Thomas Chatterton Williams
American cultural critic and writerWikipedia
45
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14
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13
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Search complete. 45 mentions across 14 episodes found for "Thomas Chatterton Williams".
Oct 29, 2026
Bari WeissSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Does America need more policing? The next one will drop in a day or two from now.
Bari WeissSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
It's what are the France riots really about with Thomas Chatterton Williams? Those are just a few of the things.
Stephanie PalazzoloHOST
Anne Wojcicki founded DNA testing company 23andMe and is now leading its next chapter as a nonprofit research institute after the company's bankruptcy in 2025.
Stephanie PalazzoloHOST
We're going to talk about this next chapter and how AI can unlock new discoveries from genetic data.
Tony DokoupilHOST
All of it happening just six months before France picks a new president.
Tony DokoupilHOST
My guest today is Thomas Chatterton Williams, resident of France and staff writer at The Atlantic.
Tony DokoupilHOST
From the start, he has said that the protests were never really about schools.
Tony DokoupilHOST
He calls it nihilism, anger that no government, however generous, can possibly satisfy.
Tony DokoupilHOST
All of it happening just six months before France picks a new president.
Tony DokoupilHOST
My guest today is Thomas Chatterton Williams, resident of France and staff writer at The Atlantic.
Tony DokoupilHOST
From the start, he has said that the protests were never really about schools.
Tony DokoupilHOST
He calls it nihilism, anger that no government, however generous, can possibly satisfy.
Jonah GoldbergHOST
So I'm going to see him later today.
Jonah GoldbergHOST
But as some of you will recall, Thomas Chatterton Williams was a staff writer at the Atlantic.
Jonah GoldbergHOST
He's also a visiting professor of humanities at Bard College.
Jonah GoldbergHOST
He's some Guggenheim fellow, which apparently comes with all sorts of really cool perks we're not allowed to know about.
Roger BerkowitzGUEST
It's a plurality of people.
Roger BerkowitzGUEST
And that's what both Aristotle and Arendt call the politics of friendship.
Roger BerkowitzGUEST
The crisis of friendship is both intimate and political.
Roger BerkowitzGUEST
We've lost the muscle of being friends with people, especially people who disagree with us.
Andrew YangHOST
It is my pleasure to welcome to the podcast the founder of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, professor of political science, philosophy, and human rights, and author of the brand new book, A World We Share, Hannah Arendt and the Power of Friendship in a Broken World, Roger Berkowitz.
Roger BerkowitzGUEST
Wow, that's great.
Roger BerkowitzGUEST
It's funny, in all the podcasts I've done, no one's asked me that.
Roger BerkowitzGUEST
You know, Andrew, I think we have what Arendt would call the erotic possibility of friendship.
Sarah HepolaHOST
You're a child.
Nancy RommelmannHOST
Can I read you something? So our friend Thomas Chatterton Williams, who I actually, he went and reported for the Atlantic on the situation in Portland.
Nancy RommelmannHOST
I think it was early 2021 or 2022.
Nancy RommelmannHOST
And he said, Nancy, will you meet me there? So I kind of worked as an emissary and we went around and looked at a whole bunch of things.
Jack O'BrienHOST
Jacobin like kind of quoted this article by this guy who sounds like very working class.
Jack O'BrienHOST
Thomas Chatterton Williams.
Jack O'BrienHOST
Oh, Chatterton.
Jack O'BrienHOST
Mr. Chatterton Williams.
Art VandelayHOST
So, in case people have been living under a rock, there's been some crazy shit going on in France, and...
Art VandelayHOST
The best way that I think I could sum it up is to tell you to go read the latest bit of writing from Thomas Chatterton Williams for The Atlantic.
Art VandelayHOST
He has a great article that just came out earlier today, actually, and it's called, "'France will never be enough for the people desecrating it.
Art VandelayHOST
No society, no matter how equal or enlightened, can satisfy nihilists.'" which I think is a very nice little summary.
25 MINS LATER
Art VandelayHOST
And the last thing I would just say, too, is I think sometimes we tend to assume that people are... ideological, especially young people.
Art VandelayHOST
In this case, it sounds like, again, according to French intelligence and some of the reporting that's coming out of there, that a lot of these protesters are young people who were previously not known to law enforcement, who were previously not really engaged at all politically, but who saw an opportunity and took it.
Art VandelayHOST
And that's why Thomas Chatterton Williams mentioned nihilism, right? Because I'll just read this quick little thing here.
Art VandelayHOST
It says the rioters in France are not political actors expressing the quote language of the unheard unquote, but nihilists rebelling against the very idea of a collective national life and whether their stated justification is racism, Islamophobia, neoliberalism, or something else, they are agents of chaos and spite, lashing out against the productive, decent neighbors, perhaps precisely because those neighbors are productive and decent, and so they burn, shatter, and humiliate the symbols of the established order.
Yaron BrookHOST
She is lecturing to the immigrants who are there.
Yaron BrookHOST
Right? Uh, commenting on this exchange, Thomas Chatterton Williams writes, quote, "The most heinous figures to emerge from all this foolishness are the telegenic bourgeois fake militants playing at revolution.
Yaron BrookHOST
Like this girl pretending to have nothing to lose and being properly rebuked by an immigrant who simply wants to work hard and have a business." He continues, "It strains credulity that this is a real person, but it is." Uh, a, a historian, Eric Anceau writes, quote, "Between Lola Fleur, a young bourgeois ideologue who knows nothing of life but lectures everyone, and Jemima, born in the Congo, who lived in ten square meters and became a business owner, no need to tell you my preference." And, uh, uh, this is, this is repeated.
Yaron BrookHOST
So at the Place de la République in Paris, uh, this is, uh, yes- uh, two days ago, filmed, uh...
Noam BlumHOST
...
Noam BlumHOST
there are some, I've seen some posts from people in France or who also live in France, people like Thomas Chatterton Williams and-
Jen MonroeHOST
Mm-hmm
Noam BlumHOST
...
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