ReImagining Liberty

Digital expression is weird. When we move our communities and communications into digital spaces, such as social media, the result is an uncertain landscape of new incentives, mechanisms of influence, vectors of information and disinformation, and evolving norms. All of which have profound effects on our personal lives, our culture, and our politics. Few people have put as much thought into how th...

Both the short and long term impact of AI technologies is unknown, but it's almost certain to be significant. It will destroy some industries, accelerate others, and revolutionize still more. And, it seems, no one has a lukewarm opinion about AI. You're either excited about its prospects, or convinced it's nothing more than intellectual property theft, or the inevitable end of the market for human...

The January 6th insurrection demonstrated the Trumpist right's willing to use violence to advance its political interests. My guest today is worried that was just the start. Patrick Eddington is a former CIA analyst and a senior fellow in homeland security and civil liberties at the Cato Institute. In a series of essays at his newsletter, The Republic Sentinel , he's been exploring the risks of mo...

On the one hand, we're told we live in a postmodern age. On the other, postmodernism is a notoriously challenging set of philosophical ideas to nail down and understand. But it's worth the effort, because postmodernism, even if it gets some of its arguments wrong or overstates its case, is deeply interesting, with genuinely valuable insights. To help me tease out just what postmodernism is and wha...

Music gives us meaning, not just in the way we identify deeply with our favorite songs, but in the ways genres create scenes and communities. My conversation today brings back my good friend Akiva Malamet, contributing editor at The UnPopulist , to discuss the connection between music and meaning, and what that can tell us about liberal politics and culture. Here's the thoughtful article Akiva wro...

There's something different about the contemporary right. Classical liberal rhetoric has been replaced with something much uglier and more reactionary, keen to carve the world into us and them and celebrate the use and abuse of power. Today's conversation is about this turn. Or, as my guest explains, this return to ideologies a century old or more, but now gaining prominence and attacking the very...

Early access release: 12/9. Public release: 12/16. Become a supporter and get early access to all new episodes. I am a liberal. I’m also a Buddhist. In a recent essay at The UnPopulist , I wrote about the intersection of the two, which I see as more than compatible, and in fact mutually reinforcing. Buddhist ethics gives us not just the best way to live happy and harmless lives, but also a strong...

Years go, I put together an edited volume called Arguments for Liberty . Every chapter took a different school of moral philosophy and made the case for liberalism within it. The point wasn’t just to be an introduction to moral philosophy by way of being an introduction to liberalism, but also to show that the case for liberty isn’t limited to a single philosophical school. It's much more universa...

We talk a lot about liberalism on this show, but to date haven't done an episode on just what liberalism is. So it is my pleasure to have Chandran Kukathas join me today to fix that. He is Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor of Political Science at Singapore Management University, and the author of many books, including the classic The Liberal Archipelago , and...

The future is a conversation. What the future looks like, and how and which technologies will shape it, isn’t something we can plan, or dictate, or demand in advance, but rather something that emerges from the back-and-forth bargaining of everyone with a stake in it. That’s the argument presented by my guest today, Jason Kuznicki, Editor in Chief of TechFreedom . Jason recently published an essay...

Today’s conversation is a companion to our prior episode. I’m joined again by Akiva Malamet, managing editor of The UnPopulist . Last time we talked about identity within liberalism. Now we turn to meaning. Everyone wants to lead a meaningful life, but one of the critiques of liberalism is that a liberal society takes away traditional sources of meaning, and so leaves its citizens feeling detached...

It seems like everyone has an opinion about identity politics, but far fewer people have a clear definition of it. This is a problem, not just because arguing about vaguely defined terms is rarely productive, but also because identity plays a important role in how we ought to think about liberalism and the role of liberal institutions. My guest today is , managing editor of . Our discussion digs i...

Governments rule our lives, but quite a lot of us believe corporations do as well. And just like we can ask questions about how the states are governed, we can ask similar questions about corporations. How ought they to run themselves? Whose interests should they take into account? What social responsibilities, if any, do they have? To help us think through these questions about corporate governan...

People have all kinds of reasons, none of them good, for opposing liberalism. Recently, among intellectuals on the right, we've seen the reemergence of a particular religious anti-liberalism that goes by the term “integralism.” It most often comes in a Catholic flavor, but you can find versions of it across pretty much every faith. Kevin Vallier, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green...

One of the earliest episode of this show was a conversation with my friend Ian Bennett, of the Epoch Philosophy YouTube channel, about Marxism. It’s one of my favorite ReImagining Liberty episodes so far, not just because Ian is tremendously smart and I learn a lot from him, but because it’s the kind of conversation I find particularly valuable: a dive in a set of ideas I have many disagreements w...

In a series of essays on my website, I’ve been setting out the case goodwill and what I call sympathetic joy within the liberal project. These virtues not only strengthen liberalism, but help us to be happier and more content within a diverse and dynamic liberal society. I haven’t discussed this much on the podcast so far. And so I was happy that my friend Peter Boettke , a University Professor of...

Over the last decade, the political far right has roared back into power, not just with Trumpism in the US, but with populist movements around the globe. Understanding why this is happening—and what we can do about it—requires understanding the nature of the right, as well as its history. That’s why I was so happy to learn that my friend and frequent guest Matthew McManus has a new book, The Polit...

White evangelicals overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in his campaigns and presidency. White Christian nationalism was a driving force in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And many of the worst reactionary movements in the country, powering the growth of the far right’s influence, have their source in evangelical America. This is all, frankly, a little perplexing, given the peaceful, love...

The ongoing moral panic and sweeping legislative changes aimed at trans people aren’t just a tremendous assault on the liberty, autonomy, and dignity of peaceful Americans owed the space to live their lives as they choose. They’re also the latest example of the way ideological ideas about “traditional” and “natural” gender roles have long been a tool authoritarians use to justify and maintain soci...

Immigration has meant that America's demographics, throughout the whole of the nation's history, have been in constant flux. Today, the percent of the population that’s foreign born is the highest it’s ever been, and we'‘e headed, over the next couple of decades, to a majority minority status. This is all good news for the country, in terms of our dynamic economy and culture. But it’s also led to...

We can take the social and economic concerns of the left seriously while still embracing free markets. In fact, if we understand the nature and effects of markets correctly, it can become compelling to view them not as antagonistic to those concerns, but as the most powerful solution to them available. I’m joined today by Nick Cowen . He’s a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sc...

Read a transcript of this episode. Deirdre McCloskey is probably my favorite contemporary liberal scholar. Her work ranges widely across disciplines, is always fascinating, and builds its defense of free markets and the open society in a deeply humane and compassionate fashion. I've talked with her on podcasts before, but today's a little different. Our topic isn't economics, but religion. Deirdre...

On the one hand, it seems like everyone today is calling everyone else a fascist. On the other, genuine fascism is clearly on the rise, and fascist ideas have found increasing purchase, even mainstream purchase, on the right. Taken together, these two statements mean that not only should we be serious about the work of combating fascism, but we also need to be very clear on what it is, and what it...

It seems like everyone is mad at “Big Tech.” Progressives dislike it because they think it’s too permissive of the spread of mis- and disinformation. Conservatives dislike it because they think it’s biased against them. Both sides agree that government should do something about it. Which, if you care about a free, open, and innovative internet, is a terrible idea. To discuss the state and future o...

A liberal society is a tolerant one. It's a society that allows for pluralism in preferences, lifestyles, religions, and approaches to life. But how far does tolerance go, what are the exceptions, and how can we better cultivate it? To discuss these questions, I'm joined today by Andrew Jason Cohen. He is is Professor of Philosophy and Founding Director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program in...