Minneapolis: Saving Democracy From Moral Bankruptcy
Normally, we should be reluctant to talk about politics in terms of morality. We can't live with each other, in peace anyway, if we think di...
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Dastardly Cleverness in the Service of Good
A podcast for people who make progress: in nonprofits, government, politics, and socially responsible corporations. Your host: Spencer Critchley.
Episodes
20 of 89 episodes
MAGA: An Escape From Freedom
One of the most confusing things about Trumpism is this paradox: People who believe so strongly in individual freedom are also eager to give...
The Shooting of Renee Good
In a democracy, law enforcement exists to protect people: their safety and their Constitutional rights. Under authoritarianism, law enforcem...
The True Crisis: The Liberal Backbone Chapter 15
About a year ago, I started publishing draft chapters of my book in progress, The Liberal Backbone. It hit me lately that the draft is done...
The Art of Politics: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 14
Liberals think of rhetoric as something you cut through to get to the substance. But in politics, rhetoric is the substance. Politics is the...
Escape From the Iron Cage: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 13
Escape from the iron cage of alienation appears to be impossible: You'll never think of a way out, because it's thinking that locks you in....
How to Lose in One Word: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 12
Every politician, or anyone trying to persuade anyone else of anything, faces two make-or-break moments: the moment before they say a word,...
It's the Alienation, Stupid: The Liberal Backbone Chapter 11
The fiendish thing about the iron cage of alienation is that the harder you try to escape, the harder that gets. The more you try to think y...
The Iron Cage: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 10
Between 1933 and 1981, there were 24 sessions of Congress. For 22 of those 24, Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. During th...
How We Became Aliens: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 9
Last time, I argued that if liberals still believe in an open society — free, equal, and pluralistic — we must defend reason. It's the share...
Defending Enlightenment: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 8
It's a fundamental assumption of liberal democracy that we debate our differences with reason. But now that assumption looks like a relic of...
Meet the New Boss: Chapter 7 of The Liberal Backbone
Woke theory aims to liberate our minds, but imposes limits on how we think: Many ideas are judged oppressive, and therefore "problematic." L...
What Liberals DON'T Stand For — Chapter 6 of The Liberal Backbone
Liberals and the woke left see many of the same problems in society, from structural oppression to alienation. And yet the ideology of the w...
What (and Where) Is the Liberal Backbone? Spencer on WCPT Chicago with Joan Esposito
As you know if you've been following my posts and podcast episodes lately, I'm writing and releasing the chapters of my new book The Liberal...
From Marx to Theory to Wokeness: The Liberal Backbone Chapter 5
The first draft of Chapter 5 of my next book, The Liberal Backbone. It's a brief summary of the roots of woke thinking, which should make th...
We Need to Talk About Marx: The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 4
Are the woke just a bunch of Marxists? No, but that claim isn't based on nothing. The Theory behind wokeness is complicated, but some of its...
What DOES It Mean to Be Woke? The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 3
The word "woke" has at least two meanings — and they're so different, they contradict each other. By one of them, any liberal can be proud t...
The Liberal Backbone, Chapter 2: Why Nothing Makes Sense
It's hard to stand for something if you're not even sure what that something is. And many liberals have become unsure what liberalism is. Fo...
The Liberal Backbone
With American democracy facing its greatest crisis since the Civil War as a corrupt autocrat returns to the presidency, I want to do my part...
Slowly and then all at once
Ernest Hemingway is famous for the terse economy of his writing. And in one of the most resonant examples of that quality, he captured the e...