‘Blame Theory’ Launches in New York—Join Us!

Join a Live Taping of COMPACT’s New Podcast in New York

For years now, partisans of all stripes have been casting about for some intellectual or group of intellectuals to blame for the West’s decline. For many on the left, the blame lies with the libertarian and neoliberal thinkers like those who formed the Mont Pelerin Society to overturn the social-democratic order, as well with Christian and conservative intellectuals supposedly out to impose their “theocratic” worldviews on the rest of society.

The American right, meanwhile, blames a whole constellation of foreign thinkers, many of them German or French, who have allegedly undermined the otherwise wholesome workings of a free society: Marx and Hegel, existentialists and post-structuralists, Foucault and the Frankfurt School. Christians go much further back, tracing original intellectual sin to Late Antique Gnosticism or the nominalism associated with medieval sages like Ockham and Scotus.

So, who is to blame?

Blame Theory is a new Compact podcast devoted to exploring just this question. Anchored by our own Nina Power and Geoff Shullenberger, Blame Theory takes a seriously playful look at the ideas that have shaped our minds and our world, to ask: How have we ended up here, and whom or what can we blame? Each week, Nina and Geoff (sometimes joined by a special guest) will examine the case of one alleged intellectual culprit and attempt to exonerate and/or condemn him, and that’s just where the fun begins.

This Thursday, Feb. 29, we’re taping the debut episode—“Blame Deconstruction?”—live in New York City, and we’d love to have you join us! Our special guest will be Avital Ronell, University Professor of German and Comparative Literature at NYU and author of The Telephone Book and Complaint, among many other books. We’ll be asking her whether deconstruction—with its emphasis on multiple truths and narratives—is to blame for our current woes.

When: Thursday, Feb. 29, at 7:00 p.m.

Where: KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, Manhattan

Tickets: Required, and can be purchased here.

See you there!