EP 110: Have the Arts Created a Culture of Fear?

This week at Lean Out, we continue our podcast series on the challenges facing modern men, from declining educational achievement to rising suicides and overdoses. We’re happy to bring you an encore presentation of an interview from 2022, with a political economist who says prime, working age men in America are facing Great Depression-era levels of joblessness. The collapse of work — today on Lean Out. Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterpr...

11 Joulu 202435min

Today at Lean Out, we continue our series on the challenges facing modern men. My guest on the program has done pioneering work on the increasing gender gap in American society and politics. He’s thought a lot about the dangers of men and women growing apart — and about how we might come together.Daniel Cox is director of the Survey Center on American Life. He is also a senior fellow in polling and public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute. His forthcoming book is titled Uncoupled, ...

4 Joulu 202429min

The American election highlighted ongoing tensions between men and women — but election commentary often failed to acknowledge the crises that modern men are facing, from declining educational achievement and employment to increased suicides, overdoses, and loneliness. Today at Lean Out, we kick off a series exploring these issues, with a guest who’s recently published a powerful essay highlighting why we need to reconsider how we think and talk about men. Zaid Jilani is the freelance America...

27 Marras 202430min

With Donald Trump winning the presidency, the popular vote, the Senate, and the House, in what The New York Times has described as a “crushing electoral rebuke” of the Democrats, there is a lot of soul-searching going on in the party. Our guest on the program today tried to warn the Democrats in his previous book. He says the progressive moment in American politics is now over — and the Democrats are going to have to face that fact if they want to win again. Ruy Teixeira is a cofounder and po...

22 Marras 202447min

In 2016, the election of Donald Trump took the mainstream media by surprise, with many in the press struggling to understand his rise to power and the factors driving it. Now, in the wake of Donald Trump’s decisive win, here we are again. My guest on today’s program suspected we might be missing the story, and just days before the election, published a brilliant podcast episode unpacking the comeback of Donald Trump. Andy Mills is an award-winning American reporter and podcast producer, and c...

20 Marras 20241h 17min

Since last week’s election win for Donald Trump, we are seeing a renewed sense of scorn for Republican voters in parts of the mainstream media. The Guardian’s Rebecca Solnit, for example, writes in her column that “our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do.” My guest on today’s program doesn’t see it that way. She’s a lefty Democrat who moved from Park Slope, Brooklyn, to Trump country — and she writes that the gift of living in a rural county is that “I keep finding re...

13 Marras 202430min

If you’re living in Canada and you have a cell phone plan, or a bank account, or have taken a flight recently, or struggle to afford groceries, you already know how expensive and dysfunctional the country has gotten for consumers. Our guests on the podcast today have written a book about the rise of corporate monopolies (and duopolies and oligopolies) — and, as they write, this market concentration “goes well beyond the usual suspects.” Vass Bednar is the executive director of McMaster Univer...

6 Marras 202436min

What makes us fat? It’s a contentious debate in the world of health science. Is obesity caused by energy imbalance — consuming too many calories — as has long been conventional thought? Or is obesity caused by the effects of carbohydrates on insulin? My guest on today’s program attended an invite-only global gathering of obesity experts. The resulting paper in Nature Metabolism, co-authored with fifteen other researchers and published this fall, compares the two competing hypotheses side-by-s...

30 Loka 202439min