Belle Waring undermines every argument by every "philosopher" and social "scientist" at Crooked Timber, but no one notices, least of all her.

My mom worked at MCI negotiating real estate rights so that they could put up cell towers and ensure coverage. Sometimes property holders had them over a barrel because there was nowhere else for miles around; at other times they had their choice of spots. She had a great team who was intensely loyal to her. Did her manager understand what the fuck her job even was about? Sort of. But did his manager understand even vaguely how to do her job, or what doing it successfully would mean? NO. Not even a little. They would issue conflicting diktats within weeks. They demanded she cut overall money paid out in her unit 10% by giving the appropriate number of workers unwarranted bad performance reviews. She took most of the pay cut herself and divided the remainder evenly among her team; the business, not understanding the source of her underlings loyalty and effectiveness, would shift them out to failing teams and then not understand why they didn’t do great there. My mom was not a math person or a law person or anything; she had been a serious, I’m living in a commune run by Dennis Hopper hippie who had to learn on the series of jobs she hustled, from paralegal up through to this serious managerial position. It’s wrong to conceptualizer this in terms of noble engineers and quants who can do math vs evil Liberal Arts-trained bosses who can’t. It’s just the normal office workers of the world vs Dilbert’s pointy-headed boss. And if anything your infuriating manager is an MBA, not an English Lit. major.

repeat here and elsewhere: the only ethic of service commonly recognized in the US is the military. "I served" or "Did you serve" refer to military service.

I've said before the Waring is the smartest one of the bunch. If she focused she might be a good writer, but she's lazy and also in a lot of pain, physically and psychologically. I don't blame her for copping out, but it leaves her open to a kind of criticism that others can avoid.

As long as I'm playing art critic to the authors at CT. Quiggin is a good photographer.