158 episodes

Agreement is nice. Disagreement is better.

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Wisdom of Crowds Shadi Hamid & Damir Marusic

    • News
    • 4.5 • 99 Ratings

Agreement is nice. Disagreement is better.

wisdomofcrowds.live

    Protests and Solidarity

    Protests and Solidarity

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live

    Pro-Palestine protests have spread to college campuses across the country. Our social media feeds are flooded with images of chanting students and clashes with police. Meanwhile, Congress has passed a bill to deliver more aid to Israel, and there’s signs that the IDF is about to move on Rafah. In this episode, Shadi explores what it means to stand in solidarity with the protests, while Damir teases out their effect on brass tacks politics The two discuss what the right approach should be toward the anti-Semitic elements in the protests, whether anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are the same thing, what the Democrats might be thinking, and how Shadi wishes the United States would leverage its relationship with Israel.
    In a spicy Part 2 for paid subscribers only, our hosts get into tricky territory while discussing Shadi’s pro-woke turn and the philosophical question of group affinity. In times of crisis, do human beings stand on principle? Or do they rally to their own ethnic or religious side? As Shadi observes: “Wokeness is able to grasp something important about the world that maybe I unfairly dismissed.”
    For more, please subscribe!
    Required Reading:
    * “Anti-Zionism is Deadlier Than Antisemitism,” by Joshua Muravchik (WSJ).
    * “Why it matters that some Democrats voted against aid for Israel,” by Shadi Hamid (Washington Post).
    * The Arc of the Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People by Walter Russell Mead.
    * Matthew Yglesias on X: “It’s interesting that a bunch of people who I read who four years ago were in agreement about the perils of identity politics now sharply disagree about Israel/Palestine and the disagreements exactly track Jewish vs Arab or Muslim backgrounds.”

    • 46 min
    A Debate about American Power

    A Debate about American Power

    This week’s episode is a special collaboration with The Disagreement, a new platform that aims to “celebrate and normalize healthy disagreement.” (Check them out!) Wisdom of Crowds is 100% behind that mission statement, and so it was natural for us to agree to record an episode together. Fans of Wisdom of Crowds will know that Shadi has recently completed a book about American power, tentatively titled, “On Power.” Fans will also know that he debated the socialist writer Dan Bessner of the podcast last summer, in our episode titled “Is a Better World Possible Without American Power?” A lot has happened since that episode air, especially in the Middle East. So it’s a good time for Shadi and Dan to consider that question again. Enjoy Hamid v. Bessner, Round 2.
    Required Reading and Listening:
    Hamid v. Bessner, Round 1: “Is a Better World Possible without American Power?” (Wisdom of Crowds)
    Shadi’s recent post about completing his manuscript: “The Art of Losing Well” (Wisdom of Crowds).
    The Disagreement homepage.



    This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

    • 57 min
    In Search of New Political Ideas

    In Search of New Political Ideas

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live

    Christine and Damir kick things off by discussing a memoir about the fall of Communism in Albania. Damir reflects on his own post-Communist background, and ponders why Communist nostalgia affects only some countries, while others are not looking back. He wonders whether Christine is becoming a Communist herself after reading her essay about “Limitarianism,” a school of political thought that favors a cap on extreme wealth. Christine unpacks her own ideas about economic justice and democracy, and considers whether the Communist past in Europe should influence American political ideas for the future.
    For paid subscribers, the bonus part of the episode focuses on whether the United States or Europe has the better economic system, and whether European dreams of a “green” economy can survive competition with China.
    Required Reading:
    * Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi.
    * The full story behind Joyce Carol Oates’ infamous tweet.
    * Damir’s Monday Note about Lea Ypi’s book.
    * Limitarianism by Ingrid Robeyns
    * “What Would Society Look Like if Extreme Wealth Were Impossible?” by Christine Emba (The Atlantic)
    * “The Price of Peace is Stagnation” by Janan Ganesh (The Financial Times)

    • 1 hr 12 min
    Parenthood at the End of the World

    Parenthood at the End of the World

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live

    This week’s podcast is a recording of a live event. Rachel M. Cohen, a senior policy reporter for Vox, recently published an essay where she asks: “To our generation, being a mom looks thankless, exhausting, and lonely. Can we change the story?” As listeners know, this question speaks right to the heart of Wisdom of Crowds. Christine and Shadi invited Rachel to discuss her piece before a live audience in Washington, DC on March 20. The topics of conversation included marriage, singleness, hope, dread, and love. For paid subscribers, the bonus content is an intense Q&A with the audience, where the Crowd challenges the panelists on several points.
    Required Reading:
    * “Why Millennials Learned to Dread Motherhood,” by Rachel M. Cohen (Vox).
    * “Men are Lost. Here’s a Map Out of the Wilderness,” by Christine Emba (Washington Post).
    * Shadi Hamid, “The Dilemmas of Living in a Post-Religious World” (Washington Post).

    • 37 min
    How to Disagree Without Compromise

    How to Disagree Without Compromise

    America is badly polarized. It’s a fact so pervasively acknowledged that pointing it out starts to feel like saying the sky is blue. Unlike a blue sky, however, growing polarization in America presents a difficult challenge. Because America is both incredibly diverse and a vibrant democracy, polarization starts to eat away at our politics.
    Many attempts have been made to deal with polarization. A lot of it has to do with putting people with diverging perspectives face-to-face in an attempt to try to find common ground. Here at Wisdom of Crowds, we have tackled the problem by taking only half of this approach: we insist that people in disagreement confront each other, but with no expectation of common ground emerging.
    We frequently talk about “deep difference.” We believe it’s naive to think that through reasoned discourse we can reach compromise positions. That does violence to the power of ideas and the strength of belief. We think it’s both healthier and more realistic to acknowledge that certain differences can’t be reconciled, and to instead direct the conversation toward respectful mutual interrogation — where the discussants push each other to excavate why they believe what they believe.
    Jen Murtazashvili is one person who is profoundly aligned with what we’re doing. She first came on the Wisdom of Crowds podcast in August of 2021 to talk about America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. But both Shadi and Damir had gotten to know her almost a year earlier, during the start of COVID, when she kindly invited them both to participate in an online seminar about modus vivendi liberalism. Jen’s extensive work on Afghanistan had given her cause to be suspicious of top-down thinking that nation-building requires. She understands that societies are built from the bottom-up, from local insights, from particularism. Difference can’t be papered over.
    We have been planning to collaborate more with Jen’s Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh for some time. Today, we’re pleased to announce that collaboration is kicking off. In the coming months, you will see podcast episodes and essays that will carry the CGM logo, featuring guests and writers and thinkers that the three of us have decided we need to engage with. First principles and the spirit of modus vivendi will animate all of it.
    To launch the collaboration, we wanted to have Jen on the podcast. We didn’t explicitly set out to model exactly what we hope to achieve with the collaboration. But with the Gaza War in the background, it was impossible that we wouldn’t get to discussing it. As you’ll hear below, the conversation is deeply felt and argued — and remains unresolved. That’s as it should be.
    (The paywall is down on this one, so everyone can give it a listen.)
    We walked away from it energized to do more. We hope, dear listeners, you feel the same way. And you join us as we continue our Governing Deep Differences project.
    Required Reading (and Listening):
    * “Community Before Politics,” by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili (Discourse Magazine).
    * “Two Friends — One Jewish, One Muslim — Have an Answer to Campus Conflict, by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Abdesalam Soudi (Tablet).
    * “All Aboard the Compassion Bus — with Jen Murtazashvili,” on Ask a Jew Podcast (Apple).
    * A tweet by Senator Fetterman (X).
    * “The U.S. has more in common with South America than Europe,” by Samuel Goldman (The Week).
    * “Hamas’ Bid for Revolutionary Legitimacy,” by Damir Marusic (WoC).


    This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

    • 1 hr 27 min
    The World According to Jordan Castro

    The World According to Jordan Castro

    Editor’s note: We haven’t done an episode quite like this before. I absolutely loved this conversation with the novelist Jordan Castro, one of the most exciting young American authors writing today. Because it was such a rich conversation, we’re leaving out the paywall so that everyone can have a listen.
    —Shadi Hamid, co-founder, Wisdom of Crowds
    What’s it actually like to be a novelist? And how does literary success—and some amount of fame and notoriety—change how people think of you?
    Special guest Jordan Castro joins Shadi and Santiago to talk about his novel, The Novelist, internet culture, converting to Christianity, his heroin addiction, love and, of course, literature.
    At nearly two hours it’s a rich and, dare we say it, epic chat on the stuff of life. If you’ve ever wanted to get in the brain of a writer, you won’t want to miss this. Really.
    Required Reading:
    * The Novelist by Jordan Castro
    * Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on René Girard
    * New anthology of Girard’s essential writings
    * Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
    * The Present Age: On the Death of Rebellion by Søren Kierkegaard
    * Dante: “I found myself within a forest dark …”
    * Plato’s Myth of the Cave in the Republic
    * Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
    * The Perpetual Orgy: Flaubert and Madame Bovary by Mario Vargas Llosa
    * Maxime du Camp
    * Substance Abuse National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)




    This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe

    • 1 hr 48 min

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5
99 Ratings

99 Ratings

mdpnjva ,

First principles and deep dives

Very intelligent conversation about morality, politics, culture, the world, and much more. A great dive into the challenge of being intellectually honest and politically effective.

Runnin around ,

My #1 Podcast

Shadi and Damir have the most interesting, curious, engaging conversations that I’ve found on the internet. If you want to explore more perspectives or confront more biases, this is the podcast to listen to.

josieh ,

No positive vision for the future

One gets the impression that the hosts aren’t so much skeptical of the possibility of sweeping change as they are totally averse to it.

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