Reasonably Optimistic

Football season is back, bringing millions of Americans together around one of the country’s most beloved sports. But new research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, raises an uncomfortable question: What price are players paying for our entertainment?

Host Megan McArdle explores the physical and cognitive toll of football and what responsibility fans have when they turn on a game.

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Why are Americans having fewer children, even though many say they want larger families? Host Megan McArdle talks with author Tim Carney about how professional ambition, personal autonomy and intensive parenting have made family life more daunting. They discuss why Americans are marrying later, how workplaces and communities could make raising children easier, and whether stronger family norms can be revived without bringing back the inequalities of the past.

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The controversy surrounding Cambridge professor Jason Arday began with questions about his academic record and extraordinary personal story. It ended in tragedy. What can sociology tell us about how a scandal like this escalates once it's forced into public view?

Host Megan McArdle talks with UCLA sociologist Gabriel Rossman about scandal, status and public shaming.

Content warning: This episode includes discussion of sexual assault and suicide.

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America is becoming less religious — but the story is more complicated than empty pews. Host Megan McArdle is joined by political scientist and former pastor Ryan Burge to talk about the shifts taking place in America's churches. Are congregations shrinking or growing? Why are some religious traditions holding on better than others? And what does the rise of the religiously unaffiliated mean for American life?

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America’s colleges have spent years at the center of the culture wars. But some of the sharpest critics of higher education are people who once believed deeply in its mission — and changed their minds after seeing it from the inside.

Host Megan McArdle is joined by Tyler Austin Harper, staff writer at The Atlantic and former professor at Bates College. He breaks down how academia reshaped his views on affirmative action and diversity, and why he came to see some efforts at inclusion as a form of tokenism. They get into race and class, ideological conformity, the decline of tenure, the treatment of adjunct faculty and the gap between universities’ social justice rhetoric and their economic incentives.

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