Podcasts about european enlightenment

In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi argues that basic notions of a free market economy emerged in China a century and half earlier than in Europe. In response to the commercial revolutions of the late 1500s, Chinese intellectuals and officials called for the end of state intervention in the market, recognizing its power to self-regulate. They also noted the elasticity of domestic demand and production, arguing in favour of ending long-standing rules against luxury consumption, an idea that emerged in Europe in the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Zanasi challenges Eurocentric theories of economic modernization as well as the assumption that European Enlightenment thought was unique in its ability to produce innovative economic ideas. She instead establishes a direct connection between observations of local economic conditions and the formulation of new theories, revealing the unexpected flexibility of the Confucian tradition and its accommodation of seemingly unorthodox ideas. Margherita Zanasi is Professor of Chinese History at Louisiana State University. She has published widely on different aspects of modern China's history, including her first book Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China (University of Chicago Press, 2005). She also serves as the editor of the journal Twentieth Century China.  Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi argues that basic notions of a free market economy emerged in China a century and half earlier than in Europe. In response to the commercial revolutions of the late 1500s, Chinese intellectuals and officials called for the end of state intervention in the market, recognizing its power to self-regulate. They also noted the elasticity of domestic demand and production, arguing in favour of ending long-standing rules against luxury consumption, an idea that emerged in Europe in the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Zanasi challenges Eurocentric theories of economic modernization as well as the assumption that European Enlightenment thought was unique in its ability to produce innovative economic ideas. She instead establishes a direct connection between observations of local economic conditions and the formulation of new theories, revealing the unexpected flexibility of the Confucian tradition and its accommodation of seemingly unorthodox ideas. Margherita Zanasi is Professor of Chinese History at Louisiana State University. She has published widely on different aspects of modern China's history, including her first book Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China (University of Chicago Press, 2005). She also serves as the editor of the journal Twentieth Century China.  Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi argues that basic notions of a free market economy emerged in China a century and half earlier than in Europe. In response to the commercial revolutions of the late 1500s, Chinese intellectuals and officials called for the end of state intervention in the market, recognizing its power to self-regulate. They also noted the elasticity of domestic demand and production, arguing in favour of ending long-standing rules against luxury consumption, an idea that emerged in Europe in the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Zanasi challenges Eurocentric theories of economic modernization as well as the assumption that European Enlightenment thought was unique in its ability to produce innovative economic ideas. She instead establishes a direct connection between observations of local economic conditions and the formulation of new theories, revealing the unexpected flexibility of the Confucian tradition and its accommodation of seemingly unorthodox ideas. Margherita Zanasi is Professor of Chinese History at Louisiana State University. She has published widely on different aspects of modern China's history, including her first book Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China (University of Chicago Press, 2005). She also serves as the editor of the journal Twentieth Century China.  Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

So what, exactly, was “The Enlightenment”? According to the Princeton historian David A. Bell, it was an intellectual movement roughly spanning the early 18th century through to the French Revolution. In his Spring 2025 Liberties Quarterly piece “The Enlightenment, Then and Now”, Bell charts the Enlightenment as a complex intellectual movement centered in Paris but with hubs across Europe and America. He highlights key figures like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Kant, and Franklin, discussing their contributions to concepts of religious tolerance, free speech, and rationality. In our conversation, Bell addresses criticisms of the Enlightenment, including its complicated relationship with colonialism and slavery, while arguing that its principles of freedom and reason remain relevant today. 5 Key Takeaways* The Enlightenment emerged in the early 18th century (around 1720s) and was characterized by intellectual inquiry, skepticism toward religion, and a growing sense among thinkers that they were living in an "enlightened century."* While Paris was the central hub, the Enlightenment had multiple centers including Scotland, Germany, and America, with thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Hume, and Franklin contributing to its development.* The Enlightenment introduced the concept of "society" as a sphere of human existence separate from religion and politics, forming the basis of modern social sciences.* The movement had a complex relationship with colonialism and slavery - many Enlightenment thinkers criticized slavery, but some of their ideas about human progress were later used to justify imperialism.* According to Bell, rather than trying to "return to the Enlightenment," modern society should selectively adopt and adapt its valuable principles of free speech, religious tolerance, and education to create our "own Enlightenment."David Avrom Bell is a historian of early modern and modern Europe at Princeton University. His most recent book, published in 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution. Described in the Journal of Modern History as an "instant classic," it is available in paperback from Picador, in French translation from Fayard, and in Italian translation from Viella. A study of how new forms of political charisma arose in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the book shows that charismatic authoritarianism is as modern a political form as liberal democracy, and shares many of the same origins. Based on exhaustive research in original sources, the book includes case studies of the careers of George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint Louverture and Simon Bolivar. The book's Introduction can be read here. An online conversation about the book with Annette Gordon-Reed, hosted by the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, can be viewed here. Links to material about the book, including reviews in The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Harper's, The New Republic, The Nation, Le Monde, The Los Angeles Review of Books and other venues can be found here. Bell is also the author of six previous books. He has published academic articles in both English and French and contributes regularly to general interest publications on a variety of subjects, ranging from modern warfare, to contemporary French politics, to the impact of digital technology on learning and scholarship, and of course French history. A list of his publications from 2023 and 2024 can be found here. His Substack newsletter can be found here. His writings have been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Hebrew, Swedish, Polish, Russian, German, Croatian, Italian, Turkish and Japanese. At the History Department at Princeton University, he holds the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Chair in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions, and offers courses on early modern Europe, on military history, and on the early modern French empire. Previously, he spent fourteen years at Johns Hopkins University, including three as Dean of Faculty in its School of Arts and Sciences. From 2020 to 2024 he served as Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy. Bell's new project is a history of the Enlightenment. A preliminary article from the project was published in early 2022 by Modern Intellectual History. Another is now out in French History.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, in these supposedly dark times, the E word comes up a lot, the Enlightenment. Are we at the end of the Enlightenment or the beginning? Was there even an Enlightenment? My guest today, David Bell, a professor of history, very distinguished professor of history at Princeton University, has an interesting piece in the spring issue of It is One of our, our favorite quarterlies here on Keen on America, Bell's piece is The Enlightenment Then and Now, and David is joining us from the home of the Enlightenment, perhaps Paris in France, where he's on sabbatical hard life. David being an academic these days, isn't it?David Bell: Very difficult. I'm having to suffer the Parisian bread and croissant. It's terrible.Andrew Keen: Yeah. Well, I won't keep you too long. Is Paris then, or France? Is it the home of the Enlightenment? I know there are many Enlightenments, the French, the Scottish, maybe even the English, perhaps even the American.David Bell: It's certainly one of the homes of the Enlightenment, and it's probably the closest that the Enlightened had to a center, absolutely. But as you say, there were Edinburgh, Glasgow, plenty of places in Germany, Philadelphia, all those places have good claims to being centers of the enlightenment as well.Andrew Keen: All the same David, is it like one of those sports games in California where everyone gets a medal?David Bell: Well, they're different metals, right, but I think certainly Paris is where everybody went. I mean, if you look at the figures from the German Enlightenment, from the Scottish Enlightenment from the American Enlightenment they all tended to congregate in Paris and the Parisians didn't tend to go anywhere else unless they were forced to. So that gives you a pretty good sense of where the most important center was.Andrew Keen: So David, before we get to specifics, map out for us, because everyone is perhaps as familiar or comfortable with the history of the Enlightenment, and certainly as you are. When did it happen? What years? And who are the leaders of this thing called the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, that's a big question. And I'm afraid, of course, that if you ask 10 historians, you'll get 10 different answers.Andrew Keen: Well, I'm only asking you, so I only want one answer.David Bell: So I would say that the Enlightenment really gets going around the first couple of decades of the 18th century. And that's when people really start to think that they are actually living in what they start to call an Enlightenment century. There are a lot of reasons for this. They are seeing what we now call the scientific revolution. They're looking at the progress that has been made with that. They are experiencing the changes in the religious sphere, including the end of religious wars, coming with a great deal of skepticism about religion. They are living in a relative period of peace where they're able to speculate much more broadly and daringly than before. But it's really in those first couple of decades that they start thinking of themselves as living in an enlightened century. They start defining themselves as something that would later be called the enlightenment. So I would say that it's, really, really there between maybe the end of the 17th century and 1720s that it really gets started.Andrew Keen: So let's have some names, David, of philosophers, I guess. I mean, if those are the right words. I know that there was a term in French. There is a term called philosoph. Were they the founders, the leaders of the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, there is a... Again, I don't want to descend into academic quibbling here, but there were lots of leaders. Let me give an example, though. So the year 1721 is a remarkable year. So in the year, 1721, two amazing events happened within a couple of months of each other. So in May, Montesquieu, one of the great philosophers by any definition, publishes his novel called Persian Letters. And this is an incredible novel. Still, I think one of greatest novels ever written, and it's very daring. It is the account, it is supposedly a an account written by two Persian travelers to Europe who are writing back to people in Isfahan about what they're seeing. And it is very critical of French society. It is very of religion. It is, as I said, very daring philosophically. It is a product in part of the increasing contact between Europe and the rest of the world that is also very central to the Enlightenment. So that novel comes out. So it's immediately, you know, the police try to suppress it. But they don't have much success because it's incredibly popular and Montesquieu doesn't suffer any particular problems because...Andrew Keen: And the French police have never been the most efficient police force in the world, have they?David Bell: Oh, they could be, but not in this case. And then two months later, after Montesquieu published this novel, there's a German philosopher much less well-known than Montesqiu, than Christian Bolz, who is a professor at the Universität Haller in Prussia, and he gives an oration in Latin, a very typical university oration for the time, about Chinese philosophy, in which he says that the Chinese have sort of proved to the world, particularly through the writings of Confucius and others, that you can have a virtuous society without religion. Obviously very controversial. Statement for the time it actually gets him fired from his job, he has to leave the Kingdom of Prussia within 48 hours on penalty of death, starts an enormous controversy. But here are two events, both of which involving non-European people, involving the way in which Europeans are starting to look out at the rest of the world and starting to imagine Europe as just one part of a larger humanity, and at the same time they are starting to speculate very daringly about whether you can have. You know, what it means to have a society, do you need to have religion in order to have morality in society? Do you need the proper, what kind of government do you need to to have virtuous conduct and a proper society? So all of these things get, you know, really crystallize, I think, around these two incidents as much as anything. So if I had to pick a single date for when the enlightenment starts, I'd probably pick that 1721.Andrew Keen: And when was, David, I thought you were going to tell me about the earthquake in Lisbon, when was that earthquake?David Bell: That earthquake comes quite a bit later. That comes, and now historians should be better with dates than I am. It's in the 1750s, I think it's the late 1750's. Again, this historian is proving he's getting a very bad grade for forgetting the exact date, but it's in 1750. So that's a different kind of event, which sparks off a great deal of commentary, because it's a terrible earthquake. It destroys most of the city of Lisbon, it destroys other cities throughout Portugal, and it leads a lot of the philosophy to philosophers at the time to be speculating very daringly again on whether there is any kind of real purpose to the universe and whether there's any kind divine purpose. Why would such a terrible thing happen? Why would God do such a thing to his followers? And certainly VoltaireAndrew Keen: Yeah, Votav, of course, comes to mind of questioning.David Bell: And Condit, Voltaire's novel Condit gives a very good description of the earthquake in Lisbon and uses that as a centerpiece. Voltair also read other things about the earthquake, a poem about Lisbon earthquake. But in Condit he gives a lasting, very scathing portrait of the Catholic Church in general and then of what happens in Portugal. And so the Lisbon Earthquake is certainly another one of the events, but it happens considerably later. Really in the middle of the end of life.Andrew Keen: So, David, you believe in this idea of the Enlightenment. I take your point that there are more than one Enlightenment in more than one center, but in broad historical terms, the 18th century could be defined at least in Western and Northern Europe as the period of the Enlightenment, would that be a fair generalization?David Bell: I think it's perfectly fair generalization. Of course, there are historians who say that it never happened. There's a conservative British historian, J.C.D. Clark, who published a book last summer, saying that the Enlightenment is a kind of myth, that there was a lot of intellectual activity in Europe, obviously, but that the idea that it formed a coherent Enlightenment was really invented in the 20th century by a bunch of progressive reformers who wanted to claim a kind of venerable and august pedigree for their own reform, liberal reform plans. I think that's an exaggeration. People in the 18th century defined very clearly what was going on, both people who were in favor of it and people who are against it. And while you can, if you look very closely at it, of course it gets a bit fuzzy. Of course it's gets, there's no single, you can't define a single enlightenment project or a single enlightened ideology. But then, I think people would be hard pressed to define any intellectual movement. You know, in perfect, incoherent terms. So the enlightenment is, you know by compared with almost any other intellectual movement certainly existed.Andrew Keen: In terms of a philosophy of the Enlightenment, the German thinker, Immanuel Kant, seems to be often, and when you describe him as the conscience or the brain or a mixture of the conscience and brain of the enlightenment, why is Kant and Kantian thinking so important in the development of the Enlightenment.David Bell: Well, that's a really interesting question. And one reason is because most of the Enlightenment was not very rigorously philosophical. A lot of the major figures of the enlightenment before Kant tended to be writing for a general public. And they often were writing with a very specific agenda. We look at Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau. Now you look at Adam Smith in Scotland. We look David Hume or Adam Ferguson. You look at Benjamin Franklin in the United States. These people wrote in all sorts of different genres. They wrote in, they wrote all sorts of different kinds of books. They have many different purposes and very few of them did a lot of what we would call rigorous academic philosophy. And Kant was different. Kant was very much an academic philosopher. Kant was nothing if not rigorous. He came at the end of the enlightenment by most people's measure. He wrote these very, very difficult, very rigorous, very brilliant works, such as The Creek of Pure Reason. And so, it's certainly been the case that people who wanted to describe the Enlightenment as a philosophy have tended to look to Kant. So for example, there's a great German philosopher and intellectual historian of the early 20th century named Ernst Kassirer, who had to leave Germany because of the Nazis. And he wrote a great book called The Philosophy of the Enlightened. And that leads directly to Immanuel Kant. And of course, Casir himself was a Kantian, identified with Kant. And so he wanted to make Kant, in a sense, the telos, the end point, the culmination, the fulfillment of the Enlightenment. But so I think that's why Kant has such a particularly important position. You're defining it both ways.Andrew Keen: I've always struggled to understand what Kant was trying to say. I'm certainly not alone there. Might it be fair to say that he was trying to transform the universe and certainly traditional Christian notions into the Enlightenment, so the entire universe, the world, God, whatever that means, that they were all somehow according to Kant enlightened.David Bell: Well, I think that I'm certainly no expert on Immanuel Kant. And I would say that he is trying to, I mean, his major philosophical works are trying to put together a system of philosophical thinking which will justify why people have to act morally, why people act rationally, without the need for Christian revelation to bolster them. That's a very, very crude and reductionist way of putting it, but that's essentially at the heart of it. At the same time, Kant was very much aware of his own place in history. So Kant didn't simply write these very difficult, thick, dense philosophical works. He also wrote things that were more like journalism or like tablets. He wrote a famous essay called What is Enlightenment? And in that, he said that the 18th century was the period in which humankind was simply beginning to. Reach a period of enlightenment. And he said, he starts the essay by saying, this is the period when humankind is being released from its self-imposed tutelage. And we are still, and he said we do not yet live in the midst of a completely enlightened century, but we are getting there. We are living in a century that is enlightening.Andrew Keen: So the seeds, the seeds of Hegel and maybe even Marx are incant in that German thinking, that historical thinking.David Bell: In some ways, in some ways of course Hegel very much reacts against Kant and so and then Marx reacts against Hegel. So it's not exactly.Andrew Keen: Well, that's the dialectic, isn't it, David?David Bell: A simple easy path from one to the other, no, but Hegel is unimaginable without Kant of course and Marx is unimagineable without Hegel.Andrew Keen: You note that Kant represents a shift in some ways into the university and the walls of the universities were going up, and that some of the other figures associated with the the Enlightenment and Scottish Enlightenment, human and Smith and the French Enlightenment Voltaire and the others, they were more generalist writers. Should we be nostalgic for the pre-university period in the Enlightenment, or? Did things start getting serious once the heavyweights, the academic heavyweighs like Emmanuel Kant got into this thing?David Bell: I think it depends on where we're talking about. I mean, Adam Smith was a professor at Glasgow in Edinburgh, so Smith, the Scottish Enlightenment was definitely at least partly in the universities. The German Enlightenment took place very heavily in universities. Christian Vodafoy I just mentioned was the most important German philosopher of the 18th century before Kant, and he had positions in university. Even the French university system, for a while, what's interesting about the French University system, particularly the Sorbonne, which was the theology faculty, It was that. Throughout the first half of the 18th century, there were very vigorous, very interesting philosophical debates going on there, in which the people there, particularly even Jesuits there, were very open to a lot of the ideas we now call enlightenment. They were reading John Locke, they were reading Mel Pench, they were read Dekalb. What happened though in the French universities was that as more daring stuff was getting published elsewhere. Church, the Catholic Church, started to say, all right, these philosophers, these philosophies, these are our enemies, these are people we have to get at. And so at that point, anybody who was in the university, who was still in dialog with these people was basically purged. And the universities became much less interesting after that. But to come back to your question, I do think that I am very nostalgic for that period. I think that the Enlightenment was an extraordinary period, because if you look between. In the 17th century, not all, but a great deal of the most interesting intellectual work is happening in the so-called Republic of Letters. It's happening in Latin language. It is happening on a very small circle of RUD, of scholars. By the 19th century following Kant and Hegel and then the birth of the research university in Germany, which is copied everywhere, philosophy and the most advanced thinking goes back into the university. And the 18th century, particularly in France, I will say, is a time when the most advanced thought is being written for a general public. It is being in the form of novels, of dialogs, of stories, of reference works, and it is very, very accessible. The most profound thought of the West has never been as accessible overall as in the 18 century.Andrew Keen: Again, excuse this question, it might seem a bit naive, but there's a lot of pre-Enlightenment work, books, thinking that we read now that's very accessible from Erasmus and Thomas More to Machiavelli. Why weren't characters like, or are characters like Erasmuus, More's Utopia, Machiavell's prints and discourses, why aren't they considered part of the Enlightenment? What's the difference between? Enlightened thinkers or the supposedly enlightened thinkers of the 18th century and thinkers and writers of the 16th and 17th centuries.David Bell: That's a good question, you know, I think you have to, you, you know, again, one has to draw a line somewhere. That's not a very good answer, of course. All these people that you just mentioned are, in one way or another, predecessors to the Enlightenment. And of course, there were lots of people. I don't mean to say that nobody wrote in an accessible way before 1700. Obviously, lots of the people you mentioned did. Although a lot of them originally wrote in Latin, Erasmus, also Thomas More. But I think what makes the Enlightened different is that you have, again, you have a sense. These people have have a sense that they are themselves engaged in a collective project, that it is a collective project of enlightenment, of enlightening the world. They believe that they live in a century of progress. And there are certain principles. They don't agree on everything by any means. The philosophy of enlightenment is like nothing more than ripping each other to shreds, like any decent group of intellectuals. But that said, they generally did believe That people needed to have freedom of speech. They believed that you needed to have toleration of different religions. They believed in education and the need for a broadly educated public that could be as broad as possible. They generally believed in keeping religion out of the public sphere as much as possible, so all those principles came together into a program that we can consider at least a kind of... You know, not that everybody read it at every moment by any means, but there is an identifiable enlightenment program there, and in this case an identifiable enlightenment mindset. One other thing, I think, which is crucial to the Enlightenment, is that it was the attention they started to pay to something that we now take almost entirely for granted, which is the idea of society. The word society is so entirely ubiquitous, we assume it's always been there, and in one sense it has, because the word societas is a Latin word. But until... The 18th century, the word society generally had a much narrower meaning. It referred to, you know, particular institution most often, like when we talk about the society of, you know, the American philosophical society or something like that. And the idea that there exists something called society, which is the general sphere of human existence that is separate from religion and is separate from the political sphere, that's actually something which only really emerged at the end of the 1600s. And it became really the focus of you know, much, if not most, of enlightenment thinking. When you look at someone like Montesquieu and you look something, somebody like Rousseau or Voltaire or Adam Smith, probably above all, they were concerned with understanding how society works, not how government works only, but how society, what social interactions are like beginning of what we would now call social science. So that's yet another thing that distinguishes the enlightened from people like Machiavelli, often people like Thomas More, and people like bonuses.Andrew Keen: You noted earlier that the idea of progress is somehow baked in, in part, and certainly when it comes to Kant, certainly the French Enlightenment, although, of course, Rousseau challenged that. I'm not sure whether Rousseaut, as always, is both in and out of the Enlightenment and he seems to be in and out of everything. How did the Enlightement, though, make sense of itself in the context of antiquity, as it was, of Terms, it was the Renaissance that supposedly discovered or rediscovered antiquity. How did many of the leading Enlightenment thinkers, writers, how did they think of their own society in the context of not just antiquity, but even the idea of a European or Western society?David Bell: Well, there was a great book, one of the great histories of the Enlightenment was written about more than 50 years ago by the Yale professor named Peter Gay, and the first part of that book was called The Modern Paganism. So it was about the, you know, it was very much about the relationship between the Enlightenment and the ancient Greek synonyms. And certainly the writers of the enlightenment felt a great deal of kinship with the ancient Greek synonymous. They felt a common bond, particularly in the posing. Christianity and opposing what they believed the Christian Church had wrought on Europe in suppressing freedom and suppressing free thought and suppassing free inquiry. And so they felt that they were both recovering but also going beyond antiquity at the same time. And of course they were all, I mean everybody at the time, every single major figure of the Enlightenment, their education consisted in large part of what we would now call classics, right? I mean, there was an educational reformer in France in the 1760s who said, you know, our educational system is great if the purpose is to train Roman centurions, if it's to train modern people who are not doing both so well. And it's true. I mean they would spend, certainly, you know in Germany, in much of Europe, in the Netherlands, even in France, I mean people were trained not simply to read Latin, but to write in Latin. In Germany, university courses took part in the Latin language. So there's an enormous, you know, so they're certainly very, very conversant with the Greek and Roman classics, and they identify with them to a very great extent. Someone like Rousseau, I mean, and many others, and what's his first reading? How did he learn to read by reading Plutarch? In translation, but he learns to read reading Plutach. He sees from the beginning by this enormous admiration for the ancients that we get from Bhutan.Andrew Keen: Was Socrates relevant here? Was the Enlightenment somehow replacing Aristotle with Socrates and making him and his spirit of Enlightenment, of asking questions rather than answering questions, the symbol of a new way of thinking?David Bell: I would say to a certain extent, so I mean, much of the Enlightenment criticizes scholasticism, medieval scholastic, very, very sharply, and medieval scholasticism is founded philosophically very heavily upon Aristotle, so to that extent. And the spirit of skepticism that Socrates embodied, the idea of taking nothing for granted and asking questions about everything, including questions of oneself, yes, absolutely. That said, while the great figures of the Red Plato, you know, Socrates was generally I mean, it was not all that present as they come. But certainly have people with people with red play-doh in the entire virus.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Benjamin Franklin earlier, David. Most of the Enlightenment, of course, seems to be centered in France and Scotland, Germany, England. But America, many Europeans went to America then as a, what some people would call a settler colonial society, or certainly an offshoot of the European world. Was the settling of America and the American Revolution Was it the quintessential Enlightenment project?David Bell: Another very good question, and again, it depends a bit on who you talk to. I just mentioned this book by Peter Gay, and the last part of his book is called The Science of Freedom, and it's all about the American Revolution. So certainly a lot of interpreters of the Enlightenment have said that, yes, the American revolution represents in a sense the best possible outcome of the American Revolution, it was the best, possible outcome of the enlightened. Certainly there you look at the founding fathers of the United States and there's a great deal that they took from me like Certainly, they took a great great number of political ideas from Obviously Madison was very much inspired and drafting the edifice of the Constitution by Montesquieu to see himself Was happy to admit in addition most of the founding Fathers of the united states were you know had kind of you know We still had we were still definitely Christians, but we're also but we were also very much influenced by deism were very much against the idea of making the United States a kind of confessional country where Christianity was dominant. They wanted to believe in the enlightenment principles of free speech, religious toleration and so on and so forth. So in all those senses and very much the gun was probably more inspired than Franklin was somebody who was very conversant with the European Enlightenment. He spent a large part of his life in London. Where he was in contact with figures of the Enlightenment. He also, during the American Revolution, of course, he was mostly in France, where he is vetted by some of the surviving fellows and were very much in contact for them as well. So yes, I would say the American revolution is certainly... And then the American revolutionary scene, of course by the Europeans, very much as a kind of offshoot of the enlightenment. So one of the great books of the late Enlightenment is by Condor Say, which he wrote while he was hiding actually in the future evolution of the chariot. It's called a historical sketch of the progress of the human spirit, or the human mind, and you know he writes about the American Revolution as being, basically owing its existence to being like...Andrew Keen: Franklin is of course an example of your pre-academic enlightenment, a generalist, inventor, scientist, entrepreneur, political thinker. What about the role of science and indeed economics in the Enlightenment? David, we're going to talk of course about the Marxist interpretation, perhaps the Marxist interpretation which sees The Enlightenment is just a euphemism, perhaps, for exploitative capitalism. How central was the growth and development of the market, of economics, and innovation, and capitalism in your reading of The Enlightened?David Bell: Well, in my reading, it was very important, but not in the way that the Marxists used to say. So Friedrich Engels once said that the Enlightenment was basically the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie, and there was whole strain of Marxist thinking that followed the assumption that, and then Karl Marx himself argued that the documents like the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which obviously were inspired by the Enlightment, were simply kind of the near, or kind of. Way that the bourgeoisie was able to advance itself ideologically, and I don't think that holds much water, which is very little indication that any particular economic class motivated the Enlightenment or was using the Enlightment in any way. That said, I think it's very difficult to imagine the Enlightement without the social and economic changes that come in with the 18th century. To begin with globalization. If you read the great works of the Enlightenment, it's remarkable just how open they are to talking about humanity in general. So one of Voltaire's largest works, one of his most important works, is something called Essay on Customs and the Spirit of Nations, which is actually History of the World, where he talks learnedly not simply about Europe, but about the Americas, about China, about Africa, about India. Montesquieu writes Persian letters. Christian Volpe writes about Chinese philosophy. You know, Rousseau writes about... You know, the earliest days of humankind talks about Africa. All the great figures of the Enlightenment are writing about the rest of the world, and this is a period in which contacts between Europe and the rest the world are exploding along with international trade. So by the end of the 18th century, there are 4,000 to 5,000 ships a year crossing the Atlantic. It's an enormous number. And that's one context in which the enlightenment takes place. Another is what we call the consumer revolution. So in the 18th century, certainly in the major cities of Western Europe, people of a wide range of social classes, including even artisans, sort of somewhat wealthy artisians, shopkeepers, are suddenly able to buy a much larger range of products than they were before. They're able to choose how to basically furnish their own lives, if you will, how they're gonna dress, what they're going to eat, what they gonna put on the walls of their apartments and so on and so forth. And so they become accustomed to exercising a great deal more personal choice than their ancestors have done. And the Enlightenment really develops in tandem with this. Most of the great works of the Enlightment, they're not really written to, they're treatises, they're like Kant, they're written to persuade you to think in a single way. Really written to make you ask questions yourself, to force you to ponder things. They're written in the form of puzzles and riddles. Voltaire had a great line there, he wrote that the best kind of books are the books that readers write half of themselves as they read, and that's sort of the quintessence of the Enlightenment as far as I'm concerned.Andrew Keen: Yeah, Voltaire might have been comfortable on YouTube or Facebook. David, you mentioned all those ships going from Europe across the Atlantic. Of course, many of those ships were filled with African slaves. You mentioned this in your piece. I mean, this is no secret, of course. You also mentioned a couple of times Montesquieu's Persian letters. To what extent is... The enlightenment then perhaps the birth of Western power, of Western colonialism, of going to Africa, seizing people, selling them in North America, the French, the English, Dutch colonization of the rest of the world. Of course, later more sophisticated Marxist thinkers from the Frankfurt School, you mentioned these in your essay, Odorno and Horkheimer in particular, See the Enlightenment as... A project, if you like, of Western domination. I remember reading many years ago when I was in graduate school, Edward Said, his analysis of books like The Persian Letters, which is a form of cultural Western power. How much of this is simply bound up in the profound, perhaps, injustice of the Western achievement? And of course, some of the justice as well. We haven't talked about Jefferson, but perhaps in Jefferson's life and his thinking and his enlightened principles and his... Life as a slave owner, these contradictions are most self-evident.David Bell: Well, there are certainly contradictions, and there's certainly... I think what's remarkable, if you think about it, is that if you read through works of the Enlightenment, you would be hard-pressed to find a justification for slavery. You do find a lot of critiques of slavery, and I think that's something very important to keep in mind. Obviously, the chattel slavery of Africans in the Americas began well before the Enlightment, it began in 1500. The Enlightenment doesn't have the credit for being the first movement to oppose slavery. That really goes back to various religious groups, especially the Fakers. But that said, you have in France, you had in Britain, in America even, you'd have a lot of figures associated with the Enlightenment who were pretty sure of becoming very forceful opponents of slavery very early. Now, when it comes to imperialism, that's a tricky issue. What I think you'd find in these light bulbs, you'd different sorts of tendencies and different sorts of writings. So there are certainly a lot of writers of the Enlightenment who are deeply opposed to European authorities. One of the most popular works of the late Enlightenment was a collective work edited by the man named the Abbe Rinal, which is called The History of the Two Indies. And that is a book which is deeply, deeply critical of European imperialism. At the same time, at the same of the enlightenment, a lot the works of history written during the Enlightment. Tended, such as Voltaire's essay on customs, which I just mentioned, tend to give a kind of very linear version of history. They suggest that all societies follow the same path, from sort of primitive savagery, hunter-gatherers, through early agriculture, feudal stages, and on into sort of modern commercial society and civilization. And so they're basically saying, okay, we, the Europeans, are the most advanced. People like the Africans and the Native Americans are the least advanced, and so perhaps we're justified in going and quote, bringing our civilization to them, what later generations would call the civilizing missions, or possibly just, you know, going over and exploiting them because we are stronger and we are more, and again, we are the best. And then there's another thing that the Enlightenment did. The Enlightenment tended to destroy an older Christian view of humankind, which in some ways militated against modern racism. Christians believed, of course, that everyone was the same from Adam and Eve, which meant that there was an essential similarity in the world. And the Enlightenment challenged this by challenging the biblical kind of creation. The Enlightenment challenges this. Voltaire, for instance, believed that there had actually been several different human species that had different origins, and that can very easily become a justification for racism. Buffon, one of the most Figures of the French Enlightenment, one of the early naturalists, was crucial for trying to show that in fact nature is not static, that nature is always changing, that species are changing, including human beings. And so again, that allowed people to think in terms of human beings at different stages of evolution, and perhaps this would be a justification for privileging the more advanced humans over the less advanced. In the 18th century itself, most of these things remain potential, rather than really being acted upon. But in the 19th century, figures of writers who would draw upon these things certainly went much further, and these became justifications for slavery, imperialism, and other things. So again, the Enlightenment is the source of a great deal of stuff here, and you can't simply put it into one box or more.Andrew Keen: You mentioned earlier, David, that Concorda wrote one of the later classics of the... Condorcet? Sorry, Condorcets, excuse my French. Condorcès wrote one the later Classics of the Enlightenment when he was hiding from the French Revolution. In your mind, was the revolution itself the natural conclusion, climax? Perhaps anti-climax of the Enlightenment. Certainly, it seems as if a lot of the critiques of the French Revolution, particularly the more conservative ones, Burke comes to mind, suggested that perhaps the principles of in the Enlightment inevitably led to the guillotine, or is that an unfair way of thinking of it?David Bell: Well, there are a lot of people who have thought like that. Edmund Burke already, writing in 1790, in his reflections on the revolution in France, he said that everything which was great in the old regime is being dissolved and, quoting, dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. And then he said about the French that in the groves of their academy at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing but the Gallows. So there, in 1780, he already seemed to be predicting the reign of terror and blaming it. A certain extent from the Enlightenment. That said, I think, you know, again, the French Revolution is incredibly complicated event. I mean, you certainly have, you know, an explosion of what we could call Enlightenment thinking all over the place. In France, it happened in France. What happened there was that you had a, you know, the collapse of an extraordinarily inefficient government and a very, you know, in a very antiquated, paralyzed system of government kind of collapsed, created a kind of political vacuum. Into that vacuum stepped a lot of figures who were definitely readers of the Enlightenment. Oh so um but again the Enlightment had I said I don't think you can call the Enlightement a single thing so to say that the Enlightiment inspired the French Revolution rather than the There you go.Andrew Keen: Although your essay on liberties is the Enlightenment then and now you probably didn't write is always these lazy editors who come up with inaccurate and inaccurate titles. So for you, there is no such thing as the Enlighten.David Bell: No, there is. There is. But still, it's a complex thing. It contains multitudes.Andrew Keen: So it's the Enlightenment rather than the United States.David Bell: Conflicting tendencies, it has contradictions within it. There's enough unity to refer to it as a singular noun, but it doesn't mean that it all went in one single direction.Andrew Keen: But in historical terms, did the failure of the French Revolution, its descent into Robespierre and then Bonaparte, did it mark the end in historical terms a kind of bookend of history? You began in 1720 by 1820. Was the age of the Enlightenment pretty much over?David Bell: I would say yes. I think that, again, one of the things about the French Revolution is that people who are reading these books and they're reading these ideas and they are discussing things really start to act on them in a very different way from what it did before the French revolution. You have a lot of absolute monarchs who are trying to bring certain enlightenment principles to bear in their form of government, but they're not. But it's difficult to talk about a full-fledged attempt to enact a kind of enlightenment program. Certainly a lot of the people in the French Revolution saw themselves as doing that. But as they did it, they ran into reality, I would say. I mean, now Tocqueville, when he writes his old regime in the revolution, talks about how the French philosophes were full of these abstract ideas that were divorced from reality. And while that's an exaggeration, there was a certain truth to them. And as soon as you start having the age of revolutions, as soon you start people having to devise systems of government that will actually last, and as you have people, democratic representative systems that will last, and as they start revising these systems under the pressure of actual events, then you're not simply talking about an intellectual movement anymore, you're talking about something very different. And so I would say that, well, obviously the ideas of the Enlightenment continue to inspire people, the books continue to be read, debated. They lead on to figures like Kant, and as we talked about earlier, Kant leads to Hegel, Hegel leads to Marx in a certain sense. Nonetheless, by the time you're getting into the 19th century, what you have, you know, has connections to the Enlightenment, but can we really still call it the Enlightment? I would sayAndrew Keen: And Tocqueville, of course, found democracy in America. Is democracy itself? I know it's a big question. But is it? Bound up in the Enlightenment. You've written extensively, David, both for liberties and elsewhere on liberalism. Is the promise of democracy, democratic systems, the one born in the American Revolution, promised in the French Revolution, not realized? Are they products of the Enlightment, or is the 19th century and the democratic systems that in the 19th century, is that just a separate historical track?David Bell: Again, I would say there are certain things in the Enlightenment that do lead in that direction. Certainly, I think most figures in the enlightenment in one general sense or another accepted the idea of a kind of general notion of popular sovereignty. It didn't mean that they always felt that this was going to be something that could necessarily be acted upon or implemented in their own day. And they didn't necessarily associate generalized popular sovereignty with what we would now call democracy with people being able to actually govern themselves. Would be certain figures, certainly Diderot and some of his essays, what we saw very much in the social contract, you know, were sketching out, you knows, models for possible democratic system. Condorcet, who actually lived into the French Revolution, wrote one of the most draft constitutions for France, that's one of most democratic documents ever proposed. But of course there were lots of figures in the Enlightenment, Voltaire, and others who actually believed much more in absolute monarchy, who believed that you just, you know, you should have. Freedom of speech and freedom of discussion, out of which the best ideas would emerge, but then you had to give those ideas to the prince who imposed them by poor sicknesses.Andrew Keen: And of course, Rousseau himself, his social contract, some historians have seen that as the foundations of totalitarian, modern totalitarianism. Finally, David, your wonderful essay in Liberties in the spring quarterly 2025 is The Enlightenment, Then and Now. What about now? You work at Princeton, your president has very bravely stood up to the new presidential regime in the United States, in defense of academic intellectual freedom. Does the word and the movement, does it have any relevance in the 2020s, particularly in an age of neo-authoritarianism around the world?David Bell: I think it does. I think we have to be careful about it. I always get a little nervous when people say, well, we should simply go back to the Enlightenment, because the Enlightenments is history. We don't go back the 18th century. I think what we need to do is to recover certain principles, certain ideals from the 18 century, the ones that matter to us, the ones we think are right, and make our own Enlightenment better. I don't think we need be governed by the 18 century. Thomas Paine once said that no generation should necessarily rule over every generation to come, and I think that's probably right. Unfortunately in the United States, we have a constitution which is now essentially unamendable, so we're doomed to live by a constitution largely from the 18th century. But are there many things in the Enlightenment that we should look back to, absolutely?Andrew Keen: Well, David, I am going to free you for your own French Enlightenment. You can go and have some croissant now in your local cafe in Paris. Thank you so much for a very, I excuse the pun, enlightening conversation on the Enlightenment then and now, Essential Essay in Liberties. I'd love to get you back on the show. Talk more history. Thank you. 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

