Blame Theory

Geoff Shullenberger and Ashley Frawley continue to explore the crisis of liberalism. They begin by discussing recent reversals around free-speech debates in the United States and the odd fact that ostensible post- and anti-liberals have often positioned themselves as defenders of a central liberal value: free speech. They then begin to explore the postliberal critique and other blame narratives that have arisen around liberalism in recent years and ask whether the problem with liberalism is that it grants too much freedom, or too little. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

Liberalism is in crisis. Its parties and institutions are suffering one setback after another across the West, and forces described as “illiberal” are on the rise globally. But when did this crisis begin? Was liberalism ever not in crisis? Is liberalism itself a kind of crisis? In the first episode of a longer series on the meanings and legacies of liberalism, Ashley Frawley and Geoff Shullenberger lay out the themes and questions that will inform their exploration of an ideology that has received plenty of blame from both the right and the left—in part because it has been the dominant one for hundreds of years. In this conversation, Ashley explains why the conflict between social and political liberalism and economic liberalism is foundational to the modern world, and constitutes a crisis that liberalism has never been able to transcend. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

Geoff and Ashley discuss the online war of the sexes prompted by a recent mass shooting, which Ashley wrote about last month. They then explore the deeper roots of the gendered blame game that often defines our online culture wars. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

Ashley Frawley, Compact's new senior editor as well as a new co-host of Blame Theory, joins Geoff Shullenberger to explore how collective social and political problems have been blamed on individual psychic and emotional defects. We discuss her two books on this subject, examine the history of therapeutic culture, and explore to what extent particular thinkers—Pareto? Freud?—bear some of the blame for this set of developments. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

Sociologist Musa al-Gharbi joins Geoff Shullenberger to discuss his new book We Have Never Been Woke. A great deal of discussion of wokeness attempts to trace it to the influence of certain thinkers and ideas: Foucault, Critical Race Theory, and so on. Al-Gharbi offers a different approach, focusing on the social stratum in which woke ideas became salient—that of "symbolic capitalists"—and how ideas function as a currency of social legitimation and status competition.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

Compact's Sohrab Ahmari joins Geoff Shullenberger to discuss one of the most widely blamed thinkers of all time: Karl Marx. We consider why Republicans, all the way up to Donald Trump, are reviving anti-communist rhetoric during the 2024 presidential campaign, to what extent Marx can be blamed for the crimes of regimes inspired by his theories, why Marxism is so appealing to intellectuals, what we can still learn from Capital today, and more.  Listen either here on Substack or on your preferred podcast app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

Writer David Shields joins Geoff Shullenberger to discuss his new book and documentary How We Got Here. We ask whether postmodernists are to blame for our post-truth predicament and explore Trump's instinctive postmodernism, the propaganda techniques of Putin adviser Vladislav Surkov, and David's own theories on reality and (non-)fiction.Listen either here on Substack or on your preferred podcast app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

David Dudrick, professor of philosophy at Colgate University, joins Geoff to discuss his recent Compact essay "Why Foucault Couldn't Kill Sexuality." They discuss the misunderstandings around Foucault's History of Sexuality and the persistence of what he called the "repressive hypothesis," even among those who might claim to be his followers. Listen either here on Substack or on your preferred podcast app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

Compact founding editor Sohrab Ahmari joins Geoff and Nina in this episode to examine Michel Foucault's later work on biopolitics, governmentality, and economics. Did Foucault predict or even contribute to the dominance of neoliberalism? To what extent was Foucault ever left-wing? Can we reconcile the brilliance of his thought with the moral and ontological absence at the core of his work? Listen either here on Substack or on your preferred podcast app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

Anchored by Nina Power and Geoff Shullenberger, Blame Theory takes a seriously playful look at the ideas that have shaped our minds and our world, to ask: How have we ended up here, and whom or what can we blame? Plato? Hegel? Marx? Nominalism? Gnosticism? Feminism? Postmodernism? Critical theory?This episode examines Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality, vol. 1 and asks to what extent Foucault is to blame for contemporary progressive dogmas about sex, gender, and power.Listen either here on Substack or on your preferred podcast app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

Anchored by our own Nina Power and Geoff Shullenberger, Blame Theory takes a seriously playful look at the ideas that have shaped our minds and our world, to ask: How have we ended up here, and whom or what can we blame? Plato? Hegel? Marx? Nominalism? Gnosticism? Feminism? Postmodernism? Critical theory?This episode takes a page out of Nietzsche's writings and asks whether we should blame the Greeks for society's woes. Geoff and Nina discuss Geoff's review of Brandes and Høffding's book The Great Debate: Nietzsche, Culture, and the Scandinavian Welfare Society, published last week in COMPACT.Listen either here on Substack or on your preferred podcast app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit compactmag.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit compactmag.substack.comAnchored by our own Nina Power and Geoff Shullenberger, Blame Theory takes a seriously playful look at the ideas that have shaped our minds and our world, to ask: How have we ended up here, and whom or what can we blame? Plato? Hegel? Marx? Nominalism? Gnosticism? Feminism? Postmodernism? Critical theory?This episode asks whether we should blame Judith …

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit compactmag.substack.comAnchored by our own Nina Power and Geoff Shullenberger, Blame Theory takes a seriously playful look at the ideas that have shaped our minds and our world, to ask: How have we ended up here, and whom or what can we blame? Plato? Hegel? Marx? Nominalism? Gnosticism? Feminism? Postmodernism? Critical theory?The debut episode—“Blame Deconstruction?”—was recorded live at KGB Bar, featuring Avital Ronell, University Professor of German and Comparative Literature at NYU and author of The Telephone Book and Complaint, among many other books. We asked her whether deconstruction—with its emphasis on multiple truths and narratives—is to blame for our current woes. Listen either here on Substack or copy the RSS Feed link above to listen on your preferred podcast app.Paid subscribers get access to the Q+A session at the end of the recording. Click below to get full access.