We believe the root of politics is friendship and conversation between people aiming at a common good. This is the animating spirit of our conferences. Our approach to dialogue is that both sides speak and listen and learn, setting in motion a constructive feedback mechanism that replaces the security dilemma with creative and constructive possibilities.
Friday, Oct. 7, 2022
The Simone Weil Center’s Symposium on Realism and Legitimacy, recently published in Landmarks, posed two questions. First, is it true that Russia faces a crisis of legitimacy? Second, is it true that the United States’ renunciation of geopolitical realism is connected with a wider cultural divorce from reality?
On Oct. 7, we follow up on that written symposium with this in-person mini-conference.
Seating at this event is strictly limited. Please be sure to RSVP by email to so we can avoid overcrowding or any misunderstandings.
For more information or to RSVP: simoneweilcenter@gmail.com
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Webinar link (YouTube):
About the Event: Marlene Laruelle is one of our leading scholars of the Russian domestic political order, perhaps especially as regards those parts of it that are on the right. Laruelle’s recently published book (see Paul Robinson’s review), does not find the Russian state to be plausibly ‘fascist’, but instead to be ‘illiberal’ or ‘postliberal.’ Far from closing the matter, this leaves open a range of crucial questions. Can a ‘postliberal’ Russia still be compatible with ‘the West’? What kind of Russian regime might, even in principle, be considered ‘legitimate’ from the perspective of those outside Western actors who, for the past decade almost, have appeared hostile to all things Russian? Further, as can be seen from the Russian president’s recent lengthy address at the Valdai Conference, President Vladimir Putin has just recently renewed his embrace not only of the relatively liberal Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev, but also the far more conservative Ivan Ilyin and the Eurasianist Lev Gumilyev. What does this augur for Russia’s relation with the West – and, indeed, for the regime’s relationship with its people and intelligentsia? Does Putin’s recent speech require a rethinking of Laruelle’s conclusions, or, to the contrary, does it confirm them?
TUESDAY, Oct. 5, 2021
“It is the apotheosis of a post-Christian culture that not only refuses to embrace the leper, but that even refuses to embrace those who are perfectly healthy.” -- Fr. Stefano Zamagni
Fr. Stefano Zamagni, an Italian-born Doctor of Theology student at the John Paul II Institute (Catholic University), and a student of both Michael Hanby and David C. Schindler, has written a wide-ranging philosophical-anthropological critique of the ‘technocratic’ approach to resolving the Covid 19 problem. Rather than starting with the quintessentially technocratic question: ‘what can our inventions do to solve this?’ Zamagni starts, instead, by asking: ‘What is most essential to our very humanity?’ and ‘What, understood comprehensively, is human health in the first place?’ To our knowledge, Zamagni’s is the most comprehensive anthropological analysis of the pandemic currently available to us.
An extremely eminent panel of discussants/questioners will contribute their varied perspectives and professional backgrounds to this vitally important topic, a topic on which, it is no exaggeration to say, the fate of human civilization may hinge.
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Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020
12 Noon – 1:15 PM (EST)
Panelists: Marlene Laruelle, James Carden, Anatol Lieven, Boris Mezhuev, Paul Robinson, Richard Sakwa
View on YouTube
Time: Thursday, March 26, 2020 Sign up here to attend
Panel Discussion: 6:30 pm (with a reception beginning at 6:00 p.m.)
Location: Friends Meeting of Washington, 2111 Florida Avenue, NW [short walk from DuPont Circle metro]
Topic: In this Simone Weil Center-sponsored discussion, a distinguished panel of experts consider how -- or whether -- a settlement between the United States and Russia is possible in light of what the two nations most fundamentally ‘are’. In light, that is to say, of their enduring assumptions, institutions, traditions and ideas as embodied in their peculiar histories. In other words, the panel will explore the compatibility of the Russian Idea and the American Idea.
Panel: Paul Robinson (University of Ottawa, author most recently of Russian Conservatism), Marlene Laruelle (George Washington Univ.), Richard Sakwa (University of Kent), George Beebe (Center for the National Interest) with Nicolai Petro and James Carden (Simone Weil Center)
Michael Lind, author of numerous articles and books on economics, politics and international affairs, is the ASU Future of War Fellow at New America in Washington, DC, which he co-founded. The Simone Weil Center invited him to join us in a round table discussion this April (2018) to discuss, among other topics, his concept of bloc politik (see article in The National Interest).
Read full notes from the evening here.
The Simone Weil Center held its second conference. Prof. Paul Robinson convincingly argued that the breakdown in rational dialogue between the US/EU and Russia can be traced, in large part, to differing perceptions as to what constitutes a reasonable (‘rules-bases’) order. The West privileges its own understanding of rights, while Russia insists on realism and equality, and rejects the universality of Western rights-based language. A possible alternative order, one articulated in complementary forms by participants on both sides, might be a modified ‘civilizational realism,’ one that requires from all sides a large dose of humility in order to ensure that respect for differing civilizational orders does not end up becoming a fig leaf for civilizational chauvinism. But achieving such an order, and such a humility, appears to require the sorts of political changes that Prof. Pabst, among others, has termed ‘post-liberal.’
A detailed overview appears in The American Conservative and can be accessed here.
Our first “mini-conference” brought together prominent Western specialists in the areas of international relations, Russian affairs, and political philosophy. It concluded that today’s negative dynamics between the U.S. and Russia are not predetermined, and that an initiative to further a more constructive dynamic was needed, and possible, but would be difficult.
A constructive dynamic can be set in motion by: a.) engaging with well-reasoned, values-based pluralist trends already well represented within Russian elite discourse and institutions; and b.) recognizing that, when push comes to shove, we already share with Russia common religious and civilizational roots, including (but not restricted to) Christianity and Greek antiquity. But it is up to an often reluctant ‘West’ to finally acknowledge this last point. The notes to this conference have been very well received, and are available upon request.
