The Unspeakable Podcast

By: Meghan Daum
  • Summary

  • Author, essayist and journalist Meghan Daum has spent decades giving voice—and bringing nuance, humor and surprising perspectives—to things that lots of people are thinking but are afraid to say out loud. Now, she brings her observations to the realm of conversation. In candid, free-ranging interviews, Meghan talks with artists, entertainers, journalists, scientists, scholars, and anyone else who’s willing to do the “unspeakable” and question prevailing cultural and moral assumptions.
    2021
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Episodes
  • Ana Kasparian Falls Out of Alignment: A political awakening brings a personal reckoning
    Dec 16 2024

    Do journalists ever regret the way they cover events? This week, veteran YouTube journalist and political commentator Ana Kasparian discusses her journey from the progressive left to finding herself politically unaligned, the regrets she still harbors, and the complexities of navigating controversial issues with nuance. She also discusses her thoughts on the election and on Biden's mental decline, the appeal of Trump, and how cultural shifts within the Democratic party affected the election.

    Meghan and Ana also discuss motherhood (or in their cases, non-motherhood) and new discourse surrounding the trad movement, pro-natalism and the dark side of the pressure campaign to get people to have more children.

    GUEST BIO

    Ana Kasparian is a political journalist and media personality with nearly two decades of experience in news and analysis. Beginning her career as an assistant producer at CBS Radio in Los Angeles, she later became Executive Producer and co-host of The Young Turks. She now writes a Substack newsletter chronicling her political realignment journey and exploring key political and cultural issues.

    Follow her on Substack here.

    Want to hear the whole conversation? Upgrade your subscription here.

    HOUSEKEEPING

    📺 Visit The Unspeakable on YouTube!

    ✈️ The Unspeakeasy has new retreats for 2025. See where we'll be!

    🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, my community for freethinking women.

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 11 mins
  • Is Wokeness An Elite Boondoggle? Sociologist Musa al-Gharbi drops a truth bomb
    Dec 9 2024

    What purpose does “wokeness” really serve? Is it a way of thinking that helps lift up marginalized groups? Or is it a convenient way for elites to pay lip service to social justice while maintaining the status quo that benefits them? This week, I’m joined by sociologist Musa al-Gharbi to discuss his new book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions Of A New Elite. In addition to distilling his ideas about wokeness as “cover for elites,” we talk about Musa’s love for French theorists, the value of his community college education, and the culture shock he experienced when arriving at Columbia University. We also explore whether women are overrepresented in elite workplaces and how this might affect perceptions of gender inequality and male dominance.

    GUEST BIO

    Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist and assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. His research primarily focuses on the political economy of knowledge production and the “social life” of scholarly and journalistic outputs. He is a columnist for The Guardian, and his writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, among other publications. al-Gharbi’s first book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, was published by Princeton University Press in October 2024.

    Follow him on Substack.

    Want to hear the whole conversation? Upgrade your subscription here.

    HOUSEKEEPING

    📺 Visit The Unspeakable on YouTube!

    ✈️ The Unspeakeasy has new retreats for 2025. See where we'll be!

    🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, my community for freethinking women.

    Show more Show less
    25 mins
  • Is Sports Betting More Addictive Than Porn? Alex Grodd on the latest scourge affecting young men
    Dec 2 2024

    Until 2018, sports betting was almost a sport unto itself. To place a bet, you had to call your bookie, go to the race track, or make a trip to Las Vegas. But in 2018, the Supreme Court put an end to a longtime federal ban on sports betting, and it is now legal in most states and accessible on smartphones.

    For years, we’ve been hearing alarm bells about the addictive qualities of online pornography, which many experts believe has dulled the senses and hindered the relationship prospects of generations of young men. But according to Alex Grodd, founder of The Disagreement, a media and education company that puts out a podcast of the same name, sports betting in its current incarnation poses an even greater threat. In this conversation, Alex describes how compulsive betting and predatory marketing is leading to financial ruin for countless users, many of whom he spoke with for a recent episode of The Disagreement. He also talks about how this connects with the “masculinity crisis” as well as the overall drop in attention span for just about everyone.

    Listen to The Disagreement here.

    GUEST BIO

    Alex Grodd is the founder and CEO of The Disagreement and hosts its podcast. Prior to starting The Disagreement, Alex founded and ran BetterLesson, an edtech company that provides professional development tools to teachers. Alex forged his love for disagreement by facilitating debates among students during his days as a middle school teacher at public schools in Atlanta and Boston.

    Want to hear the whole conversation? Upgrade your subscription here.

    HOUSEKEEPING

    📺 Visit The Unspeakable on YouTube!

    ✈️ The Unspeakeasy has new retreats for 2025. See where we'll be!

    🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, my community for freethinking women.

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 9 mins

What listeners say about The Unspeakable Podcast

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Nuanced, relentless, intelligent

The podcast is excellent, it doesn’t skirt hard issues, and you learn a lot. Great for people of love to explore and share ideas. Meghan Daum leaves us all smarter. Be a Daumy not a dumby!

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For the Independent Thinker

Meghan Daum's The Unspeakeasable podcast is an anchor of sanity in a polarized world. Great guests, emotionally intelligent hosting. A gem.

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