The Megyn Kelly Show - Speaking Your Mind, Markle's ＂Diva＂ Moment, and the Importance of Dads, with Spencer Klavan ｜ Ep. 382

00:00:00.400 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.500 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.160 Today's full show is with a young man on a mission to defend and save the West

00:00:21.360 by teaching all of us about its rich and complicated, fascinating history.

00:00:27.880 Spencer Clavin is a conservative, a Christian, and an incredibly deep thinker

00:00:32.300 who not only graduated from the University of Oxford, but also taught there.

00:00:37.420 In 2020, he launched a podcast called The Young Heretics.

00:00:41.200 That is where he talks about classical literature in the hopes of igniting a fire

00:00:45.740 in those of us who want to understand it but don't know where to begin.

00:00:49.440 He is only 31 years old.

00:00:53.060 He can also dish out some brutal and hilarious and far too intellectual takedowns of far-left progressives.

00:01:02.700 Sometimes you're holding on by your fingernails, but you're like,

00:01:05.040 I couldn't repeat it, but I love it.

00:01:07.560 Not everyone can go from talking about the classics to writing about how the left now

00:01:11.100 sees anyone who tries to stay physically fit as a potential Unabomber,

00:01:14.640 but that's Spencer Clavin's gift.

00:01:16.980 So let's just say this is going to be a fascinating, fascinating two hours.

00:01:25.960 Spencer is also associate editor at the Claremont Institute.

00:01:30.000 He joins me now.

00:01:31.140 And of course, we haven't listed the thing that most of our audience will know about you

00:01:35.580 from our interview last week of your dad,

00:01:38.540 which is you are the son of the great Andrew Clavin,

00:01:42.160 which already explains a lot about you, wouldn't you say?

00:01:46.320 Absolutely.

00:01:47.140 In fact, I always, I mean, we like to joke that there's no relation between us

00:01:51.020 because he doesn't want to be associated with me,

00:01:53.040 but I certainly want to be associated with him.

00:01:54.860 I'm very proud to have him as my father, and I'm really glad to be here.

00:01:58.480 So I'm so happy to have you.

00:01:59.900 I started listening to The Young Heretics pretty much, I think,

00:02:02.860 shortly after you launched it.

00:02:05.020 And I'm somebody who knows very little to nothing about the classics,

00:02:08.540 but I'm learning.

00:02:09.540 I'm learning.

00:02:09.960 I'm holding on.

00:02:10.440 I find the way you talk about them very entertaining.

00:02:12.980 I love your love for them.

00:02:15.260 It's contagious.

00:02:17.200 And it is something I'm not going to say you dumb them down because you don't.

00:02:21.440 But but it is sort of classics for regular people.

00:02:24.280 So you tell the story, not assuming we know anything about the stories.

00:02:28.940 And I have to say, I really appreciate that.

00:02:31.900 As you get deeper in, you, you, you know,

00:02:34.760 assume that we've been with you for a while.

00:02:36.280 But anyway, I've learned a lot.

00:02:38.220 So first of all, I want to start with this because you are brilliant and your father is

00:02:42.880 brilliant.

00:02:43.560 So what was it like growing up in your household when it comes to books, when it comes to lessons

00:02:50.280 about life, philosophy?

00:02:51.620 Were those the kind of conversations you were having with your dad and maybe mom, too, your

00:02:55.500 whole life long?

00:02:56.040 Absolutely.

00:02:57.640 And I think it speaks to something you mentioned about the show, about young heretics.

00:03:02.600 And that is that, you know, I was very, very lucky to grow up in houses, you know, filled

00:03:08.420 with books, wall to wall.

00:03:09.820 And that's still something.

00:03:11.380 Anytime I walk into somebody's home, even if they've just got one little bookshelf, that's

00:03:15.160 what I gravitate toward immediately, because I started to learn that this is not just like

00:03:20.520 a collector's item or something that looks pretty on the wall.

00:03:24.600 But this is a little window into somebody's soul.

00:03:27.440 What kind of furniture do they have in their mind, as Sherlock Holmes was fond of saying?

00:03:33.280 And, you know, the part of that gift, I think, was the unpretentious way in which my folks

00:03:40.300 engaged with this stuff.

00:03:41.660 I mean, my dad, you know, my dad, he loves his, you know, pulpy adventure novels just as

00:03:46.340 much as he loves his Shakespeare and his romantic poets.

00:03:50.340 And, you know, I had a kind of innate desire to know what these big, fancy books were on the

00:03:57.800 wall.

00:03:58.060 But another thing that really stunned me when I kind of, you know, got educated enough to

00:04:04.340 read some of this stuff, and especially when I started learning the ancient languages and

00:04:07.880 kind of digging into classics, is that, you know, you think of these things as kind of

00:04:12.260 talismans, Plato, Aristotle, the greats, you know, Shakespeare, you name these names.

00:04:17.360 And a lot of times, I think we name them in order to scare people in order to, you know,

00:04:21.980 build ourselves up and to suggest that this is something that, you know, regular people don't

00:04:26.380 have access to.

00:04:26.980 So you need me, the expert, to come in, you know, and kind of gatekeep and tell you that

00:04:31.320 either this is something you should or shouldn't read.

00:04:33.360 And that's part of how the left gets away with scaring people off of these books, is

00:04:38.560 they say, well, they're very complicated, and you probably wouldn't understand them.

00:04:41.800 But just trust us that they're racist and evil, and they kind of have such prejudices. 0.99

00:04:45.020 I mean, you need to burn them. 0.76

00:04:45.940 And in fact, what you discover as you kind of, you know, climb your way into these books,

00:04:51.520 is that the reason they're great, the reason they have endured is because underneath all

00:04:57.020 of the detritus of time, and all of the, you know, language difficulties and whatever you

00:05:02.200 have to struggle with, what you're really dealing with is a face-to-face encounter with

00:05:07.280 a human being, one of the greatest minds of the past.

00:05:10.440 I mean, books are one of the greatest technologies we've ever invented to capture in amber the real

00:05:15.440 life communication between people, you know, actual humans like Aristotle, who's sitting

00:05:19.020 around and thinking, what does it mean to be good at being human, right?

00:05:22.920 And you and I wake up every day, and we have thoughts that amount to that, even if we don't

00:05:28.020 think that way, we say, you know, what am I going to do today?

00:05:32.360 What am I going to buy?

00:05:33.460 You know, how am I going to eat?

00:05:34.420 How am I going to feed my kids?

00:05:35.640 What school am I going to send them to?

00:05:37.780 And from those little decisions all the way on up to who am I going to marry?

00:05:41.300 What do I believe?

00:05:42.180 Who do I vote for?

00:05:43.160 We're always asking, how do I be a good human?

00:05:45.140 And one of the things that's so tragic to me about this kind of gatekeeping that goes

00:05:48.780 on is that people think that there are these great answers.

00:05:52.120 They kind of know that very smart people have thought about these questions, but they don't

00:05:55.240 think that they have thought about them in a way that they could grab onto.

00:05:58.760 And so part of, you know, my mission in life is just for, you know, I hear from people who

00:06:03.820 listen to the show, they're on their tractor, they're farming or they're, you know, the police

00:06:07.320 officer at the gym comes up to me and says, I listened to your show.

00:06:10.160 And that's when I feel like I'm really firing on all cylinders because, you know, these guys

00:06:14.140 have something to say to you.

00:06:16.540 And that's why they're there.

00:06:17.780 This is your dad was on last week and we were talking about his piece, his speech, saying

00:06:24.160 that you've been failed by the establishment, capital T, capital E.

00:06:28.900 And he didn't mean that in terms of the Republican establishment, which is a term we've been banning

00:06:32.760 about about 10 years or so.

00:06:34.340 He means your elders, your teachers, your philosophers, your parents, in some cases,

00:06:40.580 who aren't teaching you a moral code anymore, you know, who are sort of letting you think

00:06:46.000 in the way that the progressives do that maybe there's no truth.

00:06:49.200 Maybe there's not parameters within which we're supposed to live.

00:06:52.160 Um, and that the good news is you still have these teachers out there in the form of these

00:06:58.460 books and poetry and, uh, you know, great literature.

00:07:02.220 Yes, but great art as well.

00:07:03.560 All of these teachers are still out there for the taking.

00:07:06.520 And I asked him, you know, how should we start and all that stuff.

00:07:08.760 But like, it's so clear that you guys are both so committed to that.

00:07:11.940 So before we get into it in depth and your beliefs and what you've learned and that would

00:07:16.240 take years, but I just want to spend some time on little Spencer because I'm curious,

00:07:20.460 you know, like I look at my kids now, they play flag football, they play basketball,

00:07:25.120 they play tennis, they run around, they wrestle with each other.

00:07:28.480 Like what was little Spencer Clavin doing?

00:07:30.760 And was it, I know you and your dad played video games and so on, but like, was it like

00:07:34.040 every night you'd sit down and you'd read together and he'd like slip in a little C.S.

00:07:37.780 Lewis in, in, in addition to like, I don't Grimm's fairy tales.

00:07:41.180 Like how did it, how did your love of reading, uh, come about?

00:07:47.180 Oh, absolutely.

00:07:47.980 Well, I, you know, I, I think of my relationship with my father and I think we both kind of

00:07:53.360 talked about it this way to each other and to others.

00:07:56.800 Um, you know, every son has, uh, an important relationship with his father, even if his father

00:08:03.500 is absent, there's no escaping that it's built into your soul.

00:08:06.220 And, and many sons have wonderful relationships with their fathers.

00:08:09.960 Their fathers are mentors, their fathers are guides, but I think my dad and I are very,

00:08:14.440 very lucky and I don't think it's a guarantee that my father and I are also friends.

00:08:19.820 Um, and he's one of my best friends.

00:08:21.880 And, and I think of friendship, you know, in terms that Lewis and Aristotle both talk about

00:08:27.960 that you, you find, uh, your union in love of some common good, some third thing.

00:08:33.640 And, you know, obviously when I was a little Spencer, uh, that meant that, you know, I was

00:08:38.560 kind of taking these, I was always, you know, interested in, in books and, and, and dad and

00:08:42.740 I would go on hikes, you know, or he would read to me at bedtime and he would quiz me about

00:08:47.600 stuff, right.

00:08:48.260 You know, like who said this or what do you, who, who do you think said, you know, this,

00:08:52.200 uh, line from say Rudyard Kipling's if, you know, and we'd have to talk about it.

00:08:56.260 And, you know, the older you get, the more of your own, uh, sense of the world you acquire

00:09:01.800 that those hikes started to become arguments and conversations and, you know, profound,

00:09:06.620 uh, you know, approaches to, you know, the, the political questions of the day.

00:09:11.140 Um, but always, I think, you know, we, we had that gift, which is a really underrated gift

00:09:16.720 of the intellectual life.

00:09:18.520 People think of the intellectual life as so solitary.

00:09:21.100 Um, but Plato in his symposium talks about the intellectual life as a life of, of love

00:09:26.520 and of shared friendship, love between people who, you know, can produce things in between

00:09:32.100 one another, that between these two people, there comes into being some love of, of the

00:09:36.380 true and the good.

00:09:37.440 Um, and, you know, I, I really, I had that in, in my father and I think that, you know,

00:09:42.440 a lot of what I say and do now, we, we have a hard time really remembering where one person's

00:09:48.820 thought ends and another's begins, you know, that's, it's, it's been that close.

00:09:53.320 Uh, so, you know, it's, it's a real blessing.

00:09:55.960 Hmm.

00:09:56.900 So I know that you recently got married, uh, you married Josh, who I love that he's the

00:10:01.920 general counsel at the daily wire.

00:10:03.220 Hello.

00:10:03.480 I didn't realize that.

00:10:04.560 I assume you met him cause your dad, you know, works for a time, uh, at the daily wire.

00:10:09.280 He's doing his podcast through them.

00:10:10.560 Oh, no, actually, no, no, no, we, we met through the log cabin Republicans, which is a,

00:10:16.540 uh, you know, uh, you know, yeah, yeah, of course I know group.

00:10:19.220 Yeah.

00:10:19.360 Yeah.

00:10:19.460 You know about them.

00:10:20.280 Um, and actually he was not that daily, the daily wires general counsel.

00:10:25.000 So the connection kind of goes the other way around.

00:10:27.320 Okay.

00:10:27.720 So as a lawyer myself recovering, um, most lawyers I know are very, are linear thinkers are

00:10:33.800 very good at logical reasoning at sort of thought organization at arguing.

00:10:38.620 They don't tend to have a ton of extra time on their hands for deep reading of the kind

00:10:45.660 Spencer Clavin does.

00:10:47.300 So I, this is genuinely something I'm curious about.

00:10:50.220 Is he the kind of intellectual that you are?

00:10:53.340 Do you guys sit there at night and talk the way you and your dad do, or is it more, is

00:10:58.300 there something else that drew you together?

00:10:59.820 Because I, I mean, maybe if it, if you have two huge brains, like double Spencer's, you 0.99

00:11:06.160 drive each other nuts.

00:11:07.060 Maybe you need somebody who's more of like a beer guzzler who just wants to talk about

00:11:11.320 sports.

00:11:11.720 I don't know.

00:11:12.040 I'm curious.

00:11:13.280 Well, you know, Ben Shapiro tweeted out a, uh, cease and desist letter that Josh wrote

00:11:19.100 recently.

00:11:19.740 And it ended with, I'm sure you'll be familiar with this.

00:11:22.600 The last line of it was be governed accordingly.

00:11:24.720 And so everybody was tweeting at me, like, does Josh tell you, take out the trash, be governed

00:11:28.840 accordingly.

00:11:30.380 And, you know, it's, I think there's a real complimentarity here between me and Josh.

00:11:36.680 He was also lucky with, to have a kind of, uh, I would say a humanist education.

00:11:41.580 He went to Calvin college, uh, which is, you know, one of the places that I think you can

00:11:46.340 still go to get that breadth of learning that, you know, I, I'm a big believer, as you know,

00:11:52.620 in like, even if you're going to go off and be writing cease and desist letters, you ought

00:11:56.380 to read like a couple of plays by Shakespeare.

00:11:58.000 And, and I think he kind of had that background.

00:12:00.280 So he doesn't, you know, look at what I'm doing and say, huh, like, what the hell is that about?

00:12:06.440 Um, but, but I do think that, uh, he's, you know, he brings me down to earth in a lot of

00:12:10.420 ways.

00:12:10.580 He's a very practical guy.

00:12:12.700 Um, and, you know, many of the things that we share are kind of like in the middle of the

00:12:18.480 practical stuff and the theoretical stuff.

00:12:20.080 Like we love, you know, movies, we love watching movies together and we'll go to a

00:12:23.940 Marvel movie and he'll come away being like, wow, the studio did this and that.

00:12:28.080 And I'll come away saying like, gosh, this idea of the multiverse, it's, you know, it's

00:12:31.300 everywhere.

00:12:31.660 And it's, and, but I think that, you know, we have, we have a lot to learn from each

00:12:35.700 other in that way, including the fact that like, you know, I, I live in a house and not

00:12:40.060 a hovel or a box, like somewhere on the side of the road, because I haven't paid attention

00:12:43.740 to paying the bills.

00:12:44.960 But right.

00:12:45.420 That, that works, right.

00:12:46.740 Because you don't, you don't want a carbon copy of yourself.

00:12:48.840 You want somebody who, like you say, can be complimentary, who can further enhance your

00:12:52.400 world and give you new perspectives that you're not immersed in all day.

00:12:55.500 I always laugh with my husband, Doug, because, um, he's very well educated and he's a deep

00:13:00.080 thinker and a, and a big reader.

00:13:01.860 And on his birthday, you know, year after year, he would probably rather sit reading an

00:13:06.380 Ernest Hemingway novel.

00:13:07.560 And I put on every year on my birthday, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

00:13:12.940 No knocking Willy Wonka.

00:13:14.460 I, I, I'm, I'm into it.

00:13:16.120 No.

00:13:16.240 And like, and I think that there is something where, where people get so invested in their

00:13:21.720 identity as like, you know, lovers of, of great ideas that they fail to pay attention

00:13:28.160 to this stuff.

00:13:28.980 And conservatives, uh, can, can be guilty of this, I think in a big way, you know, you

00:13:33.200 start to talk about, well, what exactly is going on in like, you know, why is, why is

00:13:39.500 Lizzo such a big deal?

00:13:40.660 You know, why is this kind of unappealing, unattractive woman rocketing to the top of 1.00

00:13:46.460 the charts and maybe you don't like it, but what's the, you know, what's to be gleaned

00:13:51.080 from it?

00:13:51.340 What's to be learned.

00:13:52.200 And I think, you know, a lot of people kind of miss that because they have a certain disdain

00:13:56.780 for, for pop art, especially in times like ours when so much of it is so bad.

00:14:02.280 That's interesting.

00:14:02.780 You should mention her.

00:14:03.320 So she's in the news just today, um, because Lizzo, for those of you who don't know, is

00:14:09.100 a very successful singer and she's somebody who's extremely, she's morbidly obese and 0.94

00:14:14.440 the, instead of, you know, it's one thing not to make fun of obese people.

00:14:18.540 I don't think anybody's advocating for that, you know, constant cheat teasing, but it's

00:14:22.500 quite another to be celebrating it as quote healthy, which is what's done by today's

00:14:27.840 magazines.

00:14:28.320 They really want us to believe that a 300 pound woman on a five foot six frame is quote 1.00

00:14:32.900 healthy, which is not true.

00:14:34.760 It's just not factual.

00:14:36.980 So she was mocked by, I think it was another singer, uh, who came out.

00:14:42.440 I was by a comedian.

00:14:43.820 Okay.

00:14:44.860 What's his name?

00:14:46.800 My team's giving, Aries, Aries Spears, Aries Spears.

00:14:49.640 Okay.

00:14:50.360 So Aries Spears is out there.

00:14:51.680 I have it here and had some things to say on Lizzo.

00:14:54.920 Hold on.

00:14:55.500 I will tell the audience what he said.

00:14:56.820 Oh, we've got, you know, I don't have to tell you, listen, here he is.

00:15:00.480 Stand by.

00:15:01.780 She's got a very pretty face, but she keeps showing her body off. 1.00

00:15:05.920 Like, come on, man.

00:15:08.000 Come on, yo.

00:15:09.380 But a woman that's built like a plate of mashed potatoes is in trouble. 1.00

00:15:13.920 You know, it kills me about women is, is the hypocrisy and the contradiction. 1.00

00:15:18.800 Yes. 1.00

00:15:19.220 Queen slay queen. 1.00

00:15:20.500 Yes.

00:15:20.900 Queen slay. 1.00

00:15:22.020 Yeah, girl. 0.99

00:15:22.760 Your confidence. 1.00

00:15:24.040 Fuck diabetes. 1.00

00:15:25.260 Fuck heart. 1.00

00:15:26.300 Heart problems. 1.00

00:15:27.880 Fuck heart disease. 1.00

00:15:29.200 Cholesterol. 1.00

00:15:30.300 Y'all claim womanhood and about sisterhood and support for your sister. 1.00

00:15:35.900 You know, when it comes to that ridiculous shit. 1.00

00:15:39.140 But if you really gave a fuck, why wouldn't you go, black girl, we love you. 1.00

00:15:43.420 We love your confidence, boo boo. 1.00

00:15:45.080 But this ain't it.

00:15:46.640 Y'all will jump on me for making jokes. 0.98

00:15:48.540 But y'all won't fucking be real and go, sister, put the eclair down. 0.99

00:15:54.360 This ain't it. 0.99

00:15:55.660 It's treadmill time.

00:15:56.900 Okay.

00:16:00.420 So wait, this is part two.

00:16:03.080 Lizzo appearing at the VMAs appeared to be responding to him when she said the following.

00:16:08.540 Listen. 0.97

00:16:08.660 And now, to the bitches that got something to say about me in the press. 1.00

00:16:18.220 You know what? 0.99

00:16:19.040 I'm not going to say nothing.

00:16:20.020 They'd be like, Lizzo, why don't you clap back?

00:16:21.560 Why don't you clap back? 1.00

00:16:22.660 Because, bitch, I'm winning, ho. 1.00

00:16:26.620 This bitch is winning, ho! 1.00

00:16:29.360 That's what they're just so painful, bitch! 1.00

00:16:32.680 So, uh... 1.00

00:16:33.660 Hmm, classy.

00:16:36.960 Yeah.

00:16:38.880 Wow.

00:16:39.460 What do you make of that whole exchange?

00:16:41.440 You know, it's really interesting to me.

00:16:44.840 This is somebody that's making untold millions, I assume, of dollars for, in her own words, right,

00:16:52.840 twerking and making smoothies.

00:16:54.420 Like, that's a real lyric.

00:16:56.200 It's called healing, Megan.

00:16:57.300 And, uh, and, and, and this is not somebody that is in any way oppressed or suffering.

00:17:04.300 In the grand scheme of human life, this is somebody that's on the top of the totem pole.

00:17:09.360 And, but yet, her whole brand is based on this idea of her being beaten down somehow by people

00:17:16.380 telling her to put down the eclair.

00:17:18.200 She's the victim, you know.

00:17:19.620 And it speaks, I think, to some, I mean, here's, you've got, you've got Lizzo, you've got,

00:17:24.360 I think we may talk at another point about Meghan Markle, you know, the, the, the princess

00:17:28.540 and the pop star, both of them building their brands out of suffering, out of the idea that

00:17:35.880 being miserable is what makes them virtuous, this constructed misery.

00:17:40.580 And I, I, I wonder about that because I think, you know, the, the thing about leftism and

00:17:47.520 the thing about, you know, feminism of the second wave, which is really what a lot of 1.00

00:17:52.480 this is based on is that it does make people miserable.

00:17:56.400 I mean, nobody's saying that women shouldn't have careers. 1.00

00:17:58.180 Nobody's saying that women shouldn't, you know, go out and do whatever they want to do. 1.00

00:18:01.380 But this Gloria Steinem thing, a woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle or, you know, 1.00

00:18:06.420 just, you know, eat a pile of mashed potatoes and, and be happy.

00:18:11.160 It's inherently, you know, anti happiness.

00:18:14.080 It's not like somebody wrote a rule or is oppressing Lizzo by making her, you know, so scream into

00:18:20.700 the, into the microphone.

00:18:21.800 She's acting that way because she's pursuing courses of action that, that make you miserable.

00:18:27.200 And so we now have this kind of widespread trend in our pop culture, which again, you know,

00:18:33.700 this is what looking at these sorts of things can reveal to us.

00:18:36.560 We have this hugely widespread trend of glamorizing suffering because that's the only way they

00:18:42.160 can sell this to people.

00:18:43.360 More and more young people are waking up every day and saying, you know what, this doesn't

00:18:46.600 fit.

00:18:47.140 I'm, I'm wandering around.

