Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1.The Bad Gift Analyzed

Who knew that there’s such rich literature examining why some holiday gifts land with a thud? Will Patrick reviews the research. One example:

Research shows that we make greater errors with gift giving when those gifts are being opened in public - perhaps at a party - than when we give them in private - such as wedding presents. This is because we end up optimizing for the maximum showboat potential of the gifts we give because it feels good to do so well in public. Once the event is over, though, we basically forget about it all. Onto the next thing.

2. Your Move

Sure, this article lacks the glamour and fashion of The Queen’s Gambit. But Jonathan Rowson’s reflection on his own career as a grandmaster offers a revealing and wistful explanation of chess addiction:

I miss the clarity of purpose experienced at each moment of each game, the lucky escapes from defeat, and the thrill of the chase towards victory. But, most of all, I miss the experience of concentration. I can still concentrate, of course, but not with the same reliability and intensity that a life of professional chess affords. In fact, from a distance, chess looks to me suspiciously like a socially permissible pretext to concentrate for several hours at a time.

3. Impatience Kills

The blog globalinequality offers an original take on what the West got wrong about COVID-19. Impatience, the author writes, is the source of so many policy and behavioral mistakes. No one is let off the hook, including the experts:

In October 2019, Johns Hopkins University and the Economist Intelligence Unit published the Global Epidemic Preparedness Report (Global Health Security Report). Never was a report on an important global topic better timed. And never was it more wrong.

Meanwhile, Nikkei Asia outlines a different approach, assessing how a handful of east Asian countries embraced big government to confront the pandemic – sometimes with brute force.

4. Wonderful, Irreplaceable Adjectives

Michael Maar takes on the shibboleth that good writing contains few adjectives, tracing the idea back to Hemingway, “the most effective propagator of this stylistic purism.” Maar offers a series of literary examples where the adjectives bring the story to life:

In The Radetzky March, the comic salt lies largely in the adjectives. The desk at which the freshly ennobled von Trotta tries in vain to write a letter to his father, before “propping his sterile pen against the inkwell,” is “abundantly notched and carved by the playful knives of bored men.” And so it goes for three hundred pages—an effervescent celebration of adjectives. Poor Hemingway! Lucky us.

5. Mr. Smith Leaves Washington

During a year when the quality of American political debate kept finding a new bottom, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander gives the speech of the year. In his farewell address to the Senate, Alexander offers up folksy anecdotes and personal history, but the heart of his speech is a plea to resist the end of the filibuster:

Presidents would like that. They have said so. They would get their way more easily if we allow the passions to roar through the Senate like they roar through the House of Representatives. So if the Democrats are in charge, we could abolish every right-to-work law, repeal all limits on abortion, and pass restrictions on guns. That is very appealing for the moment, but what about if the train roars in the other direction and Republicans say: Let's impose a right-to-work law on every State and pro-life laws and gun rights laws. Is such back and forth and back and forth what we really want as a country? The Framers didn't think so. They created this cooling saucer for those passions that Washington talked about, and the filibuster – “the right to talk your head off” – is the preeminent tool we use to force broad agreements on tough issues that most of us will vote for and that the country could live with.

CSPAN’s video of the speech is worth the twenty minutes.

6. High Lantern Group’s Bedside Table

At the end of the year, everyone at High Lantern Group selects a book or books we have read this year (or any year!) and offers them as recommendations to colleagues. Our tradition is to pull the whole list together and let each member of our team pick one of the books as a gift from the firm. We are happy to share our combined list this year -- our gift to you, faithful reader of The Notebook. Happy Holidays.

Websites Worth Reading

American Purpose: New website devoted to the defense of liberal democracy 

Longreads: Best long-reads of the year

Forbes Personal Shopper: The best home office chairs

Feeds We Follow

@TrackingCharlie: Red on Sundays, fifth grade on Mondays

@MaidenSpeeches: Links to the first speeches made by new MPs in the House of Commons

@amsmeteors: Feed of the American meteor society