Salon of the Refused

Rob Tracinski talks with Helen Pluckrose, editor of Areo magazine and co-author of Cynical Theories, about the roots of today's "woke" culture war in the philosophical school of Postmodernism. The conversation includes: how a philosophy of radical skepticism became dogmatic and authoritarian, how we lost both individualism and universalism, how coronavirus made our ideological bubbles more impenetrable, was Immanuel Kant the first ...

Rob Tracinski talks with Washington Post columnist George F. Will about the rising statism of the right. The conversation includes: how he became more "libertarian," the "loaded pistol" of populism and the virtues of elitism, the paradox of American conservatism, the substance of Donald Trump's style, the "most important election in the history of the planet," and a self-declared pessimist's case for optimism.

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Rob Tracinski talks with Jaroslav Romanchuk, President of the Scientific Research Mises Center in Minsk, about the "Revolution of Order" in Belarus. The conversation includes: the world's most orderly protest movement, how the coronavirus pandemic fueled the uprising, how a housewife became the leader of a united opposition, why this is happening now after 26 years of dictatorship, Vladimir Putin's dilemma, and how Belarussians int...

Rob Tracinski talks with Jason Crawford, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and blogger at Roots of Progress, about progress and the need to recognize it and study it. The conversation includes: how progress really took off 200 years ago, why then, whether progress has begun to stagnate, why the Ancient Greeks never really had a concept of progress, bringing the study of progress into schools, and what we can do to build a culture of achi...

Rob Tracinski talks again with Amesh Adalja, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, following up after nearly a month of the coronavirus lockdown. The conversation includes: whether social distancing is working, whether the experts were lying about masks, the conditions under which we can re-open the economy, the cycle of panic and neglect, and our disastrous dress rehearsal for the next pandemic...

Rob Tracinski talks with Amesh Adalja, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. The conversation includes: How COVID-19 is different from the flu, the risk of "surge mode" overwhelming our health care system, what the US government has done and where it has failed, what individuals can do--and whether we're panicking.

For more commentary and analysis, visit The Tracinski Letter at www.TracinskiLett...

Rob Tracinski talks with Cathy Young, writer at Quillette, The Bulwark, and elsewhere, about our plight stuck between illiberal strands of both the right and the left. The conversation includes: Political Correctness and Soviet art and literature, how the nationalist right reminds her of the Soviet Union, why the Tea Party movement failed, the symbiosis of far-left and far-right radicals, the pitfalls of the Intellectual Dark Web, ...

Rob Tracinski talks with David French, lawyer and writer for National Review, about "David French-ism" and the debate between liberal and illiberal conservatives. The conversation includes: life as an "ism," how Donald Trump gives people permission to be bad, how liberalism defends itself with its own "antibodies," Protestants versus Catholics, how campus insanity used to be much worse, how the nationalization of politics fuels the...

Rob Tracinski talks with Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, about the legacy of the Enlightenment. The conversation includes: exactly how good the state of the world is, "thick" versus "thin" philosophy, the Counter-Enlightenment backlash, Ayn Rand, the welfare state, and why it's ironic that everyone is so eager to watch "Game of Thrones."

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Rob Tracinski offers a brief overview of how Ayn Rand offered a rational, secular basis for morality, in contrast both to the religious arguments of the conservatives and to the subjectivism of secular intellectuals. Topics covered include: how to explain Ayn Rand's argument in seven minutes, how defenders of religion rely implicitly on a secular basis for morality, how Ayn Rand's rational approach to morality is liberating, and wh...

Rob Tracinski talks with Ed Niedermeyer, author of the forthcoming book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, about Tesla, Elon Musk, and electric vehicles. The conversation includes: how "mobility technology" is different from just "cars," the limitations of electric vehicles, how a car is different from a cellphone, why people are more important than machines in auto manufacturing, how Tesla shifted into "ludicrous mo...

Rob Tracinski talks with Ilya Shapiro, director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, about the Timbs v. Indiana ruling and the possible revival of the Privileges or Immunities Clause. The conversation includes: the rise of Originalism, how the Constitution incorporates the theory of natural rights, how the Supreme Court split apart economic freedom from other rights, the potential for the r...

Rob Tracinski talks with Shoshana Weissmann, fellow and digital media manager for R Street Institute, about occupational licensing reform. The conversation includes: taking on the unglamorous issues, how arbitrary barriers to entry in professional licensing spilled out to everything else, "health and safety" and the menace of infected dirt, the return of debtor's prison, how regulations hurt the poor most, and fighting the power of...

Rob Tracinski talks with Bob Garmong, former lecturer at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics and author of a forthcoming study on the political thought of John Stuart Mill, about Mill and the history of political "liberalism." The conversation includes: Locke vs. Mill, how a "buttoned down guy with pointy hair" unleashed "sex, drugs, and rock and roll," how Mill turned liberalism on its head, the origin of the dichotomy be...

Rob Tracinski talks with Alex Berezow, Vice President of Scientific Affairs at the American Council on Science and Health, about misunderstandings and misrepresentations of science in the news. The conversation includes: how DNA ancestry tests are like horoscopes, the fundamental problems with transgender athletes, what the prevailing narratives on left and right get wrong about the opioid epidemic, how the science of nutrition is ...

Rob Tracinski talks with Bob Garmong, former lecturer at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, about his experiences in China and the prospects for the country's future. The conversation includes: why China turned against liberalism, whether it is really as powerful as Western observers hope or fear, how Communism in China was different from Stalinism, how to pronounce "Xi Jinping" without sounding like you're ordering the c...

Rob Tracinski talks with Tom Nichols, professor at the Harvard Extension School and author of The Death of Expertise, about the future of NeverTrump. The conversation includes: how Trump actually shifts power to "zombie" bureaucrats, Trump and Russia, and the key to the intellectual revival of the right.

This is part 2 of the conversation. Part 1 is Episode 5.

For more commentary and analysis, visit The Tracinski Letter at www.Trac...

Rob Tracinski talks with Tom Nichols, professor at the Naval War College and Harvard Extension School, about the "death of expertise." The conversation includes: what happens when experts get it wrong, how both left and right have contributed to contempt for expertise, and how contempt for experts actually reinforces rule by bureaucrats.

This is part 1 of the conversation. Part 2 is Episode 6.

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Rob Tracinski talks with Scott Lincicome about the progress of President Trump's trade war. The conversation includes: why tariff power was delegated to the president, how trade changes jobs instead of taking them away, and how Flashdance and Bruce Springsteen explain Donald Trump's trade policy.

Get the T-shirt mentioned in the interview here.

For more commentary and analysis, visit The Tracinski Letter at www.TracinskiLetter.com.