Wisdom of Crowds

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Official WoC house philosopher Samuel Kimbriel joins Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic to discuss the role that ideas had in the recent elections. Specifically, they focus on whether it was bad ideas or bad political strategy that doomed the Dems.

Sam insists that the Democrats failed because liberalism as we understand it has become weak, devoid of ideas and moral persuasion. Liberals, Sam insists, constantly shift from wanting to be a player in the political contest, to a referee of the same. They argue for their side and its views, until they start losing in the contest. If they start losing, they shift to a referee role, and try to rule out the legitimacy of certain opposing ideas (for example, immigration restrictionism). What we need, Sam says, is a renewed liberalism that is unafraid to make moral claims — one that plays and plays well, without tying to also be the referee.

Damir disagrees. He isn’t sure whether what happened on November 5 will be seen as revolutionary — that is, an overthrow of a previous order — or merely “an empty, peasant backlash,” though he is leaning toward the latter. Regardless, “what happened is a failure of rulership, not ideas,” he says. “It was not a failure of metaphysics, but of arguments.”

Shadi stands between Sam and Damir, sometimes as referee, sometimes as a player on Sam’s side. He supports democracy and the idea of moral politics. And he believes that Damir “always attacks us [Sam and Shadi] for having beliefs,” while hiding or being in denial of his own implicit metaphysical convictions.

In the bonus segment for paid subscribers, Sam and Shadi corner Damir into finally admitting that he does indeed have metaphysical convictions of his own, even if that conviction is materialism. Damir talks about how he’s reading the Bible this winter, and he gives us his own definition of the word “politics.” It’s a rollicking discussion that you won’t want to miss!

Required Reading:

* Western Civilization: Paleolithic Man to the Emergence of European Powers — the textbook Sam cites at the beginning of the episode (Volume I, Volume II).

* The Problem of Democracy: America, the Middle East, and the Rise and Fall of an Idea by Shadi Hamid (Amazon).

* “Republicans See a Better Economic Outlook. Now It’s Democrats Who Don’t” (New York Times).

* Sam’s piece on the French Revolution and the contemporary Left (WoC).

* Ordinary Vices by Judith Shklar (Amazon).

* Damir’s piece about peasant revolts (WoC).

* “How the Ivy League Broke America” by David Brooks (The Atlantic).

* “A Letter Concerning Toleration” by John Locke (WikiSource).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

Tuesday night’s election has left us with total Republican control of all three branches of government. What does this mean for the immediate future of the Republic? Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic get together to discuss. We are releasing this episode early and completely free for all subscribers.

Will Donald Trump become a dictator? What is he capable of? What might be the worst aspects of his second term? Damir discusses mass deportations as the biggest risk. Shadi worries about Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East. More than that, Shadi worries about a Donald Trump who all of the sudden has everything he’s ever wanted — a revenge victory — and finds it still unsatisfying. “What now?”

Damir and Shadi are not very fond of the Harris-Walz campaign. Shadi laments that Harris never seemed comfortable on the campaign trail, and could never quite communicate authenticity. Damir says that Walz is an irrelevant politician, a “weirdo” with no discernible contribution to the Democratic cause.

Two minds trying to figure out where things stand in the wake of what seems to be like a momentous election. The first of many attempts at Wisdom of Crowds where we will try to read the signs of the times.

Required Reading:

* Tim Alberta on the dysfunction in the Trump campaign (The Atlantic).

* Politico piece why Kamala lost (Politico).

* Shadi: “The Democrats can’t blame anyone but themselves this time” (Washington Post).

* Turkish migrant interview (YouTube).

* “What Do Men Want?” podcast with Shadi and Richard Reeves (Washington Post).

* Megan McArdle, Jim Geraghty and Ramesh Ponnuru podcast: “Are Republicans Kamala-curious? Not so much.” (Washington Post).

* Ruth Marcus, Dana Milbank and James Hohmann podcast: “Ruth Marcus, Dana Milbank and James Hohmann” (Washington Post).

* Andrew Sullivan’s Election Night Notes on Substack.

* Donald Trump’s interview with the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

* Barack Obama roasts Donald Trump at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner (YouTube).

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

On October 21 in Washington, DC, Wisdom of Crowds hosted a special live taping of the podcast. WoC editor-at-large Samuel Kimbriel joined WoC contributor and New Republic journalist Osita Nwanevu, along with Georgetown political theory professor Joshua Mitchell, to discuss “Happiness and Misery in America” on the eve of the general elections.

Joshua spoke from a more communitarian and conservative point of view, citing the drawbacks that come with the growth of the state: “When you have a regime founded on small government and mediating institutions, you have to develop personal and collective competence. … Early on, happiness is linked to competence and to doing. But as the state has grown larger, and more and more the functions of living have been left up to the state, we’ve become more isolated and we come to think of happiness more as feeling and self-expression.”

