All That Money
May 22, 2019 2:47 PM   Subscribe

“What I’m saying is that at least now, when people use my last name, they will sure as hell use my first name as well. And that’s a win.” Joss and Jillian Sackler are profiled in Town & Country magazine about their very different approaches to having "the most toxic name in philanthropy."

The Sackler family's relationship with the opioid epidemic, including Dame Jillian's beloved Arthur, previously.
posted by Gin and Broadband (64 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh, they're bombastic assholes that think they're a better brand of human than everyone else? I am SHOCKED. Shocked I say.
posted by allkindsoftime at 2:54 PM on May 22, 2019 [26 favorites]


oh, man. The first time I saw Town and Country I assumed it was some kind of agitprop. I don't think its possible to find better material to make everyone hate the rich.
posted by Dr. Twist at 3:08 PM on May 22, 2019 [20 favorites]


The next day Joss posted a letter on Facebook. “Dear Matthew Schneier:” it began. “If a male entrepreneur’s business was prospering and popular, would the New York Times dare publish an article so focused on the family business of his wife?”
If said wife's business was causing death and misery across the country, you damn well bet they would. Kindly fuck off with the fake cries of sexism - you damn well know why your family name is shit.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:21 PM on May 22, 2019 [34 favorites]


What an obnoxiously written profile. I'm certainly not going to defend her, but I'd prefer flat-out "We think she's a jackass and here's why" to this weird I'm-not-touching-you I'm-not-touching-you bunch of very slightly Off details that I'm supposed to assemble into a sense of distaste myself.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:23 PM on May 22, 2019 [17 favorites]


Seize it all.
posted by schadenfrau at 3:46 PM on May 22, 2019 [16 favorites]


“They’re going to regret fucking with a linguist,” she says.

Seriously? What is she going to do, lock them up and make them turn their sentences into little tree diagrams?
posted by betweenthebars at 3:57 PM on May 22, 2019 [81 favorites]


Also holy shit if I was still in grad school I would have had "They're going to regret fucking with a linguist" taped to the student lounge door before I even finished the article.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:58 PM on May 22, 2019 [73 favorites]


high five
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:59 PM on May 22, 2019


I'm certainly not going to defend her, but I'd prefer flat-out "We think she's a jackass and here's why" to this weird I'm-not-touching-you I'm-not-touching-you bunch of very slightly Off details that I'm supposed to assemble into a sense of distaste myself.

That's subtext! It's one of my favorite flavors!

Man, if I had a PhD in linguistics and piles of money, I would be doing ... not that. I won't tell you I wouldn't go to nice restaurants and live on the beach, but I'd be spending a lot of time working on cetacean communication while I was there. Build a lab. Speak dolphin. Become a mad scientist. What's this dressing up in the I'm Not Famous outfit of an expensive T-shirt and baseball cap and slouching around NYC? And what are those fucking shoes? They look like the airbags went off on her feet.

(Incidentally, how did she get into studying the use of language in cartels? She doesn't seem ... suited for the field work.)
posted by Countess Elena at 3:59 PM on May 22, 2019 [16 favorites]


(Re: "fucking with a linguist," I think she's probably doing the George Lakoff "Linguists are brilliant at PR and politics because they understand about metaphor and framing" thing, but I don't even really buy it when Lakoff says it.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:02 PM on May 22, 2019 [9 favorites]


Well, she sounds frivolous. It's kind of too bad because maybe she wouldn't have been, in another lifetime. The rich: they're just like us, but if we were all cossetted seven-year-olds and never ever grew up.
posted by rue72 at 4:09 PM on May 22, 2019 [5 favorites]


let's all think of funny ways to dunk on this lady with rich shitty relatives!
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:12 PM on May 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


this weird I'm-not-touching-you I'm-not-touching-you bunch of very slightly Off details that I'm supposed to assemble into a sense of distaste myself

See, in my book, that's a hallmark of good (or at the very least, effective) writing. This is the "show, don't tell" principle, which posits that readers feel things more deeply when they're nudged into assembling an impression, as opposed to when they're being told to have it.

