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Invincible Ignorance

Invincible Ignorance

Written by: Radio Free Rhinecliff
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 Invincible Ignorance is hosted by David Rieff and Lee Siegel In Catholic theology, "invincible ignorance" means that you cannot be thought to have sinned if you are unaware of the precepts you are sinning against. Ignorance in this case is considered innocence, if not bliss. In our secular appropriation of the concept--we call it "II"--we plead ignorance of the self-evident truth of the various orthodoxies that plague us. Thus we cannot be blamed for affronting them. We mean well. Instead of uniform, block thinking, we will try to follow the thread of truth through dissimilarity. We want, in other words, to have high conversational fun, and this will include ideas, argument, gossip (a form of social history) and the occasional settling of a score. Later, if our luck holds, we will have guests. In the meantime, we hope that II will offer a humanly warm, playful respite, both from the solemn, all-knowing cluelessness of AI, and the roiling gloom of our startling times. David Rieff is the author of eleven books. His work has focused on migration, humanitarian aid, war, and the politics of memory. Since the full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he has divided his time between New York City and Kyiv. Lee Siegel writes about politics and culture. He is a columnist for the New Statesman, the author of seven books, and a recipient of the National Magazine Award. In 2024 and 2025, he was an Open Society Foundations Ideas Workshop Fellow.© 2026
Episodes
  • Normalizing the Unthinkable: Scandal, Authoritarianism & Cultural Collapse

    Normalizing the Unthinkable: Scandal, Authoritarianism & Cultural Collapse
    Feb 19 2026

    In the debut episode of "Invincible Ignorance", hosts David Rieff and Lee Siegel introduce the podcast and explain they're recording without guests after travel plans fell through. They dive into the major stories dominating the moment, including Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, ICE raids, and the broader political climate, making the case that American culture has reached a point of exhaustion where it can normalize and commodify virtually anything, scandal and violence included. Rieff and Siegel question whether Trump is being underestimated, exploring corruption, the specter of creeping authoritarianism, and whether the country's key institutions (military, markets, media, political establishment) would push back or simply adapt should Trump undermine or suspend the midterm elections. The conversation then turns to media and culture, using the death of the Washington Post's Book World section as a symptom of a wider collapse of shared language, middlebrow culture, and literacy. They trace a line from screen-based siloing and what they call "psychic reality" to the institutionalization of loneliness, omnipresent anger, the demand for constant affirmation, the medicalization of criticism, and the reduction of politics to biology and power. AI gets a mention as "outsourcing critical thinking," and they sign off with a promise to keep recording and eventually bring on guests.

    Executive producer Matty Rosenberg
    Edited by Lee Siegel, David Rieff, and Matty Rosenberg
    Additional video editing by Matty Rosenberg and Esther Martel
    Music arrangement and performance by Matt Schreiber

    Email comments@radiofreerhinecliff.org or call 845-307-7446
    This is a production of Radio Free Rhinecliff
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    53 mins
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