Wisdom of Crowds

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe Israel-Iran war is about to enter its sixth day. As of this recording — Wednesday evening, June 18 — President Trump has not announced whether the United States will join the Israeli war effort.During this unpleasant lull, Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic invited Sohrab Ahmari to discuss what we can expect from the war and its aftermath. In recent days, Sohrab has emerged as an essential commentator on the Iran Israel war. His article, “The Regime Change Maniacs are Back” is one of the most informative and talked-about pieces to come out in the early days of this crisis. Sohrab was born in Iran, and so direct personal experience of the country informs his analysis.“Collapsing regimes willy nilly does not create good outcomes,” Sohrab tells Damir and Shadi, and he should know. Sohrab was once a neoconservative hawk, a supporter of US interventionism abroad. But time has been a teacher and he has become, in his own words, “penitent.” He discusses the ways that Iranian society in particular could fracture in catastrophic ways should a state collapse follow regime change. Iran has a “perennially unsettled relationship between state and society,” Sohrab says. They have a word for it: estebdad, or arbitrary rule. Shadi and Damir pressure test Sohrab's alarming prognostications, but in the end they find little to disagree with. The discussion shifts toward American perceptions of Iran and Israel, and how these are shifting both within the MAGA coalition and among Americans as a whole. They compare Tucker Carlson's recent interviews with Steve Bannon and Ted Cruz and what these say about the political dilemma faced by Trump as he decides whether or not to join the war. In our bonus section for paid subscribers, the three men discuss the role that evangelical Christianity plays in pro-Israel American sentiments. Shadi asks Sohrab whether Catholics are different from evangelicals in this regard. Sohrab teases out the differences between “Deep MAGA” and the GOP establishment that has learned how to “speak MAGA”; Damir and Sohrab both have heard that younger GOP staffers on the Hill are in despair over this war; and much more.Required Reading:* Sohrab Ahmari, “The Regime Change Maniacs are Back” (UnHerd).* Sohrab Ahmari, “Iran's Devastating Hubris” (UnHerd).* Sohrab Ahmari, “America's dime-store Nietzscheans” (New Statesman).* Sohrab Ahmari, From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith (Amazon).* Brent Scowcroft on the Iraq War (PBS). * “How Trump Shifted on Iran Under Pressure From Israel” (New York Times).* Tucker Carlson interviews Ted Cruz (YouTube).* Tucker Carlson interviews Steve Bannon (YouTube).* “Azerbaijan: Israel's Quiet Friend” (Middle East Eye).* “American Sympathy for Israel Reaches 'All-Time Low' in New Poll” (Newsweek).* “Less Than Half in U.S. Now Sympathetic Toward Israelis” (Gallup).* Jason Willick, “Why Israel would benefit from defeating Iran on its own” (Washington Post).Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe war between Iran and Israel is bound to determine the future of the Middle East and, possibly, the whole world. The time is fitting, then, to release Shadi Hamid's and Santiago Ramos' conversation with Abbas Milani, professor of political science and Iran Studies at Stanford University. Professor Milani is a world-renowned authority on Iran, having published Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran and The Shah, a definitive biography of Mohamed Reza Pahvalvi, the last Shah of Iran, among many other books. He joined us this past December to discuss Iranian politics, secularism and the future.“A giant with a feet of clay, but with more staying power than some in the opposition think.” This is how Milani describes the state of the Iranian regime months before the war with Israel. The regime's “base of support is fragile … has no unity of purpose,” and yet, “ten, fifteen, twenty percent of the population is [still] willing to go along with it.” It teeters on the brink of collapse while some international players, including Russia and China, “more or less” support it. Unfortunately, the regime faces no “cohesive opposition.”Milani explores the future possibilities for Iran. Iranians want a secular democracy, he argues, and an “Islamic democracy” is not possible, he says, because “democracy is acceptance of ambiguity in the human condition.” Santiago and Shadi push back on this point. Santiago points to figures like Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr., who embraced both religion and democracy, while Shadi argues for the role that reason plays in Islam. Milani counters that there can be an Iranian modernity — if not an Islamic democracy — and that a future Iran need not follow “the path of Atatürk.”Our bonus section for paid subscribers will be useful to future historians of the Iranian revolution. Santiago asks Milani, “When did you stop being a Stalinist?” Milani discusses his ideological evolution. Milani talks about his year in prison — 1977 — where he shared the same cell block as many of the current leaders of the Islamic Republic. He talks about why he was arrested, what he read while in prison, why he wasn't allowed to read the Koran in prison, and why it's the case that “you understand the mettle of people very quickly in prison.” You will not want to miss this bonus section.Required Reading:* Abbas Milani, “Iran's Incremental Revolution” (The Atlantic). * Abbas Milani, The Shah (Amazon).* Abbas Milani, Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran (Amazon). * The Islamic Golden Age (Wikipedia). * Rūmī (Britannica). * Clifford Geertz (Institute for Advanced Study).* Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxist (Amazon). * Antonio Gramsci (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).* Richard Rorty (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).* Roberto Mangabeira Unger (Harvard Law School). * Profile of Mahmoud Taleghani (New York Times). * Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (Amazon).Free preview video:

It's finally happened: Israel has attacked Iran. Wisdom of Crowds executive editor Santiago Ramos joined Damir Marusic for a live-streamed emergency q&a about the latest Middle East crisis. What do we know? What can we expect in the near future? What does this mean for the Middle East in the long term? And why does Damir think that Israel is America's “junkyard dog”? For those who missed it, here is the video!If you missed the live stream and wish you hadn't: there's never been a better time to subscribe to Wisdom of Crowds! We are growing and we have new ideas coming down the pipeline. We are including two special offers below — a 14-day free trial and a 20% discount — for those of you who want a taste of what we're trying to do here. We'd love to have you. Give us a spin. You'll get much more, including the full episodes of our weekly podcasts and subscriber-only posts and open threads. Required Reading:* Richard Holbrooke junkyard dog metaphor (The Economist). * Damir Marusic on junkyard dogs (X). Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveWhy do artists try so hard to shock the public? Why is Kanye West singing about Hitler? Why are New York artists dabbling with fascism?The novelist and cultural critic Țara Isabella Burton joins Damir Marusic and Santiago Ramos to discuss these questions and more. Last week, Tara published an essay on Wisdom of Crowds titled “The Point of Pissing People Off.” In it, she tries to figure out whether there is something positive at work in transgression and provocation — something good that comes out of shocking art.All three of our conversationalists agree: Kanye is not really being transgressive. But is there a good version of transgression? Tara suggests that we should think about transgression as a genre, with a certain form and structure, that can either succeed or fail. Damir is skeptical of analyzing transgression, and prefers to think of it as a moment of ecstasy. Santiago wonders if transgression is important for self-knowledge, and something valuable for society as a whole.In the course of the conversation, many transgressive works and artists are discussed, among them: Piss Christ; Madonna; Georges Bataille; the Marquis de Sade; and more.In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Damir talks about the difference between analyzing transgressive art and consuming transgressive art, and why he prefers the latter; Damir discusses the difference between the punk rock of his day, where Reagan was the enemy, and the transgressive art today, which hails Trump as a leader; Tara, Santiago, and Damir trade thoughts about the French Revolution; Santiago tries to get Damir to explain what he means when he talks about “the stuff”; they discuss the question of whether love is as powerful as transgression; Damir talks about his favorite part of the Gospels; and Tara talks about kitsch.Required Reading and Listening:* Tara, “The Point of Pissing People Off” (Wisdom of Crowds).* Tara, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World (Amazon).* Tara, Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians (Amazon).* Damir's discography from his punk rock days (Discogs).* Damir's music with his band, The Miss (Bandcamp).* Kanye West, “Heil Symphony” (Spotify).* “Kanye West's ‘Heil Hitler' Song & Controversy Explained” (Yahoo! Entertainment). * The new Fiume Gallery in New York.* Piss Christ by Andres Serrano (Artchive).* Madonna, “Material Girl” (YouTube).* Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (Amazon).* Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye (Amazon).* Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (Amazon).* Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (Amazon).* Previous podcast episode where Damir says, “That's the stuff!” (Wisdom of Crowds).* Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge, a book about Mother Teresa (Amazon).Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveIs tech replacing humanity? Or is it sharpening the question of what it means to be human? What does it mean to live a good life — as opposed to passable life? What features of humanity become more important by contrast and necessity in the technological age? Is it possible to find a higher version of humanity in order to thrive?For this week's episode — a live taping of Wisdom of Crowds — we invited Santi Ruiz to discuss these questions, and more. (Our other guest, Christine Rosen, unfortunately got sick in the last moment and had to cancel. We missed you, Christine!) Santi is Senior Editor of the Institute for Progress and edits Statecraft, a newsletter about public policy. But he is also an essayist and humanist who has written about culture and tech in his personal Substack, Regress Studies, as well as magazines like the American Conservative.Samuel Kimbriel and Damir Marusic interviewed Santi, with Damir taking on a more pessimistic view about the possibility of reconciling tech and the humanities, while Samuel remained open to optimistic scenarios.In our bonus section for paid subscribers, you will be able to listen to the audience Q&A, which includes questions about the End of History, the future of war, the British philosopher Nick Land, the future of coding, good versus bad friction, and an encounter between Good Santi and Evil Santi. Required Reading:* Santi Ruiz, “Technocapital is Eating My Brains” (Regress Studies). * The Statecraft newsletter.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveWe live in an increasingly weird world, where the weirdness is facilitated and accelerated by the Internet. We live in a world full of instantly-available bizarre pornography and terrorist attacks inspired by misanthropic ideologies whose manifestos are published online. Katherine Dee, an Internet ethnographer, writer and friend of Wisdom of Crowds, joins Christine Emba and Shadi Hamid to talk about the recent terrorist attack on an IVF clinic in California and Christine's recent New York Times article about the social damage wrought by porn.Shadi shakes things up by posing a blunt question at the very beginning: Should we ban porn? It hurts men as well as women. Why not? Can we reconcile the ideals of liberalism with a state effort to suppress pornographic content? This question inspires Christine and Katherine to reflect about the ethics of sex work, the perils of reporting on dangerous and soul-crushing topics, as well as signs of hope in American culture.Throughout, Katherine applies her trusty reporter's eye toward making an accurate, non-judgmental and perceptive account of what's really going on with sex and ideology on the Internet. Christine, for her part, makes the case of norms and shame as useful tools for making society better. Shadi, in Socratic fashion, tests the strength of his interlocutors' arguments.In the bonus section for paid subscribers, Katherine explains the nuances of “efilism” and “promortalism”; Shadi reflects on the meaning of suffering and how belief in God changes one's approach to suffering; and Christine reflects on “cold, rational logical measure — suffering v. pleasure. Pleasure v. nothing.”Required Reading and Listening:* Christine Emba, “The Delusion of Porn's Harmlessness” (New York Times). * Katherine Dee, “An Efilist Just Bombed a Fertility Clinic. Was This Bound To Happen?” (default.blog).* Katherine Dee, “The Nihilism of the Mass Shooter” (default.blog).* Katherine Dee, “The Trouble with Being Born” (default.blog).* Sophie Gilbert, Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves (Amazon). * Dan Savage on kinks (AV Club).* Andrea Dworkin, Pornography (Amazon). * XO Jane (Wikipedia). * “Supreme Court case on age limits for porn sites could affect 19 states” (Axios).* “Palm Springs IVF clinic bomber ID'd as Guy Edward Bartkus, a ‘pro-mortalist' who opposed people being born ‘without their consent'” (New York Post).* Last week's podcast: “How to Think about Power and Morality” (WoC).* Sin-eaters (Wikipedia).Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

As subscribers of Wisdom of Crowds will know, the war in Gaza has preoccupied Shadi Hamid for over a year now, and has taken a central place in his political thinking. Damir Marusic begins this episode by challenging Shadi on this point. Is he giving too much importance to one political and moral cause over all others? And is he giving too much importance to morality as such in geopolitics?The conversation eventually shifts when Damir tells Shadi that he is an “activist” when he writes in favor of a cause, and Shadi disagrees. Writers want to change the world, too, and that does not make them activists. Even Damir (Shadi argues) wants to change the world in some way with his writing. Even Damir has a preferred outcome. But Damir denies this: “My preferred outcome is that people recognize the world is fallen and irredeemable.” Instead, Damir says that it is precisely Trump's “superpower” of being morally indifferent to norms and human rights that has, paradoxically, brought a few positive developments in the Middle East.This is a tense episode, one that digs deep into the psyches of both Shadi and Damir. “Then what?” Shadi retorts. “What's the point of persuading people that the world is irredeemable?” Writing is just playing with words and power, Damir says. It's “a slug trail I leave behind myself.”This episode cuts to the core of Shadi's and Damir's convictions, so we have made it free for all subscribers. You will not want to miss their conversation about Dresden, Hiroshima, Bucha, Trump and the Middle East, and more!Required Reading* “I'm Not As Open-Minded As I Used To Be” (WoC).* “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential” (The Lancet). * “Gaza will be entirely destroyed, Israeli minister says” (The Guardian). * Pankaj Mishra, “Unholy Alliances” (New Yorker). * Yglesias and Shadi exchange about Trump and the Middle East (X). * Damir's Bucha essay (WoC).* “Trump announces US will stop bombing Houthis” (Politico) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveOur special guest this week, David Polansky is a political theorist and commentator who lives in Canada. A frequent contributor to Wisdom of Crowds, he joins Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic to discuss two excellent recent essays. The first one, titled “Does Canada Exist?” is about Canadian national identity, an issue that has become more relevant since Donald Trump has taken to calling Canada the 51st state, and while some in the western Canadian province of Alberta has floated the idea of seceding from the rest of Canada. Polansky's article was quoted in the New York Times and National Post.David's most recent peace, “Michael Jordan Yes; Winston Churchill No?” is about what makes politicians great and whether political greatness (in terms of impact) can be distinguished from moral goodness. After one hundred days of Trump, it is an important question to ask.What follows is a rollicking and often hilarious conversation in which various politicians — Justin Trudeau, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump — are sized up according to the standards of classical greatness and found wanting. Damir and Shadi nevertheless argue that Trump is the most consequential president since FDR. Polansky argues that Trump's impact is in large part due to the fact that the Left is lost right now. It is lost, he argues, because it cannot create a new identity, and instead tries to forge unity around “niche issues,” like the Palestine question.In our bonus section for paid subscribers, the gang muses on Trump's relationship to shame; Polansky distinguishes between courage and guts, and why Trump has the latter but not former; Shadi asks, “What do you think about Stalin?”; Damir explains why Trump is like a character in a science fiction novel; Polansky argues that “there's a grandeur to America, but there's also a ridiculousness to America”; Shadi interrogates Polansky on hierarchy and greatness; and the three men ponder whether Eisenhower was a great president.Required Reading and Viewing* David Polansky, “Michael Jordan, Yes; Winston Churchill, No?” (WoC).* David Polansky, “Does Canada Exist?” (WoC).* David Polansky, “Pundit Don't Preach” (WoC).* David's Substack, Strange Frequencies.* Where the “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” meme comes from (Paul Krugman's Newsletter). * “What to Know About Alberta's Potential Separation From Canada” (TIME).* Carl Schmitt (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).* Chantal Mouffe on “agonistic” democracy (Pavilion).* Stephen Kotkin talk about Stalin (YouTube).* Isaac Asimov, the Foundation trilogy (Amazon).* “Trump says Houthis showed ‘bravery,' believes they will honor truce deal” (Times of Israel).* Polansky's “Cabots and Lodges” reference (Berkshire Edge).* Analysis of Bill Clinton's 2012 DNC speech (CNN).Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveTrump has been in office for one hundred days, and Damir Marusic thinks America deserves him: “I do tend to intuitively see Trump and Trumpism as a correction on a social order that has lost its way and is somehow badly out of tune,” Damir wrote earlier this week. “Something is broken and unsustainable, and has been so for a while.”Christine Emba and Shadi Hamid have questions. Why is Damir still “ebullient” (his words) and “giddy” (also his words) about the current political situation? Why does Damir still believe that Trump is “a symptom, not a cause” of the nation's problems? In response, Damir argues that “immigration and the war in Ukraine” are two of the issues that the Democrats were not addressing and that were unsustainable in the status quo.Shadi, for his part, feels much more appalled by Trump than he ever expected he would be, and is rediscovering is “left populist” roots. Christine offers an interesting couterfactual: “Not totally joking here … four to eight years of a sort of Kamala Harris-led Democratic party with, you know, a tech alliance could have eased us into sort of Brave New World-esque Soma-induced quiescence once AI had grown up a little bit and the Internet and mega-tech corporations were given even more power.”Ultimately, disagreements emerge: Christine believes that the Democrats, for all their faults, still follow the basics of rule of law — unlike Trump — and she argues that what Damir thinks of us a failed system might actually be, for most people, just the normal, mediocre running of a democracy. Shadi ponders the Great Man theory of history, and argues with Damir about whether history is determined or whether free will plays a role. In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Christine muses on the importance of TikTok in American politics; Damir utters the phrase, “nation of Trumps”; Damir argues that, without Trump, “by 2030 we'd be constitutionally in the same place”; Shadi argues that “postponing the inevitable seems good”; Christine muses on the theoretical reign of President Rahm Emmanuel; the gang discusses whether the GOP is an effective political party; and more!Required Reading:* Damir's Tuesday Note: “We Deserve It All” (WoC).* “ ‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.” (X).* Ross Douthat, “Donald Trump, Man of Destiny” (New York Times).* First Trump inaugural address (possibly written by Steve Bannon): “American Carnage” (White House Archives).* Pat Buchanan's 1992 “Culture War” RNC convention speech (C-Span).* Joseph De Maistre, Considerations on France (Archive.org) * Second Lincoln inaugural address (Constitution Center).* “Fact Check: Did Biden Ignore Supreme Court Over Student Loan Forgiveness?” (Newsweek).* Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (Amazon). * Great Man theory of history (Wikipedia). Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThis episode is a bit “meta”: it's about what it means to keep an open mind, how to trust your conscience, why we should all avoid groupthink, and the phenomenon of “self silencing” — keeping your views to yourself when you're afraid it might be too costly to say them out loud. But of course, this being Wisdom of Crowds, we link these meta-topics to the politics of the day. Jenara Nerenberg is a journalist, producer, speaker, and founder of the Neurodiversity Project, which hosts bestselling authors in the arts and sciences who push for “innovation in research and media.” In her work, Jenara applies insights from psychology and public health to question of free speech and the exchange of ideas. Her new book is titled, Trust Your Mind: Embracing Nuance in a World of Self Silencing. You can see why we are excited to have her on Wisdom of Crowds.“I don't think that self silencing is inherently bad,” Jenara says, “but I think that we want everyone to be empowered to know that many people are conditioned to fall into self silencing and they're not doing it consciously.” The goal is to help people become free thinkers. Instead, groupthink and ideology are the default for many people, because “people who are high in self uncertainty are drawn into something with clear boundaries and sense of belonging.” But if you want to think freely, you have to do the work.Shadi Hamid brings up politics. Where we wrong to focus so much on cancel culture on the Left, given the recent suppression of free speech on the Right? “Right has no respect for free speech, they were pretending,” Shadi says. “It was a pretext, they used the language of free speech as a cudgel.” Samuel Kimbriel agrees that the Right is using “the power of the sword” to suppress speech.Apart from the necessary political protection of speech, however, Jenara argues that free speech requires a particular disposition of personal character: “My book and my thinking are really about how do we see each other as human again? And that's where we went wrong with this sort of excessive focus on labels and categories and check boxes.”In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Jenara talks about whether it's possible to be emotionally attached to the principle of freedom of free speech and open inquiry (as opposed to a particular point of view); Sam discusses “infinite proceduralism” and why we need to accept the truth once it's been identified; Jenara talks about growing up in a very unique San Francisco “bubble”; Shadi ponders when it is appropriate to cut people off whose opinions disturb you; and Jenara discusses gendered conversations and people-pleasing.Required Reading:* Jenara's book, Trust Your Mind: Embracing Nuance in a World of Self-Silencing (Amazon). * Jenara's initiative, the Neurodiversity Project (divergentlit).* “A Letter for Justice and Open Debate” (Harper's).* “ ‘Have the courage to use your own understanding,' is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.” Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” (Columbia).* Agnes Callard on keeping an open mind (New York Times). * Voltaire on free speech (The Guardian). * Ross Barkan, “How Anti-Woke Went Intellectually Bankrupt” (New York).* About Darryl Davis: “How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes” (NPR).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveIs it possible to move up in this world? Are Americans stuck? Our guest today is Yoni Appelbaum, an American historian and staff writer at The Atlantic magazine. His new book, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity, explores the various ways the American dream has been stymied — by the consolidation of property and wealth, the abuse of environmental regulations, the legacy of redlining, among other factors. But the book is not a diatribe; it offers a hopeful program for how we can make America better. Samuel Kimbriel and Damir Marusic engage in a lively conversation with Yoni that will leave you looking at America in a different, more hopeful way.Yoni's book is personal in its inspiration: he found himself living in a working-class neighborhood — a so-called “zone of emergence,” where underprivileged immigrants once gained a foothold on the American dream — that was no longer affordable to middle-class families. But it is also a political book. Yoni got the sense that something had gone profoundly wrong in America: “This was a contrarian thought in the Obama era. Now it is conventional wisdom.”What can be done to help the American dream become real again? Is mobility a “central American value”? Do policies that help communities stay alive and stable actually worsen inequality and class stratification? Should the Democratic Party become a party of economic growth, rather than regulation or even “degrowth”? These are the questions that Damir and Sam invite Yoni to wrestle with in a lively and deeply informed episode.In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Yoni discusses how to harness market power in a way that “centers mobility”; the three talk about the gap between intent and impact in environmental regulations; Yoni explains why technocrats will always be needed but will never be enough; and Yoni speculates as to why Americans long for a strong leader — for better or worse.Required Reading and Listening:* Yoni Appelbaum, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity (Amazon). * Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Amazon).* Reihan Salam, “Want Abundance in Housing? Acknowledge that Greed Is Good” (City Journal). * Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (Project Gutenberg). * Jeffersonian democracy (CrashCourse).* Podcast with Martha Nussbaum (WoC). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

It's been an exceptionally crazy week, even by Trump-era standards. So we decided to experiment with the podcast this week by doing a live-stream recording. Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic discuss whether there is a method to Trump's madness about tariffs and everything else — or whether we have to accept that we are ruled by a Mad King, who himself does not know what he will do from one moment to the next. It's free for all subscribers, so give it a listen!Required Reading:* Shadi's interview with Oren Cass about tariffs (Washington Post). * Janan Ganesh, “The Hopeless Search for Trump's Cunning Plan” (Financial Times). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveIn 2012, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat published Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, a book about how mainstream American religion was devolving into the prosperity gospel, superstitious cults and other forms of heterodox faith. Thirteen years later, the American religious landscape has changed, and Ross wrote a new book tackling a much more basic question: why you should be religious at all. He joins Damir Marusic and Shadi Hamid to discuss that book, which is titled Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious.This new book, Douthat says, “assumes a highly individualist culture” as its audience. This individualist culture is one where each person thinks of whether to believe in a god as a highly personal choice. The culture as a whole can no longer support any one person's faith. The biggest individual challenge to Douthat's thesis in this episode comes from Damir, who says: “I feel most religious people try to get through … happiness and/or meaning. I am not thirsting for those. I am not hungry for them. I feel I'm ok.” Douthat responds by posing a hypothetical: “Suppose you die and you're summoned before the judgment throne of God and God says, ‘Seems like were friendly for arguments for being religious, you weren't one hundred percent convinced, but still: why didn't you go to church?'” Douthat argues that, while he himself is believing Catholic, there are nevertheless many “commonalities of religious experience. [World religions] are not all saying the same thing, but they are real and suggest something.” This makes common ground with Shadi who, as a Muslim, disagrees with Douthat about the divinity of Christ, but who, as a believer, agrees with Douthat that we should all be religious.In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Damir, Shadi and Ross talk about the philosophy of mind; whether AI will ever be conscious; what consciousness is for; whether Daniel Dennett is in hell; and why being lukewarm about whether God exists is a bad idea.Required Reading and Listening:* Ross Douthat, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (Amazon). * Damir Marusic, “A Lost Sense of Wonder” (WoC). * Nathan Beacom, “The Art of Hiking” (WoC). * John Lennon, “Imagine” (YouTube). * Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (Amazon). * Revelation 3:16: “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (King James Version). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