Osita spoke from a left-liberal perspective. It might be less the case that we are unhappy, he argued, than that we think we ought to be unhappy, given the way life is structured today. “We think that Americans should be less happy than they are. If you think that Americans should be less happy, because they use smart phones a lot, then you should own that. … Liberals always are in the business of saying less than they actually mean. The pursuit of happiness is not just material well-being … happiness for the Founders … also meant moral and spiritual well-being.”

This was a robust and rich clash of perspectives that generated much more light than heat. Osita cautioned against romanticizing the old America of traditional communities, arguing that the “freedom to seek what the good life is, without having it given to you by father or pastor, is an important part of what American civilization is.” Joshua agreed that sometimes the state has to intervene in local communities for the sake of justice — for example, to desegregate the schools in Little Rock — but he also cautioned that we will never be fully satisfied without some “concreteness of embodied relations with others. … We [Americans] are all cowboys … the rest of the world can’t believe the level of unboundedness we live with.”

Free for all subscribers, this is a valuable and — crucially during this moment — civil conversation that will be interesting to anyone who cares about the soul of America. Give it a listen.

Required Reading:

* Joshua Mitchell (Georgetown faculty webpage).

* Osita Nwanevu (personal website).

* Surgeon General’s Advisory on Loneliness Epidemic (Department of Health and Human Services).

* Declaration of Independence (National Archives).

* Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (Amazon).

* Friendship as Sacred Knowing: Overcoming Isolation by Samuel Kimbriel (Amazon).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

For the past year, Shadi Hamid has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza — and the Biden administration’s complicity. Now he, like many others, is baffled by the Harris campaign’s disregard and seeming disdain for Muslim and Arab voters. In a week is election day, and he is wrestling with the moral and political implications of the choice at hand.

In our pages earlier this week, Shadi and Haroon Moghul debated the merits of voting for Harris or not voting at all. You can read their full exchange here. This podcast episode continues that conversation, but goes deeper. It is, in essence, about voting: is there a duty to vote? In a two-party system, must we accept the lesser of two evils?

Moghul is director of strategy at The Concordia Forum and author of Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of a Muslim Future. Haroon shares all of Shadi’s misgivings about Trump and Harris, and has publicly chosen not to vote. “I don’t think you can get to democratic ends with a candidate who is at war with democracy,” Haroon says, “and I don’t just mean Trump, I mean Harris.”

Shadi, on the other hand, takes a more pragmatic point of view: Sitting an election out doesn’t do anything real; it would be better for Muslim and other pro-Palestine voices to continue supporting the Democratic Party, hoping to influence it from within. Meanwhile, Damir Marusic applies his trusty sense for realpolitik to the question. He challenges Shadi, arguing that he’s conflating two very different strategies: electoral pressure and intra-party influence. He questions Haroon whether there is an actual “theory of a change” behind his choice not to vote.

This is a passionate discussion, not so much about electoral politics as about the first principles undergirding citizenship. And it also asks an intensely personal set of questions: how do we ultimately make what can seem like an impossible choice?

Required Reading and Viewing:

* Shadi Hamid and Haroon Moghul debate: “Should Americans Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils?” (WoC).

* Haroon Moghul, “What I Told My Muslim Students about Gaza” (WoC).

* Biden’s comments admitting Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” while also saying “we’re not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel.”

* “Prominent Muslim Democrat Demands Answers After Being Kicked Out of Harris Rally in Michigan” (Democracy Now!)

* “Trump in Michigan makes play for Arab American and Muslim voters angry over war in Gaza” (CNN).

* An emotional debate with our friend and Christian Zionist Robert Nicholson weeks after Oct. 7 (WoC).

* Haroon Moghul, Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of the Muslim Future (Amazon).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

Damir Marusic and WoC executive editor Santiago Ramos get together to discuss Damir’s latest article, “Why We Need Nightmares.” In it, Damir writes about the the binding of Isaac — the chilling story from the Book of Genesis where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son. Damir is fascinated both by the story and by a Caravaggio painting depicting it. “That’s the stuff,” he writes. But what is this “stuff”?

While searching for an answer to this question, Damir and Santiago cover a lot of ground. They discuss the story of Abraham and Isaac, as well as the different ways that philosophers have interpreted it. They talk about Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Kant. They come to the conclusion that, while we all have different words for it — terrifying, mysterious, sublime — everyone must grapple with the stuff. Grappling with the stuff is an essential part of living a human life, for believers and unbelievers alike.

This episode covers the Bible, philosophy, art, music, and much more. It is not a debate, but an exploration of what exactly it is that makes certain stories, works of art, and experiences so moving, compelling, terrifying. We enjoyed recording this episode so much that we decided to make it free for all subscribers.

