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Spencer Critchley: What's a Liberal?Our guest is Spencer Critchley, a writer, political analyst, and author known for his insightful takes on American politics, who explores the question, "What's a Liberal?" If you enjoy this episode, please share it on social media, comment, and subscribe to our channel.In the episode, Critchley and host Bob Gatty discuss the alienation of Democrats and liberals, who Critchley argues have become overly rationalistic and out of touch with the emotional aspects that drive politics. Critchley shares his views on the failures of the Democratic Party, their disconnect with everyday voters, and how emotional rhetoric often trumps rational policy debate. They delve into root causes of American political polarization, drawing from Critchley's books 'Patriots of Two Nations' and his upcoming work 'The Liberal Backbone.' Critchley explains his unique approach to the new book, inviting public commentary on each chapter online and Substack. This episode explores why Trump's appeal persists, how Democrats can reconnect with voters, and the broader implications for American democracy.CHAPTERS:00:00 Introduction and Election Aftermath00:31 Guest Introduction: Spencer Critchley01:19 Democratic Party's Alienation Problem04:17 Emotional vs Rational Politics06:22 Marketing and Emotional Appeal in Politics08:53 Trump's Charismatic Leadership34:42 Counter-Enlightenment and American History38:52 The Liberal Backbone: Interactive Writing Process43:17 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsAbout Bob GattyThis video is presented by Bob Gatty, a former journalist and communications consultant, who is the founder and editor of the Lean to the Left blog and host of its podcast.Lean to the Left pulls no punches in going after Trump and his pals who are turning our country into their own personal piggybank.Please check out Bob's new book, Hijacked Nation: Donald Trump's Attack on America's Greatness, now available on Amazon.com. Barnes & Noble and other outlets. Paperback: $11; Hardcover: $24. Digital version: $3.99. Here's a direct link: https://amzn.to/4eK8ghZ.If you enjoy this commentary, please visit, subscribe and share the Lean to the Left podcast. Meanwhile, please share your stories and experiences by commenting on this video and offering your thoughts. Your voice matters!DISCLAIMER: Some links in this description are affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase through them, you won't pay any extra – in fact, you may even save with a discount! Using these links helps support this channel, allowing us to keep providing free content to help you on your journey. Thank you for your support.
Christopher's website:https://ozgard.netDr. Christopher McIntosh was born in England in 1943 and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and German at London University, later returning to Oxford to take a doctorate in history with a dissertation on the Rosicrucian revival in the context of the German Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. After working in London in journalism and publishing he spent four years in New York as an information officer with the United Nations Development Programme, then moved to Germany to work for UNESCO. In parallel he has pursued a career as a writer and researcher specialising in the esoteric traditions as well as nature-oriented belief systems. He has lectured widely and was on the faculty of the distance M.A. programme in Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter, England, now sadly discontinued. He is married to the scholar of religion Dr. Donate Pahnke-McIntosh. Their home is in Lower Saxony, North Germany. Contact via Facebook Messenger.❤support the podcast https://paypal.me/typicalskepticmediacashapp $kalil1121 venmo @robert-kalilor buy me a coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/typicalskeptic
Ken and Marck scale the Externsteine to discover the secret chapel, wonder at alchemical delights, and search for hidden Rosicrucian adepts of Germany. Our Reiseführer this week is returning guest, author, and adept of the highest standing Christopher McIntosh. This week: Is Germany the true cradle of the Western Esoteric Tradition, Is the Golden Dawn origin story a lie, Just how Rosicrucian is Germany, and much more. Joining me in Exernsteine Chapel this week is Marck Satyr Main theme by Simon Smerdon (Mothboy) Music bed by chriszabriskie.com Buy Occult Germany (affiliate links) https://amzn.to/3U4Tri5 (UK) https://amzn.to/3U1MFcE (US) Christopher McIntosh Bio: Dr. Christopher McIntosh was born in England in 1943 and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and German at London University, later returning to Oxford to take a doctorate in history with a dissertation on the Rosicrucian revival in the context of the German Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. After working in London in journalism and publishing he spent four years in New York as an information officer with the United Nations Development Programme, then moved to Germany to work for UNESCO. In parallel he has pursued a career as a writer and researcher specialising in the esoteric traditions as well as nature-oriented belief systems. He has lectured widely and was on the faculty of the distance M.A. programme in Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter, England, now sadly discontinued. He is married to the scholar of religion Dr. Donate Pahnke-McIntosh. Their home is in Lower Saxony, North Germany. Contact via Facebook Messenger. Source – https://ozgard.net/
Enhanced focus on intellect almost always leads to better. But it almost lever leads to wisdom. -- Book a Call Value Economics Academy Sam's Email Value Economics (Book) Value Economics Substack Sam's Facebook Sam's X Sam's Instagram Sam's LinkedIn Sam's TikTok --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/valueeconomics/support
Just because Academia suffers from internal decay and the death of its legitimacy, doesn't mean we ought abandon the tenants of it's development. C.B. Robertson returns as a guest to present an argument regarding the use of language and how it applies to reality. Accurately conveying ideas from one person to another must pass through the lens of individual subjectivity and it has consequences about what we know about reality. So we engage in the subject of subjectivity without the pretense of supremacy without the clause. C. B. Robertson's books and writing can be found at caffeineandphilosophy.comFollow him more in the day-to-day on Instagram at @caffeineandphilosophySupport the REDACTED Culture Cast at redactedculture.locals.comSSP and boutique products at redactedllc.comFollow us on Instagram at @redactedllc
Courtenay Turner invites Dr Stephen Hicks to discuss the enlightenment and counter-enlightenment roots of some of today's modern political debates. Dr. Hicks outlines the philosophical movements upon which classical liberalism is predicated. The discussion raises the question of what current attacks on classical liberalism could mean for individual liberty. Dr Stephen R. C. Hicks is a Professor of Philosophy at Rockford University, Illinois, USA, Executive Director of the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship, and Senior Scholar at The Atlas Society. ▶ Follow & Connect with Dr. Hicks: http://www.stephenhicks.org ✩Twitter: https://twitter.com/SRCHicks ------------------------------------- ▶ Follow & Connect with Courtenay: https://www.courtenayturner.com ✩Twitter: https://twitter.com/KineticCourtz ✩TruthSocial: https://truthsocial.com/@CourtenayTurner ✩Instagram: https://instagram.com/kineticcourtz ✩Telegram: https://t.me/courtenayturnerpodcastcommunity ✩Add Me To Your Crowd! @ https://crowdrank.news/stack/courtenayturner ▶ Read some of her articles: https://www.truthmatters.biz ▶ Listen to &/or watch the podcast here! https://linktr.ee/courtenayturner ▶ Support my work & Affiliate links: ✩Buy Me A Coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/courtzt ✩GiveSendGo: https://www.givesendgo.com/courtenayturnerpodcast ✩Venmo: https://account.venmo.com/u/Courtenay-Turner ✩Discover The Magic of MagicDichol: Free Video Series: https://iwantmyhealthback.com/COURTZ ✩LMNT: (Stay Salty!) http://drinklmnt.com/CourtenayTurner ✩ Richardson Nutritional Center: (B-17!) https://rncstore.com/courtz ✩ Relax Far Infrared Saunas: (Warm Up!) https://relaxsaunas.com/COURTZ Discount Code: COURTZ ✩The Wellness Company: https://www.twc.health/?ref=UY6YiLPqkwZzUX ✩Honey Colony "Where The Hive Decides What's Healthy": https://honeycolony.com/ Promo Code: COURTZ ✩Full Moon Parasite Protocol: https://bravetv.store/COURTZ Promo Code: COURTZ ✩Make Honey Great Again: https://www.makehoneygreatagain.com/ Promo Code: COURTZ ✩FOX N SONS Coffee: https://www.foxnsons.com Promo Code: CTP ✩Dr. Zelenko's Z-Stack: https://zstacklife.com/?ref=COURTENAYTURNER ✩Health Share: https://app.sharehealthcare.com/enroll? Referral code: courtz ————————————————— ▶ Disclaimer: this is intended to be inspiration & entertainment. We aim to inform, inspire & empower. Guest opinions/ statements are not a reflection of the host or podcast. Please note these are conversational dialogues. All statements and opinions are not necessarily meant to be taken as fact. Please do your own research. Thanks for watching! ————————————————— ©2024 All Rights Reserved Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
@ChrisWillx Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs (4K) https://youtu.be/WEP5ubPMGDU?si=F5ZPu08G62_Jzi71 @JordanBPeterson with @JonathanPageau The Perfect Mode of Being | Jonathan Pageau | EP 156 https://youtu.be/2rAqVmZwqZM?si=YT3wjaOsKNHGwPhl Paul Vander Klay clips channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX0jIcadtoxELSwehCh5QTg Bridges of Meaning Discord https://discord.gg/Jb3M8xnQ https://www.meetup.com/sacramento-estuary/ My Substack https://paulvanderklay.substack.com/ Estuary Hub Link https://www.estuaryhub.com/ If you want to schedule a one-on-one conversation check here. https://paulvanderklay.me/2019/08/06/converzations-with-pvk/ There is a video version of this podcast on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/paulvanderklay To listen to this on ITunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/paul-vanderklays-podcast/id1394314333 If you need the RSS feed for your podcast player https://paulvanderklay.podbean.com/feed/ All Amazon links here are part of the Amazon Affiliate Program. Amazon pays me a small commission at no additional cost to you if you buy through one of the product links here. This is is one (free to you) way to support my videos. https://paypal.me/paulvanderklay Blockchain backup on Lbry https://odysee.com/@paulvanderklay https://www.patreon.com/paulvanderklay Paul's Church Content at Living Stones Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh7bdktIALZ9Nq41oVCvW-A To support Paul's work by supporting his church give here. https://tithe.ly/give?c=2160640
How Matt first encountered Christopher Hitchens … Matt's new book, How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment … Why Matt thinks Cornel West's Vietnam-Afghanistan analogy is flawed … What's worth preserving in the left-liberal tradition? … Matt: Identity politics is a “toxin” … Was affirmative action ever necessary? […]
This week on The Knight Tube, Stephen Knight (@Gspellchecker) welcomes author Matt Johnson. They will be discussing Matt's new book ‘How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment'. Video Version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6a4Ccp9zhQ 0:00 Intro 0:29 Why focus on Christopher Hitchens to make the points in your book? 2:59 Why does ‘the left' need saving? 5:55 Leaving the left for the right and Dave Rubin. 09:36 What is meant by ‘the counter-enlightenment'? 11:30 Trump and the right's hypocrisy on free speech 14:10 Richard Seymour's terrible book on Christopher Hitchens (‘Unhitched') 18:36 How much did ‘The Rushdie Affair' impact the life of Christopher Hitchens? 22:04 Has freedom of speech improved where Islam is concerned since the death of Christopher Hitchens? 25:20 Would it help for people to simply admit they are scared to criticise Islam for safety reasons? 28:57 Stephen Knight's debate with Chris Hedges about Islam 30:28 What explains the Putin apologism from the American right? 33:34 Christopher Hitchens's support for the invasion of Iraq 40:12 What did Christopher Hitchens think about identity politics? 45:18 What is ‘fearless liberalism'? How can it be applied? 49:16 The legacy of Jeremy Corbyn 56:34 Disappointment with Hitchens's dislike of Sci-fi and preference for limericks over puns. 01:00:14 Sensationalist Youtube Thumbnails Stephen Knight's Substack: www.sknight.substack.com Buy Matt Johnson's Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchens-Save-Left-Rediscovering-Counter-Enlightenment/dp/1634312341 Support the podcast at http://www.patreon.com/gspellchecker Also available on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube & Spotify.
How Matt first encountered Christopher Hitchens ... Matt's new book, How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment ... Why Matt thinks Cornel West's Vietnam-Afghanistan analogy is flawed ... What's worth preserving in the left-liberal tradition? ... Matt: Identity politics is a “toxin” ... Was affirmative action ever necessary? ... Matt: I wish the left would rediscover Hitchens's universalism ... Hitchens's “fearless liberalism” ...
How Matt first encountered Christopher Hitchens ... Matt's new book, How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment ... Why Matt thinks Cornel West's Vietnam-Afghanistan analogy is flawed ... What's worth preserving in the left-liberal tradition? ... Matt: Identity politics is a “toxin” ... Was affirmative action ever necessary? ... Matt: I wish the left would rediscover Hitchens's universalism ... Hitchens's “fearless liberalism” ...
Sign up on Patreon or Substack now to hear every episode!BONUS CONTENTPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/MFTIC?fan_landing=trueRokfin: https://www.rokfin.com/myfamilythinksimcrazySubstack: https://myfamilythinksimcrazy.substack.com/Synchro-Wisdom Dialogue: https://linktr.ee/mysticmarkpodcastKo-fi: https://ko-fi.com/myfamilythinksimcrazyMerch: https://mftic-podcast.creator-spring.comHelp fund the show, I cannot do this without your support.Venmo: @MysticMarkPaypal: @mysticmarkBTC: 3MQBrF1sGKm17icjQZCxuW7Z3R19jLzTZbBuy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/MFTICWithout you this Podcast would not exist.Dr. Christopher McIntosh, Author and Researcher, joins me to discuss his delve into the esoteric world of the north, we discuss all things Hyperborea, how the ancient stone structures, runes, oral traditions, customs, and cultures commonality among northern peoples reveals another explanation for the habitation of Europe. We discuss the Norse, Icelandic and Russian perspectives and how Hyperborea real or not is alive in the imaginations of the Modern Russian people. We look at how Iceland preserved elements of so called heathen culture that were lost in mainland Europe and how ultimately none were safe from Christianization aside from a scant few, and now with scientism casting its assumptive glare over the last frontiers we must ask ourselves could their be a lost northern cradle of civilization now frozen in time? Dr. McIntosh also indulges my questions about some of his other work dealing with King Ludwig II, The Rosicrucians, and Freemasonic Ritual Gardens. Tune in and follow up with Dr. McIntosh at his website: https://ozgard.net/ Dr. Christopher McIntosh was born in England in 1943 and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and German at London University, later returning to Oxford to take a doctorate in history with a dissertation on the Rosicrucian revival in the context of the German Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment.Audioread: https://audioread.com/?via=MFTICReplace this Episode's Artwork email me at mfticpodcast@gmail.comShare This Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/22bf11bdThis Podcast is Sponsored by the Hit Kit! check out the Hit Kit Here https://hitkit.us/New Booklet by Mystic MarkS.E.E.E.N. #3 A.S.C.E.T.I.C. In Strange New Havenhttps://ko-fi.com/s/0f1e2ff76fMFTIC MerchJoin us on TelegramLeave me a message On Telegram!For Exclusive My Family Thinks I'm Crazy Content: Only 5$ get 150+ Bonus Episodes, Sign up on our Patreon For Exclusive Episodes. Check out the S.E.E.E.N.or on Rokfin@MFTICPodcast on Twitter@myfamilythinksimcrazy on Instagram, Follow, Subscribe, Rate, and Review we appreciate you!https://www.myfamilythinksimcrazy.comhttps://altmediaunited.com/my-family-thinks-im-crazy/Listen to Every AMU Podcast with this link. https://lnns.co/pI5xHeyFdfgGET A NEW PODCASTING APP! https://podcastindex.org/appsMUSICAL CREDITSIntro Song by Destiny LabMusic: Cold Case/New LandsBy Wicked CinemaOutroMusic: The ExplorerBy Tide ElectricMusic: My Family Thinks I'm CrazyBy HoliznaRapsReleased under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License Thanks To Soundstripe and FMA CC4.0 ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Stephen Hicks is a professor of philosophy at Rockford University, U.S. and the author of several books, including the best-seller Explaining Postmodernism, which details the philosophical roots of today's cultural climate. Mr. Hicks highlights Immanuel Kant's role in undermining objectivity and reason, showing how his ideas remain the corner stone of Post Modernism and "Fine Art" to this day. Giving an overview of Kant's aesthetics, metaphysics and epistemology, the conversation further explains how this cocktail necessarily cripples classically minded people: If we cannot know reality then the act of painting it becomes naive. If nothing is objective then we cannot trust the rules of any craft and if nothing is universal then we become estranged from the mythic perspective. You can listen to Hicks' lecture How Art Became Ugly or check out his appearances on various podcasts including his own Open College Podcast. His official YouTube-channel is CEE Channel (Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship).
In this podcast, Kushal speaks with Matt Johnson about his book "How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment". Follow them: Twitter: @mattjj89 Book: https://tinyurl.com/yckn4k8e #christopherhitchens #hitchslaps #wokeism ------------------------------------------------------------ Listen to the podcasts on: SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kushal-mehra-99891819 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1rVcDV3upgVurMVW1wwoBp Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-c%C4%81rv%C4%81ka-podcast/id1445348369 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-carvaka-podcast ------------------------------------------------------------ Support The Cārvāka Podcast: Become a Member on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKPxuul6zSLAfKSsm123Vww/join Become a Member on Fanmo: https://fanmo.in/the_carvaka_podcast Become a Member on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/carvaka UPI: kushalmehra@icici To buy The Carvaka Podcast Exclusive Merch please visit: http://kushalmehra.com/shop ------------------------------------------------------------ Follow Kushal: Twitter: https://twitter.com/kushal_mehra?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KushalMehraOfficial/? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecarvakapodcast/?hl=en Koo: https://www.kooapp.com/profile/kushal_mehra Inquiries: https://kushalmehra.com/ Feedback: kushalmehra81@gmail.com
This week welcomes Matt Johnson to the podcast. We discuss his book How Hitchens Can Save The Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in the Age of Counter-Enlightenment, the noise and nonsense of the political left and right today, the universal values and writing style of Christopher Hitchens, and the importance of knowing friends from foes in context, and much more on MOI! Thanks, Matt!
In this week's episode, we are delighted to be joined by special guest and author, Matt Johnson. We discuss his debut book, "How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment". This deep dive into Hitchens' work unearths the nuances of his exploration into fearless liberalism. Join us as we discuss the enduring impact of Hitchens on contemporary liberal thought and how his intellectual courage can rejuvenate the left in today's age of counter-enlightenment. Whether you're a long-time admirer of Hitchens or new to his work, this episode promises to engage and challenge, offering fresh perspectives on the role of liberalism in our society.
We are back for an interview with the author and independent writer Matt Johnson discussing the New Atheist hero and legendary debater, Christopher Hitchens. The other Matt recently published a book called "How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment" and kindly agreed to come on and waffle with us about Hitchens and where he fits in comparison to the modern gurus. We cover a range of topics including whether Hitchens would have been in the IDW, if he was an extremophile, how far did he rely on rhetoric over substance and to what extent different labels apply to him. Matt Johnson offers a surprisingly nuanced take and provides us with lots of interesting tidbits regarding Hitchens. This can also be listened to as Part 1 of our Hitchens coverage, as we have a full decoding of a debate of his coming shortly.And what if you are not into Hitchens? Well, there are still some goodies for you! In this episode, we also cover: Guru magnetism & depressing crossovers, Sam Harris' recent appearance with Maajid Nawaz, Scandinavian geopolitics, Chris' review of the Super Mario Bros Movie, and whether we are actually in the pocket of Big Harris! So join us one and all! And don't forget to subscribe to Sam Harris' meditation app using the code 'GurusPodSentMe'.LinksMatt Johnson (2023) How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-EnlightenmentMatt Johnson's Article at the Bulwark: What Christopher Hitchens Can Teach Us About LiberalismMaajid Nawaz & Sam Harris Reunite for the First Time Since Covid to Debate the Politics of Covid-MandatesMatt Johnson's articles at Quillette primarily about coverage of the Ukraine conflict
Christopher Hitchens was for many years considered one of the fiercest and most eloquent left-wing polemicists in the world. But on much of today's left, he's remembered as a defector, a warmonger, and a sellout—a supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who traded his left-wing principles for neoconservatism after the September 11 attacks. In How Hitchens Can Save the Left, Matt Johnson argues that this easy narrative gets Hitchens exactly wrong. Hitchens was a lifelong champion of free inquiry, humanism, and universal liberal values. He was an internationalist who believed all people should have the liberty to speak and write openly, to be free of authoritarian domination, and to escape the arbitrary constraints of tribe, faith, and nation. He was a figure of the Enlightenment and a man of the left until the very end, and his example has never been more important. Shermer and Johnson discuss: Hitchens on free expression, identity politics, radicalism, interventionism, authoritarianism, patriotism, internationalism, America and Liberalism, reparations, religion, and death • identity politics • hostility to free speech • why Hitch did not become a neoconservative, warmonger, or imperialist • Enlightenment Liberalism • Trump and the division of the right • Hitchens on the precursors to Trump • Putin and Russian nationalism. Matt Johnson writes for Haaretz, Quillette, American Purpose, South China Morning Post, The Bulwark, Areo, Arc Digital, RealClearDefense, The Kansas City Star, and many other publications. His new book is How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment.
The bizarre and previously fringe philosophy that is postmodernism has become mainstream among US academics as the principal Counter-Enlightenment school of thought. It is the philosophical underpinning of the woke ideology that has infected the American left. But while postmodernism can be effective in pointing out the past transgressions of Western Civilization, it has little to offer for the future. Most progressive activists of woke ideology would like to keep that future vague. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, investigates why progressives don't want people to know what a woke future based on postmodernism would be like.
In the eighth episode of The Baptizing Philosophy Podcast, Trey and Daniel discuss a series of thinkers and ideas in modernity that have been largely overlooked. The central ideas uniting every "modern counter-enlightenment" thinker are the limits of A=A logic and the necessity of sublating it.
Am 29. Mai 2018 hielt Prof. Peter E. Gordon (Harvard University) an der LMU München den Vortrag "The Utopia of Reason Shines the Brightest in the Dark: The Frankfurt School and the 'Dark Writers of the Bourgeoisie'" im Rahmen des von Dr. Philipp Lenhard organisierten Workshops "Dunkle Denker: Jewish Readings of the Counter-Enlightenment". Gordon zeigt dabei anhand der Dialektik der Aufklärung und anderen Schriften der Frankfurter Schule auf, wie sich dort die dunklen Motive der Aufklärung mit dem Begriff der Erlösung und der Utopie durchdringen.
Ben's website: https://benburgis.com/ Follow Ben on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BenBurgis Buy ‘Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters' by Ben Burgis: https://redemmas.org/titles/36536-christopher-hitchens--what-he-got-right--how-he-went-wrong--and-why-he-still-matters Follow Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattjj89 Daniel's LinkTree (contains links to his website, Substack, and more): https://linktr.ee/DanielJamesSharp Follow Daniel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DJtotheS Daniel's article ‘Naming the Unnameable: Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and the Defence of Free Speech' in Areo Magazine: https://areomagazine.com/2021/05/17/naming-the-unnameable-salman-rushdie-christopher-hitchens-and-the-defence-of-free-speech/ References Christopher Hitchens bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens_bibliography Channel 4 News report on Hitchens's death, December 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4yvPSZN5ZQ Hitchens's Vanity Fair essay on J.G. Ballard and sci-fi, ‘The Catastrophist', 2010: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/the-catastrophist/307820/ The Brothers Hitchens debate God and Iraq, 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjQs_QjSwc The New Philosophers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Philosophers Hitchens's Vanity Fair essay on ‘Why Women Aren't Funny', 2007: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701 Timestamps 1:07 Introductions 4:34 Daniel reads from his Areo article ‘Naming the Unnameable: Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and the Defence of Free Speech'. 10:29 Matt reads from his forthcoming book ‘How Hitchens Can Save The Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment'. 13:34 Ben reads from his forthcoming book ‘Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters'. 18:40 Ben discusses why he was attracted to Hitchens in the first place and why he decided to write a book about him: rehabilitation of what Ben believes to be Hitchens' best parts. 28:15 Matt answers the same question. Hitchens as a “first principles thinker”. 34:02 Daniel answers the same question. His seduction by Hitchens and subsequent maturation as an admirer. Some of Hitchens's flaws from Daniel's point of view. 39:29 A discussion of Hitchens the literary critic and how his literary views relate to his political and moral views. Iona's disappointment in Hitchens's dismissal of the sci-fi genre. 44:49 Ben talks about how Hitchens was and remains a figure who needs to be written about and argued with and the reason for writing a book about him: the story of someone who goes badly wrong is more interesting than someone who was right. 46:49 Matt on the irreconcilability of and tensions within some of Hitchens's positions. 43:04 Daniel asks Ben and Matt their views on what Hitchens got right and what he got wrong/how he went wrong and an ensuing discussion on Hitchens's politics, especially on Afghanistan, Iraq, and interventionism (and a comparison of Peter Hitchens's views on the same). 1:05:57 Matt discusses Hitchens on the New Philosophers and the evolution of liberal interventionism. 1:09:14 Iona discusses the feasibility of communism some of Hitchens's foundational (and consistent) values: universalism, liberalism, humanism, anti-authoritarianism, and the defence of free speech (and freedom in general). Hitchens's “trollish” side: uncowed by political correctness or consensus. 1:14:14 Daniel talks about Hitchens on the civil war within Islam. An ensuing discussion on the relevance of this today: arguments over the hijab and the concept of ‘Islamophobia'. Ben compares the misuse of ‘Islamophobia' with the misuse of ‘anti-Semitism'. Hitchens and Israel/Palestine. Plus: Ben discusses his upcoming book defending the radical left economic view in response to Iona's points above. and more.
Pundits on both the left and right proclaim our democracy is in crisis. This can be characterized by an eroding of civil institutions or politicians completely ignoring democratic norms by doing whatever is necessary to seek power and asking “where are the nuclear launch codes?” However, these challenges may not be so new. And the fault lines in our society may be centuries old and stem back to the beginning of the Enlightenment, when scholars asked fundamental questions of how we know what is and isn't true, and how do we order our society along those principles. Different intellectuals had different solutions, so you have the American Revolution on one hand, and the French Revolution on the other. But today's guest, Seth David Radwell a researcher of the Enlightenment and A business leader with a master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, argues that our political divisions are not “unprecedented.” In his book, American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation, Radwell , proposes a new dialogue between thoughtful and concerned Americans from both red and blue states who make up the exhausted majority—a dialogue informed by our country's history.Increasingly disturbed by the contentious state of politics, social unrest, and the apparent disappearance of “truth,” Radwell set out to examine his own long-held assumptions about American democracy and ideals. Through a deep dive into foundational documents and the influence of the European Enlightenment, he discovered today's raging conflicts have their roots in the fundamentally different visions of America that emerged at our nation's founding. In American Schism, Radwell looks at our country's history and ongoing political tensions through the lens of the Radical Enlightenment versus the Moderate Enlightenment, and their dynamic interplay with Counter-Enlightenment movements over the last few centuries. He offers a new vision for America with practical action steps for repairing our rift and healing our wounds.
We're talking about Books That Make You Realize There Are Two Americas – And What We Can Do To (Possibly) Bring Them Together We skirt around politics, since it informs so much of the literature we read. The goal of our show is to bring people together, not to divide them. There is enough of that happening now. But then along comes a book, and an author, who aligns with our vision of doing what we can to heal our nation, rather than further separate and fragment it. Seth David Radwell is the author of American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation. Our democracy is in crisis, he says, and analyzes our history and present ongoing tensions through the lens of the Radical Enlightenment versus the Moderate Enlightenment, and the way they interact with Counter-Enlightenment attitudes that have festered over the last few hundred years. Despite the dire pronouncements from various pundits, Seth knows from his research that our political divisions are hardly unprecedented…nor are they irreconcilable. Find out more on Books That Make You. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist who's written a number of pop science classics: The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, and more. In 2011, he waded into the culture (if not political) debates with Better Angels of our Nature, a text whose basic premise – that the world has been getting more peaceful for millennia, and that the advent of a powerful state can be credited here – has shaped this podcast's political thinking. Although an excellent writer at his best, in 2014, he published a book about writing well – The Sense of Style – which was loaded with haphazard advice, and then 2018's more explicitly political Enlightenment Now, a mixed bag that has the overall correct argument (the world gets better over time) but lots of overstatement, understatement, and poor framing of a number of issues. It also suffers from its straitjacket reliance on the Great Enlightenment as a thematic/unifying writerly tool, since Steven Pinker only superficially touches upon the movement, and ends the book with a bizarre attack on Friedrich Nietzsche as a Counter-Enlightenment anti-humanist. In this video, we assess Steven Pinker's claims and offer up some of our own. For example: if GDP is a sloppy way to measure human development, what does GPI say? Should we prefer one criminal cartel over another? Why HAS institutional trust eroded, anyway? And many other questions, as well. You can also watch this episode on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/1oSwpfcxmbM Read the latest writing from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com Joel's website: https://poeticimport.com Read Alex's (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com Read Alex's essay on Steven Pinker's “The Sense of Style”: https://alexsheremet.com/review-of-steven-pinkers-the-sense-of-style-the-thinking-persons-guide-to-writing-in-the-21st-century/ Music sample: Lowkemia - "Lorem Ipsum" (CC BY-SA 3.0) Timestamps: 0:00 – Steven Pinker's Language Instinct, Better Angels of our Nature, Blank Slate, Sense of Style; where Enlightenment Now fits into his oeuvre 16:15 – What does it mean when billionaires like Bill Gates want to blurb your book? 27:46 – How Steven Pinker misuses his two opening epigraphs 40:08 – Steven Pinker primes the reader early on for the book's least plausible arguments 53:00 – Does Steven Pinker downplay the Enlightenment's skepticism of reason? 01:06:08 – Yes, we're more rational than ever, but what are today's witches and werewolves? 01:10:50 – “Misfortune may be no one's fault”: does Steven Pinker boost the status quo? 01:17:06 – Is it true that “justice” has killed more people than “greed”? How can we even know? 01:24:40 – Why has institutional trust eroded? Is Steven Pinker's answer satisfying? 01:36:51 – De-framing + re-framing Enlightenment Now while still accepting its core claims 01:49:48 – Have we reached “peak stuff”? 02:10:05 – Study: GDP vs. GPI to measure human progress & wealth 02:16:04 – Alex goes OFF on the childish capitalism/communism debate & Western hypocrisy 02:37:45 – What Steven Pinker gets wrong about Korea and Taiwan 02:48:50 – Income inequality, colonialism, & post-colonialism: the Steven Pinker, Bill Gates, Jason Hickel, Branko Milanovic debate 03:53:06 – How Steven Pinker depends on Friedrich Nietzsche's arguments, then misreads him 04:28:25 – Enlightenment Now is (mostly) correct about existential threats 04:35:12 – Steven Pinker offers remarkably thin political analysis
This the long-awaited continuation of Law of Liberty, David sits down with Porter, co-host of the Insurrection Inc. podcast, to have a long conversation about the Enlightenment, the Counter-Enlightenment, and related schools of thought. You can find Porter on Twitter @mindyourexcuses, and listen to Insurrection Inc. @insurrectionpod. Follow Law of Liberty @lawoflibertypod, @hofffunk, and @strattyd. Join our Discord - https://discord.gg/VMcjZxw
This is an excerpt from my interview with Spencer Critchely about his new book, "Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next" (McDavid Media, 2020).Very interestingly, he analyses the United States as being divided between those that are part of the "Enlightenment" and those that are part of the "Counter-Enlightment". In other words, there are those who believe America is an idea, founded on liberal ideals which include rational progress, and those who see America as a nation of the American people, with a peculiar history, traditions, and customs, not all necessary rational, but which tie "blood and soil" over time.Join us for a fascinating discussion. Catch the full interview here at https://newbooksnetwork.com/spencer-critchley-patriots-of-two-nations-why-trump-was-inevitable-and-what-happens-next-mcdavid-media-2020or onMegaphone here: https://megaphone.link/LIT8971283474
America is in a Cold Civil War, between people who see each other as threats to the country — but themselves as patriots. How can that be? They are patriots of two nations. In Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next (McDavid Media), national media commentator and presidential campaigns veteran Spencer Critchley shows why our current hyper-partisan division has been inevitable since the founding of the United States, as has the election of Donald Trump or someone like him. That's because America is actually two nations occupying the same territory. The two nations have different worldviews: cultures, values, and ways of understanding reality itself. One nation — the dominant one — is descended from the Enlightenment, and the establishment of reason as the ultimate source of authority. But the other is nation is descended from the Counter-Enlightenment, and it has never stopped believing in the primacy of faith, tradition, culture, ties to the land, and ethnic identity. Because the Enlightenment worldview is so dominant, the Counter-Enlightenment largely has been forgotten by history. But as Critchley reveals, in many ways it's more active now than ever — and the failure of many of us to understand it is a crucial source of our division. Uniting the two nations will require that they finally do see and understand their different realities. This book shows how we might still be able to make that happen — and why we must, if democracy is to survive. Spencer Critchley is a writer, producer, and communications consultant with experience in journalism, film, digital media, public relations, advertising, and music. He is the Managing Partner of communications consulting agency Boots Road Group. Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
America is in a Cold Civil War, between people who see each other as threats to the country — but themselves as patriots. How can that be? They are patriots of two nations. In Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next (McDavid Media), national media commentator and presidential campaigns veteran Spencer Critchley shows why our current hyper-partisan division has been inevitable since the founding of the United States, as has the election of Donald Trump or someone like him. That's because America is actually two nations occupying the same territory. The two nations have different worldviews: cultures, values, and ways of understanding reality itself. One nation — the dominant one — is descended from the Enlightenment, and the establishment of reason as the ultimate source of authority. But the other is nation is descended from the Counter-Enlightenment, and it has never stopped believing in the primacy of faith, tradition, culture, ties to the land, and ethnic identity. Because the Enlightenment worldview is so dominant, the Counter-Enlightenment largely has been forgotten by history. But as Critchley reveals, in many ways it's more active now than ever — and the failure of many of us to understand it is a crucial source of our division. Uniting the two nations will require that they finally do see and understand their different realities. This book shows how we might still be able to make that happen — and why we must, if democracy is to survive. Spencer Critchley is a writer, producer, and communications consultant with experience in journalism, film, digital media, public relations, advertising, and music. He is the Managing Partner of communications consulting agency Boots Road Group. Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
America is in a Cold Civil War, between people who see each other as threats to the country — but themselves as patriots. How can that be? They are patriots of two nations. In Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next (McDavid Media), national media commentator and presidential campaigns veteran Spencer Critchley shows why our current hyper-partisan division has been inevitable since the founding of the United States, as has the election of Donald Trump or someone like him. That's because America is actually two nations occupying the same territory. The two nations have different worldviews: cultures, values, and ways of understanding reality itself. One nation — the dominant one — is descended from the Enlightenment, and the establishment of reason as the ultimate source of authority. But the other is nation is descended from the Counter-Enlightenment, and it has never stopped believing in the primacy of faith, tradition, culture, ties to the land, and ethnic identity. Because the Enlightenment worldview is so dominant, the Counter-Enlightenment largely has been forgotten by history. But as Critchley reveals, in many ways it's more active now than ever — and the failure of many of us to understand it is a crucial source of our division. Uniting the two nations will require that they finally do see and understand their different realities. This book shows how we might still be able to make that happen — and why we must, if democracy is to survive. Spencer Critchley is a writer, producer, and communications consultant with experience in journalism, film, digital media, public relations, advertising, and music. He is the Managing Partner of communications consulting agency Boots Road Group. Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
America is in a Cold Civil War, between people who see each other as threats to the country — but themselves as patriots. How can that be? They are patriots of two nations. In Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next (McDavid Media), national media commentator and presidential campaigns veteran Spencer Critchley shows why our current hyper-partisan division has been inevitable since the founding of the United States, as has the election of Donald Trump or someone like him. That's because America is actually two nations occupying the same territory. The two nations have different worldviews: cultures, values, and ways of understanding reality itself. One nation — the dominant one — is descended from the Enlightenment, and the establishment of reason as the ultimate source of authority. But the other is nation is descended from the Counter-Enlightenment, and it has never stopped believing in the primacy of faith, tradition, culture, ties to the land, and ethnic identity. Because the Enlightenment worldview is so dominant, the Counter-Enlightenment largely has been forgotten by history. But as Critchley reveals, in many ways it's more active now than ever — and the failure of many of us to understand it is a crucial source of our division. Uniting the two nations will require that they finally do see and understand their different realities. This book shows how we might still be able to make that happen — and why we must, if democracy is to survive. Spencer Critchley is a writer, producer, and communications consultant with experience in journalism, film, digital media, public relations, advertising, and music. He is the Managing Partner of communications consulting agency Boots Road Group. Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
America is in a Cold Civil War, between people who see each other as threats to the country — but themselves as patriots. How can that be? They are patriots of two nations. In Patriots of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next (McDavid Media), national media commentator and presidential campaigns veteran Spencer Critchley shows why our current hyper-partisan division has been inevitable since the founding of the United States, as has the election of Donald Trump or someone like him. That's because America is actually two nations occupying the same territory. The two nations have different worldviews: cultures, values, and ways of understanding reality itself. One nation — the dominant one — is descended from the Enlightenment, and the establishment of reason as the ultimate source of authority. But the other is nation is descended from the Counter-Enlightenment, and it has never stopped believing in the primacy of faith, tradition, culture, ties to the land, and ethnic identity. Because the Enlightenment worldview is so dominant, the Counter-Enlightenment largely has been forgotten by history. But as Critchley reveals, in many ways it's more active now than ever — and the failure of many of us to understand it is a crucial source of our division. Uniting the two nations will require that they finally do see and understand their different realities. This book shows how we might still be able to make that happen — and why we must, if democracy is to survive. Spencer Critchley is a writer, producer, and communications consultant with experience in journalism, film, digital media, public relations, advertising, and music. He is the Managing Partner of communications consulting agency Boots Road Group. Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Writer/Producer Spencer Critchley talked about his book "Patriots Of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next," his theory that people fall into one of two camps, either Enlightenment or Counter Enlightenment, and how the theory applies to Trump through loyalty, abortion, masks, and more...
Writer/Producer Spencer Critchley talked about his book "Patriots Of Two Nations: Why Trump Was Inevitable and What Happens Next," his theory that people fall into one of two camps, either Enlightenment or Counter Enlightenment, and how the theory applies to Trump through loyalty, abortion, masks, and more...
In dieser Folge hören Sie einen Vortrag von Prof. Martin Jay von der University of California, Berkeley, den er 2018 im Rahmen eines von Dr. Philipp Lenhard organisierten Workshops zu jüdischen Lesarten der Gegenaufklärung gehalten hat. In diesem geht Jay der Frage nach, wie es kam, dass die Frankfurter Schule um Theodor Adorno im Denken rechter und rechtsradikaler Ideologen zu einem Grundübel des Werteverfalls in den USA erklärt wurde. Er macht auf die Zentralität dieser antisemitischen Denkfigur aufmerksam, die sich nicht nur bei ausgesprochenen Rassisten in der Altright findet, sondern heute tatsächlich bis in die obersten Ebenen der amerikanischen Administration vorgedrungen ist. Damit beleuchtet er einen wichtigen Aspekt zum Verständnis aktueller US-amerikanischer Debatten und dem Erstarken des Rechtspopulismus weltweit. Informationen zum Workshop „Dunkle Denker: Jewish Readings of the Counter-Enlightenment”: https://www.jgk.geschichte.uni-muenchen.de/jgk_neuzeit/vortraege-tagungen1/tagung1/index.html
In this episode, we talk to Michael Gibson, General Partner of 1517 Fund, a venture capital firm that invests in the earliest stages of a startup. Previously, he ran the Thiel Fellowship where he oversaw the selection of the world’s youngest and brightest minds. Listen as he shares his thoughts on finding the lost Elons, what the alpha-gamma quality is, why he’s thinking of the Counter-Enlightenment now, and the importance of inspiring future generations.
What is truly at stake in politics? Nothing less than how we should live, as individuals and as communities. This book goes beyond the surface headlines, the fake news and the hysteria to explore the timeless questions posed and answers offered by a diverse group of the 30 greatest political thinkers who have ever lived. Notably, they blur boundaries of ancient and modern, Western, Chinese and Islamic thought, religious and seculary thinkers to provide a much wider survey than normally is the case in such overviews. Are we political, economic, or religious animals? Should we live in small city-states, nations, or multinational empires? What values should politics promote? Should wealth be owned privately or in common? Do animals also have rights? There is no idea too radical for this global assortment of thinkers, which includes: Confucius; Plato; Augustine; Maimonides; Machiavelli; Burke; Wollstonecraft; Marx; Nietzsche; Gandhi; Qutb; Arendt; Mao; Nussbaum, Naess and Rawls. In How to Think Politically: Sages, Scholars and Statesmen Whose Ideas Have Shaped the World (Bloomsbury, 2019), the authors paint a vivid portrait of these often prescient, always compelling political thinkers, showing how their ideas grew out of their own dramatic lives and times and evolved beyond them. Now more than ever we need to be reminded that politics can be a noble, inspiring and civilising art, concerned with both power and justice. And if we want to understand today's political world, we need to understand the foundations of politics and its architects. This is the perfect guide to both. James Bernard Murphy is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA where he has taught since 1990. His newest book is titled Your Whole Life: Childhood and Adulthood in Dialogue (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). Graeme Garrard has taught political thought at Cardiff University, UK since 1995 and at the Harvard Summer School, USA since 2006. He has lectured at colleges and universities in Canada, the United States, Britain and France for 25 years. He is the author of two books: Rousseau’s Counter-Enlightenment (2000) and CounterEnlightenments: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (2006). Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What is truly at stake in politics? Nothing less than how we should live, as individuals and as communities. This book goes beyond the surface headlines, the fake news and the hysteria to explore the timeless questions posed and answers offered by a diverse group of the 30 greatest political thinkers who have ever lived. Notably, they blur boundaries of ancient and modern, Western, Chinese and Islamic thought, religious and seculary thinkers to provide a much wider survey than normally is the case in such overviews. Are we political, economic, or religious animals? Should we live in small city-states, nations, or multinational empires? What values should politics promote? Should wealth be owned privately or in common? Do animals also have rights? There is no idea too radical for this global assortment of thinkers, which includes: Confucius; Plato; Augustine; Maimonides; Machiavelli; Burke; Wollstonecraft; Marx; Nietzsche; Gandhi; Qutb; Arendt; Mao; Nussbaum, Naess and Rawls. In How to Think Politically: Sages, Scholars and Statesmen Whose Ideas Have Shaped the World (Bloomsbury, 2019), the authors paint a vivid portrait of these often prescient, always compelling political thinkers, showing how their ideas grew out of their own dramatic lives and times and evolved beyond them. Now more than ever we need to be reminded that politics can be a noble, inspiring and civilising art, concerned with both power and justice. And if we want to understand today's political world, we need to understand the foundations of politics and its architects. This is the perfect guide to both. James Bernard Murphy is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA where he has taught since 1990. His newest book is titled Your Whole Life: Childhood and Adulthood in Dialogue (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). Graeme Garrard has taught political thought at Cardiff University, UK since 1995 and at the Harvard Summer School, USA since 2006. He has lectured at colleges and universities in Canada, the United States, Britain and France for 25 years. He is the author of two books: Rousseau’s Counter-Enlightenment (2000) and CounterEnlightenments: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (2006). Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What is truly at stake in politics? Nothing less than how we should live, as individuals and as communities. This book goes beyond the surface headlines, the fake news and the hysteria to explore the timeless questions posed and answers offered by a diverse group of the 30 greatest political thinkers who have ever lived. Notably, they blur boundaries of ancient and modern, Western, Chinese and Islamic thought, religious and seculary thinkers to provide a much wider survey than normally is the case in such overviews. Are we political, economic, or religious animals? Should we live in small city-states, nations, or multinational empires? What values should politics promote? Should wealth be owned privately or in common? Do animals also have rights? There is no idea too radical for this global assortment of thinkers, which includes: Confucius; Plato; Augustine; Maimonides; Machiavelli; Burke; Wollstonecraft; Marx; Nietzsche; Gandhi; Qutb; Arendt; Mao; Nussbaum, Naess and Rawls. In How to Think Politically: Sages, Scholars and Statesmen Whose Ideas Have Shaped the World (Bloomsbury, 2019), the authors paint a vivid portrait of these often prescient, always compelling political thinkers, showing how their ideas grew out of their own dramatic lives and times and evolved beyond them. Now more than ever we need to be reminded that politics can be a noble, inspiring and civilising art, concerned with both power and justice. And if we want to understand today's political world, we need to understand the foundations of politics and its architects. This is the perfect guide to both. James Bernard Murphy is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA where he has taught since 1990. His newest book is titled Your Whole Life: Childhood and Adulthood in Dialogue (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). Graeme Garrard has taught political thought at Cardiff University, UK since 1995 and at the Harvard Summer School, USA since 2006. He has lectured at colleges and universities in Canada, the United States, Britain and France for 25 years. He is the author of two books: Rousseau’s Counter-Enlightenment (2000) and CounterEnlightenments: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (2006). Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What is truly at stake in politics? Nothing less than how we should live, as individuals and as communities. This book goes beyond the surface headlines, the fake news and the hysteria to explore the timeless questions posed and answers offered by a diverse group of the 30 greatest political thinkers who have ever lived. Notably, they blur boundaries of ancient and modern, Western, Chinese and Islamic thought, religious and seculary thinkers to provide a much wider survey than normally is the case in such overviews. Are we political, economic, or religious animals? Should we live in small city-states, nations, or multinational empires? What values should politics promote? Should wealth be owned privately or in common? Do animals also have rights? There is no idea too radical for this global assortment of thinkers, which includes: Confucius; Plato; Augustine; Maimonides; Machiavelli; Burke; Wollstonecraft; Marx; Nietzsche; Gandhi; Qutb; Arendt; Mao; Nussbaum, Naess and Rawls. In How to Think Politically: Sages, Scholars and Statesmen Whose Ideas Have Shaped the World (Bloomsbury, 2019), the authors paint a vivid portrait of these often prescient, always compelling political thinkers, showing how their ideas grew out of their own dramatic lives and times and evolved beyond them. Now more than ever we need to be reminded that politics can be a noble, inspiring and civilising art, concerned with both power and justice. And if we want to understand today's political world, we need to understand the foundations of politics and its architects. This is the perfect guide to both. James Bernard Murphy is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA where he has taught since 1990. His newest book is titled Your Whole Life: Childhood and Adulthood in Dialogue (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). Graeme Garrard has taught political thought at Cardiff University, UK since 1995 and at the Harvard Summer School, USA since 2006. He has lectured at colleges and universities in Canada, the United States, Britain and France for 25 years. He is the author of two books: Rousseau’s Counter-Enlightenment (2000) and CounterEnlightenments: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (2006). Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Rob Tracinski talks with Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, about the legacy of the Enlightenment. The conversation includes: exactly how good the state of the world is, "thick" versus "thin" philosophy, the Counter-Enlightenment backlash, Ayn Rand, the welfare state, and why it's ironic that everyone is so eager to watch "Game of Thrones." For more commentary and analysis, visit The Tracinski Letter at www.TracinskiLetter.com. Support us at patreon.com/SalonoftheRefused.
Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist and is the author of several books including Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progresspublished by Viking Press earlier this year. Editors at Quillette contacted Professor Pinker for a Q&A: what follows is a transcript of our Q&A, conducted via email. On Psychology Quillette: What are some of the classic experiments in psychology that you think an educated person should know about? Steven Pinker: Where to begin? I’d cite studies of illusions and biases, to remind people of the fallibility of our perceptual and cognitive faculties. These would include experiments on visual attention by the late Anne Treisman and others showing that people are unaware of visual material they don’t attend to, together with any experiment on memory showing how un-photographic our recollections are (for example, Elizabeth Loftus’s studies on the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, or even the low-tech study in which people are asked to draw a penny, an object they have seen thousands of times). Let’s add Slovic, Tversky, and Kahneman’s demonstrations of illusions in reasoning about … The post Steven Pinker: Counter-Enlightenment Convictions are ‘Surprisingly Resilient’ appeared first on Quillette.
A review of Enlightenment Now, by Steven Pinker. Viking (February 2018) 576 pages. Every so often, something will unite individuals in outrage who disagree furiously about virtually everything else. For the moment, that something is Canadian psychologist Steven Pinker’s latest book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. At the New York Times, conservative columnist Ross Douthat decried what he called Pinker’s “smug secular certainties,” and in the London Evening Standard, Melanie McDonagh declared that his “Whiggish case” ignored the “fruits of belief in [God]” and the “old problem of existential angst.” Meanwhile, in the left-leaning New Statesman, surly pessimist John Gray showered extravagant contempt over Pinker’s “evangelism of science” and “ideology of scientism,” and at ABC, Peter Harrison took exception to his “teleological view of history” and “misplaced faith in data, metrics and statistical analysis.” It is worth noticing that Pinker’s most trenchant critics are eager to flaunt their aversion to the very values Pinker sets out to defend – reason, science, humanism, and progress – and that their critiques display the traits and tics of exactly the kind of … The post Steven Pinker’s Counter-Counter-Enlightenment appeared first on Quillette.
Vincent Debierre interviews Graeme Garrard, a Reader in Politics at Cardiff University. Mixage par Arnaud Demion.
When I was an undergraduate, I took a class called “The Enlightenment” in which we read all the thinkers of, well, “The Enlightenment.” I came to understand that they were the “good guys” of Western history, at least for most folks. We also read, as a kind of coda, a bit about the “Counter-Enlightenment,” of which you may never have heard. The writers of the Counter-Enlightenment were, I learned, the “bad guys” of Western history, for they (apparently) didn’t like reason, truth, progress and all that. First among the black-hats was Joseph de Maistre. He believed the French Revolution was “satanic,” as were the ideas behind it. Or so I thought until I read Carolina Armenteros‘ excellent book The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794-1854 (Cornell University Press, 2011). Turns out de Maistre was a good deal more subtle and thoughtful than the “received view” of him suggests, and Carolina does a marvelous job of making plain how and why. In this interview, Carolina explains not only the complexity of his thought, but also that he wasn’t really French, let alone a black-hat wearing reactionary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When I was an undergraduate, I took a class called “The Enlightenment” in which we read all the thinkers of, well, “The Enlightenment.” I came to understand that they were the “good guys” of Western history, at least for most folks. We also read, as a kind of coda, a bit about the “Counter-Enlightenment,” of which you may never have heard. The writers of the Counter-Enlightenment were, I learned, the “bad guys” of Western history, for they (apparently) didn’t like reason, truth, progress and all that. First among the black-hats was Joseph de Maistre. He believed the French Revolution was “satanic,” as were the ideas behind it. Or so I thought until I read Carolina Armenteros‘ excellent book The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794-1854 (Cornell University Press, 2011). Turns out de Maistre was a good deal more subtle and thoughtful than the “received view” of him suggests, and Carolina does a marvelous job of making plain how and why. In this interview, Carolina explains not only the complexity of his thought, but also that he wasn’t really French, let alone a black-hat wearing reactionary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When I was an undergraduate, I took a class called “The Enlightenment” in which we read all the thinkers of, well, “The Enlightenment.” I came to understand that they were the “good guys” of Western history, at least for most folks. We also read, as a kind of coda, a bit about the “Counter-Enlightenment,” of which you may never have heard. The writers of the Counter-Enlightenment were, I learned, the “bad guys” of Western history, for they (apparently) didn’t like reason, truth, progress and all that. First among the black-hats was Joseph de Maistre. He believed the French Revolution was “satanic,” as were the ideas behind it. Or so I thought until I read Carolina Armenteros‘ excellent book The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794-1854 (Cornell University Press, 2011). Turns out de Maistre was a good deal more subtle and thoughtful than the “received view” of him suggests, and Carolina does a marvelous job of making plain how and why. In this interview, Carolina explains not only the complexity of his thought, but also that he wasn’t really French, let alone a black-hat wearing reactionary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When I was an undergraduate, I took a class called “The Enlightenment” in which we read all the thinkers of, well, “The Enlightenment.” I came to understand that they were the “good guys” of Western history, at least for most folks. We also read, as a kind of coda, a bit about the “Counter-Enlightenment,” of which you may never have heard. The writers of the Counter-Enlightenment were, I learned, the “bad guys” of Western history, for they (apparently) didn’t like reason, truth, progress and all that. First among the black-hats was Joseph de Maistre. He believed the French Revolution was “satanic,” as were the ideas behind it. Or so I thought until I read Carolina Armenteros‘ excellent book The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794-1854 (Cornell University Press, 2011). Turns out de Maistre was a good deal more subtle and thoughtful than the “received view” of him suggests, and Carolina does a marvelous job of making plain how and why. In this interview, Carolina explains not only the complexity of his thought, but also that he wasn’t really French, let alone a black-hat wearing reactionary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When I was an undergraduate, I took a class called “The Enlightenment” in which we read all the thinkers of, well, “The Enlightenment.” I came to understand that they were the “good guys” of Western history, at least for most folks. We also read, as a kind of coda, a bit about the “Counter-Enlightenment,” of which you may never have heard. The writers of the Counter-Enlightenment were, I learned, the “bad guys” of Western history, for they (apparently) didn’t like reason, truth, progress and all that. First among the black-hats was Joseph de Maistre. He believed the French Revolution was “satanic,” as were the ideas behind it. Or so I thought until I read Carolina Armenteros‘ excellent book The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and his Heirs, 1794-1854 (Cornell University Press, 2011). Turns out de Maistre was a good deal more subtle and thoughtful than the “received view” of him suggests, and Carolina does a marvelous job of making plain how and why. In this interview, Carolina explains not only the complexity of his thought, but also that he wasn’t really French, let alone a black-hat wearing reactionary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices