Young Heretics

What happened to the lovers of the French Revolution after it dissolved into terror? Some never changed their minds. But others—like the great Romantic poet William Wordsworth—reconsidered. Reading through Wordsworth's great poem "The Prelude" in this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan discusses how we can all turn around after a wrong turn. Read along with Spencer with your own copy of "The Prelude" here: https://www.amazon.com/Prelude-1799-Norton-Critical-Editions/dp/039309071X?tag=youngheretics-20 -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- Lifting is infrastructure. This exclusive Young Heretics muscle shirt is NOW AVAILABLE, but hurry, because there's only a limited number. Get yours today at https://youngheretics.com/shop. -- How did we get to the point that political correctness dominates our culture and society? Order your copy of “Speechless” by Michael Knowles to find out: http://speechlessbook.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time on Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan tackles a philosopher with whom he thoroughly and entirely disagrees: David Hume. Reading through the "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding," Spencer examines the roots of modern skepticism and its influence on later thinkers like Freud. Read along with Spencer with your copy of Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" here: https://www.amazon.com/Enquiry-concerning-Understanding-Oxford-Philosophical/dp/0198752482. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Save 35% on a 12-month plan: https://expressvpn.com. -- The Liz Wheeler Show is a personal, researched, and unapologetic take on how we think about our culture. Subscribe for new episodes three times each week at https://lizwheelershow.com. -- The Young Heretics Father's Day merch sale is on! Get a gift for dad (or yourself) at 15% off for a limited time only. Use the code FATHER at https://youngheretics.com/shop. -- Don’t let Big Tech rule our relationship. Submit your email so Spencer can stay in touch if—when?—Big Tech pulls the plug: https://youngheretics.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if all this Western culture stuff is just a mistake? That's the provocative question Spencer Klavan explores in this episode, with the help of that infamous German polemicist Friedrich Nietzsche. Spencer begins with Nietzsche's first book, "The Birth of Tragedy," taking a hard look at the weakness Nietzsche saw in Socrates, and so in the Western tradition of philosophy. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- The Classic Learning test is an alternative to the ultra-biased College Board tests that puts students in front of the kinds of thinkers we love at Young Heretics. Get 20% off your registration fee by using the code HERETICS at https://cltexam.com. -- The Liz Wheeler Show is a personal, researched, and unapologetic take on how we think about our culture. Subscribe for new episodes three times each week at https://lizwheelershow.com. -- The Young Heretics Father's Day merch sale is on! Get a gift for dad (or yourself) at 15% off for a limited time only. Use the code FATHER at https://youngheretics.com/shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are surrounded these days by people who tell us our natural assumptions are all wrong: patriotism is evil, gender is a construct, everyone should eat bugs. Using the writing of Edmund Burke, Spencer Klavan argues that you have a right to be suspicious of billionaires who want to reduce your life to mere mathematics. -- The Classic Learning test is an alternative to the ultra-biased College Board tests that puts students in front of the kinds of thinkers we love at Young Heretics. Get 20% off your registration fee by using the code HERETICS at https://cltexam.com. -- The Liz Wheeler Show is a personal, researched, and unapologetic take on how we think about our culture. Subscribe for new episodes three times each week at https://lizwheelershow.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are we living through another French Revolution? With the help of the great statesman Edmund Burke, Spencer Klavan examines what made the difference in the 18th century—and what makes the difference now—between justified reform and destructive anarchy. -- The Classic Learning test is an alternative to the ultra-biased College Board tests that puts students in front of the kinds of thinkers we love at Young Heretics. Get 20% off your registration fee by using the code HERETICS at https://cltexam.com. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- The official "Young Heretics" shop is here! For ONE more week, you can get all of your swag plus 10% off your entire order today with the offer code LAUNCH: https://youngheretics.com/shop​. -- The Liz Wheeler Show is a personal, researched, and unapologetic take on how we think about our culture. Subscribe for new episodes three times each week at https://lizwheelershow.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Death is real. It's not going away, and no amount of risk management can stave it off. So what do we do about it? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan talks with journalist and editor Sohrab Ahmari about the Stoic Seneca's approach to death, as discussed in Ahmari's new book, "The Unbroken Thread." -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics -- The Classic Learning test is an alternative to the ultra-biased College Board tests that puts students in front of the kinds of thinkers we love at Young Heretics. Get 20% off your registration fee by using the code HERETICS at https://cltexam.com. -- For the first time ever, you can become an annual Young Heretics VIP on Locals! Spencer shares beard tips, we all share our favorite books, plus you get the episodes ad-free. Become a VIP today at https://youngheretics.com/locals​​ and get 4 MOTHS FREE with the annual support option. -- The official "Young Heretics" shop is here! For TWO more weeks, you can get all of your swag plus 10% off your entire order today with the offer code LAUNCH: https://youngheretics.com/shop​. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this second episode on C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, Spencer Klavan explores the lead-up to the book's climactic moment, and the philosophy of courage that lies behind it. Courage is "every virtue at the testing point"—the thing which, in Lewis's day as well as ours, we cannot do without. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics -- The Classic Learning test is an alternative to the ultra-biased College Board tests that puts students in front of the kinds of thinkers we love at Young Heretics. Get 20% off your registration fee by using the code HERETICS at https://cltexam.com. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! Become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals​​ and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. -- The official "Young Heretics" shop is here! For three more weeks, you can get all of your swag plus 10% off your entire order today with the offer code LAUNCH: https://youngheretics.com/shop​. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Probably no work by the great C.S. Lewis is more famous than his "Screwtape Letters," an imagined series of notes from one hellish tempter to another. In this first part of a two-part "Young Heretics" series, Spencer Klavan talks about Screwtape’s view of sex and love, as well as the poetry and philosophy that informed Lewis’s work. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- America is under siege. As the new president of Young America's Foundation, Governor Scott Walker is launching The Long Game to fight back. It's a bold plan to win the culture battle and the culture war. Get your free copy at https://yaf.org/longgame​. -- The official "Young Heretics" shop is here! Get all of your swag plus 10% off your entire order today with the offer code LAUNCH: https://youngheretics.com/shop. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals​ and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Twelfth Night, a comedy first performed at the turn of the 17th century, Shakespeare demonstrates a subtler and more sophisticated understanding of how sex and gender work than all our modern ideologues put together. As Spencer Klavan explains this episode of "Young Heretics," the play acknowledges the delicate counterplay between male and female, before ultimately affirming that each is a unity of body and soul. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- America is under siege. As the new president of Young America's Foundation, Governor Scott Walker is launching The Long Game to fight back. It's a bold plan to win the culture battle and the culture war. Get your free copy at https://yaf.org/longgame​. -- The official "Young Heretics" shop is here! Get all of your swag plus 10% off your entire order today with the offer code LAUNCH: https://youngheretics.com/shop. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals​ and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fyodor Dostoevsky lived a life like one of his novels: harsh, dramatic, profound. His exile and hard labor in Siberia showed him the innate worth of the human soul and laid the groundwork for one of his best-known masterpieces, "Crime and Punishment." In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan talks through the hard conditions of 19th-century St. Petersburg and Dostoevsky's harrowing psychological portrait of the murderer Raskolnikov. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics -- America is under siege. As the new president of Young America's Foundation, Governor Scott Walker is launching The Long Game to fight back. It's a bold plan to win the culture battle and the culture war. Get your free copy at https://yaf.org/longgame​. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals​ and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices