Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison – Is the World Headed Toward "Mutual Ruin"?
The Glenn Show
Glenn Loury
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 22 August 2025
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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This episode was originally recorded for Danny and Derek's podcast American Prestige and cross posted here. Subscribe to American Prestige at https://americanprestige.supportingcast.fm/join
Order Glenn's new book, Self-Censorship, here or where you get your books:
Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/683p6kk3 Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/4yvz4fta Bookshop: https://tinyurl.com/44rznxww
Video Links
0:00 The origins of Self-Censorship
4:11 Black and conservative in Reagan’s America
8:30 The social science hall of fame
12:45 Jews, assimilation, and the quantitative revolution
17:56 Human universalism vs. ethno-national particularity
21:42 Historicizing “the Jew”
23:47 Danny: Larry Summers can’t see outside his own neoliberal paradigm
27:50 Are we entering a period of, as Marx wrote, “mutual ruin”?
30:46 Is capitalism leading us toward nuclear war?
37:18 What the Manhattan Institute incident taught Glenn about his own book
42:02 Glenn: “I’m rethinking everything”
46:40 Is the right reverting to a pre-New Deal political paradigm?
51:37 Is Israel a reversion to an Early Modern model of nation-building?
58:07 American Jews’s role in Israel’s creation and perpetuation
1:03:04 Why Glenn previously censored himself on Gaza
1:09:30 Glenn: So far, I’m disappointed in Trump
Recorded August 6, 2025
Links and Readings
Danny and Derek’s podcast, American Prestige
Glenn’s new book, Self-Censorship
John Murray Cuddihy’s book, The Ordeal of Civility: Freud, Marx, Lévi-Strauss, and the Jewish Struggle with Modernity
Corey Robin’s book, The Enigma of Clarence Thomas
Glenn’s City Journal essay, “Clarence Thomas and Me”
Seth Schwartz’s book, The Ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhamad
Omar El Akkad’s book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Glenn’s post, “I Was Fired by the Manhattan Institute. Here’s Why.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch’s book, The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire
Avi Shlaim’s book, Genocide in Gaza: Israel, Hamas, and the Long War on Palestine
Peter Beinart’s book, Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning
Glenn’s conversation with Beinart
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to the Glenn Show at glenlawry.substack.com. |
| 0:06.6 | As a subscriber, you will receive new episodes on Mondays instead of Fridays and get access to ticket pre-sales to live events, monthly Q&As with Glenn Laurie and John McWhorter, exclusive content, and other benefits. |
| 0:21.8 | Thank you. |
| 0:23.5 | Hello, Prestige Heads, and welcome to American Prestige. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm Danny Bessner, here as always with my friend and comrade, Derek Davidson, |
| 0:30.1 | and I am extremely genuinely excited to welcome to the podcast today. |
| 0:34.7 | My old friend, Glenn Lowry, you know him, but just to repeat, |
| 0:39.2 | Glenn is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor Emeritus of Social Sciences, Professor |
| 0:43.7 | Emeritus of Economics, and Professor Emeritus of International and Public Affairs at Brown |
| 0:48.4 | University, and he's also the host of the excellent The Glenn Show, which I have been listening |
| 0:53.3 | to in some form |
| 0:54.5 | or other since I think 2008. Glenn, I'll always remember after Obama was elected, you kept |
| 1:00.7 | on saying Barack Hussein Obama. And John McWhorter, your co-host was like, are you just going to |
| 1:05.9 | keep on saying Hussein? Because it was such a moment. I'll always remember that exactly where I was when I |
| 1:12.8 | listened to that podcast. It was in San Diego. But anyway, thank you for joining us. And we're here |
| 1:16.8 | to talk about your recently re-released book, Self Censorship, which was originally published |
| 1:22.2 | in 1994. And we'll get into that there. But Glenn, first of all, it's an honor to have you on |
| 1:26.2 | the podcast. Thank you so much. |
| 1:34.8 | Oh, Danny, thanks for the introduction. Good to be here. Hello, Derek. Derek said hello. You made me dive for the mute button, but it's very, very nice to have you. Congratulations. |
| 1:39.8 | We're releasing the book. So there's so much to talk about here, and I want to get into all of it, because this is a |
| 1:48.3 | book I think that was re-released in light of this, you know, contra temp, as it were, |
| 1:54.5 | over quote, unquote, wokeness or what have you. |
... |
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