Bridget Phetasy sits down with Elnathan John, Nigerian satirist and author of Becoming Nigerian, for a wide-ranging conversation about what happens when an entire culture loses the ability to feel shame.
Elnathan argues that the effectiveness of satire is directly proportional to a society's capacity for shame—and right now, that capacity is bottoming out everywhere from Lagos to Washington.
In this episode, they discuss:
• The comedian's complex relationship to power
• Why declaring your vote can trap you ideologically
• The collapse of liberalism across the West
• Nigeria's overlapping crises of terrorism and corruption
• AI replacing white-collar jobs
• The quiet resource extraction in Africa
• What it means to turn your muse into a mule
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