To celebrate our 2500th show, long time KEEN ON friend David Masciotra interviewed me about the current perilous situation in America. We discuss why I’ve renamed the show KEEN ON AMERICA and my thoughts on the U.S’s increasingly pivotal role in 21st century history. We discuss America's changing "operating system" as it struggles to reinvent its 20th century industrial identity. We explore America’s age old relationship between technology, entertainment, and politics, particularly in how Trump represents a kind of apotheosis of Neil Postman’s warning about the convergence of politics and entertainment. I express ever so cautious optimism about America in 2025, highlighting the country's historic capacity for reinvention, self-creation and, above all, defiant resistance to the stupidity and evil of you-know-who.
5 TAKEAWAYS
* I’ve renamed the show to "Keen on America" because I see America at the "cockpit of world history" in the 2020s, and I wants to focus on exploring American themes and the country's changing identity.
* I see America as reinventing its "operating system" - moving beyond its 20th century identity while maintaining its uniquely American characteristics rather than becoming more like Europe.
* As an immigrant, I value America as a place for continual reinvention and second chances, reversing Fitzgerald's infamous remark that "there are no second acts in American lives."
* I have evolved from my earlier tech pessimism to cautious optimism about America's future, noting that historical periods of transition produce both "monsters" and "angels."
* We discuss how Trump represents the complete convergence of politics and entertainment, where entertainment isn't just replacing serious discourse but becoming "the ontological reality" itself.
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