Inexplicably, the girls/women are graced by the Edward R. Murrow of YouTube punditry, the lovely Ana Kasparian, executive producer and co-host of the long-running political commentary show The Young Turks. Ana guides us through the old and new media landscapes and shares the alarming experience at the root of her heterodox awakening.
This was really interesting and inspired me to learn more about Ms. Kasparian.
We've all heard the saying " a conservative is a liberal that got mugged (or tried to start a business) and a liberal is a conservative who got arrested" and while she's clearly not a conservative, it's refreshing to hear someone own up to this.
I think how Ana discussed her sexual assault incident (is that what you would call it?) was truly incredible. If I had a daughter that is exactly the kind of role model I would want her to see. (I have two sons)
She discussed it like someone who had felt and processed her emotions like an adult. It was clear that she was very disturbed by it at the time and it affected how she sees the world. But she also gives the impression that she’s moved through it and doesn’t allow it to define her in any way.
She wasn’t melodramatic about it nor did she downplay it, she spoke with authority and resolve. She could easily wallow in being victimized but doesn’t. Really great stuff there.
(* I’m not a fan of her work really on any level, but to me this shines through whatever I didn’t like about her)
Very interesting that Ana cites Blocked & Reported as changing her perspective and also talks about Breaking Points. It seems that her ideological evolution was similar to mine. I used to watch TYT back during the 2016 election, considered Trump an inexplicable demon, and agreed with almost everything Ana said on that show back them.
Her story is very believable to me. A lot of us who held those views back in 2016 have figured out that they are increasingly unhelpful in describing the world, and we have noticed that many who cling to that ideology have become fanatical and intolerant in the effort to maintain their belief.
One thing I’ve never understood: What is everyone’s problem with Dave Rubin? He “switched sides…” So what? If we’re going to allow Ana to “evolve” now (as we should), what did he do so wrong?
He created incredible (and meaningful) content in the 2015-2018 era and truly moved the cultural needle in a good way. I’m not as into what he’s creating now, but I certainly don’t get the animosity towards him.
He touched a nerve with the older liberal crowd… what was it?
“Luxury beliefs” is a bad concept. The point of conspicuous consumption is that it’s a signal of having the wealth to buy status goods - that is, it’s exclusive. But anyone can profess a belief for free - there’s no exclusionary mechanism. Rob Henderson says that poorer people will suffer if they put these beliefs into practice, but he also claims the richer people who profess “luxury beliefs” don’t actually put them into practice, so there’s an obvious contradiction there. Why can’t everyone spout “luxury beliefs” and then surreptitiously live differently? Also, what is the mechanism that determines which beliefs become luxury in the first place?
I totally agree that the race to dinner episode was the juiciest and best! Megan and Sarah, I know it was tough with the technical difficulties, but as an audience member, it didn’t matter so much and was still really great. More debates please! :)
Dave Rubin was one of the first heterodox people I started watching on youtube. At first I was entranced, then I realized he didn't seem to have any actual opinions or beliefs... he just disagreed with everyone on everything. I found it kind of sketchy and opportunistic. So I thought Ana's comment about not knowing what he actually believed quite funny. Even people who know him in real life don't know!
There was a brief mention of Christina Hoff Sommers. She could be a good guest, but I think she’s in a comfortable retirement now, not sure, but I’d love to hear her.
It has always been curious to me why there are so many educated elites who are "allergic" to being perceived as right wing. I have always considered myself conservative even in high school, mostly because I never believed the left wings economic outlook which defied what I felt were my own observations about human nature, observations which are reflected best in thinkers of the free market like Milton Friedman/Thomas Sowell. They were just "obvious" to me, in the same way that many woman and men behave differently than each other. I always felt that "liberals" (not classic liberals) intended well, but seemed stymied by the unintended consequences of policies they advocated. Its like the more educated they got. the less they understand humans and their behaviors. I rarely saw them as evil (except those such as Stalin, Mao, etc), just misguided by their own ego to explain and control what they cannot.
I frankly just describe myself as right wing because as Razib Khan has written- where the left stands, I am not.
I am glad that people like Ana K have gotten out of their bubble, so they can at least see that their fellow citizens, as Douglas Murray has said, may be on to something.
This was like hearing my own journey narrated back to me. Ana, if you're still reading comments, one thing I ask you to consider is for TYT to phase out the interviews of unhinged MAGA supporters for the reasons I write about here (https://ericaetelson.substack.com/p/the-jordan-klepper-problem). TYT's interviewer is more respectful than Klepper but I assume the clips are cherry-picked to appeal to liberal confirmation bias, and then given a polarizing clickbait headline like "MAGA Super Karen RAGES About Being Deplatformed" and "We've Found The 4 Craziest Trump Supporters!" I truly believe these interviews do more harm than good and inflame the polarization you've grown to despise.
I hate it when women talk about "#metoo" (and yes of course maybe women hate men talking about certain things). Sure, the hashtag might have taken off recently, but the underlying issues go much farther back. The Dear Colleague Letter that made Title IX a criminal prosecution statute came out in 2012, and Robert Shibley catalogues all the judicial and administrative decisions that undergirded this in "Twisting Title IX", going back several decades.
I was recommended (by a woman) a book called Heterophobia which came out in 2000, by one of the few feminists who took this issue on, where she clearly describes a horrifying bureaucracy around sex and sexuality that existed well before Title IX and DEI. There was an excellent Aaron Sibarium podcast on how antidiscimination laws subtly changed in the early 1990's in ways that have completely gone off the rails.
And it does just boggle my mind when someone looks at a shadow bureaucracy that polices your every move without pesky limits like jurisdiction or statutes of limitations on one hand, and freely available pictures of naked women on the other hand, and concludes that porn is the problem. What sane young man reads the media coverage around Brett Kavanaugh and thinks "Tonight is the night! I'm going to ask Suzy out on that date"? Who knows how that request is going to be perceived thirty years from now? Another trenchant work is KC Johnson's book, which reaches a pretty sober conclusion that young men just shouldn't date on college campuses. And that was in 2007, when a certain sort of person said that campus craziness was just that, and it would never affect the real world.
This is not a deficit of social skills, it's a deficit of civil rights.
Oh yeah! That *was* Evangelista who said that! I don't know why I always thought it was Naomi Campbell. I really thought my '90s supermodel knowledge was better than that. Always learning something with this show!
This was really interesting and inspired me to learn more about Ms. Kasparian.
We've all heard the saying " a conservative is a liberal that got mugged (or tried to start a business) and a liberal is a conservative who got arrested" and while she's clearly not a conservative, it's refreshing to hear someone own up to this.
I think how Ana discussed her sexual assault incident (is that what you would call it?) was truly incredible. If I had a daughter that is exactly the kind of role model I would want her to see. (I have two sons)
She discussed it like someone who had felt and processed her emotions like an adult. It was clear that she was very disturbed by it at the time and it affected how she sees the world. But she also gives the impression that she’s moved through it and doesn’t allow it to define her in any way.
She wasn’t melodramatic about it nor did she downplay it, she spoke with authority and resolve. She could easily wallow in being victimized but doesn’t. Really great stuff there.
(* I’m not a fan of her work really on any level, but to me this shines through whatever I didn’t like about her)
Very interesting that Ana cites Blocked & Reported as changing her perspective and also talks about Breaking Points. It seems that her ideological evolution was similar to mine. I used to watch TYT back during the 2016 election, considered Trump an inexplicable demon, and agreed with almost everything Ana said on that show back them.
Her story is very believable to me. A lot of us who held those views back in 2016 have figured out that they are increasingly unhelpful in describing the world, and we have noticed that many who cling to that ideology have become fanatical and intolerant in the effort to maintain their belief.
One thing I’ve never understood: What is everyone’s problem with Dave Rubin? He “switched sides…” So what? If we’re going to allow Ana to “evolve” now (as we should), what did he do so wrong?
He created incredible (and meaningful) content in the 2015-2018 era and truly moved the cultural needle in a good way. I’m not as into what he’s creating now, but I certainly don’t get the animosity towards him.
He touched a nerve with the older liberal crowd… what was it?
Great guest. Great episode!
“Luxury beliefs” is a bad concept. The point of conspicuous consumption is that it’s a signal of having the wealth to buy status goods - that is, it’s exclusive. But anyone can profess a belief for free - there’s no exclusionary mechanism. Rob Henderson says that poorer people will suffer if they put these beliefs into practice, but he also claims the richer people who profess “luxury beliefs” don’t actually put them into practice, so there’s an obvious contradiction there. Why can’t everyone spout “luxury beliefs” and then surreptitiously live differently? Also, what is the mechanism that determines which beliefs become luxury in the first place?
I totally agree that the race to dinner episode was the juiciest and best! Megan and Sarah, I know it was tough with the technical difficulties, but as an audience member, it didn’t matter so much and was still really great. More debates please! :)
Dave Rubin was one of the first heterodox people I started watching on youtube. At first I was entranced, then I realized he didn't seem to have any actual opinions or beliefs... he just disagreed with everyone on everything. I found it kind of sketchy and opportunistic. So I thought Ana's comment about not knowing what he actually believed quite funny. Even people who know him in real life don't know!
Definitely thought the guest was Anna Khachiyan for a split second and that would also have been very interesting!
There was a brief mention of Christina Hoff Sommers. She could be a good guest, but I think she’s in a comfortable retirement now, not sure, but I’d love to hear her.
First!
It has always been curious to me why there are so many educated elites who are "allergic" to being perceived as right wing. I have always considered myself conservative even in high school, mostly because I never believed the left wings economic outlook which defied what I felt were my own observations about human nature, observations which are reflected best in thinkers of the free market like Milton Friedman/Thomas Sowell. They were just "obvious" to me, in the same way that many woman and men behave differently than each other. I always felt that "liberals" (not classic liberals) intended well, but seemed stymied by the unintended consequences of policies they advocated. Its like the more educated they got. the less they understand humans and their behaviors. I rarely saw them as evil (except those such as Stalin, Mao, etc), just misguided by their own ego to explain and control what they cannot.
I frankly just describe myself as right wing because as Razib Khan has written- where the left stands, I am not.
I am glad that people like Ana K have gotten out of their bubble, so they can at least see that their fellow citizens, as Douglas Murray has said, may be on to something.
This was like hearing my own journey narrated back to me. Ana, if you're still reading comments, one thing I ask you to consider is for TYT to phase out the interviews of unhinged MAGA supporters for the reasons I write about here (https://ericaetelson.substack.com/p/the-jordan-klepper-problem). TYT's interviewer is more respectful than Klepper but I assume the clips are cherry-picked to appeal to liberal confirmation bias, and then given a polarizing clickbait headline like "MAGA Super Karen RAGES About Being Deplatformed" and "We've Found The 4 Craziest Trump Supporters!" I truly believe these interviews do more harm than good and inflame the polarization you've grown to despise.
I hate it when women talk about "#metoo" (and yes of course maybe women hate men talking about certain things). Sure, the hashtag might have taken off recently, but the underlying issues go much farther back. The Dear Colleague Letter that made Title IX a criminal prosecution statute came out in 2012, and Robert Shibley catalogues all the judicial and administrative decisions that undergirded this in "Twisting Title IX", going back several decades.
I was recommended (by a woman) a book called Heterophobia which came out in 2000, by one of the few feminists who took this issue on, where she clearly describes a horrifying bureaucracy around sex and sexuality that existed well before Title IX and DEI. There was an excellent Aaron Sibarium podcast on how antidiscimination laws subtly changed in the early 1990's in ways that have completely gone off the rails.
And it does just boggle my mind when someone looks at a shadow bureaucracy that polices your every move without pesky limits like jurisdiction or statutes of limitations on one hand, and freely available pictures of naked women on the other hand, and concludes that porn is the problem. What sane young man reads the media coverage around Brett Kavanaugh and thinks "Tonight is the night! I'm going to ask Suzy out on that date"? Who knows how that request is going to be perceived thirty years from now? Another trenchant work is KC Johnson's book, which reaches a pretty sober conclusion that young men just shouldn't date on college campuses. And that was in 2007, when a certain sort of person said that campus craziness was just that, and it would never affect the real world.
This is not a deficit of social skills, it's a deficit of civil rights.
Oh yeah! That *was* Evangelista who said that! I don't know why I always thought it was Naomi Campbell. I really thought my '90s supermodel knowledge was better than that. Always learning something with this show!
Eric doesn't speak with Bret now, Meghan? Big if true.