Podcast appearances and mentions of David Rieff

It's a small world. The great David Rieff came to my San Francisco studio today for in person interview about his new anti-woke polemic Desire and Fate. And half way through our conversation, he brought up Daniel Bessner's This Is America piece which Bessner discussed on yesterday's show. I'm not sure what that tells us about wokeness, a subject which Rieff and I aren't in agreement. For him, it's the thing-in-itself which make sense of our current cultural malaise. Thus Desire and Fate, his attempt (with a great intro from John Banville) to wake us up from Wokeness. For me, it's a distraction. I've included the full transcript below. Lots of good stuff to chew on. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS * Rieff views "woke" ideology as primarily American and post-Protestant in nature, rather than stemming solely from French philosophy, emphasizing its connections to self-invention and subjective identity.* He argues that woke culture threatens high culture but not capitalism, noting that corporations have readily embraced a "baudlerized" version of identity politics that avoids class discussions.* Rieff sees woke culture as connected to the wellness movement, with both sharing a preoccupation with "psychic safety" and the metaphorical transformation of experience in which "words” become a form of “violence."* He suggests young people's material insecurity contributes to their focus on identity, as those facing bleak economic prospects turn inward when they "can't make their way in the world."* Rieff characterizes woke ideology as "apocalyptic but not pessimistic," contrasting it with his own genuine pessimism which he considers more realistic about human nature and more cheerful in its acceptance of life's limitations. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, as we digest Trump 2.0, we don't talk that much these days about woke and woke ideology. There was a civil war amongst progressives, I think, on the woke front in 2023 and 2024, but with Donald Trump 2.0 and his various escapades, let's just talk these days about woke. We have a new book, however, on the threat of woke by my guest, David Rieff. It's called Desire and Fate. He wrote it in 2023, came out in late 2024. David's visiting the Bay Area. He's an itinerant man traveling from the East Coast to Latin America and Europe. David, welcome to Keen on America. Do you regret writing this book given what's happened in the last few months in the United States?David Rieff: No, not at all, because I think that the road to moral and intellectual hell is trying to censor yourself according to what you think is useful. There's a famous story of Jean Paul Sartre that he said to the stupefaction of a journalist late in his life that he'd always known about the gulag, and the journalist pretty surprised said, well, why didn't you say anything? And Sartre said so as not to demoralize the French working class. And my own view is, you know, you say what you have to say about this and if I give some aid and comfort to people I don't like, well, so be it. Having said that, I also think a lot of these woke ideas have their, for all of Trump's and Trump's people's fierce opposition to woke, some of the identity politics, particularly around Jewish identity seems to me not that very different from woke. Strangely they seem to have taken, for example, there's a lot of the talk about anti-semitism on college campuses involves student safety which is a great woke trope that you feel unsafe and what people mean by that is not literally they're going to get shot or beaten up, they mean that they feel psychically unsafe. It's part of the kind of metaphorization of experience that unfortunately the United States is now completely in the grips of. But the same thing on the other side, people like Barry Weiss, for example, at the Free Press there, they talk in the same language of psychic safety. So I'm not sure there's, I think there are more similarities than either side is comfortable with.Andrew Keen: You describe Woke, David, as a cultural revolution and you associated in the beginning of the book with something called Lumpen-Rousseauism. As we joked before we went live, I'm not sure if there's anything in Rousseau which isn't Lumpen. But what exactly is this cultural revolution? And can we blame it on bad French philosophy or Swiss French?David Rieff: Well, Swiss-French philosophy, you know exactly. There is a funny anecdote, as I'm sure you know, that Rousseau made a visit to Edinburgh to see Hume and there's something in Hume's diaries where he talks about Rousseau pacing up and down in front of the fire and suddenly exclaiming, but David Hume is not a bad man. And Hume notes in his acerbic way, Rousseau was like walking around without his skin on. And I think some of the woke sensitivity stuff is very much people walking around without their skin on. They can't stand the idea of being offended. I don't see it as much - of course, the influence of that version of cultural relativism that the French like Deleuze and Guattari and other people put forward is part of the story, but I actually see it as much more of a post-Protestant thing. This idea, in that sense, some kind of strange combination of maybe some French philosophy, but also of the wellness movement, of this notion that health, including psychic health, was the ultimate good in a secular society. And then the other part, which again, it seems to be more American than French, which is this idea, and this is particularly true in the trans movement, that you can be anything you want to be. And so that if you feel yourself to be a different gender, well, that's who you are. And what matters is your own subjective sense of these things, and it's up to you. The outside world has no say in it, it's what you feel. And that in a sense, what I mean by post-Protestant is that, I mean, what's the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism? The fundamental difference is, it seems to me, that in Roman Catholic tradition, you need the priest to intercede with God, whereas in Protestant tradition, it is, except for the Anglicans, but for most of Protestantism, it's you and God. And in that sense it seems to me there are more of what I see in woke than this notion that some of the right-wing people like Chris Rufo and others have that this is cultural French cultural Marxism making its insidious way through the institutions.Andrew Keen: It's interesting you talk about the Protestant ethic and you mentioned Hume's remark about Rousseau not having his skin on. Do you think that Protestantism enabled people to grow thick skins?David Rieff: I mean, the Calvinist idea certainly did. In fact, there were all these ideas in Protestant culture, at least that's the classical interpretation of deferred gratification. Capitalism was supposed to be the work ethic, all of that stuff that Weber talks about. But I think it got in the modern version. It became something else. It stopped being about those forms of disciplines and started to be about self-invention. And in a sense, there's something very American about that because after all you know it's the Great Gatsby. It's what's the famous sentence of F. Scott Fitzgerald's: there are no second acts in American lives.Andrew Keen: This is the most incorrect thing anyone's ever said about America. I'm not sure if he meant it to be incorrect, did he? I don't know.David Rieff: I think what's true is that you get the American idea, you get to reinvent yourself. And this notion of the dream, the dream become reality. And many years ago when I was spending a lot of time in LA in the late 80s, early 90s, at LAX, there was a sign from the then mayor, Tom Bradley, about how, you know, if you can dream it, it can be true. And I think there's a lot in identitarian woke idea which is that we can - we're not constricted by history or reality. In fact, it's all the present and the future. And so to me again, woke seems to me much more recognizable as something American and by extension post-Protestant in the sense that you see the places where woke is most powerful are in the other, what the encampment kids would call settler colonies, Australia and Canada. And now in the UK of course, where it seems to me by DI or EDI as they call it over there is in many ways stronger in Britain even than it was in the US before Trump.Andrew Keen: Does it really matter though, David? I mean, that's my question. Does it matter? I mean it might matter if you have the good or the bad fortune to teach at a small, expensive liberal arts college. It might matter with some of your dinner parties in Tribeca or here in San Francisco, but for most people, who cares?David Rieff: It doesn't matter. I think it matters to culture and so what you think culture is worth, because a lot of the point of this book was to say there's nothing about woke that threatens capitalism, that threatens the neo-liberal order. I mean it's turning out that Donald Trump is a great deal bigger threat to the neoliberal order. Woke was to the contrary - woke is about talking about everything but class. And so a kind of baudlerized, de-radicalized version of woke became perfectly fine with corporate America. That's why this wonderful old line hard lefty Adolph Reed Jr. says somewhere that woke is about diversifying the ruling class. But I do think it's a threat to high culture because it's about equity. It's about representation. And so elite culture, which I have no shame in proclaiming my loyalty to, can't survive the woke onslaught. And it hasn't, in my view. If you look at just the kinds of books that are being written, the kinds of plays that are been put on, even the opera, the new operas that are being commissioned, they're all about representing the marginalized. They're about speaking for your group, whatever that group is, and doing away with various forms of cultural hierarchy. And I'm with Schoenberg: if it's for everybody, if it's art, Schoenberg said it's not for everybody, and if it's for everybody it's not art. And I think woke destroys that. Woke can live with schlock. I'm sorry, high culture can live with schlock, it always has, it always will. What it can't live with is kitsch. And by which I mean kitsch in Milan Kundera's definition, which is to have opinions that you feel better about yourself for holding. And that I think is inimical to culture. And I think woke is very destructive of those traditions. I mean, in the most obvious sense, it's destructive of the Western tradition, but you know, the high arts in places like Japan or Bengal, I don't think it's any more sympathetic to those things than it is to Shakespeare or John Donne or whatever. So yeah, I think it's a danger in that sense. Is it a danger to the peace of the world? No, of course not.Andrew Keen: Even in cultural terms, as you explain, it is an orthodoxy. If you want to work with the dominant cultural institutions, the newspapers, the universities, the publishing houses, you have to play by those rules, but the great artists, poets, filmmakers, musicians have never done that, so all it provides, I mean you brought up Kundera, all it provides is something that independent artists, creative people will sneer at, will make fun of, as you have in this new book.David Rieff: Well, I hope they'll make fun of it. But on the other hand, I'm an old guy who has the means to sneer. I don't have to please an editor. Someone will publish my books one way or another, whatever ones I have left to write. But if you're 25 years old, maybe you're going to sneer with your pals in the pub, but you're gonna have to toe the line if you want to be published in whatever the obvious mainstream place is and you're going to be attacked on social media. I think a lot of people who are very, young people who are skeptical of this are just so afraid of being attacked by their peers on various social media that they keep quiet. I don't know that it's true that, I'd sort of push back on that. I think non-conformists will out. I hope it's true. But I wonder, I mean, these traditions, once they die, they're very hard to rebuild. And, without going full T.S. Eliot on you, once you don't think you're part of the past, once the idea is that basically, pretty much anything that came before our modern contemporary sense of morality and fairness and right opinion is to be rejected and that, for example, the moral character of the artist should determine whether or not the art should be paid attention to - I don't know how you come back from that or if you come back from that. I'm not convinced you do. No, other arts will be around. And I mean, if I were writing a critical review of my own book, I'd say, look, this culture, this high culture that you, David Rieff, are writing an elegy for, eulogizing or memorializing was going to die anyway, and we're at the beginning of another Gutenbergian epoch, just as Gutenberg, we're sort of 20 years into Marshall McLuhan's Gutenberg galaxy, and these other art forms will come, and they won't be like anything else. And that may be true.Andrew Keen: True, it may be true. In a sense then, to extend that critique, are you going full T.S. Eliot in this book?David Rieff: Yeah, I think Eliot was right. But it's not just Eliot, there are people who would be for the wokesters more acceptable like Mandelstam, for example, who said you're part of a conversation that's been going on long before you were born, that's going to be going on after you are, and I think that's what art is. I think the idea that we make some completely new thing is a childish fantasy. I think you belong to a tradition. There are periods - look, this is, I don't find much writing in English in prose fiction very interesting. I have to say I read the books that people talk about because I'm trying to understand what's going on but it doesn't interest me very much, but again, there have been periods of great mediocrity. Think of a period in the late 17th century in England when probably the best poet was this completely, rightly, justifiably forgotten figure, Colley Cibber. You had the great restoration period and then it all collapsed, so maybe it'll be that way. And also, as I say, maybe it's just as with the print revolution, that this new culture of social media will produce completely different forms. I mean, everything is mortal, not just us, but cultures and civilizations and all the rest of it. So I can imagine that, but this is the time I live in and the tradition I come from and I'm sorry it's gone, and I think what's replacing it is for the most part worse.Andrew Keen: You're critical in the book of what you, I'm quoting here, you talk about going from the grand inquisitor to the grand therapist. But you're very critical of the broader American therapeutic culture of acute sensitivity, the thin skin nature of, I guess, the Rousseau in this, whatever, it's lumpen Rousseauanism. So how do you interpret that without psychologizing, or are you psychologizing in the book? How are you making sense of our condition? In other words, can one critique criticize therapeutic culture without becoming oneself therapeutic?David Rieff: You mean the sort of Pogo line, we've met the enemy and it is us. Well, I suppose there's some truth to that. I don't know how much. I think that woke is in some important sense a subset of the wellness movement. And the wellness movement after all has tens and tens of millions of people who are in one sense or another influenced by it. And I think health, including psychic health, and we've moved from wellness as corporal health to wellness as being both soma and psyche. So, I mean, if that's psychologizing, I certainly think it's drawing the parallel or seeing woke in some ways as one of the children of the god of wellness. And that to me, I don't know how therapeutic that is. I think it's just that once you feel, I'm interested in what people feel. I'm not necessarily so interested in, I mean, I've got lots of opinions, but what I think I'm better at than having opinions is trying to understand why people think what they think. And I do think that once health becomes the ultimate good in a secular society and once death becomes the absolutely unacceptable other, and once you have the idea that there's no real distinction of any great validity between psychic and physical wellness, well then of course sensitivity to everything becomes almost an inevitable reaction.Andrew Keen: I was reading the book and I've been thinking about a lot of movements in America which are trying to bring people together, dealing with America, this divided America, as if it's a marriage in crisis. So some of the most effective or interesting, I think, thinkers on this, like Arlie Hochschild in Berkeley, use the language of therapy to bring or to try to bring America back together, even groups like the Braver Angels. Can therapy have any value or that therapeutic culture in a place like America where people are so bitterly divided, so hateful towards one another?David Rieff: Well, it's always been a country where, on the one hand, people have been, as you say, incredibly good at hatred and also a country of people who often construe themselves as misfits and heretics from the Puritans forward. And on the other hand, you have that small-town American idea, which sometimes I think is as important to woke and DI as as anything else which is that famous saying of small town America of all those years ago which was if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all. And to some extent that is, I think, a very powerful ancestor of these movements. Whether they're making any headway - of course I hope they are, but Hochschild is a very interesting figure, but I don't, it seems to me it's going all the other way, that people are increasingly only talking to each other.Andrew Keen: What this movement seems to want to do is get beyond - I use this word carefully, I'm not sure if they use it but I'm going to use it - ideology and that we're all prisoners of ideology. Is woke ideology or is it a kind of post-ideology?David Rieff: Well, it's a redemptive idea, a restorative idea. It's an idea that in that sense, there's a notion that it's time for the victims, for the first to be last and the last to be first. I mean, on some level, it is as simple as that. On another level, as I say, I do think it has a lot to do with metaphorization of experience, that people say silence is violence and words are violence and at that point what's violence? I mean there is a kind of level to me where people have gotten trapped in the kind of web of their own metaphors and now are living by them or living shackled to them or whatever image you're hoping for. But I don't know what it means to get beyond ideology. What, all men will be brothers, as in the Beethoven-Schiller symphony? I mean, it doesn't seem like that's the way things are going.Andrew Keen: Is the problem then, and I'm thinking out loud here, is the problem politics or not enough politics?David Rieff: Oh, I think the problem is that now we don't know, we've decided that everything is part, the personal is the political, as the feminists said, 50, 60 years ago. So the personal's political, so the political is the personal. So you have to live the exemplary moral life, or at least the life that doesn't offend anybody or that conforms to whatever the dominant views of what good opinions are, right opinions are. I think what we're in right now is much more the realm of kind of a new set of moral codes, much more than ideology in the kind of discrete sense of politics.Andrew Keen: Now let's come back to this idea of being thin-skinned. Why are people so thin-skinned?David Rieff: Because, I mean, there are lots of things to say about that. One thing, of course, that might be worth saying, is that the young generations, people who are between, let's say, 15 and 30, they're in real material trouble. It's gonna be very hard for them to own a house. It's hard for them to be independent and unless the baby boomers like myself will just transfer every penny to them, which doesn't seem very likely frankly, they're going to live considerably worse than generations before. So if you can't make your way in the world then maybe you make your way yourself or you work on yourself in that sort of therapeutic sense. You worry about your own identity because the only place you have in the world in some way is yourself, is that work, that obsession. I do think some of these material questions are important. There's a guy you may know who's not at all woke, a guy who teaches at the University of Washington called Danny Bessner. And I just did a show with him this morning. He's a smart guy and we have a kind of ironic correspondence over email and DM. And I once said to him, why are you so bitter about everything? And he said, you want to know why? Because I have two children and the likelihood is I'll never get a teaching job that won't require a three hour commute in order for me to live anywhere that I can afford to live. And I thought, and he couldn't be further from woke, he's a kind of Jacobin guy, Jacobin Magazine guy, and if he's left at all, it's kind of old left, but I think a lot of people feel that, that they feel their practical future, it looks pretty grim.Andrew Keen: But David, coming back to the idea of art, they're all suited to the world of art. They don't have to buy a big house and live in the suburbs. They can become poets. They can become filmmakers. They can put their stuff up on YouTube. They can record their music online. There are so many possibilities.David Rieff: It's hard to monetize that. Maybe now you're beginning to sound like the people you don't like. Now you're getting to sound like a capitalist.Andrew Keen: So what? Well, I don't care if I sound like a capitalist. You're not going to starve to death.David Rieff: Well, you might not like, I mean, it's fine to be a barista at 24. It's not so fine at 44. And are these people going to ever get out of this thing? I don't know. I wonder. Look, when I was starting as a writer, as long as you were incredibly diligent, and worked really hard, you could cobble together at least a basic living by accepting every assignment and people paid you bits and bobs of money, but put together, you could make a living. Now, the only way to make money, unless you're lucky enough to be on staff of a few remaining media outlets that remain, is you have to become an impresario, you have become an entrepreneur of your own stuff. And again, sure, do lots of people manage that? Yeah, but not as many as could have worked in that other system, and look at the fate of most newspapers, all folding. Look at the universities. We can talk about woke and how woke destroyed, in my view anyway, a lot of the humanities. But there's also a level in which people didn't want to study these things. So we're looking at the last generation in a lot places of a lot of these humanities departments and not just the ones that are associated with, I don't know, white supremacy or the white male past or whatever, but just the humanities full stop. So I know if that sounds like, maybe it sounds like a capitalist, but maybe it also sounds like you know there was a time when the poets - you know very well, poets never made a living, poets taught in universities. That's the way American poets made their money, including pretty famous poets like Eric Wolcott or Joseph Brodsky or writers, Toni Morrison taught at Princeton all those years, Joyce Carol Oates still alive, she still does. Most of these people couldn't make a living of their work and so the university provided that living.