{"id":4124,"date":"2025-04-11T16:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T16:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=4124"},"modified":"2025-04-11T16:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T16:35:08","slug":"opinion-may-you-listen-to-interesting-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=4124","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | May You Listen to \u2018Interesting Times\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This week\u2019s newsletter is a brief advertisement: As of this week, I have a new show, \u201cInteresting Times,\u201d with fresh episodes every Thursday, and I want to encourage you to subscribe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The idea behind \u201cInteresting Times\u201d \u2014 which will be available in <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/column\/interesting-times\" title=\"\">audio<\/a> and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@InterestingTimesNYT\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">video<\/a> \u2014 starts with <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/16\/opinion\/donald-trump-election-new-era.html\" title=\"\">a case that I made<\/a> soon after Donald Trump\u2019s 2024 victory: I argued that we have entered a much more open and uncertain historical epoch, that the post-Cold War era has been left behind decisively and that the set of challenges and opportunities before us look very different from what we faced under George W. Bush or Barack Obama or even Trump in his first term.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That\u2019s the terrain in which I\u2019m hoping to have conversations. Some of them, like <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/10\/opinion\/ross-douthat-interesting-times.html\" title=\"\">our debut episode<\/a>, with Oren Cass, will be focused on the immediate policy shifts in which this new era is made manifest \u2014 in this case, Trump\u2019s protectionist push and the rearrangement of world trade that it portends. Others will take on the big arguments and long-term trends that will give the open future its eventual shape: The rise of artificial intelligence, the possibility of religious revival (Christian or otherwise), the quest to renew the Western left, the struggles over mass migration, the effects of digital life on society and culture and (of course) the ongoing birthrate crash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The first interview, like the three I did under the aegis of the \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/column\/matter-of-opinion\" title=\"\">Matter of Opinion<\/a>\u201d podcast, is with an important figure on the Trump-era right, but the new show isn\u2019t going to be just a conservative talking to other conservatives: I hope to talk to Democratic politicians, progressive intellectuals, far-left radicals, the works.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The goal is for the interviews to complement my writing and to enrich the portrait that I\u2019m trying to offer of our strange and getting-stranger world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And a final note \u2014 for regular readers familiar with my long-running arguments about decadence, there\u2019s a natural question: Does the concept of \u201cInteresting Times\u201d represent a break with my prior view about drift, repetition, boredom and stagnation as defining features of our age?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The answer is yes, at least to some degree, which is one reason this newsletter no longer has a This Week in Decadence item at the end of every installment. Not that decadence has disappeared (especially at the movies), and there are definitely futures in which current disturbances could yield a deepening of stagnation down the road \u2014 in which the A.I. revolution makes online culture even more recursive and repetitive, the populist era ultimately produces more gridlock and political incapacity, and new technologies weave thicker cocoons around human creativity and independence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But for this moment, at least, we have entered a time of technological acceleration rather than stagnation. Our demographic winter is deepening too quickly to be considered sustainably decadent \u2014 threatening the disappearance of nations, not just their slow decay. Our religious landscape has more experiments and surprises and fewer predictable culture-war debates. And our political and economic situation \u2014 well, you can look at the headlines to see how comfortable sclerosis has yielded to something much more uncertain and chaotic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Or you can give this week\u2019s episode a listen and then (hopefully) subscribe.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"css-7ad88g e1mu4ftr0\"\/><\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week\u2019s newsletter is a brief advertisement: As of this week, I have a new show, \u201cInteresting Times,\u201d with fresh episodes every Thursday, and I want to encourage you to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":552,"featured_media":4125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[5337,5336,57,1195],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - 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