CEO of Atlas Network. Author of "Liberalism and the Free Society in 2021."

Arlington VA (USA)
Joined May 2008
Friedrich Hayek – The Man Who Gave the Counter-March Its Strategy. Gramsci invented the long march through the institutions. Dutschke gave it its name. They built the infrastructure of the left’s cultural dominance – and it worked. But there was a man on the other side who understood the mechanism just as clearly and built a counter-strategy that produced Thatcher, Reagan, and Milei. His name was Friedrich Hayek. And his strategy is still underused – including in Poland. 1. The key text is not The Road to Serfdom. It is a 1949 essay almost nobody has read: The Intellectuals and Socialism. Why do socialist ideas keep winning politically, even when the evidence against them accumulates? Because you are watching the final stage of a process that began decades earlier. Before any idea reaches parliament, it circulates among academics. From them it passes to the secondhand dealers – the writers, teachers, journalists who translate abstract ideas into the common assumptions of an entire society. By the time the politician acts, the intellectual work is already done. The politician is not the beginning of change. He is its final expression. 2. He called them secondhand dealers in ideas – the most important role in the intellectual supply chain. The academic produces the idea. The secondhand dealer makes it thinkable for millions who will never read the academic paper. If he wrote the essay today he would add influencers, podcasters, and profiles like this one to the list. The mechanism is the same. The distribution is faster. Which is why the counter-march can now move at a speed Hayek could not have imagined. 3. He did not stop at the essay. He built institutions. The Mont Pelerin Society – 1947. The Atlas Network – founded after Hayek explained the way to change society was not to enter politics but to change the intellectual climate first. These institutions spent decades producing ideas considered radical and politically impossible – and then Thatcher happened. Then Reagan. Then Milei. Thatcher said of them: "There were not many of them, not everyone wanted to listen – but they were right, and they saved Great Britain." 4. The difference between the Gramscian left and the Hayekian right is not the strategy. The strategy is the same: change the intellectual climate, move the Overton Window, wait for the political moment when what was previously unthinkable becomes inevitable. The difference is that the left funded it systematically for fifty years. The right understood it in theory and underfunded it in practice – treating independent think tanks as expensive hobbies rather than load-bearing infrastructure for ideas you want to become policy. 5. Both sides understood the mechanism. One funded it properly. The other kept looking for the politician — the next Reagan, the next Milei — without understanding that before each of them there were decades of institutional work that nobody filmed. You cannot skip the intellectual work and go straight to the politician. Someone must produce the ideas. Someone must translate them for millions. Someone must fund the institutions that do both for twenty years, including when the ideas are unfashionable. 6. The series you are reading is the Hayekian strategy running at 2026 speed. The secondhand dealing – civilizational argument translated into the format that reaches millions who will never read Gramsci or Hayek but who recognize the mechanism when they see it named. Musk and Milei repost it because they recognize the intellectual supply chain working in real time. The Overton Window is moving. The counter-march has a distribution platform the left cannot control. 7. Hayek died in 1992, vindicated on everything, implemented insufficiently. And then the tide came back – because the intellectual infrastructure was never built at the scale the long march had built theirs. We are building it now. This series is part of it. The work is not finished. It has barely begun.
