
8 episodes

The General Eclectic The American Conservative
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- Society & Culture
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5.0 • 24 Ratings
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A new podcast from The American Conservative, presented by Kale Zelden and bestselling author Rod Dreher, exploring faith, culture, and public affairs.
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The Rise of the CEOs
Rod and Kale discuss the shift in corporate virtue signaling and the move to make the states pay for their crimes. Are corporations more powerful than the government? They move on to talk about institutional capture and the challenges of raising not only religious kids but also basically conservative kids. They then tack to a conversation about the impending doom of the Derek Chuavin trial. Is it a disaster in the making? What is the responsibility for those with large megaphones and platforms?
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A Conversation with Ross Douthat on Christian Cul-de-sacs, Decadence, and Competing Cosmologies
Kale discusses a recent Substack in which Ross articulates the dilemmas facing Christian's in light of our current cultural exhaustions, what Ross works out in more detail with his latest book The Decadent Society. Rod joins Kale to continue the conversation and they talk about post-Obergfell, the Integralist response, and pessimism regarding where we stand.
Ross's The Decadent Society: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success: Douthat, Ross: 9781476785240: Amazon.com: Books
Charles Taylor The Secular Age: A Secular Age: Taylor, Charles: 9780674986916: Amazon.com: Books
Ross's Substack on Christian Cul-de-sacs: Reactions (substack.com)
Rod's post on Discord Discord Servers: Woke Friends Consider Her A Leper | The American Conservative
Rod's response to Ross's Substack: Cosmos & Chickadee | The American Conservative
Rod's Sex After Christianity (a MUST read): Sex After Christianity | The American Conservative -
Woke Facebook Cabal, Selma Envy, and How Societies Remember
In The General Eclectic #13, Rod and Kale discuss woke parents and school committees, social credit and social media, Lil Nas X and anti-Christian culture, and more.
Links:
Woke Parents Enemies list: In Aftermath Of Enemies List, School Committee Pledges To ‘Silence The Opposition’ | The Daily Wire and Teachers Compile List Of Parents Who Question Racial Curriculum, Plot War On Them | The Daily Wire
Rod's post on Two College Guys visit: 'Lovely People' & The Social Credit System | The American Conservative
Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism: The Origins of Totalitarianism: Arendt, Hannah: 9780156701532: Amazon.com: Books
Lil Nas's Satan Sneakers: Lil Nas X's Satan Shoes | The American Conservative
Lil Nas's NPR interview: Lil Nas X On His Children's Book, 'C Is For Country,' And Playing To Kids : NPR
Plenty Coups: Who Is The Plenty Coups Of The Christians? | The American Conservative
The Church as Culture: The Church as Culture by Robert Louis Wilken | Articles | First Things
Final Pagan Generation: The Final Pagan Generation by Edward J. Watts - Paperback - University of California Press (ucpress.edu)
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Be Weird, It's Important
In The General Eclectic #11 Rod and Kale recap more of the Woke March, but pivot to a larger discussion about more field notes from the emergent Soft Totalitiarianism. Rod's book Live Not By Lies continues to sell well, though with a virtual legacy media blackout. They move on to discuss the necessity to be unafraid of being a Weird Christian and the siren call for Bougie Conformity. Towards the end, these two Gen X'ers break form and offer an earnest thanks and plea to the audience for prayers. Links:
A military lawyer loses his job for an emoji tagged post about January 6: Is The US Military Being Purged Of Rightists? | The American Conservative
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi tells us what real Christians are: Antiracist, Anti-Christian | The American Conservative
A Live Not By Lies reading group in Massachusetts: MFI | Massachusetts Family Institute – Massachusetts Family Institute | Faith. Family. Freedom. (mafamily.org)
Pastor Paul Vanderklay's podcast with Kale: (48) Christian Education: Between the Table and the T-shirt with Brett Salkeld and Kale Zelden - YouTube
Live Not By Lies: Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents (eighthdaybooks.com) -
The Return of Jordan Peterson, Community, and Institutional Decadence
In episode #11, we discuss the return of Jordan Peterson, both in the form of his new book Beyond Order (Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life: Peterson, Jordan B.: 9780593084649: Amazon.com: Books) but to the world of Podcasting.
In particular, his episode with Jonathan Pageau: (43) The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Season 4 Episode 8: Jonathan Pageau - YouTube
It is a must watch video, and we see Peterson coming to that frightening point where the narrative and objective world meet.
We go on to discuss Rod's trip to Birmingham, and then Tucker Carlson's row with the woke military.
Other links:
"Gotcha Video": (43) Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap, campus protests and postmodernism - YouTube
Biblical Lectures: (43) Biblical Series I: Introduction to the Idea of God - YouTube
Tactical Faith: Celebrating 10 Years! - Tactical Faith
Rod's Substack: Daily Dreher (substack.com) -
Normalizing Nihilism & the Capture of Cultural Production
In #10 Rod and Kale discuss the normalization of cultural nihilism and the capture of the modes of production. We discuss:
-The California Enshrinement of Throuples: The Whale And The Net | The American Conservative
-The capture of the Civil Rights movement and Justice Kennedy's infamous establishment on personal definition of destiny
-Christopher Caldwell's The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties: Caldwell, Christopher: 9781501106897: Amazon.com: Books
-E.J. Dionne's claim that Biden has rolled back the culture war: Opinion | Biden is rolling back the culture war. The country should thank him. - The Washington Post
-Pillar discussion about +Wuerl, +Gregory, and +Tobin and the ongoing rot of church corruption: The Pillar (pillarcatholic.com) (a no-brainer sub)
-Bari Weiss's Woke Cult comes to your favorite Prep Schools: The Miseducation of America’s Elites | City Journal (city-journal.org)
Customer Reviews
Good stuff
I’m enjoying this new podcast, as I don’t always have time to read Rod’s columns.
Kale’s last name appears to be misspelled in the cover picture.
Awesome!
Great Podcast
More Rod
Ever since I started reading Rod's blog at TAC I've always thought, "why is he not doing a podcast?"
The pod delivers exactly what I always hoped and would expect with interesting topics and depth that make the conversations must listen