Keen On America

According to David Masciotra, the real battleground for the future of American democracy lies in that no-man’s land between suburban and rural America - what he calls the “exurb”. It’s here, Masciotra argues in his new book EXURBIA NOW, that we can find the pathologies of a 21st century American totalitarianism. The America that Masciotra finds in these outer suburbs is the antithesis of Tocqueville’s small town America - a fragmented, alienating place without public space or communal interaction. What Masciotra uncovers is Marjorie Taylor Greene’s America and this grey often overlooked zone between suburb and countryside, he suggests is the Gettysburg of American democracy, the battleground which will determine the fate of the Republic in the 2020’s and beyond.

David Masciotra is an author, lecturer, and journalist. He is the author of I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters (I.B. Tauris, 2020), Mellencamp: American Troubadour (University Press of Kentucky), Barack Obama: Invisible Man (Eyewear Publishers, 2017), and Metallica by Metallica, a 33 1/3 book from Bloomsbury Publishers, which has been translated into Chinese. In 2010, Continuum Books published his first book, Working On a Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen. His next book, Exurbia Now: Notes from the Battleground of American Democracy, is scheduled for publication from Melville House Books in 2024. Masciotra writes regularly for the New Republic, Washington Monthly, Progressive, the Los Angeles Review of Books, CrimeReads, No Depression, and the Daily Ripple. He has also written for Salon, the Daily Beast, CNN, Atlantic, Washington Post, AlterNet, Indianapolis Star, and CounterPunch. Several of his political essays have been translated into Spanish for publication at Korazon de Perro. His poetry has appeared in Be About It Press, This Zine Will Change Your Life, and the Pangolin Review. Masciotra has a Master’s Degree in English Studies and Communication from Valparaiso University. He also has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from the University of St. Francis. He is public lecturer, speaking on a wide variety of topics, from the history of protest music in the United States to the importance of bars in American culture. David Masciotra has spoken at the University of Wisconsin, University of South Carolina, Lewis University, Indiana University, the Chicago Public Library, the Lambeth Library (UK), and an additional range of colleges, libraries, arts centers, and bookstores. As a journalist, he has conducted interviews with political leaders, musicians, authors, and cultural figures, including Jesse Jackson, John Mellencamp, Noam Chomsky, all members of Metallica, David Mamet, James Lee Burke, Warren Haynes, Norah Jones, Joan Osborne, Martín Espada, Steve Earle, and Rita Dove.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

The Daily Mail called him the “Sith Lord” of the art world, the New York Times annointed him as the art world’s Patron Satan”, while the Wall Street Journal described him as the dealer the art world “loves to hate”. Californian voters aren’t too keen on him either, with only 0.24% voting for him in January as the Republican candidate for Diane Feinstein’s Senate seat. Yes, we’re talking about Stefan Simchowitz, the notoriously disruptive Los Angeles based entrepreneur who has built an enormously controversial art empire. So why, I asked Malibu’s self-styled enfant terrible, does almost everyone in the art world seem to hate him so much? And does he really believe, as he supposedly told another interviewer recently, that the US government should round up 150,000 homeless people in California and stick them into military camps?

Stefan Simchowitz (born October 8, 1970) is the Los Angeles based art collector, art curator and art advisor who runs Simchowitz Gallery. He is a vocal proponent of social media as a legitimate way of discovering, distributing, and popularizing the fine arts, primarily using Facebook and Instagram as platforms for self-promotion, discovering new artists, and endorsing those he already manages.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Is it really conceivable that Apple will withdraw its products and services from the entire European Union? What might sound absurd is actually conceivable, That Was the Week’s Keith Teare says, because of what he sees as the EU’s increasingly autocratic behavior toward big tech US companies like Apple. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has been doing the math, Keith warns EU bureaucrats, and is recognizing that it’s simply not worth being in a market where regulatory fines are making its European Union presence unprofitable. In other tech news of the week, Keith evaluates Sam Bankman-Friedman’s 25 year prison sentence and Amazon’s latest $4 billion investment in AI “startup” Anthropic.

Keith Teare is a Founder and CEO at SignalRank Corporation. Previously he was Executive Chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd - A UK-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. He was also previously the founder at the Palo Alto incubator, Archimedes Labs. Archimedes was the original incubator for TechCrunch and since 2011 has invested, accelerated or incubated many Silicon Valley startups including Around (sold to Miro), Millicast (Sold to Dolby), InFarm, Miles, Quixey; M.dot (sold to GoDaddy); chat.center; Loop Surveys; DownTown and Sunshine. Teare has a track record as a serial entrepreneur with big ideas and has achieved significant returns for investors.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

On the front page of her website, the family therapist and psychologist B. Janet Hibbs quotes Kierkegaard’s observation that “we live our lives forward, but understand them backwards.” But her coauthored You’re Not Done Yet: Parenting Young Adults in an Age of Uncertainty seems to reverse that Kierkegaardian narrative. Many contemporary young Americans, Hibbs explains, are living their lives backwards by retreating home to live with their parents and surround themselves with all the certainties of their former childhood. It’s an odd paradox that, in supposedly the most “advanced” country in the world, American kids are unlearning how to grow up. Parents, Hibbs tells us in her new book, should understand and welcome these adult-children back to their nests with open arms. But Hibbs, who sports an M.F.T. (Marriage Family Therapy) and the obligatory Ph.D, is part of that growing therapy-anxiety complex which, some might argue, are both the cause and beneficiary of our “age of uncertainty” (which is, of course, no more uncertain than any other age).

Dr. B. Janet Hibbs is a recognized authority on family issues, with a focus on parent-child and partner relationships. Her speaking engagements draw on expert clinical experience, based on 30 years of practice treating individuals, couples, and families. She provides effective strategies for coping with the many issues–including stress–that parents and students face. Dually licensed as a psychologist and a family therapist, Dr. Hibbs holds the highest credential in the marriage and family therapy field, as an Approved Supervisor for the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. She is a popular radio talk show guest, with appearances on NPR’s Voices in the Family, Radio Times, and The Diane Riehm show. She has also made appearances and on national and regional TV. Dr. Hibbs has been quoted in national newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Dr. Hibbs is also the recipient of the 2021 Psychologist in the Media Award from the Pennsylvania Psychological Association. She is co-founder of Contextual Therapy Associates, where she has a private practice in Philadelphia, PA. She and her husband have been married for over 30 years and have two sons.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In his 1887 polemic, On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche suggested that the idea of good and evil, of morality itself, might have been born by slaves. Candida Moss, who holds the Edward Cadbury Chair of Theology at the University of Birmingham, riffs off this Nietzchean idea by suggesting that enslaved Christians, as well as artisans and women, might have actually written (or, at least, transcribed) the Bible. This precariat of antiquity were, Moss argues in her new God’s Ghostwriters, not much different to the Amazon delivery men and Uber drivers who now make up the labor force of our digital economy. It’s an intriguing argument especially, as Moss gleefully acknowledges, because it will offend many American evangelicals who assume that the Bible was written by white men like Luke, Peter, Mark, Paul, John and Ringo. Happy Easter everyone. Enjoy your Cadbury chocolate eggs and the Resurrection/Passover.

Candida Moss is Edward Cadbury Chair of Theology at the University of Birmingham, prior to which she taught for almost a decade at the University of Notre Dame. Moss is the award-winning author or coauthor of seven books, has served as papal news commentator for CBS News, and writes a column for The Daily Beast. She has written for and had her work reported on in the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Atlantic, among other outlets. Moss has appeared as an on-air expert for CNN and Fox News, and in documentaries for NBC, National Geographic, History Channel, BBC, PBS, Smithsonian Channel, and others. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Oxford, and MA and PhD from Yale.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Surveillance capitalism is ubiquitous. If we’re not being watched by Google or Facebook, then we are watching movies warning about how these digital platforms are watching us. David Donnelly’s new documentary, COST OF CONVENIENCE, trots all the familiar charges that we’ve heard over the years from KEEN ON guests like Shoshana Zuboff , Jaron Lanier, Nick Carr and Roger McNamee. It’s good stuff, I guess, even if we’ve heard these existential warnings many times before. The problem is what to do about it. Like most Silicon Valley critics, Donnelly’s fixes - from more education and regulation to greater self control - aren’t very realistic. Ultimately, I guess, we’ll find something else to worry about. The real question, however, is if we forget about the screen, will the screen forget about us?

DAVID DONNELLY is an American filmmaker renowned for his impactful documentaries in the classical music realm, notably his award-winning debut, Maestro, featuring stars like Paavo Järvi, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, and Lang Lang. This film, translated into multiple languages and has been broadcast worldwide, is highly regarded as an educational tool in music education. Following Maestro, Donnelly directed Nordic Pulseand Forte, completing a trilogy offering an unparalleled glimpse into classical music. His work, relevant amid the Ukraine invasion, includes narratives on Estonia's Singing Revolution, showcasing his storytelling's depth. Donnelly's films have been showcased at prestigious venues like the Whitney Museum and the Kennedy Center, underlining his status in both the art and film communities. In 2021, he co-founded CultureNet and announced The Cost of Convenience, the first in a new trilogy exploring technology's cultural implications. Donnelly's career extends beyond filmmaking; he's a sought-after speaker, sharing insights from interviews with global thought leaders across over 30 countries.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Few conservatives or Christians have stood up to Donald Trump with the coherence and bravery of The New York Times and Atlantic columnist Peter Wehner. “I think morality is to Trump what color is to a person who is colorblind”, Wehner told me. And, in contrast with the ethically monochromatic Trump, Peter Wehner’s moral palette is akin to a sophisticated painter. In a wide ranging KEEN ON AMERICA conversation about his life in and out of Republican politics, Wehner explains why there is nothing “conservative” about Trump or “Christian” about many right-wing evangelicals, and how the Republican party is now flirting with ethical bankruptcy. Regular KEEN ON viewers know that I don’t care much for the Trump-Hitler comparison, but if there’s any truth to it, then Peter Wehner could be the Dietrich Bonhoeffer of conservative Christian resistance to Trumpism.

Peter Wehner is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and the Atlantic. He is a senior fellow at the the Trinity Forum who served in Ronald Reagan’s, George H.W. Bush’s and George W. Bush’s administrations. In 2001, he was named deputy director of speechwriting for President George W. Bush. He later served as director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives, where he reached out to prominent thinkers and advised the White House on a range of domestic and international issues. A senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, he has been affiliated with several leading research organizations. Mr. Wehner is a frequent commentator on television and radio and has written widely on political, cultural, religious and national security issues. He is the author (with Arthur C. Brooks) of “Wealth and Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism” and (with Michael Gerson) of “City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era.” The Washington Monthly has called him one of the most influential reform-minded conservatives, and in Forbes, the political consultant Mary Matalin featured him on a short list of conservatism’s leading “educators and practitioners of first principles.”

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Do we really need more jeremiads exposing the Randian greed of Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg & Travis Kalanick? Rob Lalka’s THE VENTURE ALCHEMISTS is about how big tech turned profits into power. but this has been the alchemy of American economic life for two hundred years. What isn’t clear to me is how we are supposed to distinguish good big tech guys like Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar, Craig Newmark, & Reid Hoffman from the evil Peter Thiel, Travis Kalanick and Elon Musk. Lalka’s fetishization of “ordinary people” might be well meaning, but it doesn’t really address today’s alchemic challenge of democratizing the economic benefits of technological innovation.

Rob Lalka is Professor of Practice in Management and the Albert R. Lepage Professor in Business at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business and the Executive Director of the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He has twice received the A.B. Freeman School’s Excellence in Intellectual Contributions Award and is the author of a forthcoming book, The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power, from Columbia University Press. Lalka moved to New Orleans from Washington, DC, where he was a director at Village Capital and a senior advisor at the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. Prior, he served in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships and was on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, for which he was recognized with the State Department’s Superior Honor Award and its Meritorious Honor Award. Lalka currently serves on the boards of Public Democracy, Inc., Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, and Venture For America in New Orleans. He graduated from Yale University, cum laude with distinction in both history and English, holds his master’s degree in public policy from Duke University, and earned executive education certificates from Harvard Business School.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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All the tech news this week seems to be about how Big Tech is, for better or worse, getting BIGGER. There’s the Department of Justice anti-trust case against Apple, a hail-Mary attempt by Biden’s DOJ to transform to the high-end iPhone into a lower-end Android device. There’s Microsoft’s “acquisition” of InflectionAI, orchestrated by Reid Hoffman, both a co-founder of InflectionAI and a Microsoft board member. There’s a new Saudi $40 billion AI fund. There’s Elon Musk’s Neuralink announcement of an astonishing breakthrough in brain implants. So what becomes of the little guy, the genuine innovator, in this top-down world of titanic capitalism? That Was The Week’s Keith Teare still thinks there’s hope for start-ups without billions of dollars of backing from Musk, Hoffman or some Saudi prince. I’m not sure. My sense is that Big Tech isn’t much different now from Big Pharma or Big Oil. The glory days of the tech start-up are probably over. Tech superpowers now have the economic and political power to mostly elude the state. Thus the pathetically sad attempt of the DOJ this week to try to rein in Apple.

Keith Teare is a Founder and CEO at SignalRank Corporation. Previously he was Executive Chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd - A UK-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. He was also previously the founder at the Palo Alto incubator, Archimedes Labs. Archimedes was the original incubator for TechCrunch and since 2011 has invested, accelerated or incubated many Silicon Valley startups including Around (sold to Miro), Millicast (Sold to Dolby), InFarm, Miles, Quixey; M.dot (sold to GoDaddy); chat.center; Loop Surveys; DownTown and Sunshine. Teare has a track record as a serial entrepreneur with big ideas and has achieved significant returns for investors.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

As we approach Easter and Passover, it’s worth noting that our mainstream monotheistic creeds are based on a belief in what Professor Chris French, the head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths college at London University, would call “weird s**t”. So as French, the author of new MIT press book THE SCIENCE OF WEIRD S**T, explained to me, maybe we shouldn’t be that surprised with all the weird s**t about pizza parlors and extraterrestrial invasions that seems to have invaded all but the most scientific minds. Nobody seems to believe anything anymore, French explains. But it’s an anti skeptical science of the networked 21st century rather than the skeptical science of the 18th century Enlightenment. Happy Easter and Passover, everyone!

Professor Chris French is the Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a Patron of the British Humanist Association. He has published over 150 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics. His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims. His most recent book is Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief and Experience.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.