My problem with the writing here is slightly different. I don't like the details that this writer picks. I think they're patronizing and misogynist. (It is entirely possible to be a condescending piece of shit towards somebody who is a condescending piece of shit.)
posted by what does it eat, light? at 4:19 PM on May 22, 2019 [30 favorites]


let's all think of funny ways to dunk on this lady with rich shitty relatives!

So hey on a scale from 90% marginal tax rates to knitting names into scarves how guillotine are we all feeling today?
posted by mhoye at 4:26 PM on May 22, 2019 [63 favorites]


(Incidentally, how did she get into studying the use of language in cartels? She doesn't seem ... suited for the field work.)

It looks like she used newspaper data, and was looking at threats and specifically, the semantics of Spanish verbs and speaker intent. Which is interesting given, well, her threat, to use linguistics on people.
posted by damayanti at 4:26 PM on May 22, 2019 [3 favorites]


She knowingly married into this family, and in her mid-thirties she is using their blood money to subsidize her dilettantish hobbies. I'm confused why anyone might read this article and think she is not deserving of scrutiny.
posted by loquacious crouton at 4:39 PM on May 22, 2019 [44 favorites]


let's all think of funny ways to dunk on this lady with rich shitty relatives!

You mean her father in law, who is the architect of the opioid crisis that is ravaging the US, and whose blood money is funding her business? Yeah, I think that Joss Sackler doth protest too much about the ire she's getting.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:41 PM on May 22, 2019 [16 favorites]


Scrutiny for what? Wasting her rich husband's money? I honestly don't understand why anyone cares that she's doing weird performance pieces and hosting a club for other rich women. Get back to me when she decides to run for office or something.
posted by muddgirl at 4:49 PM on May 22, 2019 [8 favorites]


Rich people should be so lucky that the worst thing that could ever happen to them is everyone mocks them and shuns them mercilessly forever.
posted by mostly vowels at 4:55 PM on May 22, 2019 [38 favorites]


She very clearly wants to be in the public eye, though. If she didn't this article wouldn't have been written. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too, she's only in these rarified art and fashion spaces because of the Sackler's family ill-begotten gains, but we're not allowed to talk about that part?
posted by loquacious crouton at 4:56 PM on May 22, 2019 [22 favorites]


Exactly, she wants attention for doing basically nothing with her life, so don't give it to her. At least Jillian Sackler is trying to do something with her blood money, as much as the writer despises her for it.
posted by muddgirl at 5:01 PM on May 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


Over two more glasses of wine and pasta with roast suckling pig, public perception is a recurring theme.

Well bless her heart.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 5:12 PM on May 22, 2019 [9 favorites]


‘After about 30 minutes and into a second bottle of wine, Joss begins to question...’ is such supremely delicious shade, especially since the subjects she’s tiptoeing around are addiction and structural vs personal responsibility
posted by aiglet at 5:15 PM on May 22, 2019 [17 favorites]


I think she's probably doing the George Lakoff "Linguists are brilliant at PR and politics because they understand about metaphor and framing" thing, but I don't even really buy it when Lakoff says it.)

Pretty sure that nobody who has spent any time with linguists would say they are good at PR. Many can barely do R.

(I say this as a linguist who works daily with linguists, and loves linguists)
posted by lefty lucky cat at 5:39 PM on May 22, 2019 [24 favorites]


I mean I think Lackoff is pretty great at all kinds of spin and persuasion, using his beloved tools and the metaphors and the frames and the words etc.

And maybe he makes the classic error of thinking he is more representative of his community than he actually is.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:47 PM on May 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


One of the things that bother me about pieces like this is how they don't really talk about what the Sacklers did:
From 1999-2017, almost 400,000 people died from an overdose involving any opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids.
400,000 Americans dead in 18 years (and it is only getting worse). This is a staggering loss of life that Al-Qaeda could only dream of. And the Sacklers got to make so much money from all that death!

I get that some of the Sacklers weren't involved, but if you were that wealthy and wanted to truly clear your name, then spend every last cent taking down the ghouls ruining your name. That might be unfair, but as the Sacklers have no problem demonstrating, life is so much more brutally unfair in ways these people will never experience.
posted by Ouverture at 7:10 PM on May 22, 2019 [15 favorites]


Over two more glasses of wine and pasta

I can barely finish one glass of wine and pasta. It is so soggy and gross.
posted by snofoam at 7:16 PM on May 22, 2019 [29 favorites]


You don't get to have your cake and eat it too, she's only in these rarified art and fashion spaces because of the Sackler's family ill-begotten gains

Exactly this! As it says in the article, "Can you just go about the business of living your life, even though the life you have would not be the life you have if it weren’t for all that money?" And the way I see it, no, you took that last name knowing the power it gave you. That was a choice you made. I respect that she didn't use it at first, to avoid preferential treatment when getting her doctorate. But when it comes down to it, thousands and thousands of people have died from the actions associated with that last name. You chose to accept it. And you chose to use it for handbags.

I first read this story when someone tweeted it out with "my kink is when people who should absolutely never agree to be interviewed agree to do an interview" and: yes, this is precisely that.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 7:18 PM on May 22, 2019 [27 favorites]


"they're going to regret fucking with a linguist" is this generation's "they didn't know that they were dealing with a staunch character"
posted by Countess Elena at 7:23 PM on May 22, 2019 [7 favorites]


They specifically suggested dosing schedules that maximized dependency.

It’s not just the dead. It’s all the families destroyed by addiction, all the kids who grow up traumatized, some of whom will go own to traumatize others. It’s generations of suffering and wasted potential. It’s one of those crimes that’s so unimaginable we don’t have proper laws for it.

Seriously, seize every last bloody dollar, and don’t stop with the Sacklers.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:32 PM on May 22, 2019 [33 favorites]


Her dissertation was on threat language used by the Mexican drug cartels—research that has proved useful in recent years, she says. “I’m on Facebook and Instagram, and I’m particularly accessible.” She takes a sip of wine and eats a bite of burrata.

Sometimes you read something and just feel like you've been hurled bodily through the looking glass.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:45 PM on May 22, 2019 [11 favorites]


So what interests me about Top End Of Town Philanthropy is whether its made public or is sub rosa.
Its a classic catch 22.

By making it public, you become a public figure, which is an invitation for the public to scrutinise that philanthropy- how much (and how much is it compared to your net worth) what its for, is it worthy, where your money comes from, and ultimately - who you are.
Big gifting makes the giver well known, and that is a double edged sword. Most ultra high net worth people are not interested in being well known, or known at all. Privacy is one of their most valued commodities.

By making big giving confidential, the public benefits of the gift are missed- big public gifting often draws much needed attention to the cause and can help rally more support and inspire others to give, and can generate public support for change.

Where I live, most big giving is very quiet indeed. The only people that know it happens are the benefactor and a rather small (and incestuous) clique of CEO's and board members of notable charities.

I am not going to opine about guillotines or tax rates for the 0.01%. Just that philanthropy is not simple.

Oh, and also, Joss Sackler's performance art piece seemed amateurish.
posted by Plutocratte at 7:51 PM on May 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


The thing about charity is that while it’s sold as doing good for others, most times it’s about feeling good about yourself.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:37 PM on May 22, 2019 [3 favorites]


Whatever
posted by borges at 8:57 PM on May 22, 2019


let's all think of funny ways to dunk on this lady with rich shitty relatives!

we're already doing that bro, try to keep up
posted by poffin boffin at 9:40 PM on May 22, 2019 [39 favorites]


It's extremely funny to me that the profile began with two publicists attempting to ascertain the reason for the piece. Like...c'mon, they knew it wasn't going to be about neon hoodies. I'm assuming that this lady has been on press lockdown, but she really wanted to Speak Her Truth and the publicists decided she had better odds with Town & Country than...like, anybody else who was asking. (They weren't entirely wrong! I think Jillian Sackler comes off pretty well, maybe how the publicists hoped Joss would appear. Jillian gets to reaffirm that her husband died and she divested before Purdue went down the OxyContin road -- and though the piece does note that their wealth comes from the husband's time when they were pushing Valium and other 20th century opioids, the author paints a sympathetic picture overall of Jillian compared to Joss.)

It's honestly a very fun read! Sackler backlash soothes my very soul. This country is so screwed up that there's almost no way to hold the obscenely rich accountable to anything. The idea that if enough people join together we might be able to make these people's lives even slightly uncomfortable is downright inspiring, and bless Nan Goldin for spearheading this. It's not enough -- of course it isn't -- but it's something.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:21 PM on May 22, 2019 [19 favorites]


They should have called the article 'The Opium Bores'
posted by BinaryApe at 10:26 PM on May 22, 2019 [6 favorites]


let's all think of funny ways to dunk on this lady with rich shitty relatives!

Here's mine: she doesn't "have rich relatives", she is obscenely wealthy. If she's such a decent person, why is she so rich? (Same goes for Jillian).
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:50 PM on May 22, 2019 [13 favorites]


Also, if you don't want to be associated with the family that killed all those people, feel free to change your name. Here's a thought, change your name and ask Harvard and whoever to change the name they have on the buildings you donated to your new not-sociopath name.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:52 PM on May 22, 2019 [4 favorites]


This is on a slightly different level, but Rainer Hoss works to preach tolerance and Katrin Himmler has written what is by all accounts a pretty definitive biography of her great uncle that does not shy away from his crimes. If she wants to be known for philanthropy, I know a great cause she can funnel all her blood money too. Instead of throwing their name up on the sides of museums so other rich people know how rich they are, they could be throwing it up on the sides of street clinics and halfway houses. Fund free needle exchange, put the money into showing whether safe injection sites are useful, etc. I love art, I love museums, I truly believe that they should be funded with public money taken by taxing the hell out of the rich.

Although, I bet she expected a kinder, gentler profile from Town and Country: identifying candidates for the guillotine since 1846.
posted by Hactar at 10:54 PM on May 22, 2019 [16 favorites]


"they're going to regret fucking with a linguist"

If things go well I might be showin' em my schwa face.
posted by flabdablet at 11:07 PM on May 22, 2019 [14 favorites]


posted by loquacious crouton

ಠ_ಠ
posted by loquacious at 11:09 PM on May 22, 2019 [18 favorites]


I checked out the front page of Town and Country after Dr. Twist's comment, and it's certainly something. The main headline is "Does Anyone Still Wear a Tiara Besides the Royals?"
posted by Harald74 at 11:48 PM on May 22, 2019 [5 favorites]


I thoroughly recommend the use of an Emergency Tiara within an office setting. Sometimes you need to be a little extra in meetings.
posted by ninazer0 at 12:54 AM on May 23, 2019 [16 favorites]


Rich people should be so lucky that the worst thing that could ever happen to them is everyone mocks them and shuns them mercilessly forever.

Rich people are afraid that poor people will laugh at them; poor people are afraid that rich people will grind them into dust under their diamond heels without even noticing that another human was there.
posted by terretu at 2:10 AM on May 23, 2019 [40 favorites]


The thing about charity is that while it’s sold as doing good for others, most times it’s about feeling good about yourself. maximizing your tax savings
posted by Hal Mumkin at 3:21 AM on May 23, 2019 [6 favorites]


You don't get to have your cake and eat it too

If you're rich you can have two cakes. Eat one and you still have your cake.
posted by chavenet at 3:54 AM on May 23, 2019 [13 favorites]


Metafilter: how guillotine are we all feeling today?
posted by vorpal bunny at 5:03 AM on May 23, 2019 [9 favorites]


And what are those fucking shoes? They look like the airbags went off on her feet.

They’re La Sportiva mountaineering boots, what you’d use to climb K2 or Everest or similar.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 5:19 AM on May 23, 2019 [3 favorites]


“What can you mean by all this?” cried Syme. “They can’t be running the real world in that way. Surely not many working men are anarchists, and surely if they were, mere mobs could not beat modern armies and police.”
“Mere mobs!” repeated his new friend with a snort of scorn. “So you talk about mobs and the working classes as if they were the question. You’ve got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, as you can see from the barons’ wars.”
posted by mhoye at 5:21 AM on May 23, 2019 [14 favorites]


The way the article frames it, the crucial difference between Jillian Sackler and Joss Sackler is that Jillian Sackler has learned how to perform her wealthiness in a way that the wealthy (and the temporarily embarrassed millionaires) aspire to. Joss Sackler is new to this and has not learned the moves yet, and that is a grave, grave sin for the target readership of Town and Country. The article is saying that the problem is not profiteering off the suffering of untolds millions of people, because to get that rich anyone is gonna have to break a few eggs; the real problem is that Joss Sackler fails to perform acceptably within her new status.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 5:34 AM on May 23, 2019 [11 favorites]


Every time I hear that awful families name I think of Johnny and Moira Rose. That how I picture them living their lives.
posted by james33 at 5:35 AM on May 23, 2019 [3 favorites]


I have a lot of complicated feelings about rage,
catharsis, justice, oppression, and human bloodthirst that get stirred up whenever guillotine jokes start.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 5:53 AM on May 23, 2019 [6 favorites]


Rich people are afraid that poor people will laugh at them; poor people are afraid that rich people will grind them into dust under their diamond heels without even noticing that another human was there.

There was a bit in the piece that illustrated that perfectly:
“There was somebody who was sending me superlong, very threatening messages. He found out who my climbing friends were and reached out to them with something like, ‘If you support Joss Sackler and her blood money, I’m going to call the local REI’—where they live—‘and make sure that nobody hires you as a guide.’ I’m a tough cookie, okay? I’m not intimidated or scared. But I realized that my friends were being hurt just by association with me.”

Joss found the person’s real name, she says, by Googling his screen name. “One day he sent this really long message, and I responded with a simple note.” The next thing she knew, “I get a call from [Purdue] security being like, ‘Um, this guy called, and he’s really scared for his life, and he wants to possibly go into a witness protection program because you sent him a threat.’ And I’m like, ‘One second. I get, like, 50 messages a day. My friends are getting messages. And I just responded to this one guy.’ ” She shakes her head and laughs.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:20 AM on May 23, 2019 [7 favorites]


Starting your own fashion label is exactly performing wealth in a way that the wealthy aspire to.
posted by phooky at 6:42 AM on May 23, 2019 [2 favorites]


Yup, preening over her own good taste in fashion and "avant garde" art, becoming a wine connoisseur, spending her time at a very exclusive social club cum business incubator, dining on suckling pig while talking about herself with journalists, "devoting" herself to philanthropy by writing checks and attending events, and dropping references about how she's more educated than everyone else and can fend off thugs with "a simple note" is the most traditional of traditional wealth performance. I don't think that's the writer's point, though. I think the writer's point is that all of this is only possible because of masses and masses of drug money. Pretty ironic that Sackler studied cartels for her dissertation lol.
posted by rue72 at 7:10 AM on May 23, 2019 [6 favorites]


I've talked here on metafilter about how opioid addiction destroyed my family and how it's lasting affects are showing up in my life in the form of generational trauma, so I'm not going to rehash it again. I'd just like to ask all the good people of metafilter to be conscientious when speaking about it in abstract or theoretical terms.

