71: On Freedom with Timothy Snyder

Jen Rubin's Green Room

Politics, News Commentary, News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 578 Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Timothy Snyder discusses his new book that explores the concept of freedom from a philosophical and political perspective. He contrasts negative freedom, often understood as freedom from constraints, with positive freedom, which emphasizes the importance of community, solidarity, and the conditions necessary for individuals to thrive. Snyder argues that true freedom requires a supportive environment and institutions that foster individual growth. He critiques the American understanding of freedom as overly individualistic and highlights the need for factuality and truth in political discourse. The conversation also delves into the dangers of viewing freedom as inevitable and the importance of imagination in envisioning a freer society.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Jen Rubin, and this is Jen Rubin's screen room.
0:12.8	As we record this on Tuesday, the war in the Middle East, or wars in the Middle East,
0:20.4	depending upon your perspective,
0:21.9	have gotten hotter. Iran is launching its missiles at Israel. Israel is at least temporarily
0:29.5	rolling into Lebanon, and we are once more facing an expansion of what was simply a war against Hamas in Gaza.
0:42.6	Now, all this sounds very bad, and it is, and we certainly hope that people remain safe,
0:50.3	that we don't have more casualties.
0:52.7	But I must say, at some point, you do have to change the
0:56.5	equation there. And that's what Israel is trying to do. It is degrading Hezbollah to a point in
1:04.0	which it is practically useless. That is a huge blow to Iran, which has built up Hezbollah as its agent as its ally as its surrogate in the
1:16.0	region. And that's one of the reasons that Iran is now lashing out at Israel. It has to let the region
1:23.6	know, whoa, look, we're still powerful. We'll still Iran. Hasbalah can take a hit, but Iran remains strong.
1:30.4	Well, we'll see. We'll see what the result of their launch is. Last time they tried this,
1:36.6	they didn't get very far. Israel was able to blow up virtually all of its missiles. So,
1:44.0	God willing, there will be a few, if any, casualties.
1:48.2	We are also sitting here awaiting the vice presidential debate, and I am here to let you in on a secret.
1:56.1	It doesn't matter. Nope. There are all kinds of newspapers and pundits and TV folks saying, oh, this is
2:03.7	very important. This is more important than usual, because of course, usually it's not important
2:08.8	at all. I get news for you. It's not important. Think about this. What individual out there
2:14.7	is going to say, oh, I was going to vote for Kamala Harris. But really,
2:20.4	Jamie Vance just convinced me to go vote for Trump. Not going to happen. And conversely,
2:26.2	imagine a person who's going to vote for Donald Trump and suddenly says, oh, that Tim Walz,
	...

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