Bradley Lectures Podcast

Are we doomed? Probably. But the reason for that doom depends on whom you ask. If you ask a candidate at a recent Democratic town hall event on climate change, we might be doomed because our planet cannot sustain current population levels. But if you ask writer Jonathan V. Last, he will write a book explaining why the opposite is true: We need higher fertility rates to fend off the disastrous economic, social, and even environmental consequences of dwindling population levels.

Lyman Stone – AEI fellow, demographer, and unabashed baby-supporter – joins the podcast to discuss Last’s Bradley Lecture, “What to expect when no one’s expecting.”

This lecture was originally delivered in February 2013.

To read Lyman Stone’s report, “Declining fertility in America“, click here.

“Predictions are hard,” goes the proverb, “especially about the future.” But as the 2020 election season ramps up and Democrats compete for the opportunity to take the White House, it seems as though everyone will try anyway. Some predictions are based on a close look at demographic and other long-term political trends, while others depend upon the very short term – that whatever is most important to Americans in November 2020 will decide the coloration of the electoral map.

AEI Senior Fellow and public opinion guru Karlyn Bowman joins the podcast to discuss Sean Trende’s analysis of the political landscape, whether demography is destiny, and how we might discern what surprising political trends may be on the horizon.

This lecture was originally delivered in January 2012.

Listen to the full lecture here.

The counterculture that developed in the 1960s rocked post–World War II America and changed the course of the 21st century. Its art, protest culture, and worldview, moreover, led AEI Scholar Irving Kristol to identify the counterculture as “adversary to secular humanism” in a way that was previously “unthinkable.”

Kristol examines the origins and legacies of this counterculture — and how it continues to reverberate in the world of politics today.

This lecture was originally delivered in January 1994.

Listen to the full lecture here. 

“So much depends on our theory of human nature,” said psychologist Steven Pinker. “We use our conceptions of human nature to manage our relationships, to control our own behavior, and guide our policies in law and government.” But what is human nature?

In formulating his own understanding of human nature, Pinker rejects three popular conceptions and proposes his own framework based on recent scientific conclusions.

AEI researcher and resident skeptic Will Baird joins the podcast to discuss Pinker’s ideas and how they might lead us to important social or political conclusions.

This lecture was originally delivered in October 2002.

Listen to the full lecture here. 

Leave it to a legal scholar to ask: Is a stigma a tax? If so, can government act legitimately to remove that stigma?

To legal scholar Cass Sunstein, the answer is yes. Certain social norms, Sunstein explains, such as wearing a seatbelt in Hungary or carrying a gun in Sunstein’s neighborhood, act as taxes on particular behaviors. Norms that encourage certain behaviors are, analogously, subsidies.

Sunstein faces an uphill battle making this case against the backdrop of a liberal tradition of individual choice and respect for personal preferences. But he may find allies in conservatives and liberals alike.

This lecture was originally delivered at AEI in November 1996.

Listen to the full lecture here. 

You can’t say that! Censorship in public discourse (feat. Sam Abrams)

To some, Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that “all men are created equal” is the height of American greatness. To others, given Jefferson’s ownership of slaves, it represents the height of hypocrisy. Where you fall probably depends upon how you interpret the word “equal” — which is the topic of Gordon Wood’s Bradley Lecture, “Thomas Jefferson and the Idea of Equality.”

To discuss Jefferson’s complicated legacy and Wood’s analysis, we welcome to the podcast Nicole Penn, AEI researcher, Virginia Dynasty expert, and fearless disentangler of Jeffersonian contradictions.

This lecture was originally delivered at AEI in January 1995.

Listen to the full lecture here. 

This Juneteenth — the day celebrating the end of slavery in the United States — take a moment to think about what it means to be free.

Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson provocatively argues that without the notion of slavery the concept of freedom cannot fully exist. In his lecture, “Free at last: How slavery begat freedom,” he explains that freedom is a concept unique to the west. Without our ugly history of slavery, in Patterson’s telling, we could not cherish the gift of liberty as we should.

This lecture was originally delivered at AEI in November 1993.

Listen to the full lecture here.

What are schools for? To prepare students for participation in an economy? To cultivate virtue? Or just to make sure that no child is left behind?

Economist Sam Peltzman argued in 1993 that American public schools were failing by at least one of those standards, and that certain political conditions were to blame.

AEI’s Rick Hess joins the show to discuss whether Peltzman had the right answers — or was even asking the right questions.

This lecture was originally delivered at AEI in April 1993.

Listen to the full lecture here.

“QUIT. Go teach somewhere else, you racist… (Maybe Charlottesville?)”

After publishing an op-ed in the New York Times calling for greater viewpoint diversity on college campuses, Sam Abrams found a sign saying just that on his office door at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY.

Abrams joins the podcast to discuss Glenn Loury’s 1994 lecture “Self-censorship in public discourse” and recent attempts by students and even faculty members to censor and ostracize academics who present unorthodox arguments – or even ask unorthodox questions.

Related: When a student mob came for my job, my college did not support me

This lecture was originally delivered at AEI in May 1994.

Is Israel a Jewish state? Or just a state of Jews?

In this Bradley Lecture, Israeli political philosopher Yoram Hazony examines the growing discomfort on the part of many Israelis with Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. Using examples such as military codes of ethics and history curricula, he sketches a picture of a state shying away from its sense of common history, values, and role in Jewish history.

In our current era of ascendant nationalism across the globe, and with Israeli Independence Day being celebrated this week, Hazony’s case study of Israel’s national character is particularly resonant.

To view a full list of the Bradley Lectures, see the Bradley Lectures page on the AEI website.

This lecture was originally delivered at AEI in June 2000.