If you want to help,
Inland Empire Harm Reduction (san bernardino and riverside counties ) just reprinted one of their very cool t shirts that i plan on purchasing, too.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:30 AM on May 23, 2019 [18 favorites]


On The Media: How Philanthropy Lets Rich People Off the Hook
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: In the case opioid crisis and the Sacklers, it is really clear. Right? A second grader can understand the basic outlines of the story. You had a family that owned this company, Purdue Pharma, and this company discovered and promoted this drug OxyContin, that very quickly was revealed to have addictive potential. More than 200,000 people have now died in this extended opioid crisis. There were many companies involved in profiting from this but the Sacklers and Purdue were one of them, and really built a double digit billion fortune. And you had this same family throwing money at arts philanthropy, mainly, but also other things–mostly in centers of power and influence. When I was growing up I lived in Washington D.C. I knew the name of the Sackler Gallery. I did not know the Sackler opioid involvement. And I think a lot of people have known some kind of Sackler wing of the Guggenheim or the Met but didn't know the opioid a thing until about one or two years ago. It's such a clear example of the incredible immunity that a relatively modest amount of giving can buy you.
posted by octothorpe at 7:46 AM on May 23, 2019 [3 favorites]


I have a lot of complicated feelings about rage, catharsis, justice, oppression, and human bloodthirst that get stirred up whenever guillotine jokes start.

Don't forget that the guillotines are already out in the context of such jokes, and in use against the oppressed... in this BBC podcast about the Gordon Riots one of the academic guests attributes to Charles James Fox, a British nobleman and politician in the era of the American Revolution, a quote that he would sooner be ruled by an ill-dressed mob than a well-dressed mob.
posted by XMLicious at 7:48 AM on May 23, 2019


Make it a commonsense thing that one cannot be this rich and also be a "good person."

It already is - note the saying that "behind every great fortune is a great crime."
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:38 AM on May 23, 2019 [3 favorites]


I grew up on land that was taken from Native people, and I benefitted from that even though I didn't cause it, so I'm having a hard time feeling self-righteous about this and a harder time thinking about my own responsibilities and complicities.
posted by clawsoon at 9:16 AM on May 23, 2019 [5 favorites]


I grew up on land that was taken from Native people, and I benefitted from that even though I didn't cause it, so I'm having a hard time feeling self-righteous about this and a harder time thinking about my own responsibilities and complicities.

I think that's a good thing...and I don't know if this is any better, but my feelings involve a lot more schadenfreude than self-righteousness. These people have burn-the-country-down money. They could live opulently, quietly, invisibly...farm out public relations to the professionals, continue to donate money to every government official that might lay a hand on their business, and let their very good lawyers defend them in court. The reason Joss and Jillian Sackler keep reaching out to the press is because they've experienced a life with money, gratitude for philanthropic endeavors, and intellectual stimulation (seriously) that their hobbies provide. Now their world is a little less perfect, and they don't like it. They're experiencing some social embarrassment because not everyone is keen to take their money or be seen with them in pictures. It's still pretty minor blowback compared to the scale of the problem Purdue Pharma caused! But these people are not saying let me live, they're saying let me live without criticism. And I absolutely think it's funny that their attempt to get on top of this is resulting in more negative attention.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:23 AM on May 23, 2019 [10 favorites]


I'm having a hard time feeling self-righteous about this

Ooh, not me! In fact you could easily argue that these things have very little to do with each other!

Feeling self-righteous AF about this.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:07 PM on May 23, 2019 [4 favorites]


The smell of paint grows stronger, and Joss starts to weave. After a few close calls, she falls off the platform and onto Taylor.

I'd suggest that she's high on her own supply, except she's clearly be huffing paint.
posted by I paid money to offer this... insight? at 9:08 PM on May 23, 2019


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