Current Affairs

Latest Episodes:

Have Feminists Been Too Quick To Embrace Criminal Punishment? Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

Prof. Aya Gruber teaches criminal law at the University of Colorado Law School. Her book The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women's Liberation in Mass Incarceration makes the case that many feminists have been too quick to push for more severe criminal punishments for crimes against women, and have as a result ended up legitimizing or even contributing to the expansion of mass incarceration. Prof. Gruber makes a strong argument against "carceral feminism," claiming that it sees "putting offenders in prison" as the solution to harms women face, but that this remedy at best only imperfectly guarantees justice, and at worst reproduces cruel racist state violence. In this provocative conversation, we discuss:

- How Prof. Gruber's experience in a public defender's office helped her see that some of the legal changes mainstream feminists pushed for ultimately ended up unfairly punishing poor men of color without helping women who were the victims of crimes

- Why courts, police, and prisons are not good at delivering anything resembling justice to the victims of sex crimes

- How trying to use prisons to punish people after offenses gets in the way of thinking about how to prevent the offenses from happening in the first place

- The Brock Turner case, in which a judge was recalled and removed from office after being perceived as lenient on a sex offender, and why Prof. Gruber thinks it was misguided to push for increased mandatory sentences for defendants like Turner

- Why feminism should abandon new calls for criminalization and instead see criminal law as an absolute last resort, addressing harms at their root causes

What's Useful and Correct About Critical Race Theory? (w/ Randall Kennedy) Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy has been known for decades as a critic of Critical Race Theory, which was developed in part by his late colleague Derrick Bell. But Kennedy's critiques come from a position of intellectual respect, and over the years he has become more sympathetic to some of the central claims CRT makes about the pervasive and intractable nature of American racism. His new book Say It Loud! On Race, Law, History, and Culture collects his essays from the past several decades, many of which deal with the question of how American racism has functioned historically, how it has morphed over time, and what a rational way to think about it is. In this wide-ranging conversation, he and Current Affairs editor in chief Nathan J. Robinson discuss:

- The way Black intellectual thought has long had "optimistic" and "pessimistic" camps, and CRT fits squarely in with a long tradition of Black pessimism about racial progress

- Why Prof. Kennedy thinks there are ample factual grounds for holding that pessimistic perspective, even as someone born in the Jim Crow South who has witnessed certain kinds of major progress during his lifetime

- Why Donald Trump's birtherism was a sign of a deep ugly undercurrent of lingering racism that Kennedy does not expect to see disappear, and the disturbing ways that Republicans are rolling back important democratic gains

- How law professors foolishly pretend the Supreme Court is politically independent and why we need to acknowledge that it is a powerful unaccountable institution seized by reactionaries

- Why Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer have had completely delusional views of the role of politics on the court

- The greatness of Thurgood Marshall, for whom Prof. Kennedy once clerked, and why Marshall was no more "political" than other justices

- Why Prof. Kennedy has developed a deep respect for CRT scholar Derrick Bell in the years since Bell's death and why Bell was an impressive example of someone who mixed great scholarship with uncompromising activism

Say It Loud! is available from Pantheon Books. Kennedy's essay on Derrick Bell is available on SSRN. Nathan's essay on Ginsburg's decision not to retire and the illusion of the apolitical court is here, and his essay on critical race theory is here. The Manhattan Institute panel on CRT that Prof. Kennedy was on is here.

How Have Elon Musk and Tesla Gotten Away With So Much Lying and Fraudulence? Jan 19, 2022

Show notes

Today Nathan is joined by Edward Niedermeyer, an investigative journalist whose book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors remains the definitive critical account of the rise of Elon Musk and Tesla. Edward is an auto industry expert whose work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg View, and elsewhere, and he currently hosts the Autonocast podcast about the development of autonomous cars. We discuss how Tesla motors has been built into a powerhouse in the automotive industry, and Edward argues that it has required a LOT of deception. We discuss:

- Why Tesla has been so successful—is it mostly branding and hype or are there real innovations underneath it all?

- Whether luxury electric cars are actually important in the fight against climate change

- How government subsidies have played a role in making Musk's unprofitable venture survive

- How dependent Tesla is on a constant hype machine that is not matched by its actual output

- The strategies the company has used to discredit critics

- The way economic value can be built on perceptions rather than reality

- The parallels between Tesla's brazen violation of norms/standards and the similar behavior oof Donald Trump

- The "culture of impunity" that lets corporate wrongdoers off the hook for ignoring laws and basic principles of safety and good design

- How the lies of Elon Musk have now had deadly consequences: Tesla users have died in car accidents by taking the company's hyped-up claims about self-driving capabilities seriously

- How the company is fine taking insane careless new risks like letting drivers play video games while they drive

The New York Times report Nathan refers to is here. Nathan's article on Elon Musk is here.

Has "Wokeness" Become a "Religion"? Jan 17, 2022

Show notes

In this contentious conversation, Nathan speaks to Prof. John McWhorter about his book Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. Prof. McWhorter is a linguist at Columbia University, regular New York Times contributor, and host of the Lexicon Valley podcast. His book argues that anti-racist social justice ideology is properly described as a "religion" and that its practitioners are beyond reasoning with. It's a thesis Nathan takes serious issue with and the conversation illuminates deep points of disagreement on questions like:

- Whether something having "religious" qualities makes it irrational

- Whether the people Prof. McWhorter describes are really "beyond reason"

- Whether Prof. McWhorter's characterization of several incidents of excesses by "woke religion" are presented fairly and accurately

- If the California Education Department's new mathematics teaching framework really does, as Prof. McWhorter argues, constitute an abandonment of standards of rigor

- Whether it's right to say that certain questions are "off limits"

- Whether Eminem disproves the idea that there is a prohibition on white people participating in Black culture

- Whether Prof. McWhorter has tried hard enough to engage empathetically with those he disagrees with

The conversation is brief, as Prof. McWhorter had a limited amount of time available, but touches on many of Prof. McWhorter's most provocative theses.

How Did The COVID-19 Pandemic Actually Start? (w/ Alina Chan) Jan 17, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is molecular biologist Dr. Alina Chan, a fellow at the Broad Institute and co-author of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19. She has been one of the most prominent commentators on the origins of COVID-19 and has attracted controversy for encouraging more serious consideration of the possibility that the pandemic began through an accident at a virology lab. She has been credited for changing the discussion about the issue and causing scientists and the media to pay more attention to the possibility of a lab accident than they were previously. In this episode we discuss:

- The various possible ways the pandemic could have begun and why "lab leak" and "natural origin" can be somewhat misleading terms

- How the politicization of the debate has gotten in the way of having a serious discussion about the facts, since the right is committed to the lab hypothesis and the left does not want to consider a hypothesis that the right is so committed to

- What the actual evidence we currently have is (not much)

- How investigations into COVID-19's origins have been compromised

- What the stakes of finding the truth are, and how people's worldviews and narratives are threatened by conclusions they don't like

- What a "lab accident" would look like and why it could easily come from well-intentioned research intending to stop pandemics, rather than nefarious attempts to manufacture a bioweapon

The articles in the Los Angeles Times and Science suggesting that the virus is unlikely to have been released from a lab are here and here. Nathan's own article on the origins of COVID-19 is here.

Why We Should Reclaim Thomas Paine and FDR (w/ Harvey Kaye) Jan 13, 2022

Show notes

Prof. Harvey J. Kaye is the author of books like Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great, and most recently Take Hold Of Our History: Make America Radical Again. Running through his work is the argument that the social democratic left should draw more on the richness of the American radical tradition and take greater pride in the history of those who have struggled to achieve the promise of democratic equality. In this interview, we talk about why Kaye rejects the idea of leftist history as pure "debunking" of nationalist myths and sees it as important to create our own inspiring story about the path trodden by our ancestors. We talk about:

- Why Thomas Paine, without whom the American Revolution would probably not have happened, and who alienated the other Founding Fathers and made himself despised, is the one member of the Founding generation radicals can be proud of and should celebrate

- How we can take pride in the good parts of the New Deal without whitewashing FDR's indefensible decisions like Japanese internment

- How right-wingers like Reagan and Thatcher have successfully crafted inspiring (but false) historical narratives and how we can combat these with true ones

- Why Harvey has a certain grudging respect for Newt Gingrich

- Why Bernie should have pitched democratic socialism as American rather than Scandinavian

The clip of "Let America Be America Again" is performed by Danez Smith.

Why Is the Pursuit of Money Such an American Obsession? (w/ Lewis Lapham) Jan 13, 2022

Show notes

Today Nathan is joined by legendary former Harper's editor Lewis Lapham. Lapham is the author of numerous books including Money and Class in America, Age of Folly, and Lapham's Rules of Influence. He currently edits Lapham's Quarterly. He also wrote and starred in the delightfully strange documentary/musical The American Ruling Class. He was called "without doubt our greatest satirist" by Kurt Vonnegut, is a member of the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame, and went to India with the Beatles. The New York Times once called him "amusing."

Lapham's books focus heavily on the culture of the American financial and political elite. In Money and Class in America he writes about his own privileged upbringing and the spiritual emptiness of life among those who see price as synonymous with value. We discuss:

- The way that rich people go to great lengths to pretend they don't care about money even when it's the main thing they care about

- The shallowness of an Ivy League education, and the emphasis on networking over learning anything valuable

- How journalists self-censor to avoid hurting their access to the powerful

- The social effects of having a publishing industry that cares far more about marketable books than good ones

- Why David Graeber and David Wengrow's new book The Dawn of Everything offers a hopeful vision for a possible alternative society that does not worship money and consumer goods

Why All The Anti-Trans Arguments Are Ignorant Nonsense (w/ Julia Serano) Jan 05, 2022

Show notes

Julia Serano is a PhD molecular biologist, writer, and musician whose books include Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism, and the surrealist novel 99 Erics. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Salon, and elsewhere.

Dr. Serano is a patient debunker of anti-trans talking points, and has written a number of articles patiently taking apart common misconceptions. Her "transgender glossary of sorts" is also an essential resource for those who find gender and sexuality terms confusing or imprecise. Dr. Serano joined to go through some of the most common arguments made about trans people in the popular press and show why they are pernicious, factually incorrect nonsense. Having previously spent two decades as a professional biologist, she corrects the laughably ignorant claims that transgender people misunderstand or ignore "biology." In fact, it is the critics who are unacquainted with the basics of science.

In this episode, we look at claims made by J.K. Rowling, Helen Joyce, Deborah Soh, Abigail Shrier, and Ben Shapiro. Julia applies the same kind of patient and informed explanatory approach that characterizes her prolific writing on the subject.

We didn't get to all of the major talking points but you can check out Julia's writings on some of the common ones here:

- Bathrooms and Sexual Predators - examining the claim that allowing people to use the bathroom of their choice will increase instances of sexual victimization. In fact, the opposite is the case.

- Extinction of Lesbians - examining the claim that increased trans identification is a threat to the existence of lesbians

- Social Contagion - examining the claim that young girls are experiencing "rapid onset gender dysphoria" and becoming trans because of peer influence

- Autogynephilia - examining the claim that trans identities are built around sexual desire

- Desistance and Detransition - examining the claim that trans children will grow out of it or are being pressured to

- "Trans Women Aren't Women" - examining the claim that trans people are delusional about their biology

- "Biological sex" - examining faulty claims made about biology

In Current Affairs you can read Nathan's own articles on J.K. Rowling, Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, and the debate about trans women in sports. Natalie Wynn's video about Ben Shapiro is here. The Current Affairs article about a lack of access to supportive medical interventions for trans youth is here.

When YIMBYs Attack: Democratic Socialist Dean Preston on the San Francisco Housing Crisis Jan 05, 2022

Show notes

Dean Preston represents District 5 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. A tenants' rights attorney and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he was the first democratic socialist elected to the board in 40 years. Recently, a campaign by a group called the "YIMBYs" has accused Preston of denying housing to thousands of people. In this episode, we talk about why San Francisco has a housing crisis and how to solve it. We also talk about how pro-developer groups produce propaganda that portrays affordable housing activists as "opposed to affordable housing." Dean responds to the YIMBY charges and shows how corporate disinformation against socialists works.

We discuss:

- Why rent control is actually a very good thing

- How the hypocrisy of San Francisco rich people has driven inequality spiraling out of control in the city

- How the "YIMBY movement" paints anyone who opposes developers' interests as an anti-housing "NIMBY"

- The things cities need to actually be affordable

- How elected officials can use their positions to exact concessions from developers (and why this shouldn't be considered "opposing the development of housing")

- How disinformation campaigns try to massage the facts to manipulate voters (and why voters are often too smart to be fooled)

Nathan's article on YIMBYism is here. '

Why Don't We Have Constitutional Rights Anymore? (w/ Aziz Huq) Jan 05, 2022

Show notes

Aziz Huq is an expert in constitutional law at the University of Chicago law school. He is the author of the book The Collapse of Constitutional Remedies, available from Oxford University Press. Prof. Huq's book focuses on the fact that constitutional rights are meaningless unless there are remedies for violations of those rights, and that while we ostensibly have the same rights as always, courts have steadily eroded our ability to get anything if the government chooses to violate our rights. We discuss:

- Why cops get away with brutality and lying

- How the US court system is not set up to protect people's rights, but we still did have some once

- How the right-wing turn of the courts has meant strong protections for corporate rights and few protections for personal rights against state violence

- How we can perhaps one day have some rights that are more than just words on a piece of paper

Our "cynical know-your-rights poster," mentioned in the episode, is here.