The Current Affairs Mindset
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Current Affairs is a left-wing magazine (review) and podcast, and they publish some of their essays in book form as well. I received one such collection, “The Current Affairs Mindset”, as a Patreon gift for supporting the podcast. Since I’ve only subscribed to the magazine since 2018, this was a welcome gift; the book was published in 2017 and includes essays from the 2016-2017 time period.
The cover is adorned with an illustration of a middle-aged, mildly obese white man admiring himself in the mirror, pretending that he is a gorilla with a Trump-like head of blond hair. The title and illustration poke fun at far-right demagogue slash self-help guru Mike Cernovich’s “Gorilla Mindset” cult, which is dissected in one of the book’s better essays.
The cover and the brevity of most essays also make the book a decent bathroom reader for any lefty household. Because Current Affairs doesn’t paywall its content, you’ll find all of the included essays online, as well, in case you want to sample the content on a screen before buying a print version.
Complete table of contents with links
Politics
- Slavery is Everywhere by Brianna Rennix and Oren Nimni
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The Pathologies of Privilege by Zach Wehrwein
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The Necessity of Political Vulgarity by Amber A’Lee Frost
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What Does Free Speech Require? by Eli Massey
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How Identity Became a Weapon Against the Left by Briahna Gray
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Riding the Hashtag by Yasmin Nair
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More Lawyers, Same Injustice by Oren Nimni
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Pretending It Isn’t There by Nathan Robinson
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The Scourge of Self-Flagellating Politics by Angela Nagle
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At the Border by Brianna Rennix
Culture
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Peculiarities of the Yankee Confederate by Alex Nichols
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Suicide and the American Dream by Nathan Robinson
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The Cinema of 9/11 by Felix Biedermann
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The Great American Chemtrail by Angela Nagle
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The Unendurable Horrors of Leadership Camp by Eric Fink
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Why Journalists Love Twitter by Emily Robinson
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You Should Be Terrified That People Who Like “Hamilton” Run Our Country by Alex Nichols
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Against Domesticity by Amber A’Lee Frost
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How Liberals Fell in Love With The West Wing by Luke Savage
People
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Finding Your Inner Gorilla by Brianna Rennix and Nathan Robinson (about Mike Cernovich)
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I Don’t Care How Good His Paintings Are, He Still Belongs in Prison by Nathan Robinson (about George W. Bush)
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Killing You Softly with Her Dreams by Yasmin Nair (about Arianna Huffington)
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The Rise of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Cult by David Kinder
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The Real Obama by Nathan Robinson and Luke Savage
They range from left-wing critiques of liberal obsessions (like the musical Hamilton) to very cogent analysis of the resurgence of the far-right, and of the realities of poverty and oppression in the United States.
While parts of the book feel a bit echo-chambery (“here’s what good lefties think about X”), Current Affairs deserves credit for publishing nuanced essays on topics like free speech or identity politics, instead of embracing received wisdom of any particular political persuasion.