00:18:48.520 I'm lonely.

00:18:49.700 My, you know, dating life is a mess.

00:18:51.960 Uh, and, and everything that I'm being told to do in the media or even by my college professors,

00:18:57.560 let's say is making me more and more unhappy, just keep doing more and more of it.

00:19:00.780 And that's supposed to be the solution makes me more and more unhappy.

00:19:02.640 Well, how do you get around that?

00:19:04.240 How do you keep selling that bill of goods?

00:19:06.720 You have to buy into this idea that your misery is somehow virtue, that, that suffering is

00:19:12.280 what makes you.

00:19:13.040 And this is a weird little perversion of an actual true idea, which is that suffering can

00:19:16.900 be ennobling, can shape the soul.

00:19:18.980 Um, and, but you look at these people and you realize they're actually having to invent

00:19:22.640 their suffering, right?

00:19:23.780 In order to, you know, stay on top of the, of the misery hierarchy.

00:19:28.400 It's incredibly perverse, um, but it's, it's deeply rooted in our culture at the

00:19:32.320 moment.

00:19:32.480 But it's one thing that was, it reminds me again of something that your dad said, uh, 0.52

00:19:36.400 which was, it's one thing to have these whiners who want to glom onto victimhood and put themselves 1.00

00:19:40.880 at the top of, you know, the oppression Olympics, but it's another to have all of society sit

00:19:45.800 back.

00:19:46.800 And as Aries Spears said, say, yes, queen, you know, that that's where we're really

00:19:51.640 falling down as a society.

00:19:53.720 You know, it's not that all of us should look at Lizzo and say, tsk, tsk, get on the scale

00:19:58.340 more often and get to the gym, though.

00:20:00.560 That wouldn't be a bad idea if she wants to have a nice, long, healthy lifestyle, uh, life in general, 1.00

00:20:05.480 forget style life.

00:20:06.380 Um, it's, it's just that society would never before have snapped for somebody who's celebrating

00:20:14.340 her 300 pound status, nor for that matter, the fact that she's a girl who now on Tuesday 1.00

00:20:20.840 after Monday, being a girl says she's a boy.

00:20:23.180 And now we have to snap that as though this is a positive development that we all, you know,

00:20:27.680 so his point in to, you know, paraphrase was basically where, where is the established?

00:20:33.100 Where, where are the grownups, where's the culture to not tip or gore, ban stuff, but

00:20:38.920 at least set moral standards within the bounds of reason within we, within which we all understand

00:20:45.320 it's well and good to live.

00:20:47.840 Absolutely.

00:20:48.760 Well, you know, I, I think that the, uh, sort of inherent disgust for authority for age, right?

00:20:57.580 We have this really deep seated cultural reaction against anybody who comes out and says,

00:21:02.900 as, as, as my father was suggesting, like, you know, I actually am older and wiser.

00:21:06.900 I know a little bit, maybe I have some wisdom that I've gleaned from the study of the classics.

00:21:11.820 Right.

00:21:12.140 Um, and, and it was very purposefully put out into the culture that this was, and this was

00:21:18.640 the root of all evil, that these kinds of voices of moral authority were the root of

00:21:23.860 all evil.

00:21:24.320 And especially I think in the sixties and seventies, people really went along with this.

00:21:28.280 They really said, Oh no, I, you know, I'm just the cool guy.

00:21:30.720 I'm just the cool kid.

00:21:31.720 Like, you know, I'm the cool mom.

00:21:33.120 I'll let you drink alcohol in the house or whatever.

00:21:34.920 Um, and we're seeing the wages of that.

00:21:38.120 And the closest comparison that I can come up with is with, um, Aristophanes clouds, which

00:21:43.940 is a comedy, uh, uh, you know, famous play from ancient Athens, which is about the university

00:21:51.140 system in, in so many words, right?

00:21:53.220 It's about sending your kid to a school system where he will be taught to hate you and to

00:21:59.460 hate your values and to hate where it comes from. 0.60

00:22:01.080 And we actually have exactly that system currently, uh, alive and well in our country.

00:22:07.820 It's being subsidized by, you know, debt forgiveness and student loans and propped up with all of

00:22:13.340 these incredibly, uh, morally questionable as well as legally questionable measures.

00:22:18.260 And so you have to ask yourself, why, why is it that we are throwing money at a system

00:22:23.580 that takes kids out of the home and teaches them that inherently because their parents

00:22:28.760 are their parents, because their elders are their elders, because something comes from

00:22:32.440 the past, it's therefore outdated and bad and wrong.

00:22:35.980 It's just very kind of Woodrow Wilson progressive idea.

00:22:38.080 Why would we be, we'd be funding it?

00:22:39.780 Well, one thing you have to, I think, acknowledge is, you know, publicly funded education is a means

00:22:44.720 of state control.

00:22:45.940 It was a means of state control back in the days of Plato and Aristotle, when they were

00:22:49.680 talking about, you know, the, the perfect state and what were they would teach the kids.

00:22:53.040 It was a means of state control in, in Prussia in the 18th and 19th century, when we in America

00:22:57.820 were kind of cribbing from it to build our own public education system.

00:23:00.780 And, you know, it's, it's not inherently bad for the government to have an interest in

00:23:04.920 what kids learn and to be shaping that toward the good, but you always have to look at it and

00:23:09.900 say, well, what are the state priorities that this reflects?

00:23:12.780 What are the government priorities that this education system reflects?

00:23:17.040 And it reflects an infantilizing and, and kind of, you know, a system that makes people

00:23:21.980 helpless, that creates kind of helplessness, victimhood, dependence upon the state.

00:23:27.060 So it's like, you know, Biden writes off $10,000 of, of student loan debt.

00:23:30.980 And we're all very upset about that, of course, but we also have to pull back the camera and

00:23:34.860 say, well, okay, so why is he doing that?

00:23:37.500 And what is the state funding here?

00:23:39.660 It's fuzzing funding Lizzo culture because Lizzo culture is good for the state.

00:23:43.300 It creates people that are helpless and, and, and need the state to come in and fix their

00:23:46.980 lives.

00:23:47.800 Hmm.

00:23:49.000 I mean, it's a very good point, but while you're talking about it, I'm thinking to myself,

00:23:51.840 you went to Yale and double Oxford for your master's and PhD and you went off and Spencer

00:23:57.220 and I talked about how he was not always a Republican.

00:23:59.060 Um, I'm sorry, I do, Andrew and I did, and I wonder how did you, like, were you always

00:24:06.320 conservative and how did you fight back on the obvious leftward tilt of those organizations?

00:24:12.000 Or were you somehow not as exposed to it because you were in the classics departments, which

00:24:17.380 I would imagine lean a bit more to the right.

00:24:20.460 Yeah, it's a great question.

00:24:21.680 I mean, I'm always railing about these university systems and I'm absolutely a product of them,

00:24:26.760 you know, in many ways, as you point out.

00:24:28.780 And I usually feel like I have to stipulate that I had a wonderful education.

00:24:33.840 I really had excellent mentors and, and teachers.

00:24:37.640 Um, but I did have to chart my way through it.

00:24:40.860 And one of the things that we miss sometimes in the culture wars, when we're talking about

00:24:45.320 this stuff, as we talk about institutions writ large as kind of big monoliths.

00:24:49.780 Um, and that's because in fact, they are being captured at an administrative level.

00:24:53.780 Um, but there are still lots of people who stay and fight the good fight or who just

00:24:58.380 teach the great works, even, you know, under the assault that they've been under since,

00:25:02.800 you know, the eighties and, and even before, you know, and so I was able, there's a, you

00:25:07.640 know, a scene in the Iliad where one of the heroes kind of, uh, walks from ship to ship because

00:25:12.020 he's so huge and he is able to, you know, uh, transmit himself from the prow to the next

00:25:17.560 prow.

00:25:17.860 And that's kind of what I, I, it was sort of like that, except the ships were sinking

00:25:21.100 in, in the background.

00:25:22.700 And, uh, you know, as each, each ship that I got off sort of proceeded to sink.

00:25:26.940 And I, I wonder, you know, whether I should have stayed and fought more, basically the,

00:25:32.340 the policy that I adopted, and this is something I tell people when, you know, they're now in

00:25:36.620 the, uh, higher education system, but they're more conservative leaning is, you know, there's

00:25:41.360 a Solzhenitsyn speech, uh, you know, the great Soviet dissident, uh, who, who, he said,

00:25:46.460 live not by lies.

00:25:47.880 And if you can't, you know, stand up right now in your class and argue with your professor,

00:25:53.360 um, at least never be forced to consent to a lie.

00:25:56.960 And I flatter myself that I did a little bit more than that.

00:26:00.240 You know, I was, uh, sort of, I became more and more conservative as I went through, uh,

00:26:04.720 the education system.

00:26:06.420 And there's still reasons to, uh, to do that, but, uh, you know,

00:26:11.420 How is that possible?

00:26:12.580 You're the one.

00:26:13.280 No, well, I mean, I, I actually, this is a really good point, Megan is I don't think

00:26:19.080 I am the one, the lone person that's having this experience.

00:26:22.300 I think that I'm, I'm probably because I come from such a supportive family and because I

00:26:27.200 had experienced conservatives around me before I was maybe a little bit more outspoken or

00:26:32.460 ready to say what I thought, but I was just talking to a professor at Harvard, actually one

00:26:38.320 of the lone conservative professors at, at Harvard, Harvey Mansfield.

00:26:41.500 And he was saying he has a student who, uh, came up through the, you know, uh, the secondary

00:26:47.180 education system and was so resentful of the way that these leftist views had been drilled

00:26:53.600 into her at the expense of everything else.

00:26:56.360 You know, she said, I feel like I come out.

00:26:57.900 I know, I know nothing except which pieties I need to mouth.

00:27:00.740 Um, and I think that there is a fair amount of resentment, uh, among kind of the undecideds

00:27:06.880 who just feel like they have to go along to get along.

00:27:08.760 It's a very demoralizing situation to be in, to feel like you have to say something you

00:27:12.080 don't believe in order just to get your grade or to get your degree.

00:27:16.860 And, you know, that in itself has a certain degree of promise for conservatives, but it's

00:27:21.080 not enough, right?

00:27:22.080 I mean, we've relied on that resentment, the silent majority for so long.

00:27:25.260 I really think that we need to be telling people that, you know, there's no substitute

00:27:28.360 for courage, uh, wherever you are.

00:27:30.780 It doesn't matter if you're, you know, an undergraduate in a leftist, uh, university

00:27:34.120 course, or you're at a job that's telling you, you need to do something, say something

00:27:39.120 you don't believe the actual antidote to that situation where let's say 10% of the radicals

00:27:45.480 are mouthing the struggle session pieties.

00:27:47.600 And then there's a good chunk, maybe 80% that just feel like they have to go along.

00:27:51.620 The only antidote to that is for that other 10% that disagrees to stand up and have the

00:27:56.800 courage to, uh, to speak for their lines.

00:27:59.920 Yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:28:02.120 And I, I forgive me for just repeating my interview with your dad with you, but I love

00:28:06.460 these points.

00:28:06.980 And one of the things I mentioned to him, I'd love to get your take on it.

00:28:09.900 And I think I know what it's going to be is, uh, I had just come from this event where

00:28:13.160 there were a bunch of Republican, um, muckety mucks, you know, politicians and donors and 0.78

00:28:17.740 so on mixing.

00:28:19.280 And, um, one of the couples pulled me aside and said, what should we do?

