Know Your Enemy - Your Questions, Answered

Matt and Sam answer listener questions—about topics ranging from the influence of post-liberal intellectuals on the right to their favorite Willie Nelson albums—in the podcast's annual mailbag episode.

Duration: 1h 35m
Broadcast on: 28 Oct 2023
Audio Format: other

Once a year Matt and Sam take questions from listeners—and they always prove to be incredibly smart and interesting. This time around was no different, with questions that include such topics as: the crisis in Israel and Palestine, the influence of postliberal thinkers on the right, polarization and our political future, the state of the GOP, Willie Nelson, conservative art (and artists), and more!

Sources:

Joshua Leifer, "Toward a Humane Left," Dissent, Oct 12, 2023; read Gabriel Winant's reply, "On Mourning and Statehood," and Leifer's response to Winant here

Patrick Deneen, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023)

Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano (1952)

Kurt Vonnegut, "Harrison Bergeron" (1961)

Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (2018)

Samuel L. Popkin, Crackup: The Republican Implosion and the Future of Presidential Politics (2021)

Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats (2016)

John Spong, "Daniel Lanois on Recording Willie Nelson’s Landmark Album 'Teatro,'" Texas Monthly, June 2023

Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins (1971)

Suzanne Schneider, "Light Among the Nations," Jewish Currents, Sept 23, 2023

Ellis Sandoz, Political Apocalypse: A Study of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor (1971)

Mark C. Henrie, ed., Doomed Bourgeois in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman (2001)

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

All right. Welcome listeners to episode 81 of Know Your Enemy. I'm Matt Sippen, your podcast co-host, and I'm here as always with my great friend Sam other bell. Hey, Sam. Hi, Matt. We're not going to have a very long intro today. Listeners might recall. We put out a call for questions, one of our famous mailbag episodes, we do about one a year. This is it. So we don't need to introduce it much. I hope we had a lot of fun doing it, right, Sam? We did. And for listeners who are wanting more discussion of the Israel Gaza war, there's some of that. There's some post liberalism, there's some discussion of the concept of polarization. There's lots of good Know Your Enemy content, so you'll enjoy it. That's right. We're going to get right to it. But before we do, just a few housekeeping items, as always we're grateful to our partners at Descent. And in particular, I wanted to thank everyone who supported Descent at the 70th anniversary party for Descent in DC toward the end of October. So thank you for supporting the magazine. Sorry, I missed it. Sounds like it was a good time. It was a good party. I'm still recovering. And of course, as many of you know, one thing Descent does for us is they offer pre-digital subscriptions if you subscribe to Know Your Enemy for $10 a month at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. And of course, for $5 a month, you get access to all of our bonus episodes, but you really should spring for the $10 subscription so you can read Descent. I think Matt and I are involved in co-editing a special section of Descent coming up. I won't say anything else about it 'cause it's in the works, but all the more reason to subscribe at $10 a month and get a free digital subscription to Descent. I wanted to say here, if you do sign up for $5 a month, then you'll get access to all the bonus episodes, as Matt said, including more mailbag because we got too many good questions and we're going to record answers to some more of your questions for the patreon. That's right, so more mail, more bag. It's coming your way. As always, we want to thank Jesse Brennan, our intrepid producer, and Will Epstein, who does the music for the podcast. Should we get to it, Sam? Let's do it. We'll answer your questions. Enjoy. I know we say this every time, but it's really true that the quality and excellence of these questions is a testament to our listeners and their intelligence and good taste, I think. It blows me away. Yes.

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