ex.haust

Emmet and John begin their reading series on Alisdair MacIntyre's classic work After Virtue. This episode's a more granular look at MacIntyre's argument to make sure we've fully grasped its fundament…

Emmet talks with energy analyst Mark Nelson about how the Texas grid almost completely collapsed in mid-February and what that means for our future. Mark is sharp as hell and was a joy to speak with.…

This is a teaser from our first Patreon episode. Subscribe here to listen to the full thing!

We talk with Canada Mike about the stastical efficacy of vaccine success studies, how mRNA vaccines are p…

Our dear friend Matt Stonks joins us to talk about the whole GameStop thing. Matt helps us with some Markets 101 terminology, and then we talk about the politics of the r/WallStreetBets moment before…

Emmet sits down with Frank Furedi to discuss his latest book, Democracy Under Siege: Don't Let Them Lock It Down! They discuss Athenian Democracy, the role of expertise in society, how technocrats ne…

We talk through three pieces: Leo Strauss's lecture on German Nihilism, Bradley Troemel's (recently banned from YouTube) video essay on QAnon, and Boris Groys's essay Self-Design and Aesthetic Respon…

Canada Mike joins us to talk about why America's vaccine rollout plan doesn't make sense and why it's not going well. First, Emmet talks about watching Erin Brokovich for the first time and Gabor Mat…

We conclude (for now) our readings of Poe and Emerson by taking a look at how they conceived of American literary nationalism. John goes deep into Emerson's influences, while Emmet brings in some his…

We muse on two articles listed just below and try to think through the problem of anger in politics and in personal life. Does anger corrupt? Is it clarifying? A useful political catalyst or liabilit…

We offer a brief obit for Flash animation and then discuss how we watched social media take shape over the course of their lives. Then, using the documentaries We Live in Public (2009) and The Social…

In our first episode of 2021 we speak with Ian Corey about his series of articles on art and entertainment in the age of COVID. We talk about Twitch streaming live performances, platform dominance, t…

In our end of year recap, we first talk reflect on the year before discussing how vaccines are made, how that's changed, and what that will mean for COVID vaccine distribution. Canada Mike guides us …

We speak with scholar Kyong-Min Son about his book The Eclipse of the Demos: The Cold War and the Crisis of Democracy before Neoliberalism. We cover some of the major themes of the book, but also di…

In the second installment in our American canon series, we look at our beloved failson Edgar Allan Poe. We discuss his life, legacy (especially his impact on Borges), and what set him apart from his …

We revisit the 2006 documentary Jesus Camp, a film about a pentecostal Christian summer camp, to re-evaluate their perspective on the movie and to understand our current political moment. Unlike our …

We read two articles: one about a failed jobs program in coal country and another about a bad deal with Foxconn in Wisconsin. They were depressing and enraging. We touch on deindustrialization, the w…

We've decided to begin a running series dedicated to the American Canon. We open the episode by talking about why we're doing this before launching into a discussion of our first entry in the series:…

To conclude our series on Lasch's Revolt of the Elites, we talk to Geoff Shullenberger about his piece on Lasch's book for Wesley Yang's Correspondence Society. We link the 2020 riots to the rich kid…

We dive into the middle portion of Lasch's book about the challenges facing democratic discourse. We talk about education, the press, and how "third places" helped them cultivate identities as a sens…

Historian Jennifer Miller joins us to talk about two papers she's written on conservative responses to the rise of East Asia in the latter part of the Cold War. We get into the nitty gritty about int…