Blog — Jamie Aroosi

Shark of the Year

When the show Shark Tank premiered, I made the mistake of watching the first few episodes. Everything gross about capitalism was on display: gaudy displays of wealth, poor people begging rich people for the chance of a life other than a destitute one, rich people condescending to those poor people under the guise of tough love, and all of this was packaged under the most familiar of capitalist motifs - the rags to riches story. Here was a show that offered proof positive that a good idea and hard work was all you needed to get ahead. As you might guess, I didn't last more than a few episodes.

The reason I gave it a try in the first place was because I had been watching the British version, Dragon’s Den, for years. And I didn't find that show off-putting in the same way.

Jamie AroosiDecember 15, 2021Shark Tank, Dragon's Den, Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, CapitalismComment

The Psychology and Rhetoric of Climate Change

It strikes me that there's something self-defeating about the way that some climate change experts have started talking about emissions goals. For a while, 1.5C was seen as a critical benchmark that would serve to minimize some of the most devastating effects of climate change, even though many catastrophic effects would still have been "baked in" to our future. But over the past little while, I've noticed that the discourse seems to have changed; rather than talking about the importance of hitting the hard benchmark of 1.5C, scientists have softened the narrative, arguing that the closer to 1.5C the better. For instance, I just listened to a radio interview in which a scientist reaffirmed the importance of 1.5C, but then spoke of how even if we don't hit 1.5C, 1.6C is better than 1.7C, and so on. So, from the "hard" benchmark of 1.5C, we are starting to "soften" our goals into more of a gradation.

This change in narrative will no doubt serve to embolden climate change denialists.

Jamie AroosiNovember 15, 2021Climate Change, Climate Change Denial, COP26, Hope, DespairComment

Illuminating Marshall Berman: Times Square and the Democratization of Light

Outside of the obvious, 9/11 is also the day when I lost my friend and mentor, Marshall Berman (1940-2013). Maybe another time I’ll share some more personal thoughts about Marshall, but for now, I thought I’d share a book chapter that I wrote about his work. It’s in Jennifer Corby’s excellent volume, Adventures in Modernism: Thinking with Marshall Berman, and in many ways, it’s the piece of writing of which I’m most fond. And I’m fond of it because I know that my writing style isn’t like Marshall’s style, but this piece is probably as close as I’ve ever come. His spirit was not only in the content but the style foo, and I think he’d really have loved that.

Baryshnikov and Jason Bourne

There's this great scene in the first John Wick movie that I often rewatch, and that always gets me thinking about how we think about "action" movies. They're generally considered a pretty low-brow form of entertainment, and they are, so I wouldn't dispute that point. But that said, every once in a while an action movie comes along that makes me think we need to rethink the genre.

Jamie AroosiAugust 31, 2021Action Movies, Dance, Keanu ReevesComment

The Mortality Index

The Covid pandemic has me thinking about how we could rank social, political, and economic institutions on a mortality index.

Jamie AroosiAugust 6, 2021COVID-19, MortalityComment

The Harvard of the Proletariat

Yesterday, I read a short article in The Paris Review written by a former CUNY student (not one of mine) about her experience studying Joyce's Ulysses at CCNY. The article recounted the transformative nature of her experience against the backdrop of the chronic (and criminal) underfunding of CUNY, and was ultimately a paean to public education. But there was a tone to the article that I found a little off-putting and that I think unintentionally captures an unwelcome truth about the American class system: our criticisms often serve to reinforce it.

Jamie AroosiJune 17, 2021CUNY, CCNY, Harvard, Education, James Joyce, UlyssesComment

Numerology and the Revolutionary Subject

If numerology were acceptable evidence in academic circles, today would be the day that proves my work right, because it was on May 5 that both Søren Kierkegaard (1813) and Karl Marx (1818) were born. Two of my most important intellectual forebears, I’ve long thought that they were really two sides of the same coin, and that together they provide a comprehensive account of freedom and selfhood. But if numerology isn’t convincing, I thought I’d share a short excerpt from my book, exploring the idea of revolutionary subjectivity.

John le Carré: We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

I've been reading another John Le Carré novel and it's helped confirm a thought I had earlier: he's a master of writing about bureaucracy. Yes, he write about spies, but as in the United States, Britain's spy agency is a massive government bureaucracy. And for all the intrigue, his stories often revolve around the politics within such bureaucratic organizations. They're stories that revolve around the petty squabbles, budgetary fights, the incompetence of upper management, and the careerism that so often trumps competence, and that sees pedigree repeatedly triumph over talent and hard work. And I think this is a big part of the appeal: the intrigue draws you in, but at the end of the day, he’s writing about our workplaces.

Jamie AroosiMarch 25, 2021John le Carré, Soviet Union, Britain, Karla, George Smiley, BureaucracyComment

Andrew Cuomo: License to Kill

The story about Governor Andrew Cuomo has been getting a little more press lately, but for those of us who followed it, this was all evident back at the beginning of the pandemic. In short, Cuomo ordered thousands of COVID-19 positive patients back into nursing homes, where as you would expect, the virus spread rampantly and killed many thousands of people. Beyond this, he also allowed the nursing home industry to cut many corners, virtually ensuring viral spread. Subsequently, to protect the nursing home industry from the legal liability that would ensue when thousands of people realized that their loved ones died because of their negligence, he passed a “liability shield” protecting nursing homes from liability (and which was written by the nursing home industry itself). In other words, if your family member died of COVID-19 in a nursing home, despite any negligence that might have occurred, you aren’t allowed to sue. To date, 26 other states have similarly turned Cuomo’s liability shield into law.

Jamie AroosiFebruary 18, 2021COVID-19, Andrew Cuomo, Litigation, Law, Regulation, Nursing HomesComment

American Fascism and the Bernie Meme

On inauguration day, I wrote the following Facebook post:

“It's interesting, but aside from my leftist friends, my foreign friends seem equally put off by today. The experience of living in another country, one in which politics isn't all just superficial pageantry atop grotesque policies, really opens your eyes to how insane this country is. When celebratory liberals discuss inauguration day in terms of the fashion choices of our political officials and the celebrities brought out to regale them, how could any of us be surprised that a former reality TV star became president? Call him a fascist if you will, but he's as American as apple pie and cruise missiles. I wonder how much this country would change if every American was forced to live elsewhere (not just tourist elsewhere) if only for a short while. Heck, I'd be happy if we could get them to only imagine living elsewhere.”

Jamie AroosiJanuary 25, 2021Donald J. Trump, COVID-19, The West Wing, The Apprentice, Bernie Sanders, American Politics, HollywoodComment