Four New Appearances

It's about time for another roundup of my recent appearances on radio shows, podcasts, and video channels. The last list I made was in November, and several new ones have aired since then.  There are several other appearances and episodes either scheduled for recording, or already recorded and waiting to be released.

I get fairly regular requests to talk about a variety of topics because of my philosophy-focused YouTube channel, my business ReasonIO, and my work as editor of Stoicism Today.  If you'd like to invite me for a television, radio, video, or podcast appearance - or even for a live, in-person event, feel free to contact me.

With no further ado, here are those new appearances:

Interview on the Intellectual Explorers Club podcast: hosted by Peter Limberg, discussing Stoicism past and present, philosophical counseling, intentional living, and how to make philosophy practical - you can listen here

Interview on the Tom Richey Podcast: hosted by Tom Richey, discussing Alexis de Tocquevilles' work Democracy in America, models of democracy, intermediate institutions, soft despotism, and the current state of our democracy - you can listen here

Interview with Faith Colloquium podcast: hosted by Shebuel Varghese, discussing what ancient and medieval philosophers have to tell us about anger and how to manage it successfully - you can listen here

Guest Appearance on RiverWest Radio's Image For Hire show: hosted by the Skrauss, discussing the works and thought of H.P. Lovecraft, after a long warmup discussing the nature of philosophy, teaching classic philosophical works to students of all sorts, and the intersections between philosophy and other fields - you can listen here

The Iron Law of Ochlocracy (part 1)

This last week, with the exception of the night of my birthday, I've been attending a nightly series of stimulating lectures -- one of the benefits of being accorded Visiting Scholar status at European Graduate school this year -- one of which was delivered by Michael Hardt, probably best known outside of progressive and revolutionary academic circles for his collaborative work, Empire (with Antonio Negri).

Hardt used the lecture as an opportunity to set out a project he has been working on, but has not yet consolidated into a fully polished form.  The central question or problem was that of leadership among non-party, often-marginal, but revolutionary and radically democratic "leaderless movements," Occupy being the one most familiar to us Americans, but comprising a number of different, usually rather transient, and only occasionally effective movements worldwide over the last two decades or so. 

Should Everyone Get to Vote?

One of my philosophical colleagues, Kevin Timpe, posted a link to a paper and got an interesting (and somewhat tongue-in-cheek) discussion going on Facebook.  The paper is Jason Brennan's "The Right to a Competent Electorate," coming out soon in in International Philosophical Quarterly.   Brennan argues what is guaranteed to be a controversial position, that "the practice of unrestricted, universal suffrage is unjust," and proposes replacing democracy with an "epistocracy" (i.e. a rule by the knowledgeable and competent).

Both the implications and elements of the argument itself are bound to not only raise objections, but actually set people off, push the buttons triggering anger, ire, indignation.  And, that, I think, will be reflective of the very problematic of democracy and voting that the paper touches on, but does not resolve, because those sorts of responses will occur -- even sometimes on the part of educated, well-informed, intellectually virtuous (or at least not vicious) citizens to whom such arguments and proposals would restrict voting or full political participation, for reasons I'll discuss below.


The passage that started the fairly brief Facebook conversation, which got me thinking more about an issue that has been relegated to the back of my mind for some time, runs:

People who exercise power over me—including other voters—should have to do so in a competent and morally reasonable way. Otherwise, as a matter of justice, they ought to be excluded from holding political power, including the power to vote

This is What Democracy Looks Like?

In my home state of Wisconsin (where, unfortunately, I haven't lived for years), protests have been going on for some time now, long enough for a great deal of interesting and exasperating, sage and foolish, things to be said.  There's been enough time for dramas to play themselves out -- or at least their first acts -- time enough for loads of "new" information -- typically information nobody had paid attention to until it became polemical bargaining chips -- to come to light, for the "nation" to take notice and chime in  -- typically in very onesided, evidence-ignoring, partisan ways, even time enough for some protesters in Egypt to mistake what is going on in Madison for anything remotely resembling the revolution working itself out in the Muslim Mideast, and time enough for the protesters in America to seize on the comparison as one more rhetorical tool.

I didn't have a dog in this particular fight, not being a Wisconsin taxpayer, not having voted for or against the current democratically elected Wisconsin political regime, not having a child in Wisconsin schools -- and neither did the majority of my academic friends and colleagues who almost immediately upon hearing a few (far too few) points of the case, immediately sided with the teachers union and against the governor, willing to conflate all sorts of issues with each other, pass on misinformation mixed in with genuine information, take stands that quite understandably feel good but may not be all that well supported when one thinks matters through -- and call what is taking place "democracy".  But, now it has catapulted onto the national stage, impressed itself upon the national consciousness, provided to great a temptation for politician and pundit not to all to hastily weigh in with their opinions, their spin, their takes.  The Wisconsin issue has become a rallying point, and a precedent to imitate, for Left and Right.  So now it's everybody's issue, fair game, and I do feel not only permitted, but in some sense required to make a few points that in my view are being overlooked

Arab States, Revolution, and the Viability of Democracy

The protests against Mubarak's regime, at first pitting protesters against police, the army in the midst but on the side, then giving way to clashes between looters and citizens protecting museums, churches and mosques, followed by bloody confrontations between pro-Mubarak and anti-Mubarak crowds, then peaceful gatherings again. . .  and next week who knows what -- this is one of those situations where the West, composed of societies long governed by liberal-democratic (in the broad sense), largely secular, principally civilian regimes, becomes conflicted over who to support, what outcome they would like to see and to promote in Egypt -- and indeed in the broader revolution ongoing in the Arab world -- this round of a revolution whose rallying cry is Democracy, or at least democratic elections, starting in Tunisia, then taking roots in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria.

The protests call for and aim at change of regime, and the protesters have good cause.  One devil's bargains western governments entered into or inherited from previous administrations has been maintaining or at least turning a relatively blind eye to autocratic and repressive regimes throughout the Arab world.  Why?  A host of different reasons, trade-offs, decisions, precedents.  There's already enough bloggers weighing in daily about the many aspects of the unfolding Egyptian situation -- and its broader implications -- aspects including its backdated history, so I don't intend to delve into that in detail, except where that history impinges on a question I think many in the West would like to ask, but are afraid to vocalize, perhaps for fear of its implications, perhaps worried whether it might not sound racist:  Can Arab states realistically move towards functioning, sutainable democracies?