The Culture We Deserve

Hosted by Jessa Crispin, The Culture We Deserve covers the state of the arts.

We're Talking About the Christian Nationalists Again 07/30/2025

We're Talking About the Christian Nationalists Again Following our earlier discussion of the documentary Apocalypse in the Tropics, Jessa and Nico get into the spread of Evangelicals in power -- not only in the United States but also where missionaries have established bases overseas. Like every other truly terrible contribution the US has made, this is all about the Cold War. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/37606165

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: Honore de Balzac's Lost Illusions 07/25/2025

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: Honore de Balzac's Lost Illusions 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 exploit it. Our unlucky men, Lucien and David, a poet and an inventor, are looking to make their riches in pre-1848 France, only to find the world is not built to tolerate, let alone celebrate, people like them. They try their luck. It doesn't go well. But at least Balzac spends a lot of time telling us about what kinds of velvet they were wearing along the way. Joseph and Jessa discuss why Marx loved Balzac, why a fool makes a frustrating character, and why one shouldn't read about a failed poet while on book tour. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/37545200

Video Killed the Journalist Star 07/23/2025

Video Killed the Journalist Star We are all pivoting to video. Podcasters, journalists, editors are getting out their ring lights and their botox and they are staring intently into the camera to talk to YOU about what's going on. Is the human and tactile being offered as the antidote to the artificial AI slop? Or is this just surrendering to the influencer economy? Jessa and Nico make a solemn pledge, never to show the listeners what we wear or what our hair is doing while we are recording, and discuss the implications of a news media that wants to make stars and influencers out of reporters. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/37516940

Taking Up Arms 07/16/2025

Taking Up Arms With the expansion of ICE and the flood of untrained, unprepared, un-uniformed officers on the street, things are likely to get confusing and potentially violent. Nico and Jessa discuss the Trump admin's embrace of militia culture, why Colombia doesn't have militias, and what Jessa's weird obsession with Timothy McVeigh is all about. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/37431655

Touristification 07/09/2025

Touristification 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 airlines. And the rest of the world responds to the binge drinking, the clacking of roller suitcases, and public displays of ignorance with, "Why are these people my problem exactly?" It's the annual Gringos On the Move episode, this time covering mass tourism at Jonestown, the Disneylandification of Kyoto, and the anti-tourist and expat protests in Mexico City, Venice, and Barcelona. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/37346450

The Antichrist Has Risen 07/03/2025

The Antichrist Has Risen 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 Peter Thiel thinks this demon of destruction might be Greta Thunberg, but it's possible he just took psychedelics while watching Constantine and got scared. Jessa and Nico discuss why we're afraid of the apocalypse again, and whether Trump will ever give us a good Mamdani nickname. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/37271850

The Corrosion of Character 06/25/2025

The Corrosion of Character 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 people have created but creating nothing real or tangible in itself. Jessa and Nico discuss the difficulty in reversing the trend toward service and virtual production as well as the effects that working in the spectral rather than material realms has on a human. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/37146780

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: George Sand's Indiana 06/19/2025

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: George Sand's Indiana 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 to the man who stomps her on the face and kills her dog. Then there is Raymon, the scoundrel, who loves Indiana but is also sleeping with her maid Noun. It's a love pentagon, and somehow no one is having a very good time. George Sand's Indiana is a story about how women have adapted to and managed their lack of rights or ability to leave terrible husbands, but it's also a comedy about the impossibility of love under patriarchy. Join the book club discussion: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/37069115

A Lack of Vision 06/18/2025

A Lack of Vision 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 beat fascists by offering an alternative and a broad vision of social democracy.” But that vision is stalled or mired in nostalgia. Nico and Jessa consider how people on the left from Chris Murphy to Gustavo Petro seem stuck in a 20th century leftism instead of envisioning 21st century solutions. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/37054540

Do I Have to Have Empathy for Men? 06/11/2025

Do I Have to Have Empathy for Men? The day that Nico arrived in Colombia this week a presidential candidate was shot, reigniting old fears of perpetual chaos and instability. Meanwhile, Marines are on the streets of Los Angeles. When the Menswear guy gently suggested on social media that if people really cared about immigrants they should spend their time on real immigration cases and policy instead of burning cars, he was swiftly denounced as insufficiently revolutionary. In a time (again/always) of political violence, Jessa and Nico discuss the desire to complain over the desire to change and the provocation of empathy. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36950260

How to Do Good 05/28/2025

How to Do Good 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 redirecting Harvard grads into "good work." His new book is Moral Ambition, and in it he pleads with those who have a bit of talent, a bit of smarts, to use it to solve social problems rather than create them. Jessa and Nico go through the recent history of Elites Solving Problems, from Effective Altruism to Christian Missionaries to the Nonprofit Grift. But also ask, why does everyone start squirming when you suggest that perhaps you should actually live by those lofty ideals you have? Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36744605

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: Stendhal's The Red and the Black 05/22/2025

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: Stendhal's The Red and the Black The story of a young man, filled with fiery ambition, twisted political ideology, and resentment toward everyone and everything and utterly lacking adequate paternal guidance.... gee, I wonder why this might resonate in the age of incels, aspirational fascists, and Elon Musk reply-guys. The Revolution and Ruin podcast gets into 19th century France, manic pixie goth girls, misdirected rage, and why orphans have all the fun. Join the discussion: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36669050

Panic Merchants 05/21/2025

Panic Merchants 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 Tapper? Good luck! Jessa and Nico get into the Tapper/Thompson book Original Sin about the cover-up of Biden's decline and why the press is largely ignoring some of its bombshell revelations. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36654415

The Wellness Grift 05/14/2025

The Wellness Grift 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 Surgeon General post the same week that the sex cult/mindfulness startup OneTaste did their media redemption tour and the New York Times invited the wealthy and the celebrated to talk about their skincare regimens and if ruling the world stresses them out. We will all be so very well! We're all carrying flame retardant in our tissue but we are glowing from all the powdered collagen. (Justice for Marianne Williamson!) Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36562285

Fear of a Hunk Planet 05/07/2025

Fear of a Hunk Planet 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 their big meaty arms and overthrow the government? There has been a lot of fear of the swole and the ripped, with Ezra Klein calling UFC a gateway drug to rightwing radicalization and the New York Times referring to Hasan's physique as a "MAGA body." Jessa and Nico dig into this fear of jocks, and whether rolling around on the floor with other men, your face in a sweaty crotch, turns you fascist. Shownotes and references (and join our Revolution and Ruin book club!): http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36467735

An atheist and a recovering Christian walk into the Pope's funeral 04/30/2025

An atheist and a recovering Christian walk into the Pope's funeral 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 Vance are doing worse. Jessa cries about the death of the pope, and Nico manages to put his Catholic school trauma to the side to assess Pope Francis as a world leader and not just a religious one. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36370725

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: Mary Shelley's The Last Man 04/24/2025

Revolution and Ruin Book Club: Mary Shelley's The Last Man Welcome to episode one of The Culture We Deserve's Book Club, Revolution and Ruin: Reading the European 19th Century. In this inaugural episode, Joseph and Jessa discuss Mary Shelley's The Last Man, a prophetic novel about disease, war, and the end of mankind. Unlike the apocalyptic spectacles of your standard end of the world movies and television shows, Shelley's slow burn gets into the grief and despair of humanity's end. Shelley was born at the tail end of the French Revolution and just before the revolutions of 1848, and she is invested in the questions of her era: how should a nation organize itself? how should resources be distributed? how is a person to live amid disruption and unpredictability? And what is the point of making art during tumult? Join the discussion at: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36292480

The Art Gallery in the Mall of America 04/23/2025

The Art Gallery in the Mall of America 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 remains misunderstood: Thomas Kinkade. The "Painter of Light." The guy your alcoholic grandmother who would never admit she terrorized you really loved. Kinkade's career combines the worst of American culture -- multi-level marketing schemes, Jesus Christ kitsch, and televangelism -- into one product. Jessa and Nico discuss Art for Everybody, the new documentary seeking to rehabilitate Kinkade's image, and whether if Kinkade were alive today he would be appointed the new head of the NEA or Kennedy Center (yes). Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36277000

Make America Go Away 04/09/2025

Make America Go Away 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 slightly inconvenienced by a situation they helped to create? Jessa and Nico discuss the capitulation of the academic Resistance, the great Elite Replacement, and why America wants to be Hungary so bad. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/36065200

Recovering America 04/03/2025

Recovering America 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-education camps? Jessa and Nico look at RFK Jr's plan for sending the unwell, mentally ill, and addicted to farms (is this our new agricultural policy?), and how much of our economy is now dependent on putting people away: private prisons, rehab facilities, assisted living, and retreats for the troubled. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/35987815

America's Religious Revival 03/26/2025

America's Religious Revival 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 Tradcaths in the government trying to force us all back into patriarchal marriages, is now really the time?? America has always been weird about god, we can't seem to contemplate him for more than ten seconds at a time without praying he destroys the whole world in fiery apocalypse. Jessa and Nico discuss our new gods and whether Jim Jones would have made a better VP than JD Vance. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/35865835

Your Culture Is Our Content 03/19/2025

Your Culture Is Our Content Netflix doesn't just make reality dating shows that violate multiple international human rights treaties -- they also make adaptations of the world's greatest literature. Everything is IP! Including A Hundred Years of Solitude and The Leopard. Jessa and Nico discuss turning art into slop, people pretending they can't tell the difference between good and bad, and why what's good for the cultural industries is often not great for art. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/35773165

The Ozempic Economy 03/12/2025

The Ozempic Economy 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 rural land, any hope of making America healthy again is slipping away. I guess it's going to have to be mandatory Ozempic then! Jessa and Nico discuss the failed dreams of those who don't want forever chemicals in breastmilk, how health policy became a rightwing rather than leftist priority, and whether gyms are fascist. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/35650330

It's the Annual Lazy Oscars Episode! 03/05/2025

It's the Annual Lazy Oscars Episode! The sex worker community hates Anora, Mexicans hate Emilia Perez, brutalists hate The Brutalist... is this where representation culture has left us? The big winners have mostly been rejected by those they claim to represent and loved by those who like a little song and dance number. Jessa and Nico discuss the aftermath of the OscarsSoWhite campaign and why Hollywood is a misrepresentation and stereotyping machine. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/35542660

What Is Wrong With Men 02/26/2025

What Is Wrong With Men 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, what is wrong with all the men? Jessa and Nico discuss the root causes of men's unmooring -- naturally this is all women's doing -- and why we need new ways to organize our domestic lives. Also, coming in June 2025 from Pantheon: Jessa Crispin's new book, What Is Wrong With Men. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/35435680

250 Years of This, Seven Months Left to Go 02/19/2025

250 Years of This, Seven Months Left to Go 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 the anniversary would have been, and whether we'll all live to celebrate 251. Also: Trump's takeover of the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia celebrates America with the British moppet Ed Sheeran concert, and by the way we both recorded this with the flu. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/35348830

we welcome our new antiwoke cultural overlords 02/05/2025

we welcome our new antiwoke cultural overlords 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 all expect from antiwoke art, other than messianic actors rescuing trafficked children from predatory progressives and shirtless pics of a super ripped Donald Trump? Can the conservatives save art with Western Civilization nostalgia and NFTs? And was art ever really woke? Jessa and Nico look at the possibilities of never getting good art ever again. /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/35161195

dead geniuses 01/29/2025

dead geniuses 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 incapable of creating new geniuses, or that all the geniuses are working now in tech? Nico and Jessa get into how media consolidation, a failing educational system, and the so-called democratization of creativity have created an entertainment industry where mediocrity reigns and "Fail Better" is just a techbro motto. Also: the effect of Trump's anti-DEI efforts and whether China just released an OpenAI killer. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/35063565

The Brutalist is the Future of Film (Derogatory) 01/22/2025

The Brutalist is the Future of Film (Derogatory) 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 Brutalist was being heralded as a masterpiece, but now it's mired in controversy about AI use and accusations of Zionist politics. Both of these attacks are wrong, by the way -- it is simply that the movie is not very good. On the week of David Lynch's death, Nico and Jessa discuss the Ayn Randiness of The Brutalist, the cliches related to creative genius, and why neo-Nazis love Twin Peaks. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/34954635

would you help me die?: death influencers and euthanasia immersion 01/16/2025

would you help me die?: death influencers and euthanasia immersion As assisted suicide becomes more widely available, here come the death influencers. Is it wrong to monetize your suicide? Where does all this "normalization" of death end exactly? Jessa and Nico assess the void and the artists whose chosen medium is their own annihilation. Shownotes and references: http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com /episode/index/show/08b5f6c4-c5fc-4bcc-a25b-73b360099d87/id/34879740

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