Mark, Seth, Wes, and Dylan continue to delve into philosophical issues raised by our interview with Fukuyama. Chiefly, he recommends a "creedal national identity" as a solution for tribalism. Does this work? More abstractly, Fukuyama takes this "demand for recognition" issue as coming from Hegel (or rather Kojeve's interpretation of Hegel, which is much easier to understand Continue Reading …
Ep. 209: Guest Francis Fukuyama on Identity Politics (Part One)
We interview Francis Fukuyama about his 2018 book Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. What motivates people? Economists point to desire, and to rationality as a way of efficiently getting what we desire. Frank says this misses out on the third aspect of the soul that Plato identified in the Republic: thymos, or spiritedness. Our thymos makes us Continue Reading …
Ep. 209: Guest Francis Fukuyama on Identity Politics (Citizen Edition)
We interview Francis Fukuyama about his 2018 book Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment and then continue the discussion on our own. What motivates people? Economists point to desire, and to rationality as a way of efficiently getting what we desire. Frank says this misses out on the third aspect of the soul that Plato identified in the Republic: Continue Reading …
The Hubris of Transhumanism
The debates around futurist tech, biotechnology, and human enhancements are usually very polarized, with one side embracing it uncritically and the other rejecting it irrationally. Geeky technophiles who see science as the be-all and end-all of thinking want to push the progress farther and faster, sometimes leaving ethics behind, whereas the more romantically minded embrace Continue Reading …
Marxist Thought Today
The fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) seemed to herald the victory of capitalism over socialism, what Francis Fukuyama declared the "End of History;" the failure and death of both Marxist thought and political movements. Fukuyama, an eloquent Hegelian political philosopher and one-time neoconservative (and continued anti-Marxist) asserts uncompromisingly in his "End of History" Continue Reading …