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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Jim Goad (1961-2026)
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- Robert Oscar Lopez: The Inconvenient Witness
- Two Ledgers: Decoding the Gurus and the Price of Talk
- The Pervert’s Progress: Costin Vlad Alamariu and the Making of Bronze Age Pervert
- Curtis Yarvin: A Life Against Democracy
- Mark Helprin: Against the Current
- Mark Brandt: The Man Who Asked Who Else Is Prejudiced
- John T. Jost: The Psychologist of Acquiescence
- Strange Bedfellows in the Academy: Alliance Theory and the Straussian Schism
- Tournier on Desmond Ford
- The Fence and the Blessing: How Jews Have Thought About Gentiles
- Tournier on Luke Ford
- Tournier on The Nostradamus Kid
- An Alliance Theory of Antisemitism
- Tournier on Cinema Paradiso and Desmond Ford
- The Self-Hating Jew
- The Alliance Theory in the Academy
- The Borrowed Robe: How Antisemitism Dresses in Each Age’s Virtue
- A Place For You
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: Status
Donald Trump Batters The Credential Society
If “Status Closure” is the lock that keeps the non-elite out, Donald Trump is the battering ram designed to smash the door down. The MAGA movement is a counter-revolution by those who have been “closed out” by the specific mechanisms … Continue reading
How Did Status Change In 2025?
The landscape of social class in the United States has shifted toward deeper polarization, where stability itself has become a luxury good. Here is the breakdown of the biggest changes in class relations, status markers, and occupational prestige for 2025. … Continue reading
How Status Closure Created The Lost Generation (12-25-25)
01:00 Status Closure and The Lost Generation, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=16563803:00 The Vanishing White Male Writer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OpzLRWPsXg28:40 People Do Best When They Know What They Are For, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKL-duqb8uo1:33:30 Boy Erased, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecmE7c7Eb-w1:35:00 Who are the ‘lost generation’?2:00:40 Mike Benz analyzes the New York Times … Continue reading
Status Closure and The Lost Generation
Donald Trump Batters The Credential Society On Christmas Eve—or Nittel Nacht, as we call it in the tribe—I was doing my level best to avoid studying Torah. To distract myself, I opened the Perlego app (the Netflix of textbooks!) and … Continue reading
Posted in America, Australia, Bondi Beach, Christopher Caldwell, Conservatives, Hollywood, Literature, Mike Benz, Status
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Elites Are Vulnerable
Elite rise and elite collapse look dramatic from the outside but usually follow the same pattern as everyone else’s fortunes. Larry Summers is almost too perfect a case study because he’s brilliant, driven and plugged in at the highest levels, … Continue reading
SMH: Rick Morton just won an $80,000 book prize. He’d give it all back for justice
The Sydney Morning Herald publishes: “Rick Morton has won a Prime Minister’s Literary Award for his non-fiction book [Mean Streak: A moral vacuum, a dodgy debt generator and a multi-billion-dollar government shake down]. He’d trade it all for justice for … Continue reading
What Are The New Status Games We’re Playing?
ChatGPT says: 1. Health and Optimization Biohacking, cold plunges, intermittent fasting, wearables like Whoop/Oura. “Longevity” as a flex — not just fitness, but blood panels, peptides, and lifespan extension. People compete over recovery scores and biomarkers the way they once … Continue reading
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What Do We Find Interesting?
David Pinsof writes: These are the things that generally determine what humans find interesting: We want to fit in. We often find stuff interesting because others find it interesting. Just as people can become famous for being famous, things can … Continue reading
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‘Status Is a Four-Letter Word: Self Versus Other Differences and Concealment of Status-Striving’
From a 2014 paper: The notion that striving for status is a fundamental human motivation is a largely taken-for-granted assumption across a number of literatures (e.g., anthropology, economics, evolutionary and social psychology, management, marketing, and sociology). In six studies, we … Continue reading
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The Status Game
David Pinsof writes: We all want status, but we can’t admit it. Why? Because it’s uncool. Wanting status makes us look selfish, insecure, and low-status. Ew. We’re not supposed to care about petty things like money or fame; we’re supposed … Continue reading
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