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book. The admin problem? Call 1-800 gambler. Well,

1:03

I wanted to have you guys on to

1:05

talk because I respect both of you and your

1:07

work and I know that Rod, you have

1:09

had an impact on Dave's

1:11

conversion to faith on some

1:14

level. Definitely, yeah. Dave, your

1:16

faith is at the core

1:18

of everything that you do

1:20

and you're very active and

1:22

online. You guys are both

1:25

very, have overlapping discourses in

1:27

like the right wing kind

1:29

of sphere. So I wanted

1:31

to get you guys together

1:33

to talk about faith and then

1:35

how that informs worldview, Maybe you

1:38

guys can get into a fight,

1:40

but we have to. Yeah. Well,

1:42

yeah, do you want us to

1:44

give introductions or? Yeah, sure. Do you want

1:47

to do that? I can do it. Okay.

1:49

Go for it. Okay. Do you want me

1:51

to see it? So, yeah, we're not

1:53

streaming, so I can put it in unless

1:55

you just want to introduce yourself, Dave.

1:58

Oh, sure. You know, I'm. I blog

2:00

under the name of Dave Green.

2:02

I've been doing this for about

2:04

10 years. I got kind of

2:07

big on YouTube during the great

2:09

right wing uprising online in 2016.

2:11

And since then, I've kind of,

2:13

it's strange. I've had kind of

2:16

a brand of being a religious

2:18

blogger, but I don't really talk

2:20

about religion that much. I usually

2:23

link religion in a little bit.

2:25

But mainly the thing people know

2:27

me for online is my... I

2:29

hate to say a reactionary, but

2:31

my sort of translation

2:33

of neo-reactionary and Italian

2:35

theory concepts, sort of

2:37

the pre-20th century right-wing

2:39

or pre-mid 20th century

2:42

right-wing ideas into the

2:44

space of conservatism and

2:46

other contemporary pieces of

2:48

discourse, specifically when it

2:50

pertains to culture. And

2:52

yeah, that's, I'm really

2:54

excited to have this

2:56

conversation. Yeah, and I'm

2:58

Roger. I've been a writer

3:01

for over 30 years now,

3:03

but I really came into,

3:06

I think, national attention. And

3:08

I started writing for the

3:10

American Conservative in 2011. I

3:12

had a blog there that was

3:15

really well. read and it was on

3:17

that blog in 2016 that JD Vance's

3:19

career was launched by with an interview

3:21

I did with him after hill biology

3:23

came out and I'm telling you the

3:25

story because I'm repeating a story he

3:28

told a couple of weeks ago in

3:30

Washington when he introduced the launch of

3:32

the live not by lies film. I

3:34

did an interview with JD because his

3:36

book really really impressed me. In fact,

3:38

I got a copy of the book

3:40

because a liberal reader of mine on

3:43

the West Coast. said, you know, she

3:45

didn't like my politics, but she liked the

3:47

fact that I wrote about things other than politics,

3:49

and she sent me a copy of Hill

3:51

Billiology. I loved it. I found JD. He

3:54

was on vacation in Britain at the time. He

3:56

answered some questions from me. I put it up

3:58

on a Friday afternoon at my tax. blog. It

4:00

went mega viral over the weekend.

4:02

We ended up with over 2

4:04

million page views and by a

4:06

week later, JD was on all

4:09

the national news shows and his

4:11

book went to the top of

4:13

the best summer list and a

4:15

star was born. So JD was

4:17

very kind and we stayed friends

4:19

after that, but he was very

4:21

kind and came out to the

4:23

Heritage Foundation in Washington. We did

4:25

a, there's now a documentary film

4:27

streaming on angel.com, a four-part docu

4:29

series based on my book, Live

4:31

Not By Lies, about anti-communist dissidents

4:33

and the message, the warning they

4:36

have for us in the West

4:38

today about soft totalitarianism. And JD

4:40

told that story, which made me

4:42

feel really good. Anyway, we do

4:44

have the documentary out based on

4:46

my 2020 best-selling book, but my

4:48

most recent book came out last

4:50

fall. It's called Living in Wonder.

4:52

It's not a political book. It's

4:54

about reenchanting Christianity, which is to

4:56

say, reviving the sense of the

4:58

mystical, the numinous within Christianity, because

5:00

maybe we'll get into it in

5:03

this discussion today. The world is

5:05

reenchanting whether we want it to

5:07

or not, and the church has

5:09

to be there for it. Yeah,

5:12

it's interesting your description about, you

5:14

know, the whole dissident sphere of

5:16

the Soviet Union. I don't think

5:19

I coined this term, but I

5:21

was always associated with this term

5:23

dissident right. And I always think

5:25

about like how everyone always bashes

5:28

it. And they're usually talking about

5:30

someone who's not me or anyone

5:32

like me. But I do think

5:34

it's interesting how you talk about

5:37

religion. Rod, you know, I think

5:39

we've heard a lot about this

5:41

coming from Paul King's North and

5:43

I wrote some substep articles on

5:46

how this is the direction people

5:48

need to be going and thinking.

5:50

It's not exactly clear what what

5:52

it means, right? I do really

5:54

appreciate the, and I haven't read

5:57

your specific work on this, so

5:59

I can't comment how much this

6:01

is your point of view. But

6:03

the Paul King's North point of

6:06

view and my friend Krypto, which

6:08

I think has been on Ben's

6:10

channel, wrote a response to this

6:12

a week ago, I think. And

6:15

he's the opinion that, you know,

6:17

the reenchantment is the project of

6:19

dissidents, specifically Christian dissidents, and that

6:21

what is needed is to kind

6:24

of... sort of disengage

6:26

from the controversies the political controversies

6:28

as they exist in the time

6:30

in our time and I think

6:32

that I do very much take

6:35

that perspective to heart but it

6:37

does sound a lot like political

6:39

quietism and the the problem is

6:41

is that you know for Christians

6:43

there's been a kind of a

6:46

bad reputation for using political quietism

6:48

tactically to get out of confrontations

6:50

that are not comfortable and you

6:52

know I think that this is

6:54

the the the The temptation or

6:56

the accusation is that this is

6:59

a tactical quietism. You know, we're

7:01

not embracing reenchantment. We're doing this

7:03

because we don't want to actually

7:05

confront the 20th century's mistakes head

7:07

on. We become unpopular. And, you

7:09

know, the most important thing is

7:12

to not be seen as like

7:14

a bad guy in the perspective

7:16

of the post. were consensus. So

7:18

I think, you know, I think

7:20

that's, it's an interesting conversation. I

7:23

don't know if you have any

7:25

opinions on that, Rod, but that's,

7:27

that's how I see this. Oh,

7:29

I do. I do. Yeah, you

7:31

know, I got accused by this

7:33

for the Benedict option, the book

7:36

of mind and count in 2017,

7:38

that was pretty influential, in which

7:40

I said that, you know, we

7:42

Christians have traditional Christians anyway, have

7:44

lost the culture war, and, and,

7:47

and, and we're probably, we're going

7:49

to lose political power, And I

7:51

said the most important thing to

7:53

do. now is to form smaller

7:55

communities within which we can keep

7:57

the faith alive as the culture

8:00

becomes more and more post-Christian. What

8:02

I explicitly did not say, I

8:04

don't like the phrasing of that,

8:06

what I said explicitly was that

8:08

we cannot give up involvement in

8:10

politics if only for the reason

8:13

of protecting religious liberty, but there

8:15

are other reasons too. But I

8:17

made it clear that I'm not

8:19

saying Let's all become Amish and

8:21

stay out of politics. Of course.

8:24

I'm just saying we have to,

8:26

there's so many Christians, I'm 58

8:28

years old, I remember the rise

8:30

of the religious right and all

8:32

that. So many Christians had the

8:34

wrong idea that to what all

8:37

we had to do was gain

8:39

political power and everything would be

8:41

sorted in legal power. But in

8:43

the meantime, they put so much

8:45

effort into into political activism, not

8:48

all of which was bad, don't

8:50

get me wrong, but they neglected

8:52

the fundamental thing, which is evangelism

8:54

and discipleship with an emphasis on

8:56

discipleship. What do I mean by

8:58

that? I mean, learning how to

9:01

live faithfully as a Christian and

9:03

making sure that your Christian faith

9:05

is not simply a set of

9:07

ideas you have in your head,

9:09

a little doctrinal. boxes you tick

9:11

and a set of moral beliefs,

9:14

but something more vigorous and more

9:16

thoroughly lived out. And, you know,

9:18

I didn't expect that, who expected

9:20

Trump, nobody expected Trump. And I'm

9:22

glad he's there. I wasn't a

9:25

fan of his at first, but

9:27

I'm glad he's there pushing back

9:29

on a lot of the wokeness

9:31

and things like that. But that

9:33

is no excuse for Christians just

9:35

to think are conservatives. Like, oh,

9:38

we've got this sorted now. Let's

9:40

get back to business as usual.

9:42

It's not the case at all.

9:44

I am, you know, I live

9:46

in Hungary. I'm talking to you

9:49

for Budapest now and Victor Orban,

9:51

the prime minister here, he said

9:53

something really interesting. I think about

9:55

this a lot. He said people

9:57

look to politicians for meaning. And

9:59

that's wrong. He said, I can't

10:02

give you meaning. I'm a politician.

10:04

I can give you things by

10:06

which he meant, I think, subsidies

10:08

for religious schools or passing laws,

10:10

permitting religious liberty, things like that.

10:12

He said, but if the organization,

10:15

the institutions that are supposed to

10:17

be be bearers of meaning, most

10:19

of all churches, but also educational

10:21

institutions, arts institutions, things like that.

10:23

If they don't step into the

10:26

space created by politics and do

10:28

what they're supposed to do, then

10:30

nothing that politicians accomplish will ever

10:32

last. So I think that's the

10:34

way to look at this properly.

