In this introductory episode, we listen to a keynote address by Michael Ignatieff, the Edward R. Murrow Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and former Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, delivered at the Hauenstein Center in April, 2016.

Ignatieff has a strong critique of American politics today – he condemns our politicians’ tendency toward spectacle over substance, especially this year, 2016, and accuses pundits on the left and right of exaggerating and exacerbating our differences. As remedy, Ignatieff prescribes a form of principled centrism. He revives and slightly revises the old idea of the vital center, defining it as the place where the left and right clash and collide, but sometimes do come together.