A recording of my presentation at the "Democracy in Crisis" seminar 16th of November 2024 in Oslo at the House of Literature. The presentation is in Norwegian.
For local audiences, join us for a live seminar at the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset) in Oslo 16. november. Sign up for free at https://www.litteraturhuset.no/nb/arrangement/demokratiet-i-krise For global audiences, here is a summary of the current democratic crisis we are living through and all its many aspects. I also discuss why democracy is worth fighting for and what we can do to meet the current crisis. Why is democracy under attack from within as well as from authoritarian dictatorships in other countries? What has happened to the electorate in democracies that leads many of them to elect authoritarians?
Discussion with a Russian dissident about the rhetoric of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin from 2021-2023. We cover four sentencing speeches by Alexei Navalny, as well as sentencing speeches by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, and student activist Darya Kozyreva. A three part discussion. This episode covers the aftermath of Navalny's death and the current disorganized and chaotic state of the Russian opposition. We discuss four speeches by Oleg Orlov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Darya Kozyreva and the possible way forward to a free and democratic Russia.
00:00 Aftermath of Navalny's death and introducing Oleg Orlov
00:50 Oleg Orlov's sentencing speech (English)
10:39 Oleg Orlov's sentencing speech (Russian)
19:50 Reaction and Analysis
32:20 Vladimir Kara-Murza's sentencing speech (English)
36:14 Vladimir Kara-Murza's sentencing speech (Russian)
39:25 Reaction and Analysis
1:00:46 Kara-Murza on Lessons Not Learned (English)
1:03:40 Kara-Murza on Lessons Not Learned (Russian)
1:05:40 The current disorganized state of the Russian opposition
1:14:47 Darya Kozyreva sentencing speech (English)
1:18:58 Darya Kozyreva sentencing speech (Russian)
1:22:27 The need for organization and acknowledging the sadness of a lost country
Discussion with a Russian dissident about the rhetoric of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin from 2021-2023. We cover four sentencing speeches by Alexei Navalny, as well as sentencing speeches by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, and student activist Darya Kozyreva. A three part discussion. This episode covers the last two major speeches Alexei Navalny gave from prison before he was murdered and their impact.
00:00 Russian invasion, protests, and Navalny's early nationalist politics
14:30 Contempt of court speech (English)
26:20 Contempt of court speech (Russian)
37:41 Reaction and analysis
52:19 Navalny's final speech (English)
59:51 Navalny's final speech (Russian)
1:06:30 Analysis and conclusion
Discussion with a Russian dissident about the rhetoric of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin from 2021-2023. We cover four sentencing speeches by Alexei Navalny, as well as sentencing speeches by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, and student activist Darya Kozyreva. A three part discussion.
00:00 Introduction Alexei Navalny
06:07 Yves Rocher speech, February 2021 (English)
18:12 Yves Rocher speech (Russian)
29:19 Analysis
36:06 Veteran Speech (English)
48:12 Veteran Speech (Russian)
59:44 Analysis and conclusion of part 1
Over 300 years BCE, Isocrates warned Athenians about the curse of empire in his oration "On the Peace." The central claim was that ruling over an empire was as devastating to the moral well-being of Athens and their potential subject states as tyranny is to a leader and his subjects. He draws a contrast between domination and leadership and points out a future for Athens where they can again lead a benevolent alliance of free city states that will be more stable and more mutually beneficial for all involved.
Perelman made a category of arguments that he termed to be "based on the structure of reality." Dr. Steven B. Katz joins us to discuss each of the arguments within this category, and how they rely on culturally accepted connections termed "liasons of succession" and "liasons of co-existence" in order to gain acceptance of other claims. Essentially, you find structures of reality that are already there (already accepted) and then apply them to a specific situation. As Kenneth Burke points out, these structures may only be "natural" in the sense that a path made through a field is natural. Nevertheless, as soon as that structure or path has been made it is there as a structure that can be used to pass from A to B. This episode builds on the episodes "Chaim Perelman's Theory of Argumentation" and "Perelman's Quasi-logical Arguments."
Isocrates believed most knowledge needed for practical judgement was contingent and more easily found by internal and external arguments. Plato believed all true knowledge can be derived from first principles. Both were right
https://intelligenceofpersuasion.blogspot.com/2012/10/seeking-light-for-ourselves-in-darkness.html?m=1
Dr. Ivana Stradner, who grew up in Serbia, discusses the rise of Serbian nationalism, Putin's strategy of increasing ethnic tensions in the region, and why we may be close to a new war in the Balkans.
Perelman made a category of arguments that he termed "quasi-logical." Quasi does not mean "fake" in this context, but just that they are similar to the arguments made in formal logic. Dr. Steven B. Katz joins us to discuss each of the arguments within this category, and how they rely on some of the most basic cognitive patterns that humans use to make sense of the world around us. Because we can perceive similarity, difference, and the relations of parts to the whole, we are able to use these as basis for arguments to move others. This episode builds on the episode "Chaim Perelman's Theory of Argumentation."
In just a few years, India has been transformed from a vibrant liberal democracy to a majoritarian autocracy under Narendra Modi. Under his Hindu majority rule, Muslims and Christians are subjected to extrajudicial killings and mosques and churches are burnt to the ground. Dr. Ashok Swain, a Hindu and Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, joins Dr. Isaksen and Noor Jahan Khan, who has a Master's degree in Mass Communication from Bangalore University and grew up as a Muslim in India, to talk about how this change came about and what can be done to save Indian democracy.
"A speech writer in Norway is supposed to be invisible." Kristine Dahl was working as a lawyer for the Norwegian government when she was asked to help write a speech for a government minister, and that's when she discovered a passion and talent for speech writing. Since then, she has written speeches for many ministers and business leaders, and she shares how she approaches a new assignment, tricks of the trade, the democratic function of her profession, and the current state of eloquence and speech writing in Norway.
Cherise Bacalski, an appellate attorney who makes oral arguments at the Utah Supreme Court and Utah Court of Appeals, also took a master's degree with an emphasis in rhetoric. She shares how her education in rhetoric helped her to become a better advocate and the role of ethos and identification in legal argumentation.
Properly understood, the classical image of the tyrant is not a form of government, but rather a disease of the mind. In this episode, Dr. Isaksen revisits a text he wrote in April 2016 describing the classical symptoms of a tyrant and how Trump already then displayed every one of them. It is a modern version of the classical rhetorical exercise "the topos of the tyrant." For more details about the rhetorical exercise, listen to the podcast episode on the topos of the tyrant https://rhetorical-leadership.transistor.fm/4
The original text performed in this podcast is available at http://intelligenceofpersuasion.blogspot.com/2016/04/why-trump-is-tyrant.html
00:00 Trump at CPAC 2023
00:57 Revisiting 2016 predictions
01:27 How freedom died in antiquity
02:57 Those who tried to save it
04:32 The Trumpian peril
05:42 Trump is a classical tyrant
07:16 What Trump could/would do as president
10:22 The vices of the tyrant
11:06 Suspicion
13:02 Arrogance
15:06 Cruelty and savagery
17:00 Immorality and avarice
19:34 Resist tyranny
19:51 Our democratic complacency
21:17 The weakness of our institutions
When Dr. Azamat Junisbai grew up in Qazaqstan, he looked down on those who spoke Russian with an accent. Although he was an ethnic Qazaq born in Qazaqstan, he had absorbed the colonial mindset that Russian language and culture were superior to the Qazaq language and culture. With Russia's attack on Ukraine, many in Qazaqstan are coming to a reckoning with Russian imperialism and its legacy in Eurasia. As a Qazaq sociologist, Dr. Junisbai shares his unique insights into this ideology and the hold it still has on many Russians.
00:00 Introducing Dr. Azamat Junisbai
00:24 Russia's image of its empire
02:16 Growing up in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic
04:22 The end of the Soviet Union
07:55 The diminished status of the Qazaq language
09:30 "How broken and colonized was my mind and language?"
11:00 The Asharshylyk (genocide by hunger)
12:50 Why the Qazaq Genocide is not more widely acknowledged
16:50 Russia as the colonial master
17:50 The endurance of the Empire/Soviet Union in the minds of Russians
19:20 How Russia's attack on Ukraine has accelerated decolonization
23:50 Why Russian imperialists see a weakened Russia as "the end of Russia"
26:50 This is Russia's war, not just Putin's war
29:00 The Leader and the People in Russian Imperialism
32:30 The loss of the Empire
34:12 How the Empire is taught and how it may be unlearned
37:00 The coming reckoning with Russia's imperialism and colonial history
38:30 How the colonial people are dehumanized
40:15 Human life has little value in Russian imperialism
42:30 It is the natural state of an empire to be at war
43:00 "Borders must be drawn with blood"
45:00 Controlling land is seen as the greatest value
46:25 How Putin uses "the Empire" to stay in power
47:34 The contest between the TV and the refrigerator
48:12 Trapped behind the Iron Curtain and within the grasp of the Kremlin
50:24 Russian defeat could mean another Berlin Wall coming down
51:00 Growing post-colonial solidarity between Ukraine and Qazaqstan
52:10 The future of Qazaqstan
Dr. Björn Olsen is a Professor of Infection Medicine at the Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University in Sweden. He was an active participant in the public policy debate where Sweden chose to disregard the advice and recommendations of the global scientific community and pursue a separate strategy that led to many unnecessary deaths. As a critic of the Swedish strategy, Olsen experienced hostility from the media and the Swedish Public Health Authority, and he reflects on the relationship between science, political power, and public policy debates.