The Dishcast · Andrew Sullivan

George Packer On Our Post-Liberal World

December 5, 2025·54 min·4 clips

Packer's father, a liberal man, committed suicide after being assaulted by extremists from the right and left, shaping Packer's worldview.

The cold open feels unusually exposed. The host sets the episode in the gloomy winter of 2025, with spirits low, Truman close by, and the show itself needing support. The subscription pitch comes first, along with a quick look at coming conversations on America abroad, narcissism in politicians, the right, trade, and happiness. It sounds less like housekeeping than a host taking inventory before getting to the hard part. Then the excerpt tightens around Orwell. The guest talks about a writer who can offend what a reader holds dear and still keep that reader's trust. Orwell's biases against Jews, gays, women, and Catholics are named plainly. The guest does not excuse them, but he also cannot throw Orwell away, because the sincerity on the page still feels alive. The host keeps pressing on that difference. Agreement is beside the point. What matters is the moment a mind begins to open under pressure from an honest voice. Shooting an Elephant becomes the example. For the guest, its force comes from Orwell seeing the human being from more than one angle at once. The host calls that Christian, then admits Orwell would have rejected the word, just as Hitchens would have. Hitchens becomes the foil: brilliant, beloved, and often performing the win. Orwell feels stranger and deeper because the fight is inside him. When nonfiction runs out of room, the conversation says, fiction gives him another way in. The early novels get treated with real tenderness, as argument, memory, and a felt England all at once.

As heard by us

A literary Dishcast turn through Orwell, Hitchens, sincerity, and the temperament behind political judgment.

The Dishcast brings George Packer into a bleak winter setting and, at least in this stretch, turns less on programmatic post-liberal argument than on the moral habits of writers.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want a winter-evening conversation about Orwell, Hitchens, and how sincerity can open a mind.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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