Model Citizen

In my most philosophical moods (and I'm usually in a pretty philosophical mood) I tend to see pretty much anything as a window onto the cosmos. But I'd never considered my cotton slacks as a window onto the forward march of human progress. That is, until I read Virginia Postrel's new book, "The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World."

Did you know that the microbial theory of disease starts with silkworm farming? That the origins of computing have something to do with the algorithmic nature of weaving? That double-entry bookkeeping and modern finance are creatures of the textile trade? Well, I do now, thanks to Virginia's fascinating new book. We talk about all that, as well as the nature of the human desires for protection, comfort, pleasure, novelty and status that drive the whole story forward. Could whatever you're listening to this on now even exist if we didn't care about so much about pants? I don't know, but "The Fabric of Civilization" got me wondering.

In addition to this book, Virginia Postrel is author of The Future and Its Enemies, the Substance of Style, and the Power of Glamour. Reason magazine under her editorship in the late '90s and early Oughts was a big formative influence on me and I count myself lucky to have her as a friend. She is also, I should mention, a member of the Niskanen Center's board of advisors.

Readings

The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel

Credits

Host: Will Wilkinson (@willwilkinson)

Audio engineer: Ray Ingegneri

Music: Dig Deep by RW Smith

Model Citizen is a production of the Niskanen Center (@niskanencenter)

To support this podcast or any of the Niskanen Center's programs, visit: https://niskanencenter.org/donate

The presidential election once again made clear that there is a striking and surprising relationship between population density and party vote share. The salience of the American electorate's polarization on density renewed interest in my 2019 paper, The Density Divide: Urbanization, Polarization, and Populist Backlash, which explores how the logic of long-term urbanization explains the density divide by spatially segregating the national population along the lines of ethnicity, personality, and education. A few listeners mentioned that they'd like to hear me talk about the paper on the podcast, and discuss whether there are new insights to be gleaned from Biden's win in the 2020 election, so here it is: an improvised two-hour monologue on the Density Divide.

Readings

The Density Divide: Urbanization, Polarization, and Populist Backlash by Will Wilkinson

Audio Version of the Density Divide by Will Wilkinson

Who's Your City by Richard Florida

Jason Rentfrow on Google Scholar

Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide by Jonathan Rodden

The New Geography of Jobs by Enrico Moretti

Credits

Host: Will Wilkinson (@willwilkinson)

Audio engineer: Ray Ingegneri

Music: Dig Deep by RW Smith

Model Citizen is a production of the Niskanen Center (@niskanencenter)

To support this podcast or any of the Niskanen Center's programs, visit: https://niskanencenter.org/donate

American democracy has gone more than a little awry. Nearly 300,000 Americans are dead in no small measure due to the failure of Congress to implement a nationwide testing and tracing regime. But this failure hasn't much hurt the incumbent Republican Party. The GOP gained ground in the House. They may hold their Senate Majority. Trump wasn't repudiated nearly as decisively as many of us wish, and he's still out there spreading outrageous lies about the credibility of the election he lost.

I think there's a connection between the brokenness of our democracy and the deadliness of the pandemic. That's what I talk about in this episode with Danielle Allen -- though I never quite managed to put it that way. I got to know Danielle by working on pandemic response policy with a group she was leading. This is how I discovered that Danielle Allen is no mere mortal. She's a distinguished classicist, political philosopher, and theorist of democracy. I knew that already. What I didn't know is that she's also an exemplary practitioner of the art of collective self-government. Within weeks of the pandemic's onset, Danielle had assembled a working group of epidemiologists, economists, computer scientists, entrepreneurs, and policy experts through the auspices of Harvard's Safra Center for Ethics, which she runs. Danielle seemed to immediately assimilate everything everyone else had spent a lifetime learning. She was able to get everybody to happily work together in complementary roles. And she motivated us to turn out a set of impressive practical pandemic response plans at an incredible pace. Her effortless intelligence, openness to others' views, easygoing but authoritative leadership, and inspiring level of energy and drive made me feel a little like I was in a pick-up game with LeBron James. I guess that's how you get to be the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard, which is what she is.

In this episode we touch on why we couldn't get the Senate to take up legislation funding the sort of testing regime that works, what we can do to make our democracy more responsive and less dysfunctional, and why Danielle loves the U.S. Constitution, despite the concessions to slave states that continue to plague our political system. I regret that we didn't have time to go longer and deeper, but we should all be grateful that Danielle is working overtime trying to save our lives and democracy ... which means that she always has another meeting.

Readings

Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience by Danielle Allen, et al.

Pandemic Resilience: Getting It Done by Danielle Allen, et al.

The best way out of this pandemic is to massively scale up testing. Here’s how to do it by Danielle Allen, Washington Post

The Brutal Clarity of the Trump-McConnell Plan to Protect Businesses by Will Wilkinson, New York Times

We Know How to Beat the Virus. This Is How Republicans Can Do It. by Puja Ohlhaver and Will Wilkinson, New York Times

Our Common Purpose: Reinventing Democracy in the 21st Century by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission for the Practice of Democratic Citizenship

The Flawed Genius of the Constitution by Danielle Allen, The Atlantic

Credits

Host: Will Wilkinson (@willwilkinson)

Audio engineer: Ray Ingegneri

Music: Dig Deep by RW Smith

Model Citizen is a production of the Niskanen Center (@niskanencenter)

To support this podcast or any of the Niskanen Center's programs, visit: https://niskanencenter.org/donate

Donald Trump may be going away, but the coalition, movement, and intellectual tendencies that grew up around him aren't. For many, Trump seemed to herald a new dawn for reactionary conservative nationalism political thought aligned against pluralism, social justice and even liberal democracy itself. In a fascinating series of essays for Niskanen and the Bulwark, political theorist Laura Field has been probing to the philosophical underpinnings of the emerging illiberal right more insightfully than just about anyone.

In this episode, we discuss the underlying assumptions animating thinkers like Patrick Deneen, Sohrab Ahmari, Adrian Vermuele, Yoram Hazony and Attorney General Bill Barr, among others. Why do they think liberal democracy is self-undermining? Why are they hostile to multicultural liberal pluralism. How do they think they know that liberalism leaves us empty, alienated and estranged from a profound human need for deep social connection? Are these guys like Captain Ahab on a deranged and futile hunt to destroy meaninglessness? We talk about all that and lots more, including whether left-wing postmodern thought is destroying liberal education. (Hint: It isn't.)

Laura field is a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center and has taught political theory and the history of political thought as faculty at Rhodes College, Georgetown and American University, where she is currently a scholar in residence.

Readings

Meet the Reocons by Laura Field

What the Reactionary Right Gets Dead Wrong about Liberal Democracy by Laura Field

Love and Loyalty in the "Liberalocracy" by Laura Field

Dear Republicans: Welcome to the New Establishment by Laura Field

Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen

Moby-Dick; or, the Whale by Herman Melville

Credits

Host: Will Wilkinson (@willwilkinson)

Audio engineer: Ray Ingegneri

Music: Dig Deep by RW Smith

Model Citizen is a production of the Niskanen Center (@niskanencenter)

To support this podcast or any of the Niskanen Center's programs, visit: https://niskanencenter.org/donate

PRE-ELECTION SPECIAL EPISODE!

Opposition to Donald Trump has been a unifying force for Democrats. Progressive and moderate factions of the party set aside their differences during the race, but what happens if Joe Biden wins? How do Democrats maintain cohesion when progressives are gaining strength and formerly Republican college-educated whites stream into the party? What happens to a post-Trump GOP? Does it continue to hang together or split up into rival factions vying for control of the party?

Steven Teles, a Johns Hopkins political scientist and Niskanen senior fellow, argues we're heading for a de-polarizing era of party factionalization. In this episode we talk about Teles' essay in National Affairs, "The Future is Faction" and the final chapter of his new book "Never Trump: The Revolt of the Conservative Elites" (both with co-author Robert Saldin), both of which analyze the prospects of intra-party division, weakening control by leadership, and the renewed possibility of bipartisan coalitions and moderation in policymaking.

"The Future is Faction" by Steven Teles and Robert Saldin, National Affairs

Never Trump: Revolt of the Conservative Elites by Steven Teles and Robert Saldin

Host: Will Wilkinson (@willwilkinson)

Audio engineer: Ray Ingegneri

Music: Dig Deep by RW Smith

Model Citizen is a production of the Niskanen Center (@niskanencenter)

To support this podcast or any of the Niskanen Center's programs, visit: https://niskanencenter.org/donate