Lean Out with Tara Henley

Advocates against pandemic school closures have been ringing the alarm for some time. They were all but ignored two years ago. But the tide is now starting to turn, with mainstream media outlets reporting on the impacts of these closures on children.Tara's guest today has been speaking out about these policies since 2020. And he recently published a powerful paper arguing that extended school closures were, in fact, a moral catastrophe — and one that we must ensure never happens again.Shamik Dasgupta is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

With school back in session for the year, it’s a good time to take a look at the lessons that we’re passing on to the next generation of children. Are we giving them the tools that they need to succeed in life? Tara's guest on the program today thinks there’s room for improvement. And his new book takes aim at the “blame the system” and “blame the victim” cultural narratives that he believes impede kids’ ability to recognize, and harness, their own agency. Ian Rowe is an educator and entrepreneur, and the founder of Vertex Partnership Academies. He’s a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a visiting fellow at the Woodson Center. He’s also on the board of advisors for the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. His new book is Agency.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

The fall is here, and the Lean Out podcast is back — renewed, refreshed, and ready to dive in on the debates of the day.There’s no better way to kick off the season than with our brilliant guest today, who’s been ringing the alarm on pessimism about the West. He grew up in the Soviet Union under communism, and moved to the UK in his youth, forging successful careers as a translator, a comedian, a political commentator, and most recently, a podcaster. Konstantin Kisin is co-host of the Triggernometry podcast. His new book is An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

With summer winding down and the Lean Out podcast about to go on hiatus for several weeks, Tara wanted to leave you all with a really compelling story — a story of one of Canada’s most famous journalists, an investigative reporter and war correspondent who cared deeply about the truth. This is also the story of that reporter’s son and his quest to understand his father, a quest that took him around the world and inspired him to put pen to paper.Eric Reguly is the European bureau chief for The Globe and Mail newspaper. He’s also the son of the late Bob Reguly. Eric’s new book is Ghosts of War: Chasing My Father’s Legend Through Vietnam. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

“Workers across the developed world have been moving away from traditional working-class parties, while the left has shed most of its connections to anyone outside the email economy, and working-class concerns increasingly meet with progressive resentment and hostility…”These are the opening lines of a recent piece from Tara's guest today, titled “The New Workers’ Movement” and published in Compact Magazine. In it, he argues that by 2022, this has all become pretty obvious. And that the really interesting question is: What comes next for working-class politics?Malcom Kyeyune is a writer, podcaster, and political commentator based in Sweden. He’s also columnist for Compact Magazine.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In recent years, Canada — like the United States — has been engaged in a national conversation on race. But Tara's guests on today’s program say that that conversation does not always acknowledge the diversity of opinion within communities of colour. Particularly when it comes to critical race theory. Jamil Jivani is a lawyer, an author and a columnist at the National Post. He’s also a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, where he helped found the Speak For Ourselves initiative. It recently published a series of essays on critical race theory, including one from Samuel Sey. Samuel Sey is a Canadian writer and thinker who blogs at SlowToWrite.com. He’s also a spokesperson on critical race theory for Parents As First Educators.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

If you follow Tara's Substack, you know that over the past six months she has frequently covered the vaccine mandates in Canada. She has been raising questions about the scientific rationale for these mandates — and this week Canada got some answers.Tara's guest on today’s podcast published new reporting at Bari Weiss’s Substack, Common Sense, in a piece titled “Court Documents Reveal Canada’s Travel Ban Had No Scientific Basis.”Rupa Subramanya is a columnist for the National Post. Her reporting received international attention earlier this year when she published a piece on the trucker convoy, also for Bari Weiss, titled “What the truckers want.”You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In 2008, at the age of 44, Tara's guest on today’s program left Yale University, where he taught English, and became a full-time writer. In the years since leaving academia, he’s amassed an impressive body of work — much of it challenging the status quo.Tara knew she had to talk to him when she read his excellent essay in UnHerd, “Escaping American tribalism,” about his defection from the progressive left.William Deresiewicz is an essayist and cultural critic, and the author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. His latest book is out this month. It’s called The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society, and it is a collection of standout pieces from the past few decades. In it, he writes: “To be an individual, the years have taught me, takes a constant effort. These essays are an offering to those who wish to be one, too.”You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

When Dave Chappelle’s recent show at First Avenue in Minneapolis was cancelled amid protests, it reignited the debate around cancel culture, with all of the old arguments resurfacing once again.So the timing could not have been better for Tara's guests on today’s podcast, who published a comprehensive essay that same week on Substack, titled “Cancel Culture: It’s real and on the rise, on the left and the right.” The piece examines the dominant myths about this phenomenon — and debunks them.Jeff Snyder is professor of educational studies at Carleton College, and Amna Khalid is a history professor there, as well as the host of the Banished podcast on Substack.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Since the sexual revolution, women’s lives have undergone dramatic changes. The dominant narrative is that liberal feminism has freed women in profound ways. So why does data show that women’s happiness has actually declined?Tara's guest on the podcast today argues that the sexual revolution has, in fact, failed women.Louise Perry is a British writer and activist. She’s a columnist at The New Statesmen and a features writer for The Daily Mail. Her brilliant debut is called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com