So much of this comes from white Americans who identify with classical European art on a surface level because they can't acknowledge how much of the greatest 20th-century American culture was made by Black or Jewish artists.
Whenever I've dipped into hustle culture, the degree of posturing around books is laughable. Everyone likes the same few novels, but they seem much more excited by self-help and pop science,. These guys don't enjoy reading for the pleasures of style or even storyelling; they claim they're just out to absorb information which will make them more productive. (Dholani's hostility towards weirdness and confusion and preference for caffeine over weed seem part of the same mindset.)
There was a dumb viral tweet a few days ago when I published this that I could have included: it was supposed to be this representation of the culture of "white people" (with a girl singing), but also, also, very kitschy.
I remember watching a video of some of these self-improvement guys talking about how much they loved reading, they'd go to the (chain) bookstore as often as they could, and read "everything" ... and it turned out that meant they were reading self-help & business books, only. This is not the way to expand the mind, although followers of this path seem to think that they're expanding their minds very effectively. You can't talk them out of it. They have to see for themselves, if they ever get around to it.
So much of this comes from white Americans who identify with classical European art on a surface level because they can't acknowledge how much of the greatest 20th-century American culture was made by Black or Jewish artists.
Whenever I've dipped into hustle culture, the degree of posturing around books is laughable. Everyone likes the same few novels, but they seem much more excited by self-help and pop science,. These guys don't enjoy reading for the pleasures of style or even storyelling; they claim they're just out to absorb information which will make them more productive. (Dholani's hostility towards weirdness and confusion and preference for caffeine over weed seem part of the same mindset.)
There was a dumb viral tweet a few days ago when I published this that I could have included: it was supposed to be this representation of the culture of "white people" (with a girl singing), but also, also, very kitschy.
I remember watching a video of some of these self-improvement guys talking about how much they loved reading, they'd go to the (chain) bookstore as often as they could, and read "everything" ... and it turned out that meant they were reading self-help & business books, only. This is not the way to expand the mind, although followers of this path seem to think that they're expanding their minds very effectively. You can't talk them out of it. They have to see for themselves, if they ever get around to it.