Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

by Chuck Klosterman

Some pundits find Advancement’s circular logic both dogmatic and reductive. “I find that Advancement scholars do not foster a spirit of inquiry,” says Rob Sheffield, a six-foot-five-inch writer for Rolling Stone and the owner of many lush sweaters. “It’s really just a way for Advancement theorists to appreciate shitty music by people they consider to be non-shitty. It allows you to engage with Lou Reed’s music from the 1980s, but not the Hooters or the Outfield. This entire theory is shackled by the Heisenberg principle of self-consciousness.” This is a valid point, possibly. Even Hartley is sometimes stymied by his own discipline. “I find Sting unlistenable,” admits Hartley. “But I know that Sting is Advanced. He must be super-Advanced, and I just don’t understand him. It’s kind of like when Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity—there were still parts of that theory that even Einstein could not understand. Those concepts were left for future generations.”