The world was worse even when we had a more vibrant literary and intellectual culture. The 20th century had a richer literary culture than now. There is no such thing as a 21st century Goethe. Social forces mean such a person can’t exist now. They may later on. Better experts don’t solve modernity
"One envies other lives for the subterranean reason that makes all life so difficult: death."
@jgoldsmith.bsky.social on 'Envying Artists'. Issue 20, out now.
Pick up or gift a digital subscription at a much lower price.
https://www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-20-spring-2026/envying-artists/
Also, @joannapocock.bsky.social , it turns out I know someone from Dark Mountain who goes to a book club local to me in Saxmundham. We discussed Greyhound a bit (think I was at the part where you were in the horrible bus station in Ohio)
Greyhound by Joanna Pocock, among other books 📚
Really enjoyed Greyhound by @joannapocock.bsky.social. I'd been wanting to read it for some time and wasn't disappointed. America fascinates and disgusts me, and some descriptions (Amarillo stinks of shit, radioactive waste in Utah, etc) didn't help my appetite. Going to read Blue Highways next!
The PA isn't clear in their statement. They want 'high quality content', so then what does becoming an 'AI content superpower' even mean? Oxymoron.
Half his base never push back because they’re a cult, but others (even if they/we are far smarter than the orange buffoon), journalistic institutions, countries, etc, don’t know what to do. They’re partly incredulous and in denial about the state of the world that gave us Trump
That’s me
We don’t want more stigma and prejudice around neurodivergence, but we aren’t talking about Trump’s NPD and ND enough, in the mainstream. It’s either denied outright or entirely unknown to people, who then try to explain him in other (false) ways.
Think Vlad is influenced more by Richard Wollheim and Freud rather than Lacan, but I get what you’re saying (even if I don’t agree absolutely)
People overimply his cognitive decline. It’s true, it’s there, but people act as if dementia will kill him next month. It’s important to see how neurodivergence may explain him while painting a nuanced and non-prejudicial picture of neurodivergence
Vlad explains this much better in videos. Bluesky & tweets aren’t the mediums for nuance. I see many neurodivergent people absolutely refuse to believe Trump/Musk/etc are neurodiverse because people’s identities are so tied-up in themselves being neurodiverse. Bad people also have these conditions
It doesn’t automatically mean that. That’s a risk in our myopic modern discourse but we are denying how these conditions can influence those of lesser moral character. I see the risk, I don’t want to be associated with these people, but there’s a strong case that they are all (variably) neurodiverse
Unfortunately for us, Trump’s impulsivity is explained by his neurodiversity. This is troubling to accept but this doesn’t make it less true. We can’t have some ‘noble savage’ view of neurodivergence
but we paint a false picture of these conditions if we only think they can do ‘good’ (as much as we want better support). Autism, adhd, and many other conditions don’t automatically make us saints. I might be a nice person with autistic obsessions, yet imagine if I was bad yet just as fixated?
I am also neurodivergent. Denying Trump or Musk’s or Liz Truss’s neurodivergence doesn’t help anyone. We want to deny that these terrible people have their bad behaviour amplified by neurodivergent traits because good people with autism/adhd/etc are undervalued or need support,
Time to stop the Trump sane-washing. Iran is a strategically meaningless war. This is Trump- driven by a narcissistic personality disorder, amplified by neuro-diverse traits that heighten impulsivity & fixation on a single idea- chasing a “war president” adrenaline rush without a coherent objective.
Big news! Not only is Issue 20 out today, but from here on in you can create your own account on the website, where all issues will soon be available in their entirety. Some already are. Plus digital-only subscriptions at a much, much lower price!
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Born #onthisday in 1533, the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne. Aged 38 he quit public life to devote himself to leisure, reading + reflection. He began writing experimental meditations he called “essais” and thus a new literary genre was born: publicdomainreview.org/collection/f... #OTD
Vlad has said a little about him before in videos. TL;DR, he is not as cogent a communicator as, say, Mamdani. He makes a few good points but still needs to mature. While Rory Stewart was a little bit unfair to him in their TRiP interview, he was still unable to answer things as clearly as he should
It’s 2026. There is still no serious response to authoritarian populism - one that both grasps its appeal & knows how to defeat it. The solution technocratic centrism offers is, astonishingly, an even more precautionary version of technocratic centrism, which only accelerates authoritarian populism.
Cover art by Leigh Gore, design by Tyler C.Gore: collage including corn field, thatched barn in a tree with a staircase in the trunk , butterflies, flowers, folk from black and white photos, musical instruments, cats of course
A first sign of Spring from @exactingclam.bsky.social
Painting of Keats House in London by Wend Rend. Exacting Clam magazine. Essay titled Envying Artists by Jake Goldsmith
My essay 'Envying Artists' is available now in Exacting Clam @exactingclam.bsky.social.
Print edition out this Spring 🌱
www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-20...
You can have good political fiction, set historically or wherever, but politics in its most essential forms and the most universal questions of politics that transcend time are from the likes of Thucydides, Hobbes, Montesquieu, etc. Fiction (especially contemporary) has a different role
I heard “there was less sex than I imagined there would be and more goop and food.”
@davidcollard.bsky.social ☺️
My essay on art, artists, and friendship is out now via @exactingclam.bsky.social
www.exactingclam.com/issues/no-20...
I sometimes think we actually need greater toxic beauty standards for our top elected officials. ALL Maga-politicans are deeply ugly, with gross cosmetic surgery and melted plastic faces. Streeting might not look like a frightening homunculus but he looks like a prefect dork...
This is the old website and is now defunct. The new website is barbellionprize.org .
The submissions window for the 2026 prize will be open on 2 April 2026. More news coming soon ☺️
Even if Epstein and Trump and other awful people didn’t exist or died at birth we would still have circumstances that influence us in unpleasant, anti-democratic, authoritarian directions
