What We Can't Not Talk About

How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how we respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman shows how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of “expressive individualism.” Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas on religion, free speech, and personal identity. For more, order Dr. Truman's book, "Strange New World" https://www.crossway.org/books/strange-new-world-tpb/

Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and Senior Fellow of the Austin Institute Mark Regnerus discusses the science behind current issues around gender identity, such as affirmative care and the rise of gender dysphoria among youth. Especially in the United States, medical research has been affected by external political pressure and predetermined conclusions. Dr. Regnerus challenges what so much of culture is telling us to believe and encourages us to talk about these issues. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1vetSl1rc

In this episode, we interview April Readlinger, Executive Director of CanaVox, on a recent article published in Public Discourse about the inclusion of gender ideology in K-12 public education in New Jersey. Mrs. Readlinger here discusses some of the troubles regarding the legislation that introduced this issue into the state’s public school curriculum and specifically explores the challenges it presents for teachers and parents alike in the instruction of their children. We hope that you find this podcast timely and useful when thinking about the education of your own children and the state of American public education in general.

Warsaw, Poland, May 18th, 2022: On the day that would have marked Karol Wojtyła's 102nd birthday and in the context of the international conference on John Paul II’s Natural Law Legacy & International Human Rights organized by Ave Maria School of Law, Dr. Marianna Orlandi delivered a talk focused on a play that the young Karol Wojtyła wrote long before becoming a Pope: "The Jeweler’s Shop." Tune in for some interesting insights and reflections on our age of no-fault divorce, on the beauty and true meaning of marriage, and on the way forward. Ave Maria Law website on the event: https://www.avemarialaw.edu/john-paul-iis-natural-law-legacy-international-human-rights/ YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/yAdX97aiKm0 Purchase the play via Ignatius Press: https://ignatius.com/the-jewelers-shop-jshh/

In this podcast, Dr. James Poulos discusses technology, media, and alternatives to the current technocratic-political order by a union between branding, patriotism, and an alternative theological vision, all the while exploring the link between modern gnosticism and transhumanism. Dr. James Poulos is the Executive Editor of The American Mind, the Claremont Institute's online publication devoted to driving the conversation about the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Dr. Poulos graduated from Duke University with distinction in Political Science and received his Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University. The author of The Art of Being Free (St. Martin's Press, 2017), a study of Tocqueville's Democracy in America, he is also the contributing editor of American Affairs and a fellow at the Center for the Study of Digital Life. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx_rQAkV_s0 Dr. Poulos's latest book: https://humanforever.us/

In today’s world, we talk of time as a possession. It is a commodity that can be gained, spent, or lost. But before the invention of the clock, people understood time as God’s time, something too big to own or use. Days, lunar cycles, and seasons marked the turning of a cosmos; they reflected a sometimes scary and mysterious universe whose time we inhabit rather than control. In a moment, the pandemic grounded to a halt the daily hum of our ordered sense of time. And even though much of daily life returned to normal, a sense of uncertainty hung over us like a cloud, or like a broken clock. Forces, in some cases too mysterious to name, are reducing certainties. These forces bring to a halt many of the myths that previously sustained our collective life. Organic farmer, Steven Hebbard, believes that good farming, like many traditional crafts, can reorient us to a larger sense of time: something we can humbly receive, embody, and even celebrate. Uncertain times demand a new orientation, or perhaps a very old one. "I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16 This episode was recorded in the fall of 2021. Moving into a home a few blocks from one of Austin's most notorious intersections, Steven discovered a thriving community centered around a garden. Where the scene might have communicated hopelessness, on trips to his neighborhood community garden, Steven found a passion tending both the local culture and agriculture. After an internship up the road at the Austin's landmark, Boggy Creek Farm, Steven decided to take his new found knowledge of neighborliness and farming to create a program that actively knit the two together. In 2009 he founded Genesis Gardens, a program within Mobile Loaves & Fishes Inc. dedicated to providing meaningful work, a stable paycheck, and food for the largest community for the homeless in the country. He has since built a career farming with communities in poverty. He is a passionate advocate of local, organic, and dignified work, and continues to study the way agriculture and urban life can work together to create a humane and thriving environment for all people.

In this episode, Dr. Mark Regnerus, Professor of Sociology at UT Austin and Senior Fellow and founder of the Austin Institute, joins us to discuss a recent study he carried out concerning the approval and disapproval of medical-surgical interventions to treat gender dysphoria by Americans. The study uncovered some interesting information on links between the number of children one has, religiosity, and political alignment and one’s attitude toward these sorts of procedures related to gender transition. Dr. Regnerus also discusses here the legality of hormone treatment and the philosophical underpinnings of the problem of transgenderism. We hope you join us to find out more about this pressing and timely cultural issue.

In this episode, Alvino-Mario Fantini, Editor-in-Chief of "The European Conservative," joins us to discuss his quarterly journal which features news articles and reviews concerning the state of Europe and European conservatism, as well as essays on philosophy and the arts. Mr. Fantini here explores the status of the European conservative movement, his philosophy of conservatism as non-ideological, his background, and his influences in developing The European Conservative. We hope you join us in learning more about conservatism in Europe and invite you to look into "The European Conservative" as a source of news concerning what’s occurring now on the continent. The European Conservative: https://europeanconservative.com/

Conservatism today, whether animated by concern for lost political greatness or by dismay over the evisceration of traditional morality, has grown skeptical of the case for personal liberty and for market freedom. Individual liberty is condemned on account of the excesses of radical autonomy, the free market on account of corrupt practices of wealthy corporations. Drawing on insights from leading figures in the liberal tradition, Professor James Stoner will argue that a balanced account of human happiness and the common good includes ample room for personal freedom and free enterprise, in the context of moral law and political right. Professor James R. Stoner, Jr., is the Hermann Moyse, Jr., Professor and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute in the Department of Political Science at LSU. He is the author of Common-Law Liberty: Rethinking American Constitutionalism (Kansas, 2003) and Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of American Constitutionalism (Kansas, 1992), as well as a number of articles and essays. In 2009 he was named a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey; he has co-edited three books published by Witherspoon, The Thriving Society: On the Social Conditions of Human Flourishing (with Harold James, 2015), The Social Costs of Pornography: A Collection of Papers (with Donna M. Hughes, 2010), and Rethinking Business Management: Examining the Foundations of Business Education (with Samuel Gregg, 2008). He was the 2010 recipient of the Honors College Sternberg Professorship at LSU. He is a senior fellow of the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture. Dr. Stoner has taught at LSU since 1988, chaired the Department of Political Science from 2007 to 2013, and served as Acting Dean of the Honors College in fall 2010. He was a member of the National Council on the Humanities from 2002 to 2006. In 2002-03 he was a visiting fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, where he returned in the 2013-14 academic year as Garwood Visiting Professor in the fall and Visiting Fellow in the spring. He has teaching and research interests in political theory, English common law, and American constitutionalism. YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyz0LbSp1WU

In this episode, Dr. Susan Yoshihara, President of the American Council on Women, Peace, and Security, joins us to discuss war as it relates to women in the context of her own background as a former Naval officer, the conflict in Ukraine, as well as humanitarian efforts in war. Dr. Yoshihara here also discusses foreign intervention and the nature of just war theory. We invite you to listen to this podcast to consider these matters more deeply and to meditate on the role of women in warfare in the modern world.