Good in Theory: A Political Philosophy Podcast

This episode is a crossover collabo with Graham Culbertson of the Everyday Anarchism podcast. Graham asked me over to talk Athenian democracy, Plato, anarchism and how modern meritocratic education sucks. We had a nice time with it and hope you do too. Support the show

War tends to bring out the human propensity for atrocity. Nobody likes indiscriminate killing, torture and so on. What to do about it? One response is to avoid war altogether. According to Yale prof Samuel Moyn, that’s what most people wanted after World War II and after Vietnam. But more recently, he’s noticed a shift. Now, politicians, especially in America, are focussing on

Samuel J. Huntington’s 1993 “The Clash of Civilizations?” is the most assigned article in American political science. It predicts a worldwide culture war (but not the kind you're thinking of). The book became a massive bestseller, Huntington was all over TV and his theory is still talked about all the time. It made him a darling to the press but reviled by his fellow ac

Americans hate when the state tells them what to do. They’ve got freer speech, freer access to guns and less regulation on business than any other rich country. So why do they let their work bosses walk all over them? American workers have less rights and worse conditions than workers in any other developed country. Employers can fire employees at will, impose arbitrary schedules

Matthew Stewart is a philosophy PhD and author. He’s also a Princeton guy and former management consultant so he knows rich people. His new book, The 9.9%, is about them. Not the super-rich, but the doctors, lawyers and managers that go to good colleges and live in nice neighbourhoods. The “nearly rich and not-famous,” as he puts it. We talk about how these people raise their

Big tech companies tell us they’re our servants, existing to fulfill our desires more cheaply and conveniently than ever. Alfie Bown doesn’t think so. He thinks Deliveroo, Tinder, Pornhub etc. aren’t just giving us what we want, they’re shaping what we want. He reckons our tech overlords are secretly remaking humankind on the level of desire. We chat about Chinese cars tha

Is democracy the worst form of government except for all the others or is it just the worst? This is a crossover with the delightful Morality of Everyday Things podcast. Jake and Ant and I discuss what liberal democracy is, the arguments in its favour, and some big critiques. Episode includes Plato, Nazis and Lizards. Enjoy! Also, go listen to MOET pod! ReferencesFrancis Fukuyama,

Rhetoric is supposed to inspire. Imagine Cicero exhorting the Roman people, Churchill vowing to “fight on the beaches.” Yet, when politicians speak today, it’s almost always boring or obnoxious. Why? Prof. Rob Goodman, author of Words on Fire: Eloquence and its Conditions comes by today to talk about the history of rhetoric, what Cicero knew that we don’t, and the political

It’s the holidays again! And Theory Elf Sep comes on to help celebrate them. We talk about the past year of working on the pod, where I've been for the past two months, how she makes the episode art and what we have planned for the coming year. We also call Rebecca! Support the show

Grizzly bears are scary. But what about zombie grizzly bears? What’s makes something horrifying rather than just frightening? Paul has a theory. It turns out that humans have a psychological way of organizing the world that also creates the possibility of getting really creeped-out. It helps explain the horror of the zombie grizzly why the old Dracula was creepier than Twilight a