Antonio Gramsci – The Most Dangerous Intellectual of the Twentieth Century. Not the most famous. Not the most read. The most dangerous and the most consequential – because he was the one who figured out why the revolution kept failing, and what to do instead. The man who invented the long march through the institutions. Everything that followed — the Frankfurt School, the Fabian Society’s operational model, the WEF formation pipeline, the captured university, the HR department enforcing approved speech — is downstream of what he wrote in a prison cell in Mussolini’s Italy, in code, between 1929 and 1935. 1. His central question: why hasn’t it happened? The working class was supposed to rise. The contradictions of capitalism were supposed to produce the revolution. They hadn’t – not in the West. Gramsci’s answer was precise and devastating: because the ruling class does not maintain power through force alone. It maintains power through cultural hegemony – the control of the ideas, values, and frameworks through which people understand the world. The worker who accepts that the existing order is simply how things are will not revolt, regardless of his material conditions. The revolution requires cultural change first. 2. The instrument was the long march through the institutions. Not the barricade. The school, the university, the media, the judiciary, the civil service, the cultural establishment – every institution through which a civilization transmits its values to the next generation. Capture these, fill them with people who share the counter-hegemonic project, and the cultural assumptions that maintain the existing order gradually dissolve. No barricades. No visible moment of rupture. Just the slow replacement of one cultural hegemony with another. 3. The educational capture was the masterpiece. Control the curriculum and you control the categories of thought available to the next generation. Not by telling them what to conclude – by shaping what questions they think to ask, what they consider obvious and what they consider unthinkable. The generation educated after the long march does not need to be told what to think. It thinks what it was formed to think – and experiences that thinking as its own. 4. He also theorized the organic intellectual – the person who translates the theoretical framework into stories and assumptions that circulate through the culture without appearing ideological. The film that makes the existing order seem absurd. The journalist who frames every story within the approved assumptions. Gramsci understood that culture is politics by other means – and that the side that controls the culture wins, regardless of who wins the elections. 5. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is a published, documented, widely taught strategy that the left implemented consciously across the entire Western world. The 1968 generation put it into practice in the universities. They became the professors, the journalists, the civil servants, the judges, the HR directors of the decades that followed. The march took fifty years. It worked. 6. Mussolini’s prosecutor said at his trial: "We must stop this brain from functioning for twenty years." The brain did not stop. It produced thirty-three notebooks – smuggled out, published, and became the most widely read Marxist text in the Western academy after Marx himself. Gramsci died in 1937, six days after his release, at forty-six. He did not see the march he theorized. He did not need to. 7. Every captured institution, every transformed curriculum, every HR department enforcing approved speech, every content moderation policy suppressing the unauthorized voice – all running the program Antonio Gramsci designed in a prison cell, by a brain that was supposed to have been stopped. It wasn’t. And neither was the march. Until now – because the distribution monopoly that made its outcomes enforceable is cracking. The counter-march has begun. It just doesn’t have a name yet.
157
1,503
153
4,687
262,526
Brad Lips retweeted
Howard Zinn built his career on a single premise: that American capitalism is a machine designed to crush the poor, and that the state is the only force capable of stopping it. That premise is backwards. Zinn's 1980 book "A People's History of the United States" sold over two million copies and became standard reading in universities across the country. It frames every strike, every labor dispute, every economic conflict as a story of workers crushed by capitalist greed. What it never does is trace the actual source of that power back to the state itself. The railroad barons Zinn despises? They extracted their wealth through federal land grants and government-backed monopoly charters, not through free exchange. The company towns he condemns? They existed because state licensing and zoning locked workers out of alternatives. Every villain in Zinn's story wielded political privilege, not market competition. Concentrated corporate power requires state protection to survive. Remove the protection, and competitors flood in. Zinn never engaged with that argument, because engaging with it destroys his entire thesis. You are left with a historian who correctly identifies that ordinary people suffered, then blames the wrong institution. He hands you the problem and then hands you more government as the solution, which is exactly like handing an arsonist the fire hose. Generations of students absorbed Zinn's framework and walked away believing capitalism causes poverty rather than understanding that political privilege does. That confusion has real costs. It produces voters who demand expansions of the very state apparatus that generated the exploitation Zinn claimed to oppose.
89
326
55
1,070
70,083
Congratulations to the 2026 Templeton Freedom Award finalists: đŸ‡§đŸ‡· Instituto Liberal de SĂŁo Paulo 🇼🇳 Centre for Civil Society đŸ‡ŠđŸ‡· FundaciĂłn Libertad y Progreso đŸ‡ș🇾 Liberty Justice Center đŸ‡ș🇾 The Buckeye Institute đŸ‡±đŸ‡č Lithuanian Free Market Institute Economic freedom reforms have reached jurisdictions representing 129.5 million Brazilians. Hundreds of obsolete laws have been identified and repealed in India. Seventy-four deregulation proposals have become policy in Argentina. More than 1,000 American small businesses have received help navigating tariff refunds. Ohio families will avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in costly energy subsidies. And approximately 90,000 Lithuanian students are learning how to become active participants in a free society. This is why the Templeton Freedom Award matters. Transformative work often happens quietly. Long before a victory makes the news, local leaders have spent years researching, persuading, building coalitions, and returning to the table after being told no. The award says: this work matters. These leaders deserve to be seen. And these victories should not stop at the borders where they began. Meet the finalists and read the stories behind their work: hubs.la/Q04tqfDN0 Then join us in New York City on November 12 👇 (Link in the comments) #LibertyForum #FreedomDinner
1
6
1
15
1,389
a #chicagobears history lesson to start your day. MC PD makes a convincing argument about which NFL team was the greatest of all time. Check out his new YouTube channel (link in the comments) #BearDown #85Bears #NFL
4
82
Meet the finalists for the 2026 Africa Smart Bets competition! 🇳🇬 Free Future Foundation is building local accountability through civic leadership. đŸ‡šđŸ‡© SADI is empowering women through entrepreneurship and advocacy. đŸ‡ș🇬 Malkia Africa is expanding women's voices in public policy through its HER Voice platform. One winner will have the chance to compete at Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner in NYC. Who will represent Africa on the global stage in November? Learn more about their projects: hubs.la/Q04rp03v0
4
1
3
522
RT @DanLips: In August 2020, we warned that prolonged school closures were unnecessary and would cause long term on the nation's student, a

This quoted post is unavailable.
1
3
“Freedom is not a museum artifact; it’s a muscle.” —Álvaro Salas-Castro, last year’s Toast to Freedom. Ten years earlier, he pitched a startup think tank on that same stage. Atlas Network helped train him, funded him, and connected him to peers in 100+ countries. Today, he leads the Reynolds Foundation and funds the same kind of work that once funded him. That’s the return on your investment as a supporter: the next Álvaro could be seated next to you. Freedom Dinner is where you can meet liberty champions from 60+ countries who exercise that freedom muscle daily. Join us November 12. Cipriani 42nd Street, NYC. hubs.ly/Q04qLw7m0
1
3
7
522
As America marks the Declaration's 250th anniversary, it's worth remembering the ideas in it were never confined to one country. 📜 We Hold These Truths: The Global Quest for Liberty, a documentary by our friends at Free to Choose Network featuring Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, explores how those principles took hold across generations and continents. We wish you and your loved ones a wonderful Independence Day. Watch here 👇hubs.la/Q04nxsFQ0
1
2
6
502
When Apple Daily was shut down in Hong Kong, Simon Lee didn’t stop fighting for freedom. The former columnist and think tank leader says Think Tank 360 helped him strengthen his organization’s strategy. Applications are now open for Think Tank 360 (Oct. 12–13, Tysons, VA). Applications close August 21.
2
2
473
Good ideas need strong institutions behind them. After Greece’s 2009 financial crisis, Nicos Rompapas devoted himself to KEFiM — now one of Greece’s most influential think tanks. In Freedom’s Champion, he shares how Atlas Network helped KEFiM build capacity for lasting impact. hubs.la/Q04lgGL80
5
9
476
When Faisal Saeed Al Mutar arrived in the United States from Iraq, one of the first questions people asked him was: "What do you think about the Iraq War?" His answer was always the same: "It's complicated." Growing up, Faisal lived under Saddam Hussein's regime. After the regime fell, his neighborhood became a center of Al Qaeda activity during Iraq's civil conflict. Like many Iraqis, he experienced firsthand how authoritarianism, extremism, and instability can shape a society. But he also saw something many people in the West miss. The Middle East is not one story. It is not only conflict. It is not only extremism. It is not only authoritarianism. Across the region, entrepreneurs are building businesses. Reformers are challenging the status quo. Educators are expanding access to knowledge. Citizens are working to create freer and more prosperous societies. That belief led Faisal to found Ideas Beyond Borders, an Atlas Network partner dedicated to expanding access to the ideas of freedom, entrepreneurship, scientific inquiry, and open debate throughout the Middle East. It also inspired Middle East Uncovered, a project devoted to telling the stories that rarely make Western headlines—and challenging the idea that a region of hundreds of millions of people can be understood through a single narrative. In this episode of the Atlas Network Podcast, Faisal challenges the assumption that the future of the Middle East has already been written. "The Middle East's future is not predetermined." It's a powerful reminder that societies are not trapped by their past, cultures are not fixed, and the stories we tell can shape the possibilities we see for the future. 🎧 Listen to Faisal's full conversation on the Atlas Network Podcast. f.mtr.cool/wzlooghxjy
2
5
266
After attending Leader Lab last year, Rafael Moredo of Livres brought what he learned back to his team in Brazil. “Since Leader Lab, I established some regular feedback meetings with my team,” Rafael shared. “Each month, we sit together, and I use what I learned to help them develop the best skills.” Those leadership lessons became especially important when Rafael stepped into a larger challenge: coordinating the creation of Livres’ public policy handbook. “For the first time, I had to coordinate the creation of our public policy handbook. It’s a very large project, and I had to talk to stakeholders and manage a large team, so what I learned was very helpful. I think we did a great job.” Leader Lab equips rising managers in the freedom movement with practical tools to lead teams, manage complexity, and turn ideas into action. Are you an aspiring leader or manager in your organization looking to strengthen your leadership skills? Applications for Leader Lab close June 6. Learn more and apply at hubs.la/Q04jZvBP0
3
9
299
