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What Pre-WWII France Can Tell Us About America in 2023 | Jonathan Kirshner 0

Feb 20, 2023

In Episode 298 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Boston College, Jonathan Kirshner. Dr. Kirshner belongs to the school of international relations known as “classical realism,” which places a unique emphasis on the role played by uncertainty and the need to grapple more seriously with the nuance of historical context, the governing ideologies and perspectives of different states, the quality of leadership, and the character and harmony of a nation’s people.

Demetri and Jonathan spend the first hour of their conversation applying the framework of analysis that Kirshner puts forward in his latest book “An Unwritten Future” toward three distinct historical conflicts: the Peloponnesian war, the war in Vietnam, and the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. All three of these wars had ruinous consequences for the aggressor state. In the case of the Iraq war, the conflict badly damaged public perceptions of (and trust in) the competency of America’s foreign policy elite, the credibility of its press, and the state of its finances.

The legacy of the Iraq war, as well as the prolonged occupation of Afghanistan and the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis, are the subjects of the episode’s second hour. In it, Demetri and Jonathan compare the divisions present within contemporary American society to those present within the Third French Republic in the years leading up to its stunning defeat and subsequent collaboration with Nazi Germany. What was it about French society that made it so susceptible to co-optation and what lessons can we draw from the French experience when devising public policy meant to serve the national interest?

The goal of today’s conversation is to help advance a framework that partially explains the divisions currently present in American society so that we can advocate more thoughtfully for solutions that heal our national wounds by bringing our citizens closer together rather than pushing each other further apart. Demetri believes strongly that this healing is necessary and that it will require putting the national interest ahead of our own more immediate material concerns.

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If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 02/13/2023

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How to Balance Legitimacy & Power in a Fractured World | Sir Paul Tucker 0

Feb 13, 2023

In Episode 297 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Paul Tucker. During his time at the BoE, Sir Paul sat on the bank’s monetary policy, financial stability, and prudential policy committees. He was a member of the G20 Financial Stability Board and a director of the Bank for International Settlements, which means he has worked at the highest levels of some of the most important policy-making bodies and research institutions in the world.

What prompted today’s conversation was the recent publication of Paul’s book “Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World.” The book deals with the incredibly important but rarely discussed subject of legitimacy and where it intersects with the world of geopolitics. How to maintain this legitimacy while navigating a change in the balance of power may be the most important question that any policymaker or politician can try and answer. It blurs the boundaries between policy fields that we are used to thinking about in isolated terms—monetary policy, the environment, trade, even war and peace—and forces us to think more concretely about our political values and our common identities.

This is part of a larger story that Demetri has been trying to tell since the earliest days of the podcast. It’s the story of what has been happening to us in Western countries and how we arrived at this state of affairs where our societies have become more politically and culturally divided, where our financial systems have become less responsive to the real needs of our economies, and where the international security environment has become more precarious than it has ever been in the living memories of most people.

Today’s conversation is meant to not only advance this story but to also advance a framework for understanding the changing world that we are living in. It is also meant to provide policymakers, business leaders, investors, and everyday citizens with a framework that they can use to navigate this changing world.

You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Key Takeaway at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:

Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify

Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas

Episode Recorded on 02/06/2023

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The 1990s and the Cancellation of the Future | Chuck Klosterman 0

Feb 6, 2023

In Episode 296 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Chuck Klosterman, a bestselling author and essayist whose work focuses on American popular culture. His most recent book about the 1990s describes a decade that happened long ago, but not nearly as long ago as it seems.

The 1990s happened between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers. During that time, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. At the start of the decade everyone’s name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines. By the end, exposing someone’s address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their cell phone. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a 1990s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture.

What is it about the 1990s that makes it feel this way? “The feeling of the era,” writes Chuck Klosterman “and what that feeling supposedly signified, isolates the 1990s from both its distant past and its immediate future. It was a period of ambivalence, defined by an overwhelming assumption that life, and particularly American life, was underwhelming.” That was the thinking at the time. It is not the thinking now. Now the 1990s seem like a period when the world was starting to go crazy, but not so crazy that it was unmanageable or irreparable. It was the end of the twentieth century, but also the end of an age when we controlled technology more than technology controlled us. It was as Chuck Klosterman writes “a good time that happened long ago, although not nearly as long ago as it seems.”

This episode is part of a larger series that we’ve published over the years on television history and culture, technology and the human experience, and the transformation in our perceptions of the world and what it means to be a human being. You can find these and other related podcasts on this week’s episode at Hiddenforces.io, where you can also access to the second part of today’s conversation by joining one of our three content tiers. This gives you access to our premium feed which you can use to listen to the second part of today’s conversation on your mobile device using your favorite podcast app just like you are listening to this episode right now.

You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: