Transcripts For CSPAN2 Meghan Daum The Problem With Everything 20240713

Breakthrough essay collection, my misspent youth. And the ends people, which won the usa award for your creative nonfiction. Shes also received fellowship from the guggenheim news and the National Endowment for the art fellowship. She teaches in the msa writing program at columbia university. Turning her to discuss a problem with everything is judith sorry, judith show limits. Shes a critic and journalist and the author of the seventh world. Of a different order of tide. Only the editor of Deputy Editor new York Magazine and science on the new republic. Shes written for the New York Times review and among numerous others. The key to our friends at cspan2 for your joining us to found the conversation about to be. Who that went out further ado, please join me in welcoming megan and judith. [applause] thank you thank you all for your coming out. Im always really relieved when people show up. I love coming to this lease. I love seeing people very early in my career. Will not that early actually, but earlier, was on a book tour and ibo was in minneapolis, in. It turned out to be the same night the david sedaris, was doing a reading. At the university. In minneapolis and like in a stadium basically. Anybody whoss anybody, who cas about these things, except for your one young woman shared up at my if it she driven hundred miles from her parents farm to come and see me and she was such a big fan. And she said, i thought i wouldnt even get to see you. I thought it would even get to sit near you and kind of looked around and i was like, we are here. Ly one and who, i take her to see david sedaris. [laughter] and that was actually a great night. We had a team in the overflow room on the jumbotron. And that is what its like to be in book tour. Right very glamorous. [laughter] and who, this book, i also love it the bribe to be. My father who passed away about a year ago, and to whom news memory this book is dedicated. Such if you huge fantasy span. Really troops his favorite thing. S i say i i feel like he might be in forever he has he has cspan, he is watching. Who, judith and i are going to talk im going to be little bit from the end of the book. Who if i do that just once a couple of things about it. This book is about a lot of things. It is about the generation gap, seem to be the current political situation in the culture wars, it is about what we have called identity politics whats good about them, useful about them. It is about growing older, is about ulcers of things. But really, it is about this notion of the problem with everything. Who the title really refers to not only the way we call who muchay problematic now, theresa problem with everything is a problem with everything. Me, themately tog problem with everything refers to that conversation were always having either with ourselves and if we are lucky, with somebody else. Its like what is it about the world. What is the problem with everything. Why are things the way they are. Why am i sort of bothered and why to have this cognitive distance. Who really thats at the heart of this. That is something that is captured in the very end of the book. I will read from there. Who to be a very chart reading because i have been told you cannot tolerate more than five to seven minutes of reading. That is what it is. Who the sunglass chopper. With the problem. Until very recently, one of my most abiding ideas about myself was that iem was young. The other was that i was tough. The former is ridiculous and the latter is just meaningless. Everyone uses and smears as their youth and everyone is exactly as tough as they need to be at any given time. Another idea i had about myself was that i was a liberal and a feminist. I believe those things are still true. They also now say those labels no longer serve meet the way they once did. I actually say that labels are part of what got us into this mess in the first place. Labels at the are either bad ass her biggestst social Justice Warrior or white supremacist, hands down contradictions. And leave no room for your cognitive dissonance. They deny us our basic human rights to feel conflicted. And as i like to tell my students, if you are not conflicted, you are either lying myto yourself or you are not vey smart. The fact in the middle of writing this book, i went to my 25 year college reunion. In full disclosure, i crashed the reunion. Rubbing up the for the day that went out a reservation after a friend convinced me at the last minute that i should go. O ive never been to a college reunion. I have complicated feelings about college. Most of them stemming from guilt over the fact that he often didnt bother to get to know people as well as i couldve. Sink my classmates and middleaged though, i felt i did know them. I knew then because i recognized my very face in their very faces. I saw the ways in which the passing of time had yanked some of our certainty out from underneath us. I saw howe life and grabbed usy the shoulders and taken us everything who slightly loose from our foundational coolness. Not that we still were cool, we were just human now is it too. We were human in that way the you have to grow into. We were cumin in the way you cant beat when you are 20 or even 25. By which, i mean, we were and direct dialogue with our failures and limitations. Medecades earlier, within bright shining nothing. And now we work fully Forum Something and in various states of disenchantment. In disrepair. One point in the afternoon, in search of a bathroom, i turned a corner and a dark dormitory corridor and run smack intodo an old friend. We hugged. How long had it been. Twenty years at least. She was in the middle of getting divorced. My divorce hasnt happened, had recently been finalized. Luna thought it wouldve been like this. We huggedd. Again. How did this all come to pass. How could we expected it to be any other way. And iterations of these questions throughout the day. People were getting divorced. They were getting low enough, having child custody disputes and having her name problems and Health Problems and dying parent problems. People were despondent over trauma. There were following News Coverage of the tides student activism and thinking the waters were maybe starting to last a little is it too far over the shores. An economic day, the campaign for your south africans investments. Another kids were calling for your boycotts and divestment in israel. We had been fierce advocates for your gay rights help we were one of the gayest colleges in the country. Now gate was passe. Transgender activism has students turning in their professors who were improper use of pronouns. Labeledy bathrooms were genderneutral pride which is fine, who we couldnt help but remember the unisex dormitory bathrooms from back in oure tia when men and women thought nothing of showering in adjacent cells. Who why the big production. In my by the way, who much racial discord. We knew it was time for your National Recognition for your structural racism. We read, hosey codes, we supported black lives matter, or at least be said who on facebook. But now, from what were hearing, the entire western canon of art, our literature and philosophies, were being written on in white supremacy. How this happened. What was wrong with these kids. Or was there something wrong with us. It was likeus we can taste our n irrelevance. It was the sour taste inside our very amounts. It was a warm june day, the pansies and miracles in the shakespeare were in full bloom. The tulips lining thehe closet r your holding onto the last breath of spring. Bring sandals and clutching bags from the bookstore, the olympics strolled along this brickbats of the campus. In the times since we graduated, many walkways and buildings, have been retrofitted better accommodate people init wheelchairs. Back in 1990, students protested had shuts cooldown for your days he demands for your such things. Like hiring a rabbi, offering kosher meals, and establishing an intercultural center. This demands at the time had seen who radical. Today, they seem who reasonable as to be a matter of course. Lb irrelevance. The obsolescence. The creak of aging out before you even get old. The phantom of time haunted me as i drove back to the city and my 17 yearold volvo station wagon. It followed me back to my apartment where he poured myself a glass of wine and was in bed by ten. In the ensuing and the feeling of irrelevance, became a near constant companion, it clouded my vision like the membrane on the eye of a lizard, shielding me from what i couldnt comprehend. Staring me the mortification of cluelessness. And we both staring at myself in the mirrors and avoiding mayors. Had meat lying awake at night contemplating the end of the world. Or maybe just the end of my world. It woke me when its over i said to myself. Again and again. It is never over though. Every day becomes yesterday before you knows it. But there always tomorrows and problems to look forward to. Tomorrow, the young people now nipping at my heels, will be walking the brickbats as their own school reunion. Feeling some combination of embarrassment and pride in how they used to be. The day after tomorrow, their kids might be calling as well. In thend end, i say it come to realize that the problem with ngeverything is meant to be solved. It is meant to feed us. It is meant to pump oxygen through our lungs, it is meant to giveo us something to talk about. It is meant to feel accommodates and inspires great art. It is meant to keep relationships alive until the last possible hour. It is meant to invite our smartest selves to join hands with our stupidest self and see with the other leads us. The problem with everything is meant to keep us believing despite all evidence to the contrary in the exquisite life of our own irrelevance. What a gift. When a problem to have. Thank you. Its [applause] thank you. Im going to now open a piece of paper to scare you all. A lot of questions. I just write them down who i can ignore them. The fact always be prepared. That is my favorite passage from the book. T is no spoiler though. You still have to read the book. There is no ending. We do partially, sorely me into my first question. Which is about the generation gap. Which is what your book is mostly about anything. Largely about. I was skeptical when i start reading the book. I was skeptical about five years ago but generation gaps because dont believe in generations. I believe generally, generations are about generalization. Really about, whoever has grabbed the media might manage sort of define a group. And they are not born out of any sort of demographic or cultural analysis just sort of a pile of means. About five years ago, ten years ago, i started noticing the phenomenon you are talking about and, who there really is the gap between our generation. You see, you take back the had met some of the book is the hard generation is all about being tough. And their generation is all about being fair. Which i would once again, every generational stigma is wrong. Is the hypothesis. Im just throwing out there. Is correct yes. I was a quivering mass of jelly when im junk who tough was not in my vocabulary. I definitely felt a lot of pressurewh. That was like a thing that ourin generation was all about. I dont know if the upandcoming generation is necessarily all about being fair. A sense of it being enhanced or following due process or any that there certainly about being just. About changing framework. Changing norms, and sort of policing the changing of norms. Who you know, there is like a gap where i feel like the discourse of trauma has gone is it too far my daughter feels mylike i took my yearold daughter feels like what did you put up with that. My flight did you say that was okay. Who, my question for you is, how do you happened. Between our generation news gen xers and millennial agencies, assuming we can usese those ter, putting the ministries, what happened. Stuart to be honest, im still trying to figure that out. I guess thatl by packing up a little bit and talking about how i came to approaches. Who this book has who many iterations like initially is going to be all about feminism and is only going to be, you are not a bad ass. This would be called you are probably not a bad ass. Like i was wavering. I sued Hillary Clinton would be present. This going way back. I started wrestling with all of the stuff in the net didnt happen in the conversation around social justice issues and the cultural forms were run out and intersection only and whatever that means. As of the topic had to go beyond women but i will see in trying to figure out the answered that question, i had to