The Politics of the Real with D. C. Schindler

We are happy to announce the next issue of New Polity Magazine, dedicated specifically to Artificial Intelligence! Featuring essays by Matthew Crawford, Slavoj Žižek, D. C. Schindler, Michael Hanby, Andrew Willard Jones, and many more. Subscribe by October 1st to receive this issue! https://newpolity.com/magazine. Alex Denley and Marc Barnes discuss the Christian response to AI, how to safeguard human freedom, and AI as a new industrial revolution.

In this podcast, Alex Denley and Professor Rocco Buttiglione discuss the problem of globalization, mass migration, and populism. Post-war globalization brought a great increase in international trade, cooperation, technical and educational development, and cultural sharing. However, with open trade came the loss of manufacturing and industry in the West, and the emptying of the working class. Along with mass migration, the people grew to resent their global elite. Professor Buttiglione discusses the Church's response to globalization, and the need for a new elite who care for the people.

Liberalism is on the defensive. Political discussion is shifting from “what’s wrong with liberalism” to “what’s true about politics”—to the question of what exactly must displace liberalism. In The Politics of the Real, D. C. Schindler takes us to the definitive metaphysical roots of liberal politics: the modern reversal of the priority of act over potency; the modern privileging of empty possibility over flourishing perfection. In this podcast, Michael Boland and D. C. Schindler discuss liberalism, and how we can build a politics of the real.

The development and use of AI chatbots has grown massively. With hundreds of millions of users, OpenAI, XAI, Claude AI, and others have become a normal part of many people's day. Some Christians have an uneasy attitude toward the use of AI Chatbots, while others are supportive and have developed their own. In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Alex Denley discuss the moral question: whether Christians should use AI chatbots, and the ramifications that it has on human nature.

Professor Rocco Buttiglione and Dr. Andrew Willard Jones discuss the rise of nationalism and populism both in Europe and America. What is the proper Catholic understanding of the peoples and nations? How should we navigate a global economic order within modern nation-states? They discuss how the Church has responded to this situation, and how the theology of the peoples can provide an answer.

D. C. Schindler argues that the loss of authority is the greatest of all human crises. When Nietzsche speaks of the death of God, which will lead to calamities, Schindler sees the great loss of authority. Liberalism's dismantling of any authority in favor of the sovereign individual has lead to the collapse of social order and the pursuit of a genuinely common good. In this podcast with Andrew Willard Jones, D. C. Schindler discusses authority and how it can be recovered.

We live in a disillusioned political age, one where old liberal arguments no longer have hold. Conservatism has moved into a right-wing politics which no longer sees the value of Christianity. Lost in an ostensibly equal mass, individuals have experienced a loss of identity. New developments in technology, and especially AI, present an existential threat to human agency. In our time (2025) and place (America), we need the social doctrine of the Church.

In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Reuben Slife discuss the latest New Polity magazine, Issue 6.1, and specifically the translation of Alberto Methol Ferré's striking essay "The Church, People Among the Peoples." Is the Church a visible people, or a people among the peoples? How does the Church overcome oppositions, universal-particular?

In this podcast, Reuben Slife interviews Rocco Buttiglione about his life and work. Buttiglione was promised by Luigi Guissani, the founder of Communion and Liberation, that a Christian life will never be boring; taking this wager, he discusses his studies with Augusto Del Noce, his early encounters in Poland with Karol Wojtyła, his appointment to the European Union and time as Italian Minister of European Affairs, and the beginning of his friendship with Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina.

In honor of the new Pope Leo XIV, and in celebration of the 134th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Alex Denley and Andrew Willard Jones discuss the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII and the birth of modern Catholic Social Teaching.