"The main reason we find it difficult to think critically about democracy is that it requires us to think critically about ourselves." That's the view of my guest today, Robert Tracy McKenzie, a historian at Wheaton College.  In his recent book We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy , he argues that Americans - and American Christians in particular have forgotten what the framers always knew: that human beings are flawed, broken, inclined towards sin - in other words, fallen. He contrasts this view of fallen humanity with what he calls the "democratic gospel", based on the "comforting fiction that we are naturally good".  In this conversation we discuss the development of the idea that "America is great because America is good" (which Tocqueville never actually said); argue about the extent to which democracy is intrinsically good, or mostly good as means to other ends; discuss the balance between two different Christian anthropologies, one positive one negative; the use and misuse of history by political partisans; and the need for religious people, in particular, to take history more seriously. He's an interesting thinker, a terrific writer and this was a fun conversation. 

(Robert) Tracy McKenzie

McKenzie is a Professor of History at Wheaton College, where he holds the Arthur F. Holmes Chair of Faith and Learning. He  blogs about Christian faith and American History at faithandamericanhistory.wordpress.com

Diverse democracies are new, wonderful, but potentially fragile: that's the claim, the promise and the warning from my guest today, Yascha Mounk. Yascha wears many hats. He is a Professor at Johns Hopkins, the Founder of Persuasion, a publication and community devoted to the maintenance of a liberal society, and host an excellent podcast, The Good Fight. Also a political scientist and historian with four books to his name, most recently The Great Experiment - Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure, which is the main topic of our conversation today.

We talk about the dangers of tribalism and majority domination in diverse democracies; the difference between a liberal society and a democratic society (and which is more important), the intrinsic "groupiness" of human beings and how that means liberals need to be in the business of drawing lines between groups (whether they like it or not), what the communitarian critics of liberalism get wrong, the wonderful messiness of liberal societies, Federalist 10, and the risks of an overemphasis on racial or ethnic identity, or "racecraft", which is an increasingly dominant trend on both the political right and the political left.

Yascha Mounk

Yascha tweets from @Yascha_Mounk

Check out his work at his website here.

Buy his latest book, The Great Experiment here.

​Born in Germany to Polish parents, Yascha received his BA in History from Trinity College Cambridge and his PhD in Government from Harvard University. He is an Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, where he holds appointments in both the School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute. Yascha is also a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Founder of Persuasion.

It's not news that liberalism is under pressure. And one of the most prominent liberals of our era is Francis Fukuyama. As he writes in his latest book, Liberalism and its Discontents, the virtues of liberalism need to be clearly articulated and celebrated once again." In this wide-ranging dialogue, Frank and I discuss how his thinking has evolved since his famous 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man, including the central tension between the universalism of liberal morality and the fact of nation states, and between the pluralism of liberal politics and the central importance of thymos - respect, dignity, recognition. Along the way we talk about the perils of the university tenure system, the significance of the war in Ukraine, why Papua New Guinea is such a good place to study political order, the relationship between liberalism and laissez-faire capitalism (Spoiler: hugely overstated), and the content of a good life, or what it means, in Mill's word "to pursue our own good in our as seen through the eyes of a liberal.

Francis Fukuyama

Tweets from @FukuyamaFrancis

Read:

Liberalism and Its Discontents (2022)

The End of History and the Last Man (1992)

The Origins of Political Order (2011)

Political Order and Political Decay (2015)

See also my review of his latest book in the Literary Review here.

Francis Fukuyama is Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.

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Christianism by Leon Wiesetlier

Check out my dialogue with Joseph Henrich whose work we discussed, on Spotify  here or Apple here.