Vox double header
I heard Matt Yglesias speak and he was actually pretty good. So when Google started recommending Vox articles in my feed I decided to give them a shot.
(1) Why the Alt-Right Likes Rome: No idea what's going on here. They never quote the alt-right or give an example of people on the alt-right. I guess "Western Civilization" could be code for "white supremacy" but the idea that Greek/Roman history is relevant to us in a way that Phoenician or Gaulic history seems defendable.
Overall, the whole thing seems like an example of one good troll deserves another. If you look at Zuckerberg and her camps statements elsewhere they reject "objectivity" that "“discretionary power can and should be flexed to progressive consequence and outcome” and for "reparative epistemic justice." None of this came out on Vox which portrayed Zuckerberg.
I think some articles Zuckerberg's publication writes have the potential to be interesting takes (https://eidolon.pub/plato-privilege-and-the-pool-b631e2e96c7e) but their writing style is unbearable.
(2) Oberlin cultural appropriation: Basically a more verbose retelling of a Chronicle of Higher Education Article. The Oberlin paper wrote an article about how bad food (for instance Banh Mi with ciabatta buns) in the dining hall was "culturally appropriative" and the national press used that to demonstrate the limits of cultural identity politics.
Vox minimizes this by claiming 'it hardly seems unreasonable for a Vietnamese student to complain about labelling something “bánh mì” when it isn’t bánh mì' and that not all students agreed. But I think Vox misses that the paper itself was heavily pushing the cultural appropriation story repeatedly. The fact that they could have taken the 'its bad food' route and didn't is what makes it interesting
If Vox really cared maybe they could have found examples of other silly campus newspaper articles in the other direction. Or interviewed Oberlin students themselves.