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Sep 2025
48m 50s

Ep. 374: Discussing Liberalism (Lincoln,...

Mark Linsenmayer, Wes Alwan, Seth Paskin, Dylan Casey
About this episode

Continuing our discussion of the dangers to and weak points of liberal democracy, including consideration of Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed (2018) Francis Fukuyama's "Liberalism and Its Discontents" (his 2020 essay), and Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (2018).

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