Podcast appearances and mentions of david shipler

“We've learned how to tolerate acts of violence, acts of widespread death, disease — that other developed nations simply don't tolerate. And that tolerance manifesting in myriad political failures — all of which go back to our refusal to maturely deal with mortality and issues of grief.” — David Masciotra Earlier this week, we talked to Ece Temelkuran about her book Nation of Strangers, a manifesto about strangers finding one another. But for the cultural critic David Masciotra, strangerdom is the problem rather than the solution. Contemporary America, he argues in his new essay A Country of Strangers, has become a place of death, despair and indifference. Masciotra takes his cue from Albert Camus' 1942 novella The Stranger. Camus' Meursault — the narrator of The Stranger — is a man completely detached from meaning. He attends his own mother's funeral without feeling anything. He murders an Arab man on a beach without motive. He faces his execution with a shrug. Masciotra's argument is that the United States has become Meursault writ large. America's failure is existential rather than political. It is a failure to mourn — a sustained refusal to engage with death, grief, and the weight of history that produces a society of strangers who cannot connect with one another across race, class, or geography. So is Masciotra right? Are we all Meursault now? What can Albert Camus teach us about America? Five Takeaways •       Meursault and America: The Same Detachment: Camus' The Stranger is narrated by Meursault — a man who attends his mother's memorial without feeling, murders an Arab man on a beach without motive, and faces execution with indifference. The novel, Camus said, was his attempt to detail “man's confrontation with absurdity in its nakedness.” Masciotra's argument: this is America now. A country that has adopted Meursault's emotional posture toward mass death. Columbine stopped the nation in 1999. Mass shootings now barely register. That is not political failure. It is existential failure. •       A Failure to Mourn: Masciotra's central thesis: America's deepest problem is its refusal to mourn. Not guilt — he is careful to distinguish mourning from guilt. You can have a national memory that reckons with both what you celebrate and what you grieve. If the Founding Fathers are worth preserving in active memory, so are the people they enslaved. Never properly dealing with the Civil War allowed the resurgence of white supremacist movements. Never properly mourning mass shootings allows them to accelerate. The failure to grieve is not sentimental. It is political. •       Is Meursault Autistic? The Spectrum Reading: Some contemporary critics read Meursault as someone on the autism spectrum — a man whose emotional detachment reflects neurodivergence rather than moral failure. Masciotra is skeptical. His reading: Camus' portrait is one of moral refusal, not neurological condition. The distinction matters for the American parallel: if America's indifference is a structural feature rather than a disease, the remedy is not therapy but political and cultural change. You can't medicate a country into empathy. •       The Colonial Murder and the Racial Hierarchy: Meursault murders an Arab man in French Algeria and feels nothing. Some critics fault Camus for not making colonialism more explicit. Masciotra defends Camus: Meursault doesn't care about anything, including his own mother's death. His indifference to his Arab victim's humanity is the point, not an evasion. The parallel to America: the hierarchy of victims, where Black Americans have historically ranked lower in the eyes of law and institution. David Shipler's 1997 book A Country of Strangers documented the same failure of Black and white Americans to actually talk to one another. •       You Are the First Close White Friends I've Had: Masciotra's friend Alana — a highly educated, cultured Black woman who lived in Chicago — once told him and his wife: “You are the first close white friends I've had.” They said the same back. This, Masciotra argues, is the country of strangers in daily life. Not the horror stories of overt racism. The quieter failure of self-imposed segregation that persists in a society that preaches diversity but, judging from its own behaviour, doesn't really want it. About the Guest David Masciotra is a cultural critic and the author of six books, including Exurbia Now: The Battleground of American Democracy, I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters, and Mellencamp: American Troubadour. He has written for the Progressive, the New Republic, Liberties, and many other publications about politics, literature, and music. His Substack is Absurdia Now. References: •       A Country of Strangers: Death, Despair and Indifference in the US by David Masciotra, CounterPunch, May 1, 2026. •       Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942). Camus' novella, the primary text of the conversation. •       Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel — referenced in the conversation. •       François Ozon, The Stranger (2024 film) — the adaptation that prompted the essay. •       David Shipler, A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America (1997) — referenced in the conversation. •       Episode 2903: Ece Temelkuran on Nation of Strangers — the companion episode referenced at the opening. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,900 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters: (00:31) - Introduction: Temelkuran's nation of strangers and Masciotra's country of strangers (01...

In this Pocket Sized PepTalk, you'll learn:Various techniques of interviewing along with multiple approaches to questioning.Techniques David found most effective for building trust quickly.What role listening plays in uncovering a deeper story, and how that parallels with what a good salesperson should be doing.As a journalist, how you read the emotional landscape of a conversation and decide how far you could push a question through an interpreter.What role does curiosity plays in getting a good story and how might salespeople use authentic curiosity as a tool.David's crossover from a business author to a fiction author with your new book, The Interpreter, and what made him want to write a fiction novel.How this idea of 'interpreting' apply to what salespeople and entrepreneurs do when they're translating customer needs into solutions.To learn more about this guest:dshipler@comcast.net

David Shipler recounts the arc of his career after college, including his service as an officer in the US Navy, early jobs at the New York Times, assignments in Vietnam, Russia, and Israel, and how he came to author books. Among the seven books he published are Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (for which he won a Pulitzer Prize), Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams, and A Country of Strangers: Blacks and Whites in America. David adds his thoughts on Russia and Ukraine as well as troubling aspects of democracy in the US.

This week, Rich sits down with long-time New York Times journalist David Shipler, discussing learning by failure, preparing for beats abroad, and writing short fiction (Episode 229).

Join author and journalist David Shipler for a discussion of his latest book Freedom of Speech: Mightier Than the Sword, an expansive, timely assessment of the state of free speech in America. We apologize for audio quality issues. We are working to correct this.

Join author and journalist David Shipler for a discussion of his latest book Freedom of Speech: Mightier Than the Sword, an expansive, timely assessment of the state of free speech in America. We apologize for audio quality issues. We are working to correct this.

David Shipler on the state of the First Amendment, Lee Drutman on corporate influence peddling, and Bill Press interviews New York Congressman Paul Tonko on TPP.   On the anniversary of American independence, journalist and First Amendment expert David Shipler says there is a mixed picture of free speech. Legally, you can say anything you want, but there are sometimes invisible cultural limits. Political reform advocate Lee Drutman says the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is not helping corporations run Congress as much as old-fashioned lobbying is. And Bill Press interviews New York Congressman Paul Tonko, an opponent of TPP.   David Shipler Free speech expert David Shipler gives us an Independence Day review of free speech, a free press in the Internet era, and the merits of whistle-blowing by Edward Snowden. http://www.randomhouse.com/book/215359/freedom-of-speech-by-david-k-shipler   Lee Drutman Lee Drutman studies the role of influence-peddling in government and says that corporations spend 34 times as much as issue advocacy groups. And that, he concludes, is just not a fair fight. www.newamerica.org/   Paul Tonko Bill Press and his guest. TPP opponent Congressman Paul Tonko.   Jim Hightower "The Donald Show"

First amendment expert David Shipler says covering Washington is like covering Cold War Russia … sociology professor Andrew Cherlin ties a drop in college graduation and marriage to the growing income gap … and Congressman Dan Kildee assails the president on trade in a Bill Press Show interview.   At this patriotic time of year, celebrating Memorial Day, journalist David Shipler says President Obama’s campaign against whistleblowing reminds him of covering Cold War Russia. Sociology professor Andrew Cherlin, at this time of graduations and weddings, notes that the growing economic disparity is having a negative effect on higher education and marriage rates. And Congressman Dan Kildee takes on the president over trade in an interview on the Bill Press show.     David Shipler Barack Obama promised to be the most transparent president, but journalist David Shipler writes that this liberal constitutional lawyer has made covering national security like trying to cover Moscow during the Cold War.   Andrew Cherlin Sociology professor Andrew Cherlin says that family life is shrinking along with the middle class because young people can’t afford to get married and devote time to children. http://soc.jhu.edu/directory/andrew-j-cherlin/   Dan Kildee Congressman Dan Kildee assails the president on trade in a Bill Press Show interview.     Jim Hightower Big Food trying a big hoax.  

Long before the attacks of September 11, 2001 the rights and civil liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution have been challenged by legal compromises made in the name of national security. The result is a system that undermines the criminal justice system’s fairness, enhances the executive branch’s power over citizens and immigrants, and impairs the debate and protest essential in a constitutional democracy. Join the Council in welcoming Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist David Shipler who will discuss how our rights to privacy and justice have been undermined and what we have lost in the process. He will also examine the historical expansion and contraction of fundamental liberties in America, the places where the civil liberties we take for granted have eroded and how much we stand to regain by protesting the recent departures from the Bill of Rights.