America’s Philosopher President

What’s gone wrong with Amer­i­ca’s democ­ra­cy? It’s a ques­tion that Al Gore takes a hard look at in his recent (and well-reviewed) book, The Assault on Rea­son. Below, Gore gives you the gist of his argu­ment in a half-hour video. It’s a bit heady. He’s invok­ing the Ancient Greeks, the Enlight­en­ment, Edward Gib­bon, Adam Smith and John Stu­art Mill. What’s more, his think­ing is heav­i­ly informed by Jur­gen Haber­mas and his writ­ings on ratio­nal polit­i­cal dis­course. And it all loops into an expla­na­tion of how we’ve tak­en a wrong turn on the Iraq war, the envi­ron­ment, civ­il lib­er­ties and beyond. Yes, it’s heady stuff. But if Open Cul­ture read­ers can’t han­dle it, who can?

The link to the orig­i­nal video is here.