BlomCast

Recently, I was honoured to give the Spinoza Lecture in Den Haag, Netherlands, a wonderful opportunity to pay homage to a truly great thinker, as well as for a few reflections on knowledge and how it has been organised throughout history. In the course of my reflections, we meet Spinoza in his house in The Hague, the great scholar and dictionary writer Pierre Bayle, as well as Denis Diderot and his favourite friends and enemies. We follow revolutions in writing and thinking through Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique et critique and Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encycopédie, and their inversion during the nineteenth century, when dictionaries were no longer instruments of intellectual subversion, but empire building. Knowledge and its organisation are always contested. Who gets to chose? To describe? To value? Whose authority? And what about today, about Wikipedia and increasingly about AI engines, the questions we ask them and the ways we trust them? Where does autonomy go?Support the show

Yes, sometimes history has echos, and sometimes they become almost deafening. What does it take to make as state? It is not just the borders. What makes people into citizens, what gives the whole legitimacy? For the Habsburg empire in its dying days just before the end of World War I these were very urgent questions. Natasha Wheatley has analysed the end of empire and the beginning of the republic of Austria and shows brilliantly why the new state and its laws were both far sighted and deeply flawed. In the course of the discussion we touch on issues from The Voice in Australia to today’s changing world order and the use of collective fictions — and what happens when they break down.Support the show

In this wide ranging conversation, Georgios and I delve into the history of the concept of the west, as opposed to Christendom or Europe, its two predecessors. When did people start talking about the West and when did it become a thing? And what on earth did they mean by it? Beginning with the ancient Greeks we tried to tease out different ways in which this concept was filled. On the way we encounter an amazing gallery of protagonists, from French philosophers such as Simone Weil and Auguste Comte to John Stuart Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Hannah Ahrendt. Recording this a few days after the new US National Security Strategy, we also ask whether this is the point, at which we can bury this idea, which role cultural elites played in its decline, and what may come after it.Support the show

In this episode of the BlomCast, I engage with historian Mark Galeotti to explore the complexities of Russian history, military strategy, and the interplay of crime and society. They discuss the continuities in Russian military tactics, the cultural narratives that shape Russian identity, and the role of the Orthodox Church. The conversation also delves into the impact of globalization on organized crime and the challenges Russia will face post-war, and into the remarkable connections between crime, state-building, and societal norms.Support the show

In an imperial world in which a few powers divide the globals spoils among them, Europe is faced with huge challenges. Those who do not have a place at the table find themselves on the menu. In this episode I think about the fundamental challenges of autonomy, sustainability and democracy. Europeans will have to decide whether they are willing to fight for their autonomy or whether they are happy to see the continent of the former colonisers finally turn into a colony itself.Support the show

Europe faces a pivotal moment in its history, grappling with geopolitical challenges and existential threats. The host discusses the need for strategic autonomy, sustainability, and democracy as vital pillars for survival. Key topics include the risk of digital colonization and the necessity for military independence. Migration management and economic inequality are also highlighted as pressing issues threatening democratic stability. Ultimately, the discussion calls for a unified European federation to secure a resilient future amid global pressures.

The current regime of agriculture leads to a paradoxical situation: not only does this system destroy more in terms of natural resources than it creates in terms of food, it also leads to hundreds of millions of people being overfed while simultaneously being undernourished. There are now more obese children in the world than undernourished ones, and the effects on their physical and mental health are severe. But how did we get here? Stuart’s changing point lies at the end of the Second World War, when the international food market was ordered anew and the production of calories became top priority. What comes afterwards is almost too familiar: the rise of industrially produced agricultural products which locks farmers into a product palette from particular seeds to fertilisers, pesticides and other products to the rise of highly processed foods, which are designed to exploit our evolutionary craving for sugar, fat, and salt. The result of these developments have brought global food production to a crisis point. But what has to be done to change this destructive system?Support the show

Few people have shaped the public perception and debate about with as much eloquence and precision as Philippe Sands, who combines a distinguished career as a human rights lawyer with writing a series of books on themes such as justice, memory, and personal and family history. During the discussion series MQ Gespräche a the Museumsquartier in Vienna I spoke to Philippe about his new book 38 Londes Street, Nazi War Criminals and the Pinochet dictatorship, and about the arch of history that spans form 1930s Lemberg to London in 2025. In the second part of our conversation, we touch more contemporary developments about international law and lawlessness, the delicate question of when a mass killing must be considered genocide and whether it matters, and the importance of pragmatism in the pursuit of justice.The MQ Gespräche is a series of public discussions in which I invite prominent intellectuals to reflect about current questions. Allow me to say thank you to the Bruno Kreisky Forum, the IWM in Vienna, and the Museumsquartier, wonderful partners in this project.Support the show

Sarah Newman is a zooarcheologist, specialising in animal remains and what they tell about the interaction between humans and animals in the distant past. Her research projects took her to investigate the impact of humans on the landscape and on natural systems among the ancient Mayans and the inhabitants of ancient Jordan. Working on ancient beaver dams and early wooden buildings in which humans had clearly reused tree trunks felled by beavers, she had a fascinating idea: what if early humans got inspiration from special animal skills such as felling trees, damming water, building with wood, and even creating art? What if the division between culture and nature that seemed essential for centuries simply melts away if we allow the idea that there was collaboration and even co-creation between humans and animals, as animal culture and skills were acquired and combined by early humanity?Support the show

Colombe Cahen-Salvador is driven by the vision to create a turning point in the near future: to reform not only the European Union to make it stronger, more federal, and above all more democratic, but to create a global political movement. Oh, and she is also standing to become secretary general of the United Nations. This is not megalomania, but tactic, she explains. It is not about being elected, but about making a statement about the democratisation of an institution that is no longer fit for purpose. To effect the changes she is pursuing, she has co-founded Volt, the first pan-European political party, and almost impossible enterprise, she says, and Atlas, a global movement for progressive politics that is operating not only in Europe, but also on other continents. Colombe’s analysis of Europe, the old Left, and the project of the liberal West is as scathing as it is compelling and we had plenty to discuss.Support the show