10:36

The reenchantment thing, it's not either

10:39

we do that or we do

10:41

politics. Like you, I hate the

10:43

term winsome. you know whenever you

10:45

meet a Christian you don't hear

10:47

it much anymore but a lot

10:50

of evangelicals would talk about the

10:52

importance of being winsome and if

10:54

that means not being an asshole

10:56

I'm all in favor of it

10:58

but more often than not it

11:00

means oh not giving offense because

11:03

people might think bad things about

11:05

us guess what they're gonna hate

11:07

you anyway you know might as

11:09

well be honest about what you

11:11

believe you don't have to be

11:13

a jerk about it but just

11:16

be honest and I don't welcome

11:18

confrontation myself, but if there is

11:20

confrontation to be had, then we

11:22

have to be prepared for it.

11:24

Yeah, so this is interesting, right?

11:27

So this is really pulling on

11:29

kind of my wheelhouse here, but

11:31

this is what kind of drew

11:33

me over to near reaction is

11:35

this question of power and culture

11:37

and meaning. The majority of the

11:40

power of this government, the post-war

11:42

consensus, the liberal world order. It

11:44

is derived from certain meaning and

11:46

making institutions that are not churches.

11:48

You know them as the media,

11:51

the university, Hollywood. The cathedral. Well,

11:53

the cathedral's term coined by Curtis

11:55

Yarvin Menchus Mollbug. And that was

11:57

the missing piece for this thing.

11:59

So is, you know, Victor Orban

12:01

says, oh, our government. doesn't create

12:04

meaning, but I know who does

12:06

Harvard, Yale, Hollywood, HBO, Netflix, and

12:08

so why Victor Orban or anyone

12:10

else isn't creating meaning? Everyone else

12:12

is. And the meaning that these

12:14

institutions have created has been a

12:17

very specific liberal ideology since the

12:19

end of World War II, and

12:21

it's gone directly against, you know,

12:23

a variety of different beliefs that

12:25

have essentially been more or less

12:28

ubiquitous in human history. This machine

12:30

seems to be in the process

12:32

of dying. And, you know, in

12:34

order to sort of confront it,

12:36

I feel it's necessary for people.

12:38

And I don't mean, like, you

12:41

know, to take, I'm not a

12:43

big politics person. I'm in some

12:45

ways a political pacifist, although, you

12:47

know, I recognize the need to

12:49

do things. I don't even put

12:52

that much stock in Trump. But

12:54

what is most important for me

12:56

is to actively disrespect these types

12:58

of... priorities that we've received from

13:00

the liberal world order since 1946

13:02

insofar as they have nothing to

13:05

do with actual Christian ideas or

13:07

actual moral principles are just manufactured,

13:09

you know, nonsense that comes from

13:11

the 20th century. If you can't

13:13

find the idea outside of the

13:15

20th century, it's probably fake is

13:18

my general policy. And I mean,

13:20

otherwise what happened, right? Did Christians

13:22

not know about this before the

13:24

20th century? And so, you know,

13:26

this... This is this, I guess,

13:29

and here I'm kind of striking

13:31

a more aggressive pose, you know,

13:33

we say winsomeness. What really killed

13:35

Evangel Christianity is they tried to

13:37

play by the rules of the

13:39

post-war consensus. They tried to play

13:42

by the rules of the liberal

13:44

world order. I used to be

13:46

an atheist, a huge friend of

13:48

Christopher Hitchens. All he used to

13:50

do is get up on stage

13:53

and indict Christianity by the standards

13:55

of like the 20th century. He

13:57

didn't prove those moral standards. he

13:59

didn't have to adhere to those

14:01

moral standards. He didn't have to

14:03

explain what those standards came from.

14:06

He just kind of read them

14:08

off a sheet sheet, you know,

14:10

these under these. these concepts about

14:12

like openness and debate and where

14:14

the burden of proof lied and

14:16

then he'd he would just indict

14:19

his Christian political opponents and you

14:21

know he'd win the debate handily

14:23

because the frame of the debate

14:25

was essentially decidedly against ideas that

14:27

came from this kind of more

14:30

traditional understanding of truth and goodness

14:32

and beauty and what were aligned

14:34

to the to the perspective of

14:36

World War II, of the post-World

14:38

War II. I mean, like all

14:40

of these battles, evangelicals have lost

14:43

in the culture war. They're all

14:45

because they're playing within the rules

14:47

of the game. For instance, you

14:49

can't teach Christianity in schools. It's

14:51

illegal based on the rules of

14:54

post-World War II, separation of church

14:56

and state. You can teach wokeness,

14:58

you do teach wokeness, you have

15:00

to teach wokeness, because, and the

15:02

idea of an ideologically neutral education

15:04

is an impossibility. So, so, ideologically

15:07

neutral education is impossible. So we

15:09

are going to teach some ideology.

15:11

And the rules of the post-war

15:13

system are you can't teach Christianity.

15:15

And now we're surprised that after

15:17

we put students through that system,

15:20

that they lose in a conversation

15:22

or, you know, a quote unquote

15:24

debate with, you know, so that's

15:26

my perspective, I guess, right? Well,

15:28

well, well, I think it's even

15:31

more complicated than that. I mean,

15:33

I'm a big follower of Philip

15:35

Reef. You know, Reeve, have you

15:37

heard of him? Maybe, yes. His

15:39

most well-known book is, it came

15:41

out in 1966, it's called The

15:44

Triumph of the Therapeutic. And he

15:46

was a sociologist and an interpreter

15:48

of Freud. He was an atheist

15:50

himself, but he were really presently

15:52

about how on the 20th century

15:55

we had lost all sense, collectively

15:57

lost. a sense of there being

15:59

a transcendent moral authority that governs

16:01

our debates, our moral reasoning. And

16:03

you can talk about why that

16:05

happened, but that had happened. It's

16:08

pretty hard to dispute. And he

16:10

said, so what we have done

16:12

to compensate for that is embrace

16:14

the therapeutic, by which he meant

16:16

it's a strategy to help us

16:18

deal with the anxiety over the

16:21

death of God and the death

16:23

of absolute meaning. And he wasn't

16:25

praising it. He was just saying,

16:27

this is what has happened. And

16:29

so it is an ad hoc

16:32

strategy that basically to keep us

16:34

distracted from having to deal with

16:36

the big questions which are not

16:38

resolveable outside of a transcendent framework.

16:40

And if you go back and

16:42

read this book, it came out

16:45

in 66. He basically predicted the

16:47

rise of wokeness and everything that

16:49

followed. This man was a prophet.

16:51

And I think that that that

16:53

explains it too. It's not so

16:55

much that we stop teaching Christianity

16:58

in schools. It's that so much

17:00

Christianity has become de-natured and it

17:02

has become therapeutic itself. You might

17:04

have heard of the term moralistic

17:06

therapeutic deism. Yes, coined by Notre

17:09

Dame sociologists of religion. Chris Smith

17:11

about the what he calls it's

17:13

the actual existing Christianity of most

17:15

young Americans. I wrote this 20

17:17

years ago, so the young Americans

17:19

are now aging millennials. And this

17:22

was the Christianity I grew up

17:24

with. It's a similochrum of real

17:26

Christianity. It teaches a few basic

17:28

principles. God exists. He wants us

17:30

to be happy. He wants us

17:33

to be nice and good, according

17:35

to bourgeois morality. And you don't

17:37

have to call on him unless

17:39

you need something. And everybody goes

17:41

to heaven except some really bad

17:43

people like Hitler. And that's pretty

17:46

much it. Well, and this is

17:48

the Christian. in which I was

17:50

raised in small town conservative Louisiana

17:52

in the 70s, nobody called it

17:54

moralistic therapy to deism. It was

17:56

just Christianity. It was about being

17:59

a good citizen. And this is

18:01

why I, when I got to

18:03

be a teenager, I put aside

18:05

Christianity because I thought it was

18:07

nothing more than middle class moral

18:10

conformity or the only passionate people

18:12

I saw people who were passionate

18:14

about Christianity, were TV evangelists. And

18:16

I wanted no part of that.

18:18

It wasn't until I went to

18:20

the cathedral at Shatra when I

18:23

was 17. My mother had one

18:25

guided trip to Europe and I

18:27

was she sent me. I was

18:29

the only young person on a

18:31

bus full of elderly American tourists

18:34

and I didn't even want to

18:36

go in this old see another

18:38

old church. I wanted to get

18:40

to Paris and see where Hemingway

18:42

lived. When I walked into that

18:44

cathedral and I was absolutely overwhelmed

18:47

by the presence of God and

18:49

the stones on the glass and

18:51

I knew somehow in my heart

18:53

that God existed and he wanted

18:55

me. All of my feeble high

18:57

school agnosticism just melted away. Now

19:00

I didn't walk out of that

19:02

cathedral as a converted Christian, but

19:04

I did walk out of there

19:06

on a search. And I eventually

19:08

ended up converting like seven or

19:11

eight years later. I became a

19:13

Catholic. But for me, I had

19:15

to push through so much of

19:17

what I now know as moralistic

19:19

therapeutic deism in order to find

19:21

religious truth and had to reach

19:24

back before the 20th century to

19:26

be quite honest. Well, I might,

19:28

I do appreciate that story and

19:30

I have a very similar one

19:32

to tell myself, but I might

19:35

push back on rescharacterization of the

19:37

phenomenon because you're right. We do

19:39

see sort of the water down

19:41

consumeristic. middle class, bourgeois, e-therapeutic culture.

19:43

But for the last 10 years,

19:45

we've been in a religious hysteria

19:48

in this entire country that has

19:50

ran through all the institutions and

19:52

got a number. people fired including

19:54

a lot of my friends and

19:56

it does not feel like happy

19:58

clappy everyone get along it feels

20:01

like they are people tearing down

20:03

statues and burning stuff and they

20:05

literally are burning stuff Tesla's right

20:07

now. The ability of man to

20:09

have a passionate religion is not

20:12

something that cannot exist in the

20:14

20th century. It absolutely exists in

20:16

political form. and it exists in

20:18

wokeness. This is a very, or

20:20

at least was, I think it

20:22

will reform itself. There is absolutely

20:25

a desire out there to have

20:27

a religion that makes demands and

20:29

that motivates people to extreme acts

20:31

of bourgeois, dangerous, erupting, I don't

20:33

know, demonstrations, should we call them.

20:36

So, you know, I think that,

20:38

you know, this... You know, I

20:40

haven't read Reif, I definitely have

20:42

heard a lot about him, but

20:44

I think that, you know, the

20:46

20th century is not characterized by

20:49

ideological timidity. It's care, the 20th

20:51

century is characterized by Christians being

20:53

ideologically timid, it is not characterized

20:55

by other religions being ideologically timid,

20:57

quite the opposite. What you see

20:59

is Christians get timid, Christians associate

21:02

their Christianity with being comfortable bourgeois

21:04

people, and all the other ideologies

21:06

like develop essentially fundamentalist forms of

21:08

themselves, including progressive liberalism. Well, yeah,

21:10

yeah, I mean, look, to be

21:13

clear, reef, it's just talking about

21:15

a general cultural attitude in post-war

21:17

America, that America, yeah, that we,

21:19

and it does take, it has

21:21

taken certain forms within the churches,

21:23

and this culminates in what Christian

21:26

Smith said was, as I meant

21:28

to the actual, existing religious beliefs,

21:30

not just of Christians, but of

21:32

Americans, of all faiths, this general...

21:34

Clappy, Clappy, religion is something to

21:37

make you feel good about yourself

21:39

and to be nice. And that's

21:41

not what Christianity is. And I

21:43

agree, yeah. It's not what, but

21:45

yeah, the, I completely agree with

21:47

you that wokeness is a secular

21:50

apocalyptic cult. In fact, I talk

21:52

about that in my book, Live

21:54

Not By Lies. I compare it

21:56

to what Bolshevism was. The great

21:58

historian, contemporary historian Yuri Slesskin, he's

22:00

Russian-American, teaches at Berkeley. He wrote

22:03

a great book called The House

22:05

of Government, a doorstopper of a

22:07

book, a history of the Bolshevik

22:09

Revolution. And he compares the Bolsheviks

22:11

to the fanatical cults that emerged

22:14

in the Reformation. Like there was

22:16

one in Munster that Luther had

22:18

to put down. They were millennials,

22:20

a millennial list, I should say.

22:22

They wanted to bring in. heaven

22:24

on earth and they thought that

22:27

if we could only just kill

22:29

all the bad people then we'll

22:31

live in paradise. Well this is

22:33

what the Bolsheviks did too but

22:35

they didn't they just they were

22:38

atheists but they had the Bolshevism

22:40

had and communism had the structure

22:42

of a religion and the passion

22:44

of a religion but it had

22:46

no God or rather it's God

22:48

was Marx's God history or Lenin

22:51

Stalin. I just finished last night.

22:53

One of the most incredible books

22:55

I've ever read, it's called Second

22:57

Hand Time, The Last of the

22:59

Soviets, by a Russian journalist named

23:01

Sphedlana Alexeiovich. She won the Nobel

23:04

Prize in literature for her work.

23:06

And it's about this sort of

23:08

thing. It's about the 1990s and

23:10

the collapse of the Soviet Union

23:12

and how ordinary people live through

23:15

it. And one of the most

23:17

incredible things about it are these

23:19

testimonies from Soviets who fully understood

23:21

what... how bad communism was and

23:23

how evil Stalin was. Some of

23:25

them had actually been to prison

23:28

themselves unjustly. They were communists themselves

23:30

and were thrown in prison. And

23:32

yet, they longed for the return

23:34

of... How do you explain that?

23:36

You can only go to religious

23:39

categories there because, or psychological categories,

23:41

because the Soviet Union, the Soviet

23:43

project, communism, Stalinism, was so overwhelming,

23:45

it gave them a sense of

23:47

order, it gave them a sense

23:49

of meaning and purpose. Even if

23:52

it was evil, they found they

23:54

could not live without that. I

23:56

mean, it's fascinating reading because it

23:58

speaks to what you were just

24:00

talking about, you know, and... with

24:02

wokeness. It's so trite and stupid

24:05

and easily falsifiable. Yet I think

24:07

one reason so many young people

24:09

especially have embraced it with such

24:11

passion is because it gives them

24:13

that sense of meaning, purpose, and

24:16

order and solidarity. Hana Arranz said

24:18

in her book The Origins of

24:20

totalitarianism that these are what people

24:22

who surrendered to totalitarianism all look

24:24

for. They're atomized. They don't believe

24:26

in anything outside themselves. They hate

24:29

all institutions and so on and

24:31

so forth. They're right for a

24:33

totalitarian movement to come in and

24:35

tell them, we can give you

24:37

all the meaning and the purpose

24:40

and the solidarity you want. We

24:42

can tell you who to hate.

24:44

Now go hate them and find

24:46

yourself. I think it's particularly fascinating

24:48

to kind of synthesize what you

24:50

guys are talking about, specifically about

24:53

the moralistic therapeutic deism or just

24:55

regular Christianity that in the post-war

24:57

years became really nice and polite.

24:59

I mean it did have flare-ups

25:01

of a lot of cultiness in

25:03

the 60s and the 70s and

25:06

the 80s too, so there's always

25:08

radicalism emerging. But what I find

25:10

interesting is that... And I think

25:12

all three of us are included

25:14

in this group. We grow up

25:17

in this bath of Christianity that

25:19

is kind of weak, therapeutic, and

25:21

it nods towards the spiritual, it

25:23

has a little bit. of passion

25:25

here and there in it, but

25:27

we emerge in the wake of

25:30

wokeness, this very explicitly fundamentalist radical

25:32

thing, ideology that's changing the world

25:34

and that's galvanizing people to change

25:36

the world and the people who

25:38

are of religious sentiment, we reach

25:41

towards our Christianity and we find

25:43

this gulf through which this liberalism

25:45

that we emerged. and that doesn't

25:47

have the answers to reformulate a

25:49

strong Christian counter to wokeness. And

25:51

it seems like we all kind

25:54

of end up larping, going to

25:56

Catholicism, going to Orthodoxy, you know,

25:58

we're looking for something on the

26:00

other side of this gulf, and

26:02

we, and there's just this breakdown,

26:04

it seems like, it's not natural

26:07

to the liberal. I mean, we

26:09

kind of have to, we're thrown

26:11

through the liberalism in a... kind

26:13

of disconnection to that route on

26:15

the other side of, I don't

26:18

know, the 20th century. Do you

26:20

guys see what I'm kind of

26:22

pointing to? Why is it larping,

26:24

though, then, to if one becomes

26:26

a Catholic or an Orthodox and

26:28

really believes it, why is that

26:31

larp? I think that there's, I

26:33

think one has to push through

26:35

the larping, like we're reaching towards,

26:37

and I felt exactly what you

26:39

felt walking into these cathedrals, like

26:42

this really powerful. deep spirituality that

26:44

speaks to my fundamental nature because

26:46

it's from people that I'm related

26:48

to going back for centuries. But

26:50

like the language that I'm grown

26:52

up with and the way that

26:55

I have to talk about God

26:57

and the way that most people

26:59

don't even understand what I'm talking

27:01

about when I try to talk

27:03

about the spiritual, there's this huge

27:05

gulf between that tradition and the

27:08

present moment. So I just wonder

27:10

how we, when we talk about

27:12

reenchantment, I think that the... One

27:14

of the animating meanings in what

27:16

you're getting at, Rod, if I

27:19

may presume to know, is that

27:21

there's an authenticity, a direct relationship

27:23

with the divine, with the spiritual

27:25

that we're seeking in this deconstructed

27:27

secular society. And how do we

27:29

get that back? And we're gonna

27:32

watch as a lot of people

27:34

get that wrong. Yeah, yeah, no,

27:36

that's a very good point. I

27:38

mean. you know I hear from

27:40

I became used to an Orthodox

27:43

in 2006 after I lost my

27:45

Catholic faith writing about the abuse

27:47

scandal but I understand that there's

27:49

this big rush now in the

27:51

US into Orthodox churches especially by

27:53

young men who are seeking what

27:56

Rusty Reno might call a strong

27:58

god they're looking for something deeper

28:00

and more robust and more traditional

28:02

than the sort of suburban evangelicalism

28:04

or whatever they grew up with.

28:06

And that's good but A priest

28:09

is saying that these young men

28:11

come in because they've been red-pilled

28:13

online and they're looking for an

28:15

instant answer. And it's not there.

28:17

When I became Orthodox in 2006,

28:20

I remember asking my priest, okay,

28:22

what book should I read to

28:24

understand more about being Orthodox? And

28:26

he just smiled at me and

28:28

said, I can give you a

28:30

reading list, but you're only going

28:33

to really understand what it means

28:35

to be Orthodox after about 10

28:37

years of practicing the faith. That

28:39

made no sense to me. But

28:41

I finally after years of this

28:43

understood what he meant because being

28:46

orthodox is not about thinking in

28:48

an orthodox way it's about living

28:50

it out and it's something that

28:52

you can only do through self-sacrifice

28:54

through coming to church weekend and

28:57

week out observing the fast praying

28:59

and so on and so forth.

29:01

It's not an instant cure for

29:03

your malaise and I think I

29:05

would say the same thing about

29:07

being Catholic. I mean it's easy

29:10

to be the sort of Catholic

29:12

who just, you know, goes to

29:14

mass, ticks the boxes and things,

29:16

but that's not really a Catholic.

29:18

That's, and I think that's probably

29:21

one thing about me when I

29:23

became a Catholic at the age

29:25

of 26. I did it in

29:27

complete sincerity and it wasn't necessary.

29:29

a bad Catholic, but for me,

29:31

I approached my Catholicism more as

29:34

an ideology than as a way

29:36

of life. And I didn't know

29:38

I was doing that until I

29:40

was put to the test in

29:42

the abuse scandal and realized how

29:44

thoroughly intellectualized my Catholicism had been,

29:47

because I thought that as long

29:49

as I have all the arguments

29:51

straight in my head for the

29:53

Catholic faith, my faith could withstand

29:55

anything. And it's just not true.

29:58

I feel like I'm class with

30:00

the person that's kind of trying

30:02

to throw monkey wrenches into this.

30:04

I totally get you. I totally

30:06

feel you. Knowing why discovered your

30:08

blog, I was one of these

30:11

disillusioned young men, very, very disillusioned

30:13

with modernity. And now I'm older.

30:15

I'm a writer in my own

30:17

right. I have a family, wife,

30:19

all this sort of stuff, not

30:22

a house quite yet, but you

30:24

know, whatever. I'm in that position

30:26

in my life. I very much

30:28

sympathize with this desire of young

30:30

men who are joining the Orthodox

30:32

Church. And I don't think that

30:35

the failing is on their side.

30:37

I don't think that, you know,

30:39

a lot of the ways we

30:41

frame these, and I know, I

30:43

know the problem you're talking about,

30:45

because I deal with it all

30:48

the time, I deal with all

30:50

of these young guys who like,

30:52

they're angry at feminism or, you

30:54

know, the corporate world or technology

30:56

at general, and they... They asked

30:59

me for reading lists, like I

31:01

have a list of books that

31:03

I can give them to make

31:05

them based or whatever. And it's

31:07

really, like it's a fundamental misunderstanding

31:09

of the question and all this

31:12

stuff, and it's very frustrating and

31:14

all that. But the way that

31:16

older people frame this is, they

31:18

frame this like, well, young people

31:20

need to go and kind of

31:23

like learn from hard knocks or...

31:25

they need to go. I mean,

31:27

what's the message for young men?

31:29

I keep on returning to that.

31:31

It's my inability to give them

31:33

a good answer is not a

31:36

failing from their side. It's a

31:38

feeling from my side. And You

31:40

know, there's a lot of ways

31:42

that we can kind of dismiss

31:44

young men and give them all

31:46

these kind of wise sounding answers

31:49

that amount to kind of like,

31:51

you know, retreat to the mountains.

31:53

But they're not looking for a

31:55

way to intellectualize Christianity. They're looking

31:57

for a way to kind of

32:00

vigorously live it and to kind

32:02

of take up a banner in

32:04

a way that's kind of radically

32:06

disruptive. The same way that, you

32:08

know, other young men do who

32:10

are following other ideologies. And I'm

32:13

not as sure they're wrong to

32:15

want that. They're also looking for

32:17

a way to kind of look

32:19

at the world and kind of

32:21

stark moral terms and call things

32:24

that are obviously evil. Evil. And

32:26

again, I think it's, you know,

32:28

for people, for men who have

32:30

kind of... you know, in our

32:32

position, we're all kind of, I

32:34

think, of, you know, we're all

32:37

married men. We're all not anymore.

32:39

Fair enough. Well, okay. But we're

32:41

all in the stage of our

32:43

life where we've gone through like

32:45

the 20s. I feel like it's

32:47

very easy and contemporary Christian leaders

32:50

have this problem where it's very

32:52

easy to kind of like, just

32:54

see these young men who are

32:56

angry and this like toss a

32:58

bucket of ice water on them.

33:01

And I'm not... I'm not very

33:03

convinced that the right idea. I

33:05

feel like we need to give

33:07

the, you know, I feel like

33:09

we need to give them like

33:11

avenues to go down, right? Exactly

33:14

right. But my point is simply

33:16

that, you know, you say that

33:18

we have to give them answers.

33:20

Yeah, but what if the answer

33:22

is not something that can be

33:25

put down in a list? What

33:27

if the answer is something you

33:29

come to by living it out

33:31

by living out the question? That

33:33

sounds kind of esoteric, maybe, and

33:35

I don't mean it to. life

33:38

itself is difficult, life is complicated,

33:40

and you can't, if your idea

33:42

of becoming a good Orthodox Christian

33:44

is mastering the arguments for Orthodoxy,

33:46

just to use an example. And

33:48

you've gotten it wrong, you know,

33:51

and I, you know, I have

33:53

learned, I'm 58 now, I became

33:55

a Christian, a serious Christian when

33:57

I was 26, and man, I

33:59

was so, I was on fire,

34:02

I wanted to be political, and

34:04

I was political, and I really

34:06

divided the world between good and

34:08

evil, not in any simplistic way,

34:10

but like you say, I wanted

34:12

to go after the bad guys,

34:15

but I... made such a mistake

34:17

and this is why the abuse

34:19

scandal which broke in 2002 nationwide

34:21

why it really wrecked me because

34:23

I thought that the line between

34:26

good and evil could generally be

34:28

drawn between conservatives and liberals and

34:30

within the Catholic Church of which

34:32

I was quite a partisan I

34:34

thought that if we only got

34:36

rid of the liberal bishops then

34:39

everything would be sorted. Well then

34:41

we get to the scandal. And

34:43

I found out that the theological

34:45

orientation of a bishop or a

34:47

priest told us exactly nothing about

34:49

whether or not they were good

34:52

or bad, whether or not they

34:54

would take a stand for these

34:56

children who were being raped or

34:58

not. And I found that the

35:00

same was true with late Catholics.

35:03

You know, there were some late

35:05

Catholics who were liberals, people I

35:07

would have opposed that every turn.

35:09

And yet they were brave when

35:11

they had to be brave to

35:13

speak out against this abuse. Similarly,

35:16

there were conservative Catholics I had

35:18

previously admired who were complete cowards

35:20

when it came time to take

35:22

a stand. And all of this

35:24

did not make me run away

35:27

to orthodoxies seeking a sinless church.

35:29

Those things don't exist. That's one

35:31

of the educational aspects of this

35:33

horrific loss of faith that I

35:35

went through. But what I did

35:37

learn was humility, because what God

35:40

allowed to happen to me in

35:42

that loss of faith was he

35:44

allowed my intellectual arrogance to be

35:46

shattered. And that's on me, that's

35:48

not on the Catholic Church. I

35:50

had just, I thought it was

35:53

all so relatively easy to solve

35:55

these things by thinking the right

35:57

thoughts and thinking in the correct

35:59

way. And it just wasn't true.

36:01

I mean, life is so much

36:04

more complicated than that. And that

36:06

makes it harder. Young men are

36:08

very impatient. They want to do

36:10

things. I know this. I have

36:12

I'm the father of two young

36:14

men in their 20s, but you

36:17

know, I wish I had been

36:19

a little wiser back then and

36:21

been less absolute in my view,

36:23

not to say relativist, but not

36:25

so absolute and quick to pass

36:28

you know instant judgment on people

36:30

and and accuse older people of

36:32

being cowardly when really they were

36:34

just being wise and some were

36:36

being cowardly don't get me wrong

36:38

but I didn't have the the

36:41

patience or the experience to to

36:43

understand that back then. Well I

36:45

mean what would you say the

36:47

I mean this is what I

36:49

struggle with again I'm not a

36:51

young man anymore right I feel

36:54

like I'm young I don't register

36:56

the fact that I've gotten old

36:58

as I've been on this journey,

37:00

but I am no longer in

37:02

the position of young men. So

37:05

I'm not struggling with being a

37:07

young man in this position, but

37:09

I absolutely struggle every day with

37:11

what it would feel like to

37:13

be a young man in this

37:15

position. And I have to say,

37:18

if I'm honest, I do not

37:20

think that the answers I get

37:22

from many Christian leaders feel very

37:24

satisfying. And if I

37:26

were to get kind of like

37:28

a quietistic answer, like go to

37:31

the mountains and pray for 10

37:33

years from a guy that was

37:35

an actual monk, I think that

37:37

might feel a little satisfying as

37:39

a guy who's 25 and maybe

37:41

I'd consider life of monasticism, or

37:43

if I were to get it

37:46

from an anti-abaptist, but we're getting

37:48

kind of these quietistic, it's complicated

37:50

answers, so, you know, do nothing

37:52

from you know, fairly comfortable, you

37:54

know, middle-aged, you know, Christian leaders,

37:56

and it feels, it doesn't... I

37:58

feel stent you all sort of

38:01

radically. Nine names. Who you're talking

38:03

about? I mean, I'm thinking of

38:05

a variety of people. Name explicit

38:07

names. I'm thinking of people specifically

38:09

from, well, I guess these people

38:11

are mainly online people. I get

38:14

in, this is a hard question

38:16

to answer, Rod. for a variety

38:18

of reasons. I don't want to

38:20

put you on the spot. I

38:22

could name names of people who

38:24

I've had online conflicts with, and

38:26

then it would be like, oh,

38:29

this is a Twitter disagreement. Or

38:31

I could name disagreements that I've

38:33

had in real life with like

38:35

personal friends, in which case I'm

38:37

throwing them under the bus. So

38:39

I'm kind of stuck between a

38:41

rock and a hard place here.

38:44

I'm just trying to get an

38:46

idea of what specifically you mean

38:48

because I'll give you an example.

38:50

Okay, I mean I'll give you

38:52

the Andrew Tate thing is like

38:54

that's the most recent thing. This

38:57

is a person that I've detested

38:59

since he's appeared on the the

39:01

scene. But you're probably aware that

39:03

young men are having a huge

39:05

hard time getting into relationships with

39:07

most young women. And Essentially,

39:10

the advice that young men are

39:12

looking for is how to deal

39:14

with the modern world and which

39:16

changed, specifically what's changed in the

39:18

last 15 years, which I saw

39:20

the last end of it. Like

39:22

it was really collapsing just as

39:24

I was met the one that's

39:27

now my wife. And the dating

39:29

market was collapsing. It was specifically,

39:31

I mean, it was collapsing for

39:33

a while. But the introduction of

39:35

tender and only fans and the

39:37

COVID lockdowns were like this giant

39:39

bomb that took something that was

39:41

going slowly and it kicked it

39:44

into overdrive. And people like Andrew

39:46

Tate stepped in and they developed

39:48

a huge army of young men

39:50

in over in no time. Now

39:52

Christian leaders online, you know, these

39:54

are the people who are not.

39:56

I had this conversation in personal

39:58

life too, but just to speak,

40:01

public figures have been going hard

40:03

against Andrew Tate and I 100%

40:05

agree with them on the facts.

