The HBS hosts wrestle with Fukuyama’s “Why National Identity Matters.”

In this episode, we will focus on questions of national identity. In the U.S., the contemporary political moment is riven with competing ideas of what the United States is or are. These ideas are based in various ways of knowing including ideological, political, racial, and generational. Using Francis Fukuyama’s essay “Why National Identity Matters” we will explore fundamental questions regarding the origins of national identity, its definition, its mechanisms, and how these elements track through a contemporary lens.

This episode includes discussions of the following works, thinkers, creators, things, and ideas:

• The removal of several math textbooks because they teach or promote Critical Race theory and other “objectionable” concepts.
• Hampline Brewing in Memphis, TN.
• Anita Bryant and the podcast One Year from Slate.
• The history of Sweden, South Korea, and Denmark in relation to national identity.
• Francis Fukuyama’s essay “Why National Identity Matters.”
• Carl von Calusewitz, On War, vol. 1 Chapter 1 on “war is a continuation of politics by other means.”
• The history and meaning of “identity politics.”
• Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended.
• Joseph Heller, Catch-22.
• Jacques Derrida on the aporia of the nation-state.
• Fanny Lou Hamer. And The Speeches of Fanny Lou Hamer.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “The Beloved Community.”
• Pierre Manet, An Intellectual History of Liberalism.
• Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History.”
• Jacques Derrida on democracy as autoimmune in Rogues.