America is more divided than ever—but it doesn’t have to be. Open to Debate offers an antidote to the chaos. We bring multiple perspectives together for real, nonpartisan debates. Debates that are structured, respectful, clever, provocative, and driven by the facts. Open to Debate is on a mission to restore balance to the public square through expert moderation, good-faith arguments, and reasoned analysis. We examine the issues of the day with the world’s most influential thinkers spanning s ...
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Content provided by C. Derick Varn. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by C. Derick Varn or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
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End of Liberal Dreams with Nicolas Villarreal
Manage episode 486430361 series 2926241
Content provided by C. Derick Varn. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by C. Derick Varn or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.
The foundations of modern liberal democracy weren't forged in the ideals of freedom and equality alone, but in the disciplined halls of Prussian military academies. In this wide-ranging conversation, Nicolas Villarreal reveals how the professional military education system that emerged in 19th century Germany created the bureaucratic apparatus that would spread across the world and enable liberal democratic capitalism to function.
What emerges is a fascinating dialectic that shapes our current political crisis: the tension between the "universal class" of professionals (bureaucrats, educators, administrators) who manage society through expertise, and Bonapartist strongmen who consolidate power within smaller cliques. Neither offers genuine democratic participation or addresses fundamental contradictions.
This historical analysis exposes blind spots in Marxist theory that continue to hamper left analysis today. Marx, focused primarily on England and France, missed crucial developments in Germany that would shape state formation globally. This oversight left Marxism without coherent theories of military power and bureaucracy—a gap that remains unfilled.
Our current economic crisis differs from previous eras. Rather than a straightforward decline in profitability, we face Soviet-style problems where increasing investments yield diminishing returns across education, healthcare, infrastructure, and technology. Professional bureaucracy grows more expensive while delivering less value, creating conditions for reactionary backlash.
The conversation ultimately points toward the need for developing an anti-professional politics that doesn't simply tail one bourgeois faction or another. As the educated professional class fractures along partisan lines, neither defending institutions that perpetuate oligarchy nor embracing reactionary populism offers a path forward. Can we envision social organization beyond the professional/Bonapartist dialectic before the increasing contradictions of capitalism lead to further crisis?
Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake
Crew:
Host: C. Derick Varn
Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake.
Intro Video Design: Jason Myles
Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn
Links and Social Media:
twitter: @varnvlog
blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social
You can find the additional streams on Youtube
Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon
Chapters
1. End of Liberal Dreams with Nicolas Villarreal (00:00:00)
2. Introduction to Nicolas de Villarreal (00:01:38)
3. Prussia's Educational System and Modern States (00:04:02)
4. Military Professionalism and Liberal Democracy (00:18:20)
5. Bonapartism and the Universal Class (00:31:03)
6. Marxism's Blind Spots on Military and State (00:44:23)
7. Professionalization and Social Atomization (00:59:11)
8. The Crisis of Liberal Institutions (01:20:11)
9. The Tech Elite and Trump's Coalition (01:41:15)
10. Fukuyama and the False End of History (02:02:15)
11. Decadent Elites and Institutional Dysfunction (02:18:11)
12. Towards an Anti-Professional Left (02:36:43)
13. Closing Thoughts on Social Media (03:02:33)
340 episodes
Share
Manage episode 486430361 series 2926241
Content provided by C. Derick Varn. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by C. Derick Varn or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.
The foundations of modern liberal democracy weren't forged in the ideals of freedom and equality alone, but in the disciplined halls of Prussian military academies. In this wide-ranging conversation, Nicolas Villarreal reveals how the professional military education system that emerged in 19th century Germany created the bureaucratic apparatus that would spread across the world and enable liberal democratic capitalism to function.
What emerges is a fascinating dialectic that shapes our current political crisis: the tension between the "universal class" of professionals (bureaucrats, educators, administrators) who manage society through expertise, and Bonapartist strongmen who consolidate power within smaller cliques. Neither offers genuine democratic participation or addresses fundamental contradictions.
This historical analysis exposes blind spots in Marxist theory that continue to hamper left analysis today. Marx, focused primarily on England and France, missed crucial developments in Germany that would shape state formation globally. This oversight left Marxism without coherent theories of military power and bureaucracy—a gap that remains unfilled.
Our current economic crisis differs from previous eras. Rather than a straightforward decline in profitability, we face Soviet-style problems where increasing investments yield diminishing returns across education, healthcare, infrastructure, and technology. Professional bureaucracy grows more expensive while delivering less value, creating conditions for reactionary backlash.
The conversation ultimately points toward the need for developing an anti-professional politics that doesn't simply tail one bourgeois faction or another. As the educated professional class fractures along partisan lines, neither defending institutions that perpetuate oligarchy nor embracing reactionary populism offers a path forward. Can we envision social organization beyond the professional/Bonapartist dialectic before the increasing contradictions of capitalism lead to further crisis?
Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake
Crew:
Host: C. Derick Varn
Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake.
Intro Video Design: Jason Myles
Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn
Links and Social Media:
twitter: @varnvlog
blue sky: @varnvlog.bsky.social
You can find the additional streams on Youtube
Current Patreon at the Sponsor Tier: Jordan Sheldon, Mark J. Matthews, Lindsay Kimbrough, RedWolf, DRV, Kenneth McKee, JY Chan, Matthew Monahan, Parzival, Adriel Mixon
Chapters
1. End of Liberal Dreams with Nicolas Villarreal (00:00:00)
2. Introduction to Nicolas de Villarreal (00:01:38)
3. Prussia's Educational System and Modern States (00:04:02)
4. Military Professionalism and Liberal Democracy (00:18:20)
5. Bonapartism and the Universal Class (00:31:03)
6. Marxism's Blind Spots on Military and State (00:44:23)
7. Professionalization and Social Atomization (00:59:11)
8. The Crisis of Liberal Institutions (01:20:11)
9. The Tech Elite and Trump's Coalition (01:41:15)
10. Fukuyama and the False End of History (02:02:15)
11. Decadent Elites and Institutional Dysfunction (02:18:11)
12. Towards an Anti-Professional Left (02:36:43)
13. Closing Thoughts on Social Media (03:02:33)
340 episodes
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Similar to Varn Vlog
America is more divided than ever—but it doesn’t have to be. Open to Debate offers an antidote to the chaos. We bring multiple perspectives together for real, nonpartisan debates. Debates that are structured, respectful, clever, provocative, and driven by the facts. Open to Debate is on a mission to restore balance to the public square through expert moderation, good-faith arguments, and reasoned analysis. We examine the issues of the day with the world’s most influential thinkers spanning s ...
…
continue reading
BackStory is a weekly public podcast hosted by U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Brian Balogh, Nathan Connolly and Joanne Freeman. We're based in Charlottesville, Va. at Virginia Humanities. There’s the history you had to learn, and the history you want to learn - that’s where BackStory comes in. Each week BackStory takes a topic that people are talking about and explores it through the lens of American history. Through stories, interviews, and conversations with our listeners, BackStory makes histo ...
…
continue reading
Learn something new every day! Everything Everywhere Daily is a daily podcast for Intellectually Curious People. Host Gary Arndt tells the stories of interesting people, places, and things from around the world and throughout history. Gary is an accomplished world traveler, travel photographer, and polymath. Topics covered include history, science, mathematics, anthropology, archeology, geography, and culture. Past history episodes have dealt with ancient Rome, Phoenicia, Persia, Greece, Chi ...
…
continue reading
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(Apple's Best of 2018) In-depth conversations with people at the top of their game. Jordan Harbinger unpacks guests' wisdom into practical nuggets you can use to impact your work, life, and relationships. Learn from leaders (Ray Dalio, Simon Sinek, Mark Cuban), entertainers (Moby, Tip "T.I." Harris, Dennis Quaid), scientists (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye), athletes (Kobe Bryant, Dennis Rodman, Tony Hawk) and an eclectic array of fascinating minds, from art forgers and arms traffickers to sp ...
…
continue reading
An investigative podcast hosted by world-renowned literary critic and publishing insider Bethanne Patrick. Book bans are on the rise across America. With the rise of social media, book publishers are losing their power as the industry gatekeepers. More and more celebrities and influencers are publishing books with ghostwriters. Writing communities are splintering because members are at cross purposes about their mission. Missing Pages is an investigative podcast about the book publishing ind ...
…
continue reading
A weekly podcast tracing the history of the Roman Empire, beginning with Aeneas's arrival in Italy and ending with the exile of Romulus Augustulus, last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Now complete!
…
continue reading
Tough decisions rattle us all to the core. But for our guests on One Decision— the choices they are up against can also shape history. No pressure! They take us through all of their doubts, emotions and—sometimes unexpected--consequences. A fresh take on foreign policy. Hear the former head of Mi6, Sir Richard Dearlove alongside international journalists as they analyse, interview, and discuss.
…
continue reading
As She Rises brings together local poets and activists from throughout North America to depict the effects of climate change on their home and their people. Each episode carries the listener to a new place through a collection of voices, local recordings and soundscapes. Stories span from the Louisiana Bayou, to the tundras of Alaska to the drying bed of the Colorado River. Centering the voices of native women and women of color, As She Rises personalizes the elusive magnitude of climate cha ...
…
continue reading
Smart People Podcast is a biweekly, interview-based podcast that features today's most well respected thought leaders engaging in authentic, insightful conversation for the benefit of the listener. The host, Chris Stemp, and his co-host/producer Jon Rojas, utilize their insatiable curiosity and relatable charm to provoke their guests into giving the interview of a lifetime. Every single guest has achieved a high level of recognition within their arena and in doing so has collected a wealth o ...
…
continue reading
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