Nature and the Nation

In this episode I examine Jeff Flake's Conscience of a Conservative, with a critical examination of Flake's failure to anticipate or understand the rise of Trump. I discuss how, while I share Flake's desire for decency in politics, his principled political stance is ultimately too naive to effectively respond to the corrosive anti-American attacks of modern leftism.

In this episode I examine the classic text The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater, drawing attention to the focus of Goldwater and others of his era on federalism and the struggle against communism, with an evaluation of the ultimate result of 20th Century conservatism.

In this episode, I look at Lasch's collection of his last essays, The Revolt of the Elites. I examine his support for populism, criticism of liberal snobbery, and support the use of pragmatism to rebuke the academic left.

In this episode I examine the Mass Man of Ortega y Gasset's Revolt of the Masses, with a focus on the origins of the Mass Man in liberal abundance and the abolition of limitation.

In this episode I examine the friend/enemy distinction in Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political, including the liberal tendency to deny the political and aim toward a post-political world.

In this episode I examine Alexander Dugin's statements about the division between technical and social modernity and it's relation to the West, in the Rise of the Fourth Political Theory.

In this episode I look at the organic lifecycle of the culture and civilization as described by Spengler in the abridged version of his classic book The Decline of the West.

In this episode I look at the leftward direction of Pragmatism led by John Dewey, as outlined in his book Reconstruction in Philosophy, as well as his restatement of principles near the end of his life.

In this episode I review William James' Psychology (Briefer Course), the abridged version Principles of Psychology. I focus on the biological nature of habit and instinct.

In this episode I return to the topic of the philosophical pragmatism of William James, John Dewey and others with a review of Pragmatic Naturalism, an Introduction by S. Morris Eames, with a special focus on the affinity between pragmatism and evolutionary theory.