223 episodes
Young Heretics Spencer Klavan
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- Education
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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The classical education you never knew you were missing. Join scholar and writer Spencer Klavan on a tour through the great works of the West. In a world gone mad, we're not alone: the great men and women who went before us have wisdom to guide us. With their help, we can recover truth, beauty, and the stuff that matters.
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The Abolition of Sex: IVF, Designer Babies, and Goethe's Faust
Before C.S. Lewis, before George Orwell, there was Goethe: in Faust Part II, the magician's servant Wagner concocts a literal test tube baby--a "homunculus" or "little man" made without any sexual intercourse at all. This picture of humanity cut off from its natural origins is frighteningly familiar, and it leads to a final word on science, magic, and the coming age of genetic screenings. Where do we go from here? Only the past can help guide us into the future.
Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/
Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM
Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com
We maked this: The New Jerusalem, featuring Andrew Klavan's latest essay on antisemitism: https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com/p/essay-4-antisemitism-is-the-devils -
Words, Words, Words 10: The Holy Ghost Story
Why do we say "Holy Spirit" more often than "Holy Ghost"? It's not just because we're scared of things that go bump in the night. This week I'm taking a listener question about why "Spirit" and "Ghost" seem interchangeable in early modern English translations of the Bible, but not so much anymore. It's about how English has changed, how the Biblical languages changed over time, and how we've changed since salvation history began.
Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM
Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/
Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com -
Nope-ing Out on Humanity
"We're not a good species": that's the rallying cry of Les Knight, founder of the Voluntary Extinction Movement. But the idea that humanity was a mistake didn't just spring out of nowhere. It was built up gradually over centuries, as a side-effect of the scientific revolution. Goethe's Faust is a brilliant attempt to recover and sanctify the role of humanity in creating reality. It is more important now than ever.
Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/
Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM
Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com
I maked this: "China's Three-Body Problem--and Ours," at Law & Liberty: https://lawliberty.org/chinas-three-body-problem-and-ours/
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Interview: Jeremy Carl, [Insert Youtube Warning Label Here]
Is it OK to be white? Claremont Institute Senior Fellow is out with a provocative new book about anti-white discrimination in America, and what's to be done about it. We got into a really interesting discussion about race, culture, and politics--including questions like whether Western culture is "white" and what racial harmony in 21st-century America can and should look like. Take a listen, and then check out Jeremy's book:
The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism is Tearing America Apart: https://www.amazon.com/Unprotected-Class-Anti-White-Destroying-America/dp/1684514584
Find Jeremy on Substack: https://jeremycarl.substack.com
Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/
Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM
Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com
I maked this: "Civil LARP," a review of Alex Garland's Civil War: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beltway-confidential/2963967/civil-larp-the-journalists-are-at-it-again/ -
Say Yes to the Dress: Goethe, Newton, and the Internet's Biggest Fight Ever
Blue and black? Or yellow and white? For eons, mankind has grappled with this essential question. Wars have been fought. Families have been torn asunder. Brother has turned against brother and father against son. But now, at last, we can resolve this most important of debates with help from none other than--Ludwig Goethe? Turns out the whole affair brings up all the important issues we need to start moving from Marlowe's Faust to Goethe's, and on the way to pick up a whole new vision for the future of science.
Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/
Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM
Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com
I maked this: "Civil LARP," a review of Alex Garland's Civil War: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/beltway-confidential/2963967/civil-larp-the-journalists-are-at-it-again/ -
Words, Words, Words 9: Mary Mary, Quite Contrary
It's not every podcast that comes with a disclaimer, but this one is just spicy enough that it needs a warning on the label. I got a great and fascinating question about how to translate a passage from John's Gospel...and the answer will take me into Mary's status in the church, the meaning of the word "the," and the cosmic significance of each of our lives. How's that for a Friday afternoon?*
Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM
Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/
Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com
*Words words words is a subsidiary of Young Heretics hosted by Spencer Klavan and represents exclusively the views of one dudebro books podcaster on exclusively those lexical matters he chooses to address. It has not been approved by the USCCB and is not intended to throw shade on or resolve disputes among Christians including but not limited to Catholics, Anglicans, evangelicals, baptists, anabaptists, katabaptists, parabaptists, pseudobaptists, and baptists with funny hats, regarding issues pertaining but not limited to the perpetual virginity of Mary, her immaculate conception, her experience of labor, her preference for the Browns over the Packers, or her views on the seasoning of fish. Side effects may include morphological fixation and fine grained knowledge of Biblical Greek; if either of these persist longer than a languid afternoon spent leafing through dictionaries and sighing like a character in a Victorian novel, consult your pastor.
Customer Reviews
Hey There Is Hope, After All
Dear Spencer Klavan:
You are a fantastic young teacher. You are simplifying and distilling the parts of the Western canon that I myself should have studied long ago and did not out of sheer intellectual laziness. I’m so grateful that you chose to start this podcast when you did because it allows me to fill in so many cultural blanks in the education of an individual who dropped out of high school at 17 in 1971 and became a hippe. I suspect that you’ve found a niche that no one else inhabits, and that bodes well for the success of your podcast. It’s clear that you’re a rigorous, disciplined student of Western thought. But a lot of people are rigorous, disciplined students of Western thought. What separates you from the herd is that teaching gift. This is a great podcast. It comes just at the time that I’m growing heartily sick of the rampant rancor in our current political discourse. I listen to a lot of political posdcasts, but they tend to blend into one another and say the same thing. We need people like yourself who have a long game view of cultural history. Another man who has a long game view of cultural history is a guy who happens to have the same last name as you do, but is no relation. I don't know if you've heard of Andy Klavan, but he's really good, too. His oft-repeated observation that conservatives need to build alternative TV networks, movie studios, and publishing houses is both wise and true. You might want to listen to his podcast. It's on the Daily Wire. A key takeaway from Youn Heretics is that our current cultural/political chaoss is a smaller version of even larger, more earth-shattering upheavals in the past, during which thousands paid with their lives for the defense of propositional truth.
Ah, young fellow, there is so much there. So much dense meaning, so many riches. Of course it’s impossible to cover it all, but like a flat stone thrown sideways your analyses skip along, giving us rich insight into our rich past. Best of all, you don’t even attempt to answer the current opponents of Western Civ you instinctively understand that they are for the most part nitwits and morons who act out of the darkest ignorance and don’t even have a passing acquaintance of that which you speak. Yes, you piss on them from an considerable height. To know that there are people of your generation such as yourself out there gives one great hope. Godspeed, and may your podcast grow exponentially.
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