I’m just headed out to walk in the cold windy rain and was trying to decide which crappy podcast was going to keep me company and up pops a BARPod with HELEN AS A GUEST!!! I’m not ashamed to admit it, there were tears of joy. Maybe Santa is real after all? Could he be a giant pizza eating Jew? Or a smart-mouthed Moose loving lesbian? Mr and Mrs Clause are actually siblings and that’s why they’ve never had any sexual chemistry? So many happy thoughts! 🎉
No f-ing way! I usually refuse to acknowledge the he whose name shall not be spoken troll but that is worth looking for. Posterity indeed. #ThankYouSanta #ChristmasSpirit
Apparently, Zag isn't a troll because trolls don't write long-winded comments (or 'highly substantive, multi-paragraph critiques') and 'do research' as he does. lol.
I think Z popped up awhile before Davis disappeared, and anyway, I think they are too different to be the same person. I think there are one or two viable candidates for “ghost of Davis” but they seem to have vanished already (thankfully).
Profile on Substack said “labor attorney” if I remember correctly and yes, Philly. I was intrigued as I am a paralegal in Philly. Maybe we know each other!?!
I find coconut usage of any kind to be as beneficial to taste as the addition of industrial paint and potting soil. I also understand that I am missing out, a notion I would regard as pure coconut lobby agit prop if not for the many people I have encountered in life who claim to have a familiar reaction to mustard. Maybe I'm being a bit credulous that this isn't just another coconut lobby psy-op but I suspect that these people are genuine in the claims and thus are missing out. Because mustard IS pretty great.
I was unaware there was a coconut lobby! Are they the coconut water people? I lived in Jamaica as a child and consider coconut to be a food group. Also essential in so many Thai dishes.
Ha, I used to think the same way but then I realised that English mustard is like wasabi, not like mayonnaise - you add small amounts of it to bites of savoury food, rather than slathering it on a sandwich or using it as the primary flavour in a sauce. A good banger with a bit of English mustard is a thing of beauty, and I remember reading years ago that Nigella Lawson insists on having some with her Christmas turkey dinner. (I’ve tried it, and she’s right - it’s a much better flavour match than cranberry sauce.)
England gets a lot of shit because it's England but I have never encountered *any* cuisine native to the northern latitudes that wasn't bland and heavy. No one's singing the praises of Russian, Swedish, or Canadian food, either.
Yes, but it's still Indian food. Mexican food has been popular in the US for a long time, but it's still Mexican food. I say this all quite tongue-in-cheek, but Indian food is not British food.
Sorry, by couscous I meant the dish, not the ingredient. In France (and in the small North African diaspora in my old London suburb) “couscous” was on menus and referred to a meat & veg strew accompanied by couscous, as in the recipe given in the link at the end of in the article below:
I suspect it may have happened because at the time of introduction over 100 years ago, the North African way of serving couscous was so different to the Northern European ways of managing starches that the grain name stood for the whole way of preparing and eating it with a saucy stew, but I’m still hearing it used colloquially that way even now.
Also - I don’t understand your point about the time of integration? As Matthew points out, Indian food has been integrating into British cuisine for a very long time.
It’s more about how. Take pasta. Originally developed in Asia. Brought over to Europe. Used as a staple ingredient i. Italian dishes.
It’s a single ingredient that was integrated into the local quisine. And done so long ago they it’s not even “fusion” anymore.
This is way different then just going “we have Pho shops, so…that’s totally Italian food now”.
So, how it’s integrated determines whether it’s a fusion of style using ingredients both local and not or if it’s not remotely local. Time and prevalence determines if it’s fully absorbed as a local staple dish.
It’s not a science or anything. Lots of gray. But there’s a definite difference between Bhan Mi or a Bolognese Pasta and saying “Indian food? Yeah. That’s British now.”
I know it was kind of a joke anyway. There’s great food in any major city.
This takes me back to my junior year abroad in the late eighties in Paris. What I remember most is: 1. the metro station (Censier Daubenton) 2. the cafeteria had a delicious stew fueled by harissa over couscous (I'd save up my au pair money to have it with a room temperature Diet Coke--so American--that cost 5 francs at the time--more than the meal) 3. afterwords, we'd go to an enormous mosque across the street that operated a cafe where we'd have those wonderfully dry almond cookies with sweet mint tea.
It's delicious. I use it colloquially like you do--and always think of those awesome stews!
You’ve reminded me of a business trip I took to Arizona many years ago, where I met a couple of colleagues from our Mexico City office at a big client meeting. Afterwards our American hosts took us for “Mexican,” cheerfully pointing out the irony of taking Mexican people out for Mexican food.
My colleagues, out of earshot some hours later, both thoroughly repudiated the idea that the dinner had been Mexican in any way, shape or form.
Of course, and I don't mean to sound like I'm taking this super seriously, because I'm not. I'm of Indian descent (not that that really matters), and I'm glad that British people developed a love for Indian food, but it's just not British food. And btw, none of this has anything to do with calling Helen racist, even though she obviously is ;)
You're right, that was a terrible argument, and you don't have to be harboring cancellation motives to say so. It's better to simple question whether "English food" is a meaning concept without context while noting that England acquired this reputation when food options were far more limited that are now.
Then again, who cares, she was being at least somewhat facetious.... well, me apparently. I've typed too much to claim otherwise.
American food kind of sucks in general, but at least we are a huge country with lots of diversity and there are some interesting regional cuisines that could be considered American.
Don’t know….most of the quintessentially American food genres in the US are quite good.
Cajun, smokehouse, hamburger, ice cream cones (yeah, we did that. America, Fuck Yeah!), chocolate chip cookies, anything with peanut butter. Even fortune cookies are pretty awesome!
I just got my fixins' for Hoppin' John yesterday. If you don't eat them with a side of collard greens on New Year's Day, there is no accounting what might happen to you in the upcoming months. As there is a religion of pork in my beloved Lowcounty, most of these are seasoned with ham hock, bacon, or some other variation. I do use Field Roast sausage to make a credibly tasty vegan Red Rice and Sausage when I go meatless. It's pretty awesome.
That's all fair enough, and I've got my Carolina Gold Rice and Sea Island Red Peas that I bought on Edisto to make some Hoppin' John, so I'm definitely on board with it.
I just think it's kind of a niche within the broader American cuisine, which I don't think has as much going for it as the world's best areas for food.
Yum! I just ate shrimp and grits for lunch (I am feeling homesick as I don't live in the Carolinas any more) and, full, decided to check out the BARpod comments instead of doing what I should be doing (working on my syllabus). I hope you have a happy new year!
Yeah, American food does not have many good options for vegetarians. I would say BBQ is my favorite genre of American food, but even then the vegetable sides often feel like an afterthought (unless it is Brunswick Strew which contains 𝘺𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘵). I was at a barbecue restaurant recently and saw the option on the menu to make a vegetable plate of multiple sides, and it made me think, why even bother going to a barbecue restaurant just to get the sides?
It's not something I really do. The logical answer would be because you have friends or colleagues who are not vegetarian and you want to join them socially. I would never fault a business for trying to serve a wide range of possible customers, and sometimes the side dishes are good.
There are rare barbecue restaurants that make a serious effort to offer vegetarian alternatives, but even then, I suspect it's more for someone who has a very different set of preferences than me.
In an age where most people doing podcasts don’t have smooth, pleasant radio voices (and I say this as someone who doesn’t have one either), it makes me appreciate people like Helen that actually do even more.
OMG yes. There have been people I had to stop listening to, but she has a lovely clear voice. Katie is also pleasant. Jesse, well, he has the dude card I guess.
I went to some of the Satanic Temple sobriety support meetings. Too much of an emphasis of social justice and not enough on getting sober! In AA, we call these things “outside issues.”
I heard the same from my patients and friends in 4a groups, they just wanna talk about atheism. One of them gave the greatest response ever to "your higher power could be the forest or even a single tree". "If I can't rely on myself to get sober, then how can the forest do it?"
I don't think either of them should be ditched (I vacillate between whether Jesse or Katie annoys me more, they both have their issues) but Helen added some much-needed professionalism to the whole affair.
I know this is a lot of joking (including Katie LIKING this comment) but Katie and Jesse have a great chemistry that would be missed by almost all of us. ALSO Helen is great and a happy foil for their charming antagonism.