For more than three decades, Rocío Guijarro has led the Venezuelan free-market think tank CEDICE Libertad through one of the most challenging periods in Venezuela’s history—defending individual liberty, property rights, and free markets when many independent institutions were silenced, dismantled, or forced into exile. Today, we are proud to announce that Rocío will receive Atlas Network’s 2026 Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award, our highest recognition for lifetime service to the cause of liberty. As Venezuela’s most enduring voice for freedom, CEDICE Libertad never stopped teaching, publishing, convening, and advancing the ideas that make a freer future possible. This award recognizes not only Rocío’s extraordinary leadership, but also a lifetime spent mentoring the next generation of freedom champions across Latin America and beyond. Rocío Guijarro will be presented with the Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award at Freedom Dinner on November 12 at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City. Please join us in congratulating Rocío Guijarro on this well-deserved honor. Read the announcement: hubs.la/Q04jqrjs0
21
100
36
248
59,870
Freedom Research Association has been named the winner of the 2026 Europe Liberty Award 🏆 At a time when democratic institutions in Turkey face mounting pressure, Freedom Research Association has become one of the country’s leading independent voices defending the rule of law, constitutional government, and liberal reform. Through its Promoting Structural Reforms in Turkey initiative, the organization has spent six years building one of the country’s most comprehensive roadmaps for institutional accountability and structural reform—shaping parliamentary debate, informing legislative proposals, and preserving space for principled advocacy in an increasingly difficult environment. This recognition reflects more than a single achievement. It represents the long-term work of courageous leaders willing to defend the institutions of a free society through serious research, public engagement, and principled persistence. Through Atlas Network’s Coach, Compete, Celebrate!¼ model, we help freedom champions strengthen their leadership, pursue ambitious reforms, and inspire others across the worldwide freedom movement. Learn more: hubs.la/Q04j5_s40
2
1
5
413
đŸŽ™ïž We’re delighted to attend the Europe Liberty Forum organized by @AtlasNetwork in Berlin. Honored to be selected as finalists for the Europe Liberty Award 2026 and to present our initiatives to cut red tape in urban planning and clean energy deployment, accelerate innovation, and unlock economic growth.
1
10
10
1,197
Brad Lips retweeted
NiccolĂČ Machiavelli writing on AI and data centers in 1532 😄
12
44
8
248
139,968
Three rising organizations. Three bold ideas. One Smart Bets Pitch Competition in Berlin. At Europe Liberty Forum 2026, these organizations will compete in Atlas Network’s Smart Bets Pitch Competition — an accelerator program supporting high-potential freedom champions with funding, mentorship, and long-term strategic support. Meet this year’s Europe competitors: đŸ‡čđŸ‡· 1984 Association (Turkey) As democratic norms erode and polarization deepens in Turkey, 1984 Association is rebuilding the space for rational public debate. Through independent media, civic education, and leadership development, they are equipping a new generation of public intellectuals to strengthen democratic resilience and expand thoughtful public discourse. 🇩đŸ‡č INPEA (Austria) INPEA is strengthening civic education, independent analysis, and intellectual exchange for communities navigating censorship, fragmentation, and political pressure. Their work helps preserve the skills, networks, and ideas that free societies depend on. đŸ‡©đŸ‡° Alliance of Democracies Foundation (Denmark) At a time when authoritarian governments are increasingly coordinated, Alliance of Democracies is convening global leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and activists to strengthen democratic cooperation and defend freedom around the world through initiatives like the Copenhagen Democracy Summit. Why does Smart Bets matter? Because the future of freedom depends on identifying courageous organizations early — before they become globally recognized institutions. Smart Bets helps emerging organizations scale their impact through grants, mentorship, visibility, and strategic support. These finalists are tackling some of the world’s toughest challenges: democratic decline, censorship, disinformation, polarization, and institutional distrust. This is an opportunity to support organizations while they are still in high-growth stages — when catalytic investment can dramatically accelerate long-term impact. Who are you placing your bet on? 👀 Let us know below 👇
4
4
696
Brad Lips retweeted
How it is supposed to be
James Madison described the powers of the federal government as “few and defined” and those reserved to the states as “numerous and indefinite.” We’ve been dangerously drifting from that understanding since the 1930s. The drift has been most evident in areas now most fraught with waste, fraud, and abuse. If we honored the Constitution’s limits on federal power, there’d be very little waste, fraud, and abuse in our national government. Share if you’d like to see a “constitutional reset,” in which any government function that’s not obviously and necessarily federal under the Constitution would be returned “to the states respectively, or to the people,” as the Tenth Amendment specifies.
3,520
14,406
361
80,432
7,001,367
Brad Lips retweeted
Aujourd'hui je dĂ©construis la dĂ©construction. La dĂ©construction est le virus mental le plus efficace jamais conçu contre une civilisation. Il a Ă©tĂ© fabriquĂ© en France entre 1966 et 1980 par trois hommes : Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze. Il a Ă©tĂ© exportĂ© aux États-Unis, hybridĂ© avec le puritanisme racial amĂ©ricain, et il est revenu trente ans plus tard sous le nom de wokisme paralyser l'Occident entier. Voici comment il fonctionne, et pourquoi il faut le dĂ©truire. La thĂšse est simple. Toute vĂ©ritĂ© n'est qu'un rapport de pouvoir dĂ©guisĂ©. Tout texte sacrĂ©, toute loi, toute science, toute norme, toute hiĂ©rarchie, toute identitĂ©, toute institution cache en rĂ©alitĂ© une domination. DĂ©construire, c'est montrer le rapport de force sous le vernis du vrai. C'est arracher le masque. C'est "dĂ©masquer". FormulĂ© comme ça, ça paraĂźt inoffensif. Voire utile. Qui n'aime pas un peu d'esprit critique ? Le piĂšge est lĂ . La dĂ©construction se prĂ©sente comme une mĂ©thode. Elle est en rĂ©alitĂ© une ontologie. Elle ne dit pas seulement "interrogeons les normes", elle dit "il n'y a *que* des rapports de pouvoir". La diffĂ©rence est civilisationnelle. Une sociĂ©tĂ© qui interroge ses normes reste debout. Une sociĂ©tĂ© qui croit que ses normes ne sont *rien d'autre* que de la domination s'effondre. Parce qu'elle ne peut plus rien dĂ©fendre. Plus une frontiĂšre, plus une loi, plus une science, plus une langue, plus une histoire, plus une biologie, plus une famille. Tout devient suspect. Tout devient nĂ©gociable. Tout devient "construit donc dĂ©constructible". C'est la premiĂšre raison pour laquelle c'est un virus. Il s'auto-rĂ©plique. Une fois inoculĂ©, il transforme tout ce qu'il touche en cible. La science est patriarcale, donc dĂ©construisons-la. Le langage est colonial, donc rĂ©inventons-le. La mĂ©ritocratie est raciste, donc abolissons-la. Le sexe est une construction, donc choisissons-le. Il n'y a plus de roc. Tout est sable. DeuxiĂšme raison. Le virus est *non-falsifiable*. Si vous dĂ©fendez une norme, c'est que vous ĂȘtes l'oppresseur. Si vous niez ĂȘtre oppresseur, c'est la preuve de votre privilĂšge inconscient. Si vous citez des faits, vos faits sont contaminĂ©s par le pouvoir qui les a produits. Si vous citez la raison, la raison elle-mĂȘme est blanche, masculine, occidentale. Il n'y a aucune sortie possible. Le systĂšme est conçu pour rendre toute objection irrecevable par dĂ©finition. C'est exactement la structure d'une secte. Et c'est exactement ce qui s'est installĂ© dans les universitĂ©s, les RH, les mĂ©dias, les administrations, les conseils d'administration depuis vingt ans. TroisiĂšme raison. Le virus s'auto-rĂ©fute mais ne s'auto-dĂ©truit pas. Si toute vĂ©ritĂ© est pouvoir, alors la phrase "toute vĂ©ritĂ© est pouvoir" est elle-mĂȘme du pouvoir, donc sans valeur. Logiquement, la dĂ©construction se mord la queue dĂšs la premiĂšre phrase. Mais elle s'en moque. Parce qu'elle n'a jamais cherchĂ© la cohĂ©rence. Elle cherche l'efficacitĂ© politique. Et son efficacitĂ© politique est immense. Elle dĂ©sarme ses ennemis et arme ses militants. Elle paralyse le dĂ©fenseur et libĂšre l'attaquant. C'est une arme asymĂ©trique parfaite. QuatriĂšme raison. Le virus produit des humains diminuĂ©s. Une gĂ©nĂ©ration entiĂšre a appris Ă  dĂ©construire et n'a jamais appris Ă  construire. Elle sait soupçonner, jamais admirer. Elle voit le pouvoir partout et la beautĂ© nulle part. Elle peut produire mille pages sur le caractĂšre opprimant de Shakespeare et zĂ©ro ligne qui vaille la peine d'ĂȘtre lue dans cent ans. Elle a confondu l'intelligence critique avec la pose critique. Elle est stĂ©rile par construction. Un esprit nourri Ă  la dĂ©construction est un esprit qui ne sait plus rien Ă©difier. CinquiĂšme raison, la plus grave. Une civilisation se tient debout sur trois piliers. La croyance qu'une vĂ©ritĂ© est accessible Ă  la raison. La croyance qu'un bien se distingue d'un mal. La croyance qu'un hĂ©ritage mĂ©rite d'ĂȘtre transmis. La dĂ©construction a mĂ©thodiquement dynamitĂ© les trois. Pas par mĂ©chancetĂ©. Par jeu intellectuel, par fascination du soupçon, par haine de la bourgeoisie qui avait nourri ses prophĂštes. Mais le rĂ©sultat est lĂ . Une civilisation qui ne croit plus en sa vĂ©ritĂ©, ni en son bien, ni en son hĂ©ritage ne se dĂ©fend pas. Elle s'excuse en attendant la fin. VoilĂ  ce qu'on a fait. VoilĂ  ce qu'il faut nommer. La bonne nouvelle, c'est qu'un virus mental ne survit que tant qu'on lui cĂšde l'autoritĂ© du discours. Il meurt dĂšs qu'on cesse de jouer son jeu. DĂšs qu'on rĂ©affirme tranquillement qu'il existe une vĂ©ritĂ©, un beau, un bien, un hĂ©ritage. DĂšs qu'on cesse de demander la permission aux dĂ©constructeurs pour bĂątir. DĂšs qu'on refait. DĂšs qu'on transmet. DĂšs qu'on crĂ©e. Les bĂątisseurs ont toujours le dernier mot sur les commentateurs. Toujours. Parce qu'Ă  la fin il reste ce qui est construit, et rien de ce qui a Ă©tĂ© dĂ©construit. Alors aujourd'hui je dĂ©construis la dĂ©construction. Et demain je construis.
Je veux prĂ©senter mes excuses, au nom des Français, pour avoir enfantĂ© la French Theory (qui a enfantĂ© la pire des merdes idĂ©ologiques : le wokisme). Nous avons donnĂ© au monde Descartes, Pascal, Tocqueville. Et puis, dans les ruines intellectuelles de l'aprĂšs-68, nous avons donnĂ© Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze. Trois hommes brillants qui ont fabriquĂ©, dans l'Ă©lĂ©gance de notre langue, l'arme idĂ©ologique qui paralyse aujourd'hui l'Occident. Il faut comprendre ce qu'ils ont fait. Foucault a enseignĂ© que la vĂ©ritĂ© n'existe pas, qu'il n'y a que des rapports de pouvoir dĂ©guisĂ©s en savoir. Que la science, la raison, la justice, l'institution mĂ©dicale, l'Ă©cole, la prison, la sexualitĂ©, tout n'est qu'une mise en scĂšne de la domination. Derrida a enseignĂ© que les textes n'ont pas de sens stable, que tout signifiant glisse, que toute lecture est une trahison, que l'auteur est mort et que le lecteur rĂšgne. Deleuze a enseignĂ© qu'il fallait prĂ©fĂ©rer le rhizome Ă  l'arbre, le nomade au sĂ©dentaire, le dĂ©sir Ă  la loi, le devenir Ă  l'ĂȘtre, la diffĂ©rence Ă  l'identitĂ©. Pris isolĂ©ment, ce sont des thĂšses discutables. CombinĂ©es, exportĂ©es, vulgarisĂ©es, elles forment un systĂšme. Et ce systĂšme est un poison. Car voici ce qui s'est passĂ©. Ces textes, illisibles en France, ont traversĂ© l'Atlantique. Les dĂ©partements de Yale, de Berkeley, de Columbia les ont absorbĂ©s dans les annĂ©es 80. Ils y ont trouvĂ© un terreau qui n'existait pas chez nous : le puritanisme amĂ©ricain, sa culpabilitĂ© raciale, son obsession identitaire. La French Theory s'est mariĂ©e Ă  ce substrat, et l'enfant de ce mariage s'appelle le wokisme. Judith Butler lit Foucault et invente le genre performatif. Edward Said lit Foucault et invente le post-colonialisme acadĂ©mique. KimberlĂ© Crenshaw hĂ©rite du cadre et invente l'intersectionnalitĂ©. À chaque Ă©tape, la matrice est française : il n'y a pas de vĂ©ritĂ©, il n'y a que du pouvoir, donc toute hiĂ©rarchie est suspecte, toute institution est oppressive, toute norme est violence, toute identitĂ© est construite donc nĂ©gociable, toute majoritĂ© est coupable. VoilĂ  comment trois philosophes parisiens, qui n'ont probablement jamais imaginĂ© leurs consĂ©quences pratiques, ont fourni le logiciel d'exploitation Ă  une gĂ©nĂ©ration entiĂšre d'activistes, de bureaucrates universitaires, de DRH, de journalistes, de lĂ©gislateurs. VoilĂ  comment on a obtenu une civilisation qui ne sait plus dire si une femme est une femme, si sa propre histoire mĂ©rite d'ĂȘtre dĂ©fendue, si le mĂ©rite existe, si la vĂ©ritĂ© se distingue de l'opinion. C'est de la merde pour une raison simple, et il faut la dire calmement. Une civilisation se tient debout sur trois piliers : la croyance qu'il existe une vĂ©ritĂ© accessible Ă  la raison, la croyance qu'il existe un bien distinct du mal, la croyance qu'il existe un hĂ©ritage Ă  transmettre. La French Theory a entrepris de dynamiter les trois. Pas par mĂ©chancetĂ©. Par jeu intellectuel, par fascination du soupçon, par haine de la bourgeoisie qui les avait nourris. Mais le rĂ©sultat est lĂ . Une gĂ©nĂ©ration entiĂšre a appris Ă  dĂ©construire et n'a jamais appris Ă  construire. Une gĂ©nĂ©ration entiĂšre sait soupçonner et ne sait plus admirer. Une gĂ©nĂ©ration entiĂšre voit le pouvoir partout et la beautĂ© nulle part. Je m'excuse parce que nous, Français, avons une responsabilitĂ© particuliĂšre. C'est notre langue, nos universitĂ©s, nos Ă©diteurs, notre prestige qui ont donnĂ© Ă  ce nihilisme son emballage chic. Sans la lĂ©gitimitĂ© de la Sorbonne et de Vincennes, ces idĂ©es n'auraient jamais traversĂ© l'ocĂ©an. Nous avons exportĂ© le doute comme d'autres exportent des armes. Ce qui se construit maintenant, en silicon valley, dans les labos d'IA, dans les startups, dans les ateliers, dans tous les lieux oĂč des gens fabriquent encore des choses au lieu de les dĂ©construire, c'est la rĂ©ponse. Une civilisation se reconstruit par les bĂątisseurs, pas par les commentateurs. Par ceux qui croient que la vĂ©ritĂ© existe et qu'elle vaut qu'on s'y consacre. Par ceux qui assument une hiĂ©rarchie du beau, du vrai, du bon, et qui n'ont pas honte de la transmettre. Alors pardon. Et au travail.
913
5,122
732
17,666
4,930,061
Ukraine’s future won’t just be rebuilt with roads and buildings. It will be rebuilt by young people who understand responsibility, opportunity, and economic freedom. That’s why Atlas Network partner Bendukidze Free Market Center is training educators, reaching thousands of students, and bringing engaging economic education into classrooms across Ukraine — even during war. Their programs have already: ‱ Reached more than 100,000 students ‱ Distributed over 50,000 economics textbooks ‱ Trained hundreds of teachers ‱ Expanded economic education opportunities across Ukraine As Nataliya Melnyk says: “Children are only 20% of the population, but they are 100% of our future.” Atlas Network supports courageous leaders building freer, more prosperous societies — one student at a time. Learn more about Nataliya, Bendukidze Free Market Center’s work and listen to the full episode — at f.mtr.cool/ijdrvidkxq
2
1
4
577