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PODCAST

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition

Clayton Becker and Megan Cox

Two UCLA Political Science PhD Students, Comparativist Megan Cox and Americanist Clayton Becker take you through the ways that previous generations have made the world worse by dismantling the legacy of things like the New Deal and the Great Society. From car dependency to political polarization to our over-reliance on dating apps to helicopter parenting, come along to learn about the many different ways that we should Reject Modernity and Embrace Tradition.

science social sciences

All Episodes

01:02:14

Episode 40: Reject the Shadow Docket, Embrace Decisions

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/11/17

Recently, the Supreme Court has been making much greater use of the emergency, or "shadow", docket to make rulings which have real substantive impacts - even though the emergency docket is supposed to be used only for procedural rulings. Listen along as Megan and Clayton talk about why this is such a problem and what we could potentially do to help fix it.

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00:54:47

Episode 39: Reject Mere Cancellation, Embrace...

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/10/13

A few episodes ago, Megan and Clayton talked themselves into the position that the MeToo movement hadn't actually been very successful in achieving many of its goals. Listen along as they discuss the need to move beyond cancellation into a genuine framework of cultural change.

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01:08:54

Episode 38: Reject "Born and Raised", Embrace...

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/09/22

Everybody seems to hate it when new people move to the city. Transplants are held responsible for everything from traffic to displacement. But this image of transplants as some kind of uniquely malicious force doesn't hold up to scrutiny - nor do the protestations of those who want to pull the ladder up behind them. Megan and Clayton discuss why vilifying transplants has the whole situation backwards and why passing policies that allow people to live where they want should be preferred.

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01:09:25

Episode 37: Reject Dating Apps, Embrace Meeting...

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/09/01

Dating has become an "online first" activity these days, with the plurality of relationships beginning on the internet. This has some pretty substantial negative consequences for our social lives, our romantic relationships, and more generally for community and social connectedness more broadly. In order to remedy these problems, we need to get back to meeting people in person and in particular through friends.

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00:56:44

Episode 36: Reject Inclusionary Zoning, Embrace...

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/08/18

Producing affordable housing is important, but our most commonly used methods for getting this housing built may be actively counterproductive. In what is perhaps the nerdiest episode of the podcast to date, Megan and Clayton take you through what isn't working, and what we should do instead.

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01:02:32

Episode 35: Reject Social Media, Embrace Real Life

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/08/04

We live a substantial portion of our public lives on social media in a way that is actually deeply unhealthy for many of us and causes us to make decisions that we would not otherwise make. Megan and Clayton talk about why we need to stop comparing ourselves to the people we see online and instead get outside and touch grass from time to time.

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01:19:12

Episode 34: Reject ICE, Embrace Civil Immigration Law

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/07/21

It's not exactly a secret that ICE are completely out of control right now. They are acting with impunity while violating people's rights all over the country. In this episode, Megan and Clayton dive into some of the most egregious examples of their behavior, and talk about some of the bare-minimum things that we can do to stop this kind of thing happening in the future.

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00:53:49

Episode 33: Reject Ableism, Embrace Universal...

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/07/07

Since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act 35 years ago, we've made limited progress on disability access and even regressed in certain ways when it comes to productive public attention to the issue. Making further progress requires rejecting rising ableism and embracing accessibility.

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01:06:34

Episode 32: Reject Millennial Gray, Embrace Color

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/06/23

There's been much to-do about the graying of the world. But how much of it is real, how much are millennials responsible, and is it actually a problem? Listen along as Megan and Clayton take you on a (hopefully) more lighthearted episode this week.

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01:11:49

Episode 31: Reject the Manosphere, Embrace Being Normal

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/06/09

Recent years have seen the rise of "manosphere" content as opportunistic grifters monetize men's inability to get a date and tell them that it's all women's fault. This content is bad for men, bad for women, and bad for society in general. It serves no one but those who are making money stoking people's worst beliefs and impulses. It deserves to be summarily rejected.

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01:07:15

Episode 30: Reject Digital Learning, Embrace the...

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/06/02

Much as digital learning technologies can provide better access to education for some people, they are not, and we cannot let them be a replacement for in-person instruction. They just simply are not as effective and, with the rise of generative AI technologies, only provide more incentives for students to shirk their work and not actually learn the things that they are supposed to. In order to make sure that these technologies do not further harm students' education, we need to embrace the

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01:04:41

Episode 29: Reject Nationalization, Embrace Local News

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/05/26

The last two decades have seen a dramatic decline in local newspapers and local news more generally. This has had consequences on everything ranging from social cohesion to the quality of local elections. Megan and Clayton are joined by Sean Ewing to discuss how we got here and what we might be able to do mitigate this decline.

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01:08:10

Episode 28: Reject Ignorance, Embrace General Knowledge

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/05/19

Levels of general knowledge are genuinely on the decline, and the distrust of experts and even reveling in one's own lack of knowledge seem to be on the rise. We all need to be more curious again, and get back to desiring and respecting more knowledge about the world around us.

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01:09:21

Episode 27: Reject Hallmark, Embrace Mother's Day...

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/05/12

The origins of Mother's Day are, dare we say, actually pretty woke. But almost immediately after becoming an official holiday, it became commercialized and went through the hallmark-ization that many holidays have gone through. On this Mother's Day though, we wanted to take the opportunity to talk about how we can help mothers and families and get back to the original intent behind the holiday.

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01:02:53

Episode 26: Reject Hustle Culture, Embrace Downtime

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/05/05

In the wake of the Great Recession, it often feels like the only acceptable orientation towards work and life is to hustle. The goal is to work long hours, be super productive, and to always have something new in the hopper. But, it turns out that hustle culture is really really bad for us, both socially and medically. We need to reject its allure in favor of taking real, genuine time for ourselves.

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01:05:18

Episode 25: Reject Loneliness, Embrace Hanging Out

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/04/28

We've all heard about the loneliness epidemic, and it can feel like there's not much we can do about it. But, even wholly apart from policy, there are things we can each do in our own personal lives to create more community, improve our friendships, and help the people we know feel a little less lonely. It can all start just by inviting people to hang out.

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01:07:38

Episode 24: Reject Dobbs, Embrace Abortion Rights

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/04/14

What is there to say about the Dobbs decision honestly? A calamitous choice by the Supreme Court that will have unknowable and incalculable negative consequences. Listen along as Megan and Clayton take you through a deep dive of just how badly we need to reject it in every way possible.

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01:09:27

Episode 23: Reject Term Limits, Embrace Electoral...

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/04/07

Term limits are incredibly popular, but just about all of the empirical evidence demonstrates that they don't work to achieve their goals, and instead result in lots of negative unintended consequences. Instead of doubling down on a demonstrably bad policy, we should look to other strategies to help improve electoral accountability.

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01:11:55

Episode 22: Reject Impunity, Embrace Consequences

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/03/31

Over the last couple decades, and especially in the Trump era, it seems like people no longer face appropriate consequences for their behavior. A certain strain of this thought essentially contends that consequences are inherently unjustified. But, as we've moved away from social censure and accountability, we've become a country of jerks where "consideration" is something others need to show you rather than something you are supposed to show others.

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01:05:30

Episode 21: Reject SUVs, Embrace Family Sedans

Reject Modernity Embrace Tradition ·

2025/03/24

Simply put, cars have gotten too damn big. The size of cars these days is bad for people, for the environment, for infrastructure, for just about everything. But it's not something we can't do anything about. It's a problem largely created by policy that can be resolved by policy.

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