Uncertain Things

Dara Horn did not want to write The Final Solution to the Jewish Question . But after writing People Love Dead Jews , her first foray into nonfiction (and talking about it with us ), she realized that people expected her to have the answers to the issues she was raising — and she didn’t have them yet. Her latest book is her attempt to offer solutions to the hard questions, like: Why do people keep...

Josh Szeps, Australian broadcaster and the host of the fantastic podcast Uncomfortable Conversations , joins us IRL in a noisy Israeli restaurant in New York City — on the anniversary of October 7 — to discuss the evolution of his thinking on Israel and Anti-Semitism. Come for the reflections on Zionism, stay for the disagreements, interruptions, and cheap shots at Australia. In this episode : -Wo...

Writer, The Dispatch national correspondent, and Econ-turned-English major Kevin D. Williamson joins us to discuss the question: Why does everyone hate capitalism these days (and whether it’s all just middle class whinging)? -The companies that give capitalism a bad name [2:01-7:59] -The neat things about capitalism [8:00-15:02] -Zooming into American culture and inequality [15:03-27:31] -Why do w...

Yoni Appelbaum — historian and deputy executive editor at The Atlantic — joins us to talk about his latest book, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity . This is a classic Vanessa & Adaam convo…not only do we cover housing, NIMBYs, and the lunacies of Progressive governance, we also touch on America’s can-move spirit, the Abundance movement, what left...

We’re back! And so is British Palestinian writer/Substacker John Aziz . As we did in our 2023 conversation (“ Diaspora Palestinian to Hamas Apologists: Debate Me, Bro ”), we discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict — but this time we hone in on all that hasn’t changed since October 7th. At this rate, we’re way closer to an AI-induced utopia of abundance than peace in the Middle East. But at least we...

Mike Pesca — host of the How To! and The Gist podcasts — joins us again! We revisit the topic of nihilism, dive into annihilism (and why it’s different), and dunk on quite a few celebrities along the way. Stay to the end, and we recommend the sweet sweet artworks that may just be the antidotes to our burn-it-to-the-ground times. On the agenda: -On ghosts, demons, and podcasts [0:00-7:50] -Adaam’s...

Eli Lake — staff writer at The Free Press, contributing editor at Commentary Magazine, and host of the Breaking History podcast — returns to the podcast to discuss the state of neoconservatism; the war with Iran (and why all the pundits are wrong about); and the enduring mystery (but not-so-enduring importance) of Tucker Carlson. On the agenda: - Neocons, Redux -The war in Iran -The “geopolitics”...

Jesse Brown — journalist and founder of the Canadaland podcast company — joins us IRL in New York City to talk about his latest project: What is happening here ? The audio doc, hosted by Jesse, dives into the ways Anti-Zionism and antisemitism have taken root in Canada since October 7th. On the agenda * What is happening here? and the red triangle [0:00-22:38] * Why the Canada example matters [22:...

Dr. Einat Wilf — Israeli writer, podcaster, and now founder of the political party Oz — returns to the pod to tell us a tale of two wars: the physical war fought (and technically won) in Gaza and the global war for Jewish sovereignty (that’s far from over). If you’re a curious layman on this subject, like Vanessa, make sure to revisit our first conversation with Dr. Wilf before listening, to make...

New York Times columnist, co-host of Advisory Opinions and The Dispatch Podcast, and Nashville-based evangelical, David French, returns to the pod once again. This time, we had one big question on our minds: What’s with all the Christianity cosplaying taking over politics right now? But an Uncertain Things episode wouldn’t be an Uncertain Things episode if we stuck to just one topic! We ended up d...

Journalist Ben Dreyfuss (writer of Calm Down and co-host of Central Air ) joins us for a conversational grab bag: Zohran Mamdani’s agenda; the Left’s ideologues (and how to distinguish them from the cosplayers); the challenge of maintaining personal relationships across political divides; Luigi Mangione’s appeal; the dearth of humor amongst Millennials; and more. If these topics leave you spinning...

Adaam is joined by James Lindsay, author of Cynical Theories and founder of New Discourses, to play the epistemology drinking game: you take a shot every time either speaker uses the word! They talk about how higher education in America became a racket, whether we can revivify classical liberalism in the age of social media, whether we need to exclude bad actors from the public discourse, whether...

Anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein was in the Amazon on October 9th, when he went online and learned what had happened two days previously. Almost immediately, he also discovered something else: his left-wing colleagues in the academy were ready to ostracize him for his “ filthy Zionist ” views. Since then, Louis-Klein has turned his analytical eye toward anti-Zionism. In this conversation, he explai...

Writer, reporter, Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em co-host, and pie baker extraordinaire Nancy Rommelmann returns to Uncertain Things to talk (again) about a topic she knows all too well: Portland. In 2021, she lambasted the way the media was distorting what was happening on the ground by underplaying the violence. Four years later, she’s lamenting the way the President and his cronies are distorting what...

Matt Welch, co-host of The Fifth Column podcast and editor at large for Reason Magazine , joins Adaam to discuss the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It’s grim. How grim? Very. Get off social media. Turn off your phone. Touch grass. See ya’ll in the gulag. Also: - Matt’s previous visit to Uncertain Things - Adaam on political violence - Adaam and Jonah Goldberg on political violence - Yu...

What’s lost when we opt for the convenience of technology over the difficult, awkward, thrilling realities of human interaction? With so much tech to reach for, when do we lose the ability to interact with each other – or even understand ourselves? And with the AI revolution already afoot, is humanity just f*cked? Vanessa’s back from mat leave and ready to dive into our tech-saturated, under-socia...

Jonah Goldberg, host of The Remnant and author of Suicide of the West , joins Adaam for a session of unfettered nerdery and gloom, in which definitions shall be debated, Straussian hats worn, and metaphors unapologetically mixed. They cover the meaning of “utopianism,” the revolutionary force of monotheism, the power of language, the messianic urge from Christ to the Jacobins, the lack of new idea...

It is an extra (((special))) episode on Uncertain Things as Ruth Wisse, senior fellow at the Tikvah Fund and author of Jews and Power , hosts Adaam for Friday afternoon cookies and Talmud. The two discussed the wave of resentment that threatens to consume American culture ( or Annihilism , as Adaam stubbornly calls it ), the problem (or lack thereof) of inequality, the Jewish rejection of Weakness...

AEI Senior Fellow Yuval Levin rejoins the pod to discuss the enemies of continuity. He and Adaam debate the definition of conservatism and whether it’s the Annihilist urge that dominates the contemporary left or something else entirely. Oh, and if that’s not nerdy enough for you, they also go on a semi-Burkean detour to adjudicate whether beauty in art is related to truth (because someone had to!)...

Dan Senor, host of the Call Me Back podcast and co-author of The Genius of Israel , is bullish on Israel. Is there anything that could change his mind? He and Adaam discuss what makes Israeli society strong and what might make it turn against itself. They also can’t resist some media naval gazing and debate whether the fall of sense-making gatekeepers is a boon or a curse. On the agenda: -Brave ne...

Alan Dershowitz is one of the most prolific legal scholars (and civil rights litigators) in this country of ours. In his latest book, The Preventive State , he takes the first step in developing the jurisprudence of what Philip K. Dick called precrime . Dershowitz argues that we need a better — and more transparent — legal system for calculating how many civil liberties we’re willing to sacrifice...

Coleman Hughes, author of The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America and writer for The Free Press, argues that recent progressive theories about antiracism have looped all the way back to racism. He joins Adaam to discuss the power of language to reveal and distort, the moral confusions of revolutionary activism, the aesthetics of social justice, and how this all relates to Isra...

Is there hope for Palestinians in Gaza after the war? What will happen to Hamas? Does anyone still want a Two State Solution? And will the war with Iran change the game? Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and director of Realign for Palestine , joins Adaam James Levin-Areddy to discuss. Ahmed seeks to refocus the Palestinian mission from armed resistance against I...

Former ACLU President Nadine Strossen and FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) President Greg Lukianoff join Adaam to discuss their upcoming book War on Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail . The three dig into what makes liberalism in general and free speech in particular so powerful, so radical, and so rare. Is too much information a danger for free speech?...

Perspicacious podcaster Mike Pesca, host of The Gist and author of Pesca Profundities , joins Adaam to partake in principled, punny, and peppily pugnacious perorations. On the agenda: the creeping nihilism of American society (and should we be worried about it), the comedy of Signalgate, the state of the media, and the revenge of the cancelled. On the agenda: -Podcasting with Pesca [00:00] -Misinf...