In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi argues that basic notions of a free market economy emerged in China a century and half earlier than in Europe. In response to the commercial revolutions of the late 1500s, Chinese intellectuals and officials called for the end of state intervention in the market, recognizing its power to self-regulate. They also noted the elasticity of domestic demand and production, arguing in favour of ending long-standing rules against luxury consumption, an idea that emerged in Europe in the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Zanasi challenges Eurocentric theories of economic modernization as well as the assumption that European Enlightenment thought was unique in its ability to produce innovative economic ideas. She instead establishes a direct connection between observations of local economic conditions and the formulation of new theories, revealing the unexpected flexibility of the Confucian tradition and its accommodation of seemingly unorthodox ideas. Margherita Zanasi is Professor of Chinese History at Louisiana State University. She has published widely on different aspects of modern China's history, including her first book Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China (University of Chicago Press, 2005). She also serves as the editor of the journal Twentieth Century China.  Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi argues that basic notions of a free market economy emerged in China a century and half earlier than in Europe. In response to the commercial revolutions of the late 1500s, Chinese intellectuals and officials called for the end of state intervention in the market, recognizing its power to self-regulate. They also noted the elasticity of domestic demand and production, arguing in favour of ending long-standing rules against luxury consumption, an idea that emerged in Europe in the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Zanasi challenges Eurocentric theories of economic modernization as well as the assumption that European Enlightenment thought was unique in its ability to produce innovative economic ideas. She instead establishes a direct connection between observations of local economic conditions and the formulation of new theories, revealing the unexpected flexibility of the Confucian tradition and its accommodation of seemingly unorthodox ideas. Margherita Zanasi is Professor of Chinese History at Louisiana State University. She has published widely on different aspects of modern China's history, including her first book Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China (University of Chicago Press, 2005). She also serves as the editor of the journal Twentieth Century China.  Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi argues that basic notions of a free market economy emerged in China a century and half earlier than in Europe. In response to the commercial revolutions of the late 1500s, Chinese intellectuals and officials called for the end of state intervention in the market, recognizing its power to self-regulate. They also noted the elasticity of domestic demand and production, arguing in favour of ending long-standing rules against luxury consumption, an idea that emerged in Europe in the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Zanasi challenges Eurocentric theories of economic modernization as well as the assumption that European Enlightenment thought was unique in its ability to produce innovative economic ideas. She instead establishes a direct connection between observations of local economic conditions and the formulation of new theories, revealing the unexpected flexibility of the Confucian tradition and its accommodation of seemingly unorthodox ideas. Margherita Zanasi is Professor of Chinese History at Louisiana State University. She has published widely on different aspects of modern China's history, including her first book Saving the Nation: Economic Modernity in Republican China (University of Chicago Press, 2005). She also serves as the editor of the journal Twentieth Century China.  Ghassan Moazzin is an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. He works on the economic and business history of 19th and 20th century China, with a particular focus on the history of foreign banking, international finance and electricity in modern China. His first book, Foreign Banks and Global Finance in Modern China: Banking on the Chinese Frontier, 1870–1919, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

SummaryCarolina and Vidhya reflect on individualism and interrogate how it shows up in our personal lives and is built into our work—including NPIC and evaluation's training, practice, and literature as well as existing field-building and change efforts.⁠⁠Episode 7 TRANSCRIPTNotes02:17 “Utopia” asperceived or portrayed by dominating forces11:55 Concentric circles still center the individual and nuclear family, unlike the more web-like nature of many kinship structures around the world, including South Asia and West Africa.21:45 Others may counter that democratic governance structures had existed among peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Asia before the European Enlightenment. See more⁠here⁠.29:22 The programs that Roosevelt and Johnson instituted were systematically eroded throughout the 1980s as “personal responsibility” replaced “rugged individualism.” See morehere.38:36 The setup is that colonial and capitalist destruction of our lands, economies, and social structures leads us to seek opportunities to fulfill our dreams—or simply survive—elsewhere. See morehere.41:37 The artist did not want to ruin her child's innocence—it was an act of resistance and demonstration of sovereignty to have her child grow up in a way that was not defined by colonization and racism. See morehere.ResourcesThe Origins of “Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps”The Dust BowlHuck's Ironic CircleIndividualism and Opposition to Redistribution in the USThere's No Such Thing as a “Self-Made Man”BootstrappedThe Role of Complexity Studies in the Emerging “Processual” WorldviewA Processual Approach to Political ViolenceTime and ProcessHistorical Determinism RevisitedSocial, Political and Cultural Dimensions of HealthUnderstanding the Connection Between Political and Social Determinants of HealthBronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems TheorySystems Thinking and RaceKinship pathways: Nurturing and Sustaining Resilient, Responsible, and Respected Indigenous EvaluatorsThe Moral Philosophy of IndividualismIndividualism, Innovation, and Long-Run GrowthIndividualism: A Deeply American PhilosophyPolitical PhilosophyIdeologies of the IndividualDefining SocialismCommunist ManifestoThe Interstate agePlessy's LegacyLand Acquisition and DispossessionThe Short‑Lived Promise of ‘40 Acres and a Mule'Natural RightsIndividualism vs CollectivismAge of ReasonThe Declaration of IndependenceJohn Stuart MillUnderstanding Power through Advocacy, Organizing, and ActivismLabor MovementThe 5 Basic Steps to Organizing a UnionDirect Action OrganizingThe Right to StrikeHistory of Successful BoycottsWhat Makes a Successful Protest?The Fight for RightsHerbert Hoover SpeechStock Market Crash of 1929From Rugged Individualism to Rugged CooperationRoosevelt and the New DealThe Rise of Antislavery ThoughtsYears of Adventure 1874-1914The rise and fall of Andrew MellonHow Three Families Shielded their Fortunes from Taxes for GenerationsWhy Social Security was the Cornerstone of FDR's New DealGreat Society Programs, Definition & LBJThe Unusual Ways Western Parents Raise ChildrenNorth American Culture: Undermining BreastfeedingThis is the Closest Thing We've Ever Had to a Hillary Clinton Political ManifestoMargaret ThatcherHealth Promotion and the Knowledge-Attitude-Behavior ContinuumSocial ContractExploring African Relational Ethic of UbuntuMarv AlkinEvaluation RootsEvaluation Roots: An International PerspectiveManifest DestinyEvaluation Roots: A Wider Perspective of Theorists' Views and InfluencesKinnectEmbedding the Graduate Education Diversity Internship Program Within a Larger SystemMusic“Inspired” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) ⁠⁠Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0⁠⁠Contact:⁠⁠https://themay13group.net⁠⁠⁠Carolina:https://www.linkedin.com/in/carodela⁠⁠⁠Vidhya:https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidhyashanker⁠⁠Donate!https://the-may-13-group.raiselysite.com

On this installment of “A Bit of Blue Sky,” host Bill Burke describes five books he recommends that will help listeners be more optimistic (and hopefully, fulfill their New Year's resolution to do so)!    Blue Sky Bookshelf: Link    Chapters:   00:00 Welcome to A Bit of Blue Sky Host Bill Burke introduces the podcast and its mission to inspire optimism through engaging discussions. He sets the stage for a conversation about books that can help listeners maintain their New Year's resolutions.  01:29 Factfulness: A New Perspective Bill discusses ‘Factfulness' by Hans Rosling, a book that challenges common misconceptions about the world and highlights the progress we've made. He emphasizes the importance of understanding facts to foster a more optimistic outlook.  03:56 The Enlightenment and Its Impact Next, Bill explores ‘Enlightenment Now' by Steven Pinker, which reflects on the values established during the European Enlightenment. He highlights how these values have contributed to a more peaceful and prosperous world.  05:31 Humankind: A Case for Optimism Bill introduces ‘Humankind' by Rutger Bregman, a book that argues for the inherent goodness of humanity. Through compelling examples, Bregman refutes the notion that humans are naturally violent and emphasizes cooperation.  06:49 The Rational Optimist: A Thoughtful Approach In this chapter, Bill revisits ‘The Rational Optimist' by Matt Ridley, discussing how free trade and cooperation have historically led to human progress. He advocates for a rational approach to optimism based on facts.  07:12 The Power of Kind Words Bill shares insights from ‘The Power of A Few Kind Words' by Tracy Gates, a book inspired by the author's father that encourages expressing appreciation through handwritten letters. This practice aims to uplift both the sender and the recipient. 

We're back with The Subverse. In this episode of the season, host Susan Mathews talks to writer and ecological thinker Aseem Shrivastava about the current crises in modern cosmology. Ecosophy, which acknowledges the living earth, is a way to address this arrythmia and our current alienation from the earth to which we belong. Aseem Shrivastava is a writer, teacher, and ecological thinker with a doctorate in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has lectured across the world on ecological issues emanating from globalisation. Shrivastava speaks of the present moment as an existential crisis, not just an intellectual crisis or a crisis of culture. During this fundamental upheaval in human affairs, the first thing you need to do is look at where your feet are. We need to ask fundamental questions about how we got here, and also address the terminal crisis in modern cosmology itself. “Without Nature, we are not.”- This is the start of an article Shrivastava wrote in The Open Magazine in 2021. He quotes Rilke and writes, “it appears that in the process of arising within us, the earth has dreams for us!” This earth is our only home, so he asks, “Are we ready to abandon her for the greener pastures of another planet that the space fantasists never fail to promise us? In a gentle defiance of the European Enlightenment vision, let us seriously consider the possibility that Rilke is right, that perhaps the Earth does have dreams for us, in the manner that a mother has dreams for her children. And like a mother's dreams, the earth's hopes for us must have power.” Ecosophy, unlike environmentalism or ecology, fundamentally tackles things like earth alienation and looks at the content of our vanishing relationship to the natural world in its full physical and metaphysical depth. We need a new mythos, and we can learn from Rabindranath Tagore in this context. Through his poetry, music, stories, plays and letter, the mythos is all there and you don't need to go to science to find the meaning of life. We have a world that is arrhythmic, out of sync, not to mention suffering from psychic, cognitive and spiritual arrhythmia too. We need to understand the real roots of the crises we face, the limits of our knowledge, question our need to dominate and control and, in the end, face some heart reckoning and atonement. Aseem Shrivastava has taught at prestigious universities in India and the West and offered courses on Global and Indian Ecosophy at Ashoka University. He has been guiding and mentoring a number of graduate students and young people working in the realms of Philosophy, Ecosophy, Ecology, and Economics. He is the author (with Ashish Kothari) of the books ‘Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India' (2012), and ‘Prithvi Manthan  (2016). He is currently at work on several books on Ecosophy:‘The Grammar of Greed:  Reflections on a Fatal Ecology', ‘The Alphabet of Ecosophy: A Grammar for Twilight Modernity', and ‘For Love of the Earth: Modernity, Ecosophy, Rabindranath Tagore'. All these works dialogue with the ecological challenges of 21st century global modernity. The Subverse is the podcast of Dark ‘n' Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine for episode details and show notes.

James Davison Hunter is a renowned sociologist at the University of Virginia who introduced the term "culture war" to the US discourse. He's a leading expert on cultural change and cultural battles in America.He joins me to discuss his new book Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis, which tells the deep cultural story underlying today's polarized politics. This important book describes the deep structure of American culture as resting on what he calls the "hybrid Enlightenment," joining various strands of European Enlightenment thinking with largely Calvinist Christianity. The various contradictions in this hybrid Enlightenment, such as slavery, were worked out over time. But that hybrid Enlightenment also became unraveled over time, leaving Americans without the cultural underpinnings necessary to sustain solidarity. The result is nihilism and culture war. Democracy and Solidarity is a compelling and important read to understand our present cultural moment.Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Solidarity-Cultural-Americas-Political-ebook/dp/B0CW17D3N3/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20Dr. Hunter is also the publisher of the Hedgehog Review magazine: https://hedgehogreview.com/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://www.aaronrenn.com/

词汇提示1.heretics 异端2.savaged 激烈批评3.mugged 公开打劫4.tormentor 折磨者5.scapegoat 替罪羊6.marchers 抗议游行者7.Enlightenment 启蒙教育8.blasphemy 亵渎原文Salman Rushdie: 'Life Under Threat' (2)Out there where you are, in the rich and powerful and lucky west, has it really been so long since religions persecuted people, burning them as heretics,drowning them as witches, that you can't recognize religious persecution when you see it?The original metaphor has reasserted itself.I'm back in the balloon, asking for the right to live.What is my single life worth" Despair whispers in my ear: 'Not a lot.'But I refuse to give in to despair.I refuse to give in to despair because I've been shown love as well as hatred.I know that many people do care, and are appalled by the crazy, upside-down logic of the post-fatwa world, in which a single novelist can be accused of having savaged or 'mugged' a whole community, becoming its tormentor (instead of it starred and feathered victim) and the scapegoat for all its discontents.Many people do ask, for example: When a white pop-star-turned-Islamic-fanatic speaks approvingly about killing an Indian immigrant, how does the Indian immigrant end up being called the racist?Or,again: What minority is smaller and weaker than a minority of one?I refuse to give in to despair even though, for a thousand days and more, I've been put through a degree course in worthlessness, my own personal and specific worthlessness.My first teachers were the mobs marching down distant boulevards, baying for my blood, and finding, soon enough, their echoes on the English streets.I could not understand the force that makes parents hang murderous slogans around their children's necks.I have learned to understand it.It burns books and effigies and thinks itself holy.But at first, as I watched the marchers, I felt them trampling on my heart.Once again, however, I have been saved by instances of fair-mindedness, of goodness.Every time I learn that a reader somewhere has been touched by The Satanic Verses, moved and entertained and stimulated by it, it arouses deep feelings in me.And there are more and more such readers nowadays, my postbag tells me, readers(including Muslims) who are willing to give my burned, spurned child a fair hearing at long last.Sometimes I think that, one day, Muslims will be ashamed of what Muslims did in these times, will find the 'Rushdie affair' as improbable as the west now finds martyr-burning.One day they may agree that - as the European Enlightenment demonstrated- freedom of thought is precisely freedom from religious control, freedom from accusations of blasphemy.Maybe they'll agree, too, that the row over The Satanic Verses was at bottom an argument about who should have power over the grand narrative, the Story of Islam, and that power must belong equally to everyone.That even if my novel were incompetent, its attempt to retell the story would still be important.That if I've failed, others must succeed, because those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change,truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.翻译萨尔曼·拉什迪:《生命受到威胁》(2)在你们所处的地方，在富裕、强大、幸运的西方，宗教迫害人们真的已经很久了吗，把他们当作异教徒烧死，把他们当作女巫淹死，以至于当你看到宗教迫害时，你都认不出来了?原来的比喻再次出现了。我又回到了气球里，要求生存的权利。我的单身生活值多少钱?”绝望在我耳边低语:“不值多少钱。”但我拒绝向绝望屈服。我拒绝向绝望屈服，因为我既被爱也被恨。我知道，很多人确实关心这个问题，并对法特瓦后世界的疯狂、颠倒的逻辑感到震惊，在这个世界上，一个小说家就可能被指控蹂躏或“抢劫”了整个社会，成为它的折磨者(而不是被涂上焦油和羽毛的受害者)，成为所有不满的替罪羊。例如，很多人确实会问:当一个白人流行歌星出身的伊斯兰狂热分子赞许地说要杀死一名印度移民时，为什么印度移民最终会被称为种族主义者?又或者:哪个少数群体比一个人的少数群体更小更弱?我拒绝向绝望屈服，即使在过去的一千多天里，我已经完成了一个关于毫无价值的学位课程，我个人的和特定的毫无价值。我的启蒙老师是那些在远处林荫大道上游行的暴徒，他们叫嚷着要我的血，很快，他们就在英国的街道上找到了回声。我无法理解是什么力量让父母把杀人的标语挂在孩子的脖子上。我已经学会了理解它。它焚烧书籍和雕像，认为自己是神圣的。但起初，当我看着游行队伍时，我感到他们在践踏我的心。然而，我又一次被公正和善良的事例所拯救。每当我得知某个地方的读者被《撒旦诗篇》所感动，被它所感动，被它所娱乐，被它所刺激，我的内心就会产生深深的感情。现在有越来越多这样的读者，我的邮袋告诉我，读者(包括穆斯林)终于愿意给我那个被烧伤、被抛弃的孩子一个公平的机会。有时我想，总有一天，穆斯林会为自己在这段时间里所做的事感到羞愧，会发现“拉什迪事件”就像西方现在认为焚烧烈士一样不可能。有一天，他们可能会同意——正如欧洲启蒙运动所证明的那样——思想自由正是不受宗教控制的自由，不受亵渎指控的自由。也许他们也会同意，关于《撒旦诗篇》的争论本质上是关于谁应该拥有对宏大叙事——伊斯兰故事——的权力的争论，这种权力必须平等地属于每个人。即使我的小说不称职，它试图重述这个故事的努力仍然很重要。如果我失败了，其他人一定会成功，因为那些没有能力掌控自己生活中的故事的人，没有能力复述、反思、解构、拿它开玩笑，也没有能力随着时代的变化而改变它的人，真的是无能为力的，因为他们无法想出新的想法。

The “German Socrates,” Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) was the most influential Jewish thinker of the 18th and 19th centuries. A Berlin celebrity and a major figure in the Enlightenment, Mendelssohn suffered the indignities common to Jews of his time while formulating the philosophical foundations of a modern Judaism suited for a new age.Join us with Bar Ilan scholar Shmuel Feiner, author of Moses Mendelssohn: Sage of Modernity, as we explore Mendelssohn's tireless advocacy for his people and the importance of intellectual independence.

