Lost Prophets

Elias Crim & Pete Davis

A podcast about the the lost prophets of solidarity — the voices we need to hear again. www.lostprophets.org

  1. 1d ago

    #23. Hannah Arendt, Part 1: Europe

    [ Reminder: We now have a LOST PROPHETS voicemail line. If you call the number (703) 662-3046, you can leave us a short question, a reflection, an idea — and we may play it on the show! Also, we always love emails to LostProphetsPodcast@gmail.com.] Already a classic text in modern political thought, Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism returned to the bestseller lists in the months following the 2016 election. In the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, overall sales of the book—originally published in 1951—increased by over 1,000 percent. Arendt’s stature among academics is a bit ironic: she was a creative and complex thinker who never called herself either a political scientist or a philosopher. For different reasons, she was deeply skeptical of both fields—and yet she is one of the most cited names in the realm of politics and political science today. Born in 1906 into a Jewish family in Hanover, Arendt became a witness to the emergence of a new kind of regime: totalitarianism, with its mechanisms of domination far beyond those of mere dictatorship or tyranny. In this first of two episodes on the large legacy of this prophetic thinker, we concentrate on Arendt’s dramatic and tragic years in Europe leading up to her fleeing the Nazis and publishing Origins. The second episode will take up her life and work as she becomes both an enthusiastic citizen and then a discerning critic of the United States. Key takeaways from this episode: * Arendt is born in 1906 to a non-observant and highly literate Jewish family in Hanover. She experiences some anti-Semitism in school but learns early on to speak up for herself. * Growing up in the crises around the Great War, Arendt spends much time indoors in her father’s library, reading Homer, Schiller, Goethe, Kant and Jaspers, among other great names. * Her politically active mother takes her to hear Rosa Luxemburg speak at a general strike rally a few months before the murder of the latter and Karl Liebknecht in January 1919. * She audits classes at the University of Berlin for several months in 1922, studying with Romano Guardini. * She arrives at the University of Marburg in 1924, age 18, to study with rising philosopher Martin Heidegger, taking courses with him on Plato and Aristotle. Eventually she begins an affair with her teacher which lasts a little over one year, although they continue to correspond until Heidegger joins the Nazi party in 1933. Their letters resume intermittently after the end of the Second World War. * In 1925, she spends a semester in Freiburg studying with Edmund Husserl before moving to Heidelberg to begin studies with Karl Jaspers, thus having the opportunity to work with three of the 20th century’s most famous names in philosophy. * Under Jaspers, she writes a dissertation on the topic of “Love and St. Augustine,” a shift in her thinking, away from Heidegger’s style of solitary thought focused on the self toward Jaspers’ dialogic and plural approach. * Augustine gives Arendt the language of new beginnings, neighborly love, and love of the world—themes that will remain throughout all her future work. * February 27, 1933: The Reichstag fire and the anti-Semitic repression in its wake convince Arendt to flee Germany for France. Before she and her mother can leave, they are both interrogated for eight days by a young Gestapo officer. * She carries with her the manuscript of a biographical study, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman. Arendt is fascinated by this figure, the first Jewish woman to establish herself as a leading intellectual and political figure in Germany. Varnhagen reveals to Arendt the complex nature of the pariah, a social role that Arendt will both describe and embrace in her work. * In these years, she works for Jewish relief organizations like Youth Aliyah and conducts the library research on antisemitism which gets her arrested in July 1933. * January 16, 1940: Arendt marries Heinrich Blücher in Paris. Four months later, they are both ordered into separate internment camps. After four weeks, Arendt is one of only around 200 people out of 7,000 who manage to escape, next reaching Lourdes in search of her friend Walter Benjamin. Gurs, the rural camp where Arendt was interned, later comes under the jurisdiction of Adolf Eichmann, who sent the entire population of the camp to Auschwitz. * May 22, 1941: After months in Montauban and Lisbon, Arendt and Blücher arrive at Ellis Island with 25 dollars and very little English. Both are stateless refugees. After settling in New York City, she begins writing Origins of Totalitarianism with Blücher as an intellectual interlocutor and sounding board. Origins of Totalitarianism: * An unconventional history of this new phenomenon in three major sections: Antisemitism, Imperialism, Totalitarianism. * She did not believe in any doctrine of eternal hatred for the Jews nor did she believe that traditional Jew-hatred (the old anti-Semitism grounded in religious division) was the same thing as the new phenomenon of ideological antisemitism which she gave a new spelling in order to indicate a difference. * Her broad sense of social history: insightful thumbnail portraits of Benjamin Disraeli, Marcel Proust, Alfred Dreyfus, T.E. Lawrence, and others. * She discusses the decline in 19th century French politics symbolized by the shift from the figure of the citoyen to that of the bourgeois. * 1884-1914: The decades of high Western imperialism leading up to the catastrophe of the Great War. * Racism: the necessary ingredient for the bourgeois elite and the mob to come together politically in order to implement imperialistic goals through a self-justifying cover story. * What’s unprecedented in totalitarianism: The state becomes a façade for a world-historical movement in which everything is possible. Two key elements: the instrumentalization of terror and the construction of concentration camps. * These movements offered the masses a chance to escape from reality and the condition of metaphysical homelessness. * A lying world of consistency is created (a “virtual reality” of sorts) — the leader says: I see all the patterns and we can explain everything that happens in terms of the great conspiracy. Much like a cult leader, he then conducts his followers into a counter-conspiracy based in a contempt for the blindness of the outsiders. Actual reality thus becomes a threat to this new counter-reality and state violence must be used to compel events to conform to it. * “What the mob wanted, even at the price of destruction, was access to history.” * Describing the final victory of a totalitarian regime: “The night has fallen on the future, when no witnesses are left—only organized oblivion. Among family and friends, grief and remembrance are forbidden.” * Origins was sometimes seen as a “Cold War book” but she was never an “anti-Communist” and criticized this ideology and its offspring McCarthyism. * “There are no dangerous thoughts: thinking itself is dangerous,” she once stated. She meant: it is dangerous especially to our ideologies. Recommended: * Hannah Arendt, Love and St. Augustine * Hannah Arendt, Rahel Varnhagen * Hannah Arendt, We Refugees * Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism Get full access to The Lost Prophets Podcast at www.lostprophets.org/subscribe

