Preview: Why Is David Rieff a Cultural Pessimist about Blue America?

About this episode

The episode features a discussion with David Rieff on his views as a cultural pessimist regarding Blue America.

This is a free preview of our latest Patreon-only episode of Blue City Blues, with writer David Rieff, a war correspondent, an essayist, and a leading cultural critic. David, the son of sociologist Philip Rieff, author of The Triumph of the Therapeutic, and author Susan Sontag, one of the greatest public intellectuals of the 20th century, is a formidable intellectual and critic in his own right. He is also a self-described cultural pessimist, who argues in his 2024 collection of essays, Desir...

People in this episode

Hosts: David Hyde, Sandeep Kaushik

Guest: David Rieff

Topics covered

• cultural pessimism
• Blue America
• intellectual critique
• war correspondence
• essay writing

Keywords

• David Rieff
• cultural pessimist
• Blue America
• essayist
• war correspondent

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Desire

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