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Our guest Ajamu Baraka is on X/Twitter @ajamubaraka Our Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd   FULL TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon, and I'm Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historic context in which events take place. During each episode of the podcast, my guest and I have probing, provocative, and discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze these events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue before us is the mask is off the hideous connections between Zionism, colonialism, capitalism, and genocide. This is the title of an article in Black Agenda Report, and it's written by the Black Alliance for Peace. It was originally published in or at the Black Alliance for Peace website, which is Black alliance for peace.com. My guest is the chair of the Coordinated Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and Editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and the Green Party candidate for Vice President of the United States in 2016. Ajamu Baraka Ajamu, my brother. As always, welcome back. Thank you so much. It's good to be with you once again. So Ajamu, the piece opens as follows. In April, students across the US Empire rose up with campus-based encampments designed to bring attention to the genocide against Palestine and demand that their universities divest from economies engaged in active genocidal campaigns. It came as a little surprise to anyone who has ever read a history book that US universities chose to stand by the Zionist genocide machine and instead attack their own students. Ajamu. There were and are a number of forces applying pressure to the leadership of these institutions to punish these students. Your thoughts on the intersection of genocide of Zionism, capitalism and colonialism and how it's now impacting the higher education of kids across this country? Well, the way we approached it, Dr. Leon, was to in fact, make those connections reflected in that piece. We have always taken the position that colonialism is in fact fascism, that the intervention, the invading of the Americas in 1492 by the Europeans was the beginning of the process in which two things happened. The enrichment of Europe as a consequence of the conquering of the peoples, the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the theft of their lands and the importation of black people to provide free labor. This was a material basis for the rise of capitalism and the European, so-called civilization. This is and was a colonial relationship. The peoples of these various territories that became Jamaica and Haiti and Colombia and Mexico had their wealth stolen from them and transported back to Europe. While the people themselves lacked any kind of human rights. Colonialism is based on a fascistic relationship in which people are terrorized into accepting oppression. It is the ultimate expression of fascistic policy. So we made the connection there. We said that also there are the connections of the other elements that characterize the rise of Europe and the domination of Europe over the last 500 years. This strange conception of patriarchy, which is something that was alien to most parts of the global south. This came on the heels of the imposition of Christian religions and some of the strange ideals regarding the role of men. And so-called women. So this is also part of the process of European domination. And of course all of this is within the context of imperialism and the rise in development of capitalism. So all of these elements have to be understood to be interconnected, and that if we're going to address the issues that are emerging in Palestine, for example, with the European settler colonial project are called Israel, then we have to make sure we understand these historical processes, these connections, these dots that have to be connected. So that's reflected in our piece. So basically all of the talk about civilizational assistance and humanitarian interventions of the responsibility to protect the Europeans divides over the course of decades. What has happened with Gaza is that they have now been exposed. This system has been exposed to what it is, a brutal, hideous system that degrades and dehumanizes human beings. So that was a thrust, the essence of that piece, An incredibly powerful piece at that. And fact in the piece, peace it's written that black Alliance for Peace has consistently asserted that as people rise up against the deepening crisis of capitalism, the veneer of western civilization and enlightenment will fall revealing the naked aggression and violence inherent in capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy and patriarchy. The horror of the colonial Zionist campaign of genocide is that reveal, this reveal of colonial violence is forcing people to rethink the propaganda they have internalized. But the revelation of facts is not the same as drawing correct conclusions. What got me in that paragraph in the first sentence of the second is this whole idea of rethinking the propaganda because one of the things that I've been saying for a very long time is the Zionist narrative. They're losing the argument. They now realize that the covers have been pulled off, they've been exposed, and they are now going to extra judicial and incredibly extreme measures to try to justify, resurrect, defend that narrative. And I think it's important for people to understand in this conversation that this is not an anti-Semitic conversation. This is an anti Zionist conversation and part of their narrative is conflating the two. And the final point is that not all Jews or Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jews, as in Joe Biden saying very clearly, very publicly, I am a Zionist, and Joe Biden isn't Jewish. Joe Biden is Irish Catholic, a Jammu Baraka, You're absolutely right. Zionism is a political philosophy, but a political doctrine, if you will. It is a doctrine that provided the foundation for a political project, which was a project by advanced by Europeans who define themselves as Jewish, but secular Jews who wanted to capitalize on the rise of and consolidation of nationalism in the latter part of the 19th century to in fact create a national state for Jewish people. And so the ideal that of Jewish nationalism was being consolidated, and they decided that they would attempt to build this national home on the land that was under occupation and controlled by European powers that used to be referred to as Palestine. And that process began there. So this was a political project that then culminated and the creation of the Jewish state or Israel in 1948 with the full support of the colonial powers at that time, and even the victorious powers that came out of the Second World War. But that creation of the European of the Zionist state, 1948, came at the expense as always in the colonial projects of the indigenous people. So you have what the Palestinians referred to as a nack bar where several hundred and 50,000 Palestinians were uprooted and basically displaced. Dozens and dozens of Arab villages across the territory of Palestine were conquered by the Israelis and controlled, and that became the contiguous land basis for the birth of Israel. So this process of colonial imposition is something now that's 75 years old. It didn't begin on October the seventh. It began even before 1948. So yes, this is a process and part of the ability of the Zionist to be able to be successful is the connection of this project with European colonialism, with the subtle appeal to European superiority, the notion that they were bringing something new to the So-called Middle East, creating a paradise out of the desert. These are all very important cultural reference points that provided support for the Southern Columbia project, very similar to what we had in the US territory that became the United States America notions of manifest destiny, being connected to the program of God, the white man's burden both in the US and throughout the world to bring civilization. All of these were themes that helped to provide the support for what we see unfolding today, but today is even more naked, Dr. Leon, because what that statement talked about is the fact that all of this was dressed up in these sort of civilizational discussions, that discussions and language coming out of the European Enlightenment notions of human rights and democracy and civilizational advancement. And so the interventions were always framed. Interventions by Europeans were always framed as something that will be helpful to the natives because of course, the people who were being imposed on, they needed to have that imposition because they needed to be able to develop as human societies. And of course they couldn't do that without the Europeans. So this became the justification for this project. And the violence that was at the center of this was also justified too, because it was those bad natives who didn't understand that they were being saved, that resisted colonialism, that needed to be suppressed, that needed to be eliminated. And so at the court center of the Colonial Project has always been violence. In particular the settler colonial projects. When you have settlers who come to a land and their main objective is to control the land, then the people themselves become an impediment. They're not needed. And so they are clear. That's what happened with the march across the US from the east coast to the west where they shot, murdered and raped and plundered from the east coast to the west, establishing what became the United States of America. We see a similar process unfolding with the settler colonialists in Palestine. They took most of the land about 77% of the land in 1948. And now with this invasion of Gaza and the escalation of violence on the West Bank, they are now prepared to finish the project from the river to the sea. They've always been quite clear about that, that they want that land to be exclusively under the control of the European Jewish ethanol state. And to that point, I'm glad you brought up from the river to the sea because that language, that phraseology was originally Zionist phraseology. And I'm bringing that up because this goes back to the whole conversation about the narrative. Now, if I go on a college campus and I say, from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free. Oh, I'm antisemitic. Oh, I'm using language that is disturbing to the sensibilities of the good Jewish students. That's not their language. The Zionist settler colonialists first used that phraseology. And along the lines of propaganda, I just want to point out a couple of things. One is the New York Times a few months ago had an editorial meeting where they decided they were no longer going to use the term occupied territories, for example. Now that's phraseology that came out of the United Nations, and that has been the internationally accepted reference of that space. They are the occupied territories. But now the New York Times has decided or told their writers, they shouldn't really use that. They should stay as far away from using that language as much as possible. One of the reasons being that when you refer to occupied territory, that means you have an occupier and it means you have the occupied. And international law says that the occupied can use any means at their disposal to resist the occupier. It also means that this whole, one of the things that a lot of people love to start these conversations with is Israel has a right to exist. But if you understand that Israel is the occupier, then that position then becomes in question. So that's just this whole idea of all of these Jewish students at Columbia that were under threat and being challenged. I never saw any evidence to support that story. In fact, when you look at the students that are involved in the protests, what you find is there are a lot of American Jewish students that are working with and supporting the Palestinians. For example, she's not a student, but her last name is Klein. I just draw a blank on her first name. I'm sorry. Naomi. Naomi Klein. Naomi Klein is Jewish, and Naomi Klein was one of the featured speakers at the Columbia protest. So they're going back to the narrative. What I think they are finding is they are losing control of the narrative. And you're right, that narrative is very, very important. The use of language is important and the ruling elements understand The ability to define is the ability to control. Exactly. Exactly. And that's why they were very careful, meaning the ruling elements and even framing what was happening on these college campuses as so-called pro-Palestinian efforts. Well, they weren't really pro-Palestinian efforts. They were anti genocide, anti Genocide Efforts. But the idea was to try to implant in the minds of the average reader that these people took not only a political position, but a position that was in alignment with that of Hama. And so this was the basis of the demonization of these students that didn't allow for violence to be directed at them. People has to have to be reminded. There was no violence in any of these encampments. These were peaceful protests, something that theoretically you're supposed to have a right to in fact do, even if those protests can be somewhat disruptive. But how disruptive was it and is it to have some tense put up on open spaces on a college campus? But as you said earlier, as you intro this conversation, there appeared to be decision made at the highest levels that they were not going to tolerate any real opposition on these campuses, and that what they were going to in fact do was to violently suppress those efforts. The encampments of the protests and the violence was imposed on the students by who the representatives of the states, and these were the elite campuses controlled by political elements firmly in alignment with what party, the Democrat party. So this was something that was a partisan effort, not only in terms of support of Israel, but in terms of support for the Biden policy of support for genocide. Well, Wait a minute. When you put this in a partisan context, then how with that understanding, do you explain Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the house, going to Columbia and standing there and challenging the students and spewing a lot of lies? Again, he was right there in front and center talking about, oh, the students have been threatened and all and no such evidence. And folks, I got to keep going back to this because this is so important. No such evidence has been presented. So Mike Johnson, Republican House speaker, he shows up. A whole lot of Republicans have it. So how do you put that in the partisan context? The majority of the ups have taken place on those campuses that are in alignment with the Democrats. So that's a partisan effort in that sense. But the point you're making, and I think is a very important one, is to remind people that the positions of the US state on Israel is in fact a bipartisan position that the Republicans are, even the non Trumpian Republicans are just as adamant in their support for Israel as the Democrats. So this is the nature of this, what I refer to as the growing consolidation of fascism. The popular perception or the popular position is that the main threat of fascist development in the US is coming from the Trumpian, right? As you know, I've been making the counter argument that the driving force of a particular form of US fascism reflecting the new historical conditions, the conditions of today is emanating from the neoliberal, right? That is fascist. But what we see now in the last couple of months in a very dangerous development, and I'm glad you mentioned Mike Johnson, it's what I consider to be now the real consolidation that's happening in the open, if you can see it. Why do you think Mike Johnson's playing this kind of role? We all know that Mike Johnson wouldn't even be the speaker today without the deal that was cut with Democrats to allow him to be able to avoid being displaced by his own caucus. Why was it that the Trumpian forces have been adamant in their opposition to further money, further us public money being sent to Ukraine in support of the Ukrainian proxy war, but then all of a sudden that criticism is muted and Mike Johnson was clearly in alignment with Donald Trump cuts a deal with the Democrats to allow 61 billion to go to Ukraine. I make the argument that not only is this a reflection, not only is this a reflection of the fact that the very powerful elements in the ruling class have decided that there's going to be a second Trump, but it is a reflection of growing open embracement, if you will, between the Trumpian forces and the neoliberal forces, the consolidation of fascism. So this is a very dangerous, I think, dangerous development here in this country. And right now, the most effective opposition to it are the students across the country. And that's very important, very important that people understand that because what the students are involved in, even if they don't define it as such, is really our anti-fascist opposition. I want to just point out a couple of other points that as we've been talking about this narrative, there is this narrative that the United States is involved in backing the Zionist regime in Israel because it's defending democracy. There's nothing democratic about the Zionist state, the settler colonial state of Israel. Palestinians, indigenous Palestinians do not have the same rights as Jews in Israel. There is nothing democratic about Israel. The United States says it's in Ukraine in order to protect democracy. If that's true, then why did the United States go into Ukraine in 2014 and overthrow the democratically elected Lucas Shanko government in the Maan coup in 2014? Folks, look it up. We're not making it up. This is not conspiracy theory. Why did the and put in place right sector Nazis, real Nazis in Ukraine. The United States says it must go into Haiti. Why? To quell unrest and protect democracy. The United States is the one fomenting the unrest. And the United States, the DEA has been proven with Colombian mercenaries, and assassins are the ones that went in and assassinated the Haitian president, Jovi o Moise. I could go on and on and on Jammu. But again, it's the narrative. Exactly, exactly. And that narrative is important because that determines the politics and this collaboration we see of developing this cross party, this bipartisan collaboration is a very, very dangerous development. And the fact that Ukraine is defined as a democracy is dangerous. The fact that the US continues to define itself as a democracy and a champion of human rights while systematically and simultaneously supporting a genocide in Gaza is dangerous. But you know what? Dr. Leon, the obfuscation of us policies by the control of the narrative is now being diminished. That this is what we talk about in terms of the dots being connected and the veneer of civilization and high principles are now being stripped away. We see the naked reality of what this western project has always been, this western colonial capitalist project has always been what we are seeing in Gaza is the most brutal expression of it ever allowed to be exposed to the US population. And what I mean by that, we have to understand that as brutal as we have seen the situation in Gaza, it's not even the most brutal that has developed over the last few years. People have to remember that NATO under the first black president went in and completely destroyed the most prosperous state on the African continent Libya in the process of bombing campaign that took, that occurred over months, and the arming and equipping and support of a bunch of bandits on the ground is estimated between 30 and 50,000 people lost. Their lives were murdered. The difference was that we didn't see that we had to be relying on reports primarily filtered through the western press. So this is an example that is Gaza is an example, a brutal example of what happens, how the colonial project has unfolded, and now people are beginning to rethink everything. This is what we talk about in terms of questioning the propaganda the one is exposed to as part of a so-called educational process. Everything that you have been exposed to in this country is a lie. You have been exposed to a colonial education that was geared to provide support to a interest of a ruling class that doesn't give a damn about ordinary people, really doesn't give a damn about people in the US at all, and certainly does not see a non-European people as worthy of dignity and human rights. That's why you can have a situation like Gaza where they are starving people to death, bombing and killing children and women primarily In hospital And getting away with it in hospital and getting away with it. Yes. You remember when it first started, Dr. Leon, when Al Shifter was first hit with a bomb and it was like global news, and even the Israelis tried to explain it away because in all of these conflicts, the hospitals that have always been allowed to be an oasis, if you will, within the middle of these conflicts, it will seem to be the most egregious war, criminal war crime when you attack a military, attacked a hospital. Okay? People don't seem to understand Dr. Leon, what the Israeli fascists are during today is really kind of unprecedented. They've been allowed to basically attack and dismantle and destroy something like 36 hospitals. There's not a hospital left. When our shifted was first attacked, there's an outcry, but then it died down. What that said to the fascists, Israeli fascists was, we can get away with this. And that's exactly what they did. So this kind of brutality that we are seeing in Gaza is a reflection of the kind of brutality that made the west what it is today. They tried to rationalize the attacking ealing of hospitals by saying Hamas was using the hospitals as terrorist centers. There were tunnels under the hospitals all proven to be false. Again, the narrative, it was a lie. IDF forces would even dress as doctors and male soldiers would disguise themselves as women go into the hospital, kill 15, 20, 30 people then say, oh, they were all Hamas sympathizers. You mentioned the educational process. Going back to what's happening on the college campuses across the country, you mentioned the educational process. Are there elements within the country that are using this campus unrest as the basis for them to undermine education in the United States? Because we know that that higher education in the United States has been under attack by conservative forces for a number of years. Do you see in some of this, the attacks on the presidents of many of these institutions as being an attack on academia? I do, and I see this as the beginning of a more systematic attack. We've already seen cases where administrations are attempting to put in place rules that would in effect make it illegal, or subject students and faculty members to being suspended, expelled, lose their jobs, Lose their funding, lose their government funding, Lose their government funding, just raising certain kinds of questions as it relates primarily to Israel, but also is born in just Israel is really a US foreign policy. So this is again, for me another example of the consolidating fascism here in this country. Now we are really going to see where we are once the students come back in the fall because for our intents and purposes, we're going to see a bit of a petering out of this. And of course the press is going to jump on this as though this is kind of some kind of reflection of the flightiness of students. Well, no, the organizing will be taking place this summer. The real battle is going to unfold probably in the fall. So it remains to be seen what kind of impact this will have. But all of this is reflective of the complete jettison of liberal values at these liberal institutions and liberal philosophy being, again, primarily driven by neoliberals with their liberal allies, that basically, in order for the US empire to maintain its global hegemony, it has to jettison any constraints. And so any concerns about human rights or human dignity on the part of any of their victims or potential victims that has to be ignored now is about the brutal imposition of power in order to maintain hegemony. That's why they have more than 40 nations under economic sanctions. That's why they have strengthened their military command apparatus around the world, including on the African continent. That's why they using their superior military force and political power to intervene once again into Haiti. So this is a dangerous moment and people have to understand how dangerous this moment really is. I want to move on from this because there are a number of things that we also need to cover, but as we start to wrap up this portion of the conversation, and just as another example of how insidious so much of this is, there's a law professor at Bolt Hall, which is the law school at University of California Berkeley. His name is Steven David Dolf Solomon, and he published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, October 15th, 2023. And the piece is entitled, and I just lost my, here we go. Here we go. The piece is entitled, don't Hire My anti-Semitic Law Students. Would your clients want an attorney who condones hatred and monstrous crimes? And this is a little bit about what he wrote. I teach corporate law at the University of California Berkeley, and I'm an advisor to the Jewish Law Students Association. My students are largely engaged and well prepared, and I regularly recommend them to legal employers. But if you don't want to hire people who advocate, hate and practice discrimination, don't hire some of my students. anti-Semitic conduct is nothing new on university campuses, including here at Berkeley. And what he's doing here is a number of things. One, again, he's conflating opposition to genocide with antisemitism. He is conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. And when law professors at prestigious institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley Bolt Hall start to write to the law firms that they have influence at, in and or over, don't hire my students because their anti-Semitic conduct is nothing new on university campuses, including here at Berkeley. That's dangerous. Ajamu Baraka. Well, it really is, and it is reflective of a tendency that's unfolding across the country, unfortunately. But you know what? Dr. Leon is really encouraging that so many young people, so many students are prepared to make the sacrifice. They have understood that their positions could have a major impact on their careers. If you'll, we have a few students in the Black Alliance of Peace who have been thrown out of school, people who have just done their dissertation defense, and now that's up in the air because they were suspended and banned from the campus. And they knew this was a possibility when they decided to not only join but also lead some of the protests. And that is encouraging because what is happening is that there is a new kind of sensitivity, new kind of awareness that's being developed primarily with the Generation Z regarding violence and war. And if you think about it, it's understandable that this will be the generation that will finally be sick of conflicts because these are folks, Dr. Lehigh, that have never known anything but war. My son is 22 years old, just graduated from Hampton University this past Sunday. Way to go boy, congratulations and has never known peace in his lifetime. He exactly the 21st century has been a century of conflict, a century of war. And this was basically predicted by the project for a new American century that he was committed to using the US' superior military strength to impose the US on the rest of the planet to make sure that the US was the hegemonic power on the planet with no competitors. And that's exactly what they have been doing, beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan and up to today. And so this generation who for the first time doesn't have any illusions about the so-called American Dream that has seen the normalization of mass shootings, that has seen nothing but war and conflict their entire life, now they're being exposed to the horrors of a livestream. Genocide. And they have finally said, enough is enough. And so that is encouraging, and it's the base of the kind of alternative political organizing that many of us are involved in because unless we are able to build a movement powerful enough to put a break on these maniacs who are making policies today, we are on a fast track to human extension, extension. I mean, you look at what's happening in Ukraine and you connect that to Israel. This is a moment that these young people are beginning to understand is a moment in which if they don't make the pivot from just being concerned with genocide and Gaza, as important as that is to this being a generalized movement against war and for peace and for social transformation, then I think they recognize we all are facing an existential threat. The Black Alliance for Peace closes its peace with, as the masses of African people examine with new eyes the relationship between Zionists and Palestine, what will we conclude? Will we fall for the ploy to scapegoat Benjamin Netanyahu for all of Israel's crimes and then fall back to complacency after he is removed from office? Or will we make the connection between Israel and colonialism? Colonialism and capitalism and capitalism and genocide? I'm glad you mentioned in your piece Benjamin Netanyahu, and will we fall for the ploy to scapegoat him? Because what a lot of people don't really appreciate, as you listen to Joe Biden talk about Benjamin Netanyahu needs to go, and Tony Blinken made reference to that. Folks who really don't understand the dynamics and the intricacies of Israeli politics have to understand if you get rid of Netanyahu, who or what does he get replaced with or by? Because most folks don't understand the compromises that Netanyahu had to make in order to remain in power. And he had to compromise if this is even fathomable, he had to compromise with even more hawkish, more racist, more white supremacist elements within that Zionist society than even Netanyahu is. And he's about as racist as one could think they could get. But when you start talking about Morich and you start talking about Ben, I mean these folks are evil personified. They're fascist. And what is interesting about that analysis you just laid out too, is the fact that it is a ploy. And we've been sort of raising this question or trying to help people to this because what they're trying to do is divert attention away from the settler colonial project itself. Its nature and the policies of Benjamin Nhu. But the Nhu policies are reflection of the Israeli society. Over 80% of Israeli society supported the incursion, the invasion of Gaza. There are people who are criticizing the government for not being tough enough. Okay? So it is the project itself. We all have seen those of us who follow this, the images of the Israelis marching with signs kill all the Arabs, death to Arabs, that society has gone actually mad. They really, And many of them, particularly in the West Bank, are carrying weapons supplied by the United States. And these are rogue bans of settlers that are indiscriminately a attacking indigenous Palestinians and murdering them where they stand. I went to the West Bank in 2014 and I saw with my own eyes those kinds of elements, those kinds of racist elements holding guns, one of the most vicious and dangerous places I've ever seen in my life. Lemme add, many of these people weren't born there. These people are from Brooklyn. These folks are from Brooklyn. Exactly. Americans there you could be a Jewish bus rider, a driver one day, and next week you could be a colonialist carrying an M 16 and able to shoot and kill a Palestinian with impunity. But it's a democracy. No, it can't be. It's a democracy. A jama. Yeah. So this is what is being exposed, and this is why we have the uprising and what they don't seem to understand, Dr. Leon, that is the ruling element. There's no reversal. You see these articles where Democrats would say that in essence, this will blow over and people will recognize that the real threat is Donald Trump, and then you'll come back into the fold and vote for Joe. That ain't happening this time, especially even after all of this where you see that Trump is leading across the country, the turnout for Democrats are not going to be anywhere where it needs to be in order to stem this Trump tie. They have really screwed up on this one, the Democrats. I'm glad you raised that point, because there are a lot of people that don't. What those who make those statements do is they try to personalize the atrocities and they try to personalize the policy instead of understanding its American foreign policy. And so when you look at the policies of Joe Biden and you look at a lot of the policies of Donald Trump, Biden has in many regards, been more Trumpian than Trump. Look at, for example, Exactly like you said, it's the same policy. See the cultural war and all that. These are all the only elements that really differentiate these two parties. Underneath that there is unanimity among the ruling elements. Now, there's real conflicts of interest though, because what Trump represents are those class forces that are national. They are the ones that want a bigger piece of the pie within the us, and they feel oppressed by the globalists, by international capital of finance capital. That really is the hegemonic capitalist sector. And so they're the ones that want expanded opportunities. They're the ones that feel threatened by all of this importation coming into the country from places like China understanding that. And they understand this. It ain't just the Chinese government that's importing consumer goods. It's US corporations who use China as a platform to bring stuff into the us. And so they're saying, you all are killing us. The iPhone killing the iPhone is the perfect example. And so that is part of the tension there. And those are the forces that the Trumpian people face represent. But ideologically, they all are connected to. They all support the continuation of the capitalist system. So there's no contradictions there. It is an intro bourgeois struggle, and people make the mistake of allowing themselves to be pulled into that struggle. We've got to define our objective interests and organize around those interests. And when you do that, basically you recognize that it's the duopoly that has to be smashed, that you don't fall prey to all of these games, people being played, the Biden administration, pretending like they're really taking a position against the net, Yahoo and all this kind of crap. I mean, this is about advancing the interests of the most powerful sectors of capital in this country. Final point on this, final point on this, because we could stay on this for a month. Again, just another element of the hypocrisy. So last week, Joe Biden says, I'm taking a stand. I've drawn a line in the sand, and we're not going to send these. We're going to have a pause on these weapons to Israel. Well, today they announced what a $1 billion weapons package on its way to where? On its way to Israel. This is a money laundering scheme. Folks, your tax dollars are being used to buy and send weapons of genocide to the settler colonial state. And remember, it's not like the money's being sent to Israel. This is a lateral transfer, Martin, from of the US state to the pockets of the military industrial complex for the weapons that then get sent to Israel. Say that again, please. This is a lateral transfer from breach. It Closed in the back pew, Reverend Reverend From the conference, from your money's being stolen, taken from you, sent to the military industrial complex, the defense contractors for weapons that are then sent to Israel to commit crimes in your name. Amen. And another example, the US planned to outsource its imperialism in Haiti to Kenya. This is from MSN. The US has long outsourced meddling in Haiti to global south countries. Recently, Kenya has agreed to take over leading a US backed multinational police intervention there justifying its own stabilization mission with Pan-Africanist rhetoric. And William Ruto, the president of Kenya, is scheduled to meet with Joe Biden in the White House on the 23rd of this month as the first, I think it's 200. So-called police. But these are incredibly, incredibly brutal. These aren't New York. This ain't NYPD. This is not LAPD. No. These are US trained brutal hit squads that they're sending in to Haiti via Kenya at the behest of the United States. It's Kenya military. Kenya Military is a misnomer to refer to these forces just as police. That gives us sort of a milder sort of image. If you'll Innocuous, Innocuous. This is a, they're Going to establish law and order. This is a military invasion that is going to result in hundreds of deaths of Haitians because there will be resistance. They've already said there's going to be resistance. And so to save Haiti, supposedly they have imposed this military invasion. Dr. Leon, as you know, one of the things that really has made Western colonialism so effective has always been its ability to divide people, to have people who are people working with them who actually should be against 'em. So here we have one of the most egregious examples of that in this period, with the Kenyas being recruited to front for us white power. In that article or one of the other articles they talked about, they imply that this was, it didn't have a race component to it, that because these are black intervention of troops coming from Kenya and Jamaica and Grenada, that this is just solidarity. This is Pan-African solidarity, and they're using that term stabilization. This is, but this is the white mans bird. This is white saviorism in blackface. The Power behind this, I call it minstrel diplomacy. It's a black face on white imperialism. Exactly. It's menstrual diplomacy. They might as well just start singing mammy, Who's paying for this? The us? How did you move troops from Kenya all the way over to hay Kenya? Just don't have that capacity. Who Feeds them? Who supports them? Who provides the logistics for them? And anybody who believes that a government and a society that can justify genocide, supporting genocide in Gaza, they then turn around and are supposed to be concerned about black life in Haiti. You got to be a fool. I got a bridge for you to sell. I mean, you've got to ask the right questions, folks. Why is the US involved in this? When has the US been on the right side of history in any question? When has the US really been committed to any kind of humanitarian, anything? So this is another move by the US to strengthen itself in the Caribbean and in our region. When we say our region, we say that we are part of the broader Americas. America isn't just the United States of America. America are all of the nations in the Caribbean and in Central and South America. And we have a campaign, the Black Alliance of Peace, where we say that we support the idea of making this region a zone of peace. And we say the only way we can make this a result of peace, we have to eject the US from this region. One of the things that they love to talk about as it relates to Haiti and the violence in Haiti, all these armed gangs that are roaming the roaming the countryside like feral cats or wolves or whatever. And I haven't heard anybody talk about the weapons that these individuals are carrying. Where do the weapons come from and who pays for the weapons? And here's some very simple data. The average Haitian makes $1,694 in a year, $1,694 in a year. That's $4 and 64 cents a day. A sniper rifle costs about $1,800. Where does a Haitian, who makes $4 and 64 cents a day if he or she's lucky amass the money to buy an $1,800 sniper rifle, a 40 caliber Beretta pistol cost close to a thousand dollars, you make $4 and 64 cents a day. Where are you getting these weapons? How are they getting into the country? We don't hear. It goes back to the adage, don't start nothing. It won't be nothing. If the United States were not behind fanning the flames of this unrest, there wouldn't be any unrest. Ajamu Baraka, You're absolutely right. I mean, this is the importation of these weapons. It's all part of a process. You have different sectors of the Haitian ruling class have basically their own paramilitaries And they control the ports, But they're called gangs here at the us. Right? And the other thing that we have to make sure that we are very clear on all of this activity, the vast majority of this, so-called gang activity is centralized in port nce the capital, you go outside Port Prince, it's relatively normal. They're not roaming the countryside basically. It's a porter prince kind of thing. It's a power kind of thing. Okay? And so you're right. This is the military aspect of the conflict, the struggles among sectors of the ruling class in Haiti, the what we call copy doors who are in a cahoots with the powerful economic sectors outside of Haiti, primarily the us but also the Canadians, and even France. So this is another economic struggle being translated into a armed struggle in Haiti. And quickly talk about, because a lot of people listening to this would ask the question, well, what's behind all of this? Why Haiti? And we know the historic aspects of this in terms of the first successful slave uprising throwing France out of Haiti in the 18 hundreds. We know that story, but connecting the dots in the current context, this is I believe a huge, one of the elements is a preemptive move against China. As the United States continues to try to bait China into a war over Taiwan, the United States realizes that they're going to lose access to their cheaper Chinese labor sources. And there is a lot of labor in Haiti. A lot of, again, folks make $4 and 64 cents a day in Haiti. If you look at where Haiti is located, the United States wants to build a naval base in Haiti as another stopgap measure to protect the Pacific. We know that there's oil, some geologists have estimated there's more oil off the coast of Haiti than there is off the coast of Venezuela. We know about the relationship between Nicaragua and China. China wants to build a Suez type canal through Nicaragua. The United States doesn't want that to happen. So a lot of this has, I believe, to do with preemptive measures that the United States is taking in anticipation of what's happening in other places. Your thoughts, sir? I think you're right. I mean, the geopolitics are quite clear that Haiti is one of the largest countries in the Caribbean, if not the largest. And as you said, it is a haven for cheap labor. There's significant foreign investment taking advantage of that cheap labor right now. It has those potential deposits of oil off the coast and politically is key. We remember the connection that was made between Haiti and Venezuela for a few years. And so making sure that Haiti does not move to The petro project, Petro, Where Venezuela was providing Haiti oil below market rates, so way Below So Haiti could then sell the oil generate revenue for itself. And that was seen as a threat to US imperialism. And so those kind of political connections, they understand what many people and many of your listers may not know. Also, they are very strong currents of progressivism or leftism, if you will, in Haing. And the biggest fear that US has is those forces actually able to take power in Haiti that would transform geopolitics in this region. And so yeah, that's why they are intervening. That's why they have encouraged other countries in the Caribbean to be a part of this, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Grenada, to be part of this, what I call neoliberal Pan-Africanism, because they want to keep Haiti in their pocket. Look, the so-called governing council, they just put in place in order to serve on that governing council, you had to commit of this transitional council. You had to commit to the US intervention. You had to be in alignment with it. If not, you are not going to be allowed to serve on that transitional ruling council. And they talk about elections in Haiti, but they talk about the possibility of elections in 2026. So this is not a democratic intervention. This is not on behalf of the interest of Haiti. This is about the interest of US imperialism. Final question. Talk about this in a broader context of a number of African countries demanding now that the United States militarily leave their countries. Niger has done this. I think Chad is demanding that the United States take its troops out. I think Mali is making a similar request. And reen Jean Pierre, by the way, a Haitian American press secretary for the administration says that Ruto coming from Kenya to the United States, that the United States is going to need African leadership in order to promote the United States interest. I'm paraphrasing, but that's their basic point. So once again, menstrual diplomacy of black face on the racist administrative message. But talk about that quickly, please. In the broader context of African countries demanding that the United States leave their soil militarily First, if the US was really interested in African leadership, it would've listened to African leadership that were trying to bring about a peaceful resolution of the situation in Libya before NATO went in and destroyed that state. So we know that's all BS across the African continent. Yes, particularly in the Sahel region, you have these progressive militaries that have taken power because the civilian institutions have been so weak, and one of the first moves they've been making is to try to authentic sovereignty. What they discovered was you cannot be sovereign if you have foreign military troops in your country and that these troops act like and behave as though it's their country. And you can't be sovereign if you don't control your economy and the resources under your soil. Exactly. And so they've been invited to in fact leave, and they are leaving. The US is still dragging its feet in leisure, but this is catching on. And now with we're have time to talk about what's happening with Senegal, but you have another progressive change where the French are going to probably end up being pushed even out of Senegal. So you have a massive transformation taking place on the African continent in this section of Africa for now. But the model is a model that is now threatening to many of the other Conor leaders on the African continent that real change may be in the works. We may have in fact an authentic Pan-African movement. Finally, once again, Folks, I have to thank my guest brother Ajamu Baraka for joining me today. Brother Baraka, thank you so much. Greatly, greatly appreciate it. My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wier Leon. Stay tuned. New episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Do us a huge, huge, huge favor. Go to Patreon, please, and contribute. This is not an inexpensive venture to engage in, and your support is greatly, greatly appreciated. And as you all can see every week, you're getting a hell of a lot for your money. Remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wimer Leon. Have a good one. We're out. Peace. Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

Clay Jenkinson joins his friend Dennis McKenna in Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico to observe the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Chaco Canyon dates to at least the ninth century CE, more than a thousand years ago, and somehow their skywatchers know how to observe equinoxes, solstices, and eclipses. What better place to see the solar eclipse of 2024? Administered by the US National Park System, but interpreted for us by a Native Navajo and Zia expert Kailo Winters, it was a magical experience in a sacred place. We came away impressed by the capacity of the European Enlightenment to figure all of this out, but far more in awe of the Puebloan scholars who figured such phenomena out centuries before European science was out of its swaddling clothes. We also check in with our favorite Enlightenment correspondent David Nicandri.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Don't sleep on Coordination Takeoffs, published by trevor on January 28, 2024 on LessWrong. It's important to remember that the culture we grew up in is deeply nihilistic at its core. People expect Moloch, assume Moloch as a given, even defer to Moloch. If you read enough about business and international affairs (not news articles, those don't count, not for international affairs at least, I don't know about business), and then read about dath ilan, it becomes clear that our world is ruled by Moloch cultists who nihilistically optimized for career advancement. Humans are primates; we instinctively take important concepts and turn them into dominance/status games, including that concept itself; resulting in many people believing that important concepts do not exist at all. So it makes sense that Moloch would be an intensely prevalent part of our civilization, even ~a century after decision theory took off and ~4 centuries after mass literacy took off. Some of the first people to try to get together and have a really big movement to enlighten and reform the world was the Counter Culture movement starting in the 60's, which overlapped with the Vietnam Antiwar movement and the Civil Rights movement. The Counter Culture movement failed because they were mainly a bunch of inept teens and 20-somethings; not just lacking knowledge of decision theory or economics or Sequence-level understanding of heuristics/biases, but also because they lived in a world where social psychology and thinking-about-society were still in infancy. Like the European Enlightenment and the French Revolution before them, they started out profoundly confused about the direction to aim for and the correct moves to make (see Anna Salamon's Humans are not Automatically Strategic). The Antiwar movement permanently damaged the draft-based American military apparatus, permanently made western culture substantially more cosmopolitan than the conformist 1950s, but their ignorance and ineptitude and blunders were so immense that they shrank the Overton window on people coming together and choosing to change the world for the better. As soon as lots of people acquired an incredibly primitive version of the understandings now held by the EA, rationalist, and AI safety communities, those people started the Counter Culture movement of the 1960s in order to raise the sanity waterline above the deranged passivity of the 1950s conformist culture. And they botched it so hard, in so many ways, that everyone now cringes at the memory; the Overton window on changing the world was fouled up, perhaps intractably. Major governments and militaries also became predisposed to nip similar movements in the bud, such as the use of AI technology to psychologically disrupt groups of highly motivated people. Since then, there hasn't been a critical mass behind counter culture or societal reform, other than Black Lives Matter, the Women's March, Occupy Wall Street, and the Jan 6th Riots, which only got that many people due to heavily optimizing for memetic spread among the masses via excessively simple messages, and prevailing on already-popular sentiment such post-2008 anger at banking institutions, and likely only getting that far due to the emergence of the social media paradigm (which governments are incentivized to hijack). Game theory didn't take off until the 1950s, when it was basically absorbed by the US military, just like how economics was absorbed by the contemporary equivalent of Wall Street (and remains absorbed to this day). I'm pretty sure that the entire 20th century came and went with nearly none of them spending an hour a week thinking about solving the coordination problems facing the human race, so that the world could be better for them and their children. Even though virtually all of them would prefer to live ...

Texas Book Bans and Constitutionality: A federal appeals court has ruled that the Texas law (READER Act) requiring sexual content ratings on books for public schools likely violates the Constitution. This law is challenged by Texas bookstores, national trade associations, and a legal defense fund, citing freedom of speech concerns and potential harm due to compliance costs.Discrimination Lawsuit in NY STEM Program: Asian parents have filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the New York State Education Department. They claim the Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP), which admits around 11,000 students annually for classes at various institutions, discriminates against Asian and white students. While Black, Hispanic, and Native American students can apply regardless of income, Asian and white students must meet low-income criteria.Maine's "Transgender Trafficking" Bill: LD 1735, titled “An Act to Safeguard Gender-affirming Health Care,” aims to prevent police from reuniting minors with their parents if they were brought to Maine for gender-affirming care against parental wishes. The bill faced a deadlocked committee vote and further discussion is postponed.Affiliate Shoutout: Ginger Larcom from Corvallis, Oregon, is recognized for her contributions to Parents' Rights in Education, particularly for starting a local affiliate group and serving as Board Chair.Episode Topic – Judeo/Christian Nation Debate: The podcast addresses whether the US is a Judeo-Christian nation. It discusses the nation's founding principles, the influence of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the impact of various philosophical, religious, and political influences. Key topics include the Great Awakening, European Enlightenment, and the role of the Bible in shaping American values and laws. The Constitution's principles, including popular sovereignty and separation of powers, are highlighted. The episode concludes that the US is not a theocracy but is a Judeo-Christian nation in terms of its foundational values and worldview.Support the showDONATE TODAY!www.ParentsRightsInEducation.com

Hello Interactors,This is the last post on economics for 2023. Next up for winter is human behavior. This post bridges where we left off with traditional colonial nation-states by talking about how similar philosophies are motivating the formation of neocolonial micro-states. What causes people to seek freedom in new places by limiting the freedom of those found in such places?Let's dig in…THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESSIn 2009 the venture capitalist, techno-optimist, and libertarian political activist Peter Thiel ‘reasoned'. “[he] no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible.” He said, “The great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms.” Back then Thiel was introducing his ‘seasteading' project — building or repurposing platforms in ocean waters not covered by international law as micro-nations. He continues to lead his friends and followers, like tech mogul Marc Andreessen, toward these promised lands. They seek sophisticated legal spaces opportunistically drawn inside pre-existing territories with curious jurisdictions, legal structures, and rights. They take on names like ‘innovation hubs' or ‘high-tech parks' — techno-libertarian utopian ‘enclaves' and ‘havens' for those willing to adopt and adhere to their techno-optimist religion.My last two posts talked about the creation of nation-states by powerful governments over the centuries and how they contributed to the current wars in Ukraine and Palestine. But there are also battles in the courtroom between these neocolonial libertarian venture capitalists and the people resisting colonization. This is why, as The Economist says, these libertarian colonies “will have their own government, write their own laws, manage their own currency and, eventually, hold their own elections.” And they have the backing of powerful European and U.S. governments. Sound familiar? The original European colonial nation-states were qausi-governmental entities conceived by rich and powerful private entities to further enrich themselves — often at the expense of local people and land. It's a concept that emerged out the European Enlightenment boosted by new scientific discoveries, technologies, and philosophies.Thinkers like John Locke advocated for the concept of natural rights, including life, liberty, and property, which belonged inherently to individuals. These ideas inspired people to seek places where they could express personal autonomy and the freedom to pursue one's own goals and desires free of rule. This contrasted with long held beliefs that placed collective or communal goals above individual aspirations.The Enlightenment is also often associated with the Age of Reason. Influential philosophers like René Descartes and Immanuel Kant emphasized the role of reason in understanding the world and making decisions. They argued that individuals should use their capacity for rational thought to question traditional authorities and beliefs, thus promoting a more individualistic approach to knowledge and truth. Reason is the hallmark of libertarian political philosophy today.But they're not alone. Rationalism has long been a cornerstone of human understanding, though faces many challenges today. Advances in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and philosophy reveal that rationality is not a neutral tool but is often influenced by power structures, cultural biases, and subjective experiences. What is considered 'rational' can vary across different cultural and social contexts.For example, the ‘rational actor' theory on which mainstream economics rests doesn't factor in confirmation bias — favoring information that confirms preexisting beliefs. A growing number of neuroscientists are revealing confirmation bias triggers activity in brain regions involved in reward processing, suggesting some biases may be rooted in fundamental neural mechanisms.One of the preexisting beliefs of early Enlightenment thinkers, theologians, and colonial settlers is the idea that morality and ethics are not solely dictated by external authorities (like the church or state) but can be discerned through personal reasoning and rational introspection. This led to a more personal and individualistic approach to moral decisions. This may a form of confirmation bias suggesting moral principles should be followed out of a sense of personal duty over a duty to the community.This shift played a crucial role in shaping modern Western societies, influencing everything from political theory to personal identity.These ideas are intermingled in European colonialism and state-making. European powers, perceiving themselves as more 'civilized' and 'rational', used these beliefs to legitimize the domination of other peoples, whom they considered less enlightened or rational. This paternalistic view was used to rationalize the spread of European control and influence across the globe, often disregarding the autonomy and cultural values of colonized peoples.While Enlightenment thinkers championed personal freedom and autonomy, these ideals were selectively applied. Colonial powers often deny these rights to the people in their newly formed colonies, leading to a glaring contradiction between Enlightenment ideals and colonial practices. This paradox is what fuels anti-colonial movements to argue for independence and self-determination just as colonizers did against their religious, feudal, and imperial tyrants.The individualistic approach to morality and ethics of the Enlightenment era led to significant debates and critiques regarding the moral implications of colonialism that are alive today. Some Enlightenment thinkers, like Denis Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire and later the abolitionists, criticized colonialism and slavery on moral grounds. Even early American colonizers like Roger Williams, John Woolman, and Thomas Paine criticized the inhumane treatment of Native Americans and the unjust rights of exploitation of land and labor. However, the cloak of moral and civilizational superiority ultimately justified colonial practices then and now.LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALLAre these neocolonial ‘zones of opportunity' just another cloak of moral and civilizational superiority that ultimately justifies total disregard for the autonomy and cultural values of the local people and land? And like other attempts to support colonization, are they endorsed by powerful governments and Western financial institutions? Yes, they are.In 2013, the Honduran government under President Juan Orland Hernández, after controversially reconstituting its Supreme Court, passed the "ZEDEs law" to create "Zones for Employment and Economic Development." These zones, inspired by former World Bank Economist Paul Romer's Charter City concept, involved selling Honduran territory to foreign investors at low costs. The Society for the Socioeconomic Development of Honduras, later known as Honduras Próspera LLC, was established in Biden's home Company State and tax haven, Delaware.Próspera is funded by Peter Thiel and Marc Andreesen and was envisioned as a libertarian utopia. They want to develop a ‘zone' in Crawfish Rock, a small, historically significant community located on the island of Roatán, part of the Bay Islands in Honduras. Its English-speaking origins can be traced back to the early 19th century when the British Empire exerted influence over the region, leading to a significant influx of English-speaking Black Caribbean descendants. Over the years, Crawfish Rock has maintained its unique cultural and linguistic identity, with English remaining the primary language, a testament to its historical ties to the British colonial era and the diverse migration patterns in the Caribbean. An organization has formed to protect these people, their homes, and their heritage — as well as other areas like it in Honduras from ‘neocolonial invasion'.The Vice President of the Crawfish Rock governing council Venessa Cardenas Woods put it plainly, “If you take away our land, if you take away our cultural heritage, our way of living, you take away everything, the entire identity of the group as English-speaking blacks, then you would be eliminating an entire people.”Meanwhile, Prospera's President, Joel Bomgar, who also happens to be a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives, believes, “The concept of free private cities and charter cities, specifically what Próspera is trying to do, is the most transformative project in the world.” Bomgar previously started and then sold a remote access software company for support technicians.Lest you think this is purely a conservative GOP libertarian affair, it was the Obama administration that created a “U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America.” Optimistically stating, “While the United States will need to invest significant resources in such an effort, the success of the strategy will depend far more on the readiness of Central American governments to continue to demonstrate political will and undertake substantial political and economic commitments to bring about positive change in the region.”Their efforts and dollars instead supported a government coup and the rise of Hernández which ultimately reshaped the Honduras constitution, reassembled the supreme court, and forced the formation of U.S. backed ‘zones' into law. The coup was unanimously condemned by the UN General Assembly.   In a made-for-tv twist, fast forward to 2022, Honduran President Juan Orland Hernández was arrested, detained, and then extradited at the request of the United States government on drug and arms charges. The Hondurans then elected Xiomar Castro as the country's first female president. She is also the wife of Manuel Zelaya who was ousted in the coup. Her mandate is political platform, social justice, poverty reduction, and opposition to neoliberal policies.She wasted no time. The Honduran Congress voted unanimously to repeal ‘zone' laws and appointed a committee to oversee their elimination. Próspera also wasted no time. Months later the corporation filed a $10.7 billion dollar claim against the Honduran government. This equates to 80% of the Honduran total governmental expenditures. They claim it's a violation of the U.S. Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR).Members of the U.S. Congress and Biden administration sought to defend and expand CAFTA provisions to further protect U.S. investments. This system of public-private strong-arming of weaker countries is embedded in U.S. bilateral investment treaties. It can create legal and power imbalances that allow corporations to sue governments for regulations affecting profits without reciprocal accountability for corporate crimes — including violations of the very labor laws and environmental protections Libertarians seek to avoid in the creation of their so-called ‘havens'.The Biden administration's approach to international trade law and the ongoing case of Honduras challenges existing trade norms. Honduras is actively resisting this system, with President Castro's government seeking to reform the international trade system and restrict corporate power from neocolonial expansion.As Honduras prepares to lead the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2024, this issue is set to become a central topic in hemispheric discussions. The case underscores the importance of eliminating unfair provisions from U.S. trade agreements to safeguard democracy against corporate interventions. The stakes are high, not just financially but also in terms of the autonomy of cultural values, community identity, and environmental protections. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

