This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe discuss the Twitter scandal I unwittingly caused by talking about the connection between children and art. What was meant as an offhand remark made people angry beyond belief. The thing, as I find out, is that “kids” are a touchy subject in left-liberal creative circles, largely because America is schizophrenic place where the economic reality and culture are very out of sync. As I recently wrote, liberal feminism here liberated women to work and have sex freely, yet motherhood has remained a private matter — there is no subsidized childcare, no maternity leave, no universal healthcare, and all things related to childrearing remain largely unchanged from the 1950s and this has only gotten worse because of how expensive everything has become and how little wages have grown. I keep saying how I increasingly feel like I come form the future — not just in terms of growing up in post-collapse 90s Russia, but also in terms of having Soviet expectations as a woman that are way beyond what American feminists had won here. I grew up with the idea that you can be a mother and a woman and have a career or an art life and be independent of the earning capability of your husband because of things like socialized childcare, healthcare, and leisure activities for kids. It might sound utopian, but all this existed in the USSR and has remained somewhat in place in Russia today. Where I come from — the future — women were fully liberated in 1917…liberated in ways that America still has not reached today. What I’m learning is that at its core America is a profoundly conservative and backwards place that hides this conservatism by peppering it with various cultural freedoms and psyops, slogans and PR spins.Yasha and I discuss how this reality is at the core of the backlash against my tweets. Many people have been convinced they don’t want children, but really they were robbed of the chance at being parents or have been forced to delay it indefinitely. They’re touchy about it and are lashing out. —Evgenia
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Red Bourgeoisie w/Branko Milanovic
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe have Branko Milanovic, an economist born in Yugoslavia, on to talk about class and inequality in the USSR. How was power transmitted across generations, if inheritance was abolished? Why did the Soviet Union collapse? One takeaway message: Want more social mobility? Time to do some purges! —YashaBranko probably doesn’t need any introduction. If you’ve never read him, check out his great commentary and essays.
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Talking about "Too Hot To Work" and other harem/incel fantasies
We discuss Evgenia’s essay on Too Hot To Work. Some of the things we talk about are: the crisis of liberal feminism, incels under communism, how socialism is actually good for women and men, the unattractiveness of plastic surgery…and more. —YashaSubscribe to NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS and help yourself thrive in these uncertain times. As always, check out some of Evgenia’s other essays: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nefariousrussians.com/subscribe
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All is not well here
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comWe recorded this ep on the centennial anniversary of the Great Gatsby but end up having a wide-ranging convo about culture, religion and politics — people’s obsession with the hereditary rich, the difference between religious vs secular values, meeting Todd Solondz and his vision of what life is like in the suburbs, MAGA and the Great Gatsby, Evgenia’s pre-cog abilities and her epiphany that cinema is a form of religion for her, Soviet morality as Christianity without the metaphysics, having children as the ultimate anti-consumerist act…and more. —Yasha
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NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS LIVE!
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nefariousrussians.comAs promised here’s the live taping of our AGAINST NIHILISM event at the KGB Bar — as a bonus for our subscribers. Don’t worry if you couldn’t make it this time. We’re planning to have another one sometime in the summer. Thanks to everyone who came out. It was great to spend the evening with you all in person. —YashaPS: Thank you to Daniel and Rowan for the photos and for helping us run the show.
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