Interview: Roger Kimball on The Fortunes of Permanence

“The history of philosophy can be divided into two different periods. During the first, philosophers sought the truth; during the second, they fought against it.”

— Jean-François Revel (1924-2006), French journalist and philosopher, as quoted in The Fortunes of Permanence.

Roger Kimball, my fellow PJ Media columnist and publisher of the New Criterion magazine and Encounter Books, stopped by recently to discuss his latest book, The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia. During our interview, Roger expounds on:

• Present-Tense Culture: What happens to a culture that has not only submerged its past, but is doing its damndest to bury it permanently?
• The left-wing etymology of the word “ideology.”
  How postwar-American modern architecture was able to minimize its prewar socialist past.
• How Rudyard Kipling and James Burnham became historical unpersons.
• The progressive paradox of colonialism.
• The future of socialism: Over 60 years ago, George Orwell responded to the horrors of socialism by asking, “where is the omelet?” Since, England, Greece and California are all in dire fiscal straits, and we know that there’s no omelet being cooked up, where does America go from here?

And much more. Click here to listen:

(23 minutes long; 22 MB file size. Want to download instead of streaming? Right click here to download to your hard drive. Or right click here to download the 6.9 MB lo-fi edition.)

Since in the past, a few people have complained of difficulties with the Flash player above and/or downloading the audio, use the video player below, or click here to be taken to YouTube, for an audio-only YouTube clip. Between one of those versions, you should find a format that plays on your system.

For the rest of our podcasts, click here and just keep scrolling.

And from more from Roger, don’t miss his video interview with Glenn Reynolds on his new book.