The Dissidents

This week we talk culture, ideological politics, philosophy, and law with the celebrated author of Cynical Theories (Helen Pluckrose) and the Assistant Director at the Bi Foundation and editor-in-chief of Queer Majority (Rio Veradonir).  Helen and Rio speak with Mike and Elizabeth about challenges to liberalism, past, present, and future. They also share their reasons to celebrate and be hopeful. 

Podcast Notes:

Queer Majority: https://www.queermajority.com/

Bi Foundation: https://bi.org/en/about

Bailey, Allison (2014). The Unlevelled Knowing Field: An Engagement with Dotson's Third-Order Epistemic Oppression. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective. The Unlevel Knowing Field: An Engagement with Dotson’s Third-Order Epistemic Oppression, Alison Bailey - Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective (social-epistemology.com)

Burke, Edmund (1790). Reflections on the Revolution in France. The Project Gutenberg eBook of Burke's Writings and Speeches, Volume the Third, by Edmund Burke.

Dotson, Kristie (2011). Tracking Epistemic Violence: Tracking Practices of Silencing. Hypatia. Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing on JSTOR 

Mills, Charles (2005). "Ideal Theory" as Ideology. Hypatia. Wiley.  "Ideal Theory" as Ideology on JSTOR

Paine, Thomas (1791). The Rights of Man. Project Gutenberg. The Writings of Thomas Paine, Complete by Thomas Paine | Project Gutenberg

Pluckrose, Helen & James Lindsay (2005). Cynical Theories. Pitchstone Publishing. Amazon.com: Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody (Audible Audio Edition): Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, Pitchstone Publishing: Books

Pluckrose, Helen (2023). The Perilous Pendulum Swing Threatening LGBT Rights. Queer Majority. The Perilous Pendulum Swing Threatening LGBT Rights — Queer Majority

Stenner, Karen (2012). The Authoritarian Dynamic. Cambridge University Press. Authoritarian Dynamic (05) by Stenner, Karen [Paperback (2005)]: Stener: Amazon.com: Books

In this Liberal Conversation series of the Dissident’s Podcast, Mike and James discuss the history of liberalism, how power is abused by those factions traditionally associated with the left and the right and how those labels are themselves arbitrary rather than principled.

Institute for Liberal Values

Welcome to the Radical Roots of Ethnic Studies, a series of the Dissidents Podcast， with your co-hosts, Jennifer Richmond and Brandy Shufutinsky. In this series we explore the radical roots of liberated ethnic studies, how extreme ideology is infiltrating our schools with the aim to indoctrinate instead of educate, and our search for solutions to empower parents, teachers and students, giving them the tools to embrace inquiry and to express their individuality.

This week we speak with Izabella Tabarovsky, a Soviet Jewish Immigrant who has dedicated her research to exploring the spread of Soviet propaganda throughout the modern world. In this podcast she shares with the Soviet origins of antisemitic & anti-zionist propaganda & tropes, both the right & left’s adoption of these ideologies, its influence in today’s American media landscape and education system, and how Hamas used the same protocols put forth by the Russians and subsequently the Nazis to justify a Jewish genocide.

Coalition for Empowered Education

Institute for Liberal Values

Podcast Notes:

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Potemkin Village

Find out more about Izabella, a Senior Advisor at the Wilson Center, and see her most recent media interviews.

⁠How Soviet Propaganda Informs Contemporary Left Anti-Zionism⁠, Izabella Tabarovsky for Tablet Magazine

Let Russian Jews Lead, Izabella Tabarovsky for Tablet Magazine

The Cult of ‘Antizionism’, Izabella Tabarovsky for Tablet Magazine

Read Izabella’s Afterword for Letters in Black & White

In this week's podcast Armin Navabi, David Bernstein & Mike Burke discuss homophobia in relation to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, "pink washing", the future of the two state solution (or lack thereof) and the role that religion plays in how different cultures conceive of power and weakness.
Podcast Notes: 

In this week's episode, Mike and Elizabeth talk about a report that links receipt of undisclosed foreign donations with the erosion of tolerance on U.S. campuses. Larger donations from Middle Eastern and authoritarian countries appeared especially troublesome. Correlational results indicate that a lack of university transparency about their funding sources was concurrent with reported increases in antisemitism and with challenges to norms of free expression.  Elizabeth expresses skepticism regarding any causal inferences.  Mike shares his views about the likely goals of donors from authoritarian countries and specifically discusses funds from Qatar.  Both agree with the authors that more research is warranted.

Podcast Notes:

The Corruption of the American Mind: How Concealed Foreign Funding of U.S. Higher Education Predicts Erosion of Democratic Values and Antisemitic Incidents on Campus.

From the Network Contagion Research Institute:

https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI-Report_The-Corruption-of-the-American-Mind.pdf

Welcome to the Radical Roots of Ethnic Studies, a series of the Dissidents Podcast， with your co-hosts, Jennifer Richmond and Brandy Shufutinsky. In this series we explore the radical roots of liberated ethnic studies, how extreme ideology is infiltrating our schools with the aim to indoctrinate instead of educate, and our search for solutions to empower parents, teachers and students, giving them the tools to embrace inquiry and to express their individuality.

In this week's episode, Mike and Elizabeth go back to basics with a discussion about balance. We begin and end with contemporary challenges to balance in our personal and professional lives, particularly those posed by DEI initiatives.  Sandwiched between is a deep dive on balance in international relations, with a focus on the Middle East.  Mike employs his background and training to take us through some of the most important historical challenges to balance in the region, from the Ottoman Empire to the crisis unfolding today.  

Institute for Liberal Values

Podcast Notes:

Antal, T., Krapivsky, P. L., & Redner, S. (2006). Social balance on networks: The dynamics of friendship and enmity. Physica D, 224(1/2), 130–136. https://doi-org.libserv-prd.bridgew.edu/10.1016/j.physd.2006.09.028

In this week's episode ILV fellows Mike, Elizabeth, and James discuss position statements and ILV's commitment to liberal conversations. First, Mike talks with Elizabeth who argues that organizational statements are of little practical use and may jeopardize the non-partisan and non-sectarian missions of consortiums like ILV.  In the second part of the podcast, Mike and James continue to discuss how dangerously close institutional statements can come to compelling speech. In both segments we talk about antisemitism, war, and the difference between personal and organizational neutrality. 

Institute for Liberal Values

Podcast notes:

https://provost.uchicago.edu/reports/report-universitys-role-political-and-social-action

Channy Chhi Laux joins us to discuss her perspectives on communism, free speech, individual rights and responsibilities, and contemporary challenges to liberal values. Channy was just 13 when the Khmer Rouge seized Cambodia in 1975. She endured 4 years of starvation, forced labor, and disease before arriving in Lincoln, Nebraska as a Cambodian refugee who spoke no English and who had been denied 4 years of education. Channy went on to earn an advanced degree in Applied Mathematics and spent 30 years working in Silicon Valley as an engineer. She is the founder of Angkor Cambodian Food, and works with schools and other organizations, like the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, to promote awareness of the Cambodian Genocide.   

Institute for Liberal Values

Podcast Notes:

Channy’s memoir: Short Hair Detention: Memoir of a Thirteen-Year-Old Girl Surviving the Cambodian Genocide(Bloomington, IN: Archway Publishing, 2017). 

Learn about the California Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education: https://holocaustcenter.jfcs.org/california-collaborative/

Access a preview of Channy's Cambodian Genocide educational materials: https://cambodiangenocideresourcecenter.com/lesson-plan-download/

See Channy's Victims of Communism page here: https://victimsofcommunism.org/speaker/channy-chhi-laux/

Check out Angkor Cambodian Food: 

https://www.angkorfood.com/

On October the 5th Brandy Shufutinsky, David Bernstein and Mike Burke met to discuss the growing problem of antisemitism on both the political left and right. Little could any of them know what was about to happen just a couple of days later on October the 7th, which was the worst attack on the Jewish people, since the Holocaust. In an addendum to the original recording, made just a few days later but in what felt like a totally different era, Mike and Brandy included a follow-up conversation on the outpourings of antisemitic madness erupting across Western world, including direct incitements to violence by academics at prestigious universities, hordes of people taking to the streets to celebrate some of the worst of atrocities of the 21st century and schools in London having to temporarily close due to the very real fear of violent mobs attacking Jewish children.

Podcast Notes:

Podcast notes:

You can find the Coalition for Empowered Education’s downloadable letter to California superintendents on the Institute for Liberal Values website.