Eminent Americans

In this enlightening discussion, Awais Aftab, a psychiatrist and philosopher of psychiatry, shares his profound insights on mental health. He tackles the pressing issues of overdiagnosis and critiques the DSM's relevance. Aftab reflects on the contrasts between psychotherapy approaches and advocates for a more nuanced understanding of mental illnesses, including the complexities of diagnosing conditions like OCD and depression. With a call for holistic care and critical thinking, he emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives in mental health discourse.

Anna Gat is a political intellectual, so we talk some politics, e.g. on how things have changed for the worse in her native country of Hungary, why she thinks that a certain nerdy subset of American conservatives seems to have a raging hard-on for the country and its leader Viktor Orban, and what lessons it all holds for the potential of authoritarianism in the US. Mostly, though, we talk about InterIntellect, which is the company she created that hosts intellectual salons, both in person and online, and about what she’s learned from starting and running the company about the art of facilitating good conversation. This is how Anna makes her bread, and so she has a deep investment, and deep expertise, in making her salons enjoyable and satisfying to people. She’s thought a lot about it. She’s iterated a lot. She has wisdom and insight that most other people don’t have. And I found it fascinating.Hope you do too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danieloppenheimer.substack.comMy guests on the show today are Lila Corwin Berman and Mark Oppenheimer. We talk about Jews, higher education, Jews in higher education, free speech, Israel, Palestine, and the plight of the liberal intellectual Jew in a time when issues surrounding Jews are provoking decidedly illiberal reactions from both ends of the political spectrum.

Starting this month, I'm going to do two new things. One is that I'll plan on releasing episodes on a more regular schedule, on the first, third, and fourth Thursdays of each month. The other is that the second of those three episodes will be paywalled, and it will be a bit different in content from my usual podcast. It'll be shorter, typically a half hour give or take, and it will be much more topical than I usually like to be. I'll talk to my guest or guests about some current politics and news, and I'll talk about the literary intellectual controversy or trend of the moment, if there's one at hand when we're recording.I won’t be offended if you don't want to pay, but of course will be grateful if you do. And to my stalwart existing paid subscribers who forked over money when I wasn't even paywalling anything, much gratitude. You're on my hall of honors list, which as you know is hanging in the burned out husk of the Friendly's Restaurant on Sumner Ave in Springfield Massachusetts. -DanMy guest on the podcast today is Derek Guy, who is North America’s premiere men's fashion journalist and critic. This isn’t a highly competitive category—most fashion writing is dumb and corrupt, and most of it is about women’s fashion—but Derek wears the crown exceptionally well. He shows what’s possible in that space, consistently writing thoughtful, substantive essays not just about what’s hip in men’s fashion but what it means culturally, sociologically, politically.If you’ve heard of Derek, it's almost certainly because for a while he was an accidental celebrity on Twitter. He was just on the platform, doing his well-regarded but relatively obscure men’s fashion thing, slowly building his online presence, when the algorithm took hold of him and made him ubiquitous on the site, dropping him into the feeds of millions of people who had never shown any interest whatsoever in his subject. As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2023:Of all the changes at Twitter Inc. under Elon Musk so far, this might be the most unexpected: A California-based menswear writer, who weighs in on incorporating western-style wear into your wardrobe, and on his favorite Italian tailors, suddenly seems to be all over the platform.The Twitter account @dieworkwear, run by Derek Guy, is popping up left and right in users’ timelines—even for those who don’t follow him. The phenomenon has befuddled users—and Mr. Guy himself.Derek doesn't know why this happened. He didn't have a backroom deal with Elon Musk. It just happened. He became the “men's wear guy on Twitter.”I initially reached out to Derek not to have him on the podcast, but because I was trying to develop a story pitch on men's fashion in the age of Trump, and I wanted to see if I could pick his brain for ideas. It turned out he was already at work on a few different stories on different aspects of that topic, and it occurred to me that I could kill two birds with one podcast episode. One of the articles we discuss in our conversation hasn’t run yet. The other, his Bloomberg story “The Evolution of the Alpha Male Aesthetic,” goes back into the history of macho male fitness influencer fashion to explain why the new crop of alpha male influencers dresses the way it does. Among the interesting ironies it points out is that the styles we currently think of as manosphere chic—Joe Rogan in his super tight jeans and super tight t-shirts, Andrew Tate stuffed into slim fit suits like a misogynistic sausage—are directly descended from 1990s high-end fashions that were intended as rejections of machisimo. Guy writes:Early adopters of slim-fit style were fashion-forward urbanites who embraced this European vision of youthful cool. They wore shrunken blazers, used chamomile-infused moisturizers, and could explain the difference between Chelsea boots and jodhpurs. But their aesthetic rattled the mainstream. In search of a label, the media landed on “metrosexual,” a term that, not so subtly, cast suspicion on a man’s gender and sexuality. The metrosexual was someone who took pride in taste and understood why “some women have 47 pairs of black shoes.” What set him apart wasn’t just his grooming habits or aesthetic literacy, but his attitude towards gender performance. As the New York Times wrote in 2003, this new archetype possessed “a carefree attitude toward the inevitable suspicion that a man who dresses well… is gay.”While slim-fit marched down high-fashion runways, it also crept through indie rock shows, early style blogs, and menswear forums like StyleForum and Superfuture. These communities turned fit into a kind of doctrine, elevating silhouettes like APC New Standards and Uniqlo button-downs as markers of elite taste. As The Strokes played onstage in threadbare tees and skin-tight denim, wealthy urbanites chased the look by purchasing Slimane's most popular creations: Dior’s 17 cm and 19 cm jeans, named after the width of their leg openings. Those priced out of luxury labels raided the women’s aisle for tight denim, a gender-bending hack that Levi’s would later celebrate with their 2011 “Ex-Girlfriend Jeans” for men. Even the heritage revival got a trim. The traditional symbols of masculinity—workwear, Ivy tailoring, military surplus—were recut for a different era, one where style was no longer bulky but compressed, tailored close to the bone. In its early years, slim fit was met with derision and low-grade cultural panic. Critics said consumerism had hollowed out traditional manhood, replacing it with men who spent too much time curating their appearance. Others fretted that the rise of shrunken silhouettes was a symptom of masculine decay. But soon, everyone became metrosexual. Fashion magazines treated slim fit as a kind of pseudo-science: shoulder seams had to sit on the edge of the shoulder bone; trousers must taper just-so; any loose fabric signaled laziness or sloppiness. J.Crew helped bring this new silhouette into everyday offices. Their Liquor Store concept shop, opened in 2008, transformed an after-hours watering hole into a menswear-only boutique laden with 1960s-era references to traditional masculinity—antique rugs, leather club chairs, and Hemmingway novels sitting alongside Red Wings—even as they sold slim chambray shirts and cropped blazers. At the same time, Mad Men introduced a new masculine figure: Don Draper. Emotionally sealed off and impeccably dressed, Draper gave the slim-cut suit an edge of stoic authority. Slim tailoring had became synonymous with professional competence and upward mobility.Eventually, slim fit stopped feeling radical. Its early ties to gender rebellion faded as the silhouette was absorbed into more conventional ideas of masculinity. What once looked subversive—shrunken jeans, tight shirts, tailoring that clung instead of concealing—became standard fare in offices, weddings, and Tinder profiles. New subcultures rebranded the look with more conventionally masculine associations. EDC (Everyday Carry) enthusiasts, armed with pocket knives, flashlights, and multitools, adopted slim-fit gear as part of a rugged preparedness ethos. Their slim tactical pants and fitted henleys weren’t about gender ambiguity; they were survivalist uniforms. Athleisure brands such as Rhone and Alo Yoga pushed the same silhouette in poly-stretch fabrics, merging gymwear with streetwear into a softer kind of masculine armor. In Silicon Valley, tech founders embraced minimalist wardrobes built around Everlane tees, slim joggers, and all-white sneakers. The aesthetic once dismissed as “metro” was now treated as self-optimization. Slim fit, in the end, didn’t rewrite the code of masculinity. It just offered a new way to perform it.In addition to the two stories we discuss, he's also gone on to write a new story on a person we discuss in the conversation - Trumpist intellectual Michael Anton, who is a huge clothes horse and for a long time was a regular presence on high end men's fashion forums. It's a fun conversation, particularly if you're interested in questions of masculinity, culture, and identity. Listen! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe

My guest on the show today is Chris Cillizza. You may know from his many years writing for the Washington Post, his many years on-air for CNN, or his recent third act on Substack, but I know Chris from way back when, as a friend and classmate in the Loomis Chaffee class of 1994. We didn't stay in close touch after we graduated, but we’ve stayed friendly and have crossed paths occasionally in the 30 years since. When Chris agreed to do this, I'd intended to focus on his long and successful career in journalism, concluding with a discussion of his unexpected lay-off from CNN, in 2022, and his subsequent re-invention on Substack. We do some of that, but the overall vibe is less professional than it is mid-life existential. We talk about the arcs of our lives over the last few decades — how we've balanced ambition and responsibility, what we're thinking about now that life has beaten the shit out of us a fair amount and we have a little bit of wisdom about things, and what comes next.To give you a taste, here's a lightly edited passage from the conversation where Chris and I are talking about how ambition sometimes got the better of him when he was working at CNN:Cillizza: There's this great quote from a German philosopher [Arthur Schopenhauer] that I think about all the time: “Wealth is like sea water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become. And the same is true of fame.”So when I got to CNN from the Post, I was bigger than before. More people knew me. More people read me. I made more money. And you know what I spent most of my time thinking? ‘Why am I not anchoring? Why am I not on the 7:00 to 11:00 PM election night coverage? Why am I on the midnight to 4:00 AM election coverage?' Oppenheimer: Do you worry about falling back into that? Up until three years ago, you were on that train and were being driven by those incentives. Then you had this massive shock to the system. Since then you've done a lot of introspection. You’ve grown. But look, you're a talented guy. You're still a hardworking guy. You could go back up again, right? That could happen, whether it’s growing to 5 million subscribers on Substack and you're making a shit ton of money, or CNN calls, or MSNBC calls, or the next Democratic administration calls and says, ‘Hey, we need a press secretary.’It's not implausible that you could be back up, or even get to greater levels of fame and influence. Do you worry that you could get sucked back into it? Do you feel like you have enough guardrails in place or you've done enough introspection? I just think about it with you because while the sudden epiphany is great, it can also be very evanescent, right?Cillizza: Totally, and certainly in the first 18 months after CNN laid me off, if NBC had called and been like, ‘Hey, you wanna come work here?’ I would have said, 'Absolutely.' The reason that I am on this path now is partly because I chose it, but also partly because no one else asked.So I don't think it’s likely that someone will ask, but yes, of course, if you've gone down a road before, it makes it more likely that you’ll go down it again.I think two things are true. One is that it’s almost impossible that one of those places would call and say, ‘Chris, we want you back.’ And I think it is equally unlikely that I would say yes, for a number of reasons. The first is that this is where I’ve been most my true self. It's a better space to be in. But also it is unlikely they would pay me enough to make it worth it.I think you always have to be mindful of it, and yes I have put guardrails in place, but you hit a guardrail hard enough and it breaks. It's not a guarantor.Oppenheimer: So maybe it's not a news network. What if it's this scenario? What if you write a memoir? You write a memoir about your midlife crisis, and most books don't do much of anything, but let's say it hits. Your book is a bestseller. It's not a Tuesdays with Morrie bestseller, but it's a solid bestseller. You're already on the speaking circuit, but its success vaults you up to the next level of the speaking circuit.Now there's more that you're being asked to do than you can do while also maintaining a healthy life and spending enough time with your wife and kids and working on yourself to make more close friends. That’s a plausible trajectory. Maybe it won't happen, but it's plausible. And so you would have to be very strong to be able to say, ‘You are offering me $50,000 to go for the weekend to give this talk, and I just can't. I can't do it. My son has a baseball game.'It’s a really good, wide-ranging conversation. You should listen. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe

Join Terry Real, a renowned couples therapist and author of bestselling books on relationships, as he shares insights into male vulnerability and depression. He tackles the complexities of masculinity and the impact of patriarchy, advocating for authentic connections. Explore the challenges of communication in relationships, especially around passive-aggressive behaviors, and the evolving dynamics between male and female voices. With humor, Terry discusses the duality of masculinity, drawing inspiration from Maasai culture, while emphasizing the importance of interdependence.

My guest on the show today is Jon Baskin, co-founder and editor of The Pointmagazine, which over the last 16 years has managed to carve out for itself a really distinctive and important space within the broader American literary intellectual scene. Jon and I have traded emails over the years, but like a lot of people who I think of as loose comrades within the broader scene, we had never actually gazed on each other’s faces or heard each other’s voices before we got on Zoom to do this. So it was nice to connect.We talk a lot about the birth and development of The Point, in particular its origins in the Committee on Social Thought program at the University of Chicago. We talk about its relationship to N+1 , which is in many ways the seminal magazine of the last few decades of political intellectual life on the left in America. We get into how Jon and his co-editors have managed to keep their bearings while so many other publications have been whipsawed and in some cases destroyed by the violent political energies of the past decade. And we talk about how The Point does and doesn’t intersect with the emerging media landscape.This is a really fun conversation with Jon. Hope you enjoy.AI Show notes courtesy of Descript:00:00 Introduction to Eminent Americans00:17 Meet John Baskin: Co-founder of The Point Magazine01:28 The Birth and Evolution of The Point Magazine02:21 Upcoming Conversations and Projects04:38 John Baskin's Intellectual Journey05:45 The Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago11:49 Influences and Inspirations Behind The Point23:28 The Role of Philosophy in The Point's Editorial Vision36:30 Challenges and Conflicts in Editorial Direction43:00 The Convergence of Magazines in the Late 2000s44:43 The Role of DNA in Magazine Identity45:28 Challenges in Finding Writers47:06 Impact of Substack on Traditional Magazines49:50 Balancing Established and New Writers57:31 Exploring the Political Spectrum of The Point01:03:32 The Relationship Between Political and Cultural Conservatism01:08:22 The Point's Foray into Substack01:17:39 The Mystique of The Point and Its Editors01:19:48 Conclusion and Final Thoughts This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe

This is the first episode of Eminent Americans where I’ve had the pleasure of talking to both the subject of a published profile and the profile writer at the same time. Kevin LaTorre, a return guest on the show, recently wrote “The 6,069 Fictions of Justin Smith-Ruiu,” a long piece about philosopher and metafictionist Justin Smith-Ruiu. Or maybe Justin wrote it himself, appropriating Kevin’s name and likeness as another one of his authorial alter-egos. Maybe “Kevin” doesn’t even exist. I mean, I think he does, since I’ve talked to him before on zoom, and perused his digital profile, but what if he’s just a gifted improviser who was hired by Justin to play Kevin on my podcast? What if the plan all along was to create a real-seeming “Kevin LaTorre” persona, with a fully fleshed out online profile, in order to add yet another layer of semi-unreality to the many layers of the Hinternet, Justin’s vast and sprawling endeavor.This seems unlikely, given that “Kevin” and I don’t even talk about Justin in our first podcast interview, but who knows? If you’re going to create a plausible “Kevin LaTorre” in the world, then you need to have him doing plausibly Kevin LaTorre-esque things, like coming on my podcast to discuss his “faith,” the essayist “Jia Tolentino,” and “climate change.”Anyhoo — such are the questions one begins to ask oneself after one has spent more than a certain amount of time in Justin’s world. The conversation, which I really enjoyed, is primarily about Justin and his Hinternet project. We also talk about the challenges that Kevin faced in profiling Justin, Justin’s disillusionment with academia, and Justin's scooter accident of a few years ago, which marked a profound break in his life and career. And much, much more.Hinternet posts we discuss include (descriptors and parentheticals from Kevin)* His re-version story* His past audio-mixing history* This metafiction: "The Storyteller"* His case against euthanasia (by far, the most technoskeptic take I've read from him)* His case for pacifism (by far the most dissident-left stance he has, I think -- antiwar in a pro-war Democratic party)* His reflection on his post-2020 developments (where he uses the "old-time religion" of love which sums up plenty about him lately)The show notes, according to ChatGPT:🕰️ Episode Show Notes: Justin Smith-Ruiu & Kevin Latorre on Metafiction, Belief, and Intellectual Rupture[00:00] — Introduction: Dan sets the tone, welcomes listeners, and introduces Justin and Kevin. Also explains the wounded ignoramus moniker.[01:00] — The premise: A first for Eminent Americans—bringing together the subject of a profile and its author. Kevin describes how the episode came to be.[03:00] — Who is Justin Smith-Ruiu? Justin gives his intellectual and personal background—from Sacramento to Paris, academic to substacker.[05:30] — The Lime Scooter incident: Real or not real? Justin discusses the tall tale and his metafictional approach to truth and storytelling.[10:00] — What is The Hinternet? Justin outlines his sprawling, layered Substack project, blending essay, fiction, and pseudonymous experimentation.[13:00] — On writing after rupture: Justin reflects on how his philosophical and creative instincts changed after 2020 and his break with academic norms.[17:00] — Kevin on profiling Justin: The challenges of writing about a slippery, self-multiplying metafictional presence.[21:00] — Metafiction, Nabokov, and Timothy Pnin: Literary precedents for Justin’s work, and why The Hinternet feels more like a fictional universe than a newsletter.[24:00] — A ghost among us: Justin discusses how COVID-era disillusionment led to a sense of living as a “ghost,” and how that figures into his work.[28:00] — Academia and its discontents: Justin explains the psychological and professional struggle of leaving the norms of philosophy behind.[32:00] — Class background stories: Dan, Kevin, and Justin reflect on their families, social mobility, and the strange fluidity of class in America.[38:00] — Fiction vs. performance art: Kevin and Justin discuss how The Hinternet functions like a long-form installation piece as much as a writing project.[42:00] — Future plans for The Hinternet: Justin teases the upcoming Ort Cloud Review, and ambitions to grow The Hinternet into a nonprofit media institution.[47:00] — On returning to Catholicism: Justin shares his path back to the church, the limits of secular humanism, and the desire for a faith tradition “for the dumbest people you can find.”[52:00] — Kevin on faith and refinement through suffering: The personal and emotional stakes of belief.[56:00] — Theology vs. intellectual pride: Justin discusses the difference between elite theology and his desire for something simpler, more grounded.[01:00:00] — Writing as a spiritual and psychological response: Dan reflects on faith, fiction, and the psycho-spiritual stakes of writing and thinking in the 2020s.[01:04:00] — Will The Hinternet become a book? Maybe not. Justin sees it as an evolving structure with other aims.[01:07:00] — On the pleasure of the work: Why The Hinternet is fun to read, and why that joy is essential to its value.[01:11:00] — Wrap-up: Dan reflects on the episode’s tone and richness, and plugs Kevin’s profile and Justin’s best pieces. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe

My guest on the show today is Maggie Bullock, author of Kingdom of Prep, the Inside Story of The Rise and (Near) Fall of J Crew. Maggie’s also the co-author of the Substack newsletter The Spread, which offers an insider’s look and cultural commentary on the world of women’s magazines.Maggie and I talk primarily about the subject of her book, J Crew, which holds a special place in my heart, brain and psyche. We talk about our own respective experiences of preppy culture, particularly in high school, and about how fashion relates to issues of politics, race, culture, weight, history, class, psychology, and more. We talk about the key figures in the creation of the two J Crew golden ages, first the founding visionaries, Arthur Cinader and his daughter Emily Cinader, and then the saviors of the brand after it was wrecked by private equity, retail wiz Mickey Drexler and chief designer Jenna Lyons.It's a really interesting conversation, I think, even if you’re not interested in clothes in the way that Maggie and I are.The Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of J. Crew: An Insider's LookIn this episode of Eminent Americans, host Dan Oppenheimer interviews Maggie Bullock, author of 'Kingdom of Prep: The Inside Story of The Rise and Fall of J. Crew.' They explore the fascinating history of J. Crew, from its founding by Arthur and Emily Senatore, its evolution and perfectionism, to its tumultuous relationship with private equity and eventual decline. The discussion also delves into the cultural impact of the brand, its transformation under Mickey Drexler and Jenna Lyons, and the intersection of fashion with issues such as race, class, and gender. The episode is dedicated to Dan's late friend, Aaron Hess, and his iconic J. Crew role-neck sweater.00:39 Diving into J Crew: A Brand Close to Our Hearts00:50 Exploring Preppy Culture and Fashion's Broader Impact01:26 Dedication to a Friend01:55 Welcoming Maggie Bullock02:36 The Kingdom of Prep: J Crew's Story03:33 The Business and Cultural Evolution of J Crew06:31 Private Equity and Its Impact on Fashion08:52 The Origins and Growth of J Crew18:52 Personal Reflections on Preppy Culture23:59 The Iconic Role Neck Sweater30:44 Landing Supermodel Linda Evangelista34:06 The Fashion Moment That Elevated J Crew34:36 The Influence of Male Models36:05 J Crew's Cultural Impact in Schools39:45 The Perfectionism of J Crew's Founders43:52 Mickey Drexler's Turnaround Strategy57:03 Jenna Lyons' Creative Vision01:02:50 The Challenges of High Fashion01:06:17 The Resilience of Preppy Style01:08:53 Conclusion and Future Prospects This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe