Ep. 60: Gary Dorrien on Morality, Rights, and American Democratic Socialism

In this episode, Luke talks with Gary Dorrien, the author of many books, including The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture, and the War of Ideology (1993), Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel (2019), and American Democratic Socialism: History, Politics, Religion, and Theory (2021), which Gary discussed in DSA’s Democratic Left. His forthcoming book is Subjects of Justice: Christian Social Ethics, Anti-Domination, Usable Pasts, and Social Democracy.Gary touches on many topics, including the democratic socialist vision of a society in which “the economy and government are democratically self-determined, no group dominates any other, and every citizen is free, equal, and included”; the importance of the demand for a universal and equal vote; the role of ethics and “rights talk” within socialism; neoconservatism and liberation theology as “polar-opposite reactions to the tumult and trauma of the 1960s”; Bernie Sanders and Martin Luther King Jr; and the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.