The Aaron Renn Show

Evangelicals often take a dismissive or even smug attitude towards the decline of the mainline denominations. They'd be will served instead to ask themselves some tough questions like, "Why isn't the same thing going to happen to us?"

If, as I laid out in newsletter #63, we live in a managerial society in which power resides in large institutions, how should we think about localism and localist movements?  I examine this question in the latest podcast.Newsletter #63: Understanding the Managerial Revolution - https://aaronrenn.substack.com/p/newsletter-63-understanding-the-managerialCounty Before Country Conference: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/county-before-country-22-tickets-317725755287

Andrew Crapuchettes founded the job board Red Balloon to connect employees with jobs at companies that did not have a Covid vaccine mandates. It's grown rapidly and become a place for both companies and employees looking to focus on business and avoid politics in the workplace. He joins to discuss today's job market and how workers can navigate it.Visit Red Balloon: https://www.redballoon.work/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Many people subscribe to James Davison Hunter's view that cultural change is driven by elites and institutions in the cultural center. That's a generally true statement, but can easily mislead us into thinking that all change must originate with elites.  While elite buy-in may be necessary to institutionalize change, the ideas themselves can originate on the margins. I explore this by looking at the views of Eric Hoffer, who puts forth a view almost completely opposite of Hunter, arguing that the new almost always originates with outcasts, misfits, and failures rather than highly successful elites.Eric Hoffer's The Ordeal of Change:  https://www.amazon.com/Ordeal-Change-Eric-Hoffer/dp/1933435100/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Explore the shift from business owners to managers during industrialization, impact of modern business on governance in America, rise and constraints of managerialism, interplay between large corporations and governments, societal dynamics influenced by managerial elites and billionaire class

Many things in life are a product of dualisms like chaos and order, yin and yang, hot and cold, change and preservation. Unlike with good vs. evil, these are not simple opposites, but principles that need to be integrated. The right balance is not a static one for all time, but depends upon the needs of the time. I discuss this principle using immigration as a case study.  Immigration is not a matter of simply good or bad, but finding the right balance of dynamism and rootedness for the times.

Stephen B. Clark, author of the landmark book Man and Woman in Christ, joins me to talk about that work and its creation. We will also discuss the Catholic charismatic renewal movement and the Sword of the Spirit intentional communities that Clark helped create and which have informed his work.Buy Man and Woman in Christ: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Woman-Christ-Examination-Scripture-ebook/dp/B098XQQDFW/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20 Sword of the Spirit Community: https://swordofthespirit.net/Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

New Census Bureau population estimates for 2021 show the lowest year of population growth on record, with 3/4ths of counties having more deaths than birth, and around a third of metro areas losing population. In this podcast I discuss how the US has entered what appears to be a "demographic winter," what the drivers are, and what it means for the country.Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

A reader who lives in cities and likes living in the city wrote to ask whether it is possible to be a conservative in the city given all the rhetoric about conservatives moving away from the city, homesteading, etc.  I explain why the answer is Yes, and why a rural life is not suitable for most conservatives. 

This podcast is the audio edition of the March 2022 newsletter. It is about the oft-overlooked virtue of self-mastery. We cannot allow ourselves to be enslaved to appetites, tossed here and there by the waves, or manipulated into pursuing other men's missions rather than our own.