40:07

But their counterpost of that is

40:09

kind of like to chide young

40:11

men for having these complaints about

40:13

the difficulties they're facing and how

40:15

they should like essentially grind into

40:17

a like career grind their way

40:20

up from. being proletarianized, which is

40:22

what's currently happening. And so you

40:24

get like ridiculous things, like you

40:26

get ridiculous things like. people saying

40:28

that young men should go work

40:30

at Panda Express and you know

40:32

become a junior manager like not

40:34

looking at like where these high

40:37

paying hand Panda Express jobs are

40:39

they're like in downtown New York

40:41

where you couldn't possibly live take

40:43

that salary and make it go

40:45

very far and so like or

40:47

like you know they should you

40:49

hear advice about how you should

40:51

go like this is a typical

40:54

pastor advice that you will you

40:56

will get from pastors online and

40:58

in real life, like young men

41:00

are looking for a marriage, so

41:02

they should go to church and

41:04

find a woman. This is something

41:06

that probably worked in the 80s

41:08

and 90s, and I met my

41:11

wife in a religious community, kind

41:13

of online, kind of not. But

41:15

this works for some people. This

41:17

model does not work very well

41:19

anymore. Young women aren't going to

41:21

church as much as they used

41:23

to, and the ones that do

41:25

aren't looking to meet marriage proposals

41:28

there anymore, especially in a lot

41:30

of these areas. This advice comes

41:32

down, it feels like it comes

41:34

from a different era, and at

41:36

the same time it's being shipped

41:38

with this, this sort of like,

41:40

oh, well, you should take a

41:42

step back from politics and, you

41:45

know, just kind of meditate on

41:47

the scriptures, which I totally agree

41:49

that they should do. But it

41:51

feels, it feels to a lot

41:53

of young men that this is.

41:55

being given to them, or getting

41:57

shoddy advice from a place of

41:59

privilege, if I may be simple.

42:01

Yeah, well, let me let me

42:04

say this one. This reminds me

42:06

of when my Benedict option book

42:08

came out, I got a lot

42:10

of criticism from like, Normy, Evangelical

42:12

Catholics for the things I talked

42:14

about and there, but I remember

42:16

Alan Jacobs, Professor at Baylor. He

42:18

said, okay, if you don't like

42:21

what Rogers is saying, that's fine,

42:23

but what's your alternative? Because what

42:25

we're doing now is not working.

42:27

It's and it's badly failing. You

42:29

can't simply sit there and point

42:31

out what's wrong with what Dreyer

42:33

says without offering some substantive answer

42:35

to the crisis that he is

42:38

addressing. And many of you aren't

42:40

addressing. Now, in my in the

42:42

Benedict option book, I talked about

42:44

this Catholic community. I became aware

42:46

of in Italy on the Adriatic

42:48

Coast. It's a smallest community, maybe

42:50

a couple hundred, 300 people, all

42:52

families, and they are, they're countercultural,

42:55

they're Catholics, but they're not angry

42:57

about it, but they actually do

42:59

things, they grow food, they, they

43:01

all live in their, in their

43:03

normal apartments in the city, and

43:05

they go to their normal churches,

43:07

but they have. Bible studies there,

43:09

they get out and do stuff

43:12

in the community, they started classical

43:14

Christian school. In other words, they're

43:16

not just sitting there passively waiting

43:18

to be told what to do,

43:20

they're actually doing stuff. I contrast

43:22

that with, there's a book you

43:24

might have heard of called The

43:26

Boniface Option came out last year.

43:29

Yeah, yeah. We follow each other

43:31

on Twitter. I read the book

43:33

because it was important. He was

43:35

trying to say that he wasn't

43:37

nasty about the Benedict option, but

43:39

he says it's just not enough.

43:41

He wants something much more aggressive.

43:43

But you know, I read that

43:46

book and I thought, this guy

43:48

is just, he wants to tear

43:50

everything down and he hates the

43:52

right things. Most of what he

43:54

hates. I hate too, but you

43:56

can't build something that stands just

43:58

by chopping down what's bad. And

44:00

I just, what was really off-clitting

44:02

about the book was its passion

44:05

and its anger. Again, I credit

44:07

him for being angry at the

44:09

right things, but the anger seemed

44:11

so, seemed like that was all

44:13

he had was anger. But I

44:15

am very sympathetic to Escher's perspective

44:17

on this. I'm known in my

44:19

own circles as being the cool

44:22

cucumber, but I understand that I'm

44:24

the cool cucumber in a circle

44:26

of red-hot chili peppers. That was

44:28

a bad analogy. But you know,

44:30

I am very, why should we

44:32

not be more aggressive towards the

44:34

idols of the 20th century? I

44:36

know I've been on Benjamin Boyce's

44:39

channel numerous times discussing kind of

44:41

hashing out Twitter beefs very much

44:43

along the lines of what I

44:45

just related to you and and

44:47

I feel constantly like I I

44:49

want to if I tear down

44:51

an idol of the 20th century

44:53

and say that this is wrong

44:56

and stupid and show that I'm

44:58

liberated from this constraining perspective, then

45:00

oftentimes young men will take my

45:02

admonition to build things in real

45:04

life and be productive and, you

45:06

know, try to find alternative ways

45:08

to exit the system and make

45:10

money and take positive steps forward,

45:13

they'll... that will be received much

45:15

better. So I guess it has

45:17

to be more than people are

45:19

being angry for me to dismiss

45:21

that point of view. And I

45:23

think Andrew Isker's perspective, can you

45:25

be more specific about your objections

45:27

other than it sounded angry? Because

45:30

that's, for me, that was, yeah,

45:32

it was a. That was sort

45:34

of the counternote to the bankrupt

45:36

option that I was looking for,

45:38

although I probably don't agree with

45:40

everything that was said there. Yeah,

45:42

well, I mean, I read the

45:44

book when it came out maybe

45:46

a year and a half, two

45:49

years ago, so I don't remember

45:51

specifics now, but I just remember,

45:53

I wrote a long review of

45:55

it and... You know and I

45:57

credited him for being angry at

45:59

the right things. I'm angry at

46:01

those things too But my general

46:03

critique was that anger alone is

46:06

not enough You've got to have

46:08

the same passion towards building things

46:10

up and it was just And

46:12

I'm not one of the I

46:14

mean if you read my stuff,

46:16

you know I can get really

46:18

wound up about things. I'm mad

46:20

at but at the same time

46:23

I realize that You've got to

46:25

give people something hopeful. I remember

46:27

when Soviet dissident I interviewed Victor

46:29

Popkov. He became a Christian in

46:31

the early 70s and was sent

46:33

to prison by the KGB for

46:35

his faith. And I interviewed him

46:37

in Moscow in 2019 and he

46:40

talked about the reason he became

46:42

a Christian back in that time

46:44

was because so many people of

46:46

his generation in their 20s. in

46:48

the early 70s, they had, they

46:50

were nihilists. They had lost all

46:52

faith in the Soviet project. Rightfully

46:54

so, it was a, it was

46:57

a failure. But he said we

46:59

needed something to believe in and

47:01

he found Christ, he found Christianity.

47:03

And he told me in our

47:05

interview, he said, you've got to

47:07

give people a dream, something hopeful

47:09

to believe in. Otherwise, they can

47:11

go to very dark places. You

47:14

know, I and I and I

47:16

think that is a really profound

47:18

truth that all of us, including

47:20

myself, we have to listen to,

47:22

it's not enough to know what

47:24

you hate, you've also got to

47:26

know what you love and what

47:28

you're willing to build out of

47:30

that love. But but for me,

47:33

and I want to just challenge

47:35

this here, for me, being acquaintances

47:37

with Andrew Isk or it seems

47:39

like he does believe things and

47:41

You know, what I think the

47:43

bird all down stuff, that's like

47:45

the Andrew Tate stuff, right? That's

47:47

like the cat girl coolock stuff.

47:50

That's like the a lot of

47:52

the people on the right that

47:54

I kind of think are just

47:56

destructive forces. And you know, I've

47:58

been criticizing them for a long

48:00

time, but it feels to borrow

48:02

like a Hegelian term like that

48:04

Andrew's trying to essentially synthesize that

48:07

anger with your perspective in the

48:09

Vedic option and say, here, you've

48:11

got the passion on one end

48:13

and you've got the belief on

48:15

the other and we have to

48:17

combine them keeping both in their

48:19

full strength so that we both

48:21

have the iconoclasm and also. the

48:24

communion with the spiritual. That was

48:26

how I interpreted his book. I

48:28

just didn't get that the second

48:30

part from the book, but it's

48:32

probably not fair to talk about

48:34

it further because it's been so

48:36

while I did a while I

48:38

don't remember it. When we bring

48:41

it giving people a dream, I'd.

48:43

One problem that I run into

48:45

is that the world is changing

48:47

so fast. How do we project

48:49

a stable dream that can withstand

48:51

or incorporate the massive amounts of

48:53

change that is happening almost on

48:55

a daily basis now in the

48:58

world? And I think that's one

49:00

thing that needs to be pushed

49:02

through. And you see these bubbling

49:04

up of like a trad dream,

49:06

right? But these dreams all turn

49:08

back into dreams and like... And

49:10

it's just, we can't, it's really

49:12

hard to project a dream in

49:15

a landscape where everything is basically

49:17

a dream that's morphing into another

49:19

dream. So I just, I'm wondering

49:21

how, if we are to move

49:23

past the anger, the iconoclasm, Dave

49:25

and Rod, what is there on

49:27

the other end of that? What

49:29

is that stable, mythic, value set,

49:31

dream, whatever it is that that

49:34

would give these young men that

49:36

we're speaking about that we're speaking

49:38

about? something to head to and

49:40

something to actually manifest. Well, that's

49:42

why I wrote the Benedict option.

49:44

I brought it into that book

49:46

the concept of liquid modernity. That

49:48

was a phrase, a coin, and

49:51

a concept coined by Zigman, a

49:53

Polish. sociologist and he talked about

49:55

and he was a Marxist himself

49:57

and you know we have to

49:59

give the Marxist credit sometimes they

50:01

saw things that were real that

50:03

lighted the rest of us in

50:05

in the communist manifesto Marx and

50:08

Ingalls wrote about how under capitalism

50:10

everything that was solid melts into

50:12

air and they were right about

50:14

that they were talking about the

50:16

rate of change in society brought

50:18

about by industrialism well it has

50:20

continued to accelerate and Balman said

50:22

that in our time you know

50:25

there are no there's nothing solid

50:27

changes happening so fast that people

50:29

don't have anything to hold on

50:31

to. Balman said that we have

50:33

gone from a society in which

50:35

people used to be pilgrims which

50:37

is to say people who followed

50:39

a certain path a well-worn path

50:42

past familiar landmarks going to a

50:44

particular destination rather to being tourist

50:46

people who go here there and

50:48

everywhere look as their as their

50:50

passions lead them because there are

50:52

no fixed paths anymore that society

50:54

hands for people. This is the

50:56

problem that we're dealing with and

50:59

this was also the problem that

51:01

St. Benedict of Nursia dealt with

51:03

in his own way back around

51:05

the year 500 when the Roman

51:07

Empire in the West had fallen

51:09

25 years earlier and he had

51:11

to try to find a way

51:13

how can we live a life

51:15

of stability as Christians in all

51:18

this chaos and violence? He came

51:20

up with the rule of Saint

51:22

Benedict, just a guidebook for how

51:24

to live him and ask the

51:26

community. Well, and it's still used,

51:28

but we're not called, we lay

51:30

people are not called to be

51:32

monks. So what I try to

51:35

do in that book is take

51:37

the basic principles and figure out

51:39

how can we build stable communities

51:41

in, within liquid modernity, sort of.

51:43

talking about these communities as arcs

51:45

that will allow us not to

51:47

be taken under and drowned by

51:49

the chaos today. There is no

51:52

clear formula for it. I try

51:54

to be open about that that

51:56

it's going to require It's going

51:58

to depend on what your church

52:00

is, what your tradition is, where

52:02

you live, you live in the

52:04

city, you live in the country,

52:06

and it's going to require a lot of

52:09

experimentation, but I'm happy to say that,

52:11

you know, I was just in France

52:13

for a week doing a book promotion,

52:15

and I found out that France is

52:18

much farther along the secularization, decristianization process

52:20

than we are. And people have taken

52:22

it up and Catholics are trying

52:24

to young Catholics, especially not the older

52:27

ones. They still live under the bourgeois

52:29

dream that if we just are for just

52:31

nicer to the secularist, then they'll

52:33

accept us. The younger Catholics, no,

52:35

they don't accept that at all.

52:38

They just want to figure out

52:40

how can we live faithfully to

52:42

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52:44

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53:32

Do you believe, I mean, that

53:34

it seems to me that we have

53:37

to embrace part of the

53:39

highest speed nature of

53:41

modernity to survive? And

53:43

I do really like

53:45

the idea of having

53:47

the intentional community that

53:49

lives outside of modernity,

53:52

but that is something that

53:54

is not something that most

53:56

people are going to be

53:58

able to pursue. are going to

54:00

have to live in modernity and

54:02

that will have a certain amount of

54:05

aggression and a certain amount of speed

54:07

attached to it. And for that reason

54:09

I'm kind of thinking more in the

54:12

direction of you know what you see

54:14

in the contemporary right wing is going

54:16

to have to be adopted in part

54:19

by Christian leaders. But let me back

54:21

up a little bit. I say

54:23

clearly in the book that we're

54:25

not monks. We have to live

54:27

in the world, but if we

54:29

are going to live in the

54:31

world as faithful Christians, and that's

54:33

going to require some conscious stepping

54:35

back from the world to see

54:37

ourselves as different, as leading different

54:39

lives, but there's no escape, full

54:41

homage. There's no escape from modernity.

54:43

But tell me, what do you

54:45

mean by the contemporary right wing? in

54:47

Christianity. What are you for seeing?

54:50

I'm for saying, I mean I'm for saying, I

54:52

guess this is, I don't want, I guess

54:54

I get his name, my contemporaries,

54:57

I'm saying a vision a little

54:59

bit more in line with what

55:01

people like Kevin Dolan are talking

55:03

about. He had the, he's most

55:05

famous for the Natal Conference, which

55:08

he, he had, I think it

55:10

was a few weeks ago actually,

55:12

but he also writes a blog

55:14

called Exit Group about integrating traditional

55:17

elements into modernity. And the perspective

55:19

that people are looking

55:21

at right now is

55:24

creating groups of young

55:26

men who are aligned, who

55:29

are. I guess I'm using this

55:31

word loosely, aggressive, who

55:33

are looking to capture

55:35

elements of the modern

55:37

world and of modern

55:39

wealth because these are

55:41

needed for communities and

55:43

who are willing to

55:45

play modern politics as

55:47

modern politics appears. And

55:49

modern politics appears as

55:51

fast, aggressive, and essentially

55:54

playing what amounts to a...

55:56

a war of moral belief

55:58

systems and And I think

56:00

that kind of presenting yourself, if you're

56:02

going to be in the world, you

56:05

kind of have to stand up and

56:07

say, you know, these are my beliefs,

56:09

you know, I believe in this, I

56:11

do not believe in your idols. And,

56:13

you know, I look, I'll put this

56:15

bluntly. I think that if you're going

56:17

to be in the modern world as

56:19

a Christian and not retreating into like

56:21

an Amish community, you basically need to

56:23

be an iconoclast for the modern world.

56:25

You need to... absolutely not accept the

56:27

pieties of the 20th century and insofar

56:30

as you're pressed on them you need

56:32

to be like I don't believe in

56:34

that if not more aggressive if not

56:36

actively tearing them down in the way

56:38

that you know and Drisker talked about

56:40

right this is abstract to me because

56:43

I don't know the person you're talking

56:45

about can you give me a concrete

56:47

example of what this community an example

56:49

I know there's probably not one iconic

56:51

community but Break it down.

56:54

Talk to me like I'm stupid

56:56

because I don't know this world.

56:58

I mean, I don't I don't

57:00

I have been on this before

57:02

but I mean like I don't

57:04

I don't think Christian should care

57:06

about democracy for instance. I mean

57:08

democracy the pieties around this are

57:10

a relic of the 20th century.

57:12

The idea being seen as I

57:14

mean. So you're asking me for

57:16

an example. Let me clarify here. You're

57:19

asking me for an example of a

57:21

real world action or you asking me

57:23

for an example of like an imageistic

57:25

posture because there are kind of two

57:28

components of that. Well, I'm asking you

57:30

like give me an idea You've talked

57:32

in generalities about what you would like

57:34

to see and what what we should

57:37

be doing, but can you give me

57:39

a specific concrete example of people doing

57:41

this say we should be doing things

57:43

like them? I'm just asking because I

57:46

don't know the people you're talking about.

57:48

I'm not, I'm trying to get a

57:50

concrete idea of what you're, what you,

57:52

what you would like to see happen.

57:54

Well, the organizations that I am

57:56

involved with, you know, I've talked about

57:59

Kevin Dolan's, group, they are very

58:01

focused on essentially creating, I don't

58:03

want to speak for Kevin here,

58:05

but they're focusing on creating cadres

58:08

of focused men who, you know,

58:10

do things like local political activism,

58:12

mentorship, of young men in particular,

58:14

real world things on the ground,

58:16

and like taking some of these guys

58:19

and saying like, okay, you're interested

58:21

in this, here are three other

58:23

guys who we're working on to

58:25

go with it. And to do

58:27

what? To do what? to do

58:30

whatnot to start companies to take

58:32

political power to organize influencing campaigns

58:34

online to create alternative influencer networks

58:36

which is a thing you know

58:38

you want to have a conference

58:40

we're starting multiple conferences we started

58:43

multiple conferences and one of those

58:45

conferences spawned another organization that i'm

58:47

tangentially connected to the old glory

58:49

club which is largely focused on

58:52

on the ground political activism and

58:54

mutual support support for young men

58:56

towards well I mean towards towards towards

58:58

actually very practical and the the

59:01

political end is to. Can I

59:03

can I get the sense of what you're asking

59:05

that question? Yeah I know I'm just

59:07

trying to understand you're saying they're going

59:09

for political action but what did they

59:12

want to achieve what do they want

59:14

to see happen but how do they

59:16

want to change their society change the

59:18

country because I don't know what you're

59:20

talking about it could be anything you.

59:23

you know, help me understand this. Well,

59:25

okay. I mean, I could give

59:27

you an example. So this last

59:29

fall, we raised a lot of

59:31

money for the Hurricane Helene relief

59:33

fund. I did my channel on

59:35

their channel. We released, you know,

59:37

some 10, I think it was

59:39

about 40,000, I don't want to

59:41

quote the exact number, but it

59:43

was a significant amount of money

59:45

for, it was, you know, a

59:47

dwarf the amount of income I

59:50

get from my blog doing this.

59:52

how many guys, but there was a

59:54

group of about I think 10 or 20 who

59:56

were with this organization that went down and directly

59:58

and these were a young guy. These were

1:00:00

all the angry young men that,

1:00:02

that, and people don't, like, this

1:00:05

organization, you know, okay, if you're,

1:00:07

if you're, if you're asking me

1:00:09

right now, like, okay, what's the

1:00:12

difference between, you know, the old,

1:00:14

glory club, and like a church

1:00:16

who also raises money for hurricane

1:00:18

hellian relief funds, and who also

1:00:21

sends young men down to volunteer.

1:00:23

That's because these organizations take. Pardon

1:00:25

my French. They they they flash a

1:00:28

giant middle finger towards the pieties of

1:00:30

the 20th century. Yeah, I'm just frustrated

1:00:32

because I don't okay fine I a

1:00:34

lot of the pieties of the 20th

1:00:37

century. We might agree ought to be

1:00:39

ought to be flipped off. But what

1:00:41

political changes are these groups seek? That's

1:00:43

I don't know why it's difficult to

1:00:46

answer. It feels like that you're

1:00:48

you're trying hard not to be

1:00:50

specific and I don't know why. What do

1:00:52

you mean? What if I were to say

1:00:54

that we wanted to get rid of our

1:00:56

entire educational curriculum and replace it with a

1:00:59

right wing version of it? Like what would

1:01:01

that be an objective that would be suitable

1:01:03

for your question? What if I said that

1:01:05

I wanted that? Yeah, that that and that

1:01:07

and that's an answer to the question. What

1:01:09

if I said I wanted to retire

1:01:11

the entire federal government and most of

1:01:14

the university system with you know, something

1:01:16

specific? Okay, well, there you go. I

1:01:18

mean, but what if I also said

1:01:20

that I wanted to that I wanted

1:01:22

to get just people people are policy

1:01:25

what if I said that I wanted

1:01:27

to get people who are who are

1:01:29

affiliated with Old Glory Club or any

1:01:31

of these other organizations that I mentioned

1:01:34

I want to see them in positions

1:01:36

of political power where they could enact

1:01:38

these changes. I'm talking about things

1:01:40

like that. Are those those changes like

1:01:42

or where I could say I want

1:01:45

to use government money to directly fund

1:01:47

the task of mentoring young men in

1:01:49

the moral direction that I think is

1:01:52

needed for them to actually have thriving.

1:01:54

And I don't want to be like

1:01:56

this. What is that moral direction? That

1:01:58

moral direction is. is the values

1:02:00

of the pre, well, values that

1:02:03

are more aligned to the pre-20th

1:02:05

century and Christianity as it's been

1:02:07

practiced. That's what I would say. I'm

1:02:09

sorry, it feels like every time I

1:02:11

give an answer, it just gets answered

1:02:13

like, what do I mean by that?

1:02:16

I'm not, I'm not being rude here,

1:02:18

I just don't know what you're talking

1:02:20

about, maybe because I don't live in

1:02:22

your online space, values of pre-20th century,

1:02:24

that could mean anything. Yeah, Dave, Rod

1:02:27

is really just trying to

1:02:29

get a really holistic crystal

1:02:31

crystal. So it's not an

1:02:33

argument. He's not, he's not,

1:02:35

he's not going to tear

1:02:37

you down. He really wants to.

1:02:39

Well, okay, I mean, like,

1:02:41

so how would I redesign

1:02:43

an educational curriculum? Uh, like

1:02:45

morally speaking, I mean, I

1:02:47

got, I cut my, I cut my

1:02:50

teeth on the, the, My first big

1:02:52

video was an attack on the sexual

1:02:54

revolution and an attack on these 28th

1:02:57

century notions of gender equality and gender

1:02:59

symmetry. I would definitely put that into

1:03:01

place and I think that that needs

1:03:04

to be part of how we educate

1:03:06

young men and women, not for the

1:03:08

direction of liberty, but for the direction

1:03:11

of family formation. First of

1:03:13

all, the state does educate

1:03:15

young people on how to

1:03:17

interact inside relationships. It absolutely

1:03:19

does. It absolutely does. So

1:03:21

saying that I want to

1:03:23

get a curriculum that says,

1:03:25

you know, the purpose of

1:03:27

sex is for family formation.

1:03:30

And then going forward with

1:03:32

that through the government, through

1:03:34

the state, that is absolutely

1:03:36

something that is... I think a

1:03:38

very, I don't, achievable is hard to

1:03:40

say, because as soon as you do

1:03:43

that, you'll get sued for essentially importing

1:03:45

religious values into public schools. But if

1:03:47

you could, if I could weigh in

1:03:50

my magic one, that's the direction I

1:03:52

want to be going in. Something that

1:03:54

is much more achievable, which would be

1:03:57

taking certain sites, like only fans, like

1:03:59

tender. and just nuking them.

1:04:01

Like you could nuke them on the

1:04:03

face. I'm right there with you on

1:04:06

that. So are the majority. But if

1:04:08

we were to teach Christian values inside

1:04:10

public schools, we'd have to toss out.

1:04:12

about a hundred years of jurisprudence that we

1:04:15

thought was you know essential in the liberal

1:04:17

twentieth century and that you'd have to have

1:04:19

people who would feel comfortable doing that in

1:04:21

positions of power to just go you know

1:04:24

to go up against one of the pieties

1:04:26

and go like I don't care about that

1:04:28

why do I care about you know why

1:04:30

do I care about the pieties of the

1:04:33

civil rights era this is you know this

1:04:35

is ridiculous you know this is ridiculous you

1:04:37

know like the But I just want

1:04:39

to say, though, that this

1:04:41

is one reason why I

1:04:43

strongly dissent from Adrian Bremel's

1:04:45

integralism project, because he would

1:04:47

like to see, and the

1:04:50

integralist, probably speaking, would like

1:04:52

to see Catholic teaching, authoritative

1:04:54

Catholic teaching, integrated with the

1:04:56

state. Fine, but we live in

1:04:58

a country that is not majority Catholic.

1:05:00

And in fact, you would, most Catholics

1:05:02

would not want to do that. And

1:05:05

so I wonder, where does... What places

1:05:07

there for somebody like me as an

1:05:09

Orthodox Christian in the Catholic Integralist state?

1:05:11

Now, they would have an answer for

1:05:14

that. I'm sure there is an answer.

1:05:16

Yeah, but it's not one that I

1:05:18

would necessarily want to live under as

1:05:20

a Catholic. And so we get in,

1:05:22

I mean, as an Orthodox, and so

1:05:25

we get to the question of pluralism,

1:05:27

we actually do live in a pluralistic

1:05:29

country. And what do we do

1:05:32

with that? What happens to the people

1:05:34

whose idea of Christian values? And I

1:05:36

broadly agree with you, but when when

1:05:38

it rubber hits midst of road

1:05:40

here, who's Christian, which church is

1:05:43

Christian values? Well, we are, we

1:05:45

are absolutely tearing the scab off

1:05:47

of getting to the spiciest part

1:05:50

of the debate last when I

1:05:52

usually like, I usually like moving

1:05:54

in conciliatory directions, started off spicy,

1:05:57

and then, you know, end with

1:05:59

hugs. I'm trying to argue with

1:06:01

you. I'm just trying to understand

1:06:03

you. I'll clarify. Pluralism is a

1:06:05

myth. Democracy is a myth. These

1:06:08

are totally manufactured propaganda from the

1:06:10

20th century. The perspective of the

1:06:12

educational apparatus never represents a majority

1:06:14

of what people want. Wokeness was

1:06:16

taught to all of our children

1:06:18

for 30 years. The people who

1:06:20

believe, like it didn't come out, like

1:06:22

didn't spring out of nowhere in 2012.

1:06:24

Like, wokeness was taught for 30 or

1:06:27

40 years. I know it. I lived

1:06:29

near Berkeley, California, for most of my

1:06:31

life. I saw it firsthand. It was

1:06:33

there everywhere in my entire life. We

1:06:35

taught it for 30 or 40 years,

1:06:37

and it was believed by less than

1:06:39

one. half a percentage of people

1:06:42

in this country. A minority

1:06:44

of people always determine the

1:06:46

moral perspectives of the institutions

1:06:48

that govern the educational apparatus.

1:06:50

The organized majority always wins,

1:06:52

the disorganized majority always loses.

1:06:54

In the medieval period that

1:06:56

we all idolizes being the

1:06:58

high point of Christianity, very

1:07:00

few people. in the entire

1:07:03

Orthodox world, before 1500, could

1:07:05

tell you anything about these

1:07:07

deeper elements about what it

1:07:09

means to be Catholic or Orthodox.

1:07:11

Most of them couldn't even read.

1:07:13

Like literacy wasn't widely accepted until

1:07:15

the invention of the printing press.

1:07:17

And so for all of this

1:07:19

golden age of devotion, we're talking

1:07:21

about a society where a very

1:07:23

small minority taught... the religious direction

1:07:25

and moral direction of the people.

1:07:28

You know, and they didn't have

1:07:30

to appeal to this idea of

1:07:32

pluralism. Pluralism is a complete myth.

1:07:34

So when I say it's a

1:07:36

fact, Dave, I mean, we may

1:07:38

not like it, but it's in

1:07:40

the United States, we have a massive

1:07:42

number of people of different races, religions,

1:07:44

and so forth. And this is something

1:07:46

that we have to deal with. Because

1:07:48

when I hear you talking, I wonder

1:07:51

what's gonna happen to the people who

1:07:53

fall on the other side of. what

1:07:55

you believe should be the correct order?

1:07:57

And what if I'm one of those

1:07:59

people? you will be faced with the

1:08:01

same problem. I mean, look, wrong, let me

1:08:03

challenge you. Was in pre-modernity,

1:08:06

like in, say, for instance, as

1:08:08

to be at Caliphate, was that

1:08:10

a pluralistic society because there were

1:08:12

tons of different or the Ottoman

1:08:14

Sultanate? Were those pluralistic societies because

1:08:16

they had a variety of different

1:08:19

religions and races within them? This

1:08:21

is not a new problem, right?

1:08:23

Sure. You're right about that. And

1:08:25

it is. There has to be

1:08:27

a ruling ideology or there's it's

1:08:29

just a political fact of life.

1:08:32

I agree with you there. My

1:08:34

question though and my concern is,

1:08:36

and this is something I have not

1:08:38

worked out for myself because I don't

1:08:41

know how to do it, is what happens when

1:08:43

you have a democracy where people

1:08:45

feel that they have and do

1:08:47

have the right to decide for

1:08:49

themselves how they wish to be

1:08:51

ruled? But they're pluralistic. I mean, this

1:08:53

is why things are breaking apart now.

1:08:55

And I understand from what you said

1:08:57

earlier, you're against democracy. But all

1:08:59

right, who comes to- Yeah, I'm not so

1:09:02

much sure against democracy is I don't believe

1:09:04

it exists. Okay. You know, it would be

1:09:06

like saying that I mean, I guess atheists

1:09:08

were kind of against God, you know, in

1:09:10

hindsight, being an atheist myself, but well- Yeah,

1:09:13

I guess I, I, I, I,

1:09:15

I, I don't believe in democracy,

1:09:17

but we, but we teach people

1:09:19

what to believe in, in schools,

1:09:21

and then they don't vote against

1:09:23

that. They, they vote, like, people

1:09:25

are very unruly when it comes

1:09:27

to, you know, having their soma

1:09:29

taken away from them, if you give

1:09:31

them a privilege and you take

1:09:33

it away, if I, if I

1:09:35

torpedoed only fans and, and, uh,

1:09:37

and tender, like, we both agreed

1:09:39

would be. That would be people

1:09:41

would have more problems with that

1:09:43

than me implementing half of this,

1:09:45

you know, integralist stuff about like,

1:09:47

you know, how teaching high people

1:09:49

in college about like Christian theology

1:09:51

and like how that's the proper

1:09:53

way to pursue the good. They

1:09:55

have way more problems with me

1:09:57

taking away their assoma than they

1:09:59

would. teaching people at Harvard that,

1:10:02

you know, that replacing their

1:10:04

DUI classes with like, you

1:10:06

know, hardcore, you know, JP2

1:10:08

stuff. Can you realistically take

1:10:11

these things away? I mean you well

1:10:13

say say you get the power can

1:10:15

you really take it I don't I

1:10:17

don't see how America is going to

1:10:19

stop being pluralistic I can see how

1:10:22

I can see everything you're saying about

1:10:24

the myth of democracy and how it's

1:10:26

a feedback loop of being taught what

1:10:28

to believe and then they believe it

1:10:31

right and there's levels of power there

1:10:33

but if you're making an argument for

1:10:35

a Christianity or Christian moral code that

1:10:37

has room for conscience. We still have,

1:10:40

we still have, even if it's a

1:10:42

myth, we still allow people to

1:10:44

make decisions about their lives and

1:10:47

what they think, what they believe,

1:10:49

and how they behave based on

1:10:51

their own conscience. And I don't

1:10:53

see how a state can strip that

1:10:55

away. You talk about the caliphate, you

1:10:57

talk about, I mean, you could talk

1:11:00

about Islam, but we're not gonna, that's

1:11:02

like a regression that I don't see

1:11:04

anybody signing up for, other than some

1:11:06

angry people who are just gonna not

1:11:08

become politically viable because they're cutting themselves

1:11:10

off. No one's gonna be ruled by

1:11:12

angry, fail sons, is what I always

1:11:14

tell my, I tell my fault, I

1:11:16

told people that many times, like you

1:11:19

have, when you take power, you have

1:11:21

to be. are responsible, like father forgot

1:11:23

to have left a love. Generous.

1:11:25

Generous. Yeah, and you know, I

1:11:27

have no desire to like go

1:11:30

after people who believe differently. But

1:11:32

that being said, you know, the

1:11:34

apparatus of the state is going

1:11:36

to have an ideology, that ideology

1:11:38

will be taught. And you know,

1:11:41

to answer your first question last,

1:11:43

the big problem with the

1:11:45

modern sum is that's killing

1:11:47

us. And so either humanity itself

1:11:50

is on a timing countdown

1:11:52

to extinction, or we're just

1:11:54

waiting for the government that

1:11:56

can take the sumo away

1:11:58

that's killing. us to come

1:12:00

in and take the sum away

1:12:03

forcibly. And when the government does

1:12:05

that, it will be very democratically

1:12:07

unpopular. And if we still have

1:12:09

elections, they'll lose the elections. But

1:12:11

getting rid of elections and getting

1:12:13

rid of humanity, I'm always going

1:12:16

to prefer getting rid of elections.

1:12:18

And right now we have people

1:12:20

that are voting for things that

1:12:22

is literally biologically killing them in

1:12:24

the collective sense. You know, I'm

1:12:26

looking for, I'm looking for a

1:12:29

way out of this, and, you

1:12:31

know, this is essentially, these sort

1:12:33

of questions is what led

1:12:35

me to this more aggressive

1:12:37

posture, Rod. I'm not trying

1:12:39

to be an asshole. I'm

1:12:41

not trying to come after

1:12:43

you or your beliefs or

1:12:45

be overly aggressive. But these

1:12:47

types of questions of how

1:12:49

raw power political power is

1:12:51

used, how how it essentially controls math

1:12:54

populations so reliably, and the

1:12:56

future that I want for

1:12:58

my child, this has led

1:13:00

me to believe that it's almost

1:13:03

irresponsible not to try to get

1:13:05

control of this apparatus at some

1:13:07

scale, and then try to create

1:13:10

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1:13:12

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1:14:17

Yeah, I think that we can agree

1:14:19

that we're facing, we're in the middle

1:14:22

of a terrible crisis, a existential

1:14:24

crisis. I mean, I'm... I'm going

1:14:26

to have to sign off in

1:14:28

a second because it's getting late

1:14:30

here. But, you know, when I

1:14:32

was in the UK recently, people

1:14:35

talking about and realistically about civil

1:14:37

war coming, everybody's been talking about

1:14:39

David Betts, the professor at King's

1:14:41

College London War Studies Department. He

1:14:43

gave this blockbuster interview to the

1:14:45

podcast of Louise Perry, in which

1:14:47

he talked about based on British

1:14:49

Army military doctrine that all of

1:14:52

the conditions for civil war in the

1:14:54

UK are present. I was in France

1:14:56

recently talking, I traveled around the country

1:14:58

talking to people, they're talking about the

1:15:01

same thing. Not people in the elites,

1:15:03

you won't see this in the media,

1:15:05

but ordinary people are talking about it,

1:15:07

they see it coming. And in fact,

1:15:10

I was in France just after Ash

1:15:12

Wednesday. And the French Catholics were all

1:15:14

talking about how amazing it was to

1:15:16

see the church is full on Ash

1:15:18

Wednesday. They hadn't seen that in decades.

1:15:21

One military man I talked to, a

1:15:23

Catholic, he said, you know, I think

1:15:25

a big part of this is people

1:15:28

sense that some violent clash within the

1:15:30

country with Islam is coming and the

1:15:32

migrants are coming and people want to

1:15:34

have their spiritual houses in order. I

1:15:37

don't know if that's just one guy,

1:15:39

that's anecdotal, but it makes certain sense

1:15:41

to me that people may not be,

1:15:44

some people may be going back for

1:15:46

strictly pious reasons, but I suspect that

1:15:48

many of them are going back for

1:15:51

the sort of reasons that would

1:15:53

have made sense in the times

1:15:55

of the Crusades for civilizational

1:15:57

reasons. So however this gets

1:15:59

resolved. I think many

1:16:01

people feel that what

1:16:04

we have standing now

1:16:06

can't last much longer.

1:16:08

Yeah, I mean, I think

1:16:10

that that's true, but what

1:16:13

we'll take it down

1:16:15

is a very aggressive

1:16:17

force of young men.

1:16:19

And I think that even if

1:16:21

we are not the ones

1:16:23

to take it down, if

1:16:25

there's a radical decentralization and

1:16:27

a sharing of power, having

1:16:30

that organized core of, sorry, aggressive

1:16:32

young men is kind of like

1:16:34

a needed component to this whole

1:16:37

thing. There needs to be the

1:16:39

Aragorns in addition to the photos

1:16:41

and the Gandalfs here. And it's

1:16:44

my feeling, and I think a

1:16:46

lot of people are feeling this

1:16:48

way, that We're really looking for,

1:16:51

okay, so who is who's actually

1:16:53

going to stand up and kind

1:16:55

of be the representatives of the

1:16:58

collectives that we are members of

1:17:00

and saying, you know, you are

1:17:02

my people, I am going to be

1:17:05

in your corner to write out the

1:17:07

chaos that's coming. And you know, I

1:17:09

don't think it's really going to be

1:17:12

so much a civil war between Muslims.

1:17:14

I don't think religious minorities are going

1:17:16

to have a civil war. I think

1:17:19

it's going to be the total state

1:17:21

destabilizing and unraveling. That's what I think

1:17:23

is going to happen. And I'm talking

1:17:26

about Europe. That's not going to happen

1:17:28

in the US that way. But in

1:17:30

Europe, it is where I live.

1:17:32

It's not so in Hungary, which

1:17:34

has kept migrants out, but the

1:17:37

tensions. between migrants, most of whom

1:17:39

are Muslim but not all, and

1:17:41

the native-born people in various countries

1:17:43

is really overwhelming. And you take

1:17:45

away the soma of consumer culture,

1:17:47

and it's to get really ugly,

1:17:49

really fast. Yeah. Which, you know,

1:17:51

that is my sense. Actually, I

1:17:53

100% agree with you, Mr. Dreher.

1:17:55

That's the soma drip is being

1:17:57

kept in place, even though it's...

1:17:59

us because the second I take

1:18:02

the summer drip out you'll get

1:18:04

rebellion. And if I take away

1:18:06

only fans and tender I'm probably

1:18:09

going to get more angry young

1:18:11

men not less. And you know

1:18:13

that's unfortunately a consequence of this

1:18:16

but but it everything kind of

1:18:18

comes back to this central problem

1:18:20

and the central problem that young

1:18:23

men and older men like

1:18:25

myself or feeling is we

1:18:27

have no central organized leadership

1:18:30

class that represents us collectively

1:18:32

speaking and and if there is

1:18:35

some kind of conflict that

1:18:37

breaks out like you were

1:18:39

just describing Rod being the

1:18:41

unorganized party in such a

1:18:43

conflict is a recipe for

1:18:45

extinction historically speaking and You

1:18:48

know, I think a lot

1:18:50

of people are thinking along

1:18:52

these lines and they're looking

1:18:54

to theories of politics That

1:18:56

you know that that simultaneously

1:18:58

solved the meaning crisis and

1:19:00

also this organizational crisis and

1:19:03

I think that you need to

1:19:05

have both sides of this sandwich

1:19:07

to kind of address the modernity

1:19:09

Right, I'm going to have to

1:19:11

leave it there friends. Yeah. All

1:19:14

right. Thank you so much, Rod

1:19:16

and Dave. My pleasure. I've got

1:19:18

to do this. I wanted to

1:19:20

say we ended Spicy, but it's

1:19:22

been honored speaking to, considering how

1:19:24

much she influenced my own thinking.

1:19:26

So I'm very glad that we

1:19:29

have this conversation. Oh, me too.

1:19:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, I

1:19:33

wasn't trying to be aggressive. I

1:19:35

just was trying to understand what

1:19:37

you mean, because I don't. Yeah.