Howling into the Void
A brief account of chaos.
Quick update: My conversation with Nicholas Carr is now live with Intelligence Squared.
According to just-about-everyone, we now live in the “time of monsters.”1 For anyone attempting to keep pace with politics, this time has a particularly confusing shape. The speed and unpredictability of the political hype-cycle has me feeling it is both too early and too late to say anything novel about the state of international affairs. So, in lieu, I’ll offer a few updates.
From London, into the abyss.
I was lucky enough to join The British Academy / Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for the start of their Global (Dis)Order programme in early January. The multi-day discussion ranged from the incipient Trump (2.0) administration to the future of Artificial Intelligence. Apropos the “time of monsters,” we are being called to witness the shifting landscape of international relations, complete with new (and old) rhetorical florishes.
Conversations of Note
Despite the early-year madness, I’ve been fortunate to have a range of fruitful (and thought-provoking) conversations in 2025 — with my gratitude to friends at Intelligence Squared for making many of these possible.
In January I spoke with Samuel Moyn about liberalism’s shaky sojourn throughout the 20th century — and what that means for the ‘liberalism’ of today. Our conversation was wide ranging (recorded the morning of Trump’s inauguration), and explains how efforts to protect democracy (and a specific representative form of government during the Cold War) hollowed out and made fragile the wider Liberal project. What lingers, for me, is Liberalism’s abandonment of emancipation and creativity as key features of its political package. This abandonment arose because key architects of Liberalism grew concerned that Enlightenment-era beliefs in the inevitable promise of Liberal politics were often used to justify present-day injustices — often perpetrated by the state. So, instead, liberal principles (albeit thin) became the bars that kept the state out of one’s personal affairs, ultimately trapping the individual inside. Restoring the liberal project demands a kind of re-imagining of what we want the future to look like, instead of designing defences against the threats along the way.
On my mind: I’m keen to dig into Alexandre Lefebvre’s Liberalism as a Way of Life (2024) after reading his essay in
.2
I also sat down with Markus Zusak, the best-selling author of The Book Thief, to discuss his new (and first) memoir: Three Dogs and the Truth. The book — funny, sharp, and touching — captures the madness of adopting three wild dogs, how chaos and craft have shaped the author’s life and work, and how canine companions can keep you attentive to the physical world in important (sometimes necessary) ways.
I bullishly requested (sorry, Layla!) to speak with the technology writer, Nicholas Carr, about his new book, Superbloom: How Technologies of Communication are Tearing Us Apart. I think of Carr, whom many will remember as the author of The Shallows, as the prophet of our technological present. Warning of the internet’s ability to change the way we think (back in 2011), his latest book offers evidence (and argument) about the costs of our technologies of connection. With deep knowledge and sensitivity to the history of communications technology, Carr illustrates how our access to more information, hunger for greater convenience, and biological yearning for entertainment (a.k.a distraction) has made it harder for us to form connections, less reflective about ourselves and our interests, and keep us guarded (“buffered,” you might say) from the physical world. This conversation kicked up a number of associated thoughts/ideas. One, on the “marketplace of ideas” argument, still lingers (more to come on this).
Bonus: In a recent essay for The New Atlantis, Carr discusses the “tyranny of now” — focusing on how our feverishly-in-the-moment digital tools provide information while dissolving the time required for true understanding.
Marginalia: The difference between easy access to information and the friction-filled process of understanding reminded me of the quote below (which I found through
’s wonderful site/substack):
“The real issue with speed is not just how fast can you go, but where are you going so fast? It doesn’t help to arrive quickly if you wind up in the wrong place.” (Walter Murch, In The Blink of an Eye)
American Appeasement
- had another excellent reflection on the present state of American politics in the context of US Vice President Vance’s address at the Munich Security Conference last week. From the pulpit, Vance scolded the Europeans for their democratic deficit, The New York Times reported. Snyder’s piece draws attention to the historical echoes with a previous conference in Munich — in 1938 — and the issue of appeasement. Given the US interest in engaging Putin directly (and without Ukraine present) to bring the war to an end, President Trump’s reference to Ukraine’s president as a dictator, and suggesting that Ukraine started Russia’s illegal invasion, Snyder’s piece only grows more relevant.3
What I’m thinking about: Second- and third-order effects of Washington’s new posture towards UKR-RU. The “not our responsibility” ethos places greater emphasis on inter-European cooperation and collaboration on Ukraine. While, at the same time, Vance’s scolding tone (ostensibly directed at Germany and its handling of right-wing political parties) sets up a concerning interregnum for intra-European politics. Here, the status-quo authorities (responsible for the cooperation on Ukraine) are likely to come under increasing fire from nationalist/nativist domestic political forces. If, whether, or how much this affects the ability for EU member states to cooperate remains unknown. Much rests on the continent’s ability to stand together against the Russian threat.
Quotes that stuck
"When we settle on answers to the central questions of our lives without ever having opened up those questions for inquiry, that is a recipe for wavering." Agnes Callard, Open Socrates
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition. But certainty is an absurd one.” (Voltaire, in a letter to Frederick the Great, 1770)
“… even the dead get bored.” (True Detective, Ep. 2, Season 4)
"The old world is dying, and a new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters." Attributed to Antonio Gramsci, the "actual" phrase is pulled from his Prison Notebooks, and interpreted (as explained) here.
On Thursday, 20 February, media outlets reported the US had objected to a G7 statement referring to Russia as the “aggressor” of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.