“Why do we care about equality? Is it an invention of the European Enlightenment? Or is it something rooted in human nature?” These questions launched episode 15 with philosopher Elizabeth Anderson. Titled “A Deep History of Equality”, our conversation ranged from Pleistocene hunter-gatherers to Chinese communism.  Today's episode continues the quest. But this time, we go further and contrast humans to other apes and monkeys.  My guest is the primatologist Sarah Brosnan. Her research is famous for a wildly popular video clip of a monkey who, frustrated by unequal treatment, throws a cucumber at the experimenter. You might have seen the video. Do watch it if you have not. It's only 58 seconds long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo I saw this clip years ago. It resonated with something in me. But what exactly? Why should we care about monkeys throwing cucumbers? Are the critics right who say that this has nothing to do with human values? It was an honour to discuss this with Prof Brosnan herself. We start by exploring cucumber throwing (i.e. "inequity aversion") in a variety of species. We then move to topics such as: Can monkeys learn more egalitarian social norms? How do monkeys (or chimpanzees) react to unfairness when they are the ones benefitting? Answering the critics: is this really about social equality? Does fairness improve cooperation? Are there property rights in the primate world? Is there still something special about humans? As always, we end with my guest's reflections on human nature. I hope you enjoy the conversation! NEW OFFERING Do you prefer reading to listening? Or would you like to revisit the argument's highlights? You can now get breakdowns of this and other episodes directly to your email. Subscribe via the On Humans SubStack or read on the web. The breakdown of this conversation is available now! NAMES Malini Suchak / Frans de Waal / Julia Neiworth / Erin Musto / Friederike Range / Jason Davies / Michael Tomasello / Felix Waerneken  LINKS For links to mentioned papers and talks, see https://onhumans.substack.com/p/links-for-episode-28. SUPPORT THE SHOW ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/OnHumans⁠⁠⁠ GET IN TOUCH ilari@onhumans.org

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University of California Press, 2023), Damani Partridge examines the possibilities and limits for a universalized Black politics. German youth of Turkish, Arab, and African descent use claims of Blackness to hold states and other institutions accountable for racism today. Partridge tracks how these young people take on the expressions of Black Power, acting out the scene from the 1968 Olympics, proclaiming "I am Malcolm X," expressing mutual struggle with Muhammad Ali and Spike Lee, and standing with raised and clenched fists next to Angela Davis. Partridge also documents public school teachers, federal program leaders, and politicians demanding that young immigrants account for the global persistence of anti-Semitism as part of the German state's commitment to anti-genocidal education. He uses these stories to interrogate the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and Black futures, showing how noncitizens work to reshape their everyday lives. In doing so, he demonstrates how Blackness is a concept that energizes, inspires, and makes possible participation beyond national belonging for immigrants, refugees, Black people, and other People of Color. Damani J. Partridge is Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.  Reighan Gillam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University of California Press, 2023), Damani Partridge examines the possibilities and limits for a universalized Black politics. German youth of Turkish, Arab, and African descent use claims of Blackness to hold states and other institutions accountable for racism today. Partridge tracks how these young people take on the expressions of Black Power, acting out the scene from the 1968 Olympics, proclaiming "I am Malcolm X," expressing mutual struggle with Muhammad Ali and Spike Lee, and standing with raised and clenched fists next to Angela Davis. Partridge also documents public school teachers, federal program leaders, and politicians demanding that young immigrants account for the global persistence of anti-Semitism as part of the German state's commitment to anti-genocidal education. He uses these stories to interrogate the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and Black futures, showing how noncitizens work to reshape their everyday lives. In doing so, he demonstrates how Blackness is a concept that energizes, inspires, and makes possible participation beyond national belonging for immigrants, refugees, Black people, and other People of Color. Damani J. Partridge is Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.  Reighan Gillam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University of California Press, 2023), Damani Partridge examines the possibilities and limits for a universalized Black politics. German youth of Turkish, Arab, and African descent use claims of Blackness to hold states and other institutions accountable for racism today. Partridge tracks how these young people take on the expressions of Black Power, acting out the scene from the 1968 Olympics, proclaiming "I am Malcolm X," expressing mutual struggle with Muhammad Ali and Spike Lee, and standing with raised and clenched fists next to Angela Davis. Partridge also documents public school teachers, federal program leaders, and politicians demanding that young immigrants account for the global persistence of anti-Semitism as part of the German state's commitment to anti-genocidal education. He uses these stories to interrogate the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and Black futures, showing how noncitizens work to reshape their everyday lives. In doing so, he demonstrates how Blackness is a concept that energizes, inspires, and makes possible participation beyond national belonging for immigrants, refugees, Black people, and other People of Color. Damani J. Partridge is Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.  Reighan Gillam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University of California Press, 2023), Damani Partridge examines the possibilities and limits for a universalized Black politics. German youth of Turkish, Arab, and African descent use claims of Blackness to hold states and other institutions accountable for racism today. Partridge tracks how these young people take on the expressions of Black Power, acting out the scene from the 1968 Olympics, proclaiming "I am Malcolm X," expressing mutual struggle with Muhammad Ali and Spike Lee, and standing with raised and clenched fists next to Angela Davis. Partridge also documents public school teachers, federal program leaders, and politicians demanding that young immigrants account for the global persistence of anti-Semitism as part of the German state's commitment to anti-genocidal education. He uses these stories to interrogate the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and Black futures, showing how noncitizens work to reshape their everyday lives. In doing so, he demonstrates how Blackness is a concept that energizes, inspires, and makes possible participation beyond national belonging for immigrants, refugees, Black people, and other People of Color. Damani J. Partridge is Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.  Reighan Gillam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University of California Press, 2023), Damani Partridge examines the possibilities and limits for a universalized Black politics. German youth of Turkish, Arab, and African descent use claims of Blackness to hold states and other institutions accountable for racism today. Partridge tracks how these young people take on the expressions of Black Power, acting out the scene from the 1968 Olympics, proclaiming "I am Malcolm X," expressing mutual struggle with Muhammad Ali and Spike Lee, and standing with raised and clenched fists next to Angela Davis. Partridge also documents public school teachers, federal program leaders, and politicians demanding that young immigrants account for the global persistence of anti-Semitism as part of the German state's commitment to anti-genocidal education. He uses these stories to interrogate the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and Black futures, showing how noncitizens work to reshape their everyday lives. In doing so, he demonstrates how Blackness is a concept that energizes, inspires, and makes possible participation beyond national belonging for immigrants, refugees, Black people, and other People of Color. Damani J. Partridge is Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.  Reighan Gillam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University of California Press, 2023), Damani Partridge examines the possibilities and limits for a universalized Black politics. German youth of Turkish, Arab, and African descent use claims of Blackness to hold states and other institutions accountable for racism today. Partridge tracks how these young people take on the expressions of Black Power, acting out the scene from the 1968 Olympics, proclaiming "I am Malcolm X," expressing mutual struggle with Muhammad Ali and Spike Lee, and standing with raised and clenched fists next to Angela Davis. Partridge also documents public school teachers, federal program leaders, and politicians demanding that young immigrants account for the global persistence of anti-Semitism as part of the German state's commitment to anti-genocidal education. He uses these stories to interrogate the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and Black futures, showing how noncitizens work to reshape their everyday lives. In doing so, he demonstrates how Blackness is a concept that energizes, inspires, and makes possible participation beyond national belonging for immigrants, refugees, Black people, and other People of Color. Damani J. Partridge is Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.  Reighan Gillam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University of California Press, 2023), Damani Partridge examines the possibilities and limits for a universalized Black politics. German youth of Turkish, Arab, and African descent use claims of Blackness to hold states and other institutions accountable for racism today. Partridge tracks how these young people take on the expressions of Black Power, acting out the scene from the 1968 Olympics, proclaiming "I am Malcolm X," expressing mutual struggle with Muhammad Ali and Spike Lee, and standing with raised and clenched fists next to Angela Davis. Partridge also documents public school teachers, federal program leaders, and politicians demanding that young immigrants account for the global persistence of anti-Semitism as part of the German state's commitment to anti-genocidal education. He uses these stories to interrogate the relationships between European Enlightenment, Holocaust memory, and Black futures, showing how noncitizens work to reshape their everyday lives. In doing so, he demonstrates how Blackness is a concept that energizes, inspires, and makes possible participation beyond national belonging for immigrants, refugees, Black people, and other People of Color. Damani J. Partridge is Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.  Reighan Gillam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Isaac Newton's discoveries of gravity and physics turned the scientific world upside down. His works helped to power the European Enlightenment, accounted for the discovery of white light, and even involved building the first Newtonian Telescope. The contributions he made to England were so great he was even bestowed knighthood. Roll up, light up, and watch out for falling apples in another episode of this weed fueled podcast.Contact Half Baked History Follow and engage with us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter Email us at halfbakedhistorypod@gmail.com - Business inquires only Thanks for listening and supporting the show!

I am really excited about the conversation I had with Tara Isabella Burton – who is a novelist, essayist and scholar of religion and spirituality – and we spoke about her new book, Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians, published by Public Affairs. Tara takes us on a historical tour of the evolution of self-making, that is, how our notions individuality and self-identity formed in response to dramatic social and economic upheavals. Our conversation begins with the Renaissance – and we cover a lot of historical ground, from the aristocratic strands of self-creation during the European Enlightenment -- all the way to our current selfie obsessed and social media influencer culture. Her book is really jammed packed with novel insights and revelations that trace this inward turn to our search for authenticity and how we have come to relocate the source of divinity in our own egoic desires – where our own desires become the source and arbiter of truth and reality.  It really is a far-reaching conversation about the crisis of reality in Western culture and the prognosis is, honestly, not good. Tara received a doctorate in theology from Trinity college, Oxford, where she was a Clarendon scholar in 2017. Her first nonfiction book was Strange Rights: New Religions for a Godless World, also published by Public Affairs. She really has been quite prolific. She has published essays in such outlets as the New York Times, The Atlantic, Current Affairs, Literary Hub, Vox, The Plough and many, many more.    

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia's church and society in the long eighteenth century. Though the Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, Ivanov's recent book argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers called a religious revolution. Embedded with lively portrayals of historical actors and vivid descriptions of political details, A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1836 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020; Paperback Edition, 2023) is the first large-scale effort to fully identify exactly how Western thought influenced the Russian Church. These new ideas played a foundational role in the emergence of the country as a modernizing empire and the rise of the Church hierarchy as a forward-looking agency of institutional and societal transformation. Ivanov addresses this important debate in the scholarship on European history, firmly placing Orthodoxy within the much wider European and global continuum of religious change. - Andrey Ivanov is an Associate Professor of History at UW-Platteville.

Why do we care about equality? Is it an invention of the European Enlightenment? Or is it something rooted in human nature? If so, why does equality require constant fighting for? Elizabeth Anderson is a philosopher at the University of Michigan. She is one of the essential egalitarian theorists of our times. Her essay What's the Point of Equality is one of the must-reads of the contemporary philosophy of political equality. And her recent essay on the history of equality and social justice is a tour-de-force on using the long view of history to shed light on our contemporary condition. In this episode, Prof Anderson talks with Ilari about topics such as: Are humans a naturally egalitarian species? Can human nature explain the logic of social justice movements? The ancient roots of democracy (beyond Athens) How Native American critique of European society shaped the French Enlightenment The conversation then turns to the question of modernity. The 2nd half touches upon topics from 19th Century utopian communes to 20th Century Marxism, including: Challenges with anarchism, communalism, and Marxism. Is social democracy the answer? Are social benefits about pitying the poor? Are taxes on the rich about envying the rich? Economic equality versus other forms of equality Names and work mentioned Christopher Boehm (author of Hierarchy in the Forest) David Graeber & David Wengrow (authors of Dawn of Everything) Kent Flannery & Joyce Marcus (authors of The Creation of Inequality) David Stasavage (author of The Decline and Rise of Democracy) Adam Smith (18th Century Scottish philosopher) Nathaniel Hawthorne & Louisa May Alcott (19th Century American authors) Thomas Piketty (author of Capital & Ideology, A Brief History of Equality, and Capital in the 21st Century) Väinö Linna (author of Under The North Star) Isabel Ferrares (author of Firms as Political Entities) John Rawls (20th Century American philosopher) Jean-Jacques Rousseau (18th Century Swiss philosopher)

Many people made the European Enlightenment, but probably nobody better represents the movement's spirit than the French writer and philosopher Voltaire. He was a man of letters and strong critic of the Catholic Church. In 1759 Voltaire published one of his best known works, Candide. In this satirical fable, Voltaire used current events of the day—like the 7 Years War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake—to explore larger philosophical questions, such as how there could be evil in a world created by a benevolent god. In Candide, Voltaire frees us from the naive optimism that there is a perfect order to things. Carla Hesse is the Peder Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm. Follow us on Twitter @WritLargePod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Many people made the European Enlightenment, but probably nobody better represents the movement's spirit than the French writer and philosopher Voltaire. He was a man of letters and strong critic of the Catholic Church. In 1759 Voltaire published one of his best known works, Candide. In this satirical fable, Voltaire used current events of the day—like the 7 Years War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake—to explore larger philosophical questions, such as how there could be evil in a world created by a benevolent god. In Candide, Voltaire frees us from the naive optimism that there is a perfect order to things. Carla Hesse is the Peder Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm. Follow us on Twitter @WritLargePod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Many people made the European Enlightenment, but probably nobody better represents the movement's spirit than the French writer and philosopher Voltaire. He was a man of letters and strong critic of the Catholic Church. In 1759 Voltaire published one of his best known works, Candide. In this satirical fable, Voltaire used current events of the day—like the 7 Years War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake—to explore larger philosophical questions, such as how there could be evil in a world created by a benevolent god. In Candide, Voltaire frees us from the naive optimism that there is a perfect order to things. Carla Hesse is the Peder Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm. Follow us on Twitter @WritLargePod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Many people made the European Enlightenment, but probably nobody better represents the movement's spirit than the French writer and philosopher Voltaire. He was a man of letters and strong critic of the Catholic Church. In 1759 Voltaire published one of his best known works, Candide. In this satirical fable, Voltaire used current events of the day—like the 7 Years War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake—to explore larger philosophical questions, such as how there could be evil in a world created by a benevolent god. In Candide, Voltaire frees us from the naive optimism that there is a perfect order to things. Carla Hesse is the Peder Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm. Follow us on Twitter @WritLargePod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many people made the European Enlightenment, but probably nobody better represents the movement's spirit than the French writer and philosopher Voltaire. He was a man of letters and strong critic of the Catholic Church. In 1759 Voltaire published one of his best known works, Candide. In this satirical fable, Voltaire used current events of the day—like the 7 Years War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake—to explore larger philosophical questions, such as how there could be evil in a world created by a benevolent god. In Candide, Voltaire frees us from the naive optimism that there is a perfect order to things. Carla Hesse is the Peder Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm. Follow us on Twitter @WritLargePod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

In The Books that Made the European Enlightenment: A History in 12 Case Studies (‎Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Gary Kates looks at the multifaceted significance of bestsellers from the time. Kates explores a crucial innovation of the age: the rise of the 'erudite blockbuster', which for the first time in European history, helped to popularize political theory among a significant portion of the society. Gary Kates is H. Russell Smith Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences and Professor of History at Pomona College. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In The Books that Made the European Enlightenment: A History in 12 Case Studies (‎Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Gary Kates looks at the multifaceted significance of bestsellers from the time. Kates explores a crucial innovation of the age: the rise of the 'erudite blockbuster', which for the first time in European history, helped to popularize political theory among a significant portion of the society. Gary Kates is H. Russell Smith Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences and Professor of History at Pomona College. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In The Books that Made the European Enlightenment: A History in 12 Case Studies (‎Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Gary Kates looks at the multifaceted significance of bestsellers from the time. Kates explores a crucial innovation of the age: the rise of the 'erudite blockbuster', which for the first time in European history, helped to popularize political theory among a significant portion of the society. Gary Kates is H. Russell Smith Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences and Professor of History at Pomona College. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In The Books that Made the European Enlightenment: A History in 12 Case Studies (‎Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Gary Kates looks at the multifaceted significance of bestsellers from the time. Kates explores a crucial innovation of the age: the rise of the 'erudite blockbuster', which for the first time in European history, helped to popularize political theory among a significant portion of the society. Gary Kates is H. Russell Smith Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences and Professor of History at Pomona College. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

In The Books that Made the European Enlightenment: A History in 12 Case Studies (‎Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Gary Kates looks at the multifaceted significance of bestsellers from the time. Kates explores a crucial innovation of the age: the rise of the 'erudite blockbuster', which for the first time in European history, helped to popularize political theory among a significant portion of the society. Gary Kates is H. Russell Smith Foundation Chair in the Social Sciences and Professor of History at Pomona College. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

In this episode of Sagecast, historian and long-time Pomona professor Gary Kates shares what sparked his interest in the European Enlightenment. As a scholar of the French Revolution, he also tells us what conditions are most likely to result in such historic upheavals. Hosted by: Marilyn Thomsen and Patty Vest Produced by: Kris Vargas Editorial Assistant: Lorraine Harry '97 Transcript: https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/Sagecast-11-16-22-GaryKates.txt Video Teaser: https://youtu.be/J3rGNPhw5KA

Susan Hayward, associate director of the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative at Harvard Divinity School, leads the conversation on religious literacy in international affairs.   FASKIANOS: Welcome to the final session of the Fall 2022 CFR Academic Webinar Series. I'm Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Today's discussion is on the record, and the video and transcript will be available on our website, CFR.org/Academic if you would like to share it with your classmates or colleagues. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. We're delighted to have Susan Hayward with us to discuss religious literacy in international affairs. Reverend Hayward is the associate director for the Religious Literacy and Professions Initiative at Harvard Divinity School. From 2007 to 2021, she worked for the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), with focus on Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Columbia, and Iraq. And most recently serving as senior advisor for Religion and Inclusive Societies, and as a fellow in Religion and Public Life. During her tenure at USIP, Reverend Hayward also coordinated an initiative exploring the intersection of women, religion, conflict, and peacebuilding, partnership with the Berkley Center at Georgetown University and the World Faith Development Dialogue. And she coedited a book on the topic entitled Women, Religion and Peacebuilding: Illuminating the Unseen. Reverend Hayward has also taught at Georgetown and George Washington Universities and serves as a regular guest lecturer and trainer at the Foreign Service Institute. And she's also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. So, Susan, thank you very much for being with us today. Can you begin by explaining why religious literacy is so important for understanding international affairs? HAYWARD: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Irina. And thanks to the Council on Foreign Relations for inviting me to be a part of this webinar. And I really appreciate you and the invitation, and I appreciate all of you who have joined us today, taking time out of what I know is a busy time of year, as we hurdle towards final exams and cramming everything into these last weeks of the semester. So it's great to be with all of you. I am going to be—in answering that broad question that Irina offered, I'm going to be drawing on my work. As Irina said, I worked at the—I work now at Harvard Divinity School's Religion and Public Life Program. And what we seek to do here is to do here is to advance the public understanding of religion in service of a just world at peace. And we do that, in part, by working with professionals in governments and foreign policy, and in the humanitarian sector, as well as working with our students who are seeking to go into vocations in those professional spheres. And then my fourteen years with the Religion and Inclusive Societies Program at the U.S. Institute of Peace. So I'll say a little bit more about both of those as we go along, and those experiences, but I'm also happy to answer any questions about either of those programs when we turn to the Q&A. And I should say that I'm going to be focusing as well—given that a lot of you all who are joining us today are educators yourselves or are students—I'm going to be focusing in particular on how we teach religious literacy within international affairs. So I wanted to begin with the definition of religious literacy, because this is a term that is increasingly employed as part of a rallying cry that's based on a particular diagnosis. And the diagnosis is that there has been insufficient deep consideration of the multiple and complex dimensions of religion and culture that impact international affairs at all levels across the world. And that the result of that lack of a complex understanding of religion in this arena has been the—the hamstringing of the ability of the international system to operate in ways that are effective in bringing justice, peace, democracy, human rights, and development. So I'm going to circle back to that diagnosis in a bit. But first I want to jump to the prescription that's offered, which is to enhance religious literacy using various resources, trainings, courses, and ways that are relevant for foreign policymakers and those working across the international system, as well as those students who are in the schools of international affairs, or other schools and planning to go into this space, into this profession. So the definition that we use here at Harvard Divinity School—and this is one that has been adopted by the American Academy of Religion, which is the scholarly guild for religious studies—defines it in this way: Religious literacy is the—entails the ability to discern and analyze the fundamental intersections of religion and social, political, and cultural life through multiple lenses. So specifically, one who is religious literate will possess a basic understanding of different religious traditions, including sort of fundamental beliefs and practices and contemporary manifestation of different religious traditions, as well as how they arose out of and continue to be shaped by particular social, historical, and cultural contexts. And the ability to discern and explore the religious dimensions of political, social, and cultural expressions across time and space. So this gets broken down in two different ways—three, according to me. But that definition focuses on two in particular. One is often referred to as the confessional approach or the substantive approach. So that's looking at understanding different religious traditions and their manifestations in different places. That's understanding something fundamental about the difference between Theravada Buddhism and Vajrayana Buddhism, for example. Or how Islam is practiced, and dominantly practiced in Nigeria, versus in North America, for example. The second approach is the religious studies approach. Which is sometimes also called the functional approach. So that's the ability to be able to analyze the ways in which religions in complex ways are really intersecting with social, and political, and economic life, even if not explicitly so. But in implicit, embedded ways shaping different kinds of economic systems, social systems, and political systems, and being able to analyze and see that, and so ask particular questions and consider different kinds of policy solutions—diagnoses and solutions that can take that into account. And then finally, I add the religious engagement approach. That particularly comes out of my work when I was at USIP and working with foreign policymakers in the State Department and elsewhere. To some extent, overseas as well, those in the diplomatic sector. Which I understand is determining whether, when, and how to engage with specifically defined religious institutions, actors, and interests, including on issues related, for example, with religious freedom, in ways that are inclusive, just, strategic, and, importantly for the U.S. context, legal. So abiding by the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Now, all three types of religious literacy defined here depend on three principles or ideas. So the first is that they understand religions as lived, as constituted by humans who are constantly interpreting and reinterpreting their religious traditions. This means that as a result they are internally diverse, sometimes very internally contradictory. They'll have different religious interpretations with respect to particular human rights issues, particular social issues, issues related to gender, and so on and so forth. That they change over time. That that sort of complex interpretive process that is going on within religious traditions also leads to kind of larger normative changes within religious traditions over history in different temporal contexts. And that they're culturally embedded. So as the question I was asking earlier, how is Islam, as it's understood and practiced in Nigeria, different from how it's understood and practiced in North America, for example. There are ways in which the particular religious interpretations and practices of a tradition are always going to be entangled with specific cultural contexts in ways that are near impossible to disentangle at times. And that means that they just manifest differently in different places. And this—these ideas of religion as lived pushes against an understanding of religions as being static or being monolithic. So that then leads us to ensure that there's never—that it's always going to be a problem to make sweeping claims about entire religious traditions because you'll always find somebody or some community within those religious traditions that don't believe or practice according to the claim that you just made about it. And that applies to situations of violent conflict and with respect to human rights, on global issues like climate and migration. This idea, the internal diversity in particular, is what is at play when you hear the phrase “Ambivalence of the Sacred” that was coined by Scott Appleby in his—in this very influential book by the same name. I'll throw in here a quote from Scott Appleby from that book, this idea that religions are always going to show up in ambivalent or contradictory ways across different places, but also sometimes in the very same contexts. So I think we can see that, for example, in the U.S. right now, and that there's no one, let's say, religious position with respect to reproductive rights, for example. There's a great deal of internal plurality and ambivalence that exists across religious traditions and interpretations within the Christian tradition and beyond about that specific issue. Moreover then, what religion is, what is considered religious, what is recognized as religious and what isn't, and how it manifests in different contexts depends on just a complex array of intersecting factors. I'm going to come back to—that's kind of meaty phrase just to throw out there, so I'm going to come back to that in a minute. So the second principle or idea of religious literacy that I want to highlight here is the idea of right-sizing religion. This is a phrase that Peter Mandaville used quite a bit when he was in the State Department's Religion and Global Affairs Office under the Obama administration and has written about. So I'll turn you to that article of his to understand more about it. But the central idea is that we don't want to over nor underemphasize religion's role in any given context. So just by way of a quick example, in looking at the Rohingya crisis or the ethnic cleansing of Rakhine State in Myanmar, one could not say it was all about religion, that it was about Buddhist nationalists who are anti-Muslim wanting to destroy a particular religious community. Nor could you say it had nothing to do with religion, because there were these religious dimensions that were at play in driving the violence towards the Rohingya and the larger communities' acceptance of that violence against the Rohingya community. But if you were to overemphasize the religious roles, the religious dimensions of that crisis, then your policy solutions—you might look at religious freedom tools and resources to be able to address the situation. And that would address the situation in part, but obviously there were other economic and political factors that were at play in leading to the Rohingya crisis. And including certain economic interests with oil pipelines that were being constructed across lands that the Rohingya were living on in Rakhine state, or the political conflict that was taking place between the military and the National League of Democracy, and so on. So addressing the crisis holistically and sustainably requires that we right-size the role that religion is playing in that particular crisis. And that goes across the board, in looking at conflicts and looking at the role of religion in climate, and addressing climate collapse, and so on and so forth. We need to always neither under nor overestimate the role that religion is playing in driving some of these issues and as a solution in addressing some of these issues. OK. So with that definition and principles of religious literacy in mind, I want to go back to the diagnosis that I gave at the—that I mentioned at the top, for which religious literacy is offered as a solution. The diagnosis, if you remember, was that there's been insufficient consideration given to the multiple and complex dimensions of religion and culture that impact international affairs. So I'm going to demonstrate what it means to apply the religious studies approach to religious literacy, or the functional approach to religious literacy, to help us understand why that might be. And remember, the religious studies approach is seeking to discern and explore the religious dimensions of political, social, and cultural expressions and understandings across time and place. So this approach, in trying to answer that question and consider that diagnosis, it would invite us to look historically at the development of the modern international legal and political systems in a particular time and place in Western Europe, during the European Enlightenment. As many of you may well know, this came about in the aftermath of the so-called confessional or religious wars. Those were largely understood to have pitted Protestants against Catholics, though it's more complicated in reality. But broadly, that's the story. And the modern state, on which the international system was built, sought to create a separation between religious and state authority. For the first time in European history, this separation between religious and state authority that became more rigid and enforced over time, in the belief that this was necessary in order to ensure peace and prosperity moving forward, to bring an end to these wars, and to ensure that the state would be better able to deal with the reality of increasing religious pluralism within Europe. So this was essentially the idea of secular political structures that was born in that time and place. And these secular political structures were considered to be areligious or neutral towards religion over time, again. In the process of legitimating this sort of revolutionary new model of the secular modern state, and in the process of creating this demarcated distinction that had not previously existed—at least, not a neat distinction of the secular or the political authority and the religious—the religious authority—there was an assertion as part of that ideologically legitimate and support that. There was an assertion of the secular as rational, ordered, and associated with all of the good stuff of modernity. Meanwhile, the religious was defined in counter-distinction as a threat to the secular. It was irrational, backwards, a threat to the emerging order. A not-subtle presumption in all of this is that the new modern state and the international system would serve as a bulwark against archaic, dangerous, religious, and other traditionally cultural, in particular, worldviews and practices in—it would be a bulwark against that, and a support for this neutral and considered universal international law and system—secular system. Now, I realize I'm making some, like, huge, broad historical sweeps here, given the short amount of time I have. But within that story I just told, there is a lot more complexity that one can dig into. But part of what I seek to do in offering religious literacy in international relations theory and practice to students, and to practitioners in this realm, is to help those operating in the system think through how that historically and contextually derived conception of religion and the co-constitutive conception of secularism continues to operate within and shape how we interpret and respond to global events within the system. And this occurs—I see this happening in two dominant ways. One is, first, in thinking about religion as a distinct sphere of life that can be disentangled entirely from the political, when in reality religion is deeply entangled with the political, and vice versa. And scholars like Talal Asad and Elizabeth Shakman Hurd have done really great work to show how even our understanding of the secular and secular norms and so on is shaped by Protestant Christian commitments and understandings. And saying within that, our understanding of what religion is—like, a focus on belief, for example, which has been codified in a lot of religious freedom law, as part of the international system—again, tends to emphasize Protestant Christian understandings of what religion is and how it functions. So that's the first reason for doing that. And then second, in understanding religion to be a threat to modernity, and sometimes seeing and responding to it as such rather than taking into account its complexity, its ambivalence, the ways in which it has been a powerful force for good, and bad, and everything in between, and in ways that sometimes let the secular off the hook for ways that it has driven forms of violence, colonialism, gender injustice, global inequalities, the climate crisis, and so on. So those are the consequences of when we don't have that religious literacy, of those potential pitfalls. And, on that second point, of the ways in which religion continues to be defined in ways that can overemphasize its negative aspect at time within the international system, I commend the work of William Cavanaugh in particular and his book, The Myth of Religious Violence to dig into that a little bit more. So what we're seeking to do, in bringing that kind of religious literacy to even thinking about the international system and its norms and how it operates, is to raise the consciousness of what Donna Haraway calls the situatedness of the international system, the embedded agendas and assumptions that inevitably operate within it. And it invites students to be skeptical of any claims to the systems neutrality about religion, how it's defined, and how it's responded to. So I recognize that that approach is very deconstructionist work. It's informed by, post-colonial critical theory, which reflects where religious studies has been for the last couple decades. But importantly, it doesn't, nor shouldn't ideally, lead students to what is sometimes referred to as analysis paralysis, when there's sort of groundedness within hypercritical approaches, only looking at the complexity to a degree that it's hard to understand how to move forward then to respond constructively to these concerns. Rather, the purpose is to ensure that they're more conscious of these underlying embedded norms or assumptions so that they can better operate within the system in just ways, not reproducing forms of Eurocentrism, Christo-centrism, or forms of cultural harm. So the hope is that it helps students to be able to better critique the ways in in which religion and secularism is being—are being discussed, analyzed, or engaged within international affairs, and then be able to enter into those kinds of analysis, policymaking, program development, and so on, in ways that can help disrupt problematic assumptions and ensure that the work of religious literacy or religious engagement is just. So I'm just going to offer one example of how this kind of critical thinking and critical—the way of thinking complexly about religion in this space can be fruitful. And it speaks back to one of the things Irina noted about my biography, the work I had done looking at women and religion and peacebuilding. So while I was at USIP, in that program, we spent several years looking specifically and critically at forms of theory and practice, and this subfield that had emerged of religious peacebuilding. And we were looking at it through the lens of gender justice, asking how religion was being defined in the theory or engaged in the peacebuilding practice and policy in ways that unintentionally reinforced gender injustice. And what we found is that there were assumptions operating about certain authorities—often those at the top of institutions, which tended to be older, well-educated men—representing entire traditions. Assumptions made about their social and political power as well. When in reality, we knew that those of different genders, and ages, and socioeconomic locations were doing their own work of peacebuilding within these religious landscapes, and had different experiences of violence, and so different prescriptions for how to build peace. So we began to ask questions, like whose peace is being built in this field of religious peacebuilding that was emerging? And the work that USIP had been doing in this space of religious peacebuilding? Whose stories were being left out in the dominant analyses or narratives in the media about religious dimensions of certain conflicts, and what are the consequences of that? So these kinds of questions are grounded in the recognition of, again, the internal diversity, the change over time of religious traditions. And they help ensure that analysis and policy actions aren't unintentionally reproducing forms of harm or structural violence. I'm almost done. So please do bring your questions so that we can engage in a discussion with each other. But I wanted to end by offering a couple examples of resources that I think might be helpful to both enhancing your own religious literacy but also as potential pedagogical tools in this work. So first is Religious Peacebuilding Action Guides that were produced by the U.S. Institute of Peace, in partnership with Salam Institute for Peace and Justice, and the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers. There's four guides. They're all available for free online. Once I close down my PowerPoint, I'm going to throw the links for all of these things I'm mentioning into the chat box so you can all see it. But one of the things—I'm just going to dive in a little bit to the analysis guide, because one of the things that I think is useful in helping, again, to help us think a little bit more complexly about religion, is that it takes you through this process of thinking about the different dimensions of religion as defined here—ideas, community, institutions, symbols and practices, and spirituality. So it's already moving beyond just an idea of religious institutions, for example. And it takes you through doing a conflict assessment, and asking the questions related to religion with respect to the drivers of the conflict and the geographic location and peacebuilding initiatives, to help you craft a peacebuilding—a religious peacebuilding initiative. I have used this framework as a means to help students think through the ambivalence of religion as it manifests in different places. So I have an example there of a question that I have sometimes used that has been fruitful in thinking about how these five different dimensions of religion have manifested in American history in ways that either have advanced forms of racialized violence and injustice or that have served as drivers of peace and justice. And there's lots of examples across all of those dimensions of the ways in which religion has shown up in ambivalent ways in that respect. There's also—USIP's team has produced a lot of amazing things. So I'll put some links to some of their other resources in there too, which includes they're doing religious landscape mappings of conflict-affected states. They have an online course on religious engagement in peacebuilding that's free to take. Another resource is from here, at Harvard Divinity School in the Religion in Public Life Program. And we provide a series of case studies that is for educators. It's primarily created educators in secondary schools and in community colleges, but I think could easily be adapted and used in other kinds of four-year universities or other kinds of professional settings, where you're doing trainings or workshops, or even just holding discussions on religious literacy. So there's a series of kind of short, concise, but dense, case studies that are looking at different religions as they intersect with a host of issues, including peace, climate, human rights, gender issues. And it says something about that case study here—the example that I have here is the conflict in Myanmar, pre-coup, the conflicts that were occurring between religious communities, and particularly between Buddhist communities and Muslim communities. And then there's a set of discussion questions there that really help to unearth some of those lessons about internal diversity and about the ways in which religious intersects with state policies and other kinds of power interests and agendas—political power interests and agendas. And then also, at our program, Religion and Public Life, we have a number of courses that are available online, one that's more on the substantive religious literacy side, looking at different religious traditions through their scriptures. Another course, it's on religion, conflict and peace, all of which are free and I'm going to throw them into the chat box in a moment. And we also have ongoing workshops for educators on religious literacy, a whole network with that. So you're welcome to join that network if you'd like. And then finally, we have a one-year master's of religion and public life program for people in professions—quote/unquote, “secular” professions—who want to come and think about—they're encountering religion in various ways in their work in public health, or in their work in journalism. And so they want to come here for a year and to think deeply about that, and bring something back into their profession. And then the final thing, and then I'm going to be done, and this one is short, is the Transatlantic Policy for Religion and Diplomacy, which brings together point people from—who work on religion across different foreign ministries in North America and Europe. And their website, religionanddiplomacy.org, has a lot of really great resources that—reports on various thematic issues, but also looking at religion in situ in a number of different geographic locations. They have these strategic notes, that's what I have the image of here, that talk about, at a particular time, what are some of the big stories related to religion and international affairs overseas. And they list a number of other religious literacy resources on their website as well. So I commend all of that to. And with that, let me stop share, throw some links into the chat box, and hear responses and questions from folks. FASKIANOS: Wonderful. Thank you for that. That was terrific. And we are going to send out—as a follow-up, we'll send out a link to this webinar, maybe a link to your presentation, as well as the resources that you drop into the chat. So if you don't get it here, you will have another bite at the apple, so to speak. (Gives queuing instructions.) So I'm going to go first to the written question from Meredith Coon, who's an undergraduate student at Lewis University: What would be a solution for India to have many different religions live in peace with each other, especially since most religions share a lot of the same core values of how people should live? And how can society prevent the weaponization of religion, while still allowing broad religious freedom? HAYWARD: All right. Thank you for the question, Meredith. And one thing just to note, by way of housekeeping, I'm not sure I can actually share the links with all of the participants. So we'll make sure that you get all of those links in that follow-up note, as Irina said. So, Meredith, I think a couple things. One, I just want to note that one of the assumptions within your question itself is that folks of different religious persuasions are constantly at conflict with one another. And of course, there is a reality of there is increasing religious tensions around the world, communal tensions of many different sorts, ethnic, and religious, and racial, and so on, across the world. And the threat to democracy and increasing authoritarianism has sometimes exacerbated those kinds of tensions. But there's also a lot of examples presently and historically of religiously incredibly diverse communities living in ways that are harmonious, that are just, and so on. So I think it is important—there's a lot of work that supports forms of interfaith dialogue and intra-faith dialogue. And I think that that work is—will always be important, to be able to recognize shared values and shared commitments, and in order to acknowledge and develop respect and appreciation for differences as well on different topics—again, both within religious traditions and across them. But I think that dialogue alone, frankly, is not enough. Because so often these tensions and these conflicts are rooted in structural violence and discrimination and concerns, economic issues, and political issues, and so on. And so I think part of that work, it's not just about building relationships kind of on a horizontal level, but also about ensuring that state policies and practice, economic policies and practices, and so on, are not operating in ways that disadvantage some groups over others, on a religious side, on a gender side, on a racial side, and so on. So it's about ensuring as well inclusive societies and a sense as well of inclusive political systems and inclusive economic systems. And doing that work in kind of integrated ways is going to be critical for ensuring that we're able to address some of these rising forms of violations of religious freedom. Thanks again for the question. FASKIANOS: Thank you. Next question from Clemente Abrokwaa. Clemente, do you want to ask your question? Associate teaching professor of African studies at Pennsylvania State University? I'm going to give you a moment, so we can hear some voices. Q: OK. Thank you very much. Yeah, my question is I'm wondering how peacebuilding, in terms of religious literacy, how would you look at—or, how does it look at those that are termed fundamentalists? How their actions and beliefs, especially their beliefs, those of us—there are those outside who perceive them as being destructive. So then to that person, is their beliefs are good. So they fight for, just like anyone will fight for, what, a freedom fighter or something, or a religious fighter in this case. So I'm just wondering how does religious literacy perceive that in terms of peacebuilding? HAYWARD: Right. Thank you for the question, Professor Abrokwaa. I really appreciate it. So a couple things. One, first of all, with respect to—just going back, again, to the ambivalence of the sacred—recognizing that that exists. That there are particular religious ideas, commitments, groups, practices that are used in order to fuel and legitimate forms of violence. And I use violence in a capacious understanding of it, that includes both direct forms of violence but also structural and cultural forms of violence, to use the framework of Johan Galtung. And so that needs to be addressed as part of the work to build peace, is recognizing religious and nonreligious practices and ideas that are driving those forms of violence. But when it comes to religious literacy to understand that, a couple ways in which the principles apply. One is, first, not assuming that their—that that is the only or exclusive religious interpretation. And I think sometimes well-meaning folks end up reifying this idea that that is the exclusive religious interpretation or understanding when they're—when they're offering sometimes purely nonreligious responses to it. And what I mean by this, for example, let's look at Iran right now. I read some analyses where it's saying that, the Iranian authorities and the Ayatollahs who comprise the Supreme Council and so on, that they—that they define what Islamic law is. And there's not a qualification of that. And in the meantime, the protesters are sort of defined as, like, secular, or they're not—the idea that they could be driven by certain—their own Islamic interpretations that are just as authoritative to them, and motivating them, and shaping them is critical. So being able to recognize the internal plurality and not unintentionally reify that particular interpretation of a religious tradition as exclusive or authoritative. Rather, it's one interpretation of a religious tradition with particular consequences that are harmful for peace. And there are multiple other interpretations of that religious tradition that are operating within that context. And then a second way that the religious literacy would apply would also look at the ways in which sometimes the diagnoses of extremist groups that are operating within a religious frame doesn't right-size the role of religion in that. It sometimes overemphasizes the religious commitments, and drives, and so on. And so, again, we need to right-size. There are religious motivations. And we need to take those seriously. And we need to develop solutions for addressing that. And there are economic interests. And there are political interests. So there's a whole host of factors that are motivating and inspiring and legitimating those groups. And being able to take into account that more holistic picture and ensure that your responses to it are going to be holistic. And then one final thing I want to say that's not with respect to religious literacy as much—or, maybe it is—but it's more just about my experience of work at USIP, is that—and it kind of goes back to the question that Meredith asked before you about religious harmony between multireligious relations and harmony, is that I sometimes finds that engaging with groups that are defining themselves and motivating themselves with a primary grounding in religion, that they're not going to participate generally in interfaith initiatives, and so on, right? And so that's where some of that intra-faith work can be particularly important. I saw this, for example, in Myanmar, when their—when previously the movement that was known as Ma Ba Tha, which was defined by some as a Buddhist nationalist anti-Muslim kind of Buddhist supremacist group. The folks who were most successful in being able to engage in a values-grounded conversation with members of the organization were other Buddhist monks, who were able to speak within the language of meaning and to draw attention to, like, different understandings of religious teachings or religious principles with respect to responding to minority groups, and so on. So I think that's in particular, with addressing those groups, that's where that intra-religious work or intra-communal work can be really critical, in addition to some of that cross-communal work. FASKIANOS: Thank you. So we've seen, obviously, the war in Ukraine and how Christian Orthodoxy is being—or, Greek Orthodoxy in Ukraine, and the division. Can you talk a little bit about that and how it's playing out with Russian identity? HAYWARD: Yeah, absolutely. There's been some really good analysis and work out there of the religious dimensions of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. So again, the sort of dominant story that you see, which reflects a reality, is that there are ways in which political and religious actors and interests are aligning on the Russian side in order to advance particular narratives and that legitimate the invasion of Ukraine that—that are about sort of fighting back against an understanding of the West as being counter to traditional and religious values. Those are some of the religious understandings. And then that concern gets linked then to the establishment of an independent or autocephalous Orthodox Church within the Ukraine context. And you see—in particular, what's pointed to often is the relationship between Patriarch Kirill in the Russian Orthodox Church, and Putin, and the ways in which they've sort of reinforced each other's narrative and offered support to it. And there's really great analysis out there and stories that have been done about that. And that needs to be taken into account in responding to the situation and, I would say, that some of the religious literacy principles would then ask us to think about other ways in which religion is showing up within that, that go beyond the institution too. So a lot of the news stories that I've seen, for example, have focused exclusively on—sometimes—exclusively on the clerics within the Orthodox Church and their positions, either in support of or in opposition to the war. But in reality, on the ground there's a lot more complexity that's taken place, and a lot more of the ways in which different individuals and communities on both the Russia and the Ukraine side are responding to the violence, to the displacements, and so on. It paints a more complex and, I think, fascinating story, frankly. And sort of illuminates ways forward in support of peacebuilding. For example, there's ways in which different kinds of ritual practices within Orthodoxy have served as a source of support and constancy to folks who are living in this situation of insecurity and displacement, in ways that have been helpful. There are, of course, other religious traditions that exist within both Ukraine and Russia that are operating and responding in different ways. Like, the Jewish community in Ukraine and the Catholic—the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. So looking at those complexities both within Orthodoxy, but there's many different ways that Orthodox Christians are responding in both countries. There's not one story of Orthodox Christianity and the invasion of Ukraine. But also looking at some of the religious diversity within it. And that helps to ensure, like I said, one, that we're developing solutions that are also recognizing the ways in which religion at a very ground level is serving as a source of support, humanitarian relief, social, psychological support to people on the ground, as well as the ways in which it's sort of manifesting ambivalently and complexly in ways that are driving some of the violence as well. And it also helps to push back against any sort of a narrative that this is about a Russian religion—on the Russian side—this is about a religious war against a secular, non-religious West or Ukraine, right? That that goes back to what I was talking about with the historical sort of contingencies that are baked into this system a little bit. And in defining it in that way, Russia's religious and its motivations are religious, Ukraine's not religious, that's both not true—(laughs)—because there's many religious folks within the Ukraine and within the West generally, but also feeds—it feeds the very narrative that Putin and Kirill are giving of a secular West that is anti-religion, that is in opposition to Russian traditional values. FASKIANOS: It seems like there needs to be some training of journalists too to have religious literacy, in the same way that we're talking about media literacy. HAYWARD: Yeah. FASKIANOS: Probably should be introduced as well. (Laughs.) HAYWARD: Yeah, Irina, it's funny, we did—one of my students actually did a kind of mapping and analysis of stories about the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the religious dimensions of it. And she noted that there was—for example, it was—almost always it was male clerics who were being quoted. So there was very little that was coming from other gendered perspectives and experiences on the ground, lay folks and so on. And again, for that—for that very reason it's sort of—because we know so many policymakers and international analysis are depending on these kinds of media stories, I worry that it creates a blinder to potential opportunities for different kinds of ways of addressing needs and partners for addressing needs on the ground. FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you. I'm going to go next to Liam Wall, an undergraduate student at Loyola Marymount University: With so much diversity within religions itself, how can we avoid the analysis paralysis you mentioned and take in as many unique perspectives as possible, without letting that stand in the way of progress? How does one know that they have enough religious literacy and can now become an effective practitioner? HAYWARD: Well, OK, the bad news is that you will never have enough religious literacy. (Laughs.) This is a process, not an end. There are scholars here at Harvard who have been studying one particular sect of a particular religious tradition for their entire adult lives, and they would still say that they are students of those traditions, because they're so complex. Because so many of these traditions are composed of a billion people or just—just 500 million people. But that means that there's going to be an incredible diversity to explore. And so that's the bad news. But the good news is, one, like, first take the burden off of your shoulders of having to be an expert on any one particular religious tradition, in order to be able to help to develop and enhance your own religious literacy, and those of others, and to operate in ways that reflect the principles of religious literacy, is the good news. As well as there are many different kinds of resources that you can turn to in order to understand, for example if you're going to be working in a particular geographic location, scholarship, people you can speak to in order to begin to understand at least some of the specific manifestations and practices, and some of the disputes and diversity that exists within that particular country or geographic location across religious traditions. But, secondly, I would say, it's almost more important than—like, the substance is important. But what's just as important, if not more important, is understanding what kinds of questions to be asking, and to be curious about these religious questions and their intersection with the political and social. So we sometimes say that religious literacy is about developing habits of mind in how we think about these religious questions, and what kinds of questions we ask about religion. So it's about developing that kind of a reflex to be able to kind of see what's underneath some of the analysis that you're seeing that might be relevant to religion or that might be advancing particularly problematic understandings of religion, or reinforcing binaries like the secular and the religious and so on. And that's just as—just as important. So the extent to which you're continuing to, like, hone those—that way of thinking, and those habits of mind, that will set you up well for then going into this space and being able to ask those particular questions with respect to whatever issues you're focusing on, or whatever geographic location you're looking at. FASKIANOS: Great. I'm going to go next to Mohamed Bilal, a postgraduate student at the Postgraduate Institute of Management in Sri Lanka. HAYWARD: Yay! FASKIANOS: Yes. How does sectarianism influence our literacy? In turn, if we are influenced by sectarianism, then would we be illiterate of the religion but literate of the sect? Thus, wouldn't such a religious literacy perpetuate sectarianism? HAYWARD: Thank you for the question, Mohamed. It's—I miss Sri Lanka. I have not been there in too long, and I look forward to going back at some point. So I would say sectarianism, in the sense of—so, there's both religious sects, right? There's the existence of different kinds of religious traditions, interpretive bodies, jurisprudential bodies in the case of Islam. And then broader, different schools or denominations. The term that's used depends on the different religious tradition. And that reflects internal diversity. Sectarianism, with the -ism on the end of it, gets back to the same kinds of questions that I think Professor Clemente was asking with respect to fundamentalism. That's about being sort of entrenched in an idea that your particular religious understanding and practice is the normative, authentic, and pure practice, and that all others are false in some ways. That is a devotional claim or—what I mean by a devotional claim, is that is a knowledge claim that is rooted within a particular religious commitment and understanding. And so religious literacy in this case would—again, it's the principles of internal diversity, recognizing that different sects and different bodies of thought and practice are going to exist within religious traditions, but then also ensuring that any claim to be normative or to be orthodox by any of these different interpretive bodies is always a claim that is rooted within that religious tradition that we sometimes say is authentic. It's authentic to those communities and what they believe. But it's not exclusive. It's not the only claim that exists within that religious tradition more broadly. And the concern is about—sects are fine. Different denominations, different interpretative bodies are fine and a good and sort of natural thing, given the breadth and the depth of these religious traditions. The problem is that -ism part of it, when it becomes a source of competition or even potentially violence between groups. And so that's what needs to be interrogated and understood. FASKIANOS: So another question from John Francis, who's the senior associate vice president for academic affairs at the University of Utah: If you were training new diplomats in other countries to be stationed in the United States, where a wide range of religious traditions thrive, how would you prepare them for dealing with such religious variation? HAYWARD: The same way I would—and thank you, again, for the question. The same way that I would with any other diplomats going to any other—the same way I do with foreign service officers at the Foreign Service Institute, who are going to work overseas. I would—I would invite them to think about their own assumptions and their own worldviews and their own understandings of what religion is, based on their own contexts that they grew up in. So how that shapes how they understand what religion is, in the ways I was speaking to before. So for example, in Protestant Christianity, we tend to emphasize belief as the sort of core principle of religious traditions. But other religious traditions might emphasize different forms of practice or community as sort of the central or principal factor. So recognizing your own situatedness and the ways in which you understand and respond to different religious traditions. I would invite those who are coming to work here to read up on the historical developments and reality of different religious communities and nonreligious communities in the U.S. and encourage them to look not just at some of the—what we call the world religions, or the major religions, but also at indigenous traditions and different practices within different immigrant communities. And I would have them look at the historical relationship between the state and different religious communities as well, including the Mormon tradition there in Utah, and how the experience of, for example, the Mormon community has shaped its own relationship with the state, with other religious communities on a whole host of issues as well. And then I would encourage—just as I was saying earlier—no diplomat going to the U.S. is going to become an expert on the religious context in the U.S., because it's incredibly complex, just like anywhere else in the world. But to be able to have sort of a basic understanding to be able to then continue to ask the kinds of questions that are going to help to understand how any political action is taken or response to any policy issues kind of inevitably bumps up against particular religious or cultural commitments and values. FASKIANOS: Great. I'm going to take the next question from Will Carpenter, director of private equity principal investments at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, and also taking a course at the Harvard Extension School. HAYWARD: Hey! FASKIANOS: I'm going to ask the second part of Will's question. How will the current polarized domestic debate regarding U.S. history, which is often colored by the extremes—as a force for good only versus tainted by a foundation of injustice—impact America's capacity to lead internationally? HAYWARD: Hmm, a lot. (Laughter.) Thank you for the question. I mean, I think the fact of polarization in the U.S. and the increasing difficulty that we're facing in being able to have really deep conversations and frank conversations about historical experiences and perceptions of different communities, not just religiously, not just racially even, but across different—urban-rural, across socioeconomic divides, across educational divides and, of course, across political divides, and so on. I think that—I think that absolutely hampers our ability to engage within the global stage effectively. One, just because of the image that it gives to the rest of the world. So how can we—how can we have an authentic moral voice when we ourselves are having such a hard time engaging with one other in ways that reflect those values and that are grounded within those values? But also because I think get concern—with respect to religion questions in particular—I get concern about the increasing polarization and partisanization of religion in foreign policy and issues of religious freedom, and so on. Which means that we're going to constantly have this sort of swinging back and forth then between Republican and Democratic administrations on how we understand and engage issues related to religion and foreign policy, different religious communities in particular, like Muslim communities worldwide, or on issues of religious freedom. So I think it's incredibly critical—always has been, but is particularly right now at this historical moment—for us to be in the U.S. doing this hard work of having these conversations, and hearing, and listening to one another, and centering and being open about our values and having these conversations on that level of values. To be able to politically here in the U.S., much less overseas, to be able to work in ways that are effective. Irina, you're muted. FASKIANOS: Thank you. (Laughs.) With that, we are at the end of our time. Thank you so much for this. This has been a really important hour of discussion. Again, we will send out the link to the webinar, as well as all the resources that you mentioned, Susan. Sorry we didn't have the chat open so that we could focus on what you were saying and all the questions and comments that came forward. So we appreciate it. And thank you so much, again, for your time, Susan Hayward. And I just want to remind everybody that this is the last webinar of the semester, but we will be announcing the Winter/Spring Academic Webinar lineup in our Academic bulletin. And if you're not already subscribed to that, you can email us at cfracademic@cfr.org. Just as a reminder, you can learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. Follow @CFR_Academic on Twitter and visit CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. Good luck with your exams. (Laughs.) Grading, taking them, et cetera. Wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving. And we look forward to seeing you again next semester. So, again, thank you to Susan Hayward. HAYWARD: Thank you, everybody. Take care.

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia's church and society in the long eighteenth century. Though the Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, A Spiritual Revolution argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers called a religious revolution. Embedded with lively portrayals of historical actors and vivid descriptions of political details,  A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) is the first large-scale effort to fully identify exactly how Western thought influenced the Russian Church. These new ideas played a foundational role in the emergence of the country as a modernizing empire and the rise of the Church hierarchy as a forward-looking agency of institutional and societal change. Ivanov addresses this important debate in the scholarship on European history, firmly placing Orthodoxy within the much wider European and global continuum of religious change. Andrey Ivanov, Associate professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Plattsville Erika Monahan is the author of The Merchants of Siberia: Trade in Early Modern Eurasia (Cornell, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia's church and society in the long eighteenth century. Though the Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, A Spiritual Revolution argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers called a religious revolution. Embedded with lively portrayals of historical actors and vivid descriptions of political details,  A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) is the first large-scale effort to fully identify exactly how Western thought influenced the Russian Church. These new ideas played a foundational role in the emergence of the country as a modernizing empire and the rise of the Church hierarchy as a forward-looking agency of institutional and societal change. Ivanov addresses this important debate in the scholarship on European history, firmly placing Orthodoxy within the much wider European and global continuum of religious change. Andrey Ivanov, Associate professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Plattsville Erika Monahan is the author of The Merchants of Siberia: Trade in Early Modern Eurasia (Cornell, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia's church and society in the long eighteenth century. Though the Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, A Spiritual Revolution argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers called a religious revolution. Embedded with lively portrayals of historical actors and vivid descriptions of political details,  A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) is the first large-scale effort to fully identify exactly how Western thought influenced the Russian Church. These new ideas played a foundational role in the emergence of the country as a modernizing empire and the rise of the Church hierarchy as a forward-looking agency of institutional and societal change. Ivanov addresses this important debate in the scholarship on European history, firmly placing Orthodoxy within the much wider European and global continuum of religious change. Andrey Ivanov, Associate professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Plattsville. Erika Monahan is the author of The Merchants of Siberia: Trade in Early Modern Eurasia (Cornell, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia's church and society in the long eighteenth century. Though the Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, A Spiritual Revolution argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers called a religious revolution. Embedded with lively portrayals of historical actors and vivid descriptions of political details,  A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) is the first large-scale effort to fully identify exactly how Western thought influenced the Russian Church. These new ideas played a foundational role in the emergence of the country as a modernizing empire and the rise of the Church hierarchy as a forward-looking agency of institutional and societal change. Ivanov addresses this important debate in the scholarship on European history, firmly placing Orthodoxy within the much wider European and global continuum of religious change. Andrey Ivanov, Associate professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Plattsville Erika Monahan is the author of The Merchants of Siberia: Trade in Early Modern Eurasia (Cornell, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia's church and society in the long eighteenth century. Though the Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, A Spiritual Revolution argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers called a religious revolution. Embedded with lively portrayals of historical actors and vivid descriptions of political details,  A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) is the first large-scale effort to fully identify exactly how Western thought influenced the Russian Church. These new ideas played a foundational role in the emergence of the country as a modernizing empire and the rise of the Church hierarchy as a forward-looking agency of institutional and societal change. Ivanov addresses this important debate in the scholarship on European history, firmly placing Orthodoxy within the much wider European and global continuum of religious change. Andrey Ivanov, Associate professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Plattsville Erika Monahan is the author of The Merchants of Siberia: Trade in Early Modern Eurasia (Cornell, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The HBS hosts investigate the limits of Reason alone and, more importantly, in real human history.Many, rightly, understand the discipline of Philosophy as primarily defined by its commitment to Reason. But, what is “Reason”? Is it universal? Is it some kind of fundamental human capacity that transcends class, culture, politics, religion, or any other iteration of human difference? What do we make of the fact that, since the 17th C., inheritors of “European Enlightenment” thinkers unilaterally dictated the scope and limits of Reason for a broad swath of the world's inhabitants? Because, let's be honest, the legacy of “European Enlightenment thinkers” is a complex and often ugly one.In this episode, the HBS hosts try, at once, to both defend the privileged place that Reason has been afforded in Western Philosophy and to critique the capitalist / imperialist / colonialist logics to which that legacy has been put to use. Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-63-reason------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe, submit a rating/review, and follow us on Twitter @hotelbarpodcast. You can also help keep this podcast ad-free by supporting us financially at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions. 

This week, New York Times columnist and Slate graduate Jamelle Bouie fills in for Julia as the panel begins by answering the call of The Black Phone. Then, the panel digs into FX's newest hit TV show The Bear. Finally, they discuss the perplexing and popular world of gross food trends on TikTok. In Slate Plus, the panel discusses culture's relationship to politics and affecting an audience. Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Endorsements Dana: Peter Brook the legendary theater director passed away last week, in memoriam of him: going on a Peter Brook deep dive. Specifically: a 2001 documentary titled Brook by Brook: An Intimate Portrait directed by his son, Simon Brook, and a YouTube video of a complete production of Hamlet Brook directed starring Adrian Lester as the titular prince. Jamelle: The Criterion Channel's new collection, titled In the Ring: Boxing On-Screen, comprising 16 boxing-related films. Specifically: the 1942 film Gentleman Jim directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn. Steve: An involving read from Yale historian Timothy Snyder, titled “Germans have been involved in the war, chiefly on the wrong side:” a long, extensive, beautifully calm, excellently argued rejoinder to Jürgen Habermas, the German Philosopher widely regarded as the only remaining living embodiment of European Enlightenment. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Nadira Goffe. Outro music is "Pike Place Market" by Rockin' for Decades. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts, a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest, full access to Slate's journalism on Slate.com, and more. Sign up now at slate.com/cultureplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, New York Times columnist and Slate graduate Jamelle Bouie fills in for Julia as the panel begins by answering the call of The Black Phone. Then, the panel digs into FX's newest hit TV show The Bear. Finally, they discuss the perplexing and popular world of gross food trends on TikTok. In Slate Plus, the panel discusses culture's relationship to politics and affecting an audience. Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Endorsements Dana: Peter Brook the legendary theater director passed away last week, in memoriam of him: going on a Peter Brook deep dive. Specifically: a 2001 documentary titled Brook by Brook: An Intimate Portrait directed by his son, Simon Brook, and a YouTube video of a complete production of Hamlet Brook directed starring Adrian Lester as the titular prince. Jamelle: The Criterion Channel's new collection, titled In the Ring: Boxing On-Screen, comprising 16 boxing-related films. Specifically: the 1942 film Gentleman Jim directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn. Steve: An involving read from Yale historian Timothy Snyder, titled “Germans have been involved in the war, chiefly on the wrong side:” a long, extensive, beautifully calm, excellently argued rejoinder to Jürgen Habermas, the German Philosopher widely regarded as the only remaining living embodiment of European Enlightenment. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Nadira Goffe. Outro music is "Pike Place Market" by Rockin' for Decades. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts, a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest, full access to Slate's journalism on Slate.com, and more. Sign up now at slate.com/cultureplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices