What is a warrior poet? We discuss it with John Lovell, founder of the Warrior Poet Society and author of the new book, "The Warrior's Way," a guide to living free and dying well.
00:00:47.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:56.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:20.000It's John Lovell, author of an important new book, The Warrior Poet Way, a Guide to Living Free and Dying Well, founder of the Warrior Poet Society.
00:01:41.000You should be a lion and a lamb, a warrior and a poet.
00:01:45.000And each category, each archetype has critical, essential pieces for the masculine heart that'll allow us to prevail in a society gone horribly wrong.
00:01:55.000We need strength of warriors and we need some of the emotional wherewithal and the sensitivity, the wisdom, the passion of poets.
00:02:04.000So walk us through some of the components of the book.
00:02:08.000So when I think a warrior poet, I think of King David.
00:02:11.000What other examples would you give of people that were both warriors and poets that embodied that kind of mixture of archetypes the best?
00:02:21.000And the Bible is one of the greatest warriors in the Bible, happened to write almost all of the psalms, most of the Psalms.
00:02:26.000And so he's also the greatest worshiper.
00:02:28.000So you can absolutely make a B-line for King David.
00:02:32.000I'd also say, hey, Jesus was a fantastic, the consummate warrior poet for sure.
00:02:37.000But you can also look at the freedom fighters of old, of people that would be known of like William Wallace, for instance.
00:02:44.000So I guess the objection that some people would have against, I don't know, like the resurgence of masculinity is they use this word toxic masculinity.
00:02:55.000What would your response be to that criticism?
00:02:58.000I think it's just ridiculous propaganda.
00:03:00.000I mean, women, femininity can be absolutely toxic as well.
00:03:04.000It's not masculinity or femininity that's toxic.
00:03:19.000My kids recognize I'm emotionally available for them.
00:03:22.000So they don't fear me, but I'd like the Taliban to fear me because I also have attributes there that are important for being able to safeguard freedom in a world that is broken and dangerous.
00:03:36.000We talked about this MSNBC article yesterday, how the far right is embracing fitness culture or all that trash and garbage.
00:03:43.000The quintessential American man is vanishing and disappearing.
00:03:46.000So what practical steps do you talk about in the book or in your book, in your work at the Warrior Poet Society that can be done to revive and recover the American male?
00:04:00.000So men in their heart of hearts, aside from all the leftist propaganda that's trying to get us to compete on a race to the bottom to see how weak we can go.
00:04:09.000There's some men, there's a lot of men.
00:04:11.000Most men aren't going to follow them down that.
00:04:13.000And so we do give. really, really practical steps of how we can be strong.
00:04:18.000Stuff rubber meets the road of like, hey, man, do some jiu-jitsu.
00:04:29.000But aside from just the obvious physical strength elements, I really, when I think about a man that's strong, it's not just a dude with lats growing out of his ears and just ripped with a huge deadlift.
00:04:40.000It's also somebody that is emotionally strong and spiritually strong, meaning they have good character.
00:04:46.000One of the things that I miss the most is moral courage, that we wouldn't self-censor, that we would bravely take to task evil that needs to be kept at bay and us to be able to stand up and say the hard things.
00:04:59.000I don't care if I get canceled anymore.
00:05:13.000Let's be full-bodied men, strong in a myriad of different areas.
00:05:18.000So one of the elements of your book, and I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I'm looking at kind of some of the summaries, is turning to ancient wisdom.
00:05:27.000What in particular, what texts, what authors, what writers do you think can be most helpful for a young man who is looking to become a warrior poet?
00:06:44.000So you say this postmodernist deconstructionist age is different.
00:06:51.000What in particular do you think is the motivating force towards what C.S. Lewis used this phrase, but he meant it differently, the abolition of man.
00:07:25.000What they'd like is more power for longer.
00:07:29.000The biggest thing that stands in their way is strong men that draw a line in the sand and say, yeah, I'm not going to let you go any further than this.
00:07:36.000And so if you can just eviscerate everything it means to be a man, manhood will dry up and cease to be.
00:07:42.000I think that's the outward motivating factor there.
00:07:45.000And from that, all kinds of cultural elements all gather together as our corrupt institutions of power, which all been basically commandeered, are gathering up to undermine masculinity.
00:07:58.000And so there's even attack just on boys growing up so that they'll never reach that full, vibrant masculinity that they could be world changers for.
00:08:07.000Those are the people that are revolutionaries.
00:08:12.000And so I think those are the great fears of our ruling elites, and they want to stop them from being able to grow into the people that would supplant them later.
00:08:20.000One of the things you argue in your book is to rethink dangerous.
00:09:01.000And the moment we start protecting our kids in the same way that we protect our politicians, all school shootings are going to stop.
00:09:10.000It reminds me of Aslan in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where there was this dialogue where the question was asked about Aslan of, is he safe?
00:11:17.000And in happening that overseas and special operations units, I was able to really take a self-audit of what I thought was the most important stuff.
00:11:26.000There's so much that can crop up in a man's life, just the tyranny of the urgent.
00:11:30.000So much clutter, so much wasted time, so much anxiety when really there's just a few precious things that are ultimately the most important.
00:11:38.000And that's what you want to cut through.
00:11:39.000And so, in facing my end, I was able to really rearrange my life and live it well.
00:13:08.000But I think in this frame, it could be positively that knowing there is an end, that you should have daily purpose and intentionality with your actions.
00:13:42.000Okay, so one other part of the book I want to cover, which you have here, you're talking about the rise of masculine, hopefully reviving masculinity and the left's nonstop attack and assault there.
00:14:08.000In other ways, I'm not, because I think there's a long and hard climb up.
00:14:13.000When I look at our institutions of power, whether that's media or Hollywood or the government or big pharma, whatever, wherever I look, academia, the institutions seem to be controlled by radical leftist woke ideology.
00:14:28.000That's really bad, and that's going to take a lot of painstaking difficulty to get back.
00:14:33.000But what I see just left and right in my own communities and when I travel, I travel a lot.
00:14:37.000When I'm actually eyeball to eyeball with other men, I see people that are fed up.
00:14:41.000I see folks that are retrudging ancient paths that men should walk.
00:16:09.000Yeah, the foundation of our country had certain elements.
00:16:13.000When you destroy a foundation, everything's going to come crambling down.
00:16:17.000And unfortunately, I believe for most naive folks, just asleep at the wheel of life, just busy about your day, thinking that somehow it'll all just work out.
00:16:51.000Fact check me, look at NAD and see what it could do for you.
00:16:53.000Well, look, I take NAD every single day.
00:16:55.000Strong Cell is a scientific breakthrough in cellular health replenishment that combines NADH, CoQ10, and marine collagen to boost your body's cellular function.
00:17:04.000I personally take Strong Cell every day, and so do a ton of Kirk listeners.
00:17:59.000Oh, I think they changed the headline.
00:18:00.000Yeah, they changed the headline on the website.
00:18:02.000Actually, the old headline is still there in the prior link.
00:18:07.000Okay, so the previous headline that they got ridiculed on was why the far right is really into home fitness.
00:18:15.000Yeah, you know, all those white supremacists don't want to be fat like Lizzo or Stacey Abrams.
00:18:21.000You know, they want to get into shape.
00:18:25.000White supremacist latest scheme to valorize violence and hyper masculinity has gone digital.
00:18:33.000Now, I have said this for quite some time, not the white supremacist thing and all that crap.
00:18:36.000I have said for quite some time that if I'm at a gym or I'm in the gym, and if I see someone who is lifting weights, knows what they're doing, on a tight regimen, strong BMI, it's a 99% chance that they're a right-winger.
00:19:48.000Now, some people build muscle a lot easier than others.
00:19:51.000Some people lose weight a lot easier than others.
00:19:53.000But generally, if you spend time in the gym, you're going to see a result, period.
00:20:00.000And that's actually really empowering because then you get what Tony Robbins calls the life force of our existence, which is progress, momentum.
00:20:51.000That you're a victim of external circumstances.
00:20:54.000So alpha bros that are in the gym, who have sculpted their body, that have made good dietary decisions, stopped drinking, stopped doing drugs, waking up earlier when they could be doing a multitude of other stuff, whether they realize it or not, they are embracing a worldview that makes them the master of their own destiny.
00:22:20.000But this should also make sense politically.
00:22:23.000A society that is eating well, eating clean, intermittent fasting, not taking processed foods, has their testosterone rates properly balanced, understands their hormones, taking supplements, is properly hydrating, is pushing themselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, that makes tyranny harder to become popular.
00:22:45.000A society that is individually full of millions of strong people, a tyrant, how is Gavin Newsome or J.B. Pritzker going to take control of their lives?
00:22:59.000So millions of young men that are now embracing a new fitness culture, which I have a whole other theory as why this is happening.
00:23:06.000I think that there's this like tribal signal that subconsciously is going off in a lot of young men's minds, which they can't even properly word it.
00:23:14.000They just see society falling apart, so they want to get stronger for what might be coming next.
00:23:23.000They see us in these silly and stupid wars.
00:23:25.000And there's almost this like signal that starts to just go off in a lot of young men, like, I don't know what is coming next, but I need to be physically strong.
00:23:37.000Earlier this month, researchers reported that a network of online fascist fitness chat groups on the encrypted platform Telegram are recruiting and radicalizing young men with neo-Nazi and white supremacist extremist ideologies, luring them with health tips and strategies for positive physical changes.
00:23:55.000New recruits are later invited to close chat groups where far-right content is shared.
00:24:00.000So I'm a big fan of someone who is not political.
00:24:11.000And I've said, man, the way he's talking, just wait.
00:24:14.000They're going to come and smear him as a right-winger because he says, yeah, you know, if you do drugs and you eat poorly, you're going to have a bad output.
00:24:23.000You can't tell people to act a different way.
00:24:26.000Or Peter Attia, who's also in this space, or Chris Williamson, like really smart guys that are into fitness and into improving your health markers.
00:24:35.000Peter Atiatas has a new amazing book out about living longer and extending your marginal deck or having your marginal decade be as late as possible.
00:24:46.000Again, I don't care about their politics.
00:24:47.000And that's one thing that I notice about conservatives is you're allowed to actually enjoy art commentary and speeches from people, even if you don't know their politics.
00:24:55.000The left, you must pass their purity test before they consume your art or your commentary.
00:25:01.000MSNBC.com writes: the intersection of extremism and fitness leans into a shared obsession with the male body training masculinity, testosterone strength, and competition.
00:25:12.000Okay, who's obsessed with the male body?
00:25:16.000People that want to get fit or the gay mafia?
00:25:20.000I think the gay mafia is more obsessed with the male body, by definition.
00:25:25.000The U.S. is comparatively far behind because they are establishing fight clubs of MAGA far-right extremists.
00:25:34.000Continues to say, again, this article should be shocking, but it makes perfect sense.
00:25:39.000They want men to become metro-sexual betas of low testosterone that are androgynous consumers that sit on their tail all day long, that have no muscle mass, no desire, no purpose.
00:25:52.000They want you depressed, they want you weak, and they want you easily controlled.
00:25:57.000They don't want you to ask questions when they make bad decisions.
00:26:01.000They don't want you to rebel against their authoritarianism.
00:26:07.000They don't want a disagreeable society.
00:26:10.000The great reset relies upon the masculine firewall, the masculine bulwark to be obedient or abolished.
00:26:22.000So they label it as toxic masculinity.
00:26:25.000God only knows the parabens and the crap in our food.
00:26:29.000By the way, a story came out last week: 50% of our water supply is poisoned.
00:27:34.000She's a professor at the School of Public Affairs at the School of Education at American University, where she directs the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab.
00:28:47.000The corporate America does not want you healthy.
00:28:49.000The left thinks you need some sort of $20,000 a year program with some overweight Oberlin graduate watching over you to achieve anything.
00:28:58.000What if I told you that 20 or 30% of some of the mental health issues in America could be solved if you stop drinking, take proper supplements, get outside, go for a walk, exercise, stop watching pornography, and find purpose in your life?
00:29:11.000Pfizer doesn't want you to know about that.
00:29:13.000They make way too much money on benzodiazepines, Xanax, Zoloft, and the menu of antidepressants that are thrown at our kids.
00:29:23.000If you think about it, the decline of masculinity in America is emerging simultaneously with this confusion of what is a man and what is a woman.
00:29:41.000You know, one of the reasons why I don't like feminism, I wish feminists would actually stand up against these delusional freaks, but is because feminism was never about embracing the feminine.
00:29:52.000It was trying to make women more like men.
00:29:55.000And you can make a rather provocative yet accurate argument that feminism, without realizing it, laid the foundation for some of the trans stuff.
00:30:05.000If you think about it, it was women that wanted to be in the workforce.
00:30:10.000It was women that said, I can do anything a man can do.
00:30:51.000It's a disgusting-looking person, honestly.
00:30:54.000And the runner-up is an objectively good-looking girl.
00:31:00.000But they picked the man for progress, Netherlands.
00:31:04.000If we have a resurgence of masculinity, which is happening naturally, one of the top, I mean, I love looking at the podcast charts, not just for our podcast, but I just want to see what are people consuming?
00:31:34.000The Huberman Lab is basically a podcast, it's health and fitness, that is focused on if you want to improve your life and make good choices, you can do that.
00:32:29.000There's this, Jordan Peterson, in some ways, was like the Donald Trump of YouTube commentary of resurgence of young men, meaning he like broke the window open to realize that there was this incredibly untapped reservoir.
00:32:43.000So now you have Jocko and you have Chris Williamson and you have Peter Attia.
00:32:47.000It's like across the board of young men that are looking for purpose.
00:32:52.000Young men that are lost, the most depressed, suicidal, alcohol-addicted, pornography-addicted, drug-addicted generation in history that are constantly told that men are not necessary.
00:33:04.000If you want to be accepted as a man, just become a woman, and then you might be able to get some points in the oppression Olympics.
00:33:09.000And here comes this growing genre of find purpose, stop engaging in pleasure, stop being a bum, maybe go on a dopamine fast, start working out more, eat better, fast for great lengths.