This week, we tried an experiment: a Substack live event! Matthew Gasda wrote a popular article about Romanticism, his contribution to an ongoing debate. Samuel Kimbriel had a few disagreements with Gasda's piece. In the spirit of Wisdom of Crowds, we hosted our first-ever live-streamed Substack debate.It went pretty well! We hope to host more. By popular demand, here is a video recording of that debate. Please continue the discussion in the comments below!— Santiago Ramos, executive editorRequired Reading:* Matthew Gasda, “A Few Doubts About Neo-Romanticism” (WoC).* CrowdSource: “Hopeful Romantics” (WoC).* Ted Gioia, “Notes Toward a New Romanticism” (The Honest Broker).* Ross Barkan, “The zeitgeist is changing. A strange, romantic backlash to the tech era looms” (Guardian).Recommendations:Matthew Gasda: * Terence Malick, To the Wonder (YouTube).* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (Amazon). * Any biography of Goethe (Amazon). Samuel Kimbriel:* Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” (Poets.org). * Novalis, Hymns to the Night (Amazon). Santiago Ramos:* Ludwig von Beethoven, Piano Concerto Number 4, Second Movement (YouTube). Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveFriend of Wisdom of Crowds and frequent podcast guest Samuel Moyn is a professor of law and history at Yale University, and author of several books, including Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War (2021, Macmillan) and Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times (2023). He is also the author of a recent article saying that no, sorry, the courts cannot save American democracy.If you've been following our podcast lately, you'll know that Shadi and Damir think differently. Both are preoccupied with the question of whether we're in a constitutional crisis. And both have argued that it's the Judiciary branch which can stop Trump from becoming a tyrant. We are in a state of “brinksmanship with the Courts,” as Damir puts it. Moyn, however, warns that “Judicial processes can launder radical political change,” like the ones Trump is trying to make. The Supreme Court might cede a lot of ground to the Executive before we get a big decisive case that checks Trump. In fact, we might never even get such a case. The real test for democracy, Moyn argues, will come at the ballot box: “Do we have elections that stay competitive where the loser accepts his loss?” A lot will depend on whether Democrats can figure out how to make a popular platform. A lot, too, will depend on Republicans, and whether at least some of them will part ways with Trump. Shadi asks Moyn for some historical perspective. Is this the biggest crisis in US history? Probably not, but what can we learn from historical perspective? What is the baseline against which we should judge ourselves today? Moyn argues that “The only use of the past is to make a better future. … Let's try to understand why things broke before.”In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Moyn and our hosts discuss recent White House legal challenges against birthright citizenship; anti-Trump lawfare; why Moyn believes that “what the law is is decided in the present political struggle”; why a parliamentary system is usually more democratic than a presidential one; whether the US is culturally attached to a strong executive branch; and much more.Required Reading and Listening:* Samuel Moyn and Ryan D. Doerfler, “Don't count on the courts to save democracy” (Washington Post).* Samuel Moyn and Ryan D. Doerfler, “We Are Already Defying the Supreme Court” (Dissent). * Our last podcast episode with Samuel Moyn: “Did the Supreme Court Just Subvert Our System of Government?” (WoC). * Live taping: “Samuel Moyn and Osita Nwanevu on Voters vs Judges” (WoC). * Podcast episode, “Is Democracy Ending?” (WoC).* Juan J. Linz, “The Perils of Presidentialism” (Journal of Democracy).* CrowdSource about the Mahmoud Khalil case (WoC).* Santiago Ramos, “From the Harper's Letter to the Khalil Case” (WoC).* “Judge warns of consequences if Trump administration violated deportation order” (Reuters).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Free preview video:

Recent events suggest that the balance of power is breaking down. Trump is achieving executive supremacy. In less fancy terms, Trump looks like he's becoming a dictator. Rule of law might be slipping away. Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic agree about all this. But they disagree about which recent event is the true inflection point.Shadi thinks it's the Mahmoud Khalil case: it's a straightforward government action against freedom of speech, intended to have a chilling effect on the population. Damir believes it's the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to Nayib Bukele's megaprison in El Salvador: the policy relies on the bogus claim that we are at war with Venezuela, and it's the clearest example yet of executive defiance of the courts. How will we know when the constitutional order has truly taken a knock-out hit? Damir believes that, unless the Supreme Court votes 9-0 against Trump's Venezuelan deportation, the “the cracks [will] start opening” on the balance of powers. “How do you break the Supreme Court? That's the whole game right now. And you break it through pressure, through politics,” Damir argues. “Institutions are just beliefs,” he adds. “If you undermine these beliefs enough, it's over.”Shadi takes the conversation back to January 6 which, in retrospect, seems like it was the best opportunity to take down Trump. “Everyone seemed to make the wrong decision on how to deal with Trump, at precisely the time when it would have mattered most,” Shadi says. Shadi says that he is still surprised that more Republicans did not object to January 6. Damir is upset with how Democrats reached: “They had a theory of what is just and right, but no sense of politics or how to do things. They got the s**t kicked out of them and now the country is suffering for it.” What we are getting with Trump now, Damir says, is “a more lasting tribalism.”We are making this timely episode free for all subscribers.Required Reading:* CrowdSource about the Mahmoud Khalil case (WoC).* Santiago Ramos, “From the Harper's Letter to the Khalil Case” (WoC).* “Deported Brown University doctor acknowledged she attended Hezbollah leader's funeral on visit to Lebanon, source says” (CNN).* “Judge warns of consequences if Trump administration violated deportation order” (Reuters).* En Boca de León - León Krauze, “The scale of El Salvador's new prison is difficult to comprehend” (Washington Post).* “Amy Coney Barrett Sparks MAGA Fury Over Trump Supreme Court Decision” (Newsweek).* “Gavin Newsom and Steve Bannon find surprising agreement on Elon Musk” (CNN).* Machiavelli on Savonarola (The Municipal Machiavelli).Full video of the podcast below:This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveMana Afsari is a writer and sometime contributor to Wisdom of Crowds, whose career has taken her from the RAND Corporation, to a job as an assistant to a great American poet, to the position of Research Associate at the Aspen Institute's Philosophy and Society Initiative. In January, Mana published an essay titled, “Last Boys at the Beginning of History,” a fascinating reported piece about the young men with intellectual ambitions who joined the National Conservative movement and voted for Donald Trump. The essay went viral and earned praise from both liberals and conservatives. Damon Linker of Notes from the Middleground called it “a remarkable essay that's generated considerable (and well-justified) buzz.”Mana joins Santiago Ramos and Shadi Hamid to discuss the essay and the general question of why ambitious, inquisitive and searching young men are attracted to the MAGA movement. “I am not a right wing zoologist,” Mana says, but it is important to understand where these men are coming form. These young intellectuals are not your average Trump voter. They are not the “DOGE boys,” either. But they are becoming a significant part of the GOP leadership class. Shadi wants to know why an interest in culture and ideas has led these men toward right wing spaces. Mana responds that right wing spaces, at least until recently, had a less politicized approach to culture. Many of these young men are interested in things, like history or cartography, which some suggest are “right-coded.” “Most things that are supposedly right-coded should not be right-coded,” Mana says.And what do they think of Trump? “They don't think of Trump as Odoacer, they see him as Julius Caesar. They don't see him as a barbarian, but as a restorer of the republic.”In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Shadi talks about going to a recent right wing party and says it was “a safe space, it was inclusive”; Santiago asks Shadi if he ever went to right wing parties during the War on Terror; Mana distinguishes the desire for free and open discussion versus the desire to “say whatever you want,” i.e., slurs; and Santiago argues that the Israel-Palestine conflict has made all political sides rediscover the importance of freedom of speech.Required Reading and Listening:* Mana Afsari, “Last Boys at the Beginning of History” (The Point).* Santiago Ramos, “Let Us Now Praise the Supermen” (WoC).* Santiago Ramos, “Do You Know What Time It Is?” (WoC).* Damir Marusic, “Barbarians at the Gate” (WoC).* Shadi Hamid, “Why Half of America is Cheering for Chaos” (Washington Post). * Wisdom of Crowds podcast episode, “The Masculine World is Adrift” (WoC).* Henry Kissinger quote about Trump (Financial Times).* Vittoria Elliot, “The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk's Government Takeover” (Wired).* Norman Podhoretz, Ex-Friends: Falling Out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt and Norman Mailer (Amazon). * C. P. Cavafy, “Waiting for the Barbarians” (Poetry Foundation). * Odoacer (Britannica).* Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, What are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice (Amazon). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveWith the Gaza ceasefire possibly collapsing any minute, we return to the topic of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks and the ensuing war in the Holy Land. Specifically, Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic discuss the tension between a belief in universal human rights, on the one hand, and allegiance to one's ethnic and religious roots, on the other. Joining Shadi and Damir is friend of the pod Peter Beinart, contributing writer for the New York Times and editor-at-large of the magazine, Jewish Currents. In recent years, Beinart has emerged as a leading Jewish voice wrestling with the moral questions surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict. His new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, describes the different ways that Jews have wrestled with the morality of the war in Gaza. Peter is an observant Orthodox Jew, and this book documents how his criticism of the war has affected (and even broken) several of his friendships in his community.Peter affirms a belief in the universality of human rights and obligations to all human beings. But, he confesses, “there's another voice inside my head: don't be naive, this is a world of power in which people either look out for their own, or nobody looks out for you.” Is it possible to reconcile these two thoughts? Shadi argues for the universalist point of view: given the high number of civilian deaths in the Gaza war, shouldn't it be obvious that our allegiance to universal values should take priority over everything else? Shouldn't we have more “sensitivity for civilian deaths”? Damir presses from the opposite, particularist perspective. He's been reading the Bible. There is, Damir says, a biblical sense for “the destiny of the Israelites to the land” of Israel. Moreover, Damir argues, even if Israel is powerful today, and even if Israel did not need to wage war on the scale that it did in Gaza, not too long ago, Israel actually was existentially threatened by its neighbors. Moreover, Iran is still a real threat today. This is a heart-wrenching, wide-ranging episode that covers several controversial topics: the parallels between the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza; whether Israel can be called an Apartheid state; how to interpret the historical books of the Bible, in particular the Book of Joshua; and much more. In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Peter and our hosts discuss why the Israeli Left is dead and why Yair Lapid supports Trump's Gaza mass expulsion plan; how liberal Americans internalize the ethnic framing of the Israel-Palestine debate; Israel's right to exist; ethnonationalism on the rise around the world; what Steve Bannon really thinks about American Jews; and how to maintain friends with whom you might have deep disagreements. Required Reading* Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (Amazon).* Peter Beinart, The Beinart Notebook (Substack).* Peter Beinart, “Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return” (Jewish Currents).* October 2023 podcast episode with Peter: “Peter Beinart on Israel, Hamas, and Why Nonviolence Failed” (WoC).* July 2020 podcast episode with Peter: “Arguing the One-State Solution” (WoC).* “Lapid presents Gaza ‘day after' plan in DC, urges extended Egyptian takeover” (Times of Israel). * The Book of Joshua (Bible Hub).* David Ben-Gurion (Jewish Virtual Library).* Yeshayahu Leibowitz (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).* Micah Goodman, Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War (Amazon).* Amoz Oz, In the Land of Israel (Amazon).* Simone Weil, The Iliad, or the Poem of Force (Amazon).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Free preview video:Full video for paid subscribers below:

J. D. Vance delivers a seismic geopolitical speech at the Munich Security Forum. Vance, Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy get into a shouting match before television cameras. Relations between the United States and Europe are deteriorating before our very eyes. In one of our best episodes of the year so far, we invited the great Ivan Krastev to help us understand what is happening.Ivan is one of the brightest minds in Europe — an incisive analyst, historian of ideas, and ever-present track-two diplomat who is always talking to absolutely everyone. He is chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria and Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He writes regularly for the Financial Times and the New York Times.Ivan tells Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic that Trumpism, and its policy toward Europe is not conservative or isolationist, but “a revolutionary movement.” This revolution is what reconciles the populist and libertarian elements of Trump's administration: “You're trying to fight bureaucracy by concentrating power in a charismatic leader. Less state, more emperor.” You can see this, Ivan argues, in the way Trump runs his coalition like an imperial court, where opposing figures — like Steve Bannon and Elon Musk — vie for the attention of the emperor. You can also see it in the fact that Trump himself says contradictory things: “A charismatic figure can contain contradictions.”What does this mean for Europe? “Empires fall when the center sees itself as a hostage not as a hegemon,” Ivan argues, and Trump, along with Republicans, long to divest themselves of the Empire. This means applying pressure on Europe to bend to its demands — be it about Ukraine, or Greenland, or immigration. It also means that, inadvertently, Trump has reawakened European nationalism: “The new European politics is nationalist, the populists are internationalist.”This is a rich episode, full of insightful koans from a longtime observer of international affairs. Damir takes the conversation in the direction of what exactly fuels the Right and its “enthusiasm for destruction.” Shadi presses Ivan on the recently overturned elections in Romania, and what this means about the future of European democracy.In our bonus section for paid subscribers, the three men discuss why charismatic political leaders can live with contradictions; the “fast track between [political] office and prison”; how Trump has inadvertently created a new US-European consensus on immigration and state intervention in the economy, and why “you can't stop a revolution by defending institutions. You need your own version of tomorrow.”Required Reading and Viewing:* J. D. Vance's speech at the Munich Security Forum (Foreign Policy). * Zelenskyy, Trump and Vance press conference (C-Span YouTube page). * Ivan Krastev and Leonard Benardo, “Democracy Has Run Out of Future” (Foreign Policy).* Shadi Hamid, “Why Half of America is Cheering for Chaos” (Washington Post). * “EU parliament votes to condemn overturning of Roe v. Wade” (Axios).* German Revolution of 1918-1919 (Brittanica). * Leo Strauss, “German Nihilism” (archive.org).* Daniel Kehlmann, German writer (Wikipedia).* “The Gender Gap is Growing and it Bodes Badly for American Politics and Culture” (The Hill). * 2024 Romanian Elections (Wikipedia).* Ezra Klein, Why We're Polarized (Amazon). * Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991 (Amazon). * N.S. Lyons, “American Strong Gods: Trump and the End of the Long Twentieth Century” (The Upheaval).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live“Something is happening here and you don't know what it is,” goes the Bob Dylan track from 1965. That song was directed at the squares who weren't yet hip to the Sixties. It sounded foreboding then, and it sounds foreboding now, because something is happening, again — something perhaps as great and consequential as the cultural changes of Dylan's time. For several years now, people have been speaking about a cultural “vibe shift.” The MAGA electoral victory appears to have been the culmination of that shift. The Trumpist victory has ushered in a new political elite and with it, a cultural style that is more transgressive, crude, and rude than the once-liberal American mainstream. Helping us understand what's happening is this week's special guest, Sean Monahan, one of the most perceptive cultural forecasters of our time. If you've ever used the term “normcore,” or if you've heard someone talk about a “vibe shift,” you've been influenced by Sean. And if you haven't heard those terms, then you're about to learn a lot about American culture in this episode. Sean is a writer, trend forecaster and brand consultant, whose Substack, 8Ball, is an oracle of cultural insight.Sean joins Christine Emba and Shadi Hamid and they all get deep about vibes. What is a vibe? Can it be defined? If it can't, then how is it a useful concept? Is it based on material conditions? How long does a vibe last? But the conversation soon ventures beyond these theoretical generalities. Shadi wants to know whether American culture has fundamentally shifted to the right since the rise of Trump. Christine detects a mean streak to this new culture: a certain cruelty or at least, ruthless competitiveness. Sean puts things in perspective, explaining how generations create, condition, and then abandon trends, and how the weird period of Covid lockdown had a unique effect on trend creation, one that still affects us to this day. He also describes the new aesthetic of the Trump era, which he believes is based primarily on desire for money, and which he has dubbed, “Boom Boom.”In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Sean discusses why religion has become attractive to young people, especially young men, whether he sees good vibes or bad vibes in the near future, and whether he believes most Americans actually like Trump and DOGE.Required Reading:* Sean Monahan's Substack, 8Ball.* Sean Monahan, “Anatomy of a Vibe Shift” (8Ball).* Sean Monahan, “Boom Boom: Anatomy of a Trend” (8Ball).* Sean Monahan, “The Counter Elite Won the Meme War” (8Ball).* CrowdSource: “Truth and Vibes” (WoC).* Famous 2022 article from New York Magazine: “A Vibe Shift is Coming” (New York).* W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change (Amazon).* Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (Amazon).* Mana Afsari, “Last Boys at the Beginning of History” (The Point).* Saddle Creek Records.* Bright Eyes (Saddle Creek).* “Cottagecore Aesthetic, Explained” (Country Living).* MySpace.* Matthew Walther on the origin of “Woke Capital” (American Conservative).* “Dimes Square” (Know Your Meme).* Alex P. Keaton (Wikipedia).* Gordon Gecko (Wikipedia).* Patrick Bateman (Wikipedia).* Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho (Amazon).* American Psycho film (YouTube).* Graeme Wood, “How Bronze Age Pervert Charmed the Far Right” (The Atlantic).* “Yosemite Locksmith: 'The People Who Fired Me Don't Know What I Do'” (MSN).* “Garry Tan for mayor? ‘Never, or 20 years from now,' Y Combinator chief says” (San Francisco Standard).Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live“I am done saying, ‘impossible',” announces Damir Marusic. At least, with regard to what Trump might do or could do in the near future. We are still in the midst of a major shakeup in the administrative state. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is combing through Treasury data and cutting government personnel. Trump is delaying the distribution of federal funds. Trump's policies have full support of the GOP-majority Congress. Meanwhile, the White House foreign policy agenda has upended three years of support for the Ukrainian war cause and, apart from that, is strikingly imperialistic — annexing Greenland and “owning” Gaza are stated objectives. Will Trump become a dictator?Shadi Hamid believes that Trump won't become a dictator — America is too big for a dictator — but he very will might signal the end of the “liberal” part of our liberal democracy. Damir fears that, by the end of Trump's second term, Congress will become a vestigial representative body with littler power, like the Senate in the Roman Empire. Both worry that the demise of democracy could come in a subtle, slow way — a “boiling frog” scenario.Shadi and Damir move on ask whether what's happening is what Trump's voters asked for. Why is Trump popular right now? Why do people want to break the state? Shadi says, “[Trump voters] believe that the system is fundamentally broken. Certainly, for a majority of Americans, the system is broken.” Damir partially agrees, but adds: “It's a lot more resentment-based … Not really an idea that ‘the system is broken' for me, but that it's populated by those people over there, and it's time to hurt them.” But why so much resentment? In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Shadi talks about the Democratic Party's potential to resist Trump and why the working class likes Trump (hint: it doesn't have to do with economics). Damir brings up the famous book, What's the Matter With Kansas by Thomas Frank, and explains why he thinks it misses the mark.Required Reading:* Shadi Hamid, “How to Break Up with the News” (Contentions).* CrowdSource about the possible constitutional crisis (WoC).* Democratic Party favorability ratings among young people (YouGov).* “How Biden is continuing to cancel student loan debt despite Supreme Court ruling” (CNN).* Tyler Cowen, “Trumpian policy as cultural policy” (Marginal Revolution).* Christine Emba's piece engaging with Cowen's article (WoC).* Shadi's post about the “The System is collapsing” meme (X).* David Polansky's reply to Shadi's post (X).* Lee Hockstader, “In Germany's elections, a last, best chance to hold off extremists” (Washington Post).* Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas (Amazon).Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveDonald Trump and Elon Musk are moving quickly, so we decided to release this episode a few days early. In a half-week of alarming developments, Trump has announced that the United States might send troops to Gaza to transfer the Palestinian population to Egypt or Jordan, and to aid in reconstructing the country. Elon Musk has become the undertaker of government agencies, the wrecker of the civil service. Through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has effectively shut down USAID, offered payouts to members of other agencies, and more.In an effort to make sense of all this, Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic are interrogated by WoC executive editor, Santiago Ramos. Is Trump serious about Gaza? What do his statements suggest about the possible endgames for the Gaza war and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian question? Was Shadi wrong to suggest that Trump might be better on this question than Biden was? Is Trump acting according to what he thinks is the national interest? Or is this a random shot in the dark?The second issue — DOGE — prompts a more serious set of questions. Are we in a constitutional crisis? If not now, then will we be one in a few months time, when the judiciary steps in to check DOGE? Why exactly are Trump and Musk interested in hollowing out the administrative state? Are we in a watershed moment in American history? Is there anything that we can do to preserve the rule of law?In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Shadi explains why he believes that ideology is driving Trump and Musk, rather than just the desire for power; Damir argues that he concept of punishment is essential to justice; and Santiago describes the difference between Louis XIV and Napoleon.Required Reading* “Trump Proposes U.S. Takeover of Gaza and Says All Palestinians Should Leave” (New York Times).* Marco Rubio on Trump's Gaza comments (NBC).* Rich Kushner's February 2024 comments on “waterfront property” in Gaza (The Guardian). * Shadi's post about Trump v. Biden on Gaza (X).* Damir Marusic, “Brushfire of the Vanities” (WoC).* Liam Cunningham post (X).* Patrick Deneen (Communia)'s two X posts: first and second.* Patrick Deneen, Regime Change: Towards a Postliberal Future (Amazon). * Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (Amazon). * John Ganz, “Groyperification” (Unpopular Front). * Gabe Fleisher, “When I Will Call Something a ‘Constitutional Crisis' ” (Wake Up to Politics). * Thomas Edsall, “ ‘Trump's Thomas Cromwell' Is Waiting in the Wings” (New York Times). * Jack Goldsmith Bob Bauer, “The Trump Executive Orders as ‘Radical Constitutionalism' ” (Executive Functions). Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live“The weird right wing men are coming out to the fore in joy,” announces Shadi Hamid. “They're strutting more than they did in 2016,” observes Damir Marusic. “The counter-elite is becoming the elite,” says Shadi. “There is gonna be a bloodbath,” says Damir: “They will soon be drinking from a fire hydrant of sewage.”Two weeks have passed since the Trump inauguration, as well as its attendant galas, balls and parties. Damir and Shadi have trained their weary eyes upon the new class of upstart right wingers arriving in the capital for a punchdrunk power-hungry scramble. There are the tech bros, the trad intellectuals, the libertarians living in unrecognized mini-states, the crunchy RFK-supporters, and who knows what else. All want a piece of the pie that Emperor Trump is slicing before them.Shadi believes that a cultural shift has taken place — that Trump is not only a new president, but the usher of a new moment in American culture. “Something has changed,” says Shadi. “Liberal dominance of instutions seems weak and pathetic,” in retrospect, he adds. “The perception of dominance can collapse quickly.” Damir disagrees. “It was not a cultural shift,” he says. It was a repudiation of liberal overreach on cultural issues, and a “light-to-heavy insanity and a lot of stress on our institutions.” The Right is reactionary, Damir concludes, and as soon as they propose a positive program, their popularity will drop.In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Damir and Shadi discuss the difference between “mysterious cultural forces” and “the wisdom of crowds,” Damir further explains why he believes the Right is not as powerful as they think they are, and Shadi tells us about an upcoming spiritual quest. Required Reading:* Liberland official website.* Curtis Yarvin interview (New York Times). * Mana Afsari, “Last Boys at the Beginning of History” (The Point). * Who is Chris Rufo?* Mark Zuckerberg on the Joe Rogan Experience (YouTube). * Christine Emba, “Zuck is the Zeitgeist” (WoC). * The Harper's Letter (signed by Shadi). * Richard Reeves on the podcast: “The Masculine World is Adrift” (WoC). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveLast week's episode dealt with the state of the American Right post-election. Today we ask: Where is the American Left going? How will it respond to Trump? “There is a palpable sense of passivity on the Left,” says Damir Marusic. “What I've seen is resignation or weird, detached analysis,” says Samuel Kimbriel. Is there more going on than we see? We invited WoC contributor Osita Nwanevu, writer for the New Republic and author of an upcoming book about American democracy, to tell us more.Osita begins by distinguishing between the Democratic Party and the movement Left. While the Democrats are a loose coalition in broad disarray, the Left simply stands for “a grand reform of political economy to empower workers.” The Left, Osita argues, was not surprised that Trump won. The problem lies it how it can create a platform that will appeal to American voters. There is too much despair. Too many on the Left, Osita argues, have been left in a state of “political hopelessness” after the election, wondering what to do in a country where most people voted for Donald Trump. But such an attitude is “antithetical to democratic thought and what we need to do for practical politics.”Damir and Osita go on to engage the question of whether a Left that stands for universal human values, rather than in-group, national concerns, is able to win. Osita argues that there is not necessary contradiction between a universal value and a local interest. When it comes to climate change, for example, the Left isn't asking voters to care about “the Maldives,” but about “fires in LA and storms in Florida.” Damir is not so sure. The conversation touches on symbolic politics versus real politics, whether protest movements can actually transform society, whether Trump is the true revolutionary force in American politics, and whether the Left actually has intellectual leaders and a utopian vision today. In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Sam argues that the Left needs an idea of transcendence, Osita talks about transcendence without god, and Damir pushes both on whether personal philosophical convictions actually have any bearing on real-life politics.Required Reading:* Osita's website.* Sam on why the Left needs ideas (WoC).* Damir's post-election reaction (WoC). * Osita on BLM (Pairagraph).* Osita's debate with Oliver Traldi about democracy and ideology (WoC).* Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution (Amazon).* “Nancy Pelosi Insists the Election was Not a Rebuke of the Democrats” (New York Times).* On the Gushers BLM post mentioned by Osita (New York Times).* “Costco Teamsters vote to authorize US-wide strike, union says” (Reuters).* “Costco shareholders just destroyed an anti-DEI push” (CNN).* History of hospitals (Britannica).* Scott Alexander, “Everyone's A Based Post-Christian Vitalist Until The Grooming Gangs Show Up” (Astral Codex Ten).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveOn the eve of Donald Trump's second inauguration, Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic sit down to discuss the state of the Right and the Left in American politics. The conversation picks up where the last podcast episode left off, in a discussion about Damir's apparent rejuvenation in the wake of Trump's victory. Given that he didn't vote for Trump — in fact, he didn't vote for anybody — why is Damir smiling?Shadi suggests that “Democrats needed this defeat to learn important lessons.” Damir is not so sure that they will learn them. But one of the reasons he is giddy is that they will get their comeuppance for the political “villainy” of Russiagate, the Biden health coverup and other misguided Democratic gambits. Shadi, in turn, notes that many of his center-left acquaintances seem surprisingly at peace with the new government, and ready to entertain new ideas. “Very rarely did I hear despair,” he reports.Both Shadi and Damir go deeper by asking about the status quo of the Left and the Right. Damir thinks that Trump has “cleared the field” of the conservative movement's Reaganite past, and that the Right is now ready to debate issues in a more realistic way. Shadi laments that the Left has become boring by being too certain that they are correct about everything: they are the party of “facts, data and progress,” and think that they have “resolved all the big ideological debates.”In our bonus content for paid subscribers, Damir discusses what he means by “tragic liberalism,” Shadi explains why he thinks atheism is over, and our hosts discuss the best and worst things that could happen during the second Trump presidency.Required Reading and Listening:* Damir, “We'll Have to Rethink Everything” (WoC).* Shadi, “Trump's ‘madman theory' worked in Gaza when all else failed” (Washington Post).* Christine, “Zuck is the Zeitgeist” (WoC).* Santiago questions Damir about his newfound conservatism (WoC).* Tara Isabella Burton, “Believe for Your Own Sake, Not for ‘the West'” (WoC).* Ezra Klein and Nate Silver on “peak Trump” (X).* Elon Musk is an ‘Evil Person,' Steve Bannon Says” (New York Times).* “Corporate America embraces a new era of conservatism under Donald Trump” (Financial Times).* “How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge” (Wall Street Journal).* David Brooks, “Why People Are Fleeing Blue Cities for Red States” (New York Times).* Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream (Amazon).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

A new year is before us, and soon, a new president will assume office. What does the future have in store? Trump supporters are happy, and his opponents are full of foreboding. Many people also feel that a new era in American history is about to begin — for better or worse. Damir Marusic and Santiago Ramos discuss the nature of this new era. They begin with the question of fear: Are you afraid of the second Trump term? Santiago explains why the Trump phenomenon seemed more frightening in 2016 than it does in 2024. Damir asks whether finding historical analogues for Trump actually illuminates anything about the man, and makes him less scary. Santiago then asks Damir about two of his latest pieces for Wisdom of Crowds, in which Damir seems almost giddy about the collapse of the liberal establishment and Trump's rise. What exactly is Damir happy about? What good does he see coming from this historical moment? What is changing? While not defending Trump himself, Damir argues that Trump's crushing of liberal illusions, and the exposure of the hypocrisy of our political class, are good things. What he hopes for is a new “positive program of skepticism and humility,” and a more limited version of liberalism. In the course of the conversation, Damir and Santiago cover wide variety of topics: Damir's newfound conservatism; Trump and Andrew Jackson; Kissinger on Trump; the USA and Latin America; NATO; Greenland; and the Cold War. Because this is our first podcast of the new year, and season-opener of sorts, we are making this episode free for all subscribers. Required Reading and Listening:* Damir, “The feeling of limitless possibility ahead of Trump's inauguration is dizzying” (WoC).* Damir, “The Peasants, the People and God” (WoC).* Santiago on Latinos and the election (Commonweal).* Santiago on Trump and Latin America (Commonweal). * Black Mirror episode Santiago mentions: “The Waldo Moment” (IMDB). * Henry Kissinger: “I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences” (Financial Times). * Jason Willick on Trump and Andrew Jackson (Washington Post).* Samuel Goldman on why the US is more like Latin America than Europe (The Week). * Antonio García Martínez on why the US is like Brazil (X). * Our podcast episode with Yuval Levin (WoC).* Video of Trump and Stoltenberg (YouTube).* Jon Stewart on Nancy Pelosi's “legal corruption” (The Wrap).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveFor some people, “liberal socialism” sounds like an oxymoron. Liberalism is a political idea that promises to protect individual rights. Socialism, on the other hand, is about collective power: the power of workers to organize and, if not quite seize, at least have a say in the administration of the means of production. Liberalism is about freedom, while socialism is about equality. Not so, argues Matthew McManus, political science professor at the University of Michigan. In his new book, The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism, McManus recovers the oft-forgotten tradition of liberal socialism. He tells the story of great liberal socialist thinkers while also crafting a contemporary version of liberal socialism, relevant for today.Samuel Kimbriel and Santiago Ramos open the episode with a discussion about the 2022 “Freedom Convoy” trucker protests in Canada, which displayed some of the tensions between socialist and liberal ideals. The conversation moves on to the thought of Mary Wollstonecraft, whether John Rawls was a socialist, and how Matthew's experience working for McDonald's converted him to socialism.Samuel and Santiago press Matthew about a core first principle: equality. Why does he hold to this principle? Where does it come from? How can it be philosophically defended and justified? Matthew considers the different sources of political conviction: personal experience, and political theory. Which one is more influential in a person's mind?In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Matthew criticizes the “nebbish incrementalism” of neoliberalism and the excesses of “postmodern skepticism,” while declaring: “Left wing intellectuals have a lot more that they could be doing.”Required Reading:* Matthew McManus, The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism (Amazon). * Matthew McManus faculty page (University of Michigan). * Matthew McManus and Carlo Lancellotti debate about conservatives and equality (WoC). * Matthew McManus, “The Liberal Democratic Socialism of John Rawls” (Liberal Currents). * “Canadian Trucker Convoy Descends on Ottawa to Protest Vaccine Mandates” (New York Times). * Article about 2010 anti-G20 protests in Canada: “Police take ‘pre-emptive strikes' with sweeping arrests” (CTV News). * Santiago Ramos, “The Meaning of McDonald's” (WoC).* Samuel Kimbriel and Damir Marusic debate “What Politics is Really About” (WoC). * Podcast with Alexandre Lefebvre, “Liberalism is Not Neutral” (WoC). * Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Amazon). * Mary Wollstonecraft (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

Damir Marusic has been reading the Bible this year for the first time. So Christine Emba and Santiago Ramos decided it was the perfect occasion for interrogating him about what he's learned and what he's been thinking about. In the ensuing conversation, the three discuss Freemasonry, Protestantism, Catholicism, Predestination and how Christianity is receiving new attention in Silicon Valley. Then, the conversation turns to Christmas traditions, and how the contemplative and party-going sides of Christmas complement each other.In the spirit of Christmas, we have made this a free episode for all subscribers. The conversation culminates in a discussion about time itself: what makes some moments in time different from others, and how Christmas is a necessary “break” from chronological time. Required Reading:* Damir Marusic, “The Protestant Deformation in America” (WoC).* King James Version (Bible Gateway). * Ruth Graham, “In a First Among Christians, Young Men Are More Religious Than Young Women.” (NYT).* “Christians in tech drive religious revival in SF” (San Francisco Standard).* Peter Thiel, “Against Edenism” (First Things). * CrowdSource: “Tech-Trad Synergy” (WoC). * Charles Taylor on secular time and higher time. Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

As election data analysis continues to pour in, we can be sure of one thing: a large number of working class votes which traditionally would have gone to the Democrats shifted in 2024 toward the GOP. As CNN reported last week: “Trump ran up large margins among White voters without a college degree who belong to labor unions and also significantly improved among unionized non-White workers without advanced education.”So, did Trump's victory signal a realignment for the working class? Or was it a one-off thing, an act of rebellion against a complacent Democratic establishment? In terms of first principles, what is an economy that makes sense for workers, and for all Americans? What are Americans owed? And do we have obligations toward undocumented immigrants? For this special live recording of the podcast, we invited Oren Cass from the conservative pro-labor think tank, the American Compass, to help us answer these questions. Samuel Kimbriel kicked things off with a question about the “American dream,” which Oren contrasts with what he calls “the American promise.” The dream is about upward mobility, and the promise is about economic stability. The problem in America today, Oren says, “is not that you can't rise to the top, but you don't have this basic stability to work from.”Christine Emba challenged Oren on immigration. On what grounds should the rights of American workers take precedence over the rights of workers in general? Why should we restrict immigration to people who want to join the American project? The conversation touched up the first principle question of “Who qualifies as a member of the political community?”, as Oren put it. The recording of this live event is fully open and free for all subscribers. You can listen to the Crowd ask questions during the Q and A period at the end. Our holiday party followed the event — something which, alas, was not recorded. But you can enjoy these pictures!Required Reading:* CrowdSource about economic populism (WoC). * “How Trump is giving the labor movement the blue-collar blues” (CNN).* The American Compass' mission statement.* “This Conservative Wants to Change the Way Republicans Think About Economics” (New York Times interview with Cass). * Oren Cass, “Workers Deserve Real Power. Unions Aren't the Best Way to Get It” (New York Times). * Oren Cass, The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America (Amazon). * Oren's Substack, Understanding America.* Christine Emba, “What Would Society Look Like if Extreme Wealth Were Impossible?” (The Atlantic). * Samuel Kimbriel, “Bonfire of the Vanities” (WoC).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveIn 2024, over 77 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. Friend of Wisdom of Crowds Michael Brendan Dougherty, a writer and conservative commentator at the National Review, was one of them. However, MBD (as he is known) did not vote for Trump in 2020 nor in 2016. In fact, he was an early conservative opponent of Trump. In 2016, MBD wrote: “[Trump] is clearly a product of a decadent society, not the scourge or redeemer of one.” MBD did not disagree with Trump on his main issues: trade, immigration, and a restrained foreign policy. But he did not believe that the man has the character fit for office.So, what happened? Did MBD change his principles, or did Trump live up to them? Why did MBD vote for Trump, and what does that tell us about the process of picking a candidate, and of the formation of political judgment in general?Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic join MBD to discuss this question and much more. Did MBD change his mind about Trump's character? Which of Trump's first term achievements turned MBD into a supporter? What can we expect from a second Trump term — both in domestic policy, as well as in the increasingly dangerous international scene? In the course of discussing these questions, MBD defines the “working class” in American terms, and talks about his own experiences working in a chemical factory.In the bonus portion for paid subscribers, MBD explains the complicated relationship that pro lifers have with Trump, and debates whether the #Resistance movement will return.Required Reading and Listening:* Our 2021 podcast episode with MBD (WoC).* “The Case Against Esoteric Trumpism” by Michael Brendan Dougherty (The Week).* “My First Vote for Trump” by Michael Brendan Dougherty (National Review).* My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son's Search For Home by Michael Brendan Dougherty (Amazon).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveLast week, President Biden granted his son, Hunter Biden, “a full and unconditional” for any and all offenses from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024. Because Hunter Biden has been a politically charged figure since the first Trump term, and because President Biden repeatedly promised that he would not use his power to protect his son, the presidential pardon was, for many, a strategic and moral mistake — an act of hypocrisy, in short.In this week's episode, Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic question the assumptions that Biden's critics are making. Is political hypocrisy inevitable? Might it actually be a good thing? Shadi has written extensively on the topic of hypocrisy, defending it in a unique way. Damir pushes back against Shadi's moral interpretation of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is not primarily a failure to live up to one's morals, says Damir, but the failure of a powerful figure to live up to their morals. “Biden's problem is that he did it [the pardon] so visibly,” says Damir.The conversation progresses to a discussion of the how Islam and Christianity deal with hypocrisy. It becomes a discussion about hypocrisy and international justice, where Damir asks whether international law can be said to exist if it cannot be universally enforced. Perhaps, Damir suggests, Shadi is less of an advocate for international human rights as he is a booster of American imperialism. It's a classic Shadi-and-Damir give-and-take.In our bonus portion for paid subscribers, Shadi and Damir discuss whether the Department of Justice is ever truly independent of partisan politics, and explore an alternative history where the Democrats never pursued the Russiagate investigations against Donald Trump. Required Reading:* “Biden pardons his son, Hunter, after repeatedly saying he would not” (Reuters).* Shadi: “Can Hypocrisy Be Justified?” (WoC).* Shadi: “Why America Needs Hypocrisy” (WoC).* King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. * “ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova (International Criminal Court).* “Situation in the State of Palestine: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I rejects the State of Israel's challenges to jurisdiction and issues warrants of arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant” (International Criminal Court). * Jason Willick post (X).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe headlines prove it: we live in turbulent times. Elizabeth Oldfield, our guest this week, recently published a book — Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times — about how to thrive during such a moment. “If we're heading into (even more) turbulent times,” Elizabeth writes, “I want to be someone who is of use, not overwhelmed and panicking but steady and hopeful, able to contribute to weaving a canopy of trust under which other people can shelter.” Along with being a writer, a former think tank director and an accomplished broadcast journalist, Elizabeth is host of The Sacred, a podcast where she interviews cultural leaders who “shape our common life,” and asks them “about their deepest values.”In this week's episode, Damir Marusic and Santiago Ramos turn the tables on Elizabeth, putting her in the interviewee's chair. What is the source of the wisdom distilled in Elizabeth's book? If it is religious faith, then is faith required in order to truly embrace that wisdom? Or is the grace of God required? What is “grace,” anyway? Santiago wants to understand how the wisdom that Elizabeth writes about can be appropriated for one's self. Damir tries to distinguish that wisdom from self-help and therapy.The conversation touches upon art and faith, whether “despair” or “preserving civilization” are good reasons to adopt religion, the necessity of community, and the role that doubt plays in faith. At the heart of the discussion is Damir's question: “How do we live in this world, and how do we cope with the existence of the horror of this world?”This episode is a searching, personal discussion that is just the thing we need this holiday season. In the bonus section for paid subscribers, Elizabeth talks about her experience of living in community, and also plunges deep into one of the biggest mysteries of the Christian faith.Required Reading:* Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times by Elizabeth Oldfield (Amazon).* Elizabeth's podcast, The Sacred (Apple Podcasts).* Damir's essay about therapy (WoC).* Shadi and Damir podcast episode on therapy (WoC).* Pensées by Blaise Pascal (Amazon).* Ayaan Hirsi Ali column explaining “Why I am now a Christian” (UnHerd).* Ayaan Hirsi Ali interview further explaining her conversion (UnHerd).* Elizabeth's “middle class commune” (profile in the London Times).Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe Declaration of Independence affirms that all human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Yet the Declaration is silent about who this Creator is. Is it the Jewish deity or the Christian God? Or is it the god of the philosophers — the blind watchmaker of the Enlightenment? The Constitution, on the other hand, doesn't mention the divine at all, except for the phrase, “Year of Our Lord.”Mainstream liberals and conservatives, whatever they may think of the silence regarding God in our founding documents, believe in the American experiment. But as Jerome E. Copulsky writes in his new book, American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order, throughout American history there have been those who do not, radical groups who opposed the American project, root and branch, for being liberal, as opposed to Christian. In his book, Copulsky, professor at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, writes about the Loyalist churchmen who opposed the American revolution, the proslavery theologians of the 19th century, the “Theonomist” theocrats of the 20th century, and the “Integralists” of our own time.Jerome joins Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic to discuss his book, but as often happens in Wisdom of Crowds, the conversation takes an unexpected turn. Early on, Shadi presses Jerome to specify exactly what a secular liberal Founding really means for religious practice in the public sphere. Then Shadi submits his own interpretation of the modern state as an inherently secularizing force.Damir brings the question of the secularity of the American project to bear upon current events. To what extent was the American liberal state ever “neutral”? Or is technocratic liberalism the default, unspoken “religion” of the American state? Or was it, until Donald Trump came along? And is Trump, by filling his cabinet with representatives from various American ideologies, violating liberal neutrality, or simply exposing it for the fiction that it always was?In our bonus content for paid subscribers, Jerome discusses the National Conservative movement, as exemplified by intellectuals like Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule, and its influence on Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. In the second Trump term this movement will have unprecedented access to power and, Jerome argues, pose a serious challenge to — and even a “betrayal” of — the American system.Required Reading* American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order by Jerome E. Copulsky (Amazon)* The Declaration of Independence (National Archives). * The Constitution of the United States (National Archives).* Everson v. Board of Education (FindLaw).* George Washington's Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island (National Archives). * We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition by John Courtney Murray, S.J. (Amazon).* Common Good Constitutionalism by Adrian Vermeule (Amazon).* Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future by Patrick Deneen (Amazon). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveOfficial WoC house philosopher Samuel Kimbriel joins Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic to discuss the role that ideas had in the recent elections. Specifically, they focus on whether it was bad ideas or bad political strategy that doomed the Dems.Sam insists that the Democrats failed because liberalism as we understand it has become weak, devoid of ideas and moral persuasion. Liberals, Sam insists, constantly shift from wanting to be a player in the political contest, to a referee of the same. They argue for their side and its views, until they start losing in the contest. If they start losing, they shift to a referee role, and try to rule out the legitimacy of certain opposing ideas (for example, immigration restrictionism). What we need, Sam says, is a renewed liberalism that is unafraid to make moral claims — one that plays and plays well, without tying to also be the referee.Damir disagrees. He isn't sure whether what happened on November 5 will be seen as revolutionary — that is, an overthrow of a previous order — or merely “an empty, peasant backlash,” though he is leaning toward the latter. Regardless, “what happened is a failure of rulership, not ideas,” he says. “It was not a failure of metaphysics, but of arguments.”Shadi stands between Sam and Damir, sometimes as referee, sometimes as a player on Sam's side. He supports democracy and the idea of moral politics. And he believes that Damir “always attacks us [Sam and Shadi] for having beliefs,” while hiding or being in denial of his own implicit metaphysical convictions. In the bonus segment for paid subscribers, Sam and Shadi corner Damir into finally admitting that he does indeed have metaphysical convictions of his own, even if that conviction is materialism. Damir talks about how he's reading the Bible this winter, and he gives us his own definition of the word “politics.” It's a rollicking discussion that you won't want to miss!Required Reading:* Western Civilization: Paleolithic Man to the Emergence of European Powers — the textbook Sam cites at the beginning of the episode (Volume I, Volume II). * The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea by Shadi Hamid (Amazon). * “Republicans See a Better Economic Outlook. Now It's Democrats Who Don't” (New York Times). * Sam's piece on the French Revolution and the contemporary Left (WoC). * Ordinary Vices by Judith Shklar (Amazon). * Damir's piece about peasant revolts (WoC).* “How the Ivy League Broke America” by David Brooks (The Atlantic). * “A Letter Concerning Toleration” by John Locke (WikiSource). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

Tuesday night's election has left us with total Republican control of all three branches of government. What does this mean for the immediate future of the Republic? Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic get together to discuss. We are releasing this episode early and completely free for all subscribers.Will Donald Trump become a dictator? What is he capable of? What might be the worst aspects of his second term? Damir discusses mass deportations as the biggest risk. Shadi worries about Trump's foreign policy in the Middle East. More than that, Shadi worries about a Donald Trump who all of the sudden has everything he's ever wanted — a revenge victory — and finds it still unsatisfying. “What now?”Damir and Shadi are not very fond of the Harris-Walz campaign. Shadi laments that Harris never seemed comfortable on the campaign trail, and could never quite communicate authenticity. Damir says that Walz is an irrelevant politician, a “weirdo” with no discernible contribution to the Democratic cause. Two minds trying to figure out where things stand in the wake of what seems to be like a momentous election. The first of many attempts at Wisdom of Crowds where we will try to read the signs of the times.Required Reading:* Tim Alberta on the dysfunction in the Trump campaign (The Atlantic).* Politico piece why Kamala lost (Politico).* Shadi: “The Democrats can't blame anyone but themselves this time” (Washington Post). * Turkish migrant interview (YouTube).* “What Do Men Want?” podcast with Shadi and Richard Reeves (Washington Post). * Megan McArdle, Jim Geraghty and Ramesh Ponnuru podcast: “Are Republicans Kamala-curious? Not so much.” (Washington Post). * Ruth Marcus, Dana Milbank and James Hohmann podcast: “Ruth Marcus, Dana Milbank and James Hohmann” (Washington Post). * Andrew Sullivan's Election Night Notes on Substack.* Donald Trump's interview with the Wall Street Journal editorial board.* Barack Obama roasts Donald Trump at the White House Correspondent's Dinner (YouTube). Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

On October 21 in Washington, DC, Wisdom of Crowds hosted a special live taping of the podcast. WoC editor-at-large Samuel Kimbriel joined WoC contributor and New Republic journalist Osita Nwanevu, along with Georgetown political theory professor Joshua Mitchell, to discuss “Happiness and Misery in America” on the eve of the general elections. Joshua spoke from a more communitarian and conservative point of view, citing the drawbacks that come with the growth of the state: “When you have a regime founded on small government and mediating institutions, you have to develop personal and collective competence. … Early on, happiness is linked to competence and to doing. But as the state has grown larger, and more and more the functions of living have been left up to the state, we've become more isolated and we come to think of happiness more as feeling and self-expression.” Osita spoke from a left-liberal perspective. It might be less the case that we are unhappy, he argued, than that we think we ought to be unhappy, given the way life is structured today. “We think that Americans should be less happy than they are. If you think that Americans should be less happy, because they use smart phones a lot, then you should own that. … Liberals always are in the business of saying less than they actually mean. The pursuit of happiness is not just material well-being … happiness for the Founders … also meant moral and spiritual well-being.”This was a robust and rich clash of perspectives that generated much more light than heat. Osita cautioned against romanticizing the old America of traditional communities, arguing that the “freedom to seek what the good life is, without having it given to you by father or pastor, is an important part of what American civilization is.” Joshua agreed that sometimes the state has to intervene in local communities for the sake of justice — for example, to desegregate the schools in Little Rock — but he also cautioned that we will never be fully satisfied without some “concreteness of embodied relations with others. … We [Americans] are all cowboys … the rest of the world can't believe the level of unboundedness we live with.”Free for all subscribers, this is a valuable and — crucially during this moment — civil conversation that will be interesting to anyone who cares about the soul of America. Give it a listen. Required Reading:* Joshua Mitchell (Georgetown faculty webpage). * Osita Nwanevu (personal website). * Surgeon General's Advisory on Loneliness Epidemic (Department of Health and Human Services). * Declaration of Independence (National Archives). * Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (Amazon). * Friendship as Sacred Knowing: Overcoming Isolation by Samuel Kimbriel (Amazon).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

For the past year, Shadi Hamid has been an outspoken critic of Israel's war in Gaza — and the Biden administration's complicity. Now he, like many others, is baffled by the Harris campaign's disregard and seeming disdain for Muslim and Arab voters. In a week is election day, and he is wrestling with the moral and political implications of the choice at hand.In our pages earlier this week, Shadi and Haroon Moghul debated the merits of voting for Harris or not voting at all. You can read their full exchange here. This podcast episode continues that conversation, but goes deeper. It is, in essence, about voting: is there a duty to vote? In a two-party system, must we accept the lesser of two evils? Moghul is director of strategy at The Concordia Forum and author of Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of a Muslim Future. Haroon shares all of Shadi's misgivings about Trump and Harris, and has publicly chosen not to vote. “I don't think you can get to democratic ends with a candidate who is at war with democracy,” Haroon says, “and I don't just mean Trump, I mean Harris.” Shadi, on the other hand, takes a more pragmatic point of view: Sitting an election out doesn't do anything real; it would be better for Muslim and other pro-Palestine voices to continue supporting the Democratic Party, hoping to influence it from within. Meanwhile, Damir Marusic applies his trusty sense for realpolitik to the question. He challenges Shadi, arguing that he's conflating two very different strategies: electoral pressure and intra-party influence. He questions Haroon whether there is an actual “theory of a change” behind his choice not to vote. This is a passionate discussion, not so much about electoral politics as about the first principles undergirding citizenship. And it also asks an intensely personal set of questions: how do we ultimately make what can seem like an impossible choice? Required Reading and Viewing:* Shadi Hamid and Haroon Moghul debate: “Should Americans Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils?” (WoC).* Haroon Moghul, “What I Told My Muslim Students about Gaza” (WoC).* Biden's comments admitting Israel's “indiscriminate bombing” while also saying “we're not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel.”* “Prominent Muslim Democrat Demands Answers After Being Kicked Out of Harris Rally in Michigan” (Democracy Now!)* “Trump in Michigan makes play for Arab American and Muslim voters angry over war in Gaza” (CNN).* An emotional debate with our friend and Christian Zionist Robert Nicholson weeks after Oct. 7 (WoC). * Haroon Moghul, Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of the Muslim Future (Amazon). Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

Damir Marusic and WoC executive editor Santiago Ramos get together to discuss Damir's latest article, “Why We Need Nightmares.” In it, Damir writes about the the binding of Isaac — the chilling story from the Book of Genesis where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son. Damir is fascinated both by the story and by a Caravaggio painting depicting it. “That's the stuff,” he writes. But what is this “stuff”?While searching for an answer to this question, Damir and Santiago cover a lot of ground. They discuss the story of Abraham and Isaac, as well as the different ways that philosophers have interpreted it. They talk about Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Kant. They come to the conclusion that, while we all have different words for it — terrifying, mysterious, sublime — everyone must grapple with the stuff. Grappling with the stuff is an essential part of living a human life, for believers and unbelievers alike.This episode covers the Bible, philosophy, art, music, and much more. It is not a debate, but an exploration of what exactly it is that makes certain stories, works of art, and experiences so moving, compelling, terrifying. We enjoyed recording this episode so much that we decided to make it free for all subscribers.Required Reading and Listening:* Damir, “Why We Need Nightmares” (WoC).* Damir, “The Pursuit of Passion for Its Own Sake” (WoC).* Damir, “It's Not Really About Cancel Culture,” about Tár (WoC).* “Ending Summer on Violence and Despair, with Twitter's Audrey Horne” (WoC).* The story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22 (King James Version). * Immanuel Kant (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).* Søren Kierkegaard (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).* Friedrich Nietzsche (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).* “Time of tension between dying and birth” quote by T. S. Eliot, in “Ash Wednesday” (Best Poems). * Mozart, Symphony No. 40 (Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, YouTube).* Roger Scruton on pop music as addictive (YouTube).* Keith Richards on heavy metal, “No lift, no bounce, no syncopation” (YouTube).* Caspar David Friedrich, “Sea of Ice” (painting of shipwreck/example of the sublime).* The Rolling Stones, “Gimme Shelter” (YouTube).* Nirvana, “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” (YouTube). * Shellac, At Action Park (YouTube). * Arvo Pärt, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten (Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, YouTube).* Leonard Bernstein, “The Unanswered Question,” lectures (YouTube).Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveMusa al-Gharbi is a sociologist and assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. He joins Christine Emba and Damir Marusic to discuss his new book, We Have Never Been Woke: Social Justice Discourse, Inequality, and the Rise of a New Elite. Don't worry: the book is not another culture war polemic. Instead, it's something much more useful: a work of social science that explains what “woke” means in terms of class and culture in the United States.In our conversation Musa describes the inner workings of a group that has gone by many different names: the PMC (Professional-Managerial Class), the New Class, the cognitive elite or the symbolic capitalists. This group enjoys higher wages and more autonomy than most workers, and its power is derived from knowledge-based work, which requires (at the very least) a college degree. Damir thinks that the PMC is merely hypocritical and self-interested, while Musa sees things differently. He argues that while this group has sincere interests in advancing social justice, they also have an interest in maintaining their own elite status. This contradiction is the source of so much of the insanity we see in American society today. Christine presses Musa for details about this insanity: to what extent is the symbolic capitalist class actually sabotaging positive social change, in order to preserve their privileges?Among the topics discussed is the nature of symbolic capital; whether self interest and political idealism are necessarily contradictory; how wokeness and anti-wokeness have similar incentives; violence and social change; and the economics of victimhood. This practical and illuminating episode will make you smarter about how America works. Required Reading:* We Have Never Been Woke: Social Justice Discourse, Inequality, and the Rise of a New Elite by Musa al-Gharbi (Princeton University Press). * Alex Press, “On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich” (Dissent).* Musa al-Gharbi, “Social Movement Requires Force” (Salon).* Musa al-Gharbi, “The Symbolic Professions Are Super WEIRD” (Substack).* Musa al-Gharbi, “The Absurd Spectacle at Columbia Occludes the Grim Realities of Gaza” (Compact).* “Georg Simmel” (Encyclopedia Britannica). * Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (Amazon).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

An emergency pod: “War, or something resembling war, is breaking out in the Middle East,” says Shadi Hamid. A year after the October 7 massacre, Israel has all but destroyed Hamas. Last month, it killed Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah, thus decapitating that terrorist organization. This week, it launched an invasion of southern Lebanon. In retaliation, Iran — the longtime backer of Hezbollah — has lobbed a barrage of ballistic missiles into Israel. We decided to release the podcast early this week, before it is overtaken by the swiftly-moving events. What is this war about? What should the US do about it? Does anyone in the US political class truly believe that the Arab world is capable of democracy? Were the Abraham Accords foolish — or racist? How do you define a “rogue state”? What is Netanyahu right about?Joining Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic to discuss these questions is Matt Duss, Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy, co-host of the Undiplomatic Podcast, and former foreign policy advisor for Senator Bernie Sanders. “A lot of [Arab Americans] are not going to pull the lever for Kamala Harris,” Shadi reports. Matt lambasts the “racist logic” of the Abraham Accords, which swept the Palestinian question aside and decided that “this is the best [America] can hope for, deals with modernizing autocrats.” Damir applies a realpolitik analysis, explaining the Israeli military strategy and arguing that American and European diplomats have no choice but to strike deals with the autocrats that rule the world. Shadi responds: “Realpolitik is supposed to be effective.”It's a passionate, intense discussion that strikes at the core preoccupations of Wisdom of Crowds: justice, war, and the state. Free for all subscribers: You will want to listen to the whole thing.Required Reading:* Shadi's responses to subscribers' provocations about the Middle East (WoC). * Bruno Maçães' article on the end of Western hypocrisy (Time).* Jeffrey Goldberg's 2016 article on “The Obama Doctrine” (The Atlantic). * James Baldwin on the Dick Cavett Show (YouTube). * The Abraham Accords (US State Department). Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

What is human dignity? Is it a real thing, or merely an idea? If it's real, then where does it come from? And why do only human beings have dignity? What about other intelligent beings? What about the octopus?These are only some of the many questions that Damir Marusic and Santiago Ramos talk about in a slow-burn, philosophical episode of Wisdom of Crowds. Because Santiago is executive editor of Wisdom of Crowds, Damir wants to learn more about his bedrock convictions. He cross-examines Santiago about his religion, politics, and formative experiences.At first, Damir finds in Santiago a kindred spirit: both are skeptical about power and about big political theories. But Santiago does have one fundamental conviction that he is not skeptical about: universal human dignity. Damir presses Santiago on this topic. What is human dignity? How do you know it exists? And do only human beings have dignity? What about other intelligent animals? What about … octopi?The ending is one of the richest parts of the conversation, so we made this episode is free for all subscribers. * Daniel Patrick Moynihan documentary (PBS).* Song about the guerrilla priest: Victor Jara, “Camilo Torres” (YouTube).* “Of New Things,” Pope Leo XIII (Vatican.va).* “On the Progress of Peoples,” Paul VI (Vatican.va).* Jacques Maritain and the UN Declaration of Human Rights (UNESCO).* The Cold War in Latin America (RetroReport).* Michael Novak obituary (New York Times). * Iraq War timeline (Council on Foreign Relations).* Thomas Aquinas on the human soul (Summa Theologiae, New Advent).* Valladolid debate on the rights of indigenous people (In Our Time, BBC).* Octopus intelligence (Natural History Museum).Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveHow does order emerge from anarchy? How do human beings create institutions? Can big problems — like climate change, income inequality, or AI alignment — find solutions “from below,” through collective action, rather than “from above,” i.e., imposed by regulatory bodies?Today's guest is a fascinating economist. Professor Paul Dragoș Aligică is a senior research fellow at the Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and a Professor of Governance at the University of Bucharest. Paul believes that we are living through the third great moment in human history, after the transition to agriculture and the industrial revolution. What will this third moment be about?Far too broad to pigeonhole, he's a visionary public choice theorist and a student of renowned economists Vincent and Elinor Ostrom (the latter won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2009). Paul has thought long and hard about the strange inflection point our world seems to be hurtling towards. It's a slow burn of an episode, one where interesting and complex ideas are laid out carefully, before Damir and Santiago engage Paul in sussing out their implications. Does Paul think that public choice theory means the world has hope? How do we fix the seemingly intractable problems posed by capitalism and globalization? Tune in to find out.Required Reading and Viewing:* Paul Dragoș Aligică's personal website.* Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (Amazon). * What is the Tragedy of the Commons? (Harvard Business School). * Elinor Ostrom on Ending the Tragedy of the Commons (Big Think on YouTube). * Santiago Ramos, “What Does McDonald's Mean?” (WoC).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

A very special episode this week, completely free for all listeners. The world-famous philosopher Charles Taylor joins Wisdom of Crowds editors Samuel Kimbriel and Santiago Ramos for a conversation about his new book, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment. Professor Taylor has spent a long and fruitful career trying to understand the basic questions of modern life. What does it mean to be a modern person? How do we form our sense of identity? How do we relate to the sacred? What does it mean to be secular? What happened to religion? In Cosmic Connections, he tells the story of how the Romantic poets of the nineteenth century sought to reconnect with nature through art, after the rise of modern science and the industrial revolution left many people wondering about man's place in the universe. Appropriately enough, Sam called in from a log cabin somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, and he enthusiastically supported Professor Taylor's thesis that a connection with nature is an essential component of a healthy society. The more city-bound Santiago took a more skeptical approach, at least at first. He questioned Professor Taylor's claim that a connection with nature entails a connection with a transcendent, spiritual reality. Along with these heady topics, the conversation touched upon Beethoven's symphonies, A.I. “friends,” and the idea of progress. Required Reading (and Listening):* Charles Taylor, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment (Amazon). * Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Amazon). * Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Amazon). * Damir Marusic, “Beauty and Niceness in an Accidental World” (WoC). * Romanticism (School of Life). * Henry David Thoreau (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).* Beethoven, Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement (YouTube). * Beethoven, Sixth Symphony “Pastoral” (YouTube). * “Wear This A.I. Friend Around Your Neck” (Wired). * Joni Mitchell (Official YouTube Page). * Leonard Cohen (Official YouTube Page). This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe Harris-Walz campaign is having a moment. It is polling well. Harris made a good speech at the Democratic National Convention. The Democratic Convention as a whole got better TV ratings than the Republican one. Harris's campaign is all about joy. Even Shadi's parents are feeling the vibes (and using the word, “vibes,” probably for the first time).But Shadi and Damir aren't feeling it. No joy. No vibes. No excitement about the current moment in American politics. What's going on is at best groupthink, at worst, the manufacturing of consent. Our podcast hosts are skeptical about the fact that the media made an abrupt 180-degree turn on Harris: someone who was once considered a political dud is now seen as “the second coming of Barack Obama.”But soon Shadi and Damir start interrogating their assumptions. Is it necessarily a bad thing that large numbers of people are feeling positive emotions? Could large trends and coalitions develop organically, through common affinity, rather than through the machinations of politicians and propagandists? Could a campaign based on good vibes actually be more efficient at creating a Democratic Party platform that appeals to the median American voter? Maybe the Harris-Walz campaign is forcing us, as Damir puts it, to “update our priors on what democratic politics is.”In the bonus concluding section for our paid subscribers, our hosts make a 180-degree turn of their own. They explore learning to love Harris and embracing the vibes. “No one is talking about threats of civil war anymore,” Shadi observes. This is a good thing. “People want to feel good about their country.” Maybe Harris is making that possible for millions of voters.Required Reading:* “Harris has upended years of Democratic dogma. That's good,” by Shadi Hamid (Washington Post).* “The Peculiar Moderation of Donald Trump,” by Shadi Hamid (Washington Post). * Full text of Kamala Harris' speech at the Democratic National Convention (PBS). * Our CrowdSource about “vibes” (WoC).* Noam Chomsky on “manufacturing consent” (YouTube). * Matt Yglesias on “popularism” (Slow Boring).* Matt Yglesias on the “unhinged moderation” of the Republicans (Slow Boring).Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveElon Musk just started tweeting about the Iliad. But our guest, Twitter's Audrey Horne, has been talking about Homer with Samuel Kimbriel and Damir Marusic for at least two weeks now — well before Elon turned his attention to these kinds of things. We figured this was an excuse to share some of the offline chatter with the Crowd. If Elon's interested in it, it has to be relevant, right?Christians and Greeks both agree that the world is cruel: one must not look away from the despair we all face. And yet the Greeks face it with “no consoling prospect of immortality,” as Simone Weil puts it. Leaving aside whether it's true, is the Christian approach better? This is a classic Wisdom of Crowds rambler: a free-wheeling conversation about faith, meaning, purpose and the very nature of reality. What better way to wrap up the dog days?Required Reading:* Twitter's Audrey Horne tweeting about butter (X).* “Talk to Me Nicely,” by Twitter's Audrey Horne (WoC).* “How to Think About Fallenness,” by Damir Marusic (WoC).* “Why Give a Damn,” by Samuel Kimbriel (WoC).* “What Are Children For?” with Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman (WoC).

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” goes the famous line from Joan Didion — but is it worth it? How do narratives help us make sense of our lives, and how might they be misleading? Advertisements these days are full of them, but can a company really have a story of its own? And could having “main character energy” actually indicate a fundamental philosophical problem?In this special live recording from the Lyceum Movement's Tallgrass Ideas Festival in Des Moines, Iowa, Sam was joined by Hannah Kim, philosopher at the University of Arizona and associate editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, to discuss why storytelling has become such a prominent part of our cultural conversation, the philosophy of stories and narratology, and dig into how “storification” can limit our ability to understand our own lives. Join the Crowd in getting the real story on stories themselves.Required Reading:* More about the Lyceum Movement.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe international drop in baby-making is currently in the headlines, and it's been constant preoccupation for us at Wisdom of Crowds (including in our latest edition of CrowdSource). It concerns us not only because of the possible long-term economic consequences but also because a people's inability — or lack of desire — to reproduce itself might be the consequence of serious moral or social problems.Enter philosophers Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman. Anastasia is a professor at University of California at Irvine, while Rachel is managing editor for The Point. Berg and Wiseman have written a book that asks the fundamental question right in the title: What Are Children For? Why should people reproduce? Should people desire to do so? And why has there been a drop in birth rates? What are the issues underneath the decline of fertility in the United States and around the so-called developed world?Damir presses Anastasia and Rachel on the question of false consciousness. Are the young people telling themselves stories or giving themselves excuses instead of just … making a choice? In response, Anastasia and Rachel say that they take a sympathetic approach. They analyze the objective factors that seem to hinder family formation — cost of living, inability to find a mate, fear of the future, etc. — and see whether they truly are insurmountable. As philosophers, their goal is to enhance the free choice of individuals. If what you choose “by inertia” (because it is the cultural default) is not what you would choose if you had thought about things more clearly, then you are not truly free. The conversation runs deep, but it is also extremely relatable for Wisdom of Crowds listeners who, on average, tend to be on the younger side. Stick around for a quasi-defense of Millennials, too. They're not immature; in fact, they might be too “old” for their age … Enjoy!Required Reading:* What are Children for? On Ambivalence and Choice by Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman (Amazon). * “On Choosing Life,” by Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman (The Point). * Rethinking Sex: A Provocation by Christine Emba (Amazon). * “The Real Reason People Aren't Having Kids,” by Christine Emba (The Atlantic). * “Wham! Choose Life” T-shirt (Amazon). Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

It's a dog days of summer special! This week, we are releasing a live interview from last April, that's more timely today than when it was first recorded. Dictators and their sychophants; democracy imperiled by foreign policy misadventures. Sound familiar?For almost a century, American intellectuals of different political stripes have been in thrall to dictators. They've either projected utopian ideals on to them, or been seduced by their charisma and alleged effectiveness. The story of left wing intellectuals falling for figures like Stalin or Castro has already been told. In a new book, America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators, Jacob Heilbrunn, author and editor of the National Interest, tells the story of the American political right and its dalliances with overseas despots. Joining Damir as co-host is friend of the pod Professor Jennifer Murtazashvili, head of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets, which graciously supports our work.As usual, Damir veers the discussion towards first principles. Are people more likely to be seduced by dictatorships when liberalism is perceived to be failing? Is liberalism perceived to be failing more often during wartime or peacetime? Just what is attractive about despotism? Should liberals accept that a certain amount of “ineffectiveness” is part and parcel of the liberal order? Tune in for a riveting discussion of these questions and more.Required Reading:* “Apologists without Remorse,” by Jacob Heilbrunn (American Prospect).* America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators by Jacob Heilbrunn.* “Trump's anti-Ukraine view dates to the 1930s. America rejected it then. Will we now?” by Robert Kagan.* U.S. Military Interventions since 1890 (Evergreen State College).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

That was fast. Just days after Joe Biden chose to remove himself from the presidential ticket, Kamala Harris is the unquestioned candidate of the Democratic Party. But was this a democratic process? Or was Biden bullied out of the ticket, and Harris shoehorned into it, without any attention paid to the peoples' wishes? And who are “the people,” anyway?Joining us to debate these questions is the author Freddie deBoer — one of the most influential and provocative leftist thinkers writing today. Freddie runs an extremely popular Substack. His latest book, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement, is about how progressive institutions betrayed their own ideals. In the elevation of Harris to the presidential ticket, deBoer sees the same betrayal at work.Damir and Shadi press Freddie on what democracy actually is, and how it would manifest itself within the workings of a modern political party. Were the contested electoral conventions of yore really less democratic that the process as it exists today? And what is the future of democracy within the Democratic Party?Due to the special circumstances of our crazy electoral season, we are making this episode free for all listeners. Make sure you listen to the very end, so you can find out who is Freddie's candidate for best Democrat president of his lifetime (it's not who you think). Required Reading* “I Do Not Need to Defend Myself for Believing That Political Candidates Should Be Chosen Democratically,” by Fredrik deBoer (Substack).* How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement by Fredrik deBoer (Simon & Schuster). * The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice by Fredrik deBoer (Macmillan).* “Kamala Harris and the End of Democratic Debate,” by Shadi Hamid (Substack).* “Planet of Cops,” by Fredrik deBoer (Substack). Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveGreetings, dear Listeners!We are releasing our podcast early this week. We figured that an episode about the unity of the American people would sound good right about now, given the circumstances. Damir's Tuesday Note — which will respond to a Provocation — will be published this coming Thursday. What holds the United States together? Three hundred million people of different races, religions, and histories, spread out over half a continent — do we have a system that truly represents all of them? Who is that “We” in “We the people” and “We hold these truths”? Yuval Levin's answer to these questions might seem quaint at first: The Constitution. A scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of the policy journal National Affairs, he has written several books about American politics and institutions. His latest is called American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified our Nation and and Could Again. In it, he makes a compelling argument that the Constitution is more than a list of laws, rights and limits to political power. It is a set of institutional structures that safeguard social peace. It is a text about how to live together.This is an ambitious reading of the Constitution, to say the least. And we had questions. Christine asks how the Constitution can be a unifying force when it has effectively become a tribal marker in our culture wars. Damir wants to know whether the need to reform the Constitution can be reconciled with Yuval's basically conservative impulse to preserve and revere it. This is a timely, serious conversation which takes a sober look at the most important tool we have to face this season of crisis. We urge you to give it a listen!Required Reading* American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation and Could Again by Yuval Levin (Hachette).* A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream by Yuval Levin (Hachette).* The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism by Yuval Levin (Hachette).This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets.Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

Welcome to summer, dear crowd! This week, we have a live episode for you — live from the Aspen Ideas Festival. Sam Kimbriel recorded this episode with Tamar Gendler, a Dean and Philosophy professor at Yale University, and Erin McFee, a Future Leaders Fellow at the Latin America and Caribbean Centre in the London School of Economics.The subject, very broadly, is forgiveness. Is it good or bad? Do we know what it means? Can one forgive wrongly? And could forgiving foreclose the possibility of achieving justice in this world? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe