Ep. 25: Waller Newell on Putin and Tyranny

Waller Newell, Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Carleton University, joins the show to discuss tyranny and tyrants—and Vladimir Putin in particular. 

Times

• 02:05 Introduction
• 03:43 Let's talk about Vladimir Putin
• 05:40 What is the Russian "Soul"?
• 07:19 Quote from "The Russian Idea"
• 08:40 Who was Nikolai Berdyaev?
• 09:54 Is Berdyaev an influence on Aleksandr Dugin?
• 11:05 The West has a hard time understanding non-economic motivations. Why?
• 13:06 Who is Aleksandr Dugin?
• 15:21 “Eurasian Nationalist Bolshevism” 
• 16:55 Rehabilitating Stalin
• 18:40 Are we seeing a perpetuation of Tsarist Russia?
• 20:40 What is fascism?
• 22:35 The many types of tyranny
• 25:12 What kind of tyrant is Putin?
• 26:50 Why has millenarian tyranny appeared so relatively recently in history?
• 29:51 The relationship between liberalism and millenarian tyranny
• 31:25 The next ten years in Russia
• 34:00 Did Putin know what he was getting himself into in Ukraine?
• 35:36 The prospect of Russian and Chinese collaboration in the future
• 36:55 Who drives Chinese policy - Xi Jinping or the Chinese Communist Party?
• 38:56 Staying sane while studying tyrants
• 42:10 What should we be reading to better recognize hostile actors for what they are?