Radio Free Rhinecliff

Invincible Ignorance

Society EN ↓ 6 episodes

Invincible Ignorance is hosted by David Rieff and Lee Siegel In Catholic theology, "invincible ignorance" means that you cannot be thought to have sinned if you are unaware of the precepts you are sinning against. Ignorance in this case is considered innocence, if not bliss. In our secular appropriation of the concept--we call it "II"--we plead ignorance of the self-evident truth of the various orthodoxies that plague us. Thus we cannot be blamed for affronting them. We mean well. Instead of uniform, block thinking, we will try to follow the thread of truth through dissimilarity. We want, in o...

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Radio Free Rhinecliff

Episodes

Hope, Attention and the Crisis of the Humanities 27.03.2026 57:45

Amid the collapse of university humanities programs, the rise of identity politics, and the relentless commercialization of culture, conservatives have revived the claim that great books and artistic tradition can redeem the nation. Lee Siegel and David Rieff aren't buying it. Their argument: treating art as a civilizational rescue mission distorts what makes it valuable in the first place. Art re...

The Fragile Self in the Age of Trump 20.03.2026 45:48

Lee Siegel and David Rieff take on Trump's cult of personality, using a surprising entry point: an American figure skater at the Olympics falling on the ice while skating to the sound of his own voice. For Lee, it's the perfect emblem of a society where people are so wrapped up in their heads that they have no idea what to do when the country is stolen from them. The conversation continues into a...

Norm-Shattering and Spellbinding: A Conversation About Charisma, Trump, and What Comes Next 13.03.2026 54:54

Lee Siegel and co-host David Rieff discuss charisma in American politics, using Trump's State of the Union and Max Weber's definition of charisma to explore how Trump's norm-shattering, story-driven persona rivets even his critics. They debate whether right-wing populism can survive without Trump, noting that charismatic leaders rarely pass power on and arguing that figures like JD Vance lack sim...

Trump, Iran, and the Logic of Chaos 06.03.2026 51:01

Lee Siegel and David Rieff take up the U.S. conflict with Iran, asking what kind of war this is and where it goes from here. They dig into Trump's motives (midterm politics, his taste for chaos, his absence of fixed principles) and whether he could hand the campaign off to Israel to avoid deeper entanglement. The conversation moves through Iran's long institutional memory, the threat of retaliatio...

Antisemitism, MAGA, and Gaza: What's Changing in American Jewish Life? 27.02.2026 1:00:15

David Rieff and Lee Siegel discuss antisemitism and how it is surging across American politics and culture. They begin with Tucker Carlson's remarks in Turkey claiming that Israelis are persecuting Christians, arguing that such dangerous claims rely on a "kernel of truth." In this case, the small truth that enables a large lie is that church leaders in Jerusalem are taking pro-Palestinian position...

Normalizing the Unthinkable: Scandal, Authoritarianism & Cultural Collapse 19.02.2026 52:55

In the debut episode of "Invincible Ignorance", hosts David Rieff and Lee Siegel introduce the podcast and explain they're recording without guests after travel plans fell through. They dive into the major stories dominating the moment, including Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, ICE raids, and the broader political climate, making the case that American culture has reached a point of exhaustion where it ca...