Required Reading and Listening:

* Damir, “Why We Need Nightmares” (WoC).

* Damir, “The Pursuit of Passion for Its Own Sake” (WoC).

* Damir, “It’s Not Really About Cancel Culture,” about Tár (WoC).

* “Ending Summer on Violence and Despair, with Twitter’s Audrey Horne” (WoC).

* The story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22 (King James Version).

* Immanuel Kant (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

* Søren Kierkegaard (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

* Friedrich Nietzsche (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

* “Time of tension between dying and birth” quote by T. S. Eliot, in “Ash Wednesday” (Best Poems).

* Mozart, Symphony No. 40 (Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, YouTube).

* Roger Scruton on pop music as addictive (YouTube).

* Keith Richards on heavy metal, “No lift, no bounce, no syncopation” (YouTube).

* Caspar David Friedrich, “Sea of Ice” (painting of shipwreck/example of the sublime).

* The Rolling Stones, “Gimme Shelter” (YouTube).

* Nirvana, “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” (YouTube).

* Shellac, At Action Park (YouTube).

* Arvo Pärt, Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten (Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, YouTube).

* Leonard Bernstein, “The Unanswered Question,” lectures (YouTube).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live

Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist and assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. He joins Christine Emba and Damir Marusic to discuss his new book, We Have Never Been Woke: Social Justice Discourse, Inequality, and the Rise of a New Elite. Don’t worry: the book is not another culture war polemic. Instead, it’s something much more useful: a work of social science that explains what “woke” means in terms of class and culture in the United States.

In our conversation Musa describes the inner workings of a group that has gone by many different names: the PMC (Professional-Managerial Class), the New Class, the cognitive elite or the symbolic capitalists. This group enjoys higher wages and more autonomy than most workers, and its power is derived from knowledge-based work, which requires (at the very least) a college degree.

Damir thinks that the PMC is merely hypocritical and self-interested, while Musa sees things differently. He argues that while this group has sincere interests in advancing social justice, they also have an interest in maintaining their own elite status. This contradiction is the source of so much of the insanity we see in American society today. Christine presses Musa for details about this insanity: to what extent is the symbolic capitalist class actually sabotaging positive social change, in order to preserve their privileges?

Among the topics discussed is the nature of symbolic capital; whether self interest and political idealism are necessarily contradictory; how wokeness and anti-wokeness have similar incentives; violence and social change; and the economics of victimhood. This practical and illuminating episode will make you smarter about how America works.

Required Reading:

* We Have Never Been Woke: Social Justice Discourse, Inequality, and the Rise of a New Elite by Musa al-Gharbi (Princeton University Press).

* Alex Press, “On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich” (Dissent).

* Musa al-Gharbi, “Social Movement Requires Force” (Salon).

* Musa al-Gharbi, “The Symbolic Professions Are Super WEIRD” (Substack).

* Musa al-Gharbi, “The Absurd Spectacle at Columbia Occludes the Grim Realities of Gaza” (Compact).

* “Georg Simmel” (Encyclopedia Britannica).

* Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction (Amazon).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

An emergency pod: “War, or something resembling war, is breaking out in the Middle East,” says Shadi Hamid. A year after the October 7 massacre, Israel has all but destroyed Hamas. Last month, it killed Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah, thus decapitating that terrorist organization. This week, it launched an invasion of southern Lebanon. In retaliation, Iran — the longtime backer of Hezbollah — has lobbed a barrage of ballistic missiles into Israel.

We decided to release the podcast early this week, before it is overtaken by the swiftly-moving events. What is this war about? What should the US do about it? Does anyone in the US political class truly believe that the Arab world is capable of democracy? Were the Abraham Accords foolish — or racist? How do you define a “rogue state”? What is Netanyahu right about?

Joining Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic to discuss these questions is Matt Duss, Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy, co-host of the Undiplomatic Podcast, and former foreign policy advisor for Senator Bernie Sanders.

“A lot of [Arab Americans] are not going to pull the lever for Kamala Harris,” Shadi reports. Matt lambasts the “racist logic” of the Abraham Accords, which swept the Palestinian question aside and decided that “this is the best [America] can hope for, deals with modernizing autocrats.” Damir applies a realpolitik analysis, explaining the Israeli military strategy and arguing that American and European diplomats have no choice but to strike deals with the autocrats that rule the world. Shadi responds: “Realpolitik is supposed to be effective.”

It’s a passionate, intense discussion that strikes at the core preoccupations of Wisdom of Crowds: justice, war, and the state. Free for all subscribers: You will want to listen to the whole thing.

Required Reading:

* Shadi’s responses to subscribers’ provocations about the Middle East (WoC).

* Bruno Maçães’ article on the end of Western hypocrisy (Time).

* Jeffrey Goldberg’s 2016 article on “The Obama Doctrine” (The Atlantic).

* James Baldwin on the Dick Cavett Show (YouTube).

* The Abraham Accords (US State Department).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

What is human dignity? Is it a real thing, or merely an idea? If it’s real, then where does it come from? And why do only human beings have dignity? What about other intelligent beings? What about the octopus?

These are only some of the many questions that Damir Marusic and Santiago Ramos talk about in a slow-burn, philosophical episode of Wisdom of Crowds. Because Santiago is executive editor of Wisdom of Crowds, Damir wants to learn more about his bedrock convictions. He cross-examines Santiago about his religion, politics, and formative experiences.

At first, Damir finds in Santiago a kindred spirit: both are skeptical about power and about big political theories. But Santiago does have one fundamental conviction that he is not skeptical about: universal human dignity. Damir presses Santiago on this topic. What is human dignity? How do you know it exists? And do only human beings have dignity? What about other intelligent animals? What about … octopi?

The ending is one of the richest parts of the conversation, so we made this episode is free for all subscribers.

* Daniel Patrick Moynihan documentary (PBS).

* Song about the guerrilla priest: Victor Jara, “Camilo Torres” (YouTube).

* “Of New Things,” Pope Leo XIII (Vatican.va).

* “On the Progress of Peoples,” Paul VI (Vatican.va).

* Jacques Maritain and the UN Declaration of Human Rights (UNESCO).

* The Cold War in Latin America (RetroReport).

* Michael Novak obituary (New York Times).

* Iraq War timeline (Council on Foreign Relations).

* Thomas Aquinas on the human soul (Summa Theologiae, New Advent).

* Valladolid debate on the rights of indigenous people (In Our Time, BBC).

* Octopus intelligence (Natural History Museum).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live

How does order emerge from anarchy? How do human beings create institutions? Can big problems — like climate change, income inequality, or AI alignment — find solutions “from below,” through collective action, rather than “from above,” i.e., imposed by regulatory bodies?

Today’s guest is a fascinating economist. Professor Paul Dragoș Aligică is a senior research fellow at the Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and a Professor of Governance at the University of Bucharest.

Paul believes that we are living through the third great moment in human history, after the transition to agriculture and the industrial revolution. What will this third moment be about?

Far too broad to pigeonhole, he’s a visionary public choice theorist and a student of renowned economists Vincent and Elinor Ostrom (the latter won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2009). Paul has thought long and hard about the strange inflection point our world seems to be hurtling towards. It’s a slow burn of an episode, one where interesting and complex ideas are laid out carefully, before Damir and Santiago engage Paul in sussing out their implications.

Does Paul think that public choice theory means the world has hope? How do we fix the seemingly intractable problems posed by capitalism and globalization? Tune in to find out.

Required Reading and Viewing:

* Paul Dragoș Aligică’s personal website.

* Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (Amazon).

* What is the Tragedy of the Commons? (Harvard Business School).

* Elinor Ostrom on Ending the Tragedy of the Commons (Big Think on YouTube).

* Santiago Ramos, “What Does McDonald’s Mean?” (WoC).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

A very special episode this week, completely free for all listeners. The world-famous philosopher Charles Taylor joins Wisdom of Crowds editors Samuel Kimbriel and Santiago Ramos for a conversation about his new book, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment.

Professor Taylor has spent a long and fruitful career trying to understand the basic questions of modern life. What does it mean to be a modern person? How do we form our sense of identity? How do we relate to the sacred? What does it mean to be secular? What happened to religion? In Cosmic Connections, he tells the story of how the Romantic poets of the nineteenth century sought to reconnect with nature through art, after the rise of modern science and the industrial revolution left many people wondering about man’s place in the universe.

Appropriately enough, Sam called in from a log cabin somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, and he enthusiastically supported Professor Taylor’s thesis that a connection with nature is an essential component of a healthy society. The more city-bound Santiago took a more skeptical approach, at least at first. He questioned Professor Taylor’s claim that a connection with nature entails a connection with a transcendent, spiritual reality. Along with these heady topics, the conversation touched upon Beethoven’s symphonies, A.I. “friends,” and the idea of progress.

Required Reading (and Listening):

* Charles Taylor, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment (Amazon).

* Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Amazon).

* Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Amazon).

* Damir Marusic, “Beauty and Niceness in an Accidental World” (WoC).

* Romanticism (School of Life).

* Henry David Thoreau (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

* Beethoven, Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement (YouTube).

* Beethoven, Sixth Symphony “Pastoral” (YouTube).

* “Wear This A.I. Friend Around Your Neck” (Wired).

* Joni Mitchell (Official YouTube Page).

* Leonard Cohen (Official YouTube Page).

This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.

Wisdom of Crowds is a platform challenging premises and understanding first principles on politics and culture. Join us!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe