Hi {{first_name | friend}}! I’m gradually starting up a weekly newsletter, and I wanted you to be part of the first few beta testers. I wrote one post last week about starting, and now this is post #2.
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In a departure from my usual mix of progressive intellectual NPR Ezra Klein etc etc, I’ve recently started listening to podcasts in the “manosphere.” Amid all the siloed content bubbles we swim in, it feels worthwhile to expose myself to different ways of thinking and talking.
I started with Andrew Schulz’s podcast Flagrant. Within the first ten minutes I was both aghast at the number of racial jokes being flung everywhere and I was also laughing out loud in the car multiple times. And by the end of the three hour conversation, I felt like I really knew everyone behind the mic. For better or for worse.
The next week, the New York Times came out with a long-form interview of Schulz which was fascinating.
Schulz keeps turning the questions back on the interviewer, David Marchese, asking for his take.
Why do you think that there is some idea of masculinity that progressives have not been able to tap into? Why do you think?
Andrew, it’s hard for me to come up with answers to questions like that. I think you have a thoughtful answer.
I think there are less complicated ideas of masculinity that are often put forward on those shows that are more approachable and more familiar to a lot of men, so it’s easier to latch on to. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, I like saying off-color [expletive] with my buddies.” Do you like saying off color [expletive] with your buddies?
Yeah. You do. It’s fun. It doesn’t define you as a person, and you feel comfortable saying it with your buddies because they know who you are.
Why do you think the left has a hard time reaching — I don’t think it’s reaching. I think it’s the nature of media. The ability to speak freely and saying some of those no-no words — it’s not surprising that people would gravitate toward the thing that they relate to…Before, when it was The Times competing with CBS or The Post — you’re all competing within the same rules. Then podcasts came in and threw out the rules.
It makes a conversation like this difficult for me, because there are rules and expectations. What do you feel encumbered by?
The most obvious would be language rules. Certain words, and I don’t just mean derogatory words, you can’t say. There’s even an implicit style of conversation that I feel as if I’m supposed to have that is inhibiting a conversation with you. This [reflecting out loud in the middle of an interview] is an example of what I love.
Don’t say it. Do you not like compliments?
I don’t. Is it uncomfortable for you?
I don’t like it. Why? You’re so in touch with your feelings. I think it’s a unique thing that it makes me want to listen to your content more. You’re reacting in real time.
They followed up with a second interview a week later:
I did wonder if the way you so often turned the question I was asking back around on me was a way of trying to wrong-foot me or undercut the question. How so?
The thing that I’m supposed to do is give people a chance to hear from subjects without my own political or ideological opinions filtering in. That’s a big difference between what my job is and what your job is. Because of that difference, the question flipping was something I struggled with. Why do you think you struggled with it?
With the content that does have a political edge to it, I’m not supposed to betray my own thinking. “Supposed to” according to whom?
There is an idea of news journalism as impartial and objective. I’m not supposed to be putting my thumb on the scale. Maybe I was asking you to reflect on it because I thought you might be putting your thumb on the scale. By reflecting on it and you sharing your opinion, it could inform the people listening why you’re asking me such specific questions. That way the listener goes, Oh, I see why this line of questioning is happening, because he has this perspective about this situation and he’s trying to get to this outcome. I just have a rule. I’m not gonna ask anybody a question that I haven’t thought of myself. If you’re asking me a question about what I’ve done in a situation or why I did something and you haven’t reflected on what you would have done in that situation, what are you really seeking in my answer? Like, you know what I did in this situation.
So in short:
I’m only going to ask questions I’m personally interested in and have thought about
I’m not going to do anything because I think I’m supposed to
All of this made me think about how much we do or say each day that’s not really for us.
Are we doing it for an imagined audience? For an invisible algorithm?
I know I’m guilty of that sometimes. I can tell I’m following a Should when it feels exhausting to do something basic. Authentic, on the other hand, is ENERGIZING.
And it makes me think about how the opposite of authentic is…artificial.
Artificial is never a positive word. We don’t want artificial friendships, artificial flavors, artificial flowers...
And yet here we are hyping artificial intelligence! While simultaneously craving the opposite of artificial.
But maybe that’s exactly the point.
What if AI's real value isn't replacing human creativity, but handling all the stuff that felt artificial for us to do in the first place?
The rote steps we take behind a desk or at the factory that can now be automated and agent-ized
The emails we rewrite three times so they “sound professional”
Collating documents
Managing timesheets
Following call center scripts
None of that ever felt like our highest and best use anyway. If it gets eaten by AI, will we see our own human potential at work more clearly?
It makes me think of something Ethan Mollick said recently: "AI is a leadership problem."1 And I would add: so is authenticity. Both require us to figure out who we want to be and what we're really trying to accomplish.
I think - I hope! - the companies and people who thrive in the next few years won't just be the ones who use AI most efficiently. They'll be the ones who use AI to free themselves up for more of the messy human stuff. The curiosity-driven energy-giving awe-inspiring work we were made to do.
See you next week.