Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry

This interview was actually recorded before Suella Braverman's most recent Question Time appearance, which sparked a public row over the question of English identity and ethnicity. As it happens, that was one of the topics we covered in our conversation, which is themed around Suella's new memoir, an account of her family's experiences of the British Empire, and her vision for modern Britain. Suella Braverman is a politician, barrister, and former Attorney General and Home Secretary. Earlier this year, she defected from the Conservative Party to Reform UK, and now serves as their spokesperson for education, skills, and equality. Suella's new book is titled 'Patriot: Empire, Betrayal, and Hope.' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode for paid subscribers, Rob Henderson and I discussed the new matchmaking scheme from the Singaporean government, which seems to be intended to boost the country's birth rate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2019, Rusty Reno – editor of First Things magazine – published ‘Return of the Strong Gods’, a book that argued that the postwar ideological order of tolerance and openness had overreached, and that we were set to see the reemergence of “strong gods” in politics—that is, the powerful loyalties that bind people to their homelands and to one another. Today, Rusty and I return to this thesis seven years on. Populism is certainly ascendent, and not only in the United States. Should we be worried about the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction? Or should the “strong gods” be welcomed? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this bonus episode Meghan Murphy and I discussed the recent Women’s Convention in Rochester, NY, which we both spoke at. This was a gathering of sex realist feminists, with a lot of mothers and Christian women in attendance. Meghan and I spoke about the historic relationship between Leftism and feminism, and wondered whether we're seeing a decoupling of women's advocacy from the Left-Right binary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just in the last few weeks, the issue of AI safety has suddenly broken into the political mainstream. What was once a fairly niche debate within the worlds of tech and philosophy is now on the front pages. And the question of AI is, predictably enough, quickly turning into a partisan issue, with the President opposing heavy federal guardrails, and the Democrats calling for aggressive regulation. Today's episode is about the subculture from which the AI safety movement emerged. Rationalism – which is tightly entwined with Effective Altruism – is an intellectual movement popular among millennials working in tech. My guest today is the writer and tech worker Jacob Falkovich, who describes himself as a post-rationalist. As you'll hear, it's pretty hard to find someone who actually calls themselves a 'rationalist' (that's the nature of the subculture), but Jacob is willing to make an earnest defence of rationalism, and of Effective Altruism, and of the AI safety movement. These are interesting and – I think – very influential subcultures. If we want to understand the AI safety movement, then we need to understand rationalism. MMM is sponsored by 321 - a new online introduction to Christianity, presented by former MMM guest Glen Scrivener. Check it out for free at 321course.com/MMM. Just enter your email, choose a password and you’re in — there’s no spam and no fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode for paid subscribers, I spoke with The Telegraph’s Poppy Coburn about a piece she wrote recently on the rise of chronic illness among young women, and the role of the internet in this worrying phenomenon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A life without pain sounds wonderful. It would also be fatal. Pain feels bad because it has a job: measuring damage to your body and motivating you to protect it. Every other feeling has a job too, built by natural selection. Hunger measures your need for calories and motivates you to eat. Envy measures others’ success and motivates you to close the gap. Frustration measures the futility of your current approach and motivates you to try a new one. In 'All the Feels', evolutionary psychologist Robert Kurzban explains the evolved function of our emotions and sensations, from anger to the urge to yawn. In today's episode we speak in particular about negative and unpleasant emotions, particularly anxiety and depression. Are they doing something useful for us? Or is evolutionary mismatch causing us to feel worse than we need to?  Rob Kurzban is an evolutionary psychologist who was a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania for over a decade. His new book is titled 'All the Feels: The Evolved Function of Every Human Emotion and Sensation.' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode for paid subscribers, I spoke with Ed West about the nativist protests in Dover and Portsmouth, and how the British government might respond. Will there be moves to ban face coverings and crack down on protest movements? Or will the government give way to the Right, and put an end to the asylum crisis? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aboriginal people have lived in Australia for at least 65,000 years, surviving as hunter gatherers. 250 years ago, the British arrived, bringing with them industrial modernity, as well as disease and – sometimes – violence. During most of this modern period, British settlers and their descendants adopted what has been called "the great Australian silence", paying little attention to the Aboriginal people they had displaced.  Since the 1960s there has been a transformation in how non-indigenous Australians think about indigenous culture and history. One of the key voices in this transformation has been that of the anthropologist and linguist Peter Sutton, who has a particular expertise in Aboriginal languages and has lived and worked with Aboriginal people all over Australia for more than half a century.  In 2011, Peter published a book titled 'The Politics of Suffering', in which he argued that decades of liberal policy in outback communities had worsened the suffering of Aboriginal people. Today we discuss what Australians get wrong about indigenous affairs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode for paid subscribers, I spoke with Nina Power about the power of communism as an ideology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You may think that you don't care about status. You may tell yourself that since you're not bothered about material displays of wealth, that means that you are above petty disputes over where one stands in the social pecking order.  The author and journalist Will Storr says you're wrong. Everybody cares about status, he argues, even if we don't realise it. We are evolved to obsess over status, and to immediately recognise it. You don't identify a high status person (solely) through their expensive car or designer clothes. You also notice their more relaxed postures, their better health, the fact that other people interrupt them less often, the fact that they have more friends. Everyone wants to be high status, whether or not they'll admit it.   