Avoiding Civil War, in France and in the United States

These remarks were published in Le Figaro on January 8, 2021, and appear here with permission of the author. Translated by Russell A. Berman. Footnotes have been added for clarification by the translator, whose introductory comments are here.

In a democracy, liberty always goes hand in hand with responsibility. Donald Trump’s responsibility for the outbreak of violence on Capitol Hill is clear. Minimizing that responsibility, as Marine Le Pen did by asserting that the American president did not “gauge the impact of his words” is the false politics: Because it ignores that in our agitated democracies, facing an exhausted people, moderating one’s words constitutes the premier obligation of responsible politicians. It is more than a matter of civility; it is an urgent civic necessity, if we do not want to see the battle of tweets degenerate into a war of all against all.

Yet indignation is not enough. We also have to understand. What do we see on the other side of the Atlantic? An ailing democracy, to be sure. Ailing from an epidemic of anger, of which the violence at the Capitol was by no means the first wave, nor is America the only “cluster” of this epidemic, since it has already spread across the rest of the Western world.

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The Telos Press Podcast: David Pan on Economy, Ecology, and Universal Basic Income

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Telos editor David Pan about his article “Economy and Ecology: Federal Populism and the Devil in the Details of Universal Basic Income,” from Telos 191 (Summer 2020). An excerpt of the article appears here. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Purchase a print copy of Telos 191 in our online store.

Listen to the podcast here.

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New from Telos Press: Fred Siegel's The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump

Now available for pre-order from Telos Press Publishing: The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, by Fred Siegel. Pre-order the paperback edition today in our online store and save 30% off the list price. Offer expires 9/30/20. Also available now in Kindle ebook format. Release dates: October 1, 2020 (paperback), September 15, 2020 (ebook).

The Crisis of Liberalism
Prelude to Trump

by Fred Siegel
With a Foreword by Joel Kotkin

In The Crisis of Liberalism: Prelude to Trump, Fred Siegel leverages New York City to uncover the key political conflicts and social contradictions in American liberalism over the last century. This wide-ranging collection of essays critically recounts how passionate intellectual debates over how to realize “the good life” in the modern city emerged from the writings of early progressive “thought leaders,” who envisioned a new educated elite capable of enlightened democratic governance. The flaws in this approach, as Siegel shows, expressed themselves most floridly in John Lindsay’s New York, whose flashy limousine liberals were a preview of today’s politically correct gentry liberalism. Its cultural programs over the past half-century repeatedly failed the downtrodden underclass and alienated middle-class New Yorkers trapped in economic stagnation. By neglecting voters’ real concerns over illegal immigration and China’s emerging threats, globalist technocratic liberals ultimately set the stage for Donald Trump’s angry nationalist demand to put “America First.”

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A Tyranny of Values: “It Is Somehow Totalitarian”: Interview with Hans-Georg Maaßen

The following interview was conducted by Moritz Schwarz and appeared in Junge Freiheit, on August 14, 2020. Published with permission. Translated by Russell A. Berman, who has written a separate note here.

Dr. Maaßen, the Mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer, has warned against a “world of prohibitions” in Germany, in which “moral condemnation” could follow the smallest mistake. This would “destroy liberal democracy.” Is he right?

Hans-Georg Maaßen: I am a jurist, out of passion, and that’s why I am frightened to have to agree with him in part. I am deeply concerned that our legal state—the rule of law—is being more and more undermined by the rule of morality.

Bärbel Bohley’s disappointed phrase is well known: “We wanted justice, but all we got is the rule of law.” Isn’t morality the better and ethically higher good?

Maaßen: No. It is true that the law only provides a moral minimum. Yet that is precisely the precondition of freedom.

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Greece and the Pandemic: A Few Reflections

The following essay was originally published in French as “La Grèce et la pandémie: Quelques réflexions,” in Revue Politique, June 30, 2020, and appears here by permission. Translated by Russell A. Berman.

It is widely recognized that Greece survived the difficult test of COVID-19 well. The international press has been writing about the “little Greek miracle” for more than a month: a country ravaged by the economic crisis of the past years has been able to resist the public health challenge better than many other European countries. And it is right to emphasize this unexpected success as due primarily to the speed of the government’s decisions, the closing of the borders, the strict lockdown of about two months, but also the population’s obedience to special laws issued by the authorities, both in terms of health and politics. Every evening at 6:00 PM, the epidemiologist Professor Sotirios Tsiodras spoke to the public directly on television about the measures taken and the track of the pandemic, in a calm, humane, and confident tone, showing appropriate emotions when he spoke of the deaths, turning into the family doctor, a personality familiar to everyone.

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Telos 191 (Summer 2020): Going Viral

Telos 191 (Summer 2020): Going Viral is now available for purchase in our store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are also available in both print and online formats.

While “going viral” has taken on a new meaning by recuperating an old one, it is the virtual experience that seems to be more enduring. Not only has the pandemic sped up the shifting of human activity onto virtual platforms, but the viral dynamics of social media seem set to outlast the microbial versions: it has turned out to be easier to lock down the Wuhan virus than President Trump’s Twitter feed. Yet in both cases, it is unclear whether it is the actual spread or the fear that is the greater danger. For this fear leads to the call for more authoritarian measures, whether this means censoring Twitter posts or locking down the population. But if viral spread leads to the reassertion of sovereignty, we also come to realize that the freedoms we have taken for granted are in fact the result of a curated space, in which the rules for interaction have always formed the hidden framework within which our lives have unfolded. As these framing conditions come into focus during the crisis, we have the opportunity to reimagine them in such a way as to retrieve sovereignty not as a kind of authoritarian reaction but as an understanding of how our values must inform the boundaries we set. This issue of Telos considers how the experience of going viral has come to dominate our political life as well as how our reflection on this process can free us to consider the alternatives.

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