The Culture We Deserve

Are We Doomed?

02 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

No one wants to get married, and no one is having children. How can we make this women's fault? Jessa and Nico talk about the frustrating ways we disc...

Taste Will Save Us from AI

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the 100th episode of The Culture We Deserve -- we really need to rethink our lives. The novel Shy Girl was recently pulled from publication...

Revolutionary Nostalgia

19 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Daughter of two members of the Weather Underground Hope Reeves went to the New York Times to complain that the Oscar winning film One Battle After Ano...

The End of Lifestyle Feminism

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Back in the 2010s, instead of political progress we got role models, little girlboss avatars to root for. Their happiness, we were told, was our happi...

Who Killed the Media?

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

With social media filled with AI-generated fake war videos and a war-hawk press eager for regime change and empire building, where does one turn? Jess...

Gilded Guilt

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Why are we so bad at criticizing or satirizing the wealthy? Is it because we think if we're nice to them we think they'll be less likely to kill us? F...

We Are All Tucker Carlson

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A new book about Tucker Carlson's life tracks how the conservative movement has cracked up over the past several decades, while also showing how one m...

The Money Runs Out

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Our major arts institutions are broke. The Met Opera has been reduced to begging for money from the Saudis, and meanwhile they can't sell out their th...

The End of American Freedom

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The American century is over, or so say the speakers at Davos. The United States has had hegemonic control over the rest of the world, its markets, it...

Revolution and Ruin: Gustave Flaubert's Sentimental Education

30 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It's France in the mid-19th century, and here we have a group of young men who can't decide how to get along. They waste time and money, they go to ni...

Suicidal Empathy

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Rightwing men have been accusing liberal women of having "suicidal empathy" for the immigrants they claim are trying to murder them. But the only peop...

Die, DEI

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Much like the girlboss, no matter how many times the culture tries to eulogize DEI we find it once again, walking around, making a nuisance of itself....

Predictions for an Unpredictable 2026

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Nico was in Colombia when the United States abducted Venezuelan president Maduro, and he has some thoughts on what people in the United States commonl...

Obligatory Best and Worst of the Year Episode

01 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

2025 may be over, but its cultural production lives on in our hearts. Nico and Jessa debate the best and worst movies, TV shows, books, and museum exh...

Revolution and Ruin: George Eliot's Felix Holt: The Radical

25 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A very special Christmas treat for our listeners. Joseph and Jessa discuss George Eliot's Felix Holt: The Radical, which asks the very important quest...

The Art Goes Home

17 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For the last five years, museums around the world have been struggling to answer the question of, who owns cultural heritage? Certain objects, from th...

United Ireland (Take Two)

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jessa and Nico return from their visit to Ireland. All along the way, the subject of whether or not Ireland should be united kept coming up. But beyon...

United Ireland!

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jessa and Nico return from their visit to Ireland. All along the way, the subject of whether or not Ireland should be united kept coming up. But beyon...

The Crisis of Darkness

19 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Our pop culture has become insipid. What is the difference between Tom Cruise and Glen Powell? Tom Cruise has darkness within him. Watching him is thr...

Revolution and Ruin: Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons

13 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A young man goes home to announce his exciting new political and philosophical ideas to his family, only for the family dinner to devolve into shoutin...

Ladies Ruin Everything

12 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Did women ruin the workplace? Is wokeness feminine? Is this credit card my friend? Is cancel culture Malthusian? etc etc. Yes, the political right wil...

Copaganda Returns

05 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

PBS recently decided to schedule the documentary The Last 600 Yards, about American troops fighting in Fallujah, after having shelved it for over a de...

American Heroes

29 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Once an archetype has been constructed, it's really difficult to dismantle it. And one of the prevailing archetypes of the 20th century was that of th...

Trickle Down Morality

23 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the new book Motherland, Julia Ioffe discusses how the Soviet feminist revolution was state sponsored. During and after 1917, the government mandat...

The American Uncanny on Film

15 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Nico's got that funny feeling again, that the program the United States ran in South America for decades has come home. We talk about the uncanny feel...

Revolution and Ruin: Charlotte Bronte's Shirley

09 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the industrial age, there was a widespread disruption of communities. Traditional methods of charity and redistribution of resources were undermine...

