New Discourses

The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 218

The school of thought known as Critical Theory was born, as we understand it today, in an essay written in 1937 by Max Horkheimer, who was director of the infamous Frankfurt School. This definitive essay of Western Marxism makes it clear that what we think of as "theory" is only one side of the story, and it's the side that keeps reproducing our present society. Horkheimer calls this "traditional theory," and we call it "knowing what you're talking about and applying it to make the world a better place." He contrasts it against his own approach to Western Marxist thinking, which he calls "critical theory," which questions the very foundations of the society we inhabit in favor of an alternative we can't even articulate. In this important episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay brings you through some of the text of the first half of this historical essay so you can understand the Critical Theory from its birth, in the words of its own founder. Join him to hear the truth: Critical Theory has always been like this, from the very beginning.

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New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 176

Profit is good. It is good practically, and it is good morally. Rarely today do we hear such a direct and clear statement or a thorough defense of these facts, but it's necessary. Our people, especially younger people, need to understand that they're not just participating in a successful system but also an intrinsically moral one: a fair one that creates opportunity and exchanges even human dignity itself. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay invites you to understand the goodness of profit and to start teaching it to others, especially our young people. Join him and take up the charge.

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The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 217

A very relatable feeling today is that of having something incredibly important to say while nobody listens. We go on screaming about the nearly existential horror of the situation we are in while everyday life goes on beside us, ignoring us, denying us. It's incredibly frustrating. This now far-too-familiar circumstance was written about eloquently at a time when it mattered as much as it may ever have mattered, in January 1944. In that month, Arthur Koestler, writing in the New York Times, published a monumental essay titled, "The Nightmare that Is Reality," (https://www.nytimes.com/1944/01/09/archives/the-nightmare-that-is-a-reality-the-grim-stories-of-nazi-atrocities.html) describing the madness of screaming the truth about the unfolding Holocaust in Germany. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay shares Koestler's landmark essay with you in full and then explores the unsettling question it raises: with so many "screamers," which ones, like Koestler, are crucially right, and which ones are cranks and fools, if not worse? How can we tell them apart? Join him for an important exploration.

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New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 175

Welfare mentality is believing that you should be given things you haven't earned because you simply deserve them, whatever the excuse. Maybe it's entitlement; maybe you believe it's a "human right." It doesn't matter. It is to be contrasted with a mindset that understands, recognizes, and honors the dignity of work, of production and the fair trade of parties seeking to mutually increase their own held value by exchanging something they have for something they deem more worth having. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay presents a compelling X post (https://x.com/i/status/2078424564753682763 ) that introduces the term "welfare mentality" and peels back the dignified reality of free enterprise versus the dehumanization of socialism. Join him for an important lesson, especially if you are a young person.

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The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 216

In the late 1970s, a Palestinian-American postcolonial theorist and Columbia University literature professor named Edward Said wrote a book that changed the Left forever. That book was called Orientalism (https://amzn.to/45eMnE2). In this book, he brought the postmodernist deconstructive tools of Michel Foucault to a variety of Marxist and Critical Theory analyses to criticize and transform the way scholars study "other" cultures. His basic thesis is that there is no way for a scholar embedded in an imperialist context to study another culture without bringing his imperialism (and preference for its benefits) into the analysis. Exploring his treatment offers us much today in terms of understanding Woke, including how it could be that so many of our central institutions caved in to the ideology. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay reads a section from Said's own introduction to Orientalism to explain. The Postmodernist, Critical Marxist, and broadly establishment-liberal mondialist projects share so much foundational overlap that they serve as not just parallel projects but an intellectual-cultural symbiosis that opened the door to the Woke takeover. Join him for yet another groundbreaking episode and insight into what happened to the West over the last century of Western Marxist incursion.

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