These status games aren't something we can avoid, but by better understanding them we can play them more judiciously. That's what Will Storr's book, The Status Game, is all about.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode, Mary Harrington and I spoke about the public response to the Lindsay Clancy murder case. Be warned, there are some dark themes discussed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There is a certain kind of caricature of women that pops up in cultural commentary right now. Modern women, we are told, are inundated with male attention at all times, and all of it is deeply unwelcome. According to this view, says Phoebe Maltz Bovy, “straight women merely put up with men’s advances because we don’t want them to murder us, or because we rely on them for a roof over our heads, or maybe because they seem nice and this is our way of saying thank you.”  In a new book 'The Last Straight Woman', Phoebe asks us to forget this caricature of 21st century womanhood, and to take a moment to think of the frumpy, horny women who are often forgotten in this discourse. The women who sincerely and enthusiastically desire men, and find that they get less male attention than they would like.  Today we discussed whether #MeToo was only concerned with "hot girls", why so many women are identifying as something other than heterosexual, the politics of female agency, and much more. MMM is sponsored by 321 - a new online introduction to Christianity, presented by former MMM guest Glen Scrivener. Check it out for free at 321course.com/MMM. Just enter your email, choose a password and you’re in — there’s no spam and no fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this bonus episode, I spoke with Johann Kurtz about his viral essay 'Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise', which was partly inspired by a previous MMM bonus episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samuel Johnson was one of his history's great readers. He read constantly: while he walked, while he ate, while he socialised. He insisted that one ought to read for five hours a day, and to read on every subject one could. This was newly possible for eighteenth century people, who suddenly had access to affordable books.  But Johnson understood that he was unusual. "People in general do not willingly read, if they can have anything else to amuse them," he conceded. "The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in it."  James Marriott's new book is on the rise and fall of reading. He argues that reading is fundamentally unnatural and difficult, which is why the rise of radio, television, and the internet has so readily displaced books. James also argues that reading has profound effects, not only on our brains, but also on our politics. Democracy and literacy have historically gone hand in hand. As we become post-literate, will we also become post-democratic? James Marriott is a columnist and critic at The Times of London. His new book is titled The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode for paid subscribers, Rob Henderson and I discussed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's comments on "woke 1" and the shift towards a new kind of progressive politics that's currently underway. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Something called 'populism' is on the rise across much of the world. It's difficult to pin down exactly what the term means, but most of us have a sense that we know it when we see it. Trump in the United States, Farage in Britain, Hanson in Australia – all of these politicians have adopted a particular kind of posture towards the public and towards the political establishment.  Richard Hanania thinks that populism is a very bad thing, since he argues that it reliably leads to 'kakistocracy' – that is, government by the worst, least qualified, and most unscrupulous.  Richard didn't always feel this way. He used to be on the far right and, as a pseudononymous writer, endorsed white supremacist and other radically anti-progressive positions. He later disavowed those views and shifted towards a more mainstream conservative position, gaining influence on the MAGA Right. Recently, he's shifted again, becoming one of the most vehement Right wing critics of MAGA and of populism more broadly.  Richard Hanania is an UnHerd columnist, the president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, and the author of a Substack focused on foreign policy, American politics, and social science. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode, I spoke to former radical feminist (well, sort of) Meghan Murphy about beauty treatments. How should feminists think about, for instance, botox? How should individual women navigate this issue? And what have we, personally, had done? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Back in 2013, the Obama administration endorsed an ad campaign that came to be derisively known as the “pajama boy” campaign. “Pajama boy” was actually an adult man who encouraged young adults to make the case for Obamacare over Thanksgiving dinner with their relatives. “Wear pajamas. Drink hot chocolate. Talk about getting health insurance.” was the tag line. Most people thought it was pretty silly and the image survives now as an online meme. In retrospect, “pajama boy” was actually a little bit sinister because it was symptomatic of a shift in the culture. While families have always fallen out over personal conflict, it is now increasingly common for relationships to break down over politics. This is directly downstream of a new expectation that confronting relatives about political disagreements at the family dinner table is not just acceptable, but actually virtuous. My guest today has written a book about the rise of family estrangement, and particularly of adult children going ‘no contact’ with their parents. The proximate trigger for this new kind of divorce is often political: arguments about Trump, or Covid, or gender identity are common. But behind these individual conflicts, Noelle Mering argues, is a profound shift in our attitudes towards the family, and the mainstreaming of a troubling idea: that some members of our own families are expendable. Noelle Mering is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington D.C. and author of the new book ‘No Contact: How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and How We Can Repair Them.’ She is also a wife and mother of six children. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode, I spoke with Nina Power about the English village that is seeking independence from the UK in protest at a local asylum seeker accommodation centre. We discussed the issues with asylum policy, the growing spirit of rebellion in sleepy rural places, and whether the UK government is guilty of institutional misogyny. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.