Also listen to episodes of the new statesman around 2016 (Brexit) to 2019 or so. She hosted and she is effortlessly hilarious. But it's mainly about British politics :)
She really should. The hosts are in Brooklyn and NC/WA, and the producer is in Philadelphia, so it's not like Helen being the UK is a massive roadblock.
Slightly related to the Satan stuff but I’ve always felt BDSM really stands for “Bureaucracy, Documentation, Standards, and Measures” based on just their whole twitter and Reddit presence.
I loved the point made in the episode, and in Helen's Satanic Temple article, about how an organization can't be both about its original mission and SJ because SJ takes over entirely. It's complemented by the point that the worst people in the org cloak their narcissism and personal grievances in the language of SJ, and then it becomes impossible to push back against them and shut them down. It made me think also about a point that I've recently heard/read Yasha Mounk make about intersectionality, which in its popularized/memefied form basically mandates that to be a left-of--center person in good standing you have to buy the whole package of SJ positions and causes (because all forms of oppression are interlinked).
Combined it makes for an excellent explanation for the phenomenon Ryan Grim described in his Intercept article, of progressive organizations melting down all over the place. Given Conquest's 2nd law (any organization not explicitly designed to be right wing eventually becomes left wing), it makes me despair of ever having effective social cause organizations until we develop a language and conceptual framework that allows us to effectively shut down SJ claims (of trauma, oppression, victimization, marginalization) within a liberal setting.
Hail Satan was a fun movie, but they only briefly mention “Atheism+”, which kind of killed off atheism as a social movement in the U.S. I mean, there are still lots of people who aren’t religious, but organized atheism is not the force it was in the Four Horseman days.
The central claim is that "new atheism" tried to be an explanation for all human evil ("hamartiology"), locating it in religion. SJ swapped in oppression for religion, and that went well with the transition from the nerdy intellectual argument culture of the early internet to the tribalized virality hellscape that followed.
I liked Helen's pronunciation of Patreon. Like it was the name of a Roman centurion.
Also, reporting in from Texas, where I've lived for 23 years, and know absolutely nothing about local politics outside of the town's school board. But yes, there are a lot of BarPod listeners here and some of them might even be worth talking to!
Haven't listened yet but just took the quiz in the show notes. I didn't get every answer but had some recollection of almost every single controversy listed.
Does that make me well-informed OR a loser in need of professional counseling?
I’m just headed out to walk in the cold windy rain and was trying to decide which crappy podcast was going to keep me company and up pops a BARPod with HELEN AS A GUEST!!! I’m not ashamed to admit it, there were tears of joy. Maybe Santa is real after all? Could he be a giant pizza eating Jew? Or a smart-mouthed Moose loving lesbian? Mr and Mrs Clause are actually siblings and that’s why they’ve never had any sexual chemistry? So many happy thoughts! 🎉
It gets even better. Katie replies to a Zagarna comment in the thread somewhere and asks that he be less of an asshole. I screenshot it for posterity.
#ThankYouSanta #ChristmasSpirit
No f-ing way! I usually refuse to acknowledge the he whose name shall not be spoken troll but that is worth looking for. Posterity indeed. #ThankYouSanta #ChristmasSpirit
I saw Katie's comment and liked it. But honestly I'm torn between feeding trolls and ignoring them.
It just occurred to me that Zagarna appeared just as DavisE disappeared. Coincidence?
Apparently, Zag isn't a troll because trolls don't write long-winded comments (or 'highly substantive, multi-paragraph critiques') and 'do research' as he does. lol.
I would think that referring to other commenters as 'fascists" overplays your hand.
I think Z popped up awhile before Davis disappeared, and anyway, I think they are too different to be the same person. I think there are one or two viable candidates for “ghost of Davis” but they seem to have vanished already (thankfully).
Davis regularly mentioned being a schoolteacher in rural Kansas. I don't believe Zagarna has revealed a location and occupation.
Profile on Substack said “labor attorney” if I remember correctly and yes, Philly. I was intrigued as I am a paralegal in Philly. Maybe we know each other!?!
Lawyer in the Philadelphia area, I believe (and no, I am not just confusing him with Trace!)
I guess I should claim that scalp? I laid into him pretty solidly.
I ignore them or I’ll get shouty.
Now that you mention it they’re tonally a match. You’re probably right.
Davis is dumber than Zaggy though.
You could be right. I ignore them both and just skip on when I see the name.
Hmmm. The plot thickens.
Yes
They were both active at the same time, for a long time. Unfortunately. Sometimes they would both respond to my comments!
Zagarna is the true meaning of Christmas (calling people transphobes).
I always thought Zagarna was a lady haven’t been as active in the threads lately.
My mental image is a fourteen year old girl in a right strop who has memorized an uncomfortable number of Wikipedia articles
What?! I need to see this marvel!
What. I missed this. Elaborate.
I would like to note that Helen's defense of English food came down to:
- Mustard
- The fact that Indian food is great and some of them live there.
Mustard IS pretty great.
I find coconut usage of any kind to be as beneficial to taste as the addition of industrial paint and potting soil. I also understand that I am missing out, a notion I would regard as pure coconut lobby agit prop if not for the many people I have encountered in life who claim to have a familiar reaction to mustard. Maybe I'm being a bit credulous that this isn't just another coconut lobby psy-op but I suspect that these people are genuine in the claims and thus are missing out. Because mustard IS pretty great.
I was unaware there was a coconut lobby! Are they the coconut water people? I lived in Jamaica as a child and consider coconut to be a food group. Also essential in so many Thai dishes.
I was raised in England but always preferred American or French Mustard. English mustard is way way way too strong!
Ha, I used to think the same way but then I realised that English mustard is like wasabi, not like mayonnaise - you add small amounts of it to bites of savoury food, rather than slathering it on a sandwich or using it as the primary flavour in a sauce. A good banger with a bit of English mustard is a thing of beauty, and I remember reading years ago that Nigella Lawson insists on having some with her Christmas turkey dinner. (I’ve tried it, and she’s right - it’s a much better flavour match than cranberry sauce.)
Absolutely right. French mustard is flavouring, American mustard is paint, English mustard is mustard. Ketchup is toxic waste.
American mustard is paint. Accurate.
My husband is Polish and he’s really into mustards. Plural bc our fridge can be overloaded with it at times.
So. Many. Mustards.
We, Polish people, know our mustard 🌭
Ketchup while obviously overused has its place. Including with steak on occasion, although I prefer HP as a default.
If you think English food is bad you should try eating in the Netherlands.
England gets a lot of shit because it's England but I have never encountered *any* cuisine native to the northern latitudes that wasn't bland and heavy. No one's singing the praises of Russian, Swedish, or Canadian food, either.
Ever had IKEA Swedish meatballs tho?
Idk man, poutine is pretty great.
It's alright if you're hungover, but french fries, cheese curds, and gravy is the definition of "bland and heavy."
To be fair, every spacefaring race IS known to have a dish which is functionally identical to Swedish meatballs.
Most of the native food I had in England were things I’d associate with pub food in the states.
The curry was great…not sure I’d tip a hat to England for that though.
Can’t go wrong with giant apple and walnut pancakes.
English people claiming Indian food as their own is a dark form of irony.
Wait til you hear about the French embrace of merguez & couscous.
Couscous has been integrated into French cuisine for over 100 years. It’s a single ingredient that hey now use.
Like pasta in Italy.
I don’t think that’s at all the same as just out right claiming an entire separate diaspora of food from another culture
Indian food has also been popular in the UK for over 100 years. The first Indian restaurant in London was opened 214 years ago.
Yes, but it's still Indian food. Mexican food has been popular in the US for a long time, but it's still Mexican food. I say this all quite tongue-in-cheek, but Indian food is not British food.
Neither is Fish and Chips by that gauge.
Sorry, by couscous I meant the dish, not the ingredient. In France (and in the small North African diaspora in my old London suburb) “couscous” was on menus and referred to a meat & veg strew accompanied by couscous, as in the recipe given in the link at the end of in the article below:
https://gherkinstomatoes.com/2011/06/28/couscous-in-france-nothing-really-new/
I suspect it may have happened because at the time of introduction over 100 years ago, the North African way of serving couscous was so different to the Northern European ways of managing starches that the grain name stood for the whole way of preparing and eating it with a saucy stew, but I’m still hearing it used colloquially that way even now.
Also - I don’t understand your point about the time of integration? As Matthew points out, Indian food has been integrating into British cuisine for a very long time.
That’s different then couscous as an ingredient.
It’s more about how. Take pasta. Originally developed in Asia. Brought over to Europe. Used as a staple ingredient i. Italian dishes.
It’s a single ingredient that was integrated into the local quisine. And done so long ago they it’s not even “fusion” anymore.
This is way different then just going “we have Pho shops, so…that’s totally Italian food now”.
So, how it’s integrated determines whether it’s a fusion of style using ingredients both local and not or if it’s not remotely local. Time and prevalence determines if it’s fully absorbed as a local staple dish.
It’s not a science or anything. Lots of gray. But there’s a definite difference between Bhan Mi or a Bolognese Pasta and saying “Indian food? Yeah. That’s British now.”
I know it was kind of a joke anyway. There’s great food in any major city.
Yes, that is different than couscous just as an ingredient. That was my point.
This takes me back to my junior year abroad in the late eighties in Paris. What I remember most is: 1. the metro station (Censier Daubenton) 2. the cafeteria had a delicious stew fueled by harissa over couscous (I'd save up my au pair money to have it with a room temperature Diet Coke--so American--that cost 5 francs at the time--more than the meal) 3. afterwords, we'd go to an enormous mosque across the street that operated a cafe where we'd have those wonderfully dry almond cookies with sweet mint tea.
It's delicious. I use it colloquially like you do--and always think of those awesome stews!
If they say "Chicken Tikka Massala was invented in England!", you can truthfully tell them it was not - it was invented in Glasgow, Scotland
I suspect that the California burrito was invented in California, but it's still Mexican food.
You’ve reminded me of a business trip I took to Arizona many years ago, where I met a couple of colleagues from our Mexico City office at a big client meeting. Afterwards our American hosts took us for “Mexican,” cheerfully pointing out the irony of taking Mexican people out for Mexican food.
My colleagues, out of earshot some hours later, both thoroughly repudiated the idea that the dinner had been Mexican in any way, shape or form.
We like to consider people of Indian decent who are British as - Brits! ;)
Get along with you, next you’ll be suggesting the Prime Minister is British.
Of course, and I don't mean to sound like I'm taking this super seriously, because I'm not. I'm of Indian descent (not that that really matters), and I'm glad that British people developed a love for Indian food, but it's just not British food. And btw, none of this has anything to do with calling Helen racist, even though she obviously is ;)
ISWYDT
You're right, that was a terrible argument, and you don't have to be harboring cancellation motives to say so. It's better to simple question whether "English food" is a meaning concept without context while noting that England acquired this reputation when food options were far more limited that are now.
Then again, who cares, she was being at least somewhat facetious.... well, me apparently. I've typed too much to claim otherwise.
American food kind of sucks in general, but at least we are a huge country with lots of diversity and there are some interesting regional cuisines that could be considered American.
British food is indefensible.
Don’t know….most of the quintessentially American food genres in the US are quite good.
Cajun, smokehouse, hamburger, ice cream cones (yeah, we did that. America, Fuck Yeah!), chocolate chip cookies, anything with peanut butter. Even fortune cookies are pretty awesome!
As a vegetarian, I am unimpressed by the non-dessert options.
Hoppin’ John is a fun version of the beans and rice that most cultures have some version of (though it is often non-vegetarian as well).
I just got my fixins' for Hoppin' John yesterday. If you don't eat them with a side of collard greens on New Year's Day, there is no accounting what might happen to you in the upcoming months. As there is a religion of pork in my beloved Lowcounty, most of these are seasoned with ham hock, bacon, or some other variation. I do use Field Roast sausage to make a credibly tasty vegan Red Rice and Sausage when I go meatless. It's pretty awesome.
That's all fair enough, and I've got my Carolina Gold Rice and Sea Island Red Peas that I bought on Edisto to make some Hoppin' John, so I'm definitely on board with it.
I just think it's kind of a niche within the broader American cuisine, which I don't think has as much going for it as the world's best areas for food.
Yum! I just ate shrimp and grits for lunch (I am feeling homesick as I don't live in the Carolinas any more) and, full, decided to check out the BARpod comments instead of doing what I should be doing (working on my syllabus). I hope you have a happy new year!
Yeah, American food does not have many good options for vegetarians. I would say BBQ is my favorite genre of American food, but even then the vegetable sides often feel like an afterthought (unless it is Brunswick Strew which contains 𝘺𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘵). I was at a barbecue restaurant recently and saw the option on the menu to make a vegetable plate of multiple sides, and it made me think, why even bother going to a barbecue restaurant just to get the sides?
It's not something I really do. The logical answer would be because you have friends or colleagues who are not vegetarian and you want to join them socially. I would never fault a business for trying to serve a wide range of possible customers, and sometimes the side dishes are good.
There are rare barbecue restaurants that make a serious effort to offer vegetarian alternatives, but even then, I suspect it's more for someone who has a very different set of preferences than me.
All this discussion of English food and no-one’s got on to pudding? (Or cheddar.)
Or Stilton.
And? This is correct
English desserts are good, though. Love me a sticky toffee pudding!
I LOVE Helen Lewis’s voice!
In an age where most people doing podcasts don’t have smooth, pleasant radio voices (and I say this as someone who doesn’t have one either), it makes me appreciate people like Helen that actually do even more.
OMG yes. There have been people I had to stop listening to, but she has a lovely clear voice. Katie is also pleasant. Jesse, well, he has the dude card I guess.
She's positively delightful.
came here to say that too!
I went to some of the Satanic Temple sobriety support meetings. Too much of an emphasis of social justice and not enough on getting sober! In AA, we call these things “outside issues.”
I heard the same from my patients and friends in 4a groups, they just wanna talk about atheism. One of them gave the greatest response ever to "your higher power could be the forest or even a single tree". "If I can't rely on myself to get sober, then how can the forest do it?"
Will I burn in hell because I can't stop confusing Helen Lewis with Helen Joyce and Helen Andrews?
And Helen Pluckrose!
A wonderful Helen! She was great on John Cleese’s new show.
Pluckrose was actually the first to enter my consciousness. How could I forget?
Helen would forgive you. Seasonal insanity 🎅🏼🤪
I find it easiest to rank them on a scale of terfiness and proceed from there
I confuse the first two all the time.
Wait- they aren’t all the same?
I couldn't tell you the difference in those 3 people for all the money in the world
Last year‘s version of this show, Helen Lewis referred to Helen Joyce as “the spicier Helen.“ That’s your mnemonic device!
There is no hell, at least according to the Satanic Temple. I defer to their expertise on the matter.
My favourite throuple! I would increase my subscription to $6 a month if Helen became a third cohost (cost of living crisis notwithstanding).
I'd increase it to $7 if Katie dumped Jesse and replaced him with Helen!
I'd unsubscribe. It's not Barpod without Jesse
I don't think either of them should be ditched (I vacillate between whether Jesse or Katie annoys me more, they both have their issues) but Helen added some much-needed professionalism to the whole affair.
I know this is a lot of joking (including Katie LIKING this comment) but Katie and Jesse have a great chemistry that would be missed by almost all of us. ALSO Helen is great and a happy foil for their charming antagonism.
I’d at least want Helen around if they’re discussing Lorenz, because Jesse is fucking annoying when she comes up.
Please no! You'd lose me as a subsriber if you did.
Helen and Katie should simply eat Jesse
We should start a campaign to get Helen cancelled so that she has no other option than to join Barpod.
I mean, she did use the word "sniggering". If that's not enough to destroy someone's reputation and livelihood, then I don't know what is.
My sister in Christ I would pay even more than that to listen to her dulcet tones on a regular basis
She’s a regular on Page 94, the Private Eye podcast - you may learn more about current British politics than you ever intended or needed to, though.
Also listen to episodes of the new statesman around 2016 (Brexit) to 2019 or so. She hosted and she is effortlessly hilarious. But it's mainly about British politics :)
She really should. The hosts are in Brooklyn and NC/WA, and the producer is in Philadelphia, so it's not like Helen being the UK is a massive roadblock.
I emailed them demanding they do another of these. You’re welcome.
Thank You! 🥰
I think the housekeeping Helen just did should be the housekeeping for every show
She sounded 10x more professional than Katie or Jesse ever could!
Surely, the bar is pretty low, but YES (I realize I say admittedly too often)
I had the same thought. Like, they could just play that 30 second clip in the middle of every episode.
Slightly related to the Satan stuff but I’ve always felt BDSM really stands for “Bureaucracy, Documentation, Standards, and Measures” based on just their whole twitter and Reddit presence.
From the little bit I know about the community they mostly are all talk and no show in that safety stuff.
I feel like it’s almost not even about sex for the stuff I see online. Just weird ethical thought experiments.
The sex is probably happening more in real life.
I think there’s an inverse correlation between people who have bdsm sex and people who talk about it online a lot.
I always assumed the reality of it is less like the movies and more like Taxicab confessions where it’s a lot of weird dudes.
Why can’t people just go on the Ferris wheel together at the county fair and hit it off while they share a cotton candy?
I loved the point made in the episode, and in Helen's Satanic Temple article, about how an organization can't be both about its original mission and SJ because SJ takes over entirely. It's complemented by the point that the worst people in the org cloak their narcissism and personal grievances in the language of SJ, and then it becomes impossible to push back against them and shut them down. It made me think also about a point that I've recently heard/read Yasha Mounk make about intersectionality, which in its popularized/memefied form basically mandates that to be a left-of--center person in good standing you have to buy the whole package of SJ positions and causes (because all forms of oppression are interlinked).
Combined it makes for an excellent explanation for the phenomenon Ryan Grim described in his Intercept article, of progressive organizations melting down all over the place. Given Conquest's 2nd law (any organization not explicitly designed to be right wing eventually becomes left wing), it makes me despair of ever having effective social cause organizations until we develop a language and conceptual framework that allows us to effectively shut down SJ claims (of trauma, oppression, victimization, marginalization) within a liberal setting.
Hail Satan was a fun movie, but they only briefly mention “Atheism+”, which kind of killed off atheism as a social movement in the U.S. I mean, there are still lots of people who aren’t religious, but organized atheism is not the force it was in the Four Horseman days.
Sorta related: Scott Alexander wrote about the transition from New Atheism to SJ here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/30/new-atheism-the-godlessness-that-failed/
The central claim is that "new atheism" tried to be an explanation for all human evil ("hamartiology"), locating it in religion. SJ swapped in oppression for religion, and that went well with the transition from the nerdy intellectual argument culture of the early internet to the tribalized virality hellscape that followed.
The particular irony there is that atheists are more oppressed than most of the groups the social justice people claim to care about.
Can we have Helen Lewis on for every holiday? This was so delightful.
I know. I love her.
Isn't she the one who did that horrible Jordan Peterson interview?
Not that one, but the other one.
I liked Helen's pronunciation of Patreon. Like it was the name of a Roman centurion.
Also, reporting in from Texas, where I've lived for 23 years, and know absolutely nothing about local politics outside of the town's school board. But yes, there are a lot of BarPod listeners here and some of them might even be worth talking to!
I'm British and I've never heard anyone pronounce it the way Helen did here. I couldn't tell whether or not she was taking the piss.
Which part?
Which part of what? If you're asking me to expose my location, I demur!
I was thinking a quadrant wouldn’t be too specific but better safe than sorry I suppose.
I'm within a few hundred miles of El Paso. There are more Spanish speakers than English speakers here.
As a person of Frenchness, I feel violated by this episode.
#NotAllFrenchies
Haven't listened yet but just took the quiz in the show notes. I didn't get every answer but had some recollection of almost every single controversy listed.
Does that make me well-informed OR a loser in need of professional counseling?
Yes?
I got two right that J and K missed. Maybe we can get a group rate on counseling.
“I used to like your work until you attacked the stuff that I care about”
Helen Lewis has a better understanding of American free speech than most Americans. I love that.
Helen should have included “Appalachian” on her pronunciation list 😊
Agreed, but it’s not exactly in her wheelhouse.
No. That crosses the line.