December 21, 2024 • 50 mins
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 Backbone in real time. When Joan Esposito of WCPT Chicago heard about it, she had an idea: a "radio book club," with me coming on her show to talk about the book as it comes together, chapter by chapter, with her and her listeners.
On December 13, we had the first episode, and I thought it went great — Joan is one of my favorite interviewers. We explored the book's big themes: what liberals actually stand for and how they can stand up for it a lot more effectively, at a time when that’s needed more than ever.
I’m sharing the interview here, lightly edited.
As always, you can find the text version at DastardlyCleverness.com and at Substack.
And I hope you’ll follow me on Substack — just search there for Spencer Critchley.
— Spencer
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Liberals find themselves kind of trappedwithin this alienated mindset,
(00:04):
and in politics it's fatal,because politics is not about intellectual
ideas and about the communicationof information.
Politics is almost entirely emotional,about how people are feeling.
Welcome to Dastardly Clevernessin the Service of Good.
I'm Spencer Critchley.
As you know
if you've been following my postsand podcast episodes lately, I'm writing
(00:26):
and releasing the chapters of my new book,The Liberal Backbone, in real time.
When Joan Esposito of WCPT Radioin Chicago heard about that,
she asked if I'd come on her show to talkabout the book as it comes together.
I normally talk with Joan and herlisteners for an hour once a month.
Now, the plan is to turn my appearances
(00:47):
into a kind of radio book clubabout The Liberal Backbone.
On December 13th,we had the first episode.
It was an opportunity to explorethe big themes of The Liberal Backbone:
what liberals actually stand for,and how they can stand up for it
a lot more effectively, at a timewhen that's needed more than ever.
(01:07):
I thought it was a great
conversation, so I'm going to share ithere, lightly edited.
As always, you can find the text version
at DastardlyCleverness.comand at Substack.
I hope you'll follow me on Substack.
Just search there for Spencer Critchley.
Here now is my conversation with JoanEsposito about The Liberal Backbone.
Joan Esposito (01:28):
live local and progressive,
on WCPT 820.
Spencer Critchley is authorof the one of the books
that if you haven't read it, you should bereading it: Patriots of Two Nations.
And he hosts the podcast DastardlyCleverness in the Service of Good.
Spencer is here to talk in partabout his new book.
(01:51):
Spencer, how are you doing?
I’m doing okay, Joan, how are you doing?
I was telling the audienceabout your idea
that for your next book,rather than waiting until it's all done
and releasing it that way, that you weregoing to release it chapter by chapter.
Let's talk about the first chapter.
(02:14):
So that's introducing the concept.
And the idea of the liberal backboneis that I think liberals have become,
by and large,
confused about whatthey actually stand for, because it's
a strength and a weakness of liberalismthat it's so tolerant and inclusive.
That's the great thing about it,that liberalism
makes very few demands on youas to what you believe.
(02:37):
So you can be religious,you know, belong to any religion.
You can be atheistic,you can be conservative,
you can be progressive,
you can be a lot of different thingsand still be a liberal.
And liberalism will welcomeyou into the society with very few limits
— except, you know,if you try to tear that society down,
if you try to behave in waysthat contravene the basic commitments
(03:00):
of liberalism,like commitments to nonviolent resolution
of disputes and commitmentsagainst the destruction
of liberalism itself and replacing itwith authoritarianism, for example —
just a
name, a, youknow, a topical example of that — because,
so that's great about liberalism, thatit's so inclusive and so open to ideas,
(03:21):
at least in its ideal case,
when it's actually actuallybeing implemented the way it should be.
But it's also a tremendous vulnerability.
And liberal democracies often fail,
because they make it, they make themselvesso vulnerable to attack.
And very often when a democracy fails,a demagogue, like a Trump-like figure,
(03:43):
is actually popularly electedin a legitimate election
and then setsabout destroying the democracy.
And that's happenedrepeatedly throughout history.
It's actually what normally happens.
So the point of the liberal backboneis liberals,
while maintaining their commitmentto tolerance, I think, need to learn
(04:03):
how to stand up for what they dostand for more effectively
because they have a reputationfor standing for nothing.
And as I say in the in the first chapter,
I begin with — if you'd like,I could read a couple of sentences
just to Yes, please. give a sense of it.
So it's the first chapter begins, “What,if anything, do liberals stand for?
(04:27):
It can be hard to tell.
And it has been for a long time.
Back in 1941, RobertFrost described a liberal
as someone who ‘nevertakes their own side in a quarrel.’ And
Frost was far from the first to notice.
Two decades earlier, Carl Schmitthad declared that if you asked liberals
(04:48):
to choose between crucifying the Messiahor a bandit, the response would be
‘a proposal to adjournor appoint a commission of investigation.’
It's bad enoughwhen you have to admit that
a beloved poetand fellow liberal have had a point.
It's so much worsewhen it's a top Nazi lawyer.”
Which is what Carl Schmitt was when he wasspeaking that way about liberals.
(05:09):
You know,I think you have to admit there's certain
truth in what Carl Schmitt said,that liberals love to convene discussions,
you know, and form committees, and debatewith each other, potentially endlessly.
And the question is often raised,as I ask in the first line
is, you know what do liberals actuallystand for?
And if you ask liberals themselves often,you'll find they're kind of uncertain.
(05:31):
And that's a very
bad way to be at this moment politically.
It's great, as I say,in terms of building an open society,
but politically it's extremely vulnerable.
It makes you extremely vulnerable.
And this is a time when liberalsneed to understand what are those core
principles they actually do stand forand be able to stand for them effectively,
(05:55):
because I think they’ve become confusedand become
ineffective at politics.
When you talk about these core principles,
are you talking about, you know, “Liberal,what do you stand
for?” “I stand for freedom.”Is that what you're talking about?
Because that's kind of an ultra-broad word
(06:15):
that, you know, can mean different thingsin different scenarios.
Or are you talking about somethingmore specific?
Well, that's a really great questionbecause really, these are a few,
reallya short list of 4 or 5 core principles
that are the essence of liberalism,
going back to the 16- and 1700s
(06:38):
with people like John Lockeand Thomas Jefferson and others.
But those each of those principles,
you need to understand what you meanby that.
And freedom is a great choice.
Liberalism,if nothing else, is a philosophy
of freedom, hencethe name “liberal,” from Latin “libertas.”
That was the idea,that everybody should be free.
(07:01):
But that rightthere is a core area of disagreement
between liberals, the MAGA right,
and what's often called the woke left.
And the MAGA rightis anti-liberal, meaning
(07:22):
against this philosophy of liberalism.
And the woke left — the woke left that’sassociated with things
like cancel cultureand you know, in its extreme form
the sort of thoughtpolicing kind of approach.
That's actually descended
from an anti-liberal version of the leftthat goes back at least to Karl Marx.
(07:42):
— not that they’re all Marxists, but
he's one of the roots of it.
And that's a core area of confusionfor present day liberals,
because many liberals assume
that there's only one version of the left
and there's only one version of the right,and if you're woke, you're somewhere
(08:05):
on the far, progressive leftand that's the same thing.
But in fact, there are two,
at least two fundamentally differentlefts.
They disagree on fundamental principles.
Left and Lefter?
Or, how do we — No, they're not left —they're different.
Think of two separate lines.
So it's not a questionof how far left you are.
(08:27):
Okay.
You can be a very far left liberal,a very progressive, social democratic
liberal like a Bernie Sanders or an AOC,for example, and you're still a liberal.
But if you're this kind of
version of the woke left I'm describing,
which actually does not believe
(08:47):
unreservedly in free speech, for example,
that leftis actually explicitly anti-liberal.
And they say that themselves.
They think liberalism is a big problem.
They think it contributes to oppression.
And that's a keyarea of confusion right now because many,
many people hear these ideaswhich are essentially anti-liberal
(09:09):
and think they have to agree with thembecause they too are,
you know, on the progressive left, say,but they don't realize
there's actually two incompatibleversions of progressivism.
And then you see the same thingon the right:
people
who we traditionally call conservativesare actually also believers in liberalism,
(09:31):
the broad philosophy of freedomon which liberal democracy is based.
That's why I like when we're talkingabout all these different positions,
I like the image of a horseshoerather than a spectrum,
rather than a line, because it seems to methat you get to the,
at least some on the far leftand some on the very far right, are closer
(09:54):
in their feelingsthan the bottom of the horseshoe,
which would be in the more middleof the road, pragmatic people.
Well, the idea of the horseshoekind of meets and you get, the extreme
far left and extreme far
right meet, where the horseshoegets close together at the bottom.
And that is, that can be useful.
One way they meet is they both become
(10:16):
anarchists,coming at it from different directions.
But what I'm saying is it's not even oneline, whether it's bent or straight.
Because if you think about,
you know, we typically think about left,right, the left right
spectrum of opinion, you're somewherebetween the far left and the far right.
And those are all of the possibilities.
You’re somewhere between far left, middle,and the far right.
(10:38):
What I'm saying is there are peoplewho don't believe in that line at all.
They're not on that linebecause they don't believe in it.
That line represents liberal opinion
from like a libertarian conservative,
you know, a very small governmentconservative on the right
to a very progressiveBernie style liberal on the left.
(10:59):
But I'm saying
there are people on the left and the rightwho aren't on that line at all,
because they don't believe in liberalism.
And so this is a key area of disagreement.
And you asked about freedom.
Liberalsdefine freedom as individual freedom.
So it's the
the rightthat every individual in the world
(11:21):
has to be free of coercion,to think freely,
decide for themselves as long asthey're not hurting anybody else,
and to live in a society where they cangovern themselves through democracy.
So that's the liberal definitionof freedom.
But MAGA, for example,
(11:42):
comes from a traditionthat equates freedom with the liberation
of a group (11:46):
the nation, basically, the liberation of the nation
from its oppression or corruptionby foreign invaders or domestic saboteurs.
So it's a more mystical kindof liberation, and if you listen to
what MAGA people are saying,the really committed MAGA believers,
they are talking aboutthat kind of liberation,
(12:08):
the liberation of a people,
what they think of as “real Americans,”
from all of these threatsthey think they're facing.
And once they're liberated,
they will come togetheras a strong community of people who share
the same values and are united and strongand powerful and virtuous.
That's a very different concept of freedomand it often overrides
(12:34):
individual freedom,
because if
you are not a member of that people,because you don't have the right religion,
for example, you don't have the rightpolitical beliefs, the right kinds of,
you know, extreme right wing values,
you are not free.
You don't get the same rights to freedombecause you're a threat.
You're at least a foreignerand a corrupting influence
(12:55):
in our culture, which must be protected.
So you explicitlydo not get the same rights to freedom,
and then you find outthat even the members of the group don't.
They don't, they're not really free.
They believe they are because they believethey are a part of this great national
spirit and mission.
But they find out, of course,that they are totally expendable
(13:16):
and will end upbeing exploited and oppressed.
Because what this is really about iswhoever is in charge at the top.
And on the left,they — the anti liberal left —
also has a very different conceptionof freedom.
They see liberal individual freedom
as a state of being alienated from
(13:37):
true human
nature, which wants to be communitarianand cooperative and peaceful.
And we've been fooled into thinkingthat we're individuals who need to make
our own way, separate from each other,because it divides us and keeps us weak
and fools us into participatingin this alienating,
(13:58):
industrialized lifestylewhere all we do is chase money and status
and compete against each other,which only ends up serving the powerful,
rich people who are in chargeand who are selling us products and,
convincing us to work at low wagesand all of this stuff.
So those people thinkthe concept of the liberal individual
(14:19):
is actually an artifact of this muchlarger, oppressive system that we live in.
And when we wake up
— this is part of the derivation of thissense of “woke,” is when we wake up
and realizewe are living within a giant illusion
designed to keep us oppressed — we will
(14:40):
break
down the whole system, whether,not necessarily in a violent revolution,
but we'll take it apart, start over,and build a communitarian society
where we will liberate our true natureswhich want to be co-operative,
and maximally
inclusive and, nonviolentand all that sort of thing.
So you can see how you can take any ofthese definitions of freedom you want.
(15:03):
You know, as a liberal
I will say you are perfectly freeto believe any of these things.
I am not saying you should not believein any of these things,
but also as a liberal, you have to decidewhether you believe that or not.
And a lot of liberalshave a hard time saying things like “I
believe in individual freedom”and just saying that.
We need to take a break, but I want to.
(15:24):
Yeah, that's what I want.
I want you to, you know, we'veyou talked about these core principles,
but if we can't even decide
on what we're talking about,when we're talking about freedom,
it seems to make articulatingthose core principles a little tricky.
Maybe what you're saying is
we have to be much more specificrather than using a generic word.
(15:45):
But we’re,
Spencer Critchleyand I, are going to take a real quick
break, we're going to continue thisdiscussion in just a minute.
Let's get social with WC
A20 and follow us on Facebook, Instagram
and Twitter at WCPT 820.
Chicago's Progressive Talk
WCPT 820, where facts matter.
John Esposito (16:07):
live, local,
and progressive, on WCPT 820.
I'm joined by Spencer Critchley.
You know himas the author of Patriots of Two Nations.
He also does the podcast DastardlyCleverness in the Service of Good.
He has a new book that he is releasingchapter by chapter.
(16:28):
You can search his name on Substackand find it,
the website associated with DastardlyCleverness, has it
and pretty much wherever you can findSpencer Critchley,
you can sign upto get chapters of this book.
The book is called The Liberal Backbone,and we started this discussion
(16:49):
by talking about, you know, coreprinciple, what are core principles.
And I threw out the word “freedom,”which turned out to be
a little more complicatedthan might appear.
But so you're saying, ratherthan just saying, “I believe in freedom,”
“I believe in individual freedom.”More specific
(17:14):
than that, though, Spencer, doesit need to be drilled down even further?
To do this, it's really more
about that level of just getting clearon what your core values actually are.
But if I say I'm a firm believerin individual freedom,
I mean, that could be interpreted
by some as being anti-government.
(17:35):
You know, we don't want the governmenttelling us what to do.
We all decide what we're going to doon our own whenever we want. Yes.
And so I do believe government has a role.
I don't believe government belongsin the doctor's office,
but I think governmenthas a role in society.
So how do I articulate thatin my definition of freedom?
Right.
(17:56):
Well, within the definition of freedom,you can get quite specific if you want to.
I want to keep it as simple as possible,because I know most people
are not all that interestedin ideology and if.,
and even if you areand you aren't prepared to devote
a lot of time to it, you can quicklyfeel like you're getting lost in the weeds
and find people arguing overexactly what liberalism means.
(18:19):
But for example,another core principle of liberalism
is democratic self-government.
So you could say,I believe in individual freedom.
You know, classically, liberalswould define that
in simple terms, as each of usshould be free to think and do
whatever we want as long aswe're not infringing on other people's
(18:40):
freedom — you know, not causing harmto other people — would be
a short version of the liberal definitionof individual freedom.
But another principle of
liberalism is that you believein democratic self-government.
So you do believe, you do also believethat there should be a government,
because the government is thereto protect the freedom of everybody.
(19:03):
And it turns out that we can, liberals will freely agree
to create a governmentnot only to protect our freedom
through having,you know, a military, for example,
but providing services to people.
So the government makes sure you haveclean water, and the food isn't poisonous,
and you could easily decide,we want to have good public schools,
(19:27):
all of it subject to voting and debating,
to make sure that enough of us do agreewith this stuff, and that starts to make
people have positive freedoms,not just the negative freedom of freedom
from being coerced or interfered with,but the positive freedom
to grow up healthy, to grow upeducated, and to be able to realize,
(19:49):
your desires, interests and
dreams, as a vision of freedomas positive freedom.
So if you want to get into thatlevel of detail, you can.
But at a minimum, you can just say, “Ibelieve in the freedom of each individual
to think and do whatever they want, aslong as they're not hurting anybody else.”
And that’s a lot, to decidethat you actually believe in that.
(20:10):
And then you,
another principle of liberalism isyou believe in democratic self-governance
and which, as I say, introduces, yes, “I'mnot an anarchist,” right?
I part company with anarchists.
I don't believe if we destroyedthe government that we would just
self-organizeand everything would be fine.
So — I can't imagine
(20:30):
that anybody can espouse that belief.
I mean, have you paid attention to people?
Do you see what people are like,is self organized?
So, Joan, let me give you an example
of how the confusionshows up in day to day life.
Now, again, I am not sayingpeople should not be allowed
to be anarchists or part of the woke
(20:53):
left, or even MAGA, really,as long as they don't hurt anybody.
I am saying though,
that if you believe in liberalismand want to defend it,
you know, want to politically defend iteffectively,
you do need to be able to stand upfor what you believe in,
in the great debate over whatwhere this country should go, right?
(21:15):
If you aren't clear about what you standfor or don't, aren’t,
you know, skilled at standing up for it,you'll get rolled over
by all these other, much more ideological,much more committed people.
And so that's what I'm saying.
And so the way this shows up,the way this shows up in day to day
life is anarchism, for
(21:36):
example, becomes quite popular
amongst liberals like the Occupy WallStreet movement, for example,
because that soundslike something liberals would believe in.
ObviouslyWall Street has committed a ton of abuses
and has a lot to answer for,rendering all those people homeless
in the 2008financial crisis, etc., etc.., right,
(21:58):
and so a lot of liberals think, “Yeah,I'm down with Occupy Wall Street.”
Well, one of the co-founders of OccupyWall Street was explicitly an anarchist, a
very well, you know, informed, thoughtful,smart person who was an anarchist.
And a lot of the ideology
that was drivingOccupy Wall Street was anarchist ideology.
(22:19):
And when you get people getting,you know, for example, having a meeting
and the whole point is we're goingto decide everything with everybody
involved by consensus,and people will be sitting there
snapping their fingersthroughout the meeting
to indicate how they feelabout — “I support this idea.,”
you may find that you're participatingin an anarchist exercise here.
(22:40):
Now, that in itselfis not necessarily a bad thing.
All you're doingis having an inclusive meeting
and inviting everybodyto contribute, right?
But you can
find yourselfactually appearing to espouse
an anarchist solutionto the Wall Street problem when you don't.
And then when your opponents on the right,as they will,
(23:03):
accuse you of being an anarchist.
Now, if you are an anarchist, you shouldsay, “Hell yes, I am, and I'm proud of it.
Let's have an argument.” Fine.
But if you're a liberal,you're not an anarchist.
And if you're not sure what the differencebetween a liberal and an anarchist is,
or if you're behaving in ways that reallylook like you are an anarchist,
you're politicallygoing to be really ineffective,
(23:26):
because we'll get back to the thingof “What do liberals actually stand for?”
We are up against a break for news.
Spencer Critchley, we are talking abouthis new book, The Liberal Backbone.
Then we are going to be right backafter the news.
because facts matter.
You are listening to WCPT 820.
Joan Esposito: live — “Celebrating our power (23:49):
undefined
to bring about change”— local “Everybodyhas to work together” — and progressive —
“I think you get the idea.” On WCPT 820.
Spencer Critchley is the
author of the bookPatriots of Two Nations.
He also hosts the podcast DastardlyCleverness in the Service of Good.
(24:14):
If you go to his Substack or the web page
for the podcast, you can sign up
to get chapters of his new book,which he is releasing chapter by chapter.
The book is called The Liberal Backbone,
and we are talking —How many chapters do you have right now?
Spencer?
(24:35):
Five — yeah, one
a week for five weeks, I didn't knowI'd be able to do it this fast.
I don't know if I can keep it up,but we'll see.
Well, we were talkingabout definitions of terms.
We were talking about core principles and,
you know, what it means toto be a liberal and what you believe in.
Let's move on to the next point you make.
(24:58):
I don't know whether it'sin the first chapter or the next chapter.
Well, I’ve spent the first few chaptershaving sort of set up
that premise, that I think liberalsare confused about what they stand for.,
and as politicians have become ineffectiveat standing for it.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And I think that people are very confused.
So let's back up a secondbefore we move on.
(25:20):
What would be, if there was a politician
that wanted to speak to a groupand tell that group what they stood for,
what would be the kinds of sentences,the messages?
We already talked about, you know,not just saying, “I believe in freedom,”
but “I believe in individual freedomas long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.”
(25:43):
What other would be, what other statementswould you want to hear?
So you know what somebody believes in?
Well, you know, I actually in the contextof a political campaign,
it should be mostly aboutvery simple messages and
most of the
focus on the non-verbal component,you know, just
(26:05):
introducing yourselfas somebody that people
like and trust to be a strong leaderfor people like them.
It really comes down to about that and
most of that is nonverbal.
And one of the ways that I think
that liberalsand the Democratic Party in particular,
(26:26):
keep going wrongis they keep thinking, “Oh,
we just need to do some more polling andcome up with a message that works better.”
And I really don't think that's it.
I don't think that there is a messagethat in itself matters very much.
Really.
Because I've kind of beenone of those people saying that.
Oh, because we as liberals,we tend to be so rational.
(26:49):
We tend to think everythingis about information.
And so we look atsomething like the incredibly successful
Obama campaign and we think, “Oh, it'sbecause he had that ‘hope
and change’ message.
That was a really good message.”
And you would see people copyingthat kind of thing, and they would copy
the graphic design of his postersor the graphic design of his logo.
(27:10):
And what they didn't realizeis that's the tip of the iceberg.
It was Obama as a person
who seemed to embody a set of valuesthat people really connected with,
mostly non-verbally,mostly through the rhythm of his speech
and his cadences and the way he lookedwhen he was talking, and
not the information content of his wordsso much as the poetry.
(27:33):
One of the exercises I often dowhen I'm training on this subject is
I take a passage from his famous 2004Democratic Convention
speech about “There's no red America,no blue America”
and I translate it into the standardkind of language
we get taught to use in college,
and far too many liberal politicians use,where it's all information.
So I translate that into language like
(27:55):
like — for example, like listingliberal principles!
— and,you know, a saying we believe, you know,
we believe in individual freedom definedas the freedom of every one of us
do as they pleaseand without fear of government,
you know, coercion:
the way I was just talking a shortwhile ago
because I was answering the questionof what actually is it,
but — which is appropriatewhen you're explaining what it is —
(28:16):
but when you're campaigning,it just falls flat.
And so I would in my trainings,I would translate it
into the sort of academic,
intellectual language, perfectly clear,but just purely informational,
that has come to dominate the wayliberals talk.
And then I would give peoplewhat Obama actually said
and what he said was things like,“In America, we believe we should be able
(28:40):
to tuck our children in at nightwithout fearing a knock at the door” —
you know, like when the secret policecome for you.
Now, that is the poetry of campaigning,you know.
And it only works if it feels authentic,if it connects with you culturally
and feels like somethingyou, too, deeply care about,
(29:00):
and of coursepeople deeply care about their children.
What if your authentic selfis not charismatic?
Joe Biden is a good man.
I think he did many good thingsas president,
but he's nobody's idea of a stimulatingspeaker.
He's no orator, you know,you don't want to, you don't feel like,
you know, throwing yourself into whateverproject he's pitching.
(29:25):
Well, and you don't have to be Obama.
You're right.
There are many ways to do this.
It does need to feel authentic,and it does need to connect
with people on an emotional level,which doesn't necessarily have to be
soaring rhetoric,like with Obama or beautiful poetry.
And I will say Bidenfor most of his career has been
a very effective politician
(29:47):
and often a very effective campaigner,as he was in 2020.
You know, he was an underdogand he won because his political instincts
were right.
And he did whatI was describing in his own way.
He'll never be an Obama,but in his own way, he got voters
to see that they liked and trusted himto be a strong leader for them.
And that's always, always the challenge.
(30:10):
And before I forget,I'd really like to mention something
that's going to emergeas a key concept in this book.
And that's the concept of alienation.
And the idea is
that historically,we've been in a period of alienation
going back to the rise of scienceand the Age of Enlightenment, when reason
(30:31):
started to take over as the dominant modeof knowledge in our society.
And in many ways, that's wonderful.
We have science and medicineand incredible progress
and incredible wealthby historical standards.
All of that stuff is great,but there's been
this process of alienation,
from a life where you feel
(30:54):
immersed in the worldand feel part of the world,
because before the rise of scienceand the Age of Enlightenment,
most people believed sincerely in God,
whoever their God was,or they believed in, you know, spirits.
You know, many people believedin fairies and demons, and they believed
that nature was inhabited either by Godor by these spirits.
(31:16):
And life was meaningful becauseyou believed things happened for a reason.
You might not be happy,you might be miserable,
but you weren't suffering from a life
that was emptyand seemed completely pointless,
and where the only point was to stay aliveas long as you can and,
you know, make as much money as you canand try to buy
some luxury and entertainmentbefore you die.
But since the triumph ofreason in the Enlightenment,
(31:40):
Western
culture as a whole has sufferedthis great alienation
from that way of being and
is kind of cast adrift spiritually.
Many people, of course,continue to be religious
and do live in sort ofthe traditional way, where they firmly do
believe their life has meaningand God explains it, etc..
(32:01):
But many people, you know,especially educated people,
are forced to live with constant doubtabout what all of this means
or the possibilitythat it means absolutely nothing.
And all of our — everything we thinkmost about, you know, meaning of life,
beauty, art, love — is all just basicallyan evolutionary accident
that's completely pointless.
(32:22):
It's like the heat
that's being thrown off the human machinewhile it gets about its main purpose,
which is to survivelong enough to reproduce and then die.
So alienation is a
core problembecause liberals, as increasingly
an educated group of people,tend to be trapped inside
(32:44):
what Max Weber, the sociologist,once called an “iron cage” of rationalism.
And they are living inthis alienated frame of mind,
which they can more or less cope withbecause they're highly educated
and maybe they can afford a lot of therapyor they can afford,
you know, to study meditationor they've found
some new spiritual practicethat's helping them through this.
(33:07):
But it's an extremely difficult
and often even terrifyingand at least anxiety-inducing way to live.
And furthermore,
because you're in this alienated stateof highly developed, rational thought,
you lose connectionwith the poetry of the Bible,
for example, or the poetry of ancientmyths and legends.
And you come to speak in a very
(33:29):
alienated way that's highly rationaland intellectualized.
And when you speak to other people,you yourself are alienating,
because you come across
as if you, in effect, have no soul,would be the way it's often described.
You come acrossas this sort of parody of the educated,
you know, northern,white person, you know, from England
or Germany or somewherewho has no soul and can't dance
(33:52):
and speaks in an oddly stiltedsort of way.
Somebody from my background, for example,and this state of alienation, Liberals
find themselves kind of trappedwithin this alienated mindset,
I believe, and in politics it's fatal,
because politics is not aboutintellectual ideas
and about the communicationof information.
(34:13):
Politics is almost entirely emotional,about how people are feeling.
And if you have become alienatedfrom the way people,
most people experience life,
where they areimmersed in it, for better or for worse,
and you come acrossas somebody who just, is just like, oddly
disconnected from it all,so that even when you're
(34:33):
trying to be one of the folks,it seems oddly stilted or studied,
which describes all too many Democraticpoliticians, not not all of them,
but a great many of them,
and I would say describesthe thinking of the Democratic Party
as a national organization generally,where everything is poll-driven,
you know, it's poll-tested, everything is about the latest slogan or,
(34:56):
the latest policypoints, which have been poll-tested.
It's all analytical thinking as opposedto what actually works in politics.
And the partabout where politics is emotional:
I did not agree with thisfor a second, but, you know,
there were all the people that, “Well,you know, Kamala isn't winning over
more voters because she's not spendingenough time talking about policy.
(35:17):
You know, she needs to spend more time — ”
I think that’s exactly wrong.
People, actually, people havea really hard time getting this, I think:
As hard as it is to believe,
almost nobody actually cares about policy.
Now, that doesn't meanpolicy doesn't matter.
And it doesn't meanthat people aren’t suffering
(35:38):
because they're not making enough money,or they can't afford health
care or child care, they can't affordgroceries, whatever it is.
It doesn't mean they don't care
about fixing health careor fixing the child care problem.
They do, but they don't care at allabout the policy details.
They don't care about the policy itself.
(35:59):
Right?
They carebecause they love their children,
or they care because they are afraid.
These are very primal emotions,like love, “I love my children.” Or fear.
I am afraid that if I lose my job,we are homeless,
or I am afraidthat if my wife gets any sicker,
(36:23):
she'll have to diebecause we don't have health insurance.
You know,
that's the way
people care about policy,even sophisticated people.
They don't — you know if you're rich,they don't care about
, most of them,you know, some, like tax experts, care
about the details of tax policy —but most even sophisticated,
(36:44):
wealthy people don't careabout the details of tax policy.
They just want to hang on to their money,or they don't trust the government
to spend tax money well,or whatever it is.
But that's all about feeling.
“I don't want you to have my money
because I don't trust you.”It's all very basic, primal emotions.
So being more specific about policy is,I think,
not only a waste of effort,
(37:06):
but potentially very likely
counterproductive, because you’ll beso ineffective as a campaigner.
Now, what you have to do is give peoplethe feeling
that you have really good policies.
And liberals have a hard timeimagining this.
Okay, that's interesting.
“I'm not going to bore you with policies,but you've got to feel —”
(37:27):
is that why we get Donald Trump saying,you know,
it wasn't a policy, but,you know, “Food is too expensive.
Elect me.
Everything will be better.”
That's basically,you know, that convinces lots of people
and it convinces, surprisingly,
highly educated, sophisticated people.
(37:48):
This shocks me.
I mean, how well-educated, intelligent —
who you would thinkare nobody's fool, actually, by Trump,
they actually honestly believeTrump is a good manager of the economy.
I mean, and they make sincerely —
I mean some of it's just, it's drivenby an irrational desire,
(38:10):
I think, to hang on to their moneyor they find other aspects of his,
what he stands for, appealing,
like the uglier aspects, appealing,but they can’t admit it to themselves.
But the fact is, these are sophisticatedpeople who actually,
despite all the evidence
that Trump has economic policiesthat make any sense at all,
and that he has any record of knowingwhat the hell he's doing with the economy
(38:31):
or in business, that he was anythingother than a serial failure
who got lucky as a businessperson.
But, you know,this is what liberals, because, I say,
they're living in a stateof rationalistic alienation,
they actually think that people make votesbased on carefully considered
examinations of policy alternatives
(38:51):
and rational debates, asif it's a university seminar or something.
That is not at all the way politics works.
And even when people who are voting forpeople who I really thought
they should vote for, like Biden,like Obama, you know, most of those votes,
those people didn't really understand
the details of what they were voting for.
Some, you know, some didbecause they really care
(39:13):
or they happened to be expertsin that area.
But most people were just basingtheir votes on “I like
and trust this person, and I think he'sgoing to fight for people like me.”
“He'll make the economy better.”But it goes about as far as that,
or he'll protect us from,you know, war or he'll
look out for the children or whatever,but it doesn't get much deeper than that.
(39:33):
It gets down to “Ibelieve this person will do that.
I’m choosing a leader who I trustwill get that stuff done for me.
And I don't actually understandhow they're going to do it.”
What about
when you've got somebody like Trump
who tells any particularaudience he's in front of
(39:54):
not the truth, not what he thinks,not what he plans to do,
but rather just tells themwhat they want to hear?
That makes somebody feel good.
Is that what you're saying?
That should be the way forward?
But this is the enormous challengethat liberalism is facing and this is part
of how liberalism and liberal
democracycontains the seeds of its own destruction,
(40:17):
because it's open to people like Trump.
A liberal society is often calledthe open society.
It’s open to all ideasand almost all ideas,
and almost all people,except people who are, you know,
trying to kill other people or hurt them,or trying to tear the whole thing down.
But it's because it's open,it's vulnerable.
So it’s vulnerable to demagogues
(40:39):
like Trump, who are willing to just lietheir heads off and deliberately exploit
people's emotions, to deliberately exploitwhat I've been describing:
the fact that we are wired to respondto politics emotionally.
They know that, so they exploit emotionall the time.
It's all about exploiting fear, you know,resentment, anger, or irrational —
(41:00):
I agree with
you that that's what's goingon, Spencer, what I don't understand.
That doesn’tmean we have to be that way. But
I mean, that'sthe core of the Republican Party:
get people to feel somethingand the easiest thing
is to make them feel anger,make them all angry about something.
But it's,they've been doing this for a while.
(41:22):
How have people not wised up to this?
“Oh, therethey are again, trying to make me
mad.” Somehowhumanity is always vulnerable to this.
I believe, and the psychologistswill back me up on it,
this is wired into us by evolution,to make decisions this way. We
make very fast, emotion-driven decisions,because in the wild that works better.
(41:44):
You survive longer if you do that, becauseyou only have a split second to decide.
“Is that something scurrying
in the underbrush that I can pounce onand eat and thereby survive?
Or is it a very dangerous predator,like a snake or a lion or something,
which I must flee and therefore survive?”And you cannot sit there, like the way
Carl Schmitt describedliberals, and decide together, the tribe,
(42:05):
sit down and appoint a committeeand consider all the alternatives.
Right? And so that's why it works so well.
And demagogues have been doing thissince people first noticed
there were such thingsas demagogues back in classical Athens.
You know, there was this demagogueknown as Cleon, who was one
of the first identified demagogueswho did exactly this,
(42:27):
and demagogueshave been popping up throughout history.
The founders of the United States,the demagogue was one of the people
they most feared,and they explicitly in multiple places,
in the Federalist Papers in multipleplaces, they warn against demagogues.
And they describe essentially,Donald Trump,
essentially, warn against people who havemastered “the petty arts of deception,”
(42:48):
if I'm remembering that right,for example,
and who excite the passions of the crowd,but who lack the character
to be leadersand are driven by personal ambition.
They knewthis was one of the greatest threats
to the survivalof the democratic republic.
And they were basically, if you read it,it's chilling because they're describing
Donald Trump perfectly, but this issomething humans are always vulnerable to.
(43:08):
And again, if liberals are going to defendliberalism, they have to know that
and they have to knowhow to campaign against it effectively.
Hence the idea of “the liberal backbone:”rediscovering
your backbone and learninghow to stand up and stand straight.
And so as a campaigner,you need to appeal to people emotionally.
You need to masterthe arts of a demagogue, frankly, but
(43:29):
you do ithonestly, you know, with good intent.
You master the skills of a demagogue,but do it honestly.
Okay? That’s exactly what Obama did.
You know,technically, Obama was a demagogue
because he understood how
to excite the passions of the crowdby appealing to their emotions.
But he was doing ithonestly, with good intentions.
(43:51):
He wasn't lying to them.
And his intentions were laid out there.
He told you what he stood forand he actually meant it.
He wasn't going to suddenly surprise you.
And you weren't going to find out he wasactually an authoritarian or a crook.
And I know that from workinginside the campaign.
I mean,I don't want to exaggerate my role,
but I was enough inside the campaignto hear Obama on phone calls
(44:16):
and to interact
with all the other people on the campaign,including the people leading it,
and to know that from top to bottom,that campaign was an honest expression
of what Obama stood for and was being runhonestly as a campaign.
So it is totally possible— Give us an example of that,
of something that indicatedwhat he stood for in a clear way,
(44:37):
that still he was ableto have resonate emotionally with people.
Well, for
example, what I just said in that speech,about describing freedom from a
repressive government,describing it as “In America,
we believe you should be ableto tuck your children into bed at night
knowing that they'll be safefrom that late night
(44:57):
knock at the door,” for example,to talk about it in those terms.
He would do that repeatedly.
If you go back and watch or listen tothose speeches, the language was poetic.
It was descended from a tradition.
You know, one of the major streams
that he was drawing fromwas the civil rights movement,
which is very muchtied to the black church,
(45:18):
which produced people like Martin LutherKing — or oratory,
or going back to slave days,it's the oratory of the black churches,
going back
into the, you know, into the 19th century,for example, the preachers would be,
in many cases, masterful orators,
using the cadences of the Bible.
(45:39):
And Obamawas very much part of that tradition.
He knew what he was doing and he woulddraw on other, you know, great speakers.
And a lot of what he was doing was
it was all about the imageryand the rhythm in what he was doing
that was communicating with peopleso powerfully.
And the thing isthose are essentially demagogic skills.
That's a technical term,so it doesn't have to be pejorative.
(46:03):
And it becomes positivewhen you're doing it
honestly with good intentions —and which, as I say, I witnessed
with my own eyes and ears —as was the case on the Obama campaigns.
There was never a momentwhere you could detect that, “Oh,
this is actually just the usual, you know,sleaze and manipulation.” That was just
not happening.
(46:25):
And it's
crucially important,I think, for Democrats to understand
what worksand doesn't work in this regard.
In my own work, I've often described
what I'm attributing to Obama here as
“giving the truth a fighting chance.”
So you can't just tell peoplefactually accurate information
(46:45):
and win a campaign,or persuade them of anything.
Information by itselfhas almost no persuasive power,
no matter how smart the personyou're talking to is.
They might like to think of themselvesas a sort of person
who makes truly rational decisions,but they're in fact deluding themselves
about that.
And so giving the truth a fighting chance
(47:06):
means you're not going to just give peoplefactually accurate information.
You are going to appeal to their emotionsand do your damnedest to persuade them,
to make them come around to see thingsthe way you want them to see things,
but you're going to be telling themthe truth
and they will remain freeto disagree with you.
They can open themselves upto the risk of being persuaded
(47:27):
and decide in the endthat they are not persuaded
and they can go away from that interactionand neither of you, you
have not victimized themand they have not been victimized.
And that is, I think, the way for
Democrats is to rediscoverthese basic truths of persuasion
and try them that way.
As we wrap this up,I want you to tell people again
(47:49):
the easiest way to get the chaptersas you write them,
because I'm going to have in January,the first of the year, January 6th,
Spencer is going to come backand there will be a quiz.
So what's the easiest wayto get the chapters?
So if you go to DastardlyCleverness.com,
(48:09):
they will appear there in full,
and already there are five,and they'll keep showing up there.
Also, as an alternative, you can go toSubstack.com/@SpencerCritchley.
There are five chapters that have shown upthere and will continue to show up.
And you can subscribe to me on Substackand I really hope you will.
(48:30):
I'm pretty new there,so I only have a few subscribers,
and I really hopeyou'll subscribe to me there.
And if you want,
you can sign up for my email list,which is at DastardlyCleverness.com.
You can sign up and I will email youthe chapters, along with other things,
with a firm promise never to spam youand never to share your email address
with anybody else.
Well, this is really helpful, Spencer,because since the election,
(48:54):
I've had people say, you know, “Please give us an idea of books
we can read or organizationswe can join.” You know,
people feel like they're really motivatedto refuse and resist.
So, this is our first book club book.
All right.
Oh, that's great, that's great.
I'm also,one thing I used to, I did this before
(49:17):
COVID.
I was organizing eventscalled Saving Democracy back
when what we're seeing nowwas only a threat.
And people seemed to find thosevery useful and I'm hoping to get back
to organizing events as well.
So maybe down the road we can,
might be able to offerthat as an invitation to people as well.
Excellent, excellent.
Spencer Critchley, author of Patriotsof Two Nations, it is always a pleasure.
(49:41):
Thank you so much for being here.
Joan, thank you very much.
I really appreciate it.
You've been listening to an interviewwith me by Joan
Esposito of WCPT-AM in Chicago.
If you're not in Chicago,you can listen to her show
online Mondaysthrough Fridays at HeartlandSignal.com.
You can also subscribe to the podcastversion.
(50:01):
Just look for “Joan EspositoFull Episodes.” Thanks to Joan
for letting me replay this episode here,and thank you for listening.
I'll be back next time with the nextchapter of The Liberal Backbone.
Liberals find themselves kind of trappedwithin this alienated mindset,
(00:04):
and in politics it's fatal,because politics is not about intellectual
ideas and about the communicationof information.
Politics is almost entirely emotional,about how people are feeling.
Welcome to Dastardly Clevernessin the Service of Good.
I'm Spencer Critchley.
As you know
if you've been following my postsand podcast episodes lately, I'm writing
(00:26):
and releasing the chapters of my new book,The Liberal Backbone, in real time.
When Joan Esposito of WCPT Radioin Chicago heard about that,
she asked if I'd come on her show to talkabout the book as it comes together.
I normally talk with Joan and herlisteners for an hour once a month.
Now, the plan is to turn my appearances
(00:47):
into a kind of radio book clubabout The Liberal Backbone.
On December 13th,we had the first episode.
It was an opportunity to explorethe big themes of The Liberal Backbone:
what liberals actually stand for,and how they can stand up for it
a lot more effectively, at a timewhen that's needed more than ever.
(01:07):
I thought it was a great
conversation, so I'm going to share ithere, lightly edited.
As always, you can find the text version
at DastardlyCleverness.comand at Substack.
I hope you'll follow me on Substack.
Just search there for Spencer Critchley.
Here now is my conversation with JoanEsposito about The Liberal Backbone.
Joan Esposito (01:28):
live local and progressive,
on WCPT 820.
Spencer Critchley is authorof the one of the books
that if you haven't read it, you should bereading it: Patriots of Two Nations.
And he hosts the podcast DastardlyCleverness in the Service of Good.
Spencer is here to talk in partabout his new book.
(01:51):
Spencer, how are you doing?
I’m doing okay, Joan, how are you doing?
I was telling the audienceabout your idea
that for your next book,rather than waiting until it's all done
and releasing it that way, that you weregoing to release it chapter by chapter.
Let's talk about the first chapter.
(02:14):
So that's introducing the concept.
And the idea of the liberal backboneis that I think liberals have become,
by and large,
confused about whatthey actually stand for, because it's
a strength and a weakness of liberalismthat it's so tolerant and inclusive.
That's the great thing about it,that liberalism
makes very few demands on youas to what you believe.
(02:37):
So you can be religious,you know, belong to any religion.
You can be atheistic,you can be conservative,
you can be progressive,
you can be a lot of different thingsand still be a liberal.
And liberalism will welcomeyou into the society with very few limits
— except, you know,if you try to tear that society down,
if you try to behave in waysthat contravene the basic commitments
(03:00):
of liberalism,like commitments to nonviolent resolution
of disputes and commitmentsagainst the destruction
of liberalism itself and replacing itwith authoritarianism, for example —
just a
name, a, youknow, a topical example of that — because,
so that's great about liberalism, thatit's so inclusive and so open to ideas,
(03:21):
at least in its ideal case,
when it's actually actuallybeing implemented the way it should be.
But it's also a tremendous vulnerability.
And liberal democracies often fail,
because they make it, they make themselvesso vulnerable to attack.
And very often when a democracy fails,a demagogue, like a Trump-like figure,
(03:43):
is actually popularly electedin a legitimate election
and then setsabout destroying the democracy.
And that's happenedrepeatedly throughout history.
It's actually what normally happens.
So the point of the liberal backboneis liberals,
while maintaining their commitmentto tolerance, I think, need to learn
(04:03):
how to stand up for what they dostand for more effectively
because they have a reputationfor standing for nothing.
And as I say in the in the first chapter,
I begin with — if you'd like,I could read a couple of sentences
just to Yes, please. give a sense of it.
So it's the first chapter begins, “What,if anything, do liberals stand for?
(04:27):
It can be hard to tell.
And it has been for a long time.
Back in 1941, RobertFrost described a liberal
as someone who ‘nevertakes their own side in a quarrel.’ And
Frost was far from the first to notice.
Two decades earlier, Carl Schmitthad declared that if you asked liberals
(04:48):
to choose between crucifying the Messiahor a bandit, the response would be
‘a proposal to adjournor appoint a commission of investigation.’
It's bad enoughwhen you have to admit that
a beloved poetand fellow liberal have had a point.
It's so much worsewhen it's a top Nazi lawyer.”
Which is what Carl Schmitt was when he wasspeaking that way about liberals.
(05:09):
You know,I think you have to admit there's certain
truth in what Carl Schmitt said,that liberals love to convene discussions,
you know, and form committees, and debatewith each other, potentially endlessly.
And the question is often raised,as I ask in the first line
is, you know what do liberals actuallystand for?
And if you ask liberals themselves often,you'll find they're kind of uncertain.
(05:31):
And that's a very
bad way to be at this moment politically.
It's great, as I say,in terms of building an open society,
but politically it's extremely vulnerable.
It makes you extremely vulnerable.
And this is a time when liberalsneed to understand what are those core
principles they actually do stand forand be able to stand for them effectively,
(05:55):
because I think they’ve become confusedand become
ineffective at politics.
When you talk about these core principles,
are you talking about, you know, “Liberal,what do you stand
for?” “I stand for freedom.”Is that what you're talking about?
Because that's kind of an ultra-broad word
(06:15):
that, you know, can mean different thingsin different scenarios.
Or are you talking about somethingmore specific?
Well, that's a really great questionbecause really, these are a few,
reallya short list of 4 or 5 core principles
that are the essence of liberalism,
going back to the 16- and 1700s
(06:38):
with people like John Lockeand Thomas Jefferson and others.
But those each of those principles,
you need to understand what you meanby that.
And freedom is a great choice.
Liberalism,if nothing else, is a philosophy
of freedom, hencethe name “liberal,” from Latin “libertas.”
That was the idea,that everybody should be free.
(07:01):
But that rightthere is a core area of disagreement
between liberals, the MAGA right,
and what's often called the woke left.
And the MAGA rightis anti-liberal, meaning
(07:22):
against this philosophy of liberalism.
And the woke left — the woke left that’sassociated with things
like cancel cultureand you know, in its extreme form
the sort of thoughtpolicing kind of approach.
That's actually descended
from an anti-liberal version of the leftthat goes back at least to Karl Marx.
(07:42):
— not that they’re all Marxists, but
he's one of the roots of it.
And that's a core area of confusionfor present day liberals,
because many liberals assume
that there's only one version of the left
and there's only one version of the right,and if you're woke, you're somewhere
(08:05):
on the far, progressive leftand that's the same thing.
But in fact, there are two,
at least two fundamentally differentlefts.
They disagree on fundamental principles.
Left and Lefter?
Or, how do we — No, they're not left —they're different.
Think of two separate lines.
So it's not a questionof how far left you are.
(08:27):
Okay.
You can be a very far left liberal,a very progressive, social democratic
liberal like a Bernie Sanders or an AOC,for example, and you're still a liberal.
But if you're this kind of
version of the woke left I'm describing,
which actually does not believe
(08:47):
unreservedly in free speech, for example,
that leftis actually explicitly anti-liberal.
And they say that themselves.
They think liberalism is a big problem.
They think it contributes to oppression.
And that's a keyarea of confusion right now because many,
many people hear these ideaswhich are essentially anti-liberal
(09:09):
and think they have to agree with thembecause they too are,
you know, on the progressive left, say,but they don't realize
there's actually two incompatibleversions of progressivism.
And then you see the same thingon the right:
people
who we traditionally call conservativesare actually also believers in liberalism,
(09:31):
the broad philosophy of freedomon which liberal democracy is based.
That's why I like when we're talkingabout all these different positions,
I like the image of a horseshoerather than a spectrum,
rather than a line, because it seems to methat you get to the,
at least some on the far leftand some on the very far right, are closer
(09:54):
in their feelingsthan the bottom of the horseshoe,
which would be in the more middleof the road, pragmatic people.
Well, the idea of the horseshoekind of meets and you get, the extreme
far left and extreme far
right meet, where the horseshoegets close together at the bottom.
And that is, that can be useful.
One way they meet is they both become
(10:16):
anarchists,coming at it from different directions.
But what I'm saying is it's not even oneline, whether it's bent or straight.
Because if you think about,
you know, we typically think about left,right, the left right
spectrum of opinion, you're somewherebetween the far left and the far right.
And those are all of the possibilities.
You’re somewhere between far left, middle,and the far right.
(10:38):
What I'm saying is there are peoplewho don't believe in that line at all.
They're not on that linebecause they don't believe in it.
That line represents liberal opinion
from like a libertarian conservative,
you know, a very small governmentconservative on the right
to a very progressiveBernie style liberal on the left.
(10:59):
But I'm saying
there are people on the left and the rightwho aren't on that line at all,
because they don't believe in liberalism.
And so this is a key area of disagreement.
And you asked about freedom.
Liberalsdefine freedom as individual freedom.
So it's the
the rightthat every individual in the world
(11:21):
has to be free of coercion,to think freely,
decide for themselves as long asthey're not hurting anybody else,
and to live in a society where they cangovern themselves through democracy.
So that's the liberal definitionof freedom.
But MAGA, for example,
(11:42):
comes from a traditionthat equates freedom with the liberation
of a group (11:46):
the nation, basically, the liberation of the nation
from its oppression or corruptionby foreign invaders or domestic saboteurs.
So it's a more mystical kindof liberation, and if you listen to
what MAGA people are saying,the really committed MAGA believers,
they are talking aboutthat kind of liberation,
(12:08):
the liberation of a people,
what they think of as “real Americans,”
from all of these threatsthey think they're facing.
And once they're liberated,
they will come togetheras a strong community of people who share
the same values and are united and strongand powerful and virtuous.
That's a very different concept of freedomand it often overrides
(12:34):
individual freedom,
because if
you are not a member of that people,because you don't have the right religion,
for example, you don't have the rightpolitical beliefs, the right kinds of,
you know, extreme right wing values,
you are not free.
You don't get the same rights to freedombecause you're a threat.
You're at least a foreignerand a corrupting influence
(12:55):
in our culture, which must be protected.
So you explicitlydo not get the same rights to freedom,
and then you find outthat even the members of the group don't.
They don't, they're not really free.
They believe they are because they believethey are a part of this great national
spirit and mission.
But they find out, of course,that they are totally expendable
(13:16):
and will end upbeing exploited and oppressed.
Because what this is really about iswhoever is in charge at the top.
And on the left,they — the anti liberal left —
also has a very different conceptionof freedom.
They see liberal individual freedom
as a state of being alienated from
(13:37):
true human
nature, which wants to be communitarianand cooperative and peaceful.
And we've been fooled into thinkingthat we're individuals who need to make
our own way, separate from each other,because it divides us and keeps us weak
and fools us into participatingin this alienating,
(13:58):
industrialized lifestylewhere all we do is chase money and status
and compete against each other,which only ends up serving the powerful,
rich people who are in chargeand who are selling us products and,
convincing us to work at low wagesand all of this stuff.
So those people thinkthe concept of the liberal individual
(14:19):
is actually an artifact of this muchlarger, oppressive system that we live in.
And when we wake up
— this is part of the derivation of thissense of “woke,” is when we wake up
and realizewe are living within a giant illusion
designed to keep us oppressed — we will
(14:40):
break
down the whole system, whether,not necessarily in a violent revolution,
but we'll take it apart, start over,and build a communitarian society
where we will liberate our true natureswhich want to be co-operative,
and maximally
inclusive and, nonviolentand all that sort of thing.
So you can see how you can take any ofthese definitions of freedom you want.
(15:03):
You know, as a liberal
I will say you are perfectly freeto believe any of these things.
I am not saying you should not believein any of these things,
but also as a liberal, you have to decidewhether you believe that or not.
And a lot of liberalshave a hard time saying things like “I
believe in individual freedom”and just saying that.
We need to take a break, but I want to.
(15:24):
Yeah, that's what I want.
I want you to, you know, we'veyou talked about these core principles,
but if we can't even decide
on what we're talking about,when we're talking about freedom,
it seems to make articulatingthose core principles a little tricky.
Maybe what you're saying is
we have to be much more specificrather than using a generic word.
(15:45):
But we’re,
Spencer Critchleyand I, are going to take a real quick
break, we're going to continue thisdiscussion in just a minute.
Let's get social with WC
A20 and follow us on Facebook, Instagram
and Twitter at WCPT 820.
Chicago's Progressive Talk
WCPT 820, where facts matter.
John Esposito (16:07):
live, local,
and progressive, on WCPT 820.
I'm joined by Spencer Critchley.
You know himas the author of Patriots of Two Nations.
He also does the podcast DastardlyCleverness in the Service of Good.
He has a new book that he is releasingchapter by chapter.
(16:28):
You can search his name on Substackand find it,
the website associated with DastardlyCleverness, has it
and pretty much wherever you can findSpencer Critchley,
you can sign upto get chapters of this book.
The book is called The Liberal Backbone,and we started this discussion
(16:49):
by talking about, you know, coreprinciple, what are core principles.
And I threw out the word “freedom,”which turned out to be
a little more complicatedthan might appear.
But so you're saying, ratherthan just saying, “I believe in freedom,”
“I believe in individual freedom.”More specific
(17:14):
than that, though, Spencer, doesit need to be drilled down even further?
To do this, it's really more
about that level of just getting clearon what your core values actually are.
But if I say I'm a firm believerin individual freedom,
I mean, that could be interpreted
by some as being anti-government.
(17:35):
You know, we don't want the governmenttelling us what to do.
We all decide what we're going to doon our own whenever we want. Yes.
And so I do believe government has a role.
I don't believe government belongsin the doctor's office,
but I think governmenthas a role in society.
So how do I articulate thatin my definition of freedom?
Right.
(17:56):
Well, within the definition of freedom,you can get quite specific if you want to.
I want to keep it as simple as possible,because I know most people
are not all that interestedin ideology and if.,
and even if you areand you aren't prepared to devote
a lot of time to it, you can quicklyfeel like you're getting lost in the weeds
and find people arguing overexactly what liberalism means.
(18:19):
But for example,another core principle of liberalism
is democratic self-government.
So you could say,I believe in individual freedom.
You know, classically, liberalswould define that
in simple terms, as each of usshould be free to think and do
whatever we want as long aswe're not infringing on other people's
(18:40):
freedom — you know, not causing harmto other people — would be
a short version of the liberal definitionof individual freedom.
But another principle of
liberalism is that you believein democratic self-government.
So you do believe, you do also believethat there should be a government,
because the government is thereto protect the freedom of everybody.
(19:03):
And it turns out that we can, liberals will freely agree
to create a governmentnot only to protect our freedom
through having,you know, a military, for example,
but providing services to people.
So the government makes sure you haveclean water, and the food isn't poisonous,
and you could easily decide,we want to have good public schools,
(19:27):
all of it subject to voting and debating,
to make sure that enough of us do agreewith this stuff, and that starts to make
people have positive freedoms,not just the negative freedom of freedom
from being coerced or interfered with,but the positive freedom
to grow up healthy, to grow upeducated, and to be able to realize,
(19:49):
your desires, interests and
dreams, as a vision of freedomas positive freedom.
So if you want to get into thatlevel of detail, you can.
But at a minimum, you can just say, “Ibelieve in the freedom of each individual
to think and do whatever they want, aslong as they're not hurting anybody else.”
And that’s a lot, to decidethat you actually believe in that.
(20:10):
And then you,
another principle of liberalism isyou believe in democratic self-governance
and which, as I say, introduces, yes, “I'mnot an anarchist,” right?
I part company with anarchists.
I don't believe if we destroyedthe government that we would just
self-organizeand everything would be fine.
So — I can't imagine
(20:30):
that anybody can espouse that belief.
I mean, have you paid attention to people?
Do you see what people are like,is self organized?
So, Joan, let me give you an example
of how the confusionshows up in day to day life.
Now, again, I am not sayingpeople should not be allowed
to be anarchists or part of the woke
(20:53):
left, or even MAGA, really,as long as they don't hurt anybody.
I am saying though,
that if you believe in liberalismand want to defend it,
you know, want to politically defend iteffectively,
you do need to be able to stand upfor what you believe in,
in the great debate over whatwhere this country should go, right?
(21:15):
If you aren't clear about what you standfor or don't, aren’t,
you know, skilled at standing up for it,you'll get rolled over
by all these other, much more ideological,much more committed people.
And so that's what I'm saying.
And so the way this shows up,the way this shows up in day to day
life is anarchism, for
(21:36):
example, becomes quite popular
amongst liberals like the Occupy WallStreet movement, for example,
because that soundslike something liberals would believe in.
ObviouslyWall Street has committed a ton of abuses
and has a lot to answer for,rendering all those people homeless
in the 2008financial crisis, etc., etc.., right,
(21:58):
and so a lot of liberals think, “Yeah,I'm down with Occupy Wall Street.”
Well, one of the co-founders of OccupyWall Street was explicitly an anarchist, a
very well, you know, informed, thoughtful,smart person who was an anarchist.
And a lot of the ideology
that was drivingOccupy Wall Street was anarchist ideology.
(22:19):
And when you get people getting,you know, for example, having a meeting
and the whole point is we're goingto decide everything with everybody
involved by consensus,and people will be sitting there
snapping their fingersthroughout the meeting
to indicate how they feelabout — “I support this idea.,”
you may find that you're participatingin an anarchist exercise here.
(22:40):
Now, that in itselfis not necessarily a bad thing.
All you're doingis having an inclusive meeting
and inviting everybodyto contribute, right?
But you can
find yourselfactually appearing to espouse
an anarchist solutionto the Wall Street problem when you don't.
And then when your opponents on the right,as they will,
(23:03):
accuse you of being an anarchist.
Now, if you are an anarchist, you shouldsay, “Hell yes, I am, and I'm proud of it.
Let's have an argument.” Fine.
But if you're a liberal,you're not an anarchist.
And if you're not sure what the differencebetween a liberal and an anarchist is,
or if you're behaving in ways that reallylook like you are an anarchist,
you're politicallygoing to be really ineffective,
(23:26):
because we'll get back to the thingof “What do liberals actually stand for?”
We are up against a break for news.
Spencer Critchley, we are talking abouthis new book, The Liberal Backbone.
Then we are going to be right backafter the news.
because facts matter.
You are listening to WCPT 820.
Joan Esposito: live — “Celebrating our power (23:49):
undefined
to bring about change”— local “Everybodyhas to work together” — and progressive —
“I think you get the idea.” On WCPT 820.
Spencer Critchley is the
author of the bookPatriots of Two Nations.
He also hosts the podcast DastardlyCleverness in the Service of Good.
(24:14):
If you go to his Substack or the web page
for the podcast, you can sign up
to get chapters of his new book,which he is releasing chapter by chapter.
The book is called The Liberal Backbone,
and we are talking —How many chapters do you have right now?
Spencer?
(24:35):
Five — yeah, one
a week for five weeks, I didn't knowI'd be able to do it this fast.
I don't know if I can keep it up,but we'll see.
Well, we were talkingabout definitions of terms.
We were talking about core principles and,
you know, what it means toto be a liberal and what you believe in.
Let's move on to the next point you make.
(24:58):
I don't know whether it'sin the first chapter or the next chapter.
Well, I’ve spent the first few chaptershaving sort of set up
that premise, that I think liberalsare confused about what they stand for.,
and as politicians have become ineffectiveat standing for it.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And I think that people are very confused.
So let's back up a secondbefore we move on.
(25:20):
What would be, if there was a politician
that wanted to speak to a groupand tell that group what they stood for,
what would be the kinds of sentences,the messages?
We already talked about, you know,not just saying, “I believe in freedom,”
but “I believe in individual freedomas long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.”
(25:43):
What other would be, what other statementswould you want to hear?
So you know what somebody believes in?
Well, you know, I actually in the contextof a political campaign,
it should be mostly aboutvery simple messages and
most of the
focus on the non-verbal component,you know, just
(26:05):
introducing yourselfas somebody that people
like and trust to be a strong leaderfor people like them.
It really comes down to about that and
most of that is nonverbal.
And one of the ways that I think
that liberalsand the Democratic Party in particular,
(26:26):
keep going wrongis they keep thinking, “Oh,
we just need to do some more polling andcome up with a message that works better.”
And I really don't think that's it.
I don't think that there is a messagethat in itself matters very much.
Really.
Because I've kind of beenone of those people saying that.
Oh, because we as liberals,we tend to be so rational.
(26:49):
We tend to think everythingis about information.
And so we look atsomething like the incredibly successful
Obama campaign and we think, “Oh, it'sbecause he had that ‘hope
and change’ message.
That was a really good message.”
And you would see people copyingthat kind of thing, and they would copy
the graphic design of his postersor the graphic design of his logo.
(27:10):
And what they didn't realizeis that's the tip of the iceberg.
It was Obama as a person
who seemed to embody a set of valuesthat people really connected with,
mostly non-verbally,mostly through the rhythm of his speech
and his cadences and the way he lookedwhen he was talking, and
not the information content of his wordsso much as the poetry.
(27:33):
One of the exercises I often dowhen I'm training on this subject is
I take a passage from his famous 2004Democratic Convention
speech about “There's no red America,no blue America”
and I translate it into the standardkind of language
we get taught to use in college,
and far too many liberal politicians use,where it's all information.
So I translate that into language like
(27:55):
like — for example, like listingliberal principles!
— and,you know, a saying we believe, you know,
we believe in individual freedom definedas the freedom of every one of us
do as they pleaseand without fear of government,
you know, coercion:
the way I was just talking a shortwhile ago
because I was answering the questionof what actually is it,
but — which is appropriatewhen you're explaining what it is —
(28:16):
but when you're campaigning,it just falls flat.
And so I would in my trainings,I would translate it
into the sort of academic,
intellectual language, perfectly clear,but just purely informational,
that has come to dominate the wayliberals talk.
And then I would give peoplewhat Obama actually said
and what he said was things like,“In America, we believe we should be able
(28:40):
to tuck our children in at nightwithout fearing a knock at the door” —
you know, like when the secret policecome for you.
Now, that is the poetry of campaigning,you know.
And it only works if it feels authentic,if it connects with you culturally
and feels like somethingyou, too, deeply care about,
(29:00):
and of coursepeople deeply care about their children.
What if your authentic selfis not charismatic?
Joe Biden is a good man.
I think he did many good thingsas president,
but he's nobody's idea of a stimulatingspeaker.
He's no orator, you know,you don't want to, you don't feel like,
you know, throwing yourself into whateverproject he's pitching.
(29:25):
Well, and you don't have to be Obama.
You're right.
There are many ways to do this.
It does need to feel authentic,and it does need to connect
with people on an emotional level,which doesn't necessarily have to be
soaring rhetoric,like with Obama or beautiful poetry.
And I will say Bidenfor most of his career has been
a very effective politician
(29:47):
and often a very effective campaigner,as he was in 2020.
You know, he was an underdogand he won because his political instincts
were right.
And he did whatI was describing in his own way.
He'll never be an Obama,but in his own way, he got voters
to see that they liked and trusted himto be a strong leader for them.
And that's always, always the challenge.
(30:10):
And before I forget,I'd really like to mention something
that's going to emergeas a key concept in this book.
And that's the concept of alienation.
And the idea is
that historically,we've been in a period of alienation
going back to the rise of scienceand the Age of Enlightenment, when reason
(30:31):
started to take over as the dominant modeof knowledge in our society.
And in many ways, that's wonderful.
We have science and medicineand incredible progress
and incredible wealthby historical standards.
All of that stuff is great,but there's been
this process of alienation,
from a life where you feel
(30:54):
immersed in the worldand feel part of the world,
because before the rise of scienceand the Age of Enlightenment,
most people believed sincerely in God,
whoever their God was,or they believed in, you know, spirits.
You know, many people believedin fairies and demons, and they believed
that nature was inhabited either by Godor by these spirits.
(31:16):
And life was meaningful becauseyou believed things happened for a reason.
You might not be happy,you might be miserable,
but you weren't suffering from a life
that was emptyand seemed completely pointless,
and where the only point was to stay aliveas long as you can and,
you know, make as much money as you canand try to buy
some luxury and entertainmentbefore you die.
But since the triumph ofreason in the Enlightenment,
(31:40):
Western
culture as a whole has sufferedthis great alienation
from that way of being and
is kind of cast adrift spiritually.
Many people, of course,continue to be religious
and do live in sort ofthe traditional way, where they firmly do
believe their life has meaningand God explains it, etc..
(32:01):
But many people, you know,especially educated people,
are forced to live with constant doubtabout what all of this means
or the possibilitythat it means absolutely nothing.
And all of our — everything we thinkmost about, you know, meaning of life,
beauty, art, love — is all just basicallyan evolutionary accident
that's completely pointless.
(32:22):
It's like the heat
that's being thrown off the human machinewhile it gets about its main purpose,
which is to survivelong enough to reproduce and then die.
So alienation is a
core problembecause liberals, as increasingly
an educated group of people,tend to be trapped inside
(32:44):
what Max Weber, the sociologist,once called an “iron cage” of rationalism.
And they are living inthis alienated frame of mind,
which they can more or less cope withbecause they're highly educated
and maybe they can afford a lot of therapyor they can afford,
you know, to study meditationor they've found
some new spiritual practicethat's helping them through this.
(33:07):
But it's an extremely difficult
and often even terrifyingand at least anxiety-inducing way to live.
And furthermore,
because you're in this alienated stateof highly developed, rational thought,
you lose connectionwith the poetry of the Bible,
for example, or the poetry of ancientmyths and legends.
And you come to speak in a very
(33:29):
alienated way that's highly rationaland intellectualized.
And when you speak to other people,you yourself are alienating,
because you come across
as if you, in effect, have no soul,would be the way it's often described.
You come acrossas this sort of parody of the educated,
you know, northern,white person, you know, from England
or Germany or somewherewho has no soul and can't dance
(33:52):
and speaks in an oddly stiltedsort of way.
Somebody from my background, for example,and this state of alienation, Liberals
find themselves kind of trappedwithin this alienated mindset,
I believe, and in politics it's fatal,
because politics is not aboutintellectual ideas
and about the communicationof information.
(34:13):
Politics is almost entirely emotional,about how people are feeling.
And if you have become alienatedfrom the way people,
most people experience life,
where they areimmersed in it, for better or for worse,
and you come acrossas somebody who just, is just like, oddly
disconnected from it all,so that even when you're
(34:33):
trying to be one of the folks,it seems oddly stilted or studied,
which describes all too many Democraticpoliticians, not not all of them,
but a great many of them,
and I would say describesthe thinking of the Democratic Party
as a national organization generally,where everything is poll-driven,
you know, it's poll-tested, everything is about the latest slogan or,
(34:56):
the latest policypoints, which have been poll-tested.
It's all analytical thinking as opposedto what actually works in politics.
And the partabout where politics is emotional:
I did not agree with thisfor a second, but, you know,
there were all the people that, “Well,you know, Kamala isn't winning over
more voters because she's not spendingenough time talking about policy.
(35:17):
You know, she needs to spend more time — ”
I think that’s exactly wrong.
People, actually, people havea really hard time getting this, I think:
As hard as it is to believe,
almost nobody actually cares about policy.
Now, that doesn't meanpolicy doesn't matter.
And it doesn't meanthat people aren’t suffering
(35:38):
because they're not making enough money,or they can't afford health
care or child care, they can't affordgroceries, whatever it is.
It doesn't mean they don't care
about fixing health careor fixing the child care problem.
They do, but they don't care at allabout the policy details.
They don't care about the policy itself.
(35:59):
Right?
They carebecause they love their children,
or they care because they are afraid.
These are very primal emotions,like love, “I love my children.” Or fear.
I am afraid that if I lose my job,we are homeless,
or I am afraidthat if my wife gets any sicker,
(36:23):
she'll have to diebecause we don't have health insurance.
You know,
that's the way
people care about policy,even sophisticated people.
They don't — you know if you're rich,they don't care about
, most of them,you know, some, like tax experts, care
about the details of tax policy —but most even sophisticated,
(36:44):
wealthy people don't careabout the details of tax policy.
They just want to hang on to their money,or they don't trust the government
to spend tax money well,or whatever it is.
But that's all about feeling.
“I don't want you to have my money
because I don't trust you.”It's all very basic, primal emotions.
So being more specific about policy is,I think,
not only a waste of effort,
(37:06):
but potentially very likely
counterproductive, because you’ll beso ineffective as a campaigner.
Now, what you have to do is give peoplethe feeling
that you have really good policies.
And liberals have a hard timeimagining this.
Okay, that's interesting.
“I'm not going to bore you with policies,but you've got to feel —”
(37:27):
is that why we get Donald Trump saying,you know,
it wasn't a policy, but,you know, “Food is too expensive.
Elect me.
Everything will be better.”
That's basically,you know, that convinces lots of people
and it convinces, surprisingly,
highly educated, sophisticated people.
(37:48):
This shocks me.
I mean, how well-educated, intelligent —
who you would thinkare nobody's fool, actually, by Trump,
they actually honestly believeTrump is a good manager of the economy.
I mean, and they make sincerely —
I mean some of it's just, it's drivenby an irrational desire,
(38:10):
I think, to hang on to their moneyor they find other aspects of his,
what he stands for, appealing,
like the uglier aspects, appealing,but they can’t admit it to themselves.
But the fact is, these are sophisticatedpeople who actually,
despite all the evidence
that Trump has economic policiesthat make any sense at all,
and that he has any record of knowingwhat the hell he's doing with the economy
(38:31):
or in business, that he was anythingother than a serial failure
who got lucky as a businessperson.
But, you know,this is what liberals, because, I say,
they're living in a stateof rationalistic alienation,
they actually think that people make votesbased on carefully considered
examinations of policy alternatives
(38:51):
and rational debates, asif it's a university seminar or something.
That is not at all the way politics works.
And even when people who are voting forpeople who I really thought
they should vote for, like Biden,like Obama, you know, most of those votes,
those people didn't really understand
the details of what they were voting for.
Some, you know, some didbecause they really care
(39:13):
or they happened to be expertsin that area.
But most people were just basingtheir votes on “I like
and trust this person, and I think he'sgoing to fight for people like me.”
“He'll make the economy better.”But it goes about as far as that,
or he'll protect us from,you know, war or he'll
look out for the children or whatever,but it doesn't get much deeper than that.
(39:33):
It gets down to “Ibelieve this person will do that.
I’m choosing a leader who I trustwill get that stuff done for me.
And I don't actually understandhow they're going to do it.”
What about
when you've got somebody like Trump
who tells any particularaudience he's in front of
(39:54):
not the truth, not what he thinks,not what he plans to do,
but rather just tells themwhat they want to hear?
That makes somebody feel good.
Is that what you're saying?
That should be the way forward?
But this is the enormous challengethat liberalism is facing and this is part
of how liberalism and liberal
democracycontains the seeds of its own destruction,
(40:17):
because it's open to people like Trump.
A liberal society is often calledthe open society.
It’s open to all ideasand almost all ideas,
and almost all people,except people who are, you know,
trying to kill other people or hurt them,or trying to tear the whole thing down.
But it's because it's open,it's vulnerable.
So it’s vulnerable to demagogues
(40:39):
like Trump, who are willing to just lietheir heads off and deliberately exploit
people's emotions, to deliberately exploitwhat I've been describing:
the fact that we are wired to respondto politics emotionally.
They know that, so they exploit emotionall the time.
It's all about exploiting fear, you know,resentment, anger, or irrational —
(41:00):
I agree with
you that that's what's goingon, Spencer, what I don't understand.
That doesn’tmean we have to be that way. But
I mean, that'sthe core of the Republican Party:
get people to feel somethingand the easiest thing
is to make them feel anger,make them all angry about something.
But it's,they've been doing this for a while.
(41:22):
How have people not wised up to this?
“Oh, therethey are again, trying to make me
mad.” Somehowhumanity is always vulnerable to this.
I believe, and the psychologistswill back me up on it,
this is wired into us by evolution,to make decisions this way. We
make very fast, emotion-driven decisions,because in the wild that works better.
(41:44):
You survive longer if you do that, becauseyou only have a split second to decide.
“Is that something scurrying
in the underbrush that I can pounce onand eat and thereby survive?
Or is it a very dangerous predator,like a snake or a lion or something,
which I must flee and therefore survive?”And you cannot sit there, like the way
Carl Schmitt describedliberals, and decide together, the tribe,
(42:05):
sit down and appoint a committeeand consider all the alternatives.
Right? And so that's why it works so well.
And demagogues have been doing thissince people first noticed
there were such thingsas demagogues back in classical Athens.
You know, there was this demagogueknown as Cleon, who was one
of the first identified demagogueswho did exactly this,
(42:27):
and demagogueshave been popping up throughout history.
The founders of the United States,the demagogue was one of the people
they most feared,and they explicitly in multiple places,
in the Federalist Papers in multipleplaces, they warn against demagogues.
And they describe essentially,Donald Trump,
essentially, warn against people who havemastered “the petty arts of deception,”
(42:48):
if I'm remembering that right,for example,
and who excite the passions of the crowd,but who lack the character
to be leadersand are driven by personal ambition.
They knewthis was one of the greatest threats
to the survivalof the democratic republic.
And they were basically, if you read it,it's chilling because they're describing
Donald Trump perfectly, but this issomething humans are always vulnerable to.
(43:08):
And again, if liberals are going to defendliberalism, they have to know that
and they have to knowhow to campaign against it effectively.
Hence the idea of “the liberal backbone:”rediscovering
your backbone and learninghow to stand up and stand straight.
And so as a campaigner,you need to appeal to people emotionally.
You need to masterthe arts of a demagogue, frankly, but
(43:29):
you do ithonestly, you know, with good intent.
You master the skills of a demagogue,but do it honestly.
Okay? That’s exactly what Obama did.
You know,technically, Obama was a demagogue
because he understood how
to excite the passions of the crowdby appealing to their emotions.
But he was doing ithonestly, with good intentions.
(43:51):
He wasn't lying to them.
And his intentions were laid out there.
He told you what he stood forand he actually meant it.
He wasn't going to suddenly surprise you.
And you weren't going to find out he wasactually an authoritarian or a crook.
And I know that from workinginside the campaign.
I mean,I don't want to exaggerate my role,
but I was enough inside the campaignto hear Obama on phone calls
(44:16):
and to interact
with all the other people on the campaign,including the people leading it,
and to know that from top to bottom,that campaign was an honest expression
of what Obama stood for and was being runhonestly as a campaign.
So it is totally possible— Give us an example of that,
of something that indicatedwhat he stood for in a clear way,
(44:37):
that still he was ableto have resonate emotionally with people.
Well, for
example, what I just said in that speech,about describing freedom from a
repressive government,describing it as “In America,
we believe you should be ableto tuck your children into bed at night
knowing that they'll be safefrom that late night
(44:57):
knock at the door,” for example,to talk about it in those terms.
He would do that repeatedly.
If you go back and watch or listen tothose speeches, the language was poetic.
It was descended from a tradition.
You know, one of the major streams
that he was drawing fromwas the civil rights movement,
which is very muchtied to the black church,
(45:18):
which produced people like Martin LutherKing — or oratory,
or going back to slave days,it's the oratory of the black churches,
going back
into the, you know, into the 19th century,for example, the preachers would be,
in many cases, masterful orators,
using the cadences of the Bible.
(45:39):
And Obamawas very much part of that tradition.
He knew what he was doing and he woulddraw on other, you know, great speakers.
And a lot of what he was doing was
it was all about the imageryand the rhythm in what he was doing
that was communicating with peopleso powerfully.
And the thing isthose are essentially demagogic skills.
That's a technical term,so it doesn't have to be pejorative.
(46:03):
And it becomes positivewhen you're doing it
honestly with good intentions —and which, as I say, I witnessed
with my own eyes and ears —as was the case on the Obama campaigns.
There was never a momentwhere you could detect that, “Oh,
this is actually just the usual, you know,sleaze and manipulation.” That was just
not happening.
(46:25):
And it's
crucially important,I think, for Democrats to understand
what worksand doesn't work in this regard.
In my own work, I've often described
what I'm attributing to Obama here as
“giving the truth a fighting chance.”
So you can't just tell peoplefactually accurate information
(46:45):
and win a campaign,or persuade them of anything.
Information by itselfhas almost no persuasive power,
no matter how smart the personyou're talking to is.
They might like to think of themselvesas a sort of person
who makes truly rational decisions,but they're in fact deluding themselves
about that.
And so giving the truth a fighting chance
(47:06):
means you're not going to just give peoplefactually accurate information.
You are going to appeal to their emotionsand do your damnedest to persuade them,
to make them come around to see thingsthe way you want them to see things,
but you're going to be telling themthe truth
and they will remain freeto disagree with you.
They can open themselves upto the risk of being persuaded
(47:27):
and decide in the endthat they are not persuaded
and they can go away from that interactionand neither of you, you
have not victimized themand they have not been victimized.
And that is, I think, the way for
Democrats is to rediscoverthese basic truths of persuasion
and try them that way.
As we wrap this up,I want you to tell people again
(47:49):
the easiest way to get the chaptersas you write them,
because I'm going to have in January,the first of the year, January 6th,
Spencer is going to come backand there will be a quiz.
So what's the easiest wayto get the chapters?
So if you go to DastardlyCleverness.com,
(48:09):
they will appear there in full,
and already there are five,and they'll keep showing up there.
Also, as an alternative, you can go toSubstack.com/@SpencerCritchley.
There are five chapters that have shown upthere and will continue to show up.
And you can subscribe to me on Substackand I really hope you will.
(48:30):
I'm pretty new there,so I only have a few subscribers,
and I really hopeyou'll subscribe to me there.
And if you want,
you can sign up for my email list,which is at DastardlyCleverness.com.
You can sign up and I will email youthe chapters, along with other things,
with a firm promise never to spam youand never to share your email address
with anybody else.
Well, this is really helpful, Spencer,because since the election,
(48:54):
I've had people say, you know, “Please give us an idea of books
we can read or organizationswe can join.” You know,
people feel like they're really motivatedto refuse and resist.
So, this is our first book club book.
All right.
Oh, that's great, that's great.
I'm also,one thing I used to, I did this before
(49:17):
COVID.
I was organizing eventscalled Saving Democracy back
when what we're seeing nowwas only a threat.
And people seemed to find thosevery useful and I'm hoping to get back
to organizing events as well.
So maybe down the road we can,
might be able to offerthat as an invitation to people as well.
Excellent, excellent.
Spencer Critchley, author of Patriotsof Two Nations, it is always a pleasure.
(49:41):
Thank you so much for being here.
Joan, thank you very much.
I really appreciate it.
You've been listening to an interviewwith me by Joan
Esposito of WCPT-AM in Chicago.
If you're not in Chicago,you can listen to her show
online Mondaysthrough Fridays at HeartlandSignal.com.
You can also subscribe to the podcastversion.
(50:01):
Just look for “Joan EspositoFull Episodes.” Thanks to Joan
for letting me replay this episode here,and thank you for listening.
I'll be back next time with the nextchapter of The Liberal Backbone.
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