  2. Jul 10

    #22. Fourth of July with the Lost Prophets

    [ Reminder: We now have a LOST PROPHETS voicemail line. If you call the number (703) 662-3046, you can leave us a short question, a reflection, an idea — and we may play it on the show! Also, we always love emails to LostProphetsPodcast@gmail.com.] Your faithful co-hosts decided to share some reflections on the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4. We begin by looking back at four of our Lost Prophets with something to say about the 1976 bicentennial: James Baldwin, Hannah Arendt, Dorothy Day, and Christopher Lasch. All were pretty somber, as was the case with the two other celebrations, in 1876 (Reconstruction is being dismantled) and 1926 (the Klan is ascendant). We then take up several authors with theories about the Founding, the need for a re-founding, and even a recommendation for a change in the national anthem — let’s ditch the unsingable Star-Spangled Banner for the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro & announcements 06:45 James Baldwin, "Looking for the Bicentennial Man" 09:30 Hannah Arendt, "Home to Roost" 16:00 Dorothy Day, "Bread for the Poor" 21:00 Christopher Lasch, "The Narcissist Society" 27:15 Arendt's On Revolution and the social question 32:15 Garry Wills on Lincoln at Gettysburg 36:15 Kermit Roosevelt III on The Nation That Never Was 39:45 Fred Dewey, "Calling All Freedom Ancestors" 44:15 The World Cup comes to Lawrence, Kansas Recommended: * James Baldwin, “Looking for the Bicentennial Man” * Dorothy Day, “Bread for the Poor” speech at 41st Eucharistic Congress (Philadelphia) * Hannah Arendt, “Home to Roost: A Bicentennial Address” * Hannah Arendt, On Revolution * Christopher Lasch, “The Narcissist Society” * Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism * Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg * Kermit Roosevelt III, The Nation That Never Was * Osita Nwanevu, The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding * Fred Dewey, Without the Consent of the People * Walt Whitman, “For You O Democracy” * Our Ivan Illich episode with the late great David Cayley * Our episode on the prophetic with the late great Marc H. Ellis * Our Dorothy’s Place episode with the late great Fred Dewey Related to these themes, watch for forthcoming Lost Prophets episodes on Hannah Arendt! And as always, thank you to the great NOBLE DUST for providing the show’s music Get full access to The Lost Prophets Podcast at www.lostprophets.org/subscribe

  3. Apr 26

    #21. Thomas Merton (ft. Nick Scrimenti)

