The Power Line Show, Ep. 93: Conservatism and Its Enemies

There’s a slight departure for the Power Line Show this week. I have a nasty case of bronchitis and have actually lost my voice (bringing cheer to my critics and enemies), and couldn’t do the author interview planned for this week, so John Hinderaker stepped in to host this episode with special guest. . . Me! Just how does that work, you say? Well, as previously noted, I am currently giving a series of periodic lectures on conservatism at Yale under the auspices of the William F. Buckley Program at Yale, and in lieu of our usual interview, we decided to drop in my first lecture on “Conservatism and Its Enemies.” Yes, the title is an homage to Karl Popper’s most famous title, but the theme of the talk is actually an attempt to get away from the central “friends vs. enemies” theme of that other famous Carl (Schmitt), and figure out instead how left and right can better “achieve disagreement.” Another enigmatic phrase? You’ll just have to listen to find out how it works.

(By the way, assuming my voice returns this week, my third lecture in my Yale series, “Varieties of Conservative Experience,” will be this coming Thursday, October 25, at 4:30 pm at WLH 207 (100 Wall Street). Come if you can. If my voice fails I’m planning to hack the HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey to give my talk for me.)

As always you can listen or download the sho here, or from our hosts at Ricochet. You know the rest—write us five-star review on iTunes please! Our audience is steadily growing now that we’re up weekly with the show, but we can get bigger still.

End bumper music this week is Perpetual Groove, “All This Everything, Pt. 1.”

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