Classical Stuff You Should Know A.J. Hanenburg, Graeme Donaldson, and Thomas Magbee

I’ve been listening for a year, and I just caught up. I was hooked after searching for some obscure philosophical topic in Spotify and seeing this pop up. I listened to three episodes a week while I worked (now just once a week; perks of being caught up) and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I missed out on a classical education but I’m slowly making up for it with books, a drive to learn, and this podcast. Keep up the good work!
And never lower your hackles, Graeme. The world needs more thoughtfully raised hackles. (;

Thomas, AJ and Graeme are three wonderful hosts that teach a lot about Classical education and I’m grateful to them for a lot of the topics they bring to the table and filling in some holes missing from modern public school education.

My one criticism is that in listening to the Distributism episode, the gang just don’t have a firm grasp on certain political terms, socialism and collectivism are specifically put on the opposite end of the spectrum of fascism and authoritarianism by Hilaire Belloc, who’s writings this episode is about, and the hosts’ immediate reaction is an outright repudiation. Now I can go on and on into the specifics of what the difference between a state controlled by a dictator and a state controlled by the people are, in which both are technically The State, but very much not “the same thing”. However, I’m not here to spout my own personal politics so I’ll stay away from specifics for the sake of brevity in my review, this is merely to point out how instead of researching these kinds of things further when they are explicitly pointed at within the main text, there are episodes where the team tends to rest on their laurels a tad instead of trying to look a bit harder.

I only ask that sometimes, the hosts keep their minds a bit more open and research their specific topics a little bit more if they are unsure of their footing. Thanks again for all that y’all do, sorry to have this review come out so negative, but it was sticking up my craw so to speak. You guys have introduced me to more classical education than would have been otherwise, and I’ll be forever grateful to y’all and hope to learn more with you guys in the future. Cheers and many thanks gang.

As someone who’s studied the classical texts somewhat, I was delighted to discover this podcast. And they cover such a diversity of topics that I’d recommend it to most anyone, even with their religious orientation (I’m personally agnostic). That being said, Graeme is probably one of the most frustrating people to listen to. He literally scoffs at ideas that do not necessarily fall in line with his own. Thomas and especially A.J. seem to be open to considering other perspectives, but their episodes sometimes devolve into catering to Graeme’s dogmatic obstinance.

Edit: decreasing my review to two stars after listening to the human rights episode. I agree that we have to ground our human rights in some sort of metaphysical justification, narrative, or what have you, but it was nauseating listening to them proclaim that the Christian god is the only real justification. Humanism itself is a narrative that espouses certain human rights without recourse to a deity. Moreover, some modern traditions justify human (and animal) rights through the minimization of suffering. I’d encourage listeners to at least get a few different perspectives on these subjects, because these guys are blinded by their religion.

Also, Graeme clearly doesn’t have a good grasp of history if he thinks that colonization was ever primarily motivated by a desire to spread ethical values. BFFR