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Barry Weiss earlier. She's making a fortune as an anti-woke journalist. And Free Press seems to be thriving. Yascha Mounk's Persuasion is doing pretty well. Andrew Sullivan, another good example, making a fortune off of Substack. It seems as if the people willing to take risks, Barry Weiss leaving the New York Times, Andrew Sullivan leaving everything he's ever joined - that's...David Rieff: Look, are there going to be people who thrive in this new environment? Sure. And Barry Weiss turns out to be this kind of genius entrepreneur. She deserves full credit for that. Although even Barry Weiss, the paradox for me of Barry Weiss is, a lot of her early activism was saying that she felt unsafe with these anti-Israeli teachers at Columbia. So in a sense, she was using some of the same language as the woke use, psychic safety, because she didn't mean Joseph Massad was gonna come out from the blackboard and shoot her in the eye. She meant that she was offended and used the language of safety to describe that. And so in that sense, again, as I was saying to you earlier, I think there are more similarities here. And Trump, I think this is a genuine counterrevolution that Trump is trying to mount. I'm not very interested in the fascism, non-fascism debate. I'm rather skeptical of it.Andrew Keen: As Danny Bessner is. Yeah, I thought Danny's piece about that was brilliant.David Rieff: We just did a show about it today, that piece about why that's all rubbish. I was tempted, I wrote to a friend that guy you may know David Bell teaches French history -Andrew Keen: He's coming on the show next week. Well, you see, it's just a little community of like-minded people.David Rieff: There you go. Well, I wrote to David.Andrew Keen: And you mentioned his father in the book, Daniel.David Rieff: Yeah, well, his father is sort of one of the tutelary idols of the book. I had his father and I read his father and I learned an enormous amount. I think that book about the cultural contradictions of capitalism is one of the great prescient books about our times. But I wrote to David, I said, I actually sent him the Bessner piece which he was quite ambivalent about. But I said well, I'm not really convinced by the fascism of Trump, maybe just because Hitler read books, unlike Donald Trump. But it's a genuine counterrevolution. And what element will change the landscape in terms of DI and woke and identitarianism is not clear. These people are incredibly ambitious. They really mean to change this country, transform it.Andrew Keen: But from the book, David, Trump's attempts to cleanse, if that's the right word, the university, I would have thought you'd have rather admired that, all these-David Rieff: I agree with some of it.Andrew Keen: All these idiots writing the same article for 30 years about something that no one has any interest in.David Rieff: I look, my problem with Trump is that I do support a lot of that. I think some of the stuff that Christopher Rufo, one of the leading ideologues of this administration has uncovered about university programs and all of this crap, I think it's great that they're not paying for it anymore. The trouble is - you asked me before, is it that important? Is culture important compared to destroying the NATO alliance, blowing up the global trade regime? No. I don't think. So yeah, I like a lot of what they're doing about the university, I don't like, and I am very fiercely opposed to this crackdown on speech. That seems to be grotesque and revolting, but are they canceling supporting transgender theater in Galway? Yeah, I think it's great that they're canceling all that stuff. And so I'm not, that's my problem with Trump, is that some of that stuff I'm quite unashamedly happy about, but it's not nearly worth all the damage he's doing to this country and the world.Andrew Keen: Being very generous with your time, David. Finally, in the book you describe woke as, and I thought this was a very sharp way of describing it, describe it as being apocalyptic but not pessimistic. What did you mean by that? And then what is the opposite of woke? Would it be not apocalyptic, but cheerful?David Rieff: Well, I think genuine pessimists are cheerful, I would put myself among those. The model is Samuel Beckett, who just thinks things are so horrible that why not be cheerful about them, and even express one's pessimism in a relatively cheerful way. You remember the famous story that Thomas McCarthy used to tell about walking in the Luxembourg Gardens with Beckett and McCarthy says to him, great day, it's such a beautiful day, Sam. Beckett says, yeah, beautiful day. McCarthy says, makes you glad to be alive. And Beckett said, oh, I wouldn't go that far. And so, the genuine pessimist is quite cheerful. But coming back to woke, it's apocalyptic in the sense that everything is always at stake. But somehow it's also got this reformist idea that cultural revolution will cleanse away the sins of the supremacist patriarchal past and we'll head for the sunny uplands. I think I'm much too much of a pessimist to think that's possible in any regime, let alone this rather primitive cultural revolution called woke.Andrew Keen: But what would the opposite be?David Rieff: The opposite would be probably some sense that the best we're going to do is make our peace with the trash nature of existence, that life is finite in contrast with the wellness people who probably have a tendency towards the apocalyptic because death is an insult to them. So everything is staving off the bad news and that's where you get this idea that you can, like a lot of revolutions, you can change the nature of people. Look, the communist, Che Guevara talked about the new man. Well, I wonder if he thought it was so new when he was in Bolivia. I think these are - people need utopias, this is one of them, MAGA is another utopia by the way, and people don't seem to be able to do without them and that's - I wish it were otherwise but it isn't.Andrew Keen: I'm guessing the woke people would be offended by the idea of death, are they?David Rieff: Well, I think the woke people, in this synchronicity, people and a lot of people, they're insulted - how can this happen to me, wonderful me? And this is those jokes in the old days when the British could still be savage before they had to have, you know, Henry the Fifth be played by a black actor - why me? Well, why not you? That's just so alien to and it's probably alien to the American idea. You're supposed to - it's supposed to work out and the truth is it doesn't work out. But La Rochefoucauld says somewhere no one can stare for too long at death or the sun and maybe I'm asking too much.Andrew Keen: Maybe only Americans can find death unacceptable to use one of your words.David Rieff: Yes, perhaps.Andrew Keen: Well, David Rieff, congratulations on the new book. Fascinating, troubling, controversial as always. Desire and Fate. I know you're writing a book about Oppenheimer, very different kind of subject. We'll get you back on the show to talk Oppenheimer, where I guess there's not going to be a lot of Lumpen-Rousseauism.David Rieff: Very little, very little love and Rousseau in the quantum mechanics world, but thanks for having me.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Which 20th-century ideas should we carry with us into the 21st century? And which of them have become obsolete? We discuss these topics during a live event with David Rieff, a prominent American writer and journalist. The discussion was held on March 1st at PEN Ukraine space in Kyiv, and was organized by UkraineWorld, PEN Ukraine and Thinking in Dark Times podcast. Hosts: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher and the chief editor of UkraineWorld, the president of PEN Ukraine, and Tetyana Ogarkova, a Ukrainian literary scholar, and author of the French-language podcast L'Ukraine face a la guerre by the Ukraine Crisis Media Centre. Both are lecturers at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, the oldest Ukrainian university. Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, a multilingual media outlet focused on Ukraine. UkraineWorld is run by Internews Ukraine, one of Ukraine's largest media NGOs. You can support our work at www.patreon.com/ukraineworld. Your support is crucial as our media increasingly relies on crowdfunding. You can also support our volunteer trips to the front-line areas, where we provide assistance to both soldiers and civilians - mainly by bringing cars for soldiers and books for civilians. You can support our trips via PayPal at ukraine.resisting@gmail.com.

In the ​latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, David Rieff joins in to discuss his recent book, “Desire and Fate.” Intro music by Jack Bauerlein.

In the ​latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, David Rieff joins in to discuss his recent book, "Desire and Fate." Intro music by Jack Bauerlein.

Avec Emmanuel Carrère, David Rieff, Tetyana Ogarkova et Volodymyr Yermolenko Entretien mené par Lena Mauger Tetyana Ogarkova est professeure de littérature comparée, son mari, Volodymyr Yermolenko, philosophe, président du Pen Club Ukraine. Au début de l'invasion russe à grande échelle dans leur pays, ils enregistrent depuis leur cuisine, une admirable série de podcasts intitulée « L'Ukraine face à la guerre ». Emmanuel Carrère les rencontre à Kyiv en juin 2023. Cinq mois plus tard, il embarque avec eux dans un minibus vers les zones de front pour distribuer de l'aide aux populations. Parmi les passagers, David Rieff, grand reporter de guerre, fils de Susan Sontag. Le récit de ce « road-trip » a paru dans le deuxième numéro de la revue Kometa, un trimestriel de récits littéraires qui se tourne vers l'Est pour raconter le monde et croise les regards d'écrivains et de photographes. Retour sur cette rencontre au cœur du chaos et réflexions sur l'Ukraine aujourd'hui. En partenariat avec la revue Kometa.

On today's Inside Politics podcast, Hugh is joined by David Rieff. David is the author of many books, including In Praise of Forgetting. He reported on war in Bosnia in the 1990s, and has written on everything from the political and ethical complexities of humanitarian aid and international intervention in sub-Saharan Africa to political developments in Central and south America. He also has a Substack newsletter in which he reflects on the progress of the current culture wars and their implications for intellectual life. He currently spends half his time in Kyiv where he is observing and reflecting on the ongoing war against Russian aggression. He talks to Hugh about the idea of a just war and its relevance to the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, the remilitarisation of Europe and the decline of Pax Americana, as well as the rise of anti-establishment populism and why he believes contemporary trends in technology, capitalism and politics will inevitably lead to the end of high culture and the triumph of kitsch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Rieff is a famous intellectual and war correspondent. He is the author of many books, including Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West; A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis; At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention; The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century; In Praise of Forgetting: The Ironies of Historical Memory, and numerous others. He is also the editor of the journals and notebooks of his mother, Susan Sontag, published after her death. He is currently living between New York and Argentina, but regularly visits Ukraine. Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher and chief editor of UkraineWorld, speaks to David Rieff about the role played by Ukraine and the Ukrainian struggle in the world today. Thinking in Dark Times is a podcast series by UkraineWorld. This series seeks to make Ukraine and the current Russian war against Ukraine a focal point of our joint reflection on the world's present, past, and future. We try to see the light through and despite the current darkness. UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of the largest Ukrainian media NGOs. Support our work at patreon.com/ukraineworld

Encuentra este y otros artículos en http://revistalengua.comSiendo aún muy joven, Susan Sontag (1933-2004) dejó escritas en su diario las siguientes palabras: «No puedo imaginar el mundo sin mí». Es un sentimiento que nunca la abandonó: años después, ya de adulta, la propia Sontag confesó que confiaba en vivir una vida muy larga para, según sus palabras, «ver hasta dónde llega la estupidez». Alcanzó los 71 años, ni uno más. Ahora, cuando se cumplen 90 años de su nacimiento (el 16 de enero de 1933), recuperamos el prólogo que firma su hijo, el escritor y analista político David Rieff, en «Obra imprescindible» (Random House, 2022), la compilación de textos más «perdurables» de una de las intelectuales más trascendentales de la segunda mitad del siglo XX.Narrado por Antonio Martínez Asensio.Imagen ilustrativa: Getty Images. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Jamie McGoldrick speaks with journalist and policy analyst David Rieff, author of the seminal 2003 book A Bed For The Night. That book, and those that followed, prompted the humanitarian sector to reflect on their work and how it could be improved. Jamie speaks with David about his analysis of the humanitarian space and how it has evolved. They also discuss the United Nations, its strengths and its shortcomings. David is currently writing a book about the role of memory in the Russo-Ukrainian War, a continuation from his book In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and its Ironies. He tells Jamie about that work and gives his thoughts on Russia's war against Ukraine.

Is there a moral case for forgetting our past and not keeping the painful wounds alive?

A percepção do grande repórter e ensaísta David Rieff, na crónica de Francisco Sena Santos.

María José O'Shea y Arturo Fontaine conversaron con David Rieff, quien está presentando "Susan Sontag: Obra imprescindible", además de la guerra que se lleva a cabo en Ucrania.

María José O'Shea y Arturo Fontaine conversaron con David Rieff, quien está presentando "Susan Sontag: Obra imprescindible", además de la guerra que se lleva a cabo en Ucrania.

Forgetting is the only safe response to the world's problems, from a geopolitical perspective, according to author and journalist David Rieff. And forgetting is also a good thing in your personal life, say scientists. It moves us forward.

After reporting on the cruelest wars of the late 20th century, journalist and cultural critic David Rieff concluded that remembering history was no defense against repeating it, and could even be a culprit. His book, In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies, explains why.

El analista político, periodista y crítico cultural estadounidense escribió sobre la acusación de abuso del escritor Blake Bailey, autor de la biografía de Philip Roth que le significó perder la relación con su agente y editorial y que lo congeló hasta que se esclarezca la situación.

El analista político, periodista y crítico cultural estadounidense escribió sobre la acusación de abuso del escritor Blake Bailey, autor de la biografía de Philip Roth que le significó perder la relación con su agente y editorial y que lo congeló hasta que se esclarezca la situación.

This incredible array of guests speak to how this moment has changed our sense of time, the healing we will need as we move forward from the pandemic, the opportunities that may come next, and much more in a fascinating reminder of where the past year has taken us. From dire to hopeful to funny, these clips reflect the best of one year of The Quarantine Tapes. Symphony of Voices Part 2 features the following Quarantine Tapes Guests:Derek Delgaudio, Lena Herzog, Rachel Kushner, Jorie Graham, Julie Mehretu, Christopher Knight, William Kentridge, David Rieff, Etgar Keret, Calvin Trillin, Andy Borowitz, Abraham Verghese, George Prochnik, and Jerry Saltz.

David Rieff discusses “Divorcing” by Susan Taubes: the reimagined end of an autobiographical marriage.

El banderazo de hoy [por ayer] se puede analizar en varias dimensiones. La primera es que es muy difícil de interpretar, por la naturaleza misma del fenómeno, qué es lo que quieren decir los que salieron a la calle, porque no fue organizado por alguien, sino que se trató de una iniciativa autoconvocada. Hoy hablaba con José Eduardo Abadi sobre esta cuestión y él me hacía notar que hay una sensación, que aportan un poco las redes, de que cada ciudadano se representa a sí mismo y, a su vez, hay una especie de ilusión de representación colectiva que intentaría resolver el conflicto de la gente con el sistema político. Entonces, la primera pregunta que se desprende de la marcha de hoy es: ¿Qué es lo que quiere decir esta gente? Muchísimas cosas, pero es difícil descifrarlo y por eso es tan fácil adjudicarle intenciones que probablemente no se tienen. Sobre todo, por parte del Gobierno. Este es el problema de Fernández, quien en las últimas horas ha dicho cosas verdaderamente insólitas y algunas hasta patéticas. En la entrevista que dio a Horacio Verbitsky dijo algo que hoy rescató el americano David Rieff. Rieff, un intelectual que sigue mucho a la Argentina, resaltó una frase que es interesantísima por lo contradictoria y autoritaria. "Mi principal objetivo es lograr que todos juntos impidamos el regreso del conservadurismo al Gobierno", dijo Fernández. Eso que él llama conservadurismo, que interpreto que es Juntos por el Cambio, sacó en las elecciones más de un 40%. Es decir que, según ese planteo, el Presidente quiere que todos juntos, subrayo "todos juntos", impidamos el regreso del 41%. ¿Este es el hombre que venía a cerrar la grieta? La idea que esconde esta declaración es que el principal objetivo es terminar con la alternancia y que haya un peronismo eterno. Para empezar a cerrar la grieta, si es que hay que hacerlo y si es que ésta no tiene una dinámica propia que nadie puede cerrar desde el poder, que es lo que creo, lo primero que se tiene que hacer es garantizar la alternancia y reconocer la legitimidad del otro y no decirle que es un títere manejado por una corporación. A lo largo de la entrevista con Verbitsky, Fernández demuestra con una claridad extraordinaria no entender el problema del dólar. Porque el planteo del Gobierno se apoya en la falta de dólares, cuando el problema que debe resolver es el exceso de pesos. La entrevista de ayer repasa varios temas: Venezuela, la Justicia, Jujuy, entre otros, pero hay un momento en que se produce un diálogo entre Verbitsky y el Presidente donde se encuentran hablando de la plata de ellos y en ese momento ambos entienden el problema del dólar, e incluso parecería que están razonando como dos exportadores de soja al decir que reciben 100 y les dan menos de 50. Se quejan de que, si reciben un pago desde el exterior, se lo liquidan con el dólar oficial y no con el dólar paralelo. Es de lo que se queja todo el sector exportador.

How do we move through the complexity of history in the present day?On episode 059, Paul Holdengräber is joined by New York-based journalist and author David Rieff for a discussion about the complicated narratives surrounding many historical figures from Gandhi to Churchill, the notion of collective memory, and how this informs the ways in which a society remembers its past.  

Diego Genoud conversó con el periodista, escritor, analista político y crítico cultural estadounidense, David Rieff, quien desde Nueva York relató el fuerte avance del coronavirus en su país, los peligros de la presidencia de Donald Trump y sus lazos con la Argentina.

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) was an essayist, novelist, activist, film-maker, philosopher and teacher. On March 16, 2000, while on tour for what would be her final novel, “In America,” she was interviewed by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff in San Francisco. From Wikipedia: “Among her best known works are  On Photography, Against Interpretation, Styles of Radical Will, The Way We Live Now, Illness as Metaphor, Regarding the Pain of Others, The Volcano Lover, and In America.” From Wikipedia: “Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, and communism and leftist ideology. Although her essays and speeches sometimes drew controversy, she has been described as “one of the most influential critics of her generation.” In her final four years after this interview, Susan Sontag published a long essay, Regarding the Pain of Others in 2003, concerning the visual representation of war and violence. Following her death, a collection of essays and speeches was published in 2007, and her journals and notebooks were published in two volumes, in 2008 and 2012. She died of leukemia on December 28, 2004 at the age of 71. Her illness and death were chronicled in the book Swimming in a Sea of Death by her son David Rieff. Am award-winning 2014 documentary on her life, Regarding Susan Sontag, is now available on Kanopy, the streaming app available free through your local library. This interview and was digitized and re-edited in 2006 by Richard Wolinsky and has not been aired in thirteen years. The post From the Archive: Susan Sontag (1933-2004) appeared first on KPFA.

David Rieff has admitted ruefully that he’s made a career out of telling people what they don’t want to hear: whether it’s the politics of the global food crisis in his book “The Reproach of Hunger”, or the failure of the West to prevent the terrible bloodbath of Bosnia in his provocatively-titled “Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the failure of the West”. As a war correspondent, Rieff has worked in the Balkans, in Rwanda and the Congo, in Israel-Palestine, in Afghanistan and Iraq. He’s not afraid to tackle the big issues: immigration, exile, American imperialism. There are thirteen books in all, including a memoir about his mother, the American writer Susan Sontag. In Private Passions, David talks to Michael Berkeley about being “Susan Sontag’s son”, and whether that label has at times been a burden. He’s her only child and Sontag was only 19 when he was born. He reflects on the privilege and yet strangeness of his New York upbringing, and how he has used that background “to make a living being a critic of everything. That’s an immense privilege.” David Rieff is a passionate fan of Early music, and his choices include the 16th-century composer Orlando di Lassus, and Alfred Deller singing Purcell. Other choices include Bach’s moving cantata “Ich Habe Genug”, Shostakovich, Beethoven, and Bluegrass. A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3 Produced by Elizabeth Burke

Daniel Mansuy conversa con el periodista y analista político estounidense sobre el recuerdo colectivo y la necesidad del olvido.

Daniel Mansuy conversa con el periodista y analista político estounidense sobre el recuerdo colectivo y la necesidad del olvido.

Autour de David Rieff, qui publie « Éloge de l’oubli », (Éditions Premier parallèle) Nathalie Sarthou-Lajus, rédactrice-en-chef adjointe de la revue Etudes, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, député des Hauts-de-Seine et François Bujon de l’Estang, ambassadeur de France et Philippe Meyer débattent des abus de mémoire, mais aussi des manipulations fondées sur un usage biaisé des commémorations, sur la fabrication de mythologies intéressées, sur les rapports entre la mémoire et la guerre, sur les dimensions politiques du pardon et sur ce qu’ Halbwachs appelait : « une reconstruction du passé à la lumière du présent ».Le Nouvel Esprit Public est soutenu par l’hebdomadaire Le Un.Le Nouvel Esprit Public est produit et distribué par Nouvelles Écoutes. Production : Julien Neuville. Enregistrement et mixage : Thibault Delage (L'Arrière Boutique Studio) Assistant : Valentin Petit.

This episode features a lecture by David Rieff as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival. The lecture, 'In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and its Ironies', was introduced by Dr Marie Coleman (QUB).

This episode features a lecture by David Rieff as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival. The lecture, 'In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and its Ironies', was introduced by Dr Marie Coleman (QUB).

Join Professor Cormac O'Grada (University College Dublin) author of Eating People Is Wrong, and Other Essays on Famine, Its Past, and Its Future and New York-based journalist and writer, David Rieff, author of The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the 21st century for an exploration of the contemporary historical dimensions to poverty and famine. David Rieff is Visiting Research Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub in association with the School of Law. The discussion will be chaired by Professor David Dickson from the Department of History, Trinity College Dublin.

David Rieff, Fellow, New York Institute for the Humanities, NYU: ‘Conor Cruise O'Brien and the Aporias of Collective Memory' Max McGuinness, Completing Doctoral research, Columbia University: ‘Whatever Happened to Conor Cruise O'Brien's Camus?' Marion Kelly, Completing Doctoral research, Trinity College Dublin: ‘Conor Cruise O'Brien: A Rebel with a Cause' Chair: W.J. McCormack, Literary Historian, Author and Critic

Two tour guides from Budapest tell us about Hungary's spicy culinary traditions, then author Marjorie R. Williams shares tips for finding exceptional seasonal produce — and great souvenirs — in the south of France. And policy analyst David Rieff joins Rick to discuss which efforts are proving the most effective in the push to reduce hunger and malnutrition around the world. For more information on Travel with Rick Steves - including episode descriptions, program archives and related details - visit www.ricksteves.com.

David Rieff isn't against the lessons of remembrance, but he believes it shouldn't be the only morally-sanctioned option. Forgetting may be the better choice.David Rieff isn't against the lessons of remembrance, but he believes it shouldn't be the only morally-sanctioned option. Forgetting may be the better choice.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe looks back a hundred years to Easter Rising of 1916. Ruth Dudley Edwards explores the lives of Ireland's founding fathers and questions how they should be remembered, while Heather Jones places this historical moment in the context of the Great War. David Rieff praises forgetting in his study of the uses and abuses of historical memory, and its often pernicious influence on the present. And the Irish commentator Fintan O'Toole examines the present fortunes of a country once famed as the Celtic Tiger. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Writer and international-development expert David Rieff describes what seems to be working — and what isn't — in the quest to end hunger in developing nations. Then author and activist Gloria Steinem reflects on her decades of frequent travels, and how they gave her a sense of adventure from a young age. And budget-travel blogger “Nomadic Matt” shares his tips for managing your money overseas. For more information on Travel with Rick Steves - including episode descriptions, program archives and related details - visit www.ricksteves.com.

La población mundial crece a un ritmo alarmante. Y con ella nuestra presión sobre el planeta. Los expertos coinciden en que es necesario transformar el sistema alimentario, pero no logran alcanzar un acuerdo sobre los cambios que se requieren. Publicamos un extracto de "El oprobio del hambre", un libro de próxima aparición en el que David Rieff sondea las posturas que existen en torno a este tema crucial. Compra la versión para iPad de Letras Libres en iTunes Store: https://itunes.apple.com/mx/app/letras-libres-mexico+espana/id776202381?l=en&mt=8 Música: "Pop Brasilia", de Podington Bear, www.freemusicarchive.com

Bennet Kelley is joined byDavid Rieff to discuss his bookThe Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century. Reiff's book serves as areview about whether ending extreme poverty and widespread hunger is within our reach as increasingly promised. Moving into the second segment Bennet is joined byDelphine Halgand to discuss enemies of the internet.

How does the media affect government decisions? Tom Gjelten moderates this Open Society panel with journalists Roger Cohen, David Rieff, and Lindsey Hilsum. Speakers: David Rieff, Lindsey Hilsum, Roger Cohen, Tom Gjelten. (Recorded: May 18, 2011)

China watchers and writers Ian Buruma, Yan Lianke, Linda Polman, David Rieff, and Zha Jianying spoke at the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature about human rights in China at the Great Hall at Cooper Union. Bon mots: Zha Jianying, author of "Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China," on human rights: "The questions of values and human rights lies not outside China but in China. And with the Chinese people and the Chinese leaders. This is about their life and their future. Nowhere else have these issues been debated and fought with as much passion and with a wider array of positions; the views as polarized and complicated as the situation. And the characters involved are four dimensional, not black and white."  Zha on humor: "I do know the party is not known for having a sense of humor. They wouldn't appreciate someone like Oscar Wilde who says, 'Life is too important to be taken seriously.'" Yan Lianke, who got the 2000 Lu Xun for "The Year, The Month, The Day" and the 2004 Lao She for "Pleasure," on Ai Weiwei: "An academic from Beijing told me something that shocked me. He said, 'What does all this have to do with our lives?' For example, when we see that Ai Weiwei is arrested, we see that he has a long list of crimes. And one of these crimes is fraud, and when people read about how much money he deceived from the people they think he deserves to be arrested and locked up. For all those who are struggling and fighting, 99 percent of the people in China don't really care about what they're doing. They care about their lives, they care about money, and their basic need to survive." Yan on censorship: "I think that people like Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei are true warriors, where as someone like me, I'm a coward. I can't fight out loud like they do, all I can do is silently write. So, to be a lonely writer in China, is perhaps one of the luckiest things to do."

Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir (Simon & Schuster)David Rieff accompanied his mother, Susan Sontag, through the medical ordeals that led to her death. We explore the death of this great writer, a woman who resisted consolation and maintained—to her last days—an enormous appetite for life.

LA., Capital Of The World The writer discusses L.A.'s future and, autobiographically, what it's like to grow up as the son of one of the world's most-prominent literary intellectuals