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Wisdom of Crowds

Shadi Hamid & Damir Marusic

Agreement is nice. Disagreement is better. wisdomofcrowds.live

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84:26

Thriving in the Apocalypse

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/12/01

The headlines prove it: we live in turbulent times. Elizabeth Oldfield, our guest this week, recently published a book — Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times — about how to thrive during such a moment. “If we’re heading into (even more) turbulent times,” Elizabeth writes, “I want to be someone who is of use, not overwhelmed and panicking but steady and hopeful, able to contribute to weaving a canopy of trust under which other people can shelter.” Along with being a writer, a former

51:56

American Heretics and Liberal Neutrality

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/11/24

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe Declaration of Independence affirms that all human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Yet the Declaration is silent about who this Creator is. Is it the Jewish deity or the Christian God? Or is it the god of the philosophers — the blind watchmaker of the Enlightenment? The Constitution, on the other hand, doesn’t mention the divine at all, except for the phrase, “Year of Our

54:50

The Player and the Referee

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/11/17

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

59:29

The Restoration of Trump and the Last Man

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/11/07

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

64:29

Happiness and Misery in America

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/11/03

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

98:13

Is It Okay Not to Vote?

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/10/27

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

62:15

The Sublime Object of Our Terror

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/10/20

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

61:38

The Passion of the Elites

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/10/13

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

80:33

War in the Middle East, Again

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/10/03

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

71:40

Human Dignity and Beyond

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/09/29

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

62:36

The Comedy of the Commons

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/09/15

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

62:58

Charles Taylor on the Need for Cosmic Connection

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/09/07

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

47:40

Embrace the Vibes!

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/08/30

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe Harris-Walz campaign is having a moment. It is polling well. Harris made a good speech at the Democratic National Convention. The Democratic Convention as a whole got better TV ratings than the Republican one. Harris’s campaign is all about joy. Even Shadi’s parents are feeling the vibes (and using the word, “vibes,” probably for the first time).But Shadi and Damir aren’t feeling it. No joy. No vibes. No excitement

58:35

Ending Summer on Violence and Despair

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/08/25

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveElon Musk just started tweeting about the Iliad. But our guest, Twitter’s Audrey Horne, has been talking about Homer with Samuel Kimbriel and Damir Marusic for at least two weeks now — well before Elon turned his attention to these kinds of things. We figured this was an excuse to share some of the offline chatter with the Crowd. If Elon’s interested in it, it has to be relevant, right?Christians and Greeks both agree

64:23

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/08/17

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” goes the famous line from Joan Didion — but is it worth it? How do narratives help us make sense of our lives, and how might they be misleading? Advertisements these days are full of them, but can a company really have a story of its own? And could having “main character energy” actually indicate a fundamental philosophical problem?In this special live recording from the Lyceum Movement’s Tallgrass Ideas Festival in Des Moines, Iowa, Sam was joined by

67:26

What Are Children For?

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/08/09

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveThe international drop in baby-making is currently in the headlines, and it’s been constant preoccupation for us at Wisdom of Crowds (including in our latest edition of CrowdSource). It concerns us not only because of the possible long-term economic consequences but also because a people’s inability — or lack of desire — to reproduce itself might be the consequence of serious moral or social problems.Enter philosophers

67:43

America Last

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/08/03

It’s a dog days of summer special! This week, we are releasing a live interview from last April, that’s more timely today than when it was first recorded. Dictators and their sychophants; democracy imperiled by foreign policy misadventures. Sound familiar?For almost a century, American intellectuals of different political stripes have been in thrall to dictators. They’ve either projected utopian ideals on to them, or been seduced by their charisma and alleged effectiveness. The story of left wing

82:13

Freddie deBoer on Democracy and the Democrats

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/07/27

That was fast. Just days after Joe Biden chose to remove himself from the presidential ticket, Kamala Harris is the unquestioned candidate of the Democratic Party. But was this a democratic process? Or was Biden bullied out of the ticket, and Harris shoehorned into it, without any attention paid to the peoples’ wishes? And who are “the people,” anyway?Joining us to debate these questions is the author Freddie deBoer — one of the most influential and provocative leftist thinkers writing today

50:03

A More (or Less) Perfect Union

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/07/16

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.liveGreetings, dear Listeners!We are releasing our podcast early this week. We figured that an episode about the unity of the American people would sound good right about now, given the circumstances. Damir’s Tuesday Note — which will respond to a Provocation — will be published this coming Thursday. What holds the United States together? Three hundred million people of different races, religions, and histories, spread out

52:16

What is Forgiveness?

Wisdom of Crowds ·

2024/07/13

Welcome to summer, dear crowd! This week, we have a live episode for you — live from the Aspen Ideas Festival. Sam Kimbriel recorded this episode with Tamar Gendler, a Dean and Philosophy professor at Yale University, and Erin McFee, a Future Leaders Fellow at the Latin America and Caribbean Centre in the London School of Economics.The subject, very broadly, is forgiveness. Is it good or bad? Do we know what it means? Can one forgive wrongly? And could forgiving foreclose the possibility of

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