Lean Out with Tara Henley

The pandemic, as we know, has been a different experience for different people. Some of us, the laptop class, isolated and worked from home. But others of us, the essential workers, were out there every day doing the work that it took to keep society from collapsing. The stories of the working class have often gone untold, but Tara's guest on the podcast today has dedicated himself to interviewing working people — on his podcast, in his reporting, and in his new book. And he believes their experiences deserve to be heard, and remembered, and thought about.Maximillian Alvarez is a writer and editor based in Baltimore. He’s the host of the Working People podcast, a show about the lives of the working class. He’s also the editor-in-chief of the Real News network, and covers labor for Breaking Points with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti. Maximillian Alvarez’s new book is called The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

“Men and women exist. Occasionally, we even like each other. We exist because of these two simple truths.” These are the opening lines of a powerful new book that dives into the crisis in contemporary heterosexuality. It’s been called a “feminist defence of masculinity,” and it is a clear-headed and compassionate look at where we’ve gone wrong. Nina Power is a British writer, philosopher, and fellow Substacker. She’s also a senior editor at the new American journal of radical politics, Compact Magazine. Nina Power’s latest book is What Do Men Want? Masculinity and Its Discontents. She joins Tara for a conversation about how we think and talk about men – and how we might begin to heal the rift between the sexes. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Some months ago, Tara discovered a podcast that gripped her from its very first episode. That podcast is Banished, from Substack’s Booksmart Studios, and it is a deeply thoughtful and nuanced look at the rising tide of censorship and intolerance. Its host is a remarkable academic who is fiercely committed to open inquiry. Amna Khalid is an historian and a professor at Carleton College. She is a prolific writer of essays, often with her colleague Jeff Snyder, on the big issues of our time — including academic freedom, free speech, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and the controversy over Critical Race Theory in the classroom. Amna Khalid joins Tara to talk about how her early years in Pakistan fuelled her hunger for free expression, why she speaks out about intellectual conformity on campus, and where she gets her hope from.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Many of us have had the feeling over the last few years that things were just not adding up, that the narratives in the mainstream media simply were not making sense. Well, my guest on the podcast today had that experience earlier than most, years back, with online feminism – and it sowed the seed that became her most recent book.Meghan Daum is an essayist and the author of six books. She’s a former opinion columnist with the Los Angeles Times, and the host of weekly interview podcast, The Unspeakable. Her latest book is The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars, and it was recently released in paperback in Canada, with a new introduction. Meghan joins Tara for a wide-ranging conversation, to talk about the excesses of #MeToo, about cancel culture, about Elon Musk, and about the rise of heterodox thought.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

How free is Canada as a country? It’s a question that Tara's guest on the podcast today tackled in a book, back in 2020. He concluded that our freedom was actually pretty precarious. Philip Slayton is a Canadian lawyer and a former dean of law at Western University. He’s also a former president of PEN Canada, and a bestselling author. His latest book is Nothing Left To Lose: An Impolite Report on the State of Freedom in Canada. Philip joins Tara today for a lively, state-of-the-nation conversation, looking at how the pandemic, growing economic inequality, and the use of the Emergencies Act to quash the trucker protests impacted freedom in this country.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

“We’re liberated, and we’re miserable.” That’s a title of a chapter in Chrisine Emba’s new book, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation – and one a lot of people can relate to. The Sexual Revolution held lots of promises of freedom and liberation, but in many ways it just hasn’t delivered. We’re in the midst of a sex recession, marriage is in decline, and a recent Pew survey found that nearly half of American adults say that dating has gotten harder for most people over the last 10 years. Women know this. Men know this, too. But many are not willing to talk about it publicly. Because to critique where the West has landed on sex and intimacy is to critique feminism, and to question the overreach of #MeToo. Add to that, to focus on relationships between men and women is to risk offending the progressive consensus – which sees the whole conversation as reinforcing heteronormative discourse. Christine Emba is an opinion columnist and editor at The Washington Post. She joins Tara today to talk about the mess between men and women, and how we might get out of it.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

When Antonio Michael Downing set out to write his memoir, he gave himself some written instructions: “Tell it plainly, let the sweet be sweet, let the sour be sour, let the truth ring its own bell.” This led to his critically-acclaimed book Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming. In it, the Canadian author and musician recounts his childhood in Trinidad, and what he learned about humanity adjusting to life in various cities and towns in Ontario, in Brooklyn, New York, and out on tour. Antonio Michael Downing is one of our country’s most talented writers and thinkers. He joins me today for a wide-ranging conversation about his life story, fatherhood and masculinity, the crisis between men and women, the culture wars – and why he believes we need more robust public discussion and debate.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In the fall of 2015, Tara's guest on the podcast today had just arrived at Yale. He was an Air Force veteran, working-class, a former foster child. So, when a massive crisis erupted over emails about Halloween costumes and campus "safety," he was a bit perplexed. Rob Henderson is a PhD student in psychology at Cambridge University, and a rising academic star. He writes a popular newsletter on human nature, psychology, and social class at Substack, and has been published in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. But he’s perhaps best known for coining the term luxury beliefs. Rob Henderson is here to talk about these luxury beliefs, and about the sex recession and the state of the mating game. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Does every human being deserve to have love in their life? The American prison system – through its policies – often answers that question with a “no.” But the human instinct to seek out companionship, affection, and care runs deep. And every year, some of the roughly 2 million people behind bars fall in love with people on the outside. And the way the prisons treat these bonds says a lot about the state of mass incarceration. Brooklyn writer Elizabeth Greenwood spent five years reporting on romantic relationships among inmates. She's the author of Love Lockdown: Dating, Sex, and Marriage in American Prisons, and Tara's guest today on Lean Out.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

On the Lean Out podcast, we’ve talked a lot about the haves and the have nots. Our guest today has another way of thinking about this: he calls it the front row of America and the back row. The front row is in power; it values education, credentials, and consumerism. But the back row values different things – things like family, faith, and place. Chris Arnade is a writer and photographer who covers poverty and addiction. He’s the author of Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America. His new project is walking the world and documenting it on Substack – and he’s recently roamed the streets of Ukraine. He’s here today to talk about the strange, surreal moment we are in, and how the back row/front row tensions play into it. Chris Arnade is our guest, today on Lean Out.You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com