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In this week’s episode, Natalia, Neil, and Niki debate Fidel Castro’s legacy, the future of liberalism, and the rise of fake news.

Eviscerating the Constitutional Court and purging the judiciary, complete politicization of the civil service, turning public media into a government mouthpiece, restricting opposition prerogatives in parliament, unilateral wholesale change of the Constitution or plain violation of it, official tolerance and even promotion of racism and bigotry, administrative assertion of traditional gender norms, cultural resurrection of authoritarian traditions, placing loyalty over competence in awarding state posts, surveillance without check — with such policies and more, right-wing governments in Hungary and Poland …

Far-left politics and radical universalism (including its Stalinist variant) seduced countless intellectuals during the twentieth century. Yet, this absorbing subject still needs to be deciphered and recalled. In a similar vein, the topic of apostasy, that is to say, the awakening to what Immanuel Kant once called “dogmatic slumber,” …

Gianni Vattimo is considered to be among the most important living European philosophers, alongside Charles Taylor, and Jürgen Habermas.  Known for his interpretation of Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s philosophies, he also developed a postmodern theory he calls “weak thought,” meant to question the hard objectivity of claims in religion, politics, and culture. Over several decades he maintained a dialogue and correspondence with Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty, and René Girard. In this interview, he reflects on his life and work, on the occasion of a new Vattimo archive opening in Barcelona.

Claudio Gallo is currently culture editor at La Stampa, a major Italian newspaper. He has also worked as a foreign desk editor and London correspondent, and has written for AsiaTimes, Enduring America, RT.com and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His main interests include Middle East politics and Western philosophy. He interviewed Gianni Vattimo for Public Seminar. …

In “The Cultural Revolution, Fifty Years Later,” recently published in Foreign Affairs, Professor Xu Youyu, the University in Exile Scholar at The New School, rightly notes that many intellectuals and officials who lived through the Chinese Cultural Revolution are quietly taking stock of the lessons and legacies of that tumultuous event. …