Revolution!

Episode description

From Leon Trotsky to Sayyid Qutb to the Founding Fathers, Shadi and Damir discuss revolution in all its forms. The guys argue about the importance of ideas, the role of violence, and how order is legitimized. Can democracy keep the peace?

Part 2 of our conversation is available here for subscribers. Shadi and Damir turn their attention to the revolutionary impulses on both the conservative right and the woke left. While the intellectuals behind these movements likely don't consider themselves to be advocating for the overthrow of our system, does that mean they are fine operating in the system? Or are we approaching a tipping point of revolutionary impulse in America?

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Required Reading

• The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky, by Isaac Deutscher (Amazon)
• The Democracy Essays (Wisdom of Crowds)
• "Am I a Trotskyite?" by Damir Marusic (Wisdom of Crowds)
• Hitler: A Global Biography, by Brendan Simms (Amazon)
• Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky (Revolutions), by Leon Trotsky, Foreword by Slavoj Žižek (Amazon)
• "Taking People as They Are: Islam as a 'Realistic Utopia' in the Political Theory of Sayyid Qutb" by Andrew F. March (American Political Science Review)
• "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror" by Paul Berman (New York Times)
• "Liberalism Has an Unhappiness Problem" by Shadi Hamid (Wisdom of Crowds)
• "Sohrab Ahmari on Liberalism, Tradition, and Political Catholicism" (Wisdom of Crowds)