13 - Lyta Gold on Cancel Culture, Feminist Utopias, and Comedy

Lyta Gold is the Amusements and Managing Editor of Current Affairs magazine. She is also the co-editor of the Current Affairs Big Book of Amusements, a full-color collection of some of the wonderful amusements that have appeared in the pages of Current Affairs, in addition to some brand new ones. The Current Affairs print edition is chock full of beautifully-illustrated activities, quizzes, lists, comics, and more that are often the brainchild of Lyta. Some example amusements: The Best Sex Positions for Conceiving an Employable Child, Is Your Feminism Angry Enough? And Which Authoritarian Will I Vote For? Lyta also appears on the Current Affairs podcast, my biggest competitor as well as my primary source of guests.

On today’s episode we cover: feminism, Steven Pinker, IQ, feminist Utopias, whether the patriarchy is a dead, cancel culture, Louis CK, Aziz Ansari, changing norms around consent, Joe Rogan and his new lefty guests, comedy and whether any topics are off limits, Mark Fisher's essay Exiting the Vampire's Castle, and the limits of identity politics

Subscribe to Current Affairs here: https://www.currentaffairs.org/subscribe

Buy the Big Book of Amusements here: https://www.currentaffairs.org/store

Links:

Larry David as Bernie Sanders

Nathan Robinson’s article on Steven Pinker

On Pinker’s support for the paper arguing Ashkenazi Jews were smarter because they were forced to be moneylenders: The Unwelcome Revival of ‘Race Science’

My review of Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature

Twitter thread on Pinker’s sexual assault stats in Better Angels

Yes, IQ Really Matters

Why is Charles Murray Odious?

Lyta’s Evolutionary Psychology Quiz

Bernie Sanders on Joe Rogan

Cornel West on Joe Rogan

Rutger Bregman owning Tucker Carlson

Never Again Action protest movement against ICE and CBP

Jon Stewart being transphobic for laughs in 2003

Exiting the Vampire’s Castle

How Identity Became a Weapon Against the Left