0:00

If this country doesn't give us what we want,

0:03

then we will burn down this system

0:06

and replace it. There's a lot

0:08

of outrage across the country right now.

0:11

Often, it's hard to define, but it's

0:13

rooted in a fundamental belief

0:15

that the country is broken, that

0:17

our institutions

0:19

are rotten and dysfunctional.

0:21

Let's talk about how Joe Biden said

0:24

his build back better agenda cost

0:27

zero American tax

0:29

dollars, less union representing more

0:31

than four thousand Columbus teachers and staff

0:33

FRRIKING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ROUGHLY fifty

0:35

YEARS A SIGN EXPERTS SAY OF MOUNTAIN RESTAURATION

0:38

NATIONWISE.

0:40

This outrage is one of the very few

0:42

things that people on the left and right

0:44

share. And it's a source

0:46

of widespread pessimism

0:49

about our future. Of course,

0:51

there will always be many cleavages

0:54

in the country, but maybe the biggest

0:56

most salient division right now

0:59

is between those who want to fix

1:01

the institutions we have and those

1:03

who want to burn it all down and start

1:05

fresh. I'm

1:09

Sean Illing, and this is the gray

1:11

area. My

1:24

guest today is Alana Newhouse.

1:27

She's the editor in chief of an online

1:29

magazine called tablet, and she's

1:31

the author of a recent essay for the site called

1:34

Brokenism. Brokenism

1:37

isn't just a title of her piece. It's also a

1:39

term she's coined. And

1:41

while I'm still not entirely sure

1:44

what I think of her broader thesis, New

1:47

House did something valuable in that

1:49

piece. She gave me a

1:51

new language for thinking about

1:53

this political moment. This

1:55

distinction between what she calls brokenest,

1:58

the people who think we need a total reset

2:02

And the status quoist, the

2:04

people who think we can reform our current

2:06

order is certainly provocative.

2:10

And even if you reject her basic framework,

2:13

it's very much worth wrestling with.

2:16

So I invited Alana onto the show, to

2:18

talk about it.

2:29

A lot of new house. Welcome to

2:31

the show.

2:32

Thanks so much. So we're here to talk

2:34

about your essay on brokenism.

2:37

Which I have to say really

2:40

landed for me. And I'm

2:42

still working out what I think about

2:44

it, frankly.

2:46

But I just wanted to start by saying that.

2:48

I'm still working it out too, so maybe we can

2:50

work it out together. Let's

2:53

try. So let's actually just start with you

2:55

summing up your thesis in that piece.

2:57

Tell me about what you think is

2:59

now the most

3:01

debate in America.

3:04

The debate that I find the most

3:06

interesting and that I think is Illing to be the one

3:08

that is going to take us through the next,

3:10

call it, five to ten years isn't

3:13

a debate between Republicans or Democrats

3:15

or between the left and the right or

3:18

even between progressives and conservatives.

3:21

The debate that I find myself

3:23

most drawn to and I think lot of

3:25

other people increasingly want

3:28

to participate in is a debate

3:30

about our institutions. And

3:32

about the viability of them and the

3:34

health of them. The

3:37

two sides that I saw emerging

3:40

I roughly call brokenists

3:43

and status quoists. And

3:46

in the peace, I try to articulate

3:49

the vision that each side has.

3:52

And I I hope that I express sympathy

3:55

and interest in both arguments. Because

3:57

I feel drawn to both sides. My

4:00

sense of the status quoist argument

4:03

is that they feel with

4:06

a lot of validity that we have a

4:08

lot of institutions in American life that

4:10

took many, many years to build that actually

4:13

create safety and predictability and

4:16

opportunity for a lot of people.

4:19

And that there's an almost nihilistic

4:21

burn it all down energy that

4:24

they feel coming from other

4:26

people in American life because inevitably

4:30

they see problems. In those institutions and

4:32

they want to fix them. On the other

4:34

side, there are people who I

4:36

call broken nests, And

4:39

those are people for whom the

4:41

broken aspect of

4:44

the big locks of institutional

4:47

life that they have to interact with. Whether

4:50

that's a university, whether

4:52

it's their health insurance, whether it's

4:54

a government entity, what

4:57

they're feeling in almost in a three

4:59

sixty way is a

5:02

sense of decay. And

5:04

a sense that these things simply don't

5:06

work anymore. And

5:08

that I think in the case of many

5:10

brokenness, there's feeling that not

5:12

only do those institutions not work, but that they're

5:14

not reformable, and that we

5:16

would be better off spending our energy,

5:19

building new replacements for

5:21

them, rather than trying

5:23

to reform them. So

5:25

the tension is between those two sides.

5:28

Yes. And I think you really do

5:31

a service here in giving us that language.

5:33

It's a very useful distinction. Mhmm. There's

5:36

a man you quote in the piece. He's a

5:38

reader. Who reached out to

5:40

you. His name is Ryan. And he

5:44

said some very relatable things for

5:46

me. And his perspective his

5:48

frustration really serves as

5:50

a kind of anchor for your

5:52

essay. Can you say a bit about him and

5:54

what he articulated to you?

5:56

Yes. I met Ryan because

5:59

two years ago I wrote a piece called everything

6:01

is broken, which was my personal

6:04

credit core about the broken aspects

6:06

of America's society that were affecting my

6:09

life. And in the wake

6:11

of that essay, I got hundreds

6:13

of emails and DMs

6:16

and texts from people. One of them

6:18

was from a man named Brian who

6:21

was about my age, lives in Ohio, former

6:24

vet, actually third generation African

6:27

American veteran. And

6:29

Ryan reached out and said, This piece

6:31

spoke to me so deeply because this is

6:33

what I feel too. I feel that American society

6:35

is so broken and I don't understand why.

6:38

We ended up actually becoming friends. We

6:40

have a lot more in common than, I

6:42

think, either of us expected when he

6:44

reached out. And over

6:46

the course of a year of

6:49

texting and sharing articles and

6:51

just becoming friends, we

6:54

were having conversations about how our

6:56

thought was developing. And

6:58

one day, Ryan said on the phone

7:00

with me, you know, I realize

7:02

I'm having conversations with people. Sometimes

7:05

they're people who see themselves as on the right.

7:07

Sometimes they're people who see themselves on

7:09

the left. And the thing

7:11

that determines whether or not I can talk

7:13

to them is actually how

7:15

they think about institutions. I

7:18

don't care whether they come from the left or

7:20

come from the right, whether they're a libertarian or

7:22

socialist. I care whether

7:24

or not they look at these institutions and they think

7:26

they're remotely healthy state. Yeah. Because if

7:28

they do, I I think they're nuts.

7:31

And if they don't, I can have a conversation.

7:34

Yeah. You know, I I need to be

7:36

honest about my ambivalence here. You know what I mean?

7:38

I I of myself as an

7:40

old school leftist, I guess I'm a

7:42

class warrior for lack of a better phrase. Mhmm.

7:44

I see that not only is most important

7:47

access of power, but also the most politically

7:49

potent. But you may

7:51

be right. That deep down. The real debate

7:54

now is between brokenness

7:56

and status quoist. I mean, I I guess

7:58

I would say in the interest of

8:00

maybe trying to push a little bit against both of

8:02

our instincts that sometimes

8:05

there's a tendency for the

8:07

most engaged politically

8:09

conscious types like you and me

8:12

to assume that the rest of the country feels

8:14

the way we do. You know what I mean? Mhmm. When

8:16

the reality is that I think a lot of people just live

8:18

in their lives and while they may be caught up in the

8:21

general polarized atmosphere,

8:23

I'm not sure they have very deep

8:25

ideological commitments or even very strong opinions.

8:28

I just think a lot of people are very alienated

8:30

from all of it. But then again, maybe that kind of widespread

8:34

detachment is itself a symptom of

8:37

the brokenness? The reason why

8:39

I like the frame is

8:42

because as a reporter, It

8:44

actually allows me to hear people

8:47

and hear their concerns differently.

8:49

It takes me out of Rubik's that are familiar

8:52

and allows me to really listen.

8:53

Yeah. And so you brought

8:55

up the issues of class and of economic

8:58

concerns. I hear

9:00

them more clearly

9:03

and loudly when

9:05

I see them through the dichotomy of how

9:07

our institutions are serving people. Let's

9:09

talk about Medicaid. Can Medicaid

9:11

actually properly get people

9:14

the support that they need? That's

9:16

a class issue. Right? But it's also

9:18

health of the institution issue. Yeah.

9:21

And maybe if we take it out

9:23

of the left right dichotomy, we can

9:25

have the conversation that we want to have.

9:28

Because it doesn't get people rooted

9:30

in their defenses and

9:32

their biases. It allows us to

9:34

say, well, wait a minute. What if we say instead

9:37

of whether or not we believe in Medicaid or don't believe

9:39

in Medicaid, believe in our social safety net, what if we

9:41

talk about effectiveness of the social

9:43

safety net? How is ours working?

9:46

And as long as we have it, can we

9:48

improve it? Is it possible even? Because

9:51

if it isn't, that starts a whole

9:53

new conversation. For me,

9:55

that's generative and that feels exciting

9:58

because it also feels future oriented.

10:00

Let's take just a quick step back here because

10:03

I wanna make sure that this is as

10:05

non abstract as possible. Mhmm. So if

10:07

you were floating this thesis to an

10:09

intelligent person who maybe isn't super political,

10:12

who doesn't follow the news that closely.

10:15

And they just asked you, like, what exactly

10:17

is broken? What institutions Is

10:20

it public education? Congress,

10:23

the courts, whatever? What would you say

10:25

for someone who was looking for concrete

10:27

specificity when you talk about the

10:29

brokenness of institutions?

10:31

What I would say is that a brokenness

10:34

would be willing

10:37

to play with

10:39

the idea that the frustrations that

10:42

you feel aren't

10:44

normal. So I

10:47

might ask the person a little

10:49

bit about their life, and I may find out that

10:51

they have a child with special needs.

10:54

And if they have a child with special needs,

10:56

I am willing to bet unless they're

10:58

a billionaire that within ten minutes

11:00

they will start to talk to me about everything they had

11:03

to pay for out of pocket. About

11:05

all the things they can afford, all

11:08

the worries they have about the future, all

11:10

the ways in which they do not feel that American

11:12

society has been set up. To

11:15

make it possible for them to

11:18

not be afraid for their future. It

11:21

will take me If it takes me ten minutes, I'd be

11:23

surprised. So all I have

11:25

to do, frankly, is

11:28

find a vulnerability or

11:30

a soft point in any person's life and ask

11:32

them how hard it is for them

11:34

to manage that

11:37

soft point and whether or not they remember

11:39

their parents having a

11:41

similar soft point and whether or not they

11:43

imagined or recall their parents

11:45

having the same difficulty that they

11:47

had. And for many

11:49

people, the answer is no.

11:52

My life feels much harder. And

11:55

the institutions that I have to bend

11:57

my way through feel

12:00

like, as one reader said

12:02

to me, half the time they feel like concrete

12:04

and half the time they feel like molasses. That's

12:07

not a functioning and well organized

12:10

society.

12:21

Coming up after the break, are things

12:24

really broken beyond repair? The

12:26

civil war, Reconstruction,

12:29

the sixties, we've been through a lot in

12:31

this country's history. What is so special

12:33

about today?

12:42

Illing apps, whether you're single

12:44

in a relationship are somewhere in between,

12:46

you can't get away from

12:48

them. But what happens when

12:50

your romantic life is part of a company's

12:52

bottom line? I'm Lushmi

12:54

Rindarajan. And I'm stinkiness

12:56

and perks. We're hosting Land

12:58

with The Giants. This season, the

13:01

billion dollar business of needing.

13:03

So far, we've told the story of how

13:05

Big Tech made the search for romance a

13:07

game and the methods they used

13:09

to keep us in an endless cycle of

13:12

swiping. We've seen how one company

13:14

Match Group is behind most of the biggest

13:16

dating apps out there and why that could be a

13:18

problem. And we've explored how we've

13:20

entrusted our romantic features to mysterious

13:23

algorithms.

13:24

Coming up, we'll dive into Bumble and

13:26

whether the so called feminist dating

13:28

app has actually changed the

13:30

game, and we're looking at the future of

13:32

dating. Are we all headed to niche

13:34

apps? Are we going to be using artificial

13:36

intelligence to find

13:37

love? Or is the next generation

13:39

of data is going to give up on apps altogether?

13:42

Land of the Giants dating

13:44

games. Follow wherever you listen

13:46

to hear new episodes every Wednesday.

13:50

Hey y'all. This

13:52

is Josh Mucci, host of the pitch,

13:54

a podcast from Fox Media. On

13:57

the

13:57

pitch, real on renewers, pitch

13:59

real tech investors for real money.

14:02

And

14:02

you've invested in this? I'm in.

14:04

I'm in for fifty k. Founders

14:06

have raised over ten million dollars

14:09

on our show from some legendary early

14:11

stage investors. Several of these startups

14:14

are worth hundreds of millions of dollars

14:16

today. And on our new season,

14:18

we're doing something a little

14:20

crazy. We're gonna let listeners

14:23

invest in the startups on our

14:25

show. Alongside the investors.

14:28

Here the next billion dollar idea

14:31

way before anyone else. We're building

14:33

a ten billion dollar company

14:34

That's kind of sexy. Go make the money,

14:36

honey. Follow the pitch right now

14:39

to hear our best season yet.

14:41

Our comeback season. New episodes

14:43

start dropping weekly on February

14:46

eighth.

15:00

A

15:00

lot of things are in a bad way. No question.

15:03

And as you know, to say that American

15:05

institutions are broken is

15:07

not to say that they are unfixable

15:11

what makes you so sure

15:13

or mostly sure if

15:15

that's more accurate. That

15:17

it's the latter and not the former.

15:19

Because, I mean, even as you acknowledging your peace.

15:21

Right? We've at least served five

15:23

to civil war and recon traction,

15:25

and the industrial revolution, and the chaos

15:28

and violence of the sixties, and

15:30

somehow we always emerged

15:32

on the other side of that stuff. Right?

15:35

So I had a friend who read my piece

15:37

who said, it doesn't make sense. Like, how did everything

15:40

break at the same time? Like, what's your

15:42

theory about How is that possible?

15:44

Well, these institutions started different times

15:46

in history, and they all just decayed

15:49

simultaneously. So what's your

15:51

smart explanation for that? Which of course

15:53

is the easiest question to answer because it's

15:55

technology. Yeah.

15:57

We had an economic revolution. And

16:00

I think we all thought we were just gonna get

16:02

email. Or something. Like, it was just gonna

16:04

make our lives easier. But

16:06

just like with the industrial revolution, these

16:09

revolutions are comprehensive. And

16:12

they change every aspect of our lives that

16:15

change has a cascading effect

16:18

and what technology did to all of those institutions

16:21

it forced to come into terms with

16:24

how modern it

16:26

could be, which meant if

16:28

you create basically a new goalpost

16:31

Now all of sudden you can judge how

16:33

far everything is from that goalpost. So

16:35

you create a new technology and you

16:37

say, every system has

16:39

to be immediately responsive.

16:42

Every system is gonna try to become immediately

16:44

responsive. Some of them will

16:47

be able to get to the standard you just

16:49

said. A lot of them are going to fall

16:51

apart on their way, racing toward

16:53

their new goalpost. So

16:55

to me, it seems kind of

16:57

obvious that technology

17:00

created this demand. And it set

17:02

up a a new system that all of these institutions

17:04

were gonna have to be a part of,

17:06

and some of them are gonna make it and

17:08

a lot of them are not going to. And

17:11

I have no idea which ones are and aren't.

17:13

What I feel though is they're

17:15

all facing the same challenge, and that's what I think

17:17

is interesting to look at.

17:19

You talk about following the cracks in

17:22

the foundation of society, the way a seismologist

17:24

tracks Illing in the tectonic

17:27

plates and I still don't really know

17:29

where the cracks are or where they lead. I mean, I guess

17:31

I have vague ideas, but it's very hard

17:33

to isolate causes. And

17:36

precisely because of some of these technological changes,

17:38

I worry all the time about getting

17:41

a distorted picture of the

17:43

world by viewing it through

17:45

the fun house mirror that is the

17:47

Internet. Is it possible

17:49

that things really aren't

17:52

as broken as they've seen? Yes.

17:54

Maybe it just feels that way because we're more

17:56

aware of the brokenness that was

17:58

always

18:00

there. And we're just confronted with it

18:02

all the time. Howard Bauchner: Yes, absolutely.

18:05

You know, the same parent I just described, parent

18:07

of the special needs child who could tell you everything

18:10

that's broken, about the health insurance

18:12

landscape, about Medicaid, about everything.

18:15

In the same sentence, that they

18:17

will say, Medicaid is deeply broken.

18:20

They will also say, and don't you dare take

18:22

it away. I need it desperately.

18:25

Right? The imperative for

18:27

those of us who want to think about these things

18:29

is also even if it's

18:31

not fixable, we probably have the responsibility

18:34

to create its replacement

18:37

before we burn the original

18:39

down to the ground. Because

18:41

if not, we might as well live

18:43

with this half or mostly broken

18:45

system. It's better than nothing.

18:48

I mean, just in terms of your question about the

18:50

cracks, that's kind of the reason

18:52

why it's really

18:54

important to stick with

18:57

seeing what those cracks are. And

18:59

to talk to the people who tell you they're

19:01

falling into them because

19:03

they're the only ones who know. They're

19:05

the only ones who can help you walk back,

19:07

back, back, back, to its origin point.

19:10

I have some brokenness and some status

19:13

quoist tendencies. I can be either

19:15

depending on the day you ask me. I

19:17

don't know what the hell that makes me. I I guess, if I'm

19:19

hearing you, it makes me like a lot of people. Right.

19:22

Somewhere in the middle. I was

19:24

probably at my most brokenest in

19:27

the throes of the pandemic. Yeah.

19:29

The experience of of watching even

19:31

that be so easily

19:35

and neatly subsumed by our

19:37

partisan ranker. That was a kind

19:39

of tipping point for me in a realization

19:41

that the information environment now

19:43

in conjunction with all these other forces has

19:45

really combined to create

19:48

an incredibly unstable situation

19:51

that I do not think is sustainable. I

19:53

think if you can maintain having both brokenness

19:56

and status quoist, ways

19:58

of looking at the world or you can feel

20:00

comfortable with either one of them

20:02

or both. What that

20:04

allows you to do is

20:07

judge things at a local level,

20:09

which is where I think all

20:11

things are gonna get built or fixed

20:13

anyway. It's a little bit

20:16

like cleaning out your closet. So there's a bunch

20:18

of stuff that you're gonna take and you're gonna throw

20:20

it away. But not every

20:22

item of Illing. Then there are a bunch of things

20:24

that you're going to take and be like, these are really important to

20:26

me. I'm going to get them fixed. And

20:28

then there are things that work great. They

20:30

do great for you, so you'd keep those. If

20:34

you have a philosophy about your closet,

20:37

you're gonna end up with a bad closet. If

20:39

you're like, nothing here has to change.

20:41

We're not changing anything. You're just gonna end

20:43

up with a bunch of stuff you can't use and a

20:45

bunch of stuff that doesn't look good on you. Right?

20:47

And if you walk in, you're like, we're throwing everything

20:49

out. You may lose something that

20:52

was really important to you that actually worked really

20:54

well that maybe was from your grandmother. Like,

20:56

you don't want that. And I think

20:58

that American society right now is at a place

21:00

where it would be amazing if

21:02

we could almost

21:05

assess everything. Look

21:07

at everything and say, how

21:09

can we make this better for more people?

21:12

How can we make this work better? And

21:14

help more people and make

21:16

better, safer, more

21:18

enriching lives for more of us.

21:20

You're not a fence sitter though. Right? They could be your

21:22

brokenest. Right? I mean, although

21:24

you do say there's this caveat, maybe I should ask you

21:26

about that. The way you say it in the piece is to

21:28

say that you're brokenness with respect to American

21:31

institutions, but not with respect to America

21:33

itself. I'm not exactly sure

21:35

what that really means. I don't know what America is

21:38

if not a bundled institutions girded

21:40

by a culture. I suppose. So

21:42

maybe you can just unpack that and explain

21:44

your staunch brokenism. I

21:47

wouldn't say it staunch. Okay.

21:49

I took some liberties there. Right. I

21:51

think that I have

21:54

a hot hand with my brokenness of them.

21:57

Illing, I'm not slow. To

21:59

look at something and say, it's broken beyond

22:02

repair. That's a difference between

22:04

me and I think some of my more satisfying close

22:06

friends -- Yeah. -- is that their default is

22:09

to say, can we fix this? And

22:11

to take that conversation, I think sometimes

22:13

too far, past the point of

22:16

usability and past the point of the

22:18

legitimate use of anyone's time and resources

22:20

and energy. So I see too many people

22:23

throwing too many resources

22:26

down the what I think is just an abyss

22:28

of institutions that seem like they're obviously

22:31

Illing and shouldn't be given those kinds

22:33

of resources. So I am

22:35

quicker than a lot of other people I know

22:38

to consign things to the dustbin

22:40

of his true now. So

22:43

that's what I mean when I say I tend to

22:45

be brokenness in my

22:47

impulses. Yeah. In terms of sort

22:49

of the America question, I

22:52

mean, here's where get a little woo woo, I

22:54

guess. I think one of the

22:56

best things about America and one of the

22:58

most gruesome in some ways

23:01

about America is its ability

23:04

to forget the past, to almost

23:06

like forget the past the minute it happens,

23:08

which is responsible I think for both

23:11

its capacity to be

23:13

so future oriented that it constantly morphs.

23:16

Like, it molts almost, but

23:18

also then brings trauma

23:21

with it like, drags its own trauma

23:23

with it constantly into the future because it won't deal

23:25

with it. But for me,

23:27

what that means though is is that America has

23:29

at least historically been fertile ground for

23:32

pretty radical change. And

23:34

because America has been very open to

23:36

the idea of, well, why don't we just all wake

23:38

up tomorrow and do something else, I

23:41

feel excited about the idea

23:43

that we could fix stuff and maybe replace

23:45

stuff. And again, I'm not

23:47

I'm not European. I was on

23:49

British radio and the interviewer said

23:51

to me, so do you you believe that maybe

23:54

that the British government's gonna fix

23:56

everything, right, that they could fix it,

23:58

and we could all be okay. I was like, I have

24:00

no idea. I don't feel

24:02

super hopeful about that,

24:04

but I have no idea. Europe

24:07

is different and Europe in some senses

24:10

lives in its own past. America

24:12

doesn't. And so when I talk about

24:14

feeling like I immediately

24:16

will consign an American institution

24:19

to the dust kind of history, It's

24:21

almost because America doesn't mind.

24:24

Like, you wanna throw out all of the ivy leagues,

24:26

literally just throw them in all of the ocean, America

24:28

will be fine. It will just make a

24:31

new And it's brutal. It

24:33

can be violent. But that ability

24:35

to simply replace what needs to get

24:37

thrown in the garbage means

24:40

that I feel like there's gonna be something

24:42

new in twenty years whether

24:44

we can see it now or not.

24:55

So before we put this episode in

24:57

the dustbin of history, can

24:59

we talk about why things have gotten so

25:01

extreme on the right and left? Alana

25:05

and I discuss after one more

25:07

quick break.

25:18

Over the last few months, HBO Max

25:20

has been taking shows off its platform.

25:23

Entirely. For one

25:25

show, that means you've got to be airborne

25:28

to actually watch

25:29

it. The show is physically

25:32

and, spiritually, in limbo.

25:35

Right now, you can only see it on American

25:37

Airlines and on JetBlue. Stop.

25:40

What?

25:41

What happens when a streamer disappears

25:44

your TV show? This

25:46

week on Intuit, Vulture's

25:48

pop culture podcast.

25:53

You never know what the future holds

25:55

until it hits. But

25:59

that's posed by Earth orbit

26:01

crossing asteroids and comets has long

26:03

been a concern of mine and of the

26:05

committee. NASA's from the so

26:07

called city killer asteroid narrowly

26:10

missed hitting Earth.

26:13

The dedicated researchers who find

26:15

and track asteroids across the solar

26:17

system set their sights on the little

26:19

asteroid

26:20

moonlet, dimorphous, with

26:22

one mission in mind.

26:26

Give a little boop, you know, like, boop.

26:29

Humanity's first ever attempt to

26:31

boop an asteroid.

26:34

Can we reach into the cosmos and

26:37

defend the planet?

26:40

Boom. This week, an unexplainable

26:42

How did NASA's asteroid boop

26:45

attempt actually go? And what

26:47

does it mean for the future of our planet?

26:49

Follow Unexplainable for new episodes every

26:52

Wednesday.

27:09

You remind me of that great gore Vidal? Line,

27:12

we are forever the United States

27:14

of Indonesia. We learn nothing because

27:16

we remember nothing. I

27:19

think there's a lot of truth to that. One

27:22

perhaps symptom of some of this

27:24

brokenness for you at least is the

27:26

fact that our conventional ideological

27:29

categories are sort of meaningless. Now,

27:31

like, I don't even know what the hell the the left

27:33

and the right really even refers to this

27:35

point. Which is why you

27:37

invoke something that's called the horseshoe

27:40

theory. Yeah. The horseshoe theory

27:42

is the idea that the extremes are

27:44

closer to each other than they are to

27:46

the mainstream cohorts. On their

27:48

own side. So you go so far right that you

27:50

sound like the left, you go so far left that you start

27:52

to sound like the right. And, of

27:55

course, that's a perfect status quoist

27:58

argument because you basically say,

28:00

the extremes are ignorable.

28:04

Both of them are French and

28:08

moderate centrists on both

28:10

sides need come together and we're

28:12

the adults in the room. On

28:14

the one hand, I'm sympathetic to that idea because

28:17

it's very hard to look around American

28:19

politics and not see examples of where she's

28:21

here. And I mentioned some of them in the piece,

28:23

you see Glen Greenwald on Tucker Carlson.

28:26

Glen is a historic leftist, now he's

28:28

on Tucker Carlson, which is see a right wing

28:30

program with a right wing host. And

28:33

we see these elements happening all

28:35

all the time now. And so you do see

28:37

this coming together of voices

28:40

and platforms that feel like

28:42

they're taking the extremes of the left and the

28:44

right and they're combining them. So

28:46

it's hard not to see

28:48

that status quoists are right when

28:50

they identify that coming together.

28:53

On the other hand, The

28:55

point of the Horseshoe theory, which is

28:57

rhetorical, is to tell

29:00

you to dismiss them.

29:02

That's where I feel it starts

29:04

to actually be its own political

29:06

argument, which you can then disagree with or not.

29:09

Now it's not actually about whose

29:11

legitimate in politics, but just that's

29:13

just not your side. So the way that

29:15

I see it is that instead of it

29:17

being a horseshoe with extremes, On

29:20

both sides, it's just a new circle.

29:22

And there are two sides of the new circle. One

29:25

side are people who would

29:27

be considered on the far extremes

29:29

of both of their respective teams. And on

29:31

the other side, are people who are centralists? Yeah,

29:34

I mean, in some way, there's there's an alignment

29:36

really. The horseshoe theory sort of folds

29:38

into your framework. For me, at

29:40

least, to say that horseshoe theory is correct.

29:42

It's not to say that. The

29:45

far left and the far right share

29:47

the same beliefs. Instead, I

29:49

it's about how a certain kind of

29:51

dogmatism leads to the same

29:53

posture. In people regardless of

29:55

where they start out, ideologically. So,

29:59

yeah, the far left and the far right may

30:01

wanna build very different worlds if

30:03

they wanna build anything at all. But

30:06

they both probably agree that the system

30:08

should be burned down. And in that sense,

30:10

they may have more in common with each other than normi

30:13

centrus types too on the left and the

30:15

right and that I think is instructive.