    [ First, some exciting podcast news. We now have a LOST PROPHETS voicemail line. If you call the number (703) 662-3046, you can leave us a short question, a reflection, an idea — and we may play it on the show!] Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything. These sentences are from a three-page personal letter written in 1966 by Thomas Merton to peace activist and Catholic Worker Jim Forest. Merton is responding to Forest’s despair at the mounting toll of deaths in the Vietnam War. Near the end of the letter, Merton writes, “The real hope, then, is not in something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see. If we can do His will, we will be helping in the process. But we will not necessarily know all about it beforehand…” Thomas Merton (1915-1968), the Trappist monk, theologian, mystic poet and social activist, “teaches us how to live a life of conscience in difficult times,” as critic Robert Inchausti once put it. As popular with readers today as in his own lifetime, Merton is considered by many the most important Catholic writer in English of the 20th century. Merton also possessed a sparkling intellect which combined the rigor of the New York intellectuals with the probity of the Desert Fathers. He speaks directly to our solitude through a rigorous examination of his own. He was a professed member of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, near Bardstown, Kentucky, living there from 1941 until his death. Somehow he managed to write more than 50 books in a period of 27 years, along with many essays and reviews. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding, both within the tradition of Christianity and also between Eastern and Western faiths. Some key takeaways from our conversation: * Born in France, orphaned at 15, and educated in England, Merton was a quintessential “outsider” in American mid-century culture and the harbinger of a still-to-be-realized contemplative counterculture. * We must grasp the distinction between our true and false selves, between the pseudo-identities we possess as conditioned members of society and the person we truly are, known only by God. (A key theme of his New Seeds of Contemplation.) * In 1948, Merton published the book for which he is most famous: The Seven Storey Mountain, a memoir of his path to entering Gethsemani monastery at age 26. The book remained at the top of nonfiction bestseller lists for two years and made Merton the most famous monk in the world. Although he expressed misgivings in later years over the book’s zealous tone, it was (and still is) responsible for many conversions to Catholicism, the religious life, and faiths of all kinds. * Connections to others of our Lost Prophets: His interest in what is now called eco-spirituality is seen in his correspondence with Rachel Carson. He was also a close collaborator with and friend to Daniel and Phil Berrigan, although they sometimes differed on the limits of radical witness. * His association with Catholic Workers and his pacifism got Merton silenced for a time in the 1960s. He began privately publishing what came to be known as the Cold War Letters. * His interest in Asian religions began in his teenage reading about Gandhi. He met Zen writer D.T. Suzuki in New York in 1964 which sparked his interest in the ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu, whose classic sayings he translated in 1965. * He did not seek to convert to Buddhism nor did he wish for a syncretistic blend of world religions—only a deepening of true ecumenism. Our guest, Nick Scrimenti, is a dialogue facilitator, spiritual director and educator. He studied theology at Georgetown and Harvard Divinity School — and lived and worked at the Bonnevaux Centre for Peace, a lay-monastic retreat center in rural France. He wrote the introduction to the Merton Annual’s publication of a 1976 letter written at Gethsemani by Fr. John Main, who with Merton helped revive the Christian contemplative tradition in the twentieth century. Timestamps: [00:03:30] — Pete & Elias on Merton’s place in the “web” of Lost Prophets and his counterculture contemporaries [00:06:45] — Merton’s origins: born in wartime France, artist parents, orphaned young, perpetual wanderer across Europe and America [00:17:00] — Columbia University, Mark Van Doren, the Great Books scene, Robert Lax, and the seeds of conversion [00:37:00] — The conversion arc: Cambridge disgrace, a night on the floor in Rappahannock, the Cuba epiphany, Friendship House vs. Gethsemane, and choosing the Trappists [00:48:00] — Entering Gethsemane; The Seven Storey Mountain, the monastic counterculture it sparked, and why it became the surprise bestseller of 1948 [01:22:00] — The false self vs. the true self; solitude as new birth; the Fourth & Walnut revelation; monasticism as counterculture [01:36:00] — Engagement with the world: the peace movement, civil rights, Cold War Letters, correspondence with hundreds of people [01:59:00] — The final years: a nurse named M, the Asia pilgrimage, Buddhist dialogue, meeting the Dalai Lama, and Merton’s mysterious death [02:19:00] — Interview with Nick Scrimenti on Merton’s legacy, Fr. John Main, contemplation vs. the attention economy, and monasticism for today Recommended: * The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)—an autobiography of a mind which has encountered writers like William Blake, Etienne Gilson, and Aldous Huxley amidst world war and cultural upheaval. * Wisdom of the Desert (1960)—Reflections on the lives and spirituality of ancient Christianity’s Desert Fathers of Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine. * New Seeds of Contemplation (1961)—Considered a classic text on Christian practices of meditation and contemplation. * Way of Chuang Tzu (1965)—Merton’s translation and interpretation of this sage of early Taoism. * Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1966)—Notes, opinions, experiences, and reflections on political, social, racial and culture topics of all kinds. * Mystics and Zen Masters (1967)—Reflections on early monasticism, Russian Orthodox spirituality, the Shakers, and Zen Buddhism seen as different ways of pursuing The Way. * Zen and the Birds of Appetite (1968)—Essays exploring the relationship between Christianity and Zen. * Asian Journal (1968)—Notes on his travels across Bangkok, India and Ceylon in the last year of his life, including the address he gave only hours before his untimely death. * “Nhat Hanh Is My Brother”—Merton’s short 1966 essay, originally published in Jubilee magazine, declaring his solidarity with the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and making the case for a brotherhood that transcends nationality, religion, and politics. * Raids on the Unspeakable (1966)—A collection of essays, meditations, and prose poems, including “Rain and the Rhinoceros,” Merton’s celebrated reflection on solitude, nature, and resistance to the consuming logic of modern life. * When Prophecy Still Had a Voice: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Robert Lax (2001)—All 346 known letters between Merton and his closest friend, spanning thirty years from Columbia to Bangkok. * The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton (1984)—Michael Mott’s biography of Merton, drawing on private journals and interviews to tell the full story of his life. * “Thomas Merton: The Monk Who Became a Prophet”—Alan Jacobs’s essay in The New Yorker, written on the 50th anniversary of Merton’s death, tracing his spiritual and artistic development from turbulent youth to contemplative prophet. * Meditation en Masse—an article by Erik Braun on the colonial roots of the mindfulness boom. * From Deus in Adiutorium to Maranatha: Colonialism and Reform in John Main’s Hindu Encounter (2021)—an article by our guest Nick Scrimenti on John Main’s hybrid method of Christian contemplation, drawing on meditation techniques of Swami Satyananda and the “prayer formula” of 4th century Christian theologian John Cassian. * No Man Is an Island — an essay by Nick Scrimenti in Commonweal about the relationship between therapy, spirituality, and asceticism * Fr. Matthew Kelty has a homily on “Desolation Row” in this collection Get full access to The Lost Prophets Podcast at www.lostprophets.org/subscribe

  4. Jan 19

    #20. bell hooks (ft. Nadra Nittle)

    “If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life which is that I’m a seeker on the path. I think of feminism, and I think of anti-racist struggles as part of it. But where I stand spiritually is, steadfastly, on a path about love.” Gloria Jean Watkins, born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1952, once said she chose her public name—bell hooks—as a way of honoring a woman who had gone before her: her maternal great-grandmother, who was known for her sharp tongue. She also wanted to step away from her parents’ choice of Gloria Jean, which she thought “a southern belle’s name.” Her preference for using the lower case may derive from the 1960s fashion of making your own ego secondary to the cause. The author of over 40 books of essays, poetry, children’s literature, and scholarly articles, hooks’ subjects were love, race, class, gender, art, mass media, sexuality, and feminism. Some key takeaways from our conversation: * Born a half century after civil rights pioneer Ella Baker, her feminism picks up the struggle for Black women to be heard. * She saw the creeping nihilism damaging much of Black life (and American life generally) as stemming from her four-headed ideological enemy: "imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" * Her intersectionality is about the interconnectedness of issues, similar to the way King realized at one point that the Vietnam War was not a separate issue from civil rights. * She liked to say her goal was not to become an elite intellectual but “to produce theory people could use.” * Her small town Kentucky origins strongly shaped her later life as she explored both her unhappiness as a child and the warmth of her agrarian community. She also developed a warm friendship with fellow Kentuckian Wendell Berry. * She identified with (and embodied) Cornel West’s idea of an “organic intellectual” who never forgot her roots. * She used the reach of popular culture—especially film—as a way of connecting more directly with her students. * Her spirituality, which began in her Stanford years in an encounter with Gary Snyder’s Buddhism, grew as she aged and became a driving passion of her life. Timestamps: [00:10:00] Spiritual Influences: Discussion of how the dialogues between Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan helped hooks unite spiritual quest with radical activism. [00:14:00] Ain’t I a Woman?: Background on hooks’ 1982 foundational third-wave feminist text that addressed the unique oppression of black women. [00:31:30] Intellectual Discipline: A look at hooks’ daily routine, which included waking early to read one non-fiction book a day and limiting internet and cell phone use. [00:42:30] “Homeplace” as Resistance: Analysis of hooks’ argument that the private home serves as a radical site of resistance and a sanctuary from public oppression. [00:51:30] The Love Trilogy: Exploration of hooks’ best-selling books on love, where she defines love as a “verb” and an active practice within community. [01:05:30] Connection to Wendell Berry: Discussion of hooks’ 2009 book Belonging and her shared vision with Berry regarding land, rural life, and Kentucky roots. [01:20:30] Interview with Nadra Nittle: A conversation with the author of bell hooks’ Spiritual Vision. Recommended: * Ain’t I A Woman (1982)—her breakout first book, looking at the condition of Black women from the time of slavery through 1980 * Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984) * Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (1991)—conversations with her friend Cornel West * Teaching to Transgress (1994)—strongly influenced by Paulo Freire * Outlaw Culture (1994)—essays on culture, including pop star Madonna, the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill controversy, and Spike Lee’s Malcolm X * Bone Black (1996)—hooks’ luminous memoir of her girlhood in rural Kentucky * All About Love: New Visions (1999)—the first of three books on love * Salvation: Black People and Love (2001) * Communion: The Female Search for Love (2002) * Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism (2006)—conversations with the Latina artist and scholar Amalia Mesa-Bains * Belonging: A Culture of Place (2008)—reflections on her rediscovery of her native region, including an interview with her friend Wendell Berry * bell hooks’ Spiritual Vision: Buddhist, Christian, and Feminist by Nadra Nittle (2023) Get full access to The Lost Prophets Podcast at www.lostprophets.org/subscribe

  5. 11/25/2025

    #19. William H. Whyte (ft. Alexandra Whyte)

