Yoram Hazony on Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2016

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Britain’s June 23 referendum on independence was the most important vote in a democratic nation in a generation, Yoram Hazony argues in “Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom,” his September 2016 Mosaic essay. Its outcome, in favor of an exit from the EU, provoked fear, outrage, and despair in elite opinion in both Europe and the United States. At the same time, however, the re-emergence of an independent Britain has rallied profound admiration and enthusiasm among millions of others who still hold fast to the old understanding that the independence and self-determination of one’s nation hold the key to a life of honor and freedom.

In this podcast, Hazony speaks with Eric Cohen about his essay. Their discussion touches on the biblical roots of the nation-state, which combines national self-determination with a moral minimum; liberalism as the great rival of nationalism; and three reactions against the new liberal condition—neo-nationalism, neo-Catholicism, and classical nationalism. It is this latter alternative that Hazony finds most promising, inspired by the Hebrew Bible and informing the nationalism of Great Britain and the United States.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tikva podcast on great Jewish essays and ideas. I'm your host, Eric Kope.
0:12.5	It's a great pleasure to be joined today by Yuram Hazzoni, an important Israeli thinker and intellectual,
0:18.2	the founder of the Herzl Institute, former president of the Shalem Center, and a prolific writer and thinker and intellectual, the founder of the Herzl Institute, former president of Shalem
0:22.0	Center, and a prolific writer and thinker on a wide range of subjects, including the philosophy
0:27.2	of the Hebrew scriptures, an important commentary he wrote on the book of Esther, books on Zionism
0:32.6	and the founding and spirit and purpose of the Jewish state. He's really someone who's written
0:36.5	widely on many,
0:37.6	many things. Yoram, great to have you. Thank you for having me. So our focus today is an important
0:44.2	essay you've just published in Mosaic on nationalism, on the state of Western civilization, on
0:49.4	the future of Western freedom. And I thought we'd begin where you begin, which is this dramatic and important vote in Britain
0:55.9	to leave the European Union, which you describe
0:58.5	as a political event of massive proportions.
1:01.2	So what happened?
1:02.8	What's at stake in this vote?
1:04.5	And how does it invite us to think more deeply
1:06.4	about the meaning of nationalist?
1:10.0	Well, we're not used to thinking about, you know, votes in Europe, having kind of some
1:15.9	kind of earth-shaking importance.
1:19.6	And I thought it was surprising the extent to which Americans, I'd say just in general,
1:27.2	international media up until the moment
1:29.0	of the Brexit vote itself, British independence, it was almost silent.
1:34.6	I mean, really very, very little of substance was said.
	...

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