30:17

To me, These frameworks are only

30:19

useful if they actually help us

30:22

understand what's happening in

30:24

society. And I'm not so sure

30:26

that the left right framework is useful

30:29

anymore. I don't think it helps anyone

30:31

understand anything. Let alone

30:33

convince anyone. Let's even put aside convincing

30:35

other people as a

30:37

goal. Right? I don't even think

30:39

it makes it clear to anyone. But

30:41

when I start talking to people about the health

30:43

of institutions, all of a sudden,

30:45

they come alive in both directions. People

30:48

wanna defend the institutions that

30:50

they feel are central to their lives, and

30:52

they want to make them better. Other

30:55

people want to destroy the institutions that

30:57

they see as obstacles to

30:59

them Illing good lives.

31:01

But that becomes a great exciting,

31:05

generative conversation. And the conversations

31:07

around that that I'm in people

31:10

leave feeling good because

31:12

they feel like they thought about

31:14

something

31:15

and they kinda have marching orders that are

31:17

different. Yeah, I think that's part of the

31:19

problem. We've we've inherited this language

31:21

really from the twentieth century and this kind of

31:24

left, right, liberal conservative that

31:26

just doesn't really map neatly

31:28

onto the political reality now. And

31:30

we just don't really have a new language that

31:32

does. And so we're in this interrectum

31:35

or or whatever. There's in between space

31:39

that makes conversation really

31:42

difficult and makes situating yourself

31:45

in this political space

31:47

difficult. I mean, I I even struggle with I mean,

31:49

I still very much of myself as of the

31:51

left, but It's not so simple

31:53

anymore. And it's because of this

31:55

scrambledness. That's even a

31:58

real word. No.

32:00

That's right. And the thing that I tried

32:02

in the piece to basically talk about it, I think

32:04

I used this metaphor of when

32:07

I was in gym class in elementary school,

32:09

our teacher at some point, you know, we

32:11

had two volleyball teams and our teacher at

32:13

some point split both teams and then

32:15

we combine them to create new teams.

32:18

And that kind of is what I feel like is happening

32:20

now. There are still

32:22

two teams. They just

32:24

look different and they're

32:26

Illing themselves out in unusual

32:28

ways. And as a result, a bunch of people who

32:31

are standing in the middle are trying to figure out

32:33

which side they belong to

32:35

because they're in flux. And

32:38

we are clearly in a cataclysmic

32:41

time of change. The

32:43

question I think for us is, how

32:46

do we get out of it with

32:48

the

32:49

most possibility for a better

32:51

future? I don't know. I

32:53

guess I find it easier to talk about the

32:56

symptoms and indicators that

32:58

I do about the solutions. And something

33:01

you definitely touch on. And it's a recurring

33:03

theme for me in the show and in in some of

33:05

my Illing, this collapse

33:07

of trust in authority. And

33:10

in mainstream institutions like

33:12

media, is a major

33:14

red flag. And if you're looking for

33:17

symptoms of the brokenness, that's

33:19

a really good one. But I also

33:21

think it's important to be honest

33:23

and acknowledge that that collapse

33:26

of trust is not just result of people

33:28

being blinkered by misinformation

33:32

online. Right? That there is an

33:34

actual cultural divide and it

33:37

it is playing out in our dominant institutions.

33:40

Like the conversation for instance about

33:42

woke capitalism. Right.

33:45

What's interesting about that to me

33:47

is that it it illustrates this gap between

33:51

elites in a lot of the public. And I'm

33:53

setting aside here, ideological

33:55

questions about, you know, which right or wrong

33:57

or good or bad or whatever. The relevant

33:59

point here for me is

34:02

that the intellectual and political

34:04

culture in a lot of our dominant

34:06

institutions for media to academia

34:10

to corporate America, often

34:13

it doesn't reflect the ideological

34:15

diversity of the country. Mhmm.

34:18

And that's true even if you think part

34:20

of the problem is that huge chunks in the country

34:22

are just deeply wrong about deeply important

34:24

questions and they they believe awful things. Maybe that's

34:27

true. But the existence of this

34:29

cultural divide is generating a

34:31

lot of tension. And if you're

34:34

a status quoist, that's

34:37

not helping your cause.

34:38

Yeah. Like, you see it on these massive corporations

34:42

and you start to think to yourself

34:44

it's something that that makes me feel uneasy.

34:46

And I think that you're

34:49

right that at some level

34:51

we're we're playing out mistrust

34:53

with these institutions. I might

34:55

take us one step back and say,

34:58

I'm not trying to be although

35:00

I feel sympathy with luddites. I'm not

35:02

actually a luddite, but it's

35:05

hard not to look at the past and say like

35:07

local communities were high trust.

35:09

Communities. And a

35:12

lot of things emerged from local

35:14

communities, even American, the American

35:16

elite. Used to be geographically

35:19

organized. So we had a Midwest elite.

35:21

We had a southern elite. We had a eastern

35:24

seaboard elite. We had a West Coast elite.

35:26

And those elites were connected

35:28

to the non elites in their region.

35:31

They're invested in living in the same region.

35:34

High Trust, and then they had corporations that

35:37

were rooted in those geographical areas.

35:41

If you lived around IBM, IBM

35:43

is a major multinational corporation,

35:45

but you also it was your local

35:48

industry. These things created

35:50

trust. The trust has

35:52

broken down all throughout

35:55

the pyramid of our lives. If

35:57

we don't have local

35:59

life in this country that feels generative

36:02

and enriching

36:02

and, like, potentially a place of opportunity

36:05

for people, I think a

36:07

large part of what we're trying to build on top of

36:09

that will come

36:10

apart. You wrote something that

36:12

was, I think, very important and very powerful

36:14

in your piece.

36:15

And and now I'm Illing. To

36:17

see the cracks in the building before it collapses,

36:20

that's a Jewish experience. To

36:22

argue about whether the building can be saved

36:24

or have to be evacuated. That's a

36:26

Jewish debate. To

36:28

find a way to somehow invent an entirely

36:31

new Illing, That's a Jewish act.

36:34

To dismiss the cracks as unimportant

36:36

and suppress questions so that the next

36:38

day's news shocks you all over

36:41

Again, I wish you luck in

36:44

your efforts, but don't confuse your

36:46

approach with the values of Jewish engagement.

36:50

That's lovely piece of writing and there's a lot going

36:52

on there and I am not

36:55

Jewish and I don't have any connection with

36:57

what you're describing really. So I wanna give

36:59

you space to explain what that passage

37:01

really means because to the extent I do

37:03

think I understand what you're

37:04

Illing. It's important.

37:07

I talked a little bit about America's brutal

37:10

and terrifying and kind of magical ability

37:12

to live outside of history or to

37:14

forget the past the minute it happens. For

37:17

me, the dynamic, part

37:19

of the reason why I can live inside of that

37:21

country and access that

37:23

without it feeling almost

37:25

inhuman is because

37:27

I'm also rooted in another

37:30

tradition, which is deeply

37:33

historical and actually demands

37:35

constant remembering almost

37:39

in a daily way. For me,

37:41

the dynamic between those two has

37:43

been very useful. I

37:45

feel that I can understand

37:48

many sides and many arguments

37:51

about the health of a society because

37:54

I both feel the imperative

37:56

of the past and the whole of the

37:58

future. The argument that I

38:00

was trying to make in that paragraph

38:03

was that due to historically have

38:06

lived in lots of societies that have come

38:08

apart, and they either came apart

38:10

internally or externally Usually,

38:14

they expelled their Jews or they murdered

38:16

them. Sometimes, they came

38:18

apart in ways that allowed the Jews to

38:20

leave before that happened, but that was

38:22

rarer. So the point is is that

38:24

we have a diasoric history

38:27

that has demanded that

38:30

we study our

38:32

surroundings and

38:34

that we watch for signs of

38:38

decay. More danger. And

38:40

that we not take for granted the notion

38:42

that just because the society has been

38:44

around for a little while, that it's gonna be around

38:46

forever. So when I was encouraging

38:49

my readers, not just Jewish readers,

38:51

but all readers to do, sort

38:54

of take that from the Jewish playbook.

38:57

And start to ask yourself,

39:01

what looks healthy here? What

39:03

looks like it could use a little

39:05

firming up. What looks like building

39:07

that's about to fall down on my head? Be

39:10

honest with yourself because

39:12

your loved ones are in that building with you.

39:14

Part of the key to Jewish history has been

39:16

in being able to

39:19

engage with the world around us richly

39:22

and creatively and

39:25

smoothly, but also

39:27

to be honest about

39:29

it. You've talked about it in this conversation,

39:31

you talk about it in the essay itself,

39:34

how we're in this cataclysmic period

39:36

of flux, something like that. And I

39:39

just worry that there is

39:41

an impulse of temptation to exaggerate

39:44

the stakes or to exaggerate the

39:46

the level of brokenness in

39:48

order to endure the

39:51

moment with historical weight

39:53

that maybe doesn't quite merit, which is just a

39:55

really stuffy way of saying maybe things aren't really that

39:57

bad compared to Lee speaking. They're actually maybe

40:00

as good as they've ever been. You know

40:02

what I mean? And as part of it is I

40:04

just I continue to believe

40:06

that it's just really, really hard to

40:08

even determine what cleavages

40:11

are real and unbridgeable and what cleavages

40:13

are being manufactured and in some ways

40:15

are just sort of byproducts of our cultural

40:18

and technological environment, which doesn't

40:20

make them inconsequential. Right?

40:22

But it does sort make them contingent. You know

40:24

what I mean?

40:26

I suspect, particularly in

40:28

this country, I don't think

40:30

that there's a huge threat of us

40:32

throwing in the garbage

40:36

institutions that are working

40:38

really well

40:40

for a majority of the people they're

40:42

meant to serve. I

40:44

think I would ask you to

40:46

ask yourself or maybe I would just ask

40:48

you What's the worst that

40:50

could happen?

40:53

I'm thinking about your question. Honestly, it's

40:55

a good one. And I

40:57

don't know what the answer is. I suspect

40:59

that whatever the worst that can happen is

41:01

not just worse than we imagine

41:04

it. It may be worse than we can. Imagine.

41:06

And I guess I would say one

41:08

thing I don't think you quite do

41:11

in the peace. And if you think I'm wrong

41:13

about this, please tell me.

41:15

But I'm not sure you you really

41:17

reckon with what it would mean,

41:20

and this gets at what you're asking me. What

41:22

it would mean materially and politically to

41:26

reject or abandon

41:28

our institutions. You know? Like, I'm not sure

41:30

you can rebuild society really until

41:32

a prevailing order has collapsed.

41:35

And the transition, at least historically, from

41:37

one order to another, is usually really

41:39

violent and bumpy and ugly. Which is

41:41

why I think a committed brokenness.

41:44

And as I said on Sundays, I feel like

41:46

I am one should really

41:48

think long and hard about what would come after.

41:51

And about how hard it was to build

41:53

the society we have. However, screwed

41:56

up in flawed, it

41:58

might be, and no doubt is.

42:01

We're not making a movie here. We're

42:03

actually talking about how things

42:05

work in life. And

42:08

I think that the

42:11

second state, maybe at this point, there are

42:13

three of them, has just undone

42:16

its requirement for a college degree

42:18

in order to

42:20

work for the government. That

42:23

is a move to

42:26

quietly Reimagine the

42:29

importance of a college degree

42:31

in the American economy moving

42:33

forward. That's a brokenest move.

42:36

Nobody shut down all the colleges overnight.

42:39

Nobody decided that people with college

42:41

degrees were gonna be prejudiced against.

42:44

That they couldn't get jobs. Right?

42:47

What quietly happened and is happening

42:50

is that some people are saying, what

42:53

if we don't about things the

42:55

way that we've always thought about them. What

42:57

if we imagine that we add a

42:59

second way of thinking about it?

43:02

To me, that's what I see

43:04

happening and that's what I want to encourage. I

43:06

don't want to encourage people just taking things

43:08

and throwing them in the middle of the ocean. Especially

43:11

not before they've created some viable

43:13

soil on the ground to build something new.

43:15

But I don't even think they should do it then. I

43:18

think we should be making moves like that

43:20

reimagining a future where maybe

43:22

people don't have to go into massive debt in order

43:24

to have

43:25

jobs. Yeah. And so

43:27

When I talk about brokenism, I

43:29

don't mean that we should burn

43:31

things to the ground. I mean

43:34

we should imagine more.

43:37

Imagine that there's more

43:39

opportunity. Imagine there were more

43:41

options. Imagine there were more

43:43

ways of getting people

43:46

better, safe, happier,

43:49

richer in whatever way you want think

43:51

about it lives. And what

43:53

if the roots that we've created

43:56

right now, what if we just make

43:58

more of

43:58

them? That's how

44:00

I think of it. I like that

44:03

you you went there. I mean, in some ways, I'm I'm

44:05

talking to myself as much as I'm I'm talking

44:07

to you. I'm someone who, if I'm being honest

44:10

and I try to be, I inclined

44:12

towards cynicism. And

44:14

I'm working really hard to resist that.

44:18

And what I was getting at was

44:20

maybe speaking to the brokenness out there and to

44:22

the brokenness in me. Right? That to be a

44:24

brokenness, maybe isn't necessarily to be a fatalist

44:26

or even worse a nihilist. And

44:28

I think we're seeing this a lot. And I

44:30

think we're seeing more of it on the right than

44:33

the left with all the caveats

44:35

if that implies. But, you know, a politics

44:37

of of contempt for the

44:39

present order,

44:40

however, justified, can be come

44:43

just pure negation

44:44

in the absence of any, like, coherent alternative

44:47

vision. And that is the road to

44:50

ruin that I I worry were on,

44:52

particularly for people who feeling more like brokenness.

44:55

Right? Because it's like, what the hell is the next step after

44:57

that? If things are broken, then it's It's

44:59

like, you know, you you packed up your shit and

45:01

you go home, you you wait for the

45:02

apocalypse. Right? But politically,

45:04

that's a dead end. And I don't wanna stop

45:06

there. Yeah. I think that this

45:08

is the challenge with the peace actually,

45:11

which is that the language is at once

45:14

evocative, but it's also a little wrong.

45:16

A friend of mine said, you know, you'd actually

45:18

don't mean brokenness. You mean refounders. Or

45:21

another friend was like, I'm a brokenness, but I call

45:23

myself a

45:24

buildest. Like, I wanna build

45:26

stuff.

45:26

I like that. I like that. You

45:27

like build this? Okay. We'll put you down. Yeah.

45:29

I mean, it's little clunky, but I like

45:31

the sentiment. Right. The challenge for

45:33

me, of course, is that I feel like

45:36

what I was trying to do because

45:38

I'm sort of a newspaper girl at

45:40

heart, I believe in the idea

45:42

of mirroring back to readers

45:45

what I feel they're telling me.

45:47

And so I was trying to mirror back the

45:49

feeling that I feel right now in

45:52

this moment, which is

45:55

a feeling of frustration. And

45:57

I was just trying to sit with people with their frustration,

45:59

but you're right that

46:01

after you sit for a little bit with your frustration,

46:05

The question for me then is, well,

46:07

then what? What do we do

46:09

when a reader looks at me and

46:11

says, Thank you for articulating my

46:13

frustration. I realize you're right. I

46:15

am exasperated. I

46:18

do want something new. Now

46:20

what? And that's where I think the

46:22

term will start to fall apart a little

46:24

bit. So hopefully, it'll capture its moment. Maybe

46:26

it will move really quickly through brokenism, into

46:29

buildism, and nobody won't

46:31

remember my term because it was such

46:33

a flash in the pan and everyone just moved right

46:36

into an optimistic building

46:37

phase. So I now have

46:39

what to hope for. I

46:42

think that brought us a natural conclusion.

46:44

I guess I'll just end by echoing what

46:46

I've said earlier, which is Illing

46:49

did a public service by framing

46:52

the debate in this way, regardless

46:54

of how I feel,

46:56

which as I said, varies by

46:59

the day. I I do think it's really important

47:01

to have a language, to have terms that

47:04

capture a moment. And

47:06

clarify the stakes. And I think you did

47:09

that in this

47:10

piece. And for that, I commend you. Thanks

47:13

for this conversation. It was really

47:15

thought provoking and challenging and

47:17

maybe I'll write about it next. I'm

47:19

on a new house. Thank you so much for being here.

47:22

Thank you so much.

47:39

Eric Janikis is our producer. Patrick

47:42

Boyd engineered this episode. Alex

47:44

Overington wrote Artheme Music and

47:47

AM Hall is the boss. I

47:52

really enjoyed that conversation as

47:54

I told Alana, at the beginning

47:56

and at the end, I still

47:58

don't really know if I'm a brokenist

48:01

or a status quoist. And

48:03

I suspect that's where a lot of people

48:05

are as well. But

48:09

that language, that distinction, is

48:11

genuinely useful and it did give me

48:14

a new way to just think about

48:16

what's wrong and where the real fault

48:19

lines are. Let

48:21

us know what you think about this one. Are

48:23

you a brokenist or are you a status

48:25

quoist? Drop us a line

48:27

at the gray area at vox dot com.

48:29

And if you appreciated this episode,

48:32

please as always share with your friends

48:34

on all the socials. New

48:39

episodes drop on Mondays and Thursdays.

48:41

Listen and subscribe.