Exploit or Be Exploited

08 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the creative economy, it is more profitable to be a dead creator than a living working writer. Or that is the lesson learned from the lawsuit the M...

Recovered Panic

01 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

One of the bestselling nonfiction books of the moment is a memoir about a wealthy and successful woman dealing with memories of horrific sexual assaul...

The Charlie Kirk Effect

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The political right has been looking for a George Floyd figure, a martyr they can name streets after and get protests around and use to pass sweeping ...

The Biological Gig Economy

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Cindy Bi hired a surrogate to carry her baby, she neglected to tell her that she had health issues that could put her life in danger. It turns ou...

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: William Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon

04 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When a man is down on his luck, what is he to do? His fortune squandered, his estate mishandled, his love unfaithful, Barry Lyndon goes to war, and to...

The Smithsonian is on Fire

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The dumbest culture war in history continues, as the Trump administration seeks to purify the national collection of knickknacks and souvenirs. And th...

Seeking Utopia

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What is behind the drive for small communities of like-minded people? The MAHA millionaire farm, the white nationalists in Arkansas, the makeshift Tex...

Eugenics Season

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The fuss over Sydney Sweeney's jeans/genes ad, and there are those who accused her of "normalizing eugenics," misses an important point: we are alread...

Variety Hour (and Twenty Minutes)

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As we were recording between two long work trips and through various mishaps, this week Nico and Jessa just go through headlines and updates on previo...

Cancel Culture Is Over, If We Want It

06 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It's cancellation season again, although it's not really working the way it used to. Joey Swole, Sydney Sweeney, Anthony Fantano, a mother in New York...

We're Talking About the Christian Nationalists Again

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Following our earlier discussion of the documentary Apocalypse in the Tropics, Jessa and Nico get into the spread of Evangelicals in power -- not only...

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: Honore de Balzac's Lost Illusions

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the creative economy, which is built to strip mine from your body and soul any glimmer of talent, skill, or genius you might possess and ex...

Video Killed the Journalist Star

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We are all pivoting to video. Podcasters, journalists, editors are getting out their ring lights and their botox and they are staring intently into th...

Taking Up Arms

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With the expansion of ICE and the flood of untrained, unprepared, un-uniformed officers on the street, things are likely to get confusing and potentia...

Touristification

09 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It's summer, the time of year each nation flings its most obnoxious and provincial citizenry into the rest of the world on cruise ships and discount a...

The Antichrist Has Risen

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Why is everyone so worried about the Antichrist again? After 9/11, the Evangelicals were afraid the Antichrist would take over the United Nations. Now...

The Corrosion of Character

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

America doesn't really make things. Even in its financial system, the highest rewards go to those who speculate, making bets on things that other peop...

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: George Sand's Indiana

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Indiana is married to a brutish man who bullies and abuses her. She is followed around by her cousin Ralph, who loves her but remains a loyal friend t...

A Lack of Vision

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Greg Grandin, author of the new book America, América, said in an interview this week, "You don't beat fascists by calling fascists, fascists. You be...

Do I Have to Have Empathy for Men?

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The day that Nico arrived in Colombia this week a presidential candidate was shot, reigniting old fears of perpetual chaos and instability. Meanwhile,...

How to Do Good

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dutch historian and author Rutger Bregman wants to start a new brain drain -- starve industries like finance and consulting from the world's genius by...

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: Stendhal's The Red and the Black

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The story of a young man, filled with fiery ambition, twisted political ideology, and resentment toward everyone and everything and utterly lacking ad...

Panic Merchants

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

AI is hallucinating whole genocides now, our influencers are at war with the bots, and the only beacon of truth and ethical journalism is.... Jake Tap...

The Wellness Grift

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

All our animals are going to die of bird flu, but at least we'll have raw milk cocktails to take the pain away. Casey Means was suggested for the Surg...

Fear of a Hunk Planet

07 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Are the jiu jitsu men radicalized? Are gyms a white nationalist training camp? Is protein a masculinist conspiracy? Will the swole take up arms in the...

An atheist and a recovering Christian walk into the Pope's funeral

30 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Maybe two non-Catholics are not the best people to discuss the legacy Pope Francis is leaving behind, although Catholics like Ross Douthat and JD Vanc...

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: Mary Shelley's The Last Man

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to episode one of The Culture We Deserve's Book Club, Revolution and Ruin: Reading the European 19th Century. In this inaugural episode, Josep...

The Art Gallery in the Mall of America

23 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Looking back at the first round of the Culture Wars, with Jesse Helms discussing a crucifix submerged in urine on the floor of the senate, one figure ...

Make America Go Away

09 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Three professors who study totalitarianism and fascism have fled for Canada, is that bad? Is this brain drain or are our elites just refusing to be sl...

Recovering America

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With all the fuss about Adolescence and the concern about our adrift young men, we have to wonder: are we about to start sending our incels to re-educ...

America's Religious Revival

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ross Douthat has a new book, arguing that America needs a new religious revival. Sir, there is a theocracy establishing itself in Idaho, we have Tradc...

Your Culture Is Our Content

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Netflix doesn't just make reality dating shows that violate multiple international human rights treaties -- they also make adaptations of the world's ...

The Ozempic Economy

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

MAHA is already a mess. With RFK's recent humiliation ritual at Steak N Shake, the return of factory farming, and an international takeover of our rur...

It's the Annual Lazy Oscars Episode!

05 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The sex worker community hates Anora, Mexicans hate Emilia Perez, brutalists hate The Brutalist... is this where representation culture has left us? T...

What Is Wrong With Men

26 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From the cult of incels running our government to Trump's alliance with Andrew Tate to Elon Musk's mountain of neglected baby boys, one has to ask, wh...

250 Years of This, Seven Months Left to Go

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As America gears up to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Jessa and Nico discuss this country's obsession with its founding, what Kamala's vision for th...

we welcome our new antiwoke cultural overlords

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Rufo and the rest of the anti-DEI crew are planning for a new conservative art world: please, can you spare some aesthetics? What can we a...

dead geniuses

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With the release of the Brian Eno documentary, one has to wonder: What is the real cause of our cultural stagnation? Is it that the United States is i...

The Brutalist is the Future of Film (Derogatory)

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Is America capable of creating geniuses anymore, or just technicians who feed the nostalgia for the age of auteurs? Just a few months ago, The Brutali...

would you help me die?: death influencers and euthanasia immersion

16 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As assisted suicide becomes more widely available, here come the death influencers. Is it wrong to monetize your suicide? Where does all this "normali...

we will find out if things can get worse

08 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Predictions! What will the glorious year of 2025 hold for us? Nico and Jessa try to sort it all out. Will Harvard graduates stop referring to themselv...

best and worst of the year

18 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Fine, we give up trying to make original content, let's make a list! Jessa and Nico talk about the best and worst films, television, books, art, and m...

the class war is a shooting war

11 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As the stars align for another French Revolution (Pluto in Aquarius, baby), the billionaires and CEOs are quaking. They're upgrading their security te...

no second acts in american life

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Elon Musk twat that Cancel culture has been canceled. All our bad men are coming back -- Kevin Spacey, Bryan Singer, Armie Hammer. New administration,...

bad dads: from joe rogan to cormac mccarthy to javier milei

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Progressive self-flagellation continues this week, as now the left wonders why they don't have a Joe Rogan-like figure to lead the angry young men int...

What Is Working Class Culture

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Quick, how do we politically, financially, and culturally exploit the lower classes, now that the politicians admit maybe wealth inequality and the ab...

sore winners: what trump supporters and harris endorsers have in common

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's the era of the sore winner. Trump voters are feeling emboldened, from racist texts to more Trump flags going up to personal confrontations. And b...

There is a Trump Wicker Man in an Empty Lot in Kensington Philadelphia

06 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In DC, Philadelphia, and Portland, monuments to Donald Trump's legacy as a white supremacist and sexual predator have been popping up. Their creator h...

who you vote for is private, but whether you vote is public

30 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

God, this is so boring and please let it be over. Swing state fatigue, billionaire media, and a political sphere dominated by bro podcast hosts.  Sho...

every day horrors

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is it a contradiction that in this age of trigger warnings people are calling this a golden age of horror? Or is there something cozy and coddling abo...

welcome to the feel bad show

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Still dealing with pre-election tension. But some bullying ads ("everyone will know whether you voted!") have us thinking, is it true what they say, t...

AI Bot Me

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone is eager to turn themselves into a robot these days. Deepak Chopra has created an AI spiritual guru version of himself, Laura Kipnis botted h...

Eclipse Season: Olivia Nuzzi, Mark Robinson, and Other Moral Dilemmas

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Lunar Eclipse brought America some moral dilemmas. Too bad America doesn't believe in morals anymore. Should a reporter sext with the people she p...

Going to a Town That Has Already Been Burned Down

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

People are fed up with the United States (again), and are threatening to leave if the election doesn't swing their way. American expat enclaves are po...

The New Cold Wars

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Google Books wanted to scan all the books of the world to digitize and hoard them and, potentially, monetize them. OpenAI wants to scan the history of...

Obamacore and the End of Woke

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We are apparently so nostalgic for the Obama years that we are happy to forget whatever lessons we may have learned in the last eight years. New York ...

The Means of Overproduction: Mr Beast, TikTok War Crimes, and Elon Musk Doing Coups

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when a scrappy crew of kids tries to save America to get the truth out about a corrupt businessman, the businessman s...

Mr Walz Goes to Washington

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Just a small town guy, beloved by children, sent to Washington to do the right thing -- is Tim Walz our chance to live in a Frank Capra film? Jessa an...

Battle of the Sexy

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If your idea of a woman is small, frail, vulnerable, and weak, how do you look at women in sports? Well, by assuming that every woman who is strong, c...

What Does a Woman Symbolize?

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There's trouble in the tradwife multi-verse, restarting the convo about whether tradwives are Nazi bait or helpless babies who need saving from their ...

JD Vance and the Perils of Authenticity

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How did a guy with as little charisma and charm as JD Vance end up as Donald Trump's running mate? Because of his authenticity. He symbolizes the Amer...

God Doesn't Call the Qualified

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Congratulations to all the TikTok astrology girls, you were right about someone trying to shoot the former president mid-July. Please enjoy life under...

Elites Against Elites

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The elites are feeling weird again. Biden blames the Elites for pushing him to retirement, Marine le Pen and other populists are claiming to protect t...

Retire, B----: Gerontocracy and the Scramble for Power

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Alternative title for this episode: Don't let the Prez sundown on me. Why is the inability to retire or withdraw, damn the consequences, a recurring p...

The No-Kid Zone: Lowered Birth Rates and Growing Hostility to Children

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Is American culture hostile to children? With certain hotels, resorts, restaurants, and other public spaces forbidding the presence of kids, and the g...

Publishing Books is a Mistake

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Amazon controls everything, literature is culturally irrelevant outside of the Tiktok subgenres of Dark Academia Dark Romance Dark Fantasy, the indust...

The Artistic Age of Decline

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What's an Arts District without any art? Mostly condo buildings named after composers, restaurants with a $200 seafood tower, and Madam Butterfly as m...

She's Giving Mother: On Our Collective Mommy Issues

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If the masculinity influencers like Tate and Huberman are our society's surrogate daddies, who are the women giving mother? Are the makeup YouTube tut...

The Agony of Fandom: Klopp's Reign Ends and Liverpool Continues On

22 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's not a great time to be a fan. The hooligan, the violent and illogical fanatic who will commit crimes to defend their faves, is no longer found on...

A Culture of Overcorrection

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jessa and Nico return from their week off to discover nothing has really changed. We're still talking about campus protests (instead of what they are ...

America, Abroad: Everyone Thinks They Are Anthony Bourdain

01 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Americans are being warned by their government that before they leave the country they need to check their luggage for any "stray ammo" or weaponry th...

Garland's Gettysburg, Wow: Americans Fantasize About Civil War

24 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Civil War is a hit! Both blue states and red states agree that watching a movie that lets you fantasize about the half of the country you don't agree ...

Our Bodies: Abortion Law, Repro Health, and Other Crimes

17 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Dept of Health and Human Services ruled that hospitals could no longer do pelvic exams on unconscious women without their consent, in the year of ...

The Conspiracy of DEI

10 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

DEI is the new Critical Race Theory is the new Affirmative Action -- a way to distract you from the way finance is ruining everything. Jessa and Nico ...