Podcast
New Discourses
Hosted by New Discourses · EN
Pursuing the light of objective truth in subjective darkness.
68episodes
Episodes
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Forced "Friendship" Under the Friend-Enemy Distinction
Mar 900:18:09Tap to summarizeNew Discourses Bullets, Ep. 147 The friend-enemy distinction, as it is called, is the underlying organizational principle of the Marxist Left, radical Islam, and the Fascist Reactionary Left (usually mislabeled "Right"). It is spelled out in detail in a 1932 book by Carl Schmitt called The Concept of the Political, (https://amzn.to/4rbQpFN) and in that book Schmitt goes into great detail to explain what is meant by the term "enemies." He gives much less clear attention to the opposing term "friends," in his fundamental construction. So who are the friends in the friend-enemy distinction? Friends are those who will join with you to fight the enemy, who has been declared by the leader (or Führer). In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay exposes this ugly fact about the "friendship" (or, allyship) in the friend-enemy distinction and reveals that it is the root of authoritarian and totalitarian thinking. Join him to learn why this concept is so evil. Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay
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The Nazi Experiment Vol. 12: Positive Christianity as the "Christian Nationalism" of the Third Reich
Mar 602:20:29Tap to summarizeThe New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 196 Today in America, we face a confusing "Christian Nationalist" (https://newdiscourses.com/2023/04/two-wolves-of-christian-nationalism/) movement that is reaching into many legitimate complaints and anxieties of American Christians and turning them to its project. While the term can mean many things, at least some of the meanings of "Christian Nationalism" are undeniably a kind of political movement (https://newdiscourses.com/2024/12/the-hoax-that-broke-the-conservative-internet/) posing as a theological movement. In fact, the most movement-ish strains (https://newdiscourses.com/2023/08/wtf-is-christian-nationalism/) of that line of thinking are precisely that. Something like this has happened before. When Hitler and his National Socialists were establishing the Third Reich, they had a huge cultural problem to overcome: nearly all Germans were Christians, not National Socialists. Their solution was an ambiguous term called "Positive Christianity" that increasingly got used as a bridge faith to turn believing German Christians into Nazis. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay continues his Nazi Experiment series (https://newdiscourses.com/?s=nazi+experimentto) explore the justifications for Nazi "Positive Christianity," revealing concerning echoes from the past. Join him to hear about the Third Reich's unique "Christian Nationalism" movement in their own words. Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay #Christian
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The Poison of Negative Idealism
Mar 400:19:16Tap to summarizeNew Discourses Bullets, Ep. 146 The essence of a critical theory is a philosophical stance we can and should call "negative idealism," and this negative idealism explains why "critical" movements like Communism, Fascism, and Woke of all types trend toward violence. Setting the stage against the recent sprees of "transgender" violence as an important backdrop, host James Lindsay explains the psychological destruction of holding a negative idealist worldview in this cutting-edge episode of New Discourses Bullets. Join him to understand these troubling phenomena in a deep and important way. Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay #Idealism
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Who Are We, and What Does That Mean About Politics?
Mar 200:53:17Tap to summarizeThe New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 195 When we face the question of what makes us who we are, different people have different answers. Some see ourselves as receptacles of tradition. Others see us as a self to be discovered in the world. Still others see us as blank slates who can become whatever we can dream. In some sense, these dispositions are in all of us, and that's healthy. They also define broad political orientations and movements. Importantly, they can also all go bad. Some months ago, James Lindsay, host of the New Discourses Podcast, wrote an essay for New Discourses called "Man with Three Faces" (https://newdiscourses.com/2025/04/man-with-three-faces-politics-pathology-and-the-modern-selves/) discussing this idea, and in this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, he talks through it casually, explaining its meaning and relevance for a wider audience. Join him for a deep exploration into what it means to be ourselves and what it can teach us about our politics. Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay #politics
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New Discourses Bullets 145 - How the Friend-Enemy Distinction Poisons Politics
Feb 2700:20:51Tap to summarizeNew Discourses Bullets, Ep. 145 Carl Schmitt captured the essence of totalitarian politics in his book The Concept of the Political (1932) (https://amzn.to/4sf2Rpk). It is the distinction between friend and enemy. The poison of this kind of thinking is in the ugly fact that the declared enemy must be treated as the declared enemy once a political faction has declared one, and anyone who doesn't go along with that declaration declares himself one of the enemy. That is, it's not just the us-versus-them nature of the declaration of friend and enemy that poisons politics and societies; it's the logic of the friend-enemy political program entirely. Host James Lindsay explains this dangerous logic in this new episode of New Discourses Bullets. Join him to understand. Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay #friendenemy
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What Jewish Values Can Teach Us About Being American: Another Trip to Israel
Feb 2500:55:23Tap to summarizeThe New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 194 James Lindsay's second trip to Israel was very different from his first (https://newdiscourses.com/2025/11/am-yisrael-chai/). On this trip, he got what he calls his "Real Jerusalem Experience," and he did a wide variety of things, not so much a coherent, organized tour. In the process, he was introduced to Israeli and Jewish life in a new way, which has offered him insights on what it means to be American and why America is the way that it is. Perhaps most poignantly, while visiting Kibbutz Nir Oz with Seth Dillon, Rob McCoy, Karys Rhea, and others, he heard directly how the heartbeat of life, strength, and endurance in the face of tremendous evil and adversity can be summarized in two simple words: "Jewish values." Join James on this new episode of the New Discourses Podcast and travel with him through Israel for a second time. Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay #jewish
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True and False or Us Versus Them?
Feb 2300:18:57Tap to summarizeNew Discourses Bullets, Ep. 144 The ever-insightful Michael Malice once explained, "most people do not process information through a true/false filter but through an us/them filter." There are pretty deep and interesting reasons why this is true, and there are also insightful comments to be made about the necessity and value of at least some of us disciplining ourselves to prefer a true/false filter, or at least to defer to the results of one. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay explores this idea out loud and explains its relevance to politics, society, and education. Be sure to join him! Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay #UsVsThem
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From Transgender to Transhuman
Feb 2001:37:55Tap to summarizeThe New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 193 As we encounter both the material in the infamous Epstein Files and revelations from some of Epstein's associates, not to mention the advances in AI and robotics, we're confronted with what seemed like dystopian science fiction just a few years ago: transhumanism. Tech futurists, however, have been predicting it and working toward it for decades, including the curious figure of "Martine" Rothblatt, creator of SiriusXM Radio and board member at the Mayo Clinic. Rothblatt is trans and has written at least two very odd books about sex and gender, The Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender (https://www.amazon.com/Apartheid-Sex-Manifesto-Freedom-Gender/dp/051759997X/) (1996) and an updated version called From Transgender to Transhuman: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Form (https://www.amazon.com/Transgender-Transhuman-Manifesto-Freedom-Form/dp/0615489427/) (2011). In this latter book, Rothblatt explains, perhaps ironically now, that the same arguments that justify "transgender" also justify transhuman: ultimately that who we really are does not depend on our physical body at all. In this creepy episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay presents some of this troubling book to you. You will not want to miss this. Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay #Transhumanism
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Why Communists Do the Red-Green Alliance
Feb 1500:10:25Tap to summarizeNew Discourses Bullets, Ep. 143 As normal people who value ideological and logical consistency, we tend to find movements like the Red-Green Alliance (Communists and Islamists) and "Queers for Palestine" confusing. How can people with such different views and goals work together? Obviously, part of the answer is the simple one: they have a common enemy to defeat and can work out their differences after they solve that problem. Nevertheless, the answer to this question, at least from the Communist side, is written explicitly as a command on the last page of the Communist Manifesto. Communists will always take the side of any movement against the existing order of things, simple as that. Host James Lindsay explains this to you in this important episode of New Discourses Bullets. You don't want to miss it. Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay #Communist
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Introducing the Problem-Solving Theory of Value
Feb 1300:58:49Tap to summarizeThe New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 192 What makes something valuable? How do we determine value? One hypothesis on value is famously forwarded and relied upon by the Marxists. It is called the "Labor Theory of Value," and it insists that labor is what transforms raw materials into something "humanized" and therefore of value. Therefore, in this theory, labor is what makes something valuable. Of course, this theory has not proved to be adequate for economic purposes, which is just another part of why Marxism is an abject failure even as an economic doctrine (aside from everything else). The question, however, remains. In this fun episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay takes a casual stab at a different answer: a problem-solving theory of value. This would be the idea that value is determined in relation to a good, commodity, or service's capacity to solve problems for people, particularly their consumers. Join him on this exploration to think about some things in a new, different way. Latest from New Discourses Press! The Queering of the American Child: https://queeringbook.com/ Support New Discourses: https://newdiscourses.com/support Follow New Discourses on other platforms: https://newdiscourses.com/subscribe Follow James Lindsay: https://linktr.ee/conceptualjames © 2026 New Discourses. All rights reserved. #NewDiscourses #JamesLindsay #theory
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