Uncommon Decency

An old spectre is haunting Europe—in fact, it's as old as Europe itself, but given that it manifests itself in varied forms throughout History, the latest ones have become harder to identify each time. What is driving the ongoing spike in antisemitism across Europe? Who are the perpetrators of recent attacks, what motivates them, and in what ways are they different from past forms? How are identity politics and the Israel-Palestinian conflict playing into this worrying trend? To discuss all this we have with us two leaders in the study of—and the fight against—antisemitism. Simone Rodan-Benzaquen leads the American Jewish Committee's (AJC) work in Europe, and Günther Jikeli is the Erna B. Rosenfeld Professor at Indiana University's Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.

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Whilst France undergoes a genuine introspection over how to tackle Islamic separatism in the wake of renewed terrorism, US media have taken to portraying "laïcité" in a strikingly one-sided way, as some sort of thin veil for islamophobia. Where does this skewed lens come from? Why do foreign correspondents, particularly from American outlets, insist on catering to the woke sensibilities of their domestic audience by conveying only one side of the story, however narrowly espoused across France? This latest episode isn't really a debate in itself but an attempt to give our English-speaking audience what hasn't been afforded to them by mainstream media. Anne-Élisabeth Moutet (columnist at the Sunday Telegraph) and Agnès Poirier (broadcaster and author of Notre Dame: The Soul of France) couldn't be better placed for the job, having both written extensively on French issues for a variety of US and UK outlets.

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After a tiresome four years of petty spats over trade and defense spending, transatlantic relations seem off to a reset with Joe Biden in the White House—but what exactly can Europeans expect from an administration that Daniel Fried calls the "most pro-European since George H. W. Bush's" in the late 80s? Ambassador Fried is a longtime career diplomat who most recently coordinated sanctions policy across the US government, and previously focused on European affairs as Assistant Secretary of State and US Ambassador in Warsaw. Hear us discuss with him the thorny concept of "strategic autonomy" and how together, the EU and the US can overcome our differences to focus on the worldful of mounting challenges we both face.

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A debate has been raging over recent weeks in Brussels and across European capitals, one that many in our non-European audience may find somewhat confusing at times. What is European "strategic autonomy"? The term is being used by French President Emmanuel Macron to promote his vision of a Europe willing and able to wield power on its own, both in terms of defense and security—through increased military spending and enhanced NATO cooperation—and economics—as a way for the EU to rise to the challenge of the Sino-American strategic rivalry and find ways to carve out an economic role of its own, dependent on neither but engaged with both. In this bonus episode (we have refrained from inviting guests just this week), listen to Jorge and François as they unpack what strategic autonomy may mean and how this debate has been playing out.

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Vernon Bogdanor is one of Britain’s foremost constitutional experts, which for a country that lacks a written constitution, means not that he lacks a working subject. In his latest book Britain and Europe in a Troubled World (2020), Mr. Bogdanor traces the historical undercurrents behind the UK’s troubled, always ambivalent ties with the European continent. Brexit in fact has thrust into broad daylight a relationship far more complicated than was suggested just by the issues at stake in the referendum of 2016. In this episode, Mr. Bogdanor helps us unpack what these diverging visions about the future of Europe were all about.

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Rate and review Uncommon Decency on Apple Podcasts, and send us your comments or questions at @UnDecencyPod or [email protected].

David Goodhart is one of the UK's foremost scholars of populism. His previous book The Road to Somewhere (2017) documented the profound value divides that Trump and the Brexiteers rode in 2016, between an elite of anywheres driven by self-actualization, individualism and adaptiveness to social change and a majority of communitarian patriots, the somewheres. In his latest book Head Hand Heart (2020), his inquiries have taken him one step further, into the so-called "cognitive meritocracy" that governs how our societies apportion status and self-esteem between different careers and lifepaths. Hear us discuss with him his case for a fairer balance of rewards across the occupational ladder.

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"A shared commitment to liberty and self-government" is how Michael Kimmage defines the West, a notion at once elusive but also intuitive when it comes to world politics. Prof. Kimmages's The Abandonment of the West (2020) is an attempt to trace the cultural undercurrents that propelled "the West" to elite appeal in the early 20th century, but he brings unparalleled expertise on Russian matters too, having led the Russia & Ukraine portfolio at former Secretary of State John Kerry's Policy Planning Staff. In this episode we discuss with him Russia, the West and how Prof. Kimmage envisions the relationship between the two moving forward.

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What is "illiberal democracy"? What do Fidesz and Hungary's PM Viktor Orbán stand for? To answer those questions we have with us Mr. Schöplfin, a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) with Fidesz, Hungary’s Christian-Democratic ruling party for 15 years. Previously, he had a long career as an academic in the UK, and will be publishing two titles this year, A Contested Europe and The European Polis. We unpack with him the trends and philosophical foundations that are transforming the EU from a project built on consensus to one based on a single proto-federalist path and a punitive approach to recalcitrant countries, not least his native Hungary.

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Five years after the Charlie Hebdo attack, a Chechen Islamist beheaded a middle school teacher for showing a cartoon of Mohamed during a class on freedom of expression. Despite Emmanuel Macron’s bill on “islamist separatism” there’s a distinct feeling that France’s identity and unity are at stake. Gilles Kepel, one of the country’s most respected voices on the issue of Islamist terrorism, helps us unpack how France got there and how to deal with the Islamist poison.

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"White fragility" wasn’t yet a term of art when Ed West published Small Men on the Wrong Side of History (2020), but our ever-growing culture wars since seem to have confirmed his every pre-existing thesis. Conservatives may still win elections on both sides of the Atlantic, but in the culture war they’re losing “bigly”. In the third episode of Uncommon Decency, Ed unpacks these profound cultural and demographic trends with a lot of wit and humour.

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