Fragments of Meaning

Uncertain Things

The Personal, The Political, and The Urban. Adaam and Vanessa discuss the episodes from the year that stuck with them most — and reflect on the unexpected ways these conversations are thematically linked together.

With Mark Lilla, they continued mulling on the questions they began considering back in season one with Tom Holland and Tomer Persico — i.e. where do we derive morality in a post-religious age? What are the socio-cultural and religious undercurrents that can help explain our current malaise? Perhaps most pointedly, “how much morality is enough?” And to what extent should we disentangle the political from the personal (at this point, Adaam — with an assist from his mother — brings Christopher Hitchens into the conversation.)

They then revisit their conversation with Yascha Mounk, in which Adaam and Yascha debated the extent to which oppression gives groups meaning — and, thus, the extent to which liberal democracy (as much as we love it) can actually undermine group cohesion. Adaam and Vanessa also reflect on diversity and nationalism, and their (inverse?) relationships to democracy.

From the rise of fervent nationalists, they veer into a conversation about apathetic urbanites — and revisit their interview with Vishaan Chakrabarti. They reflect on Americans’ seeming inability to demand better urbanism, and ask: will we ever get the locally-rich cities we need?

They close with a quick reflection on their varied, lively conversation with Christene Rosen, in which we (ironically enough) weaved the political with the personal (what can we say, internal consistency is just not one of our values - #cognitivedissonance).

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If you haven’t already, make sure to check out these great episodes:

-Philosopher Mark Lilla

-Urbanist Vishaan Chakrabarti

-Political Theorist Yascha Mounk

-Commentator Christene Rosen

On the agenda:

-[0:00-8:15] End of year preamble and predictions

-[8:16-14:16] Musing on Mark Lilla

-[14:17-21:56] Must the personal always be political?

-[21:57-32:17] Noodling on Yascha Mounk

-[32:18-37:29] Considering Vishaan Chakrabarti

-[37:30-41:12] Christene Rosen reflections and our year-end conclusions

Uncertain Things is hosted and produced by Adaam James Levin-Areddy and Vanessa M. Quirk. For more doomsday rumination, subscribe to: uncertain.substack.com.

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