.”
We live in interesting times and I’d like to explain stuff, Vox style, but with less bias.
I’ve got my own biases, scads of them, but I like mine, and I’m deluded enough to think that I play more fair in arguments than Vox (or Breitbart, Salon, or—god save us—Huffington Post). I’m a knee-jerk bothsideser and while I have strong opinions one of them is that you disagreeing with me on Trump or abortion or social justice doesn’t make either of us evil people. If I screw up on the bias front, folks will tell me. Or maybe I’ll attract readers who share my biases and we’ll build our own cozy little silo of warm and fuzzy groupthink! In the meantime, I’ll try and explain stuff.
What stuff? Like everyone else who does this, stuff that interests me. I accumulated some followers on Twitter by talking culture war nonsense and I plan to continue but I really really really don’t want to be talking about that all the time. I’ll hit current events hard. Are we in a recession? Why is Taiwan a hot potato? History is my field, so I want to challenge those who say America is going fascist. Does it really resemble 1920s Germany? I want to review Jacob Mchangama’s new book Free Speech because if there’s one drum I’ll bang on constantly it’ll be free speech. I’m an OG John Stuart Mill fanboy and defending a culture of free expression and open debate is the way to my heart.
Why read me? Because I hope I can make the world a little less bewildering. I’ve written some explainers for publication under my real name but even more importantly I have decades of experience trying to make complicated stuff a bit simpler for students without (hopefully) putting them to sleep. That’s my goal, to explain stuff. And not just to you. I plan to hit topics where my ignorance is vast. What the heck is this inflation thing and why is everyone worried about it? Time to write a new essay! In other words, while I’m explaining, behind the scenes I’ll be busy learning. I may pull out that omnipotent authorial voice (“…and this is why an American decision to greenlight MQ-1C drones would be critical for Ukraine’s near-term…”) but I’ll confess to you now: odds are I just learned it from a Wall Street Journal article.
Now if you’re an economist, an explainer on inflation from me would be pretty pointless, but if you were as ignorant as I was ten minutes ago, perhaps it can be educational. At a minimum, I’ll try to be amusing. And yes, I’ll write about culture war craziness too.
Who am I? A center-left New Yorker, history professor, news junkie, culture war obsessive. I’m anonymous for now because I don’t need the grief of some grumpy extremist trying to mess with my real-world life.
A $money$ note. I’m offering a subscription plan (getting paid for my work is nice!) but in the beginning, I’m keeping all posts public. If after a bit I’m still producing stuff that you find entertaining and/or useful, you can pony up for a paid subscription (and thank you!). Later, once I feel I’m giving decent value to my readers, I’ll probably do the usual thing of putting some posts behind a paywall.
Cheers!
If you want, tell your friends.