Mishra & Alifeel disenchanted by promises of the progress that was supposed to
be delivered by liberal democracy. He traces this phenomenon to the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when communities in Africa and
Asia were crushed under the imperial wheels of Enlightenment. These
ideologies of the elite could not operate, he says, without “intellectual
racketeers,” the thought leaders who subordinate their intellect and
conscience to gain access to power and wealth. Among the current it-
eration of thought leaders, those now shilling for neoliberalism instead
of Enlightenment, he has publicly blasted psychologist and best-selling
author Jordan Peterson, whom he accuses of peddling “right-wing pieties
seductively mythologized for our current lost generations.”
In this exchange, Mishra and I discuss Trump’s America First
isolationism and its consequences for a rising Asia; the rise of right-
wing Hindu nationalism under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi;
Europe’s flirtation with authoritarianism and anti-immigrant hysteria;
and the role of the public intellectual in the face of imperial injustice.
waja hat a li: Trump campaigned on an “America First” platform,
vacating the United States’ role as a global superpower in order to
pursue a nationalist, protectionist, and isolationist vision. China has
stepped up to fill the void; it is still committed to the Iran Deal and
Paris Agreement and has made heavy investments in Africa and Pa-
kistan, not to mention flexing its muscle in the South China Sea and
seeking improved relations with North Korea. Is the axis of power
pivoting to a rising China? A well-known filmmaker who lives in
South Asia once told me, “Yes, America has its many sins, but at least
it has a soul. Imagine what will happen if China or Russia replaces
it.” And here we are.