Leonard Benardo in Issue 7 of the Ideas Letter:
“Nationalism is the most potent form of identity politics.” So writes Pratap Bhanu Mehta, one of the world’s great policy intellectuals. With 2024 a banner year for elections across the world, Mehta asks whether liberalism stands a chance in battle with its political nemesis: nationalism. Compact’s Geoff Shullenberger then deepens these themes (and intensifies the contradictions) in his lapidary review of the so-called anti-woke publishing boomlet.
Power to the people, right on. The political theorist Wendy Brown, in a podcast, takes on one of the most fundamental themes of politics– power– which builds on her critique of neoliberalism and her reading of Max Weber. Moving from Weber to Marx, we spotlight the Marxist intellectual phenom, Kohei Saito, as he rummages through our climate crisis and arrives at one major culprit: capitalism. Corey Robin follows by eulogizing the esteemed European intellectual historian, Arno Mayer, a devotee of both Marx and Weber, and a distinctive and countervailing voice in the history wars this past half-century.
Marzio G. Mian reports from Russia, something few have thoughtfully done (for good reason) in the recent past. The forever debate between Slavophiles and Westernizers seems to have reached a consensus around the former and all that that entails. His “travelogue” speaks volumes about the current state of play. Also speaking boldly is Chas Freeman’s UnHerd essay, which offers a rectitudinous realism of the first rank. But, as Iris Murdoch would have said, are the conclusions valid?
More here.