The inevitability of tragedy

We usually don't use the titles of books as podcast titles, but in this case, during this week in Washington DC, it is sadly quite apt. Before introducing this week's author, Bob shares his thoughts on the tragic events following the killing of George Floyd followed by the ensuing protests, riots, and crackdowns. As the United States experiences a challenge to its stability not felt in generations, we're very fortunate to have Barry Gewen, an author and New York Times journalist who has spent the past eight years writing the authoritative biography on Henry Kissinger. Gewen brings invaluable insights about Kissinger's life and sensibility as a thinker, explores questions of power and morality, and how abstract notions of democracy and justice were seen as relatively meaningless in the absence of power as Kissinger reshaped the world in his role as Secretary of State from 1973-1977. "Kissinger always refused to wear a little flag pin in his lapel," Gewen says in the interview. "What I take from that is that it reminded him of an enforced patriotism, a kind of denial of individual freedom. He was very sensitive to the ways in which democracy can, through the tyrannical majority, can impose itself on minorities and all people who dissented from that majoritarian view."