Vistopia
Cover of Hybrid Promises: A History of Modern Political Ideas in 40 Lectures
Hybrid Promises: A History of Modern Political Ideas in 40 Lectures
The origins, disputes, and future of modern politics through ideas
Completed · 45 episodes
Buy for ¥128.00
Audio in Chinese
Liu Yu: The Power of Ideas Must Exceed the Power of Guns Chen Di: It Is Precisely Now That We Need the History of Ideas More than Ever Ren Jiantao: Can You Avoid Politics by Refusing to Discuss It? 1. Checks and Balances, Elections, Representation: How Did Modern Politics Gestate in the Dark Middle Ages? 2. Was Dante, a Poet, the First Historian of Modern Political Ideas? 3. How Did Human-Centered Politics Begin? The Rise of Humanism 4. Farewell to Universal Christendom: The Stirring of the National Idea 5. Imitating the Divine Realm: What Is the Body Politic? 6. Machiavelli: Does Advocating Princely Statecraft Mean Absolute Evil? 7. How Did “the Modern” Emerge as an Idea? 8. Born for Ideas, Dying for Ideas: From Thought to Action 9. “Gods Enter the Temple”: Does Every Political Theory Have a Quasi-Religious Character? 10. Machiavelli: Restarting Republicanism 11. Hobbes: Was the Creator of Leviathan Also an Individualist? 12. Locke: Did Compiling Common Sense Make Him the Father of Liberalism? 13. Utopia: Radicalism's First Shoots and the Imagination of Another Possibility 14. Hobbes and the Royalists: What Are the Benefits and Dangers of Giving One Person Absolute Power? 15. Pervasive Fear: Is Modern Politics' “Philosophy of Staying Alive” Shameful? 16. Does the “Artificial State” Turn against Individual Rights? Hobbes's Gap and Locke's Supplement 17. The French Revolution: The Arrival of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity 18. Conservatism Reflects on Revolution: Do Not Lose Freedom in the Pursuit of Freedom 19. Can Utilitarianism Build the Happiest Society? 20. How Can Modern Liberty Discipline Republicanism? Montesquieu's Separation of Powers 21. From “Slow Living” to Party Politics: How Did Conservatism Become “Radical”? 22. Grasping the Spirit of the Age: Understanding Marxism within Western Tradition 23. A Complex Legacy: Mahatma Gandhi's Pacifism Was “Combative” Year in Review | What Kind of Year of Mingled Joy and Sorrow Did We Live Through? 24. The Chinese Communist Party's Revolutionary Ideas: Interweaving Principle and National Conditions 25. Do Ideas Have a “Hierarchy of Contempt”? Rivalry among Modern Political Doctrines 26. Will Society Improve If Ideals Guide Political Life? 27. How Do We Design Good Institutions? What Modern Political Systems Can and May Achieve 28. Different Specialties: What Is Each Modern Political Idea Good At? 29. Were the Divergent Anglo-American and Franco-German Political Paths Accident or Fate? 30. Revisionism: The Second International Changes Course 31. Can a Modern State Be Built by “Overtaking on a Curve”? 32. An Advanced West and Backward East? Changing and Competing Political Conditions 33. Beyond the “Left-Right Divide”? A “Third Way” in Political Thought 34. “Positive Liberty” or “Negative Liberty”: Which Is More Worth Pursuing? 35. Was Marx Wrong? Karl Popper and His “Closed Society” 36. What Is Liberalism? Hayek's “Why I Am Not a Conservative” 37. Can Revived Republican Civic Virtue Replace Liberalism? 38. Do Political Ideas Divide and Eventually Reunite? From Confrontation to Convergence 39. Why Is “Identity Politics” Intensifying in Western Countries? 40. Ideas Descend: When Elite Thought Ignites Social Revolution Conclusion: Escaping the Dead End of Social and Political Tragedy Requires a “Revolution of Ideas”