say about the fact that i grew up right alongside ticket wave feminism. I was born in 1970, i was three years old when rookie way past. I remember being 12 years old 1982 is sitting at the Kitchen Table with my mother listening to npr. Cspan2 the mpr. And hearing the equal b rights amendment had not been ratified and remember my mother being really sad about that and remove are talking about who was Phyllis Schlafly and how can anybody be like that she was leaving on the equal rights amendment. Famousr feminists they worked outside the home a great deal. I remember having these conversations ive remember at te same time, dwelling and growing up those decades, never feeling like i as a girl was any less powerful than any boy. Back the girls were doing better. I thought was better be appropriate to he would get it greater spectrum of thanks christian theres just more ways to be in the world grows it better in school printed by the time i got to college, there were more women than men and. College. And were just doing better and buying our own real estate. Having babies on her own. All thatwe stuff. Who fastforward a couple of decades, maybe about five years ago or six or seven years ago, suddenly, the default premise of the conversation around women is that where this underclass. And that somehow we live on this patriarchy that we are causally fighting against. And i wondered in my first instinct was to see well thats just wrong this is stupid. And around a lot of pages an app. Then i had to say, well, i know a lot of people even my own edge who say that is true who for your this book really lifts, is that conflict. I didnt know as i was ripe enough. Who the book more than anything is the self interrogation. Its not a fun make im trying to sort through. Who to answered questions specifically, i say there are certain conditions that we enjoyed as gen x people that later generations did not have the benefit of for your instance. I say that if you grow up in the 70s as a kid theres just a sort of androgyny to making a a child at the time. Like everybody watch the bad news bears. Remember soon. Theres just in this study, there is the sort of androgynous ascetic that really affected the experience of being a kid. Int i say any accident that the two biggest childless celebrities of the 70s work jodie foster and Kristi Mcnichol both, major lesbians and i wanted to be that. They were not addedy at the ti. Just for the record, then not out of the time but like they were not girly girls. Its not cool to be a girly girl. We did not have a disney phenomenon. We did not have pink toy isle and blue toilet tile in the toy store. Then we had the benefit of the sort of, agency around our gender thanks christian. For your a variety of reasons starting to huawei later on. And i that that maybe makes us a little bit cavalier about how e move through the world. And certainly had to check myself in that regard. What is driving this gender difference and would you see that social media which says pornography also recent forces sexualha stereo or intent. Assuming we did not grow up with online pornography for your any of that. I say it really changes the game in terms of sexual negotiation. And i say that we have recognized that. And just cut them some slack with that. I have to see, this is kind of like a crackpot theory but im beginning to say this is more more true. Who when the technology became available to know the of a fetus in utero, i say that was the moment when it started to change. I say parents subconsciously internalized gender stereotypes and may have affected how the children were raised. You come into the nursery decked out in pink versus like, camera or whatever. Maybe that makes a difference. Soon well just came home to like, what room was like a closet. I feel like that was all he ever had. They had. Who let me just throw out a quote that i found fascinating. I thought you are sort of being a little disingenuous. You see, when i am justified in not understanding is what women stay on to gain by reinforcing a narrative that they are a persecuted group. This of course referring to the sense of notorious sensitivity with the generation where talking about this precise for your warnings, trauma of having grass wrapped or whatever it is. Who what do they stay on to gain by reinforcing a narrative there a persecuted group. You dont give an answered. I dont believe you dont have an answered because your making you have an opinion on everything. Revocable different answers that. One of the answers, we stay on to gain from identifying as a persecuted group, group affiliation, i say what really lonely. I say that this manifest in all areas. Not just womens areas. Ideology. People are really lonely. Theyre not having interpersonal interactions and not having like extended dynamic frenzied, arguments with their friends over drinks. But is taking place online. It was just easier to silo yourself. I have to see, with any of these identity based discussions, particularly around women, as a set of approved messages. Theres a set ofss assumptions o im around women, it mighter jut be for your instance, women on College Campuses are in grave danger of sexual assault. The gender wage graph gap is result of largely almost entirely of systemic discrimination that would be none. Women are being prevented from injuring stem fields because of misogyny in the skills. His ideas and get connected to like slogans and statistics and like one in five. Seventynine since on the dollar and that kind of thing. You are single things, are legitimate or not. Theyre not exactly correct. They become articles and then social media comes and and take those articles of faith and turn them into vehicles of styles. That is like the means. Unlike your bad ass tshirt, and it then results in the sort of rhetoric in beacons vocabulary that we swim in. And that there is a war on women. Politicians use and corporations use that to sell things in hollywood uses it. What bothers me about it is that results in this paradoxical dynamic were being strong woman means constantly emphasizing her weakness. And thats me is really backwards. Let me disentangle this just a little bit. Im aware about the date the debates about the one in five statistics on campus im aware that the main critique is the myth based on two unbelievable unrepresentative studies of commuter campuses, giant commuter campuses that are nothing like the kinds of campuses that the people beside them are different. And racist very broadly and there are statistical relevance is way overblown. Know about that. I agree withov that. Seventynine since on the dollar, i questioned weather its true. The question is whats causing it. And the problem is to even ask that question is to roam into a territory that is become who tempo and nobody can even have a o nversation and therefore we can identify what is the fact and take steps to actually remedy the problem. I dont know if you guys read her or follow her, shes the sort of act and economic reporter for the times. And economics. I making the present. She is very, theres been a whole discourse about the fact that truly, motherhood penalty. Seventynine since on the dollar. If you are young and single, you get about 97 since on the dollar. The soon as you get married, it drops and as soon as you have child, it goes way down. And its only the other in the overt womanhood dragging it back up to 79 since. And for your others its way below 79 since who there is real discrimination fully on. Its not there is no denial that there is a gender wage discrepancy. The question is what is causing it. Who you are staying when people talk about structural systemic discrimination its like to baggie an elephant and it doesnt actually mean anything. Doesnt mean anything but we say it does. And these ideas are who constantly reinforced that we dont know what we are actually talking about. My concernt is its not allowig us to take the steps necessary to actually do anything about it. By the way, actually dont even talk about it in this book. This is the side issue. Spoiler alert. I am happy to come to your house and talk to you about it in person up. Who is there a kind of feminism, we know what you dont like right. You dont like you dont like slogan feminism, centauri news feminism, throwing kind say about things you like. His love types of feminism you dont like. I get that. And i share most of your prejudices will be put that way but what kind of feminism is out there right now to like. I like it feminism doesnt have to advertise itself. Like the idea of being a person. A lot of this is semantic. What is feminism even mean. It is interesting, i was columnist for your Los Angeles Times from 2,052,015 or 16, i was writing about a lot of these issues during that time also. Forget, that was when nobody would use the word feminist reviewed interview celebrities name and see im not a feminist but, and remember when silent sara palin came so long in 2008, and everyone was like it was this. And she would use that word feminist, and everyone was like, no no no, thats not will emit. Hillary clinton wasnt calling herself a feminist and my feeling was well, guess what the ongoing use work, somebody else is going to take it from you. Who start using the word. Who now weve corrected it to the point where it is a trend. Is this a style thing. It is beyonce, beyonce 2014 turning. For you. No, this is starting to bother me leading up to that. But i have see, i cant see is the beyonce moment. Pop culture, i did not see it. She stepped in front of this giant loop signed this is feminist video. But that is positive. She shows her choice of course. I love that she cites sara palin. Its always turned me crazy that the antifeminist hubley dont you go back into the home has these mega couriers and travel all over the country. She should have like six kids. i wouldng parentinga welcome that. Let me ask another question. But you between a rock and a hard place now. I asked to do this. You actually did give me permission. Im not going after you but i will put you in this difficult situation. Christine bossi ford, and Brett Kavanaugh, who, i say you tiptoe around this little bit. I dont blame you. It is the third rail. Completely the thoreau rightle now. You see, comes from the context of the discussion of chemistry. In a discussion about due process. Right in the failure to provide due process to the accused segues from that. Or to that. You see kavanaugh shouldnt have been confirmed because one thing we know he lied about having a drinkingng problem on oath. That much has been established. But i dont and i couldnt get the feeling, not to continue down now. That you say that absent that, lying about the drinking problem, that he should have not been confirmed. He shouldve not been confirmed because of her testament. In other words, her testimony began collaborated was not or should not of been disqualifying. Process reasons. Smack what i say unfortunately is that her claim does not rise to the necessary evidentiary standard. Who im sorry to see thatid butt is the truth. Best of say he shouldve been confirmed because of his outburst. Bush system that we have to dont think theres anything he could have done. An i believe her. A absolute believe her but again what i notice about the situation and what gave me the willies when she became a cultural meme before she left the stand. She is raising her hand a we have that image and i guess that i get that its powerful and shes projected on the side of the building but is this what its come to . Why cant we have these discussions of iconography . Let me take this from another angle. Brett kavanaugh is an household. Can i say that on booktv . Brett kavanaugh is a teenage asked paul alcoholic. He did a lot of really stuff and then went on to lead an upright life and was apparently an unbelievably fair boss to women promoted women made sure his office was 50 women and his clerks were 50 women. Is there a statute of limitations in shall we say okay Brett Kavanaugh teenage asked whole. How many of us were teenage asked holes . And a lot of these cases that go back 20, 30 or 40 years statutes of limitations enough. I think we should consider it. Im not trying to dodge. I dont have the answer to these questions but i wrote the book to try to figure out why we have such a hard time talking about this. A lot of the stuff especially when it comes to what people upset in the past and what people of tweeted i think we should set a date where we we need to grandfather some people in. We need to set a date and say okay whatever happened after this point and i might be 2017. This stuff is really new and whatever youve done to this point you are on the record and you will be accountable going back and moving on. I would be one option. If i could answer that question i would be doing something other than talking about my strange memoir of the intellectual moment. My pay level would be much higher i i can tell you that. She was right about one thing theres not a rule. We warned you the rules were established and we cant violate them or you should have known. This stuff is so new. I really think we have to put this in perspective. Its only been, its only been 60 years of the birthcontrol pill has been available. Its only been 60 years since anybody has had any control over their reproject of life including man. The idea that women would be in a workplace deciding when and if to have children deciding what kind of career and life they want to have a working alongside men the idea that would happen and propel itself forward at such a rapid rate in 60 years is a marvel. The idea that we could figure this out in this time is absurd. These questions are really difficult and i think they are going take a lot longer than 2017. Let me stated state it in a different way. Me too. The one way Harvey Weinstein and for those who dont know there was an article and you talk about in your book about a really badal day in which they t around with their clothing off and he kept trying to have sex and she kept saying no and it was a really bad day. Was it a really bad day or one of those moments . Whats in the middle . Where does me to tip over if it tips over . To me it tips over if its a criminal act. If its somethingng between two consenting adults and nobody is in a situation where they cannot physically get out of the situationts. Nobody is in a situation where theres a quid pro quo. There is such an extreme power differential that somebody has absolutely no choice. I think we have to grow up a little bit on that. Has anybody read on the front pages of times i saw thean little bit. I did not read it personally either. Anyone in the audience whod disagrees with my church or his agent feel free but basically as familiar a with one or two men the profession he doesnt have direct oversight over them but hes very powerful and it could affect their career. They felt theel pressure to slep with them, yes to sleep with them and they went back to his apartment voluntarily where they felt pressured to sleep with him. Me too access . Me too moments . Its not its me too access and me too. Maybe we should find another category. A lot of people have felt pressured to have sex with people for any number of reasons thats not a crime and you can be traumatized by it. He can make you feel bad for the rest of your life. I wrote a piece for the times which i discovered it ise agait thee law to require someone to have sex with you once you have said you dont want to. Even if youve gone home to their apartment had gotten really drunk. Stu require them to have sex with you you mean. I would agree, yes. The familia did not for sex upon anybody. They just went home. I know you dont have a daughter and youve written about being childless is a choice which i do defend because i do have children. The parents always understand. Daughter who is my age and blood member of the audience knows here. What would you say to her about dating and sex and if she were going off to college what wouldd your advice be . I would say take care of yourself, be aware of the situation and read thehe room ad not just the room you are an at the culture of the campus. Theres nothing wrong with being an activist. I would also say however you want to handle this issue of consent thats your business. Thats your cohort as the senate gets back to what i was saying. I think its really easy for us who grew up who werent necessarily in sexual situations 45 seconds we met ago and weag also had the beneft of learning how to negotiate in person interactions. I think its easy for us to be cavalier about knowing how to get out of something. I would say to her, i would ask her what is it about a situation like that makes you feel like you cant get out of that . What is it about feeling awkward or feeling guilty about not doing what the guy wants thaten then translates into i feel i had no choice and i feel this is a violation . A really think you need to give and take here. Our way is not all the way right in their way is not either. I would also say dont get completely blackout drunk in any circumstance. Dont need really drunk anywhere whether you are in the privacy of your own home and dont go to and examined blackout or anything likeowow that. Dont do that no matter where it is. Call me crazy. What was wrong with the way we handle that . What was wrong with the way we handle that . Im not actually sure. I think we did okay. I think there are definitely things that went on that have been adjudicated and we are framing differently today and we need to learn from that and figure what we are going to get rid of than what we are going to keep but this is moving forward. All of this stuff is a process of figuring out. Its only been 60 years since any of this has been relevant to any discussionst whatsoever. I dont think its a terrible thing to say yeah we got some of it wrong. We thought we were doing it right. Lets figure out how to do it better but we were completely wrong about it. I dont think we can go back and say we handle the completely wrong. We did what we did. All righti. I have come to the end of my questions and i think i may have come to the end of my time here in terms of we have no audience questions . So im not going to ask you questions anymore. We are taking questions from the audience at this point and i want to make a little speech. If you stand up and ask a question which is what you are here to a do make sure its a question please and i feel like you are making a speech which i know you are not going to do i will actually cut you off. Having threatened you and intimidated you please go ahead and ask some questions. I will be the man who asked the first question. You talk a lot about nuance in the importance of nuance and lately ive been reading these pieces to deriding nuance which was really shocking to me and i hadnt heard that argument before. Was really surprising but also i wonder how you think shame plays into all of this. I think people are afraid of nuance because they are afraid of being shamed or ashamed or may feel ashamed soel i wonder w that figures and. Its true i have seen nuance weaponized. Ive seen twitter a couple of times where people posted articles oh another nuance as of nuance is a dog whistle for some kind of opinion that is too complicated so it must be about opinion. Im glad you asked that because we have been talking a lot about me to end the political side but this is really a book about public discourse. This is a book about talking and thinking and living with complexity and conflict and the need for nuance around that. That is really most of what i chew on in this book. Ive never thought about this. We have shame so we dont want to sort of organize our experiences on one side or another and thats it . That is true and again that is why he wrote this book to. A lot of people told me not to ride this book and i think writers, i think every book you ride you should approach it as if its the last one youre going to ride. Ii felt if i didnt try to take on this moment and sort through everything thats going on in the conversation in what has become a dialogue and perception i would be derelict in my duties as a writer. But i think its true. If you try to go on social media and Say Something that has any sort of complexity or requires the couple leaps of logic you are not only going to be ignored, you could be penalized. You are just saying kissing cages. Its much more complicated. Theres worth saying something that is very reductive and simplistic and the penalty for being complicated but i do think its changing. People are really sick of this, i can tell you so the shame, we have got to get past that. If the smart thoughtful people dont stand up and try to take this on the other people are happy to do the job for us. My college professor. I want to ask you something about writing. You have written novels and youve written nonfictions so what do you feel are some of the major problems you face in confronting and teaching . Its gotten really really hard for people to be intellectually honest. I started off as a writer in the early to mid90s. I was always, i dont know, controversial. I dont even like the word provocateur. I was always interested in looking at whats going on the culture it and looking at the hypocrisy and what was the conventional wisdom on what people were actually thinking and feeling and i would ride essays and articles that made people angry and they were published in major publications. They were in the news york times and the new yorker. Some people would get mad and ride letters to the editor and i would see them six weeks weeks later and be on to the next thing. I would be hired to do another assignment like that because that was the job of a writer. That wasit the job of people who are thinking publicly. You need to take intellectual risks and you needed to invite your reader tola go places they might not have gone and would have been afraid to go. Those are the stages of my sensibility as a writer for decades and its absolutely true , the last few years ive had students that say i want to ride about the subject but im afraid to do it because my classmates in this very room will shun me and say it. Taboo among not allowed to talk about this. I have had people who are doprimarily poets come into my office and say i cant even ride the poem i want to ride because im speaking from a perspective that is one line that is not my own but im appropriating and its really really sad. I find it quite troubling as a teacher but just as a person in the world. I hope we can get past the. Also im aware again people now are dealing with the sete of conditions we didnt have to deale with. I started off as a writer and there was no social media and there was no internet. Its very easy for me to say to my students twitter is stupid. Dont look at it and look away and they say thats easy for you to say and its true. Thats a perfect example of something that i need to not be cavalier about. I had an undergraduate. I asked him to ride about something in their dorm and i had one who came back with the story about a transgender kid who insisted their pronoun would not be they that would be judy in honor of Judith Butler the theorist. Shes the mother apologist. The pronoun was judy. Judy rome, that sort of thing so she wrote this really hilarious function in the english language which i thought was brilliant. I happen ton like it that my ks have a lot of transgender friends and i have learned to use the proper pronoun and im proud of that but i thought this was like a chromatic and a hilarious piece about lamb are. I can get it published for you, no problem. I could place it in a lot of places for you and she said over my dead latte. This brilliant piece just lives in her note look. Anyone else . I teach feminism to ninthgraders and its a unique privilege but im wondering im sensing a lot of tensions that you ride about the book and im wondering as a teacher how do you navigate those minefields and education and im wondering how you do that. Its funny. I was a visiting professor at the university of iowa couple of years ago and it was right after this collection. It was a really hard time for everybody especially to be in a place like iowa with iowa city. It was like i couldnt get through the material. I was teaching them essays that were meaningful to me writing about harpers in the late 90s. And we couldnt get through it because students would say theres some months internalized misogyny in this piece that i cannot go any further. S one day i was joking around i said you guys are driving me so crazy. One of these days im going to teach a whole class and its going to be nothing but problematic material and i was joking and i said hold on thats a brilliant idea. I came home and i went back to columbia where he normally teach and i said how about we do a class that called whats problematic . I teach this class that is usually about six weeks on and off called whats problematic and we look at material that does this very thing that makes people uncomfortable. They know they are taking the class so they dont have to go to the emergency room. I think making it clear that is what youre about to do we are about to have a discussion about this complicated thing in its going to elicit complicated feelings. Sort of like an elevated version of a its like i cant emphasize this enough. There is such her resistance to anything that requires more than one idea. Its like the idea of entertaining two ideas at that same time the people can no longer do it in the media is not amenable to it. There was a piece in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago india opinion section. The headline was watch out for your white teenage boys because the altright is coming after them. It was about a mother talking about how her son was talking about a trigger warning and we were talking about trigger warnings and that offered her and she noticed him going on youtube and watching jordan peters videos and the algorithm was sending him to god knows what. The tone of it was very hysterical i dare say. It was pretty over the top and people were making fun of it. I went on twitter and i said Something Like the tone of this is feeling a little mick martin a. Remember the preschool era . There was this idea that your children were not safe in daycare and coincidently it happened to be at the same time that all these uppermiddleclass white mothers were going back to work and leaving their children so we had to create a. Pat saying these mother shouldnt be doing that as an aside. Said Something Like the tone of this piece reminds me of the tone of that time when we were inventing these crises for social. Pat . I got a lot of like some i deleted everything. At least three different people message me directly people i really respect and they said meghan you are wrong about that. Sigh your tweet and it was glib and prawn and i have teenage sons and its a real phenomenon thats really happening. We talked about some more and what became evident in discussing it with them what was actually happen was the kids in the school were being taught this pedagogy that was coming out of intersection analogyof ad telling the boys that they needed to sit down and be quiet and that they were the oppressor or they were interpreting it that way and that was making them vulnerable to this kind of youtube all right adjacent, adjacent whatever. That was the dynamic. What was really happening was multiplied into sectional theory was enabling White Nationalist influence. That was the story. It was like a horseshoe thing. That should have beenn the piece but that took me so long to explain that i dont even think theres a bandwidth for that kind of argument at least not it would be another nuanced piece. Thats the sort of thing that really worries me. What are your feelings on the wave feminism is developing . I agree with the thing about the loss of new ones in debate and so forth but if you want to call it a movement of me to shining a light on places where it hasnt recently been shown. Its about being too far off course and what are your feelings about the way its developing now . Has it gone too far off course . I guess i feel at the moment its papillion style and right on substance. So much of the book is like i said its me wondering what im missing here and probably a great deal. I think there is a valid observation here that i use my own experience as a test case and they think that is true but unfortunately we are in a moment where we cannot represent someone elses experience. There are only two options. I could either not say anything or i could just talk about my ownus personal india centric viw of this. To answer that question in india centric way i would say for me as someone who has just sort of like allergic to performative expressions of political ideas it feels a little bit theatrical. But thats just my take and again im less interested in what my experience has been and why we cant talk about our different experiences. We have been talking a lot about feminism here but the book is really about thought and conversation and how to square those things. I do have this theory that a lot of what we think of as feminism is what people who grab the mic say is feminism. Its definitely the case that its intense personal interaction and monitoring them to make sure they have in the certain way but theres this whole other world of feminism which isnt getting a lot of attention which iol call economc feminism. There are real problems. For example demystifying an indefensible evaluation of Household Labor to take an example. The organization of domestic workers. The battle against guns and Partner Abuse which really does elevate. Yet something about how women in america are marked risk of being killed by Sexual Violence than other countries which probably is a questionable statistic. They are more at risk . You made fun of the statistic. On the how much of that has to do with thehe saturation of our culture by guns. Let me just go back and say theres a really good and important battle being far right now against the murder of women. Theres a really good book that came out about women being murdered by their partners and able buyer gun culture and a lot of women are fighting that fight. Economic feminism antigun feminism. Barriers a lot of different kind of feminism out there that isnt just this kind of you know what i called twitter feminism. No at pushback on that a little bit into your point i worry about that because we are so much safer than other countries that are you suggesting that women are murdered just really quickly are you suggesting that women are murdered by their partners more in this country than others . Yes because the availability ofed guns. I was just reading this book by rachel louiseer snyder on partnr murders, murder by your partner and she did have a quite shocking figure and its not a cause american men are more violent. Its because american men or in some cases lots and lots of partners that they have access to guns in the way they do and very few other countries. Said there was a reuters poll that came out maybe last year where they listed the 10 most dangerous countries in the world for women. They polled 500 ord. So local experts and Womens Health so the list is somalia, pakistan and the other usual suspects. Number 10 on the list was the United States. When asked why that was their representatives from the pole said well in the wake of me do we thought it was important to include the u. S. So people are aware that just because you are rich country doesnt mean you are immune to this kind of violence. I justo think that sort of thig is abhorrent to be honest with you. It diminishes through risk and real violence in the wake of me too. Its important to be aware its not a data point. My question is what are we getting out of this kind of narrative . Why do we want so badly for the United States to be number 10 on this list . It makes for great social media. You can post that and make and get a million likes. The publication runs with the story and it doesnt make any sense. There is a lot of pork to be done around women. Abortion rights are very much in jeopardy but that is not the same as living in a country where there is the mound gym until mutilation and honor killing where your brotherinlaw can kill you. I think thats something we have to stop pretending. Im having a hard time believing a writerth would publh a poll like that. I will email it to you tomorrow. Anyone i will send you a free email if you buy the book. Is there anything that trump has done that you like or support . Is there anything that trump has done that i like . No. Im so naive. I was totally naive because i didnt think he was going to win and then i was so naive i said at least it will be interesting. Im always looking first off and is so profoundly uninteresting. So boring at this point. I cannot think of one. Can you . I just dont agree that its boring. Not that is not important but its tedious. When he was elected i wanted to start a web site called dismantling the state which would track the regulatory rollback. Every day we see the impeachment show which is a good show but every day some form of administrative oversight is taken away from this country and is going to leave us in a very scary place. Somebody else have a question. Spin it i just wanted to know after thinking about all these things, does your brain hurt . Do you just want to go off to some country . I want to go to somalia. Yeah. I have read the reviews and some of them like the new yorker review. Was so mindboggling to me and i read a lot. Do you want to do a deep dive into more of this or do you want to ride satire because you are very good at satire. I just want to know are you ready for a break now or is it follow on the book was really hard to ride. Its a sharp look. I probably wrote three times as many pages. Its like playing whackamole. You are trying to ride about the current moment and its almost impossible. I spent weeks writing about some brouhaha that seemed entirely relevant in the next week id be like who cares . Thats the trump effect. I dont think im going to ride another book about the culture wars immediately but it is really interesting. I feel like some of the Immediate Response is entirely predictable and it could almost be an epilogue to the book. The book itself is a critique of the value system of current opinion. I would actually be dismayed if the critics were giving it away for, polite wave, how interesting. That is not going to be way that this book is received by think that is whats important about it. And again people say do you really think the left is the biggest problem . Who we have in the white house is terrible but because the trump situation is so fraught in so peerless is all the more reason the other side has to get attacked together and have a coherent approach. We want to talk about preventing this from happening. We need to talk about gerrymandering and voter suppression. We dont just talk about down men and we dont need a to bottle the outrage and sell it as some sort of espy potion which is what is happening. Thats also for sale by the way if you buy the book. The thing is this is not a political book. Im a writer. I approach this on the level of creativity and artistry in a way. Its an unusual book because im nots really submitting an argument. Im inviting my readers to think alongside me as i sorted out and its really very personal. Its about aging and the feeling of relevance and obsolescence and about divorce. About a whole bunch of things. Yes it was very hard to ride and there were versions of that it that were much less personal but ultimately he came to where the only way to pull it off would be to frame it in this more memoirists tick away. We have time for one last question. If anyone would like to take it. Im just curious in your research when where and how did outrageous unaired if become so appealing to people . When did average become so appealing . A think its like a dopamine hit i talk about the salon the book the book. I think we are reallyhe lonely d i think people are sitting at their computers a lot. I think we literally dont have as much time to get together in person. I talked about this to someone the other day. Hed been talking on the phone, remember back in the 90s when you would come home from work and you didnt go out with your friends you would just call somebody. He would sit there for hours talking to them. He didnt walk around with your phone. The phone was attached to the wall. Remember . And you would sit there and if he started flipping through a magazine that was the worst thing to do. So you had have these really focused conversations and i think you were able to metabolize your emotions and am much more natural and healthy way. He would finish that phonecall and pick up the phone and talk to another person for an hour per thats really gone. You are driving your car or walking down the street. I think because we dont have the opportunity to vent our ideas and our emotions and the way we were designed to as humans is getting channeled into these reactions on line. Then you Say Something. Outrage will get a good response. You register outrage and then youu get a reaction and its lie dopamine. Like really hitting thehe lever and i see it all the time. I dont know. I want to end on a positive note. People say is there any solution to this . The fact that people are watching and listening to podcasts for three hours that is an indication that there is a real appetite for more nuance and really more complexity and conversation. I think, dont think this current level of frenzy and reject the reasoning is sustainable. I think people are going to r gt sick of it. They are ready are. They really already are. I go around and talk about this and its actually. Remarkable. Thank you. It was great. Thank you guys. [applause] we recently asked representative Jared Huffman would be reading . Im delighted to lee about this book. Its written by a friend of mine who spent 544 days in a