Enduring Interest

To lead into the next season of Enduring Interest, we're re-releasing our first two seasons, covering totalitarianism and ideology and liberal education.  We'll be back on September 8 with a new season covering free speech and censorship. In this episode I speak with Daniel J. Mahoney, Professor and Augustinian Boulanger Chair in the Department of Political Science at Assumption University, about The Opium of the Intellectuals by the great French political thinker Raymond Aron. Dan argues that Aron was the leading French political thinker of the 20th century. Aron’s expertise transcends our intellectual subdivisions—he wrote substantial works in the fields of political theory, philosophy, international relations, political economy, and sociology. He also was an important contributor to political debates in France as a columnist over the course of his long career as a thinker and writer. The Opium of the Intellectuals was first published in France in 1955 and was directed not at out-and-out Communists but at sympathizers and fellow-travelers. Dan explores Aron’s critique of the “Myth of Revolution”—revolution, Aron suggests, is not an instrument of emancipation and it eliminates pluralistic institutions. Aron, who knew Marx much better than the self-described Marxists in France, argued that the incoherent mixture of historical inevitability and revolutionary voluntarism was there in Marx from the very beginning. Aron argued again and again that history has meaning but not in the Hegelio-Marxist sense. For him the absence of historical determinism was a sign of hope. Aron was a great critic of the existentialist philosopher Sartre and his followers. “The doctrinairism of the existentialists,” he wrote, “is particularly revealing. It presents, exaggerated to the point of caricature, the intellectual errors which paralyze all political thought. The existentialists begin with an almost nihilistic denial of all human or social constancy, only to end with a dogmatic affirmation of ‘a single truth’ in an area where the truth cannot be single. The critique of dogmatism is at the same time a critique of nihilism.” Thus one of Aron’s key lessons in the book is that the ultimate source of fanaticism is nihilism—not a devotion to the idea of truth. We conclude with a discussion of Aron’s response to his critics called “Fanaticism, Prudence, and Faith,” an essay which is included as an appendix in the English edition of Aron’s book which Dan edited.

To lead into the third season of Enduring Interest, we're re-releasing our first two seasons, covering totalitarianism and ideology and liberal education.  We'll be back on September 8 with a new season covering free speech and censorship. In this episode I speak with renowned China scholar Perry Link, the Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines at the University of California, Riverside, about his now classic 2002 essay “China: The Anaconda in the Chandelier.” We discuss the origins of the essay and its initial reception, as well as Professor Link’s blacklisting and why this was actually a kind of liberation. We dig into the system of psychological control and censorship that the Chinese Communist Party relies on and contrast that with the more mechanical, ideological training that has been used in other totalitarian regimes. Link explains how the vagueness of the ideological rules and arbitrary application of those rules are essential aspects of this system of control. We talk in depth about his anaconda metaphor and what it communicates about the character of the repression. Professor Link and I also discuss the repression of the Uyghurs in East Turkistan. Link explains what the leaders of the Party might be thinking in order to justify their actions. We end with a discussion of the great dissident Liu Xiaobo—Link has recently completed a biography with Wu Dazhi tentatively titled Long March Toward Freedom: The Life, Times, and Thought of Liu Xiaobo.

To lead into the third season of Enduring Interest, we're re-releasing our first two seasons, covering totalitarianism and ideology and liberal education.  We'll be back on September 8 with a new season covering free speech and censorship. In the inaugural episode of Enduring Interest, I speak with Jacob Howland, McFarlin Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Tulsa, about Yevgeny Zamyatin’s great dystopian novel WE. Jacob and I talk about Zamyatin himself—his early commitment to the Bolshevik cause in the early 1900s and his disillusionment following the revolution of 1917. The novel was written in 1920 but was suppressed in Russia. Zamyatin managed to smuggle the manuscript out of the country and it was first published in English translation in 1924. Tune in to hear an excerpt from the author’s shockingly candid letter to Stalin protesting the suppression of his work. Jacob argues that Zamyatin’s “fertile and poetic imagination” enabled him to write a subtle and dense book that sketches the conflict between the mathematical, thumotic soul and the poetic, erotic soul. Zamyatin saw that the militant, rationalizing impulse at the core of totalitarian politics distorts and destroys the obstacles in its path. D-503, the novel’s main character, is transformed by erotic longing and his act of writing—both lead him down a path of self-discovery. Our conversation takes some interesting turns. Other authors discussed include Plato (lots of Plato!), Dostoevsky, Marx, Havel, Milosz, Huxley, and Orwell. Jacob judges WE to be superior to both 1984 and Brave New World. Enjoy!

Here’s the second episode in our occasional series on lesser-known works by authors of acknowledged classics. We discuss Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Letter to d’Alembert on the Theater. D’Alembert published an article on Geneva for the Encyclopédie in 1757 which included a recommendation that Geneva should have a theater. Rousseau soon took up his been to argue against his friend’s proposal. “In so doing,” wrote Allan Bloom, “Rousseau presented as complete a treatment of the arts in relation to politics as has ever been produced.” This conversation includes an overview of Rousseau’s remarkable career, an introduction to the context for the letter, and a discussion of the letter’s many themes and proposals. We take up the question of amusements or entertainments and their importance to the political life of any nation. We spend some time on the theater in general and French theater in particular and Rousseau’s understanding of what this institution does to our passions. The letter is a remarkable work in that it moves back and forth between general themes and very concrete discussions of particular peoples and their habits and institutions. Rousseau discusses Genevan institutions and makes proposals for new ones near the end of the letter. We look closely at his analyses and proposals and discuss his understanding of the relation between love and liberty. Other topics include: (1) why drunkenness is ok (2) Spartan women and naked marching (3) how to get rid of dueling (4) why actors are liars and should be avoided (5) why a Miss Geneva pageant makes sense but the theater doesn’t. My guest is Pamela Jensen. She is Professor of Political Science Emerita at Kenyon College, where she taught modern political philosophy and politics and literature for thirty-four years. She is widely published on a range of authors and themes but see in particular her work on Rousseau, Shakespeare, and Ralph Ellison. She has a truly outstanding essay on Rousseau’s Letter entitled, “Love and Liberty in Rousseau.” This can be found in a book called Love and Friendship:  Rethinking Politics and Affection in Modern Times, edited by Eduardo A. Velasquez.

This month we discuss Norman Podhoretz’s memoir Making It. The book was first published in 1967 and then was reissued in 2017 by the New York Review of Books. Making It was controversial upon publication—friends like Jason Epstein even warned Podhoretz against publishing it. Making It chronicles Podhoretz’s rise from Jewish Brooklyn, to Columbia University, on to Cambridge University, and then to joining the exclusive community of New York Intellectuals. He frames his story with the themes of success, American identity, and the intellectual life. Our conversation here takes up all of these themes and a few more. We discuss why the book proved controversial initially, Podhoretz’s reflections on the question of success, his judgments about the role of the critic, and his understanding of the immigrant bargain as success becomes a real possibility. Our guest is Fred Bauer. Fred has written for a number of publications, including National Review, City Journal, The Weekly Standard, The American Conservative, Genealogies of Modernity, and elsewhere. His interests include contemporary American politics, accounts of identity, and the role of social and ethical commitments for liberty.

This month we discuss William Alexander Percy’s memoir, Lanterns on the Levee, first published in 1941. Percy lived a full and extraordinary life, beautifully captured in this book. A native of Greenville, Mississippi, Percy writes as a witness of the “disintegration of that moral cohesion of the South.” He was by turns a teacher, lawyer, poet, soldier, planter and adoptive father. We discuss Percy’s portrait of the class dynamics of the south, race relations, the emergence of populist political currents, his experiences in the first World War, and his peculiar aristocratic stoicism. We conclude with some reflections on how Will Percy might have influenced his more famous cousin and adoptive son, the novelist Walker Percy. Our guest is Elizabeth Amato. Elizabeth is an associate professor of political science at Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina. She earned her bachelor's degree at Berry College and her doctorate at Baylor University. Her first book is The Pursuit of Happiness and the American Regime where she discusses the writings of Tom Wolfe, Walker Percy, Edith Wharton, and Walker Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her scholarly interests include politics, literature, film, happiness, moral education, and American political thought. She has written on Walker Percy and his critique of the alienating character of the American pursuit of happiness.

With this episode Enduring Interest inaugurates a new occasional series on chapters or parts of great books which tend to be ignored or not much talked about. Matt Dinan is back to discuss a series of brief and fascinating chapters in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics on the social virtues: gentleness, friendliness, truthfulness and wittiness. Check out Matt’s essay “Be Nice,” first published in the Fall 2018 issue of The Hedgehog Review, where he touches on some of these virtues. Matt is an associate professor in the great books program at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He does research on classical, Christian, and contemporary political philosophy, and is currently writing a book called Kierkegaard's Socratic Political Philosophy. His essays and reviews have appeared in Perspectives on Political Science and The Review of Politics. Matt is also a contributing writer to The Hedgehog Review. Matt also has a Substack called PREFACES.   Matt discussed Kierkegaard’s Two Ages with us about a year ago. When I conceived of the idea for this occasional series on underappreciated parts of great books, I thought each of these episodes would be quite short—brief, quick hitting chats about something very particular. Well, as you’ll hear, Matt gets rolling on social virtues—as advertised—but our conversation covers lots of ground! Matt talks about what makes the Ethics such a rich book, Aristotle’s distinction between moral and intellectual virtue, and the place of these nameless virtues in his full list of moral virtues. But that’s not all. We also hit on the niceness of Atlantic Canadians, the importance of laughter to freedom and community, toddler humor, Norm Macdonald, Shakespearean humor, and a theory of Larry David. No micro-episode can contain Matt—plus I’m much too nice to cut him off. So here’s a very nice, normal sized episode, full of wit and wisdom.

Our subject for this episode is Albert Murray’s South to a Very Old Place. Part memoir, part travelogue, part dialogue with a range of interlocutors, this book is remarkable for both its variety and depth. Murray travels from Harlem to New Haven and then down south to Tuskegee and Mobile and beyond. Murray chats with the likes of Robert Penn Warren and Walker Percy and meditates on the themes of home, history, place, and myth. Our guest and I discuss Murray’s life and the peculiar nature of this wonderful book. We explore Murray’s critique of social science and his respect for folk wisdom. Our guest is Greg Thomas. Greg is CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project, a private company that uses the principles and practices of jazz music to enhance leadership success and team excellence. Along with his wife and partner Jewel, the Jazz Leadership Project works with notable firms such as JPMorgan Chase, Verizon, TD Bank, and Google. Their leadership blog, TuneIntoLeadership.com, features both of their writings.  Greg has been a professional journalist for over 25 years. He is currently a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Cultural Evolution. As an educator, Greg recently taught a course on Cultural Intelligence, and co-facilitated a six-month class, which ended this past March, titled, “Stepping Up: Wrestling with America’s Past, Reimagining Its Future, Healing Together.” As a social entrepreneur, Greg co-produced a two-day broadcast, "Combating Racism and Antisemitism Together: Shaping an Omni-American Future" in October 2021. In September 2022, he co-facilitated a one-day conference, "Resolving the Race-ism Dilemma." He also serves on the advisory boards of The Consilience Project, and FAIR, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.

In 1931 George S. Schuyler (1895-1977) published his novel Black No More: Being an account of the strange and wonderful workings of science in the land of the free, A.D. 1933-1940. It’s a satirical romp that takes up the race obsessions of various constituencies in the United States in the early part of the twentieth century. The book is deeply funny and the humor is meant to provoke some serious thought about the costs and consequences of the racialist thinking that Schuyler thought infected all corners of social and political thought in the United States. Before taking up the novel, we discuss Schuyler’s career as a journalist, novelist and social commentator. Our conversation highlights many of Schuyler’s satirical targets and we consider the novel’s particular relevance to today’s discourse on race. As Schuyler once wrote in a column for the Pittsburgh Courier: “Personally, I am only interested in getting our folks thinking all around the problems confronting them rather than following blindly our two-by-four leaders. Get people to thinking and they will work out their own salvation.” Our guest is Jennifer Delton, Professor of History at Skidmore College. She holds a PhD in History from Princeton University and teaches courses in United States history since the Civil War.  Her work focuses on liberalism, race and ethnicity, civil rights, and business in twentieth century. She is the author of four books, including, most recently, The Industrialists: How the National Association of Manufacturers Shaped American Capitalism (Princeton UP, 2020).

Ralph Ellison wrote one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, Invisible Man. He was also a gifted essayist and in this episode we discuss two essays in particular: “The Little Man at Chehaw Station” and “What America Would be Like Without Blacks.” The former was first published in The American Scholar in the Winter 1977/78 issue. In my view it’s one of the finest meditations on American identity ever written. That latter first appeared in Time magazine in April of 1970. They both appeared in a collection called Going to the Territory in 1986 and can also be found in The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison published by Modern Library.   We discuss the problem of aesthetic communication in American democracy, why the American condition is a “state of unease,” and the centrality of writing and our founding documents to American identity. Ellison loved both the traditional and the vernacular and was deeply attuned to how the interaction of these elements produced a complex cultural pluralism. Although written over 40 years ago, these essays seem quite timely. Consider this (from the “Little Man” essay): “In many ways, then, the call for a new social order based upon the glorification of ancestral blood and ethnic background acts as a call to cultural and aesthetic chaos. Yet while this latest farcical phase in the drama of American social hierarchy unfolds, the irrepressible movement of American culture toward the integration of its diverse elements continues, confounding the circumlocutions of its staunchest opponents.”   Our guests are Marc C. Conner and Lucas Morel. Marc Conner is President of Skidmore College (and Professor of English). Prior to coming to Skidmore in summer 2020, Marc was Provost and the Ballengee Professor of English at Washington and Lee University. His primary area of scholarship and teaching is literary modernism, both narrative and poetry, including Irish modernism, the modern American novel and African-American literature. He has authored and edited eight books, primarily about the work of Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson, and James Joyce, including The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison, named one of the 100 notable books of the year by The New York Times. Lucas Morel is the John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics and Head of the Politics Department at Washington and Lee University. He is the author of Lincoln and the American Founding and Lincoln’s Sacred Effort: Defining Religion’s Role in American Self-Government. He’s also edited two books on Ralph Ellison: Ralph Ellison and the Raft of Hope: A Political Companion to “Invisible Man” and more recently, The New Territory: Ralph Ellison and the Twenty-First Century (which he co-edited with Marc Conner). Dr. Morel conducts high school teacher workshops for the Ashbrook Center, Jack Miller Center, Gilder-Lehrman Institute, Bill of Rights Institute, and Liberty Fund.