In this episode Andrea and Alex delve into the dark side of masculinity with the film adaptations of Apt Pupil and We Need to Talk About Kevin to explore the manosphere, motherhood, and the complexities of anger.
Please note: this episode was recorded September 5, 2025.
Class of 2025 Merch is now available. Thanks to Caleb Milatovic and Rachelle Walker for the incredible design!
REQUIRED READING
Apt Pupil. Dir. Bryan Singer, 1998.
We Need to Talk About Kevin. Dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2011.
We Need to Talk About Kevin. Dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2011.
EXTRA CREDIT
Guns by Stephen King. King’s essay on gun culture and mass shooting in America.
How American Racism Influenced Hitler. Alex Ross’ New Yorker piece on America’s dark relationship with the Nazis.
The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. Sharon Hays’ treatise on the profession and expectations of mothers.
LISTEN
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I don’t consider myself to be part of your “choir”. I regularly read/listen to perspectives different from my own. I don’t make the assumption that anyone I’m dialogue with must agree with me. I thought I might demonstrate this by linking to Scott Alexander https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/ but Scott would think of himself as still on your side in a broad sense, whereas I don’t think of myself as being on anyone’s side.
I don’t know if Charlie Kirk’s argument was that “powerful”. He was known for going on college campuses to argue, but during the Trump era the big trend has been declining racial polarization (confounding most racial interpretations of American politics) along increasing educational polarization, with the colledge educated shifting toward Democrats (leaving Republicans with the larger majority of people without degrees). Polarization by sex has increased somewhat but you can see from Figure 6 in Cascio & Shenhav’s “A Century of the American Woman Voter: Sex Gaps in Political Participation, Preferences, and Partisanship” (available on NBER) that’s been a long term trend since a low point in the mid 50s and the more recent elections don’t really stand out from that trend. The trends in educational polarization are found across many countries, and it’s not because they’re all watching Charlie Kirk videos with subtitles. You might want to read David Shor on that, he’s one of the more serious people trying to win in the face of that rather than prioritizing his own personal preferences.
Rather than school shootings going back forever, running “amok” to commit a mass/spree shooting in general doesn’t seem to have been a common idea that far back (Howard Unruh wasn’t compared to others following his “walk of death”), and school shootings specifically seem to have become much more common since King wrote “Rage” under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.
I think the title “Apt Pupil” better fits the altered ending than the original. The story is about someone who covered up his participation in the Holocaust and got away with it for decades, so it’s fitting if his titular pupil also figures out how to get away with his crimes.
As academics, you are surely aware that sociology precedes not only the Holocaust but also the 20th century. If the discipline of sociology (manifested by the bulk of its practicioners) thinks that its raison detre is understanding the Holocaust, then I would expect the result would be to produce neither a good understanding of sociology nor the Holocaust.
On sex differences in suicide, this appears to be due to men having more access to & familiarity with one of the most effective means of carrying it out: firearms. Women seem to prefer less reliable means (such as overdosing on pills), but among doctors who have access to barbituates, there isn’t really a difference between the sexes for successful attempts. I’ve also heard that in third world countries where women regularly have access to dangerous chemicals restricted in first world countries, there also isn’t the same difference. My understanding for why rates have increased over time in first-world countries is that declining religiosity (particularly, the belief that it results in damnation to hell) has made people less averse to it.
You specify “hetero” men, but studies have found that they attempt suicide at something like a half or third the rate of non-straight men. This disparity does not appear to have changed much over the decades despite shifting societal attitudes.
It doesn’t seem accurate to describe the issue as “uniquely” American right after you mentioned the Ecole Polytechnique massacre in Montreal. The blogosphere has also been around long enough that I posted a reaction to the Joleka High School mass shooting in Finland back in the day.
lol
Wow. I am only half-way through this new episode but had to comment on the most chilling quote thus far, “HISTORY TEACHES BUT HAS NO PUPILS.” That cuts to the heart eh?