    Who was Holly Whyte? Richard K. Rein’s excellent 2022 biography, American Urbanist: How William H. Whyte’s Unconventional Wisdom Reshaped Public Life, attempts to list his many personae: “magazine editor, author, urbanist, urban anthropologist, filmmaker, pundit, public intellectual, politician (unelected and behind the scenes), consultant, teacher, mentor (to, seemingly, hundreds), as well as husband and father.” Born in 1917, he served in the Second World War at Guadalcanal. After the war, he joined Fortune magazine, where he coined the term “groupthink,” a fitting phrase for his big assignment of 1955-6: writing a book-length profile of American corporate culture in hopes of capturing its future direction. That meant: rising suburbia, the gray flannel suit, the steno pool, bridge clubs, and the importance of being “well adjusted.” (“To what?” he asked. “Nobody really knows.”) In his many interviews with CEOs as well as “middle managers” for The Organization Man, Whyte caught the shift away from the individualistic Protestant ethic toward a new conformity—really an idolatry (in his words) of the system, along with the misuse of science. (By the latter, he meant the tools of social science like personality tests.) The other great subject for Whyte was the life of cities, especially their street life, a topic on which he served as mentor to urbanist Jane Jacobs. (See our conversation about her here.) His The Last Landscape has been seen as the Silent Spring of urban sprawl and the loss of urban open space — and his Social Life of Small Urban Spaces is a bible for placemakers to this day. Our guest, Alexandra Whyte, is the daughter of Holly Whyte. Key takeaways from our conversation: * Whyte was one of the chroniclers of the Age of Conformity, as the 1950s are often thought of. On the model of the Cold War’s “containment” policy, there was a political economy of containment, as Eugene McCarraher suggests. Whyte is partly acquiescent, partly critical—almost “Beat.” * His elite origins, a descendant of politicians, growing up in a mansion, attending St. Andrews boys’ prep school (inspiration for the film Dead Poets Society). His full name: W. Hollingsworth White III. * His talent for writing prose with a literary flair. Becomes part of a scene of “connected critics” of society, along with James Agee, Dwight MacDonald, John Kenneth Galbraith, and others. * His Organization Man can be seen as part of a post-war concern about the direction of the new business culture and its potential capture by various kinds of experts. It is also filled with very funny quotes. * His vivid descriptions of the new suburban culture and its “packaged villages” that have become the dormitories of the Organization Men. * A huge fan of cities his entire life. When asked to name his three favorite, he replied: “New York City, New York City, New York City.” * His intellectual practice (like that of so many of our Lost Prophets!) was intense observation, whether in his interviews of corporate executives or in his way of learning about cities by walking the streets and watching the interactions in public spaces. The brilliance of his “amateur sociology.” * His fascination with townscape: the physical outlines of the downtown, the city center, the main street. (He wrote “The street is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center.”) * His love of street life and even street people—he considered them an index of the health of a place and defended their legal rights to gather, play music, etc. * In The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, he develops the key concepts of what becomes the art of placemaking. * Whereas his more famous student, urbanist Jane Jacobs, tended toward lyrical, qualitative observations, Whyte loved data gathering (which could include hiding behind trash cans in order to watch the pedestrian traffic in a particular plaza). Timestamps: 0:03:30 — Introduction: The Counterculture in a Suit 00:11:00 — Early Life: From Vicks VapoRub to the Marine Corps 00:14:30 — Fortune Magazine and the Invention of “Groupthink” 00:24:00 — Deep Dive: The Organization Man 00:41:00 — The “New Suburbia” 00:47:30 — The Pivot to Urbanism: The Exploding Metropolis 00:55:00 — Discovering Jane Jacobs 00:59:00 — Conservation Easements and the 1969 NYC Plan 01:04:30 — The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces 01:15:30 — Interview with Alexandra White Recommended: * The Organization Man (1956) * The Exploding Metropolis (1958) * Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980) * City: Rediscovering the Center (1988) * American Urbanist: How William H. Whyte’s Unconventional Wisdom Reshaped Public Life, Richard K. Rein (2022) * Social Life of Small Urban Spaces—documentary film (1980) * James Howard Kunstler on “How Bad Architecture Wrecked Cities” Get full access to The Lost Prophets Podcast at www.lostprophets.org/subscribe

    #19. William H. Whyte (ft. Alexandra Whyte)

  6. 10/10/2025

    #18. Daniel Berrigan (ft. Fr. John Dear)

    “Devout and Dangerous” is the title—irony intended—of an excellent documentary film about the life and times of Fr. Daniel Berrigan, his brother Philip, and their circle of Catholic activists for peace. The priest brothers were indeed publicly devout in their antiwar actions but “dangerous”? Certainly FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was convinced of the great harm the group posed to his reputation and to that of his unaccountable agency. In reality, during the years of the Vietnam War and afterward for two decades, what these militantly nonviolent activists “endangered” was the continuing, mostly unquestioned operations of the U.S. military-industrial complex, whether in the offices of local draft boards or in the weapons plants manufacturing nuclear warheads. If only recently, a Jesuit pope was speaking to the world about the need to finally discard doctrines of “just war” in favor of the philosophy and practice of nonviolence, the witness of Dan Berrigan and his circle of fellow resisters spoke prophetically of these things over a half century ago. As the anguish around the Vietnam War grew to a white heat in the 1960s, American Catholics were just getting comfortable with their arrival in middle-class society, symbolized by the Kennedy election at the beginning of the decade. Nothing could have been more shocking than the spectacle of a Catholic priest being arrested and going to jail for an act of civil disobedience (at a massive antiwar protest at the Pentagon). Such a thing had simply never happened before. (Actually it had, when Daniel’s brother, Father Philip Berrigan, was first arrested for a civil rights demonstration in 1962.) Nor were any Americans prepared to read of two priests and several laypeople entering a draft board center in Catonsville MD, taking out draft records to cover with blood, and then burning with homemade napalm in a parking lot before joining hands in prayer as they awaited arrest. Were these useless, symbolic efforts? The Berrigans’ actions inspired over 200 draft board raids before the Vietnam war ended, and convinced Daniel Ellsberg to copy and disseminate the 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers. Numerous voices later attributed a major role to the Berrigans in turning world public opinion against the war. But even if that didn’t happen, Berrigan wouldn’t have seen his work as a failure: “ Good work is its own justification,” he would say. “The outcome is in other hands besides ours.” Dan Berrigan published over 50 books of essays, poetry and theology, and was nominated numerous times for the Nobel Peace Prize, notably for his work in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Our guest for this episode, Fr. John Dear, was a close collaborator with Dan Berrigan for several decades. He is an internationally known author, activist and teacher of peace and nonviolence. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Senator Barbara Mikulski, and several others. Some key takeaways from our conversation: * Daniel Berrigan’s gift for creating memorable language about justice. As he and his fellow resisters stood burning draft files at Catonsville, Maryland in 1967, Berrigan famously said to the small crowd (and to the world), “Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, for the burning of paper instead of children, for the angering of the orderlies in in the front parlor of the charnel house. We could not, so help us God, do otherwise.” * He moved away from some aspects of his Jesuit culture but he never failed to acknowledge what his training gave him: a deep sense of God in the world, and most especially in the human community. * His faithfulness to the Word of Scripture as liberation: “We go to this Word in fear and trembling, knowing that the World itself is a judgement, a two-edged sword, as Paul declares.” * His wonderful ability to perform, to act, to transform prosaic events into theater and poetry, as in the case of his Broadway play, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine * His humor (usually with a point): “Don’t just do something, stand there”, he liked to say. (A way of making the point that most “doing something” is less valuable than taking a stand for something.) * He came to believe and teach that the nonviolent way of life should be the normal way for a human being to live, something that in fact neither of his great inspirations—Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.—had ever quite said. * As for our motivations, he taught: “Do the good because it’s good; speak the truth because it’s the truth. Don’t worry about your influence or the outcome—leave it to God, it’s in better hands than ours.” * Berrigan was once asked, “How many times have you been arrested?” He replied, “Apparently not enough.” Timestamps: * (0:00) Intro discussion * (6:00) Childhood and early years as a priest, experiences in Europe, first writings, founding of Catholic Peace Fellowship, exile to Mexico * (20:00) Travels in Latin America, returns to the U.S. (Cornell U.) * (23:30) Hanoi trip, the Catonsville MD draft card burning, repercussions and reactions, trial of the Catonsville Nine * (38:30) Goes underground, arrested and imprisoned * (49:30) New activism around nuclear weapons, just war theory, nonviolence, friendship and book with Thich Nhat Hanh * (52:30) Peace action at G.E. plant in King of Prussia PA, trial and later film about the trial * (59:30) Acts in The Mission movie, teaching, writing, final interview * (1:06:00) Interview with Father John Dear * (2:01:30) Final reflections Recommended: * Daniel Berrigan, Essential Writings, ed. by John Dear (2009) * At Play in the Lion’s Den, biography of Berrigan by a good friend and collaborator, Jim Forest (2017) * No Bars to Manhood, Daniel Berrigan (2007) * Disarmed And Dangerous: The Radical Life And Times Of Daniel And Philip Berrigan, Brothers In Religious Faith And Civil Disobedience, Murray Polner, Jim O’Grady (1998) * In the King of Prussia, Emile de Antonio’s filmed re-enactment of the Plowshares trial, 1982 (YouTube) * The Holy Outlaw, 1970 doc film by Lee Lockwood for NET. * Bare Ruined Choirs: Doubt, Prophecy, and Radical Religion, Gary Wills (1972) * Jeremy Scahill on Daniel Berrigan, Democracy Now (2016) Get full access to The Lost Prophets Podcast at www.lostprophets.org/subscribe

  7. 08/15/2025

    #17. Daniel Wortel-London on Alternative Visions of Urban Prosperity

    “If we could get every billionaire in the world to move here, that would be a godsend.” —former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg Somewhat short of the former mayor’s hopes, it seems that exactly 123 billionaires—the most in the country—now make New York City their home, according to the 2025 Forbes list. Perhaps they have been a political godsend for the campaign of mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, whose meteoric rise has been partly fueled by street-level policy proposals aimed at restoring affordability for the city’s non-billionaires. It’s enough to make you think Zohran had a pre-publication copy of historian Daniel Wortel-London’s wonderfully heterodox and well-written new book on the economic history of the city of New York— The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1865-1981. (You can pre-order here — and a Google Play audiobook preview is here.) How on earth, some readers will wonder, could prosperity ever be a menace? But that’s the story Wortel-London tells (with appearances by Lost Prophets Jane Jacobs, Paul Goodman, Lewis Mumford, and others) as he recounts over a century of struggles about which form of prosperity the city should aspire to — one that distributes ownership widely…or centralizes power; one that cultivates civic virtue…or rewards profiteering speculation; one that builds wealth locally…or hitches local prosperity to the task of attracting outside corporations and billionaires (and occasionally redistributing some of their wealth)? It seems undeniable that capitalism tends to move from crisis to crisis, at least if you look at the three periods under scrutiny here. The first crisis stemmed from the Panic of 1873, when the city’s post-Civil War real estate boom from public spending ends in the Wall Street-railroad bubble bursting. The 1930s were the next crisis years as Fiorello LaGuardia and the City Planning Commission struggled with fiscal stabilization, possibly undermined, as the author interestingly explains, by federal assistance, which only accelerated the problems. Manhattan’s land values did not fully return to their pre-Depression values until 1977, by which time a shift in focus from land values to white collar income as the real source for taxes was well underway. The striking thesis offered here is that the fiscal crises were due to a “bankruptcy of economic thought and policy”, a poverty of ideas and “a dogma of powerlessness.” Wortel-London turns around the usual shibboleths about the city’s welfare services being a driver of crisis in order to see them as a downstream product of the private sector’s irresponsibility and power: power to pay lower wages, charge high rents, and deny investment to needy communities. The culprit—one rarely mentioned in conversations about urban development—is unsustainable elite-driven development with its attendant social costs. As we review this history with Daniel, we find the book to be a storehouse of urban policy alternatives. Mayor Bloomberg is only one of the more recent proponents of the comforting notion that “the rich take care of everybody else” with what Wortel-London calls their “poisoned largesse.” Many years ago, the urban policy mix included worker cooperatives, public housing, land value taxes, neighborhood finance, and community-owned enterprises. As a stroll around many parts of New York today will reveal, cities today mostly utilize tax incentives for corporations, real estate speculation, and financialized development. Wortel-London’s narrative stops in 1981, with the arrival of Reaganomics, austerity and the first wave of the billionaires. It would be a further contribution to expanding what he calls our “fiscal imaginations”—badly shrunken as they are—if his next book could pick up the story at that point. Unless he decides to take a job in the new Mamdani administration, of course. [Note: This episode was recorded before the New York City mayoral primary.] Recommended * The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1865-1981 — pre-order here * “(We’re) Back in the USSR” from Daniel’s great substack, The Economy of Community * Daniel on Zohran’s primary victory in New York Daily News * Daniel on Zohran and Community Wealth-Building in the Democracy Collaborative’s blog * Paul and Percival Goodman’s Communitas Many thanks to the great band NOBLE DUST, who provides the music for Lost Prophets. Their latest album, A Picture for a Frame, is here. LOST PROPHETS is a podcast about the mid-century voices of solidarity we need to hear again. To listen on your podcast player, our Spotify link is here, Apple Podcasts link is here, and RSS link is here. Get full access to The Lost Prophets Podcast at www.lostprophets.org/subscribe

  8. 07/16/2025

    #16. Rachel Carson (ft. Roger Christie)

    In 1962, the American public’s faith in science was very high. After all, science was credited with helping us win World War II (Spam rations, nylons, the bomb) and was giving an emerging middle-class ever more conveniences and choices. It was also a time when the answer to many questions was simply: more chemicals. Certain things had gone unnoticed in this triumphal story, however. The synthetic pesticide DDT had been rushed into battle zones in 1940 in the hopes of defeating the spread of typhus via lice or malaria. Over one million people—thousands in the city of Naples and whole islands in the South Pacific, for example—were “deloused” by DDT dusting. By 1951, DDT was being deployed by crop dusting planes after it had been cleared for civilian use, eliminating malaria from U.S. households after extensive house-spraying efforts. The Department of Agriculture advocated vigorously for farm use. When the USDA’s fire ant eradication (not just control) program was rolled out in the Deep South, 20 million acres were sprayed, killing various kinds of wildlife. In these years, consumers had some 6,000 different pesticide products available, with little testing, nor restrictions on use. Meanwhile, more reports of dead birds and fish kept appearing. Rachel Carson, the author of the iconic report Silent Spring, resembled her near contemporary Jane Jacobs in being something of a reluctant prophet—but one who was unafraid to question authority (or corporate power), once the time of testing came. Her first love was the ocean which, as she later noted, came to teach her everything about “the connectedness of the world.” Between 1941 and 1955, she wrote three lyrical books about the sea, at a time when there was little popular knowledge about the subject. Serialized first in the New Yorker, her The Sea Around Us became one of the best-selling science books of all time, translated into 30 languages. In one of her warm letters to her friend Dorothy Freeman, she explained what was compelling her to write a new—and darker—kind of book: “Everything which meant most to me as a naturalist was being threatened and nothing I could do would be more important.” After books about beauty, she had to write one about death and its causes. Scientists in this Cold War period were not advocates. But Carson became a crusader, all while fighting the cancer that would take her life shortly after Silent Spring’s publication. She was not against the prudent use of pesticides but against the indiscriminate use of poisons of any kind—including nuclear radiation—which had unanticipated consequences. Her legacy can be traced in the Environmental Protection Agency (1970), the Safe Water Drinking Act (1974), and the Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), to say nothing of the global environmental movement generally. Her writings influenced figures like Loren Eiseley, Stephen Hawking, Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, James Watson, Jane Goodall, and Robin Wall Kimmerer. Our conversation about Carson is with her grandnephew and adopted son, Roger Christie, who spent his early years growing up with Carson and learning from her. He is today the chairman of the board of the Rachael Carson Council. Key takeaways: * A poet of the ocean and in many ways a reluctant prophet—until she felt she had no choice. * While not religious per se, she eventually becomes a social crusader—through her love of the natural world, her humility in the face of beauty. * Her early life resembled Gary Snyder’s: rustic rural with a mother who loved reading. * After years of longing to see the ocean, she gets a job at the Marine Biology Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts—her first sight of the sea. She begins to perceive the interconnectedness of all life. * Her financial struggles: in the Depression years, she becomes her family’s sole breadwinner just as she was about to embark on a PhD at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. * Her oceanographic work at the Bureau of Fisheries gives her the idea for the first book in what will become her sea trilogy, Under the Sea Wind. * After reading other nature writers, she discovers she has a gift for making the natural world vivid and interesting to readers. * The experience of the Second World War, with its naval ships and submarines, spurred a greater curiosity about understanding the oceans, still little studied or known about at the time. * The wartime success with DDT in defeating malaria boosts its civilian applications, despite its deadly effects on animal and plant populations. * Her literary success finally enabled her to buy a seaside home in Maine where she writes The Sea Around Us and falls in love with a neighbor, Dorothy Freeman. She has also adopted her grandnephew Roger Christie after the death of his mother, her niece. * Her observations about the impact of a chemical barrage destroying habitat and natural ecosystems is part of the first ecological thinking in American public life. * The 1954 H-bomb test over Bikini Atoll puts the phrase “nuclear fallout” into common use—Carson sees it as part of our unwitting self-destruction. Ironically she develops a cancerous condition herself. * Like several other of our Lost Prophets, she resists the technocratic dream of mastering nature instead of simply living within it. This stance brings her under fierce criticism, especially from corporate interests. If Jane Jacobs was an urban naturalist pushing back on the self-appointed experts, Carson is her ecological cousin. * Her heroic final years of illness while completing and speaking about Silent Spring were a race against time. Timestamps: 00:00—We open the episode with thoughts on Carson's foundational insight: that nature’s balance cannot be overridden without consequence. 05:00–On a Pennsylvania farm, Rachel’s mother instills in her a dual love of nature and writing — the two passions that define her life. 08:00—Forced to take a science requirement in college, Carson falls in love with biology and shifts from aspiring writer to poet scientist. 14:00—Working for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, she publishes a lyrical essay about the ocean in The Atlantic, launching her writing career. 22:00—The Sea Around Us, her second book, becomes a surprise bestseller, bringing national fame and allowing her to leave government work. 26:00—The postwar spread of DDT—once hailed as a miracle chemical—plants the seeds of Carson’s concern as the record of ecological damage grows ever higher. 38:00—Spurred by the alarming data, she begins writing Silent Spring, the book that will make her both famous and controversial. 54:00—Silent Spring is published, followed by a powerful CBS special on Carson and her work. The public rallies to her cause and JFK publicly supports her. 1:00:00—Secretly fighting terminal cancer, she testifies before Congress and inspires the wave of environmental legislation that follows over the next decade and beyond. 1:07:00—Written in 1956 but her final published work, The Sense of Wonder, is an essay written to inspire parents to show their children the wonder of nature. 1:11:00—We interview Roger Christie, Rachel’s grandnephew and adopted son, who offers insights on her work as well as memories of her warmth, humor, and devotion. 1:17:00—Roger describes Carson’s silent suffering with terminal cancer as she was raising him and completing Silent Spring—her final act of service. 1:26:00—We reflect with Roger on how Carson’s ecological worldview applies to today’s crises—from climate change to technocracy. 1:36:00—Final thoughts connecting Carson’s message to those of Jane Jacobs, Wendell Berry, and Abraham Joshua Heschel: start with love, stay rooted in wonder, and resist abstraction. Recommended: * Under the Sea Wind (1941) * The Sea Around Us (1951) * The Edge of the Sea (1955) * Silent Spring (1962) * The Sense of Wonder (1965) * Rachel Carson (2017)—PBS documentary biography * The Power of One Voice (2014)—documentary on Carson’s legacy * Maria Popova on Rachel Carson Get full access to The Lost Prophets Podcast at www.lostprophets.org/subscribe

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About

A podcast about the the lost prophets of solidarity — the voices we need to hear again. www.lostprophets.org

Information

  • Creator
    Elias Crim & Pete Davis
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    24
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Pete Davis
  • Show Website
    Lost Prophets

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