00:28:23.980 We have a son and a daughter going off to one who's going to, um, some junior Ivy league,

00:28:29.420 you know, sort of the next step behind Harvard, Yale.

00:28:32.060 And then one was going into the military, one of the military institutions.

00:28:35.080 And they said, they're very worried about espousing their conservative values.

00:28:39.180 They, they want to get ahead.

00:28:40.300 You know, they're competitive.

00:28:41.080 This is how they got into these institutions.

00:28:42.380 And we don't really know what to tell them, you know, like, do we keep your head down,

00:28:47.440 you know, say what they want you to say just to get ahead and get out.

00:28:50.840 And then you can be who you are or do you fight?

00:28:52.860 And of course, I mean, I actually believe that you go to the people you go to for advice

00:28:57.540 because you kind of know what you want to hear.

00:28:59.960 You know, you choose the people who are going to advise you, um, consciously or not consciously

00:29:04.160 for a reason.

00:29:05.520 And of course I said, I believe you have to fight.

00:29:07.660 I believe the answer is to fight even at that age.

00:29:10.480 And if they downgrade your child because he doesn't go along with their dogma, then ideally

00:29:15.520 he could make a record of it.

00:29:16.500 It'd be wonderful if he had a recording.

00:29:19.100 But, but even without that, he should wear his seat like a badge of honor when he's out

00:29:23.780 there applying for jobs and that will help him align with a place that he's actually

00:29:27.640 supposed to be.

00:29:28.720 But what do you make?

00:29:30.040 Yeah.

00:29:30.640 You know, I think what I would say to a kid going into that situation or to parents is

00:29:36.060 it's never going to get any easier.

00:29:38.860 You're not going to reach some point where you have enough credentials or enough, you

00:29:44.480 know, or you have tenure or you have whatever that milestone is where in your head, you're

00:29:50.100 not going to lose anything by speaking up.

00:29:52.600 That's a fantasy that, that doesn't exist.

00:29:55.420 Um, so it's not that you, you can't sometimes, you know, sometimes you have to go and get a

00:30:00.800 credential in order to work in the field that you want to work in.

00:30:04.160 And I completely understand that that might mean, you know, not just pounding your fist

00:30:08.420 on the table on Twitter all the time.

00:30:09.960 Like I've been known to do, you know, this is why the soldier needs in principle is so

00:30:14.460 important.

00:30:14.940 Live not by lies.

00:30:16.040 It's not that you need to always go out and, you know, make it your personal crusade to

00:30:20.240 refute every dishonest thing in every situation.

00:30:23.200 Um, but, but you, you know, all a man has, all a human being has is his word.

00:30:30.080 And, and the minute you say something, affirm something that you don't believe, you've given

00:30:35.860 over a little piece of yourself to that lie.

00:30:38.800 And you're not going to just get it back when you get the credential.

00:30:42.600 There's not going to be some point where it's all easy.

00:30:44.640 So practice now when it's at the easiest it will ever be.

00:30:48.300 It's the easiest it will ever be for you to speak your mind.

00:30:51.040 You will lose some things by it.

00:30:53.080 This is part of why, you know, we worship a God who dies on the cross, who is truth,

00:30:57.980 who is killed, right?

00:30:58.840 I mean, that is just the way of the world.

00:31:00.880 You will lose some things, but you will gain life, life in abundance.

00:31:04.540 That's what you get out of speaking the truth, right?

00:31:07.440 And, and so, you know, the Bible also says be, be, uh, wise as, as serpents and gentle

00:31:13.120 as doves.

00:31:14.260 There is a time and place for all things.

00:31:16.700 You know, we're not all called every moment to be culture warriors.

00:31:19.300 Sometimes we might contribute to the salvation of the West by getting a degree of, you know,

00:31:24.280 I, I of all people know that that's a thing.

00:31:27.020 Um, but it's never going to get easier to speak the truth than it is for you right now

00:31:32.160 as you go through the system.

00:31:34.200 I can't imagine what it was like for you, such a big thinker, so well-read, so immersed

00:31:38.860 in the classics and the writings of people like Aristotle and Socrates engaged in the business

00:31:44.940 of ideas, big ideas, you know, philosophical ideas and thoughts about religion, about God,

00:31:49.960 about the universe, about our souls, about moral principles to be bogged down day after

00:31:55.000 day with this nonstop messaging about identity, about skin color, about gender.

00:32:01.760 I mean, I've heard you say on your show, just please just forget all this, not forget this

00:32:07.720 nonsense about how the classics are racist and just enjoy, immerse yourself and enjoy and

00:32:12.520 take what they have to, but it must've been such an irritation to you.

00:32:16.500 Like a, like a, the mosquitoes at the delightful picnic, like the gnat ruining your beautiful

00:32:22.440 summer view, right?

00:32:24.160 To having to deal with that.

00:32:26.440 Well, you're, you're very kind.

00:32:28.320 I mean, there, there's a way in which I suppose that that could be true, but just constitutionally,

00:32:34.340 I've always been a very happy warrior.

00:32:36.600 And I kind of take it for granted that in, you know, in this life, you will have troubles

00:32:40.860 and this happens to be the fight onto which we were born.

00:32:44.020 Like who knows, but this was the moment unto which we were born.

00:32:46.860 I mean, it is kind of laughable.

00:32:48.720 And this is one great antidote that I always recommend to people is do, do find things funny,

00:32:53.800 you know, just because they're threatening to haul you off to the gulags doesn't mean they're 0.93

00:32:57.060 not also ridiculous. 0.92

00:32:58.300 And when you hear people talk about these, like a whiteness in Herodotus, which as you

00:33:03.920 say, that's like a real thing that people will, will talk about.

00:33:07.480 And you say, you know, whiteness is a uniquely American modern obsession that Herodotus would 0.98

00:33:13.420 have no idea what you meant by whiteness.

00:33:15.100 Or you say like, oh, I've, I've scoured these Viking texts and I found that there were black

00:33:19.660 people in, in Viking culture because they talk about Eric the black, you know, and it's

00:33:25.460 like, well, right, cause he had, he had black hair and, and some of these things are just

00:33:29.120 so absurd that the only thing you can do is laugh at them.

00:33:33.120 And then, and this is the crucial thing, right?

00:33:36.120 Don't let them into your thought world for a second.

00:33:39.980 Why would it, you know, what does it profit you to even hesitate before you then immediately

00:33:45.140 shrug off this nonsensical critique of, oh, the racism of, you know, ancient times or

00:33:50.280 whatever, and, and actually look at the text.

00:33:52.860 We get this wrong on both sides.

00:33:54.360 It's part of why I started the show.

00:33:56.520 We fight and fight over whether it's okay to read Homer and the left says it's wrong

00:34:01.120 and evil and the right says it's, it's good and we should do it.

00:34:03.780 But while we're fighting, and this is one of the left's best tactics, we're so wrapped

00:34:08.660 up in that argument that we're not actually reading Homer, right?

00:34:11.980 We've suddenly been distracted away from this storehouse, this treasure house of, of great

00:34:17.840 literature and art that comes down to us that is still available.

00:34:20.840 You know, even with all the problems of digital technology, it's also newly available online.

00:34:26.860 And, you know, one of the tricks, if you're, you know, if you're working out, if you're

00:34:30.420 starting a new diet, if you're trying to make a life change is to focus on the positive,

00:34:34.080 right?

00:34:34.220 Don't say, I'm not going to drink.

00:34:36.460 Say, look how much clearer my head is when I, when I wake up in the morning. 1.00

00:34:40.820 And, you know, for all that there, we get wrapped up in these absolutely idiotic political 1.00

00:34:47.200 struggles. 1.00

00:34:47.640 And we certainly do.

00:34:49.620 They are like gnats, as you said, compared to this just mountain of excellence that comes

00:34:56.400 down to us.

00:34:56.980 How lucky are we that we get to be inheritors of this civilization?

00:35:00.320 And I think, you know, we, we are always losing out.

00:35:04.680 We're always making ourselves smaller than we could be when we engage with identity politics

00:35:09.780 on its own terms.

00:35:10.920 No, Shakespeare is not racist. 0.80

00:35:12.200 Yes, he is racist.

00:35:13.160 That's beside the point.

00:35:14.760 Shakespeare is Shakespeare.

00:35:16.320 And, you know, the, the political, you know, the, the sort of non-binary, gender fluid,

00:35:21.440 fat shaming, whatever people online can't hold a candle to him.

00:35:25.740 Like pick up your copy of, of Julius Caesar.

00:35:28.520 I beg you, uh, your, your life will be improved.

00:35:31.560 Is it, was it, uh, C.S.

00:35:33.800 Lewis who said something to the effect of, um, defend truth, but also enjoy it.

00:35:38.340 There has to be time to enjoy it.

00:35:40.480 Exactly.

00:35:41.240 That's exactly right.

00:35:42.460 And, you know, Lewis was such a companion to me at Oxford.

00:35:46.020 I remember walking along the river with his books and having that feeling similar to what

00:35:51.560 I was describing to you with my dad.

00:35:53.540 And he, Lewis actually writes about this in the four loves that experience of, Oh, you

00:35:57.680 too.

00:35:58.100 I thought I was the only one, right?

00:35:59.660 That's, that's friendship.

00:36:00.620 That's when you have made this kind of communion with another mind.

00:36:05.200 And I do, you know, another part of my experience in the media and, you know, in, in our current

00:36:13.140 political moment is a lot of sorrow when I see people, you know, whatever twerking on

00:36:18.300 the Capitol steps or screaming into a microphone about how it's great that they're fat.

00:36:22.920 You know, it's, it's not that those people are on the opposite side from me politically,

00:36:28.000 although they are, it's just a deep sense of loss that these are human souls endowed

00:36:34.060 with the capacity for reason and able to make that kind of connection.

00:36:37.940 Maybe it wouldn't be with CS Lewis, maybe it would be with Du Bois, or maybe it would

00:36:42.040 be with Machiavelli or who knows, but the, to never, to live your whole life, never even

00:36:48.140 engaging at that level because you've been taught by people that you trusted that this

00:36:54.120 is evil and wrong to look back into the past.

00:36:57.940 You know, young people have been done a terrible, terrible disservice.

00:37:01.260 And the more of them come to understand that, the more of them start to say, well, I don't

00:37:06.200 know what I can do to move forward in, you know, 2022, but this ain't it.

00:37:11.420 And which is kind of hopeful.

00:37:14.040 I love that.

00:37:15.020 Make communion with another mind.

00:37:17.020 That's what we're doing hopefully right now between our audience and Spencer Clavin.

00:37:20.540 Much, much more with Spencer right after this quick break.

00:37:23.680 Don't go away.

00:37:30.580 I want to do a little bit more news of the day because there's a couple of interesting

00:37:33.720 headlines out there.

00:37:34.540 First of all, we've got Joe Biden, who about, I don't know, two hours from now is expected

00:37:39.760 to speak in Pennsylvania.

00:37:42.140 He is going to focus on crime and gun violence.

00:37:47.140 He now thinks crime is a winning issue for the Democrats in advance of the midterm elections.

00:37:53.680 And I believe that Karine Jean-Pierre, his press secretary, gave us a little preview of how

00:37:59.940 he's going to spin that.

00:38:01.920 Listen here.

00:38:02.220 We are going to hear from the president about about the importance of making sure that we

00:38:08.360 protect our communities.

00:38:09.880 You know, the president has been really clear that congressional Republicans, that extreme

00:38:13.580 MAGA agenda that you heard him talk about last week is a threat to the rule of law.

00:38:19.000 We will say that he will say that he will say that you can't propose defunding the FBI or defund

00:38:25.460 the mob that stormed the Capitol and attacked and assaulted police officers on January 6th and

00:38:31.220 pre and be pro police.

00:38:33.040 And that's what you're going to hear from the president.

00:38:34.460 Wow. So it's all about the FBI in January 6th.

00:38:39.260 And that's what he's going to use.

00:38:40.880 Say Republicans are anti cop and pro crime.

00:38:46.420 So how do you like his chances of persuading folks of that?

00:38:51.120 Well, first of all, Megan, thank you so much for bringing a little more Karine Jean-Pierre

00:38:55.120 into my life. I thought that Jen Psaki had maxed me out on comedy in the news, but then 0.98

00:39:00.700 I was given the gift of Karine and she never fails to deliver.

00:39:05.380 I mean, so bad at her job. 1.00

00:39:08.040 She's so my gosh. 1.00

00:39:09.340 It's just like it's almost as if when you promote people on the basis of race and sexual

00:39:14.700 orientation, you don't get the best candidates.

00:39:18.120 Yeah. I'm sorry. That's she's not up to the job. 0.92

00:39:23.020 It's very clear. And even the Democrats know it and they don't seem to care.

00:39:27.240 They're just going to, I guess. And then they brought out the white guy from the Pentagon,

00:39:30.960 Kirby. And she's like, what are you doing here?

00:39:33.840 It's like, well, you know, it's not the fact that he's white and he's a guy, but he actually

00:39:37.600 does know what he's talking about. And they even they see that she needs a lifeline.

00:39:42.200 I know. Imagine if you were just qualified on the basis of nothing to do with his race.

00:39:46.340 Anyway, you know, you're also giving me a little bit of L.A. trauma.

00:39:51.060 I, you know, you're resurrecting old wounds because I'm living in Nashville now.

00:39:55.540 We moved out and Josh got the job of Daily Wire.

00:39:57.700 But, you know, we saw where things were headed with the George Floyd riots and the encouragement

00:40:03.520 of flawlessness, not just the permission of it, but the act of kind of cheering on of

00:40:08.520 this stuff. And you're looking now at Los Angeles that has, you know, kind of roving

00:40:13.780 gangs, shutting down streets for, you know, to do donuts with their cars and to grab stuff

00:40:19.940 out of 7-Elevens. And who's the victim of this? Well, of course, the victim is the actual

00:40:25.080 upstanding minority business owner. You know, it's always presented in terms of BLM and oh,

00:40:30.680 we're so compassionate toward these impoverished communities. But those impoverished communities

00:40:35.960 are where you now can't walk outside as you're trying to open your store because for fear of

00:40:42.280 roving bands of criminals. So, you know, this is it's almost impossible for me to imagine that

00:40:51.260 this is a winning issue. If Republicans can be smart enough to stick to the message, the

00:40:58.000 message is you're hurting exactly the people that you claim to be helping while lowering quality of

00:41:03.320 life for everybody else. I mean, if they get wrapped up and entangled in this, you know,

00:41:08.360 January 6th show trial, if they let the Democrats run circles around them with that, then, you

00:41:13.720 know, who knows? But if Republicans have a mnemonic move sense, this should be a slam dunk for

00:41:18.740 them. They should be able to knock out of the park. You know, Ben Shapiro, a mutual friend,

00:41:22.800 and he, of course, owns and runs the Daily Wire. He was making the point the other day that the

00:41:27.340 Republicans, I mean, honestly, they're so dumb. They just they walk into these traps that the 1.00

00:41:32.360 Democrats set so blindly as like they're so stupid. Why are they so stupid in terms of strategy? 1.00

00:41:38.120 Most of these guys like the Democrats are like Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, 1.00

00:41:43.880 Trump. And the Republicans, as Ben pointed out, instead of being like no crime in Afghanistan

00:41:48.760 and covid and inflation and the economy and overreach, they're like, yes, Trump, let's do this

00:41:56.220 thing. And now now they're behind. I know. Well, this is I mean, it's our job. It's our job to be

00:42:03.400 the stupid party. So at least we're, you know, serving our role in the republic. No, I mean, I 1.00

00:42:08.420 think that the Trump thing is so frustrating to me, not because of, you know, my personal feelings

00:42:17.400 about Trump. You know, he's not my preferred 2024 candidate, but that's not really why it's

00:42:23.620 frustrating. It's because it's actually out of touch to be fixating on this particular man. Now,

00:42:30.520 it is absolutely appalling that the Justice Department, the FBI is raiding this guy's

00:42:34.920 private residence. This is somebody that may well run for president in future. He called it

00:42:39.500 unprecedented. It is completely unprecedented. I grant all of that. But when you have this incredibly

00:42:45.860 polarizing figure and an election that does not in any way need to be a referendum on him,

00:42:51.740 it's a complete own goal, a complete self-own to turn this into a referendum on Trump. As you say,

00:42:57.840 it's what the Democrats want, when even the things that are happening to Trump are signs of a much

00:43:03.420 larger problem that we have, which is the capture of our security state and our, you know, constitution

00:43:09.620 more generally by hostile actors, by political actors, the politicization of the DOJ. You know,

00:43:15.460 that's the kind of thing that you could talk to people about, as well as the kitchen table issues,

00:43:19.180 which are all in Republicans' favor. Inflation, right? And gas prices, energy, this war, even,

00:43:25.700 you know, foreign affairs. All of this is, you know, has been a disaster in the Biden administration.

00:43:31.260 And it's actually not a question of, you know, how loyal you are to Trump or whatever. It's just

00:43:36.160 about who are you trying to win over? You're trying to win over undecided voters whose lives are being

00:43:40.180 made progressively worse by every move that this administration makes. Why wouldn't you focus

00:43:44.380 on that? I just don't get it. Mm hmm. Today, the last night, I should say, on his social media

00:43:50.700 platform, Donald Trump was tweeting out this news about how the FBI went to Facebook, among others,

00:43:58.440 I assume, and warned them that disinformation would be coming from the Russians shortly before

00:44:03.020 the Hunter Biden laptop story dropped. And Mark Zuckerberg admitted to Joe Rogan. But as we pointed

00:44:08.900 out on our show yesterday, he had admitted it two years earlier in congressional testimony

00:44:12.140 that, in fact, Facebook did suppress the circulation of the Hunter Biden story, you know,

00:44:17.860 right before the election because of that FBI warning. They weren't ordered to do it. They

00:44:21.800 were just given the warning and then behaved accordingly. Now, Trump tweets out last night

00:44:26.940 in part about the FBI. He's mad that they did this. And he says, OK, we've never seen this

00:44:33.960 kind of massive fraud and election interference remedy. Declare the rightful winner. Like who?

00:44:40.360 Who would declare declare the rightful winner or and this would be the minimal solution? Declare the

00:44:46.760 2020 election irreparably compromised and have a new election immediately. So that's not a thing.

00:44:55.160 That's not a thing, Mr. Former President. There is no doing that. And look, this will this is grist

00:45:01.180 for the mill. The left wing media will dine on this for the next four days. It's another news cycle

00:45:05.900 sucked up by the Trump energy that where they're not talking about the economy and so on. And so now

00:45:10.740 I don't know about you, but I'm really getting to the point where I'm starting to think I don't

00:45:14.180 think the Republicans will lose the House. I think I think they will win the House still. But it's far

00:45:18.680 less certain than it's been in a year. And as we saw with Georgia, President Trump is not helping.

00:45:25.780 No, I mean, I've had since 2016, I've kind of had like a no predictions rule. I've just done.

00:45:30.720 It's not my it's not my game. I'm not good at it. So I can't I can't call this election. I think a

00:45:36.520 lot of what you say is, you know, I think it's Bill Barr in his memoir says recounts a story that

00:45:42.080 Trump says something to the effect of like the key to a good tweet is just crazy enough, right? It's

00:45:46.860 just crazy enough. And to me, the like, let's let's declare the 2020 election void. That's like over

00:45:53.720 the crazy line. That's more crazy than I want in the stamp. Yeah. Well, I want to ask you because

00:46:01.540 I know you've written a lot about this. You've talked a lot about this. You know, why? Why did

00:46:06.900 we choose Trump? And I I've defended a lot of Trump's policies. I've been very, I think, objective

00:46:13.720 on President Trump. But there's a reason that we got a figure like Trump in the presidency. And

00:46:19.400 there's a reason why tweets like that and some of Trump's crazy talk about the election

00:46:23.020 isn't an immediate deal breaker for half the country. And these are very good reasons. And 0.86

00:46:28.760 there are historical precedents if you look back at these well-known figures throughout time that

00:46:34.100 might help us understand. And more importantly, might help us understand how this ends. Spencer is

00:46:41.040 actually an expert on people like Julius Caesar, on people like Machiavelli, not to say Trump's a

00:46:45.920 Machiavelli. I'm just saying. But like he he can walk us through what happens, what gives rise to a

00:46:50.940 Trump and what gives rise to a populace that believes maybe will declare the election void.

00:46:57.240 Maybe there's a some pizzeria in Washington, D.C. where the Democrats are running a pedophile ring.

00:47:03.620 That's we're going to pick it up after this break. Spencer Clavin is with us for the whole show today.

00:47:08.180 Thrilled to have him. And don't forget, folks, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM

00:47:12.800 Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. And you can find the full video show and clips by

00:47:18.220 subscribing to our YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash Megan Kelly. We're trying to get to 100

00:47:23.360 500,000 subscribers, followers, and we're almost there. Let's get there. A couple thousand would

00:47:30.840 love that if you would do it. How many languages do you speak, Spencer? And what are they?

00:47:38.340 Well, it's always kind of a running tab because I forget some and then I learn others. But it's

00:47:44.020 I can I can read, I think, maybe six languages. Let's see. Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, English,

00:47:53.400 kind of Italian. And that's six. Right. I dabbled in classical Arabic. I'm currently learning

00:48:00.280 Japanese, which I love. I think I think that's I think that's it for now. Did you always have 1.00

00:48:05.680 like when you when you had to take French or Spanish in seventh grade? Did you immediately

00:48:09.880 have a knack for it? You know, I have one. I actually only have one superpower. Everything

00:48:14.900 else is just, you know, sort of charm and BS. But no, I my one superpower is that I have a really

00:48:20.480 good memory. I've always been able to remember things, memorize poetry and stuff like that. So

00:48:24.540 so that helps with languages a lot. Yeah, that is something. Yeah. Oh, I'm envious. I have the

00:48:30.840 opposite. I'm nowhere close to you when it comes to that. I don't know.

00:48:33.740 You and my dad are on the same page there. He's always quite very hard. Tanya, the great

00:48:37.360 French essayist, was had a terrible memory. And my dad is always consoling himself with

00:48:40.960 with that. I said to my husband about you, I said, it's almost as if you're speaking.

00:48:45.580 And I don't mean this in a critical way to a computer because you have so much knowledge

00:48:51.440 in you. Like when I listen to your podcast, your references, you're so well read, but you

00:48:56.060 remember it all. And my husband was lamenting, saying, you know, he's he's read a lot, too.

00:49:00.720 He's very well read, but he can't remember it all. He said, I feel like I remember 10 percent

00:49:04.200 of it. And I said, no, he remembers all of it. And he's not trying to impress you. He

00:49:08.480 just does these casual references to this guy or that guy or this book or that book. And

00:49:13.160 you know, he's got it at the ready. It's probably something he read 10 years ago. But he's got

00:49:17.340 that. It's extraordinary.

00:49:19.380 I have to I have to correct you there, Megan. I actually am trying to impress you, but only

00:49:22.520 you. Just just Megan.

00:49:23.620 Consider it done. Well done. OK, so one of the gifts that the rest of us have in having

00:49:29.380 someone like you who's done all this amazing reading and studying and so on, and then also

00:49:33.720 is interested in current events and follows the news is you can relate the two. You can

00:49:38.180 be the bridge that takes us back in time and explains nothing is new. Old patterns get

00:49:44.980 repeated over and over, especially when it comes to governments and leaders and outcomes.

00:49:48.520 And I heard you. I don't remember which podcast it was, but you were talking about Machiavelli

00:49:55.420 and class warfare, like how he came up and the importance of class warfare. And I can't

00:50:01.780 remember whether you drew the line to Trump, but I was like, well, there it is. I mean,

00:50:04.800 I see it. So can you talk about it?

00:50:07.540 Oh, sure. Yeah, this is so important. And it's a good example of why, you know, my my book

00:50:13.900 that's coming out in February is called How to Save the West. I want to write another one

00:50:17.320 called We've Been Through This or We've Been Over This, because there is, I think, a real

00:50:21.300 sense that, you know, part of the miseducation of American kids and elites is that we we think

00:50:27.740 that we are the first people ever to come up with like, oh, I have a good idea. Like, let's

00:50:32.500 share all property in common. Nobody's ever thought of that before. Well, that's, you know,

00:50:36.560 the Ecclesiastes I by Aristophanes. And so these sorts of things, right, are can be helpful

00:50:42.080 both to sort of orient ourselves and to maybe think about what our options might be.

00:50:45.700 And yeah, class warfare is in classical political philosophy is is the death of a republic. This is

00:50:52.880 something that, you know, people don't necessarily understand why we have the kind of constitution

00:50:58.660 that we have. But it's the labor, the long labor of many centuries dealing with this thing that the

00:51:05.020 Greeks called anicyclosis, which just translates to the cycle of regimes. And it's it's natural decay.

00:51:11.320 The idea is that we live in this world where things are always changing and passing away.

00:51:15.920 And even if you have the best king ever, let's say you start out with a great monarchy. Well,

00:51:20.560 his sons and his son's sons are eventually going to deteriorate into tyranny and self regard and

00:51:26.900 self dealing. And then you get an oppressive king. And so the nobles rise up. And for a while,

00:51:30.820 you have an aristocracy, right? And the aristocracy decays and you get an oligarchy. And then the people

00:51:35.220 rise up and you have a democracy. But democracy is inherently unstable. So you get mob rule.

00:51:39.060 And then, of course, mob rule, as we saw at Chaz Chop, right, is the perfect opportunity 0.76

00:51:43.160 for a strongman to stride in and exert his power that you've got you've got monarchy again. And so

00:51:48.400 our republic, the republic is a perpetual motion machine. It's designed to play these different

00:51:54.980 kinds of rule off of one another. We call this the checks and balances, right? Separation of powers,

00:51:59.420 but it goes much, much deeper than that. It was supposed to be the kind of grand solution. The

00:52:04.300 Spartans kind of played around with it. The Romans were the ones that really made it famous.

00:52:08.240 And one of the things that Machiavelli is doing in his commentaries on Livy, this is this,

00:52:13.940 you know, famous for his sort of ruthless politics, this guy, but actually a really great

00:52:19.180 reader of ancient texts. He looks back and says, well, okay, so this was supposed to be the

00:52:22.640 perpetual motion machine. What the hell happened, right? It falls apart. It becomes an empire.

00:52:26.960 And one of the things he concludes kind of drawing on Plato, who says, you know, when you have

00:52:30.980 extreme inequality, extreme disparities of wealth and power and kind of hardened class hierarchy,

00:52:38.240 then you get two cities in one. You have the kind of powerful, the elites, and then you have the

00:52:44.880 people. And Machiavelli is kind of going back and forth. Well, which of these are more dangerous to

00:52:49.260 a republic? And finally, finally, what he says is it's the elites who really do the damage because

00:52:54.800 once they have that power, their whole life becomes about keeping it. And they destroy the systems that

00:53:01.880 got them there by misusing them and abusing them. And so when you see somebody like Dr. Fauci,

00:53:07.500 when you see the CDC, which is supposed to be this apolitical body or the DOJ, Merrick Garland,

00:53:11.960 whatever, you know, supposedly these kind of just machinery of our system, it's not supposed to be

00:53:17.580 in the control of any one faction. When you see them weaponized in this way, the people start to

00:53:23.180 lose faith. One of the saddest things about, you know, the Trump era has been the sense among

00:53:29.060 conservatives who are the law and order folks who love America, who love this country as founded,

00:53:33.540 to see them, the kind of regular folks lose faith in the system and see that it's being

00:53:40.480 manipulated by people who consider them beneath representation, who don't think that they're,

00:53:45.700 you know, they're deplorables. They're not part of the system. And so this brings us all back to the

00:53:50.420 FBI, right? Where, you know, again, it's very upsetting to see Trump's home raided. But to me,

00:53:57.540 it's infinitely more upsetting to hear the FBI say about the Zuckerberg interview, right? You know,

00:54:03.840 oh, we told Zuckerberg to watch out for misinformation. And, you know, this was during

00:54:08.400 the time that the Hunter Biden laptop story. And as you pointed out,

00:54:11.500 FBI had a grand jury subpoena open, had a grand jury open on that very inquiry. They knew they

00:54:17.260 knew very well that it was legit. And they did. But they had a laptop in hand while they went to

00:54:21.320 Mark Zuckerberg. Exactly. And the brazenness of it, as you pointed out, that this has been kind of in

00:54:26.180 the public knowledge, even if it's been kind of under wraps or really slipped under the radar.

00:54:32.500 The next thing the FBI said was, oh, don't worry, we routinely do this. It's OK. We do it all the time,

00:54:38.860 right? This is their statement on the summit. It's like they actually literally don't understand

00:54:43.380 that that's the problem. I mean, they think that they're reassuring us because they're the

00:54:47.140 neutral guys in charge. And they don't understand that they are so abstracted away from the actual

00:54:53.620 divisions in the country that they're they're destroying the legitimacy of the institutions.

00:54:58.560 So I definitely want to get into all this class warfare and everything that's happening right now.

00:55:01.780 But this reminds me of something else I heard you say. And I was like, oh, my God, I just got it.

00:55:05.800 Thanks to you. It finally dawned on me why this moment in the news cycle was so upsetting and so

00:55:13.380 damaging. And it has to do. You mentioned Fauci. You mentioned the FBI. And I've heard you on your

00:55:19.020 show mention General Milley. Yeah. And what he did and why it was such a breach, why it was so bad.

00:55:28.160 Even if you hate Trump, you have to see what he has been doing as genuinely dangerous.

00:55:35.800 Yeah. I mean, you mentioned Caesar, right? And that's, of course, the famous Rubicon moment,

00:55:42.280 right, where the Roman Republic, even if, you know, still nominally a republic, even if Augustus

00:55:47.440 was the first official emperor, that moment was the moment when it all broke down. Why? Because

00:55:52.440 it had to do with politicization of the military, right? The military is just the force of the state.

00:55:58.480 And to be honest, you know, the left and progressives have been making this kind of noise for

00:56:04.000 a while. And you hear it. We don't we take this for granted. But when they say things like,

00:56:08.860 oh, you think you need guns, the right to guns to fight against the state, the state has nukes,

00:56:14.400 right? And so it's like, what's the implication of that? It's like, we'll nuke you.

00:56:17.560 We will use the power of our nuclear arsenal to prevent you from exercising the liberties that

00:56:25.840 were given you by God and guaranteed to you in the Constitution, right? That's essentially what's

00:56:31.380 being said there. And so, yeah, to to politicize the military, to get up there and start talking

00:56:36.560 about white rage, right, which is an inherently divisive concept deeper than, you know, Democrat,

00:56:43.820 Republican, that's actually at a core level of, you know, race and identity, that you are, you know,

00:56:49.780 part of the stain on this country simply by being white, by inheriting the DNA level stain of our 0.99

00:56:56.740 history, right? Now you are an object of the military's concern, right? If you can't trust in

00:57:03.040 the depoliticization of the military, that is that it is the weapon of of the state rather than of any one

00:57:09.460 political party or faction. And if you're a citizen, right, then the state ought to be working

00:57:14.160 for you, not trying to rub you out, not trying to eradicate you like some kind of blot upon the

00:57:20.640 nation's moral purity. I mean, that was the Caesar concern was that he kind of allied the soldiers

00:57:27.360 to himself and was kind of making them weapons of his own grievances and his own personal vengeance.

00:57:34.120 And that was, you know, where the beginning of the end came. And so people compare Trump

00:57:38.740 to Caesar, you know, they talk about, oh, so Trump is this, is he our, you know, strong man? Is he

00:57:43.780 our Mussolini or, or of course, our Hitler or what have you? But it's, he's really much closer to a 0.72

00:57:49.880 kind of a Gracchus, a Tiberius Gracchus figure, also an ambiguous figure in Roman history.

00:57:56.000 But now wait, don't test me, but I feel like Gracchus, we're talking like 100 BC. Am I, am I generally

00:58:02.240 right? Bill, you get a gold star. Yes, that's a 133 BC, the Gracchi, the first Gracchus brother

00:58:09.200 is killed. And that is another kind of beginning of the end moment. This is pre Caesar. But when

00:58:17.100 you're talking about, you're asking this question, like, why Trump? Why now? Why this person that is

00:58:21.380 so unhinged and, you know, put so many people off? It's because we're living in this sort of the state

00:58:29.740 of our Republic is such that a large portion of the electorate doesn't feel that they can be heard

00:58:36.400 in any other way than to elect this human wrecking ball. And the people that they're trying to

00:58:41.480 communicate to literally don't hear themselves. They don't understand that everything they say

00:58:46.000 to reassure you is actually part of the problem. So yeah, I mean, we, I think are still hanging on by

00:58:51.960 a thread to our constitutional order. I'm not sounding that alarm yet, but once you understand the

00:58:57.880 classical theory of regimes and how, uh, you know, a Republic is supposed to work, then you can

00:59:03.180 absolutely see why Trump is the man of the moment. It's because we're in a class warfare.

00:59:08.560 You look around the big picture, zooming out and you've got, uh, you know, basket of deplorables by

00:59:13.700 Hillary Clinton. You got bitter clingers from Barack Obama. You've got John Kerry on his private jet

00:59:18.340 telling us to wear sweaters and not eat red meat, not to mention what AOC's messaging is. 0.98

00:59:23.100 Let's not forget Rick Wilson and masturbating to anime. That was one of my personal favorites. 0.98

00:59:26.800 Oh my God. That, that's that one CNN clip with Rick Wilson and Wajahad Ali, what do you know,

00:59:31.320 turning up their noses with Don Lemon on all of America. They would get the messages about how,

00:59:35.980 if you voted for Trump, you're, you're a racist. And then on top of all that, you've got elite 0.71

00:59:40.180 capture, leftist capture of media, of Hollywood, of sports now of corporate America. And at the same

00:59:45.900 time, you've got messaging coming from the state governments. I talked about it yesterday,

00:59:50.220 Kathy Hochul in New York, basically saying, get out of New York. If, if you're a Trump lover,

00:59:54.640 Charlie Crist running against DeSantis in Florida saying, I don't want your vote. If you supported

01:00:00.180 DeSantis, you've got hate in your heart. Right. So all, all of these folks are feeling like

01:00:06.680 everyone from their local politicians to the media, they tune in on the small screen too,

01:00:12.040 to the big screen Hollywood folks who they see at the movie theaters, to the corporations who

01:00:16.860 employ them. And now, now the FBI, the DOJ and the U S military all hate them. That's what's

01:00:26.880 happening. That's how people are feeling. And it's not made up. There are really good pieces

01:00:31.560 of evidence here. It's not like general military general Milley is a nobody, right? It's not like

01:00:36.300 Merrick Garland is a nobody know, some no name lawyer within the DOJ. So that, so this is how people

01:00:42.840 are feeling. And this is how they were feeling even before Trump. It's only gotten worse,

01:00:45.860 but it explains why they hired the wrecking ball. They hired the wrecking ball because they want it

01:00:51.640 wrecked. Of course. And it, you know what else it explains? I'm sorry to say is all this QAnon stuff.

01:00:57.280 I mean, again, factually false in every possible way. So why are people continually glomming onto this

01:01:05.640 or onto the microchips in the, in the vaccine or whatever? It's because they have, they sense two

01:01:10.700 things. They feel that the, their lives are being run by people who disdain them and hate them.

01:01:16.320 And that all the relevant decisions are being made outside their sphere of knowledge and control,

01:01:21.980 that the press is against them, that the FBI is against. And so of course there are people that

01:01:26.960 are falling into this trap of, of conspiracy theory because the actual conspiracy is sort of out in the

01:01:33.020 open and they don't know how to express that or, or explain it. And again, you know, it's like,

01:01:38.360 I'm no, I'm no fan of, of Q, but it's like, how do you get there? How do you get Trump? How do you 0.73

01:01:43.480 get these, uh, you know, incredible, uh, you know, these, these tense moments in our, in our

01:01:48.840 politics, you, you get them when there is a class of people who, uh, not only believe, but also say

01:01:55.780 pretty openly that they consider themselves not only to be above the law, but to embody the law.

01:02:01.040 We are law. We get to say what isn't, isn't true. This is why after January 6th, I said publicly on

01:02:06.820 my show and elsewhere that all the media so quick to condemn the January 6th protesters. And I get

01:02:11.500 that a hundred percent, but need to take a moment to do a little navel gazing and figure out what role 1.00

01:02:15.840 they had in driving people to these sites, to Reddit, to, you know, these deep internet rabbit

01:02:21.980 holes where they started to believe that Trump magically would become president, even though he

01:02:25.720 had lost and so on. Right? Like what role, why did they not take two minutes to stop and say to

01:02:30.820 themselves, what role might I have played in this belief by all of these people? It wasn't three

01:02:37.120 people, right? It was hundreds, thousands of people who believed it or showed up there. Of course,

01:02:41.860 there's been zero self-reflection. Let me ask you this because I've also heard you talk about the

01:02:47.120 dangers historically and present day when good, strong men don't have something they can believe

01:02:56.640 in. They don't have a government they can believe in. They don't have a military they can believe in,

01:03:02.000 you know, or having, seeing trouble in the recruiting ranks of the military now,

01:03:05.540 um, disaffectation where I just, I worry what all these people who otherwise would have joined the

01:03:12.080 marines who, I don't know, might've run for office, um, might've tried to become a captain of industry,

01:03:18.420 but now see no path forward because they happen to have white skin or be a guy, God forbid, both. 0.80

01:03:23.500 Like what, what happens to those guys? Yeah. Well, I mean, we've been talking a little about

01:03:30.200 Gracchus and Caesar and some of these guys that, uh, you know, are, are main players in the end of

01:03:35.940 the Roman Republic. And there's an episode in Plutarch's life of Caesar, uh, before he really

01:03:42.520 rose to prominence of Caesar weeping at the grave of Alexander, Alexander, the great, right up to

01:03:50.300 three, 23 BC, when he dies, he's conquering the whole known world. Nobody's ever seen anything like

01:03:55.020 him. And he's weeping because of all that Alexander accomplished, uh, before, and you know, before he was

01:04:01.420 even Caesar's age and, and now Caesar is, feels inadequate, right? He's, he's got a kind of like

01:04:07.060 FOMO or, or whatever. He's looking at Alexander, he's looking at Alexander's Instagram page and

01:04:11.160 thinking this guy's really got the life I want. And, um, and, and that's, you know, that's Plutarch's

01:04:17.400 way of, of saying this is a man of surpassing ambition. And, uh, you know, the, the kind of

01:04:23.800 Italian word that Machiavelli uses for some of this energy, um, is virtu, uh, which literally means

01:04:29.620 manliness, right? Veer man. Um, and Plato would have called it thumos, the heart, the courage,

01:04:34.400 the spirit. Um, and, and this is a, a kind of a morally neutral energy can be used for good and

01:04:40.560 evil, but it exists, right? It's no matter how many, uh, gender studies seminars you take, 0.90

01:04:46.500 no matter how many gender snow people you teach in your, uh, public schools, no matter what you drill 0.73

01:04:52.500 into people, you know, boys and young men are born with this kind of drive. Um, and society's stand

01:04:59.180 or fall on their ability to channel that drive and have a direction they can point it in. And as you

01:05:05.300 say, when all those directions are foreclosed, when, you know, military endeavor, uh, becomes kind of a

01:05:11.700 snafu or, or worse, um, when industry is captured by kind of anti-human ideologies, when all of these

01:05:18.740 avenues of innovation and adventure and exploration are, are cut off. And on top of that, you're telling

01:05:24.560 people that thumos and vertu and manly energy are inherently evil, right? Are themselves signs

01:05:30.760 of failure and moral stain that people need to look in at themselves and, and stamp it out in

01:05:36.380 themselves. You're going to create an entire, uh, generation of young men who are at war with

01:05:42.820 themselves and have nowhere to turn those destructive energies except inward upon themselves

01:05:48.380 and upon their countrymen. And this is why the crusade against masculinity is so sick. It's not

01:05:53.500 because, you know, we're wagging our fingers and everybody needs to be, you know, exactly the kind

01:05:59.240 of man or woman that you would see in a 1950s ad catalog. Like that's not it at all. It's an

01:06:04.440 inherently anti-natural, anti-human way of looking at the world and teaching people to regard themselves.

01:06:11.180 And why do you think when Elon Musk comes along for all of his many, many, uh, questionable traits

01:06:17.380 and aspirations and characteristics, everybody is so eager to see this guy go to Mars because of

01:06:23.400 course it's something to do. It's a frontier and it's a positive vision of who we could be,

01:06:28.260 what we could do with ourselves, where we could take our regime and our future. We need a lot more

01:06:33.820 of that, uh, on the right. We need to be offering that I think with a lot less apology and a lot less

01:06:39.260 pessimism about, you know, of course technology has its dangers, the future has its dangers, but

01:06:43.740 you know, that if you don't have some kind of outlet for people to charge riskily and boldly

01:06:49.400 into the future, um, then you're really in trouble. Let's talk about what's happening in

01:06:55.060 the other lane, right? We spend a minute on men. Let's talk about women and in 2022. And I know you

01:07:01.240 and your dad have both said what I believe too, which is like, well, we've gotten to this weird

01:07:05.120 place, this dangerous place where we demonize homemakers, where they're, you know, maybe a 0.77

01:07:10.160 little less. So now the right is starting to push, push back on that or has been for some time,

01:07:13.580 but still, I mean, in democratic circles, a lot of them that I know women who stay at home, 1.00

01:07:18.600 don't feel embarrassed about it. It's ridiculous. Um, I remember being at a, I've told this story 0.97

01:07:23.780 before, but I was at my daughter's school and we were having a, a mom's meeting and it was an

01:07:28.360 all girl school. And one of the moms was saying that whenever she leaves the house, she's a stay

01:07:33.080 at home mom. She says to her daughter, mommy's going to a meeting. I have a meeting. And she wants

01:07:37.640 the daughter to think that because she thinks it makes her sound more important. And I was like,

01:07:41.680 what are you doing that for? Like, who cares? You tell her like mom's a stay at home mom. Cause I love

01:07:46.320 you. And I want to be there for you. And it doesn't mean if you're working mom, like I am

01:07:49.000 doesn't that you don't love your kid, but there's absolutely no reason to make excuses

01:07:51.860 for your choice. And by the way, even if you don't have a kid, even if you decide to be an

01:07:57.220 upper East side, stay at home housewife, good on you. If that's what you want, go for it, sister, 1.00

01:08:02.620 do it and do it without embarrassment. Like be a great wife, lean into your friendships. What a lovely

01:08:07.160 way to go through your existence. If that's, if that works for you, but you have to do it

01:08:11.160 unapologetically. Now we're at this place where every girl's school and I have a, I have two boys

01:08:15.740 and a girl, my daughter's 11, every single girl's school. And we've, you know, we've, we've only

01:08:19.820 done girl's schools during her 11 years. It's like STEM, STEM, you will be with no, no pausing,

01:08:30.200 no thought for like, what if she winds up really loving literature? Like, is that too girly? Does

01:08:35.180 that too female for you? So she's got like hardcore science being shoved down her throat on the 1.00

01:08:41.040 one hand, which I don't know that she's going to want at all. And then on the other hand,

01:08:45.360 you've got every other input she gets, which is pretty much the opposite of STEM. It's the Lizzo's,

01:08:50.780 it's the Kim Kardashian's, it's the Meghan Markle's. And the message is basically narcissism. Yes.

01:09:01.400 Well, it's both of those things are things you would say to women if you hated them. I mean,

01:09:07.420 that is really the point of that comedy routine you played earlier, I think is like, these are

01:09:13.160 ways that you would relate to little girls if you couldn't stand the nature of womanhood. And I,

01:09:20.340 I genuinely think that that has been the driving force in a lot of feminism, basically since the 1.00

01:09:27.620 feminine mystique, this is Betty Friedan's kind of, you know, inaugural text of second wave feminism. 1.00

01:09:33.400 We were talking about Gloria Steinem earlier, these new left folks who come along and look with eyes 0.94

01:09:39.960 of disgust upon homemakers in the suburbs. And, you know, they're drawing upon a lot of discontents

01:09:46.400 that were certainly there. I think everybody was feeling a certain spiritual malaise at that point

01:09:51.500 in time. But the caricature of womanhood that you get when you go back to that, to, to that book,

01:09:57.800 you know, you find her saying things like, it's really, it's like being in a concentration camp.

01:10:01.760 Seriously. I mean, I'm not making this up. This is like, you know, it's, it's the comfortable

01:10:05.280 concentration camp where you lose your identity and your soul. And you see this now when you get

01:10:11.800 articles in the New York times, right? About if you calculated the amount of money that you would

01:10:17.820 have to pay a homemaker for her labor, you would pay her a billion dollars or whatever number they've 1.00

01:10:24.740 come up with. But of course it's preposterous precisely because the, the work of a homemaker exists 0.83

01:10:30.540 outside of dollars and cents. That's the whole point. It's inestimable. A billion dollars would

01:10:36.560 be an insult to a mother that stays home to raise her child because she gets paid back in love. And 1.00

01:10:42.360 this is something that you, again, I come back to this thing about caricaturing the great works,

01:10:49.320 telling people not to read the great works by just pretending that they are something entirely

01:10:54.240 other than they are. They depend upon you're never having actually cracked the books that

01:10:59.520 would tell you otherwise. So you go all the way back to, you know, Proverbs 31, right? And people

01:11:04.580 go out and they say, I want a Proverbs 31 wife. And this is the description of a good woman who can 1.00

01:11:08.780 find. And when people say that, you sometimes think they mean like, oh, I want a nice little angel in

01:11:14.020 the house. But it's like, you go back, the Proverbs 31 woman, she has strong forearms because she's 0.97

01:11:18.720 constantly like kneading her own bread. She goes out in the early in the morning and she buys a field. I

01:11:23.760 mean, she's this woman that her children rise up and call her blessed. And this has been, you know,

01:11:29.900 the feminist line on homemaking has been that it's deemed valued, that it's, you know, that it's 1.00

01:11:36.000 infantilizing, that it turns women into these sort of meaningless appendages in society. But of course, 1.00

01:11:41.920 they are society. Women homemakers are society. And more and more girls, women that I talk to 1.00

01:11:49.060 will tell me like, you know, I hate the girl boss life. I hate this thing. I hate being on a 1.00

01:11:54.600 treadmill. You know, I have to like, you know, go out and work for some drudge boss when I could be 1.00

01:12:01.300 home making banana bread for my children, you know, and these sorts of things, again, nobody ever said

01:12:07.640 or needs to say that women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen all the time. You just have 1.00

01:12:13.660 to acknowledge that this, this is a different kind of person than a man with a 50% of the world to make

01:12:20.640 with a real role that is distinct from the man's world. And this is, you know, if you, if you listen

01:12:26.340 to the way feminists talk about womanhood as weak, as, as, you know, as ignorant, as infantilized, 0.99

01:12:33.080 then it's absolutely no surprise that the skyrocketing gender dysphoria, which we're coming up against in 0.99

01:12:38.500 this gruesome, disgusting attempt to mutilate children is almost all among teenage girls who 1.00

01:12:44.400 are going through puberty and coming into womanhood and have no positive model for it. It's, it's 0.93

01:12:49.620 something, again, that the right could be much better about, you know, loving homemakers. They

01:12:54.400 are really the center of the world. And I think we're starting to get better about this, which is

01:12:58.480 overdue. I think about, you know, when, when I grew up back in the dark ages of the 1970s and

01:13:03.460 no women weren't as present in the workforce, uh, they were more present at home and they were 0.96

01:13:08.760 being told back then you have to do it all. Like you do it all simultaneously. You can good luck.

01:13:13.740 I mean, that was the worst era I think for mothers, because there was pressure to work full-time and 0.97

01:13:17.360 be full-time moms. And this was before, you know, society was set up for that, where they even had, 0.76

01:13:22.020 you know, support systems in place for moms who needed childcare and so on and so forth,

01:13:25.820 putting aside whether that's the right choice. Um, but I will say, what do we have in terms of

01:13:30.320 images? Well, we had models on the cover of glamor and Vogue and 17. Yes, they were too skinny.

01:13:37.340 Like that was about as much of damage as they were doing to the young girls. Like you have to

01:13:41.280 be skinny to be attractive. Okay. That's America. Okay. Now it's like, you have got to be a disgusting

01:13:48.140 classless whore. That's really, that's the future for you. You've got a, I mean, forgive me. I hate to 1.00

01:13:53.600 pick on Kim Kardashian because she actually seems like a nice gal, but I'm saying like break the 0.99

01:13:57.520 internet with her enormous bottom and her breasts exposed. And we're supposed to celebrate her and 0.95

01:14:01.960 Kanye talking about how they do it all night long. And then the, the Superbowl where I I've seen

01:14:08.120 Shakira's vag and JLo's. Why did I need to, I was trying to show my six-year-old the Superbowl and

01:14:13.340 football, nobody's vagina. Like what the hell? And it doesn't make me a prude to, to object to that. 0.99

01:14:19.600 Right. I don't need to see any pubic hair at the Superbowl. Um, and then you've got right now,

01:14:25.280 Megan Markle. We talked about her yesterday and I mentioned her, um, we mentioned her earlier. She

01:14:29.720 has got this podcast, $25 million. She got paid from Spotify to do this podcast. And so her second

01:14:35.780 part, first podcast was Serena Williams, where Megan talked about what a victim she's been her 0.97

01:14:39.180 whole life. She's a princess, but she's a victim. Second episode is with Mariah Carey and Mariah Carey

01:14:46.940 actually in a great moment, Spencer kind of turned the tables on Megan and called her a diva,

01:14:52.680 which she is. And let me bring it to you. What happened? But I just feel like this is all

01:14:58.460 hashtag part of the problem. Megan Markle, hashtag part of the problem. Here's soundbite one in which

01:15:04.220 Mariah turns the table. 0.65

01:15:06.640 And I think that's really important for people to remember that there might be this persona

01:15:11.900 and yes, the diva thing we can play into. I mean, it's not something that I connect to,

01:15:17.400 but it's for you. It's been a huge part of your diva moments sometimes, Megan. Don't even act

01:15:23.100 like you. It's also the visual. It's the visual. A lot of it's the visual because I associate it

01:15:31.820 differently. Well, I know, but let's pretend that you didn't, weren't so beautiful and didn't have

01:15:37.440 the whole thing and didn't often have gorgeous ensembles. You wouldn't get, maybe get as much

01:15:43.580 diva stuff. I don't care. I'm like, when I can, I'm going to give you diva.

01:15:48.800 Okay. That was during the exchange because Megan's whole thing on this podcast to make it about 0.98

01:15:53.620 herself. And then she, she comes back in her own closing remarks on her own podcast, Megan Markle,

01:15:59.800 having mused about the diva assertion and says the following.

01:16:03.860 It was all going swimmingly. I mean, really well until that moment happened, which I don't know

01:16:12.600 about you, but it stopped me in my tracks when she called me a diva. You couldn't see me obviously,

01:16:23.620 but I, I started to sweat a little bit. I started squirming in my chair in this quiet revolt. Like,

01:16:28.600 wait, what? No, what? Huh? But that, how could you, that's not true. That's not,

01:16:32.160 why would you say that my mind genuinely was just spinning with what nonsense she must have read or

01:16:37.740 clicked on to make her say that. I just kept thinking in that moment, was my girl crush coming

01:16:44.660 to a quick demise? Does she actually not see me? So she must've felt my nervous laughter and you all

01:16:53.940 would have heard it too. And she jumped right in to make sure I was crystal clear. When she said diva,

01:16:59.840 she was talking about the way that I dress, the posture of the clothing, the quote unquote

01:17:06.260 fabulousness as she sees it. Oh my God, Spencer. I'm, I'm gagging on the narcissism. Yesterday,

01:17:14.680 she compared herself to Nelson Mandela. And now today we have to deal with this. She can't

01:17:19.720 understand why anybody would think she's a diva. I mean, let me count the ways as you know,

01:17:24.120 during the queen's Jubilee, she's making sure to put the window down so everyone can get her 0.99

01:17:29.100 photograph, right? As she's always got to be wearing princess Diana's jewelry, as she's got

01:17:33.860 to have just the right angle and photographer. And she'll only deal with this certain stenographer,

01:17:38.960 press guy, Scobie, whatever his name is. She won't do. She sues every magazine or write something 1.00

01:17:44.380 negative about her. She pulls the meanest comment about herself, tries to blow it up into what a victim 1.00

01:17:48.980 she's been because she's only used to the good things being said about her. I mean, the fact that

01:17:53.300 she didn't want to live in the, in the Royal cottage and the frog more, it wasn't good enough

01:17:58.000 for her. They had to redo it on the taxpayer dime. She didn't pay all of it. I could keep going. And

01:18:02.700 now to be like, ah, the indignation. Thank God it was just about my appearance. Yeah. Thank God that

01:18:12.520 I understand. Look at me. This is the act of a person who would sit in Windsor Castle with

01:18:19.180 Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, a woman who once broke bread with Winston Churchill and complain about her

01:18:25.700 mental health. I mean, it's like, it's, it's not a day spa. It's one of the most ancient monarchies in

01:18:31.180 Europe. Like it's, I mean, look, you know, I, I will say this when, uh, John Adams, when, when Abigail

01:18:39.620 Adams died and, uh, John Adams was left, uh, survived her. And when people would compliment

01:18:46.100 him on the success of his son, John Quincy, uh, he reportedly had something that he would always say

01:18:52.460 in response. He was a, Oh, your son is so great. You must be so proud. And he would say, my son had

01:18:57.000 a mother. And when I first read that, I, I actually teared up a little bit. I mean, we've, we've talked

01:19:02.080 on this show about my dad and the close relationship that I have with him. And, you know,

01:19:08.940 I, I like to joke, but it's, it's not really a joke. Like my mom is the best Klavan. She's like

01:19:14.660 Klavan deluxe and she's the only one of us who never does any media. So you all just have to

01:19:19.500 take my word for it. But I, you know, when I hear people talking about, uh, womanhood in these ways

01:19:25.880 or offering these, you know, role models to young girls telling them they have to be like Megan

01:19:30.840 Markle or like Lizzo, you know, I always think, you know, I, I too had a mother and it, that it

01:19:35.620 incenses me on those terms, you know, just to, you know, my, my mom stayed home with us.

01:19:41.200 Uh, she had a thriving career on either side of that. She was a successful writer before we were 0.96

01:19:46.880 born. She continued to write a little bit, but basically stayed home. And then, you know,

01:19:50.400 when we were grown, she took up her career and you talked, uh, very eloquently about the kind of,

01:19:57.080 you know, you can have it all, uh, mentality, this narrative that you can do it all at once.

01:20:01.900 And, and I, I've seen that too. I think, I think there's still a little bit of it going around,

01:20:07.020 but the irony is of course, that if you'll just let go of these, you know, confected narratives,

01:20:14.980 these absolutely artificial narratives that were not designed by people who have your best interests

01:20:20.340 at heart, that were not cooked up so that you could thrive and flourish, but so that somebody

01:20:24.980 else could make money off of you to just let go of that. You know, you actually can have an entire

01:20:30.600 rich, full life as a woman who, you know, raises children and has a career. That's a very real

01:20:36.380 thing. It's just not in any way, it doesn't look anything like this confection that they're

01:20:42.100 serving you. And that's why it, you know, gets me is to think about my own mother whom I do rise up

01:20:47.500 and call blessed as, as in, as in Proverbs, you know, and, and to kind of, uh, I, again,

01:20:53.300 I feel sorrowful for, for the girls who are being offered this just really, uh, unhelpful image.

01:21:00.000 No, I think, I think back to myself when I was deciding whether to stay at Fox or leave. And

01:21:06.060 it's, it's funny because some people online seem to believe that I was fired from Fox to the contrary.

01:21:13.120 Uh, I was offered a mega deal by Fox. I was thinking that Fox should be so lucky. Go on.

01:21:18.000 And, uh, and I decided to reject it because I was miserable. Um, not putting aside the toxic

01:21:25.620 lifestyle that comes with being in the primetime of cable news, which I think is readily apparent

01:21:29.960 to most people. I was not seeing my children. I wasn't raising my own children and they were

01:21:35.660 still very young. I hadn't missed it all. They were seven, five, and three. So I could still be

01:21:41.300 very present for most of their childhood. And that's why I went to NBC because they offered me

01:21:47.280 a show at nine in the morning where I thought, okay, I'll be able to be at home for the rest of the

01:21:51.820 day. And that is the one upside of that position that I took. But I will tell you two very powerful

01:21:58.260 women whose names you would know who I talked to and who were friends of mine and fans of mine 0.98

01:22:03.660 urged me not to go, urge me not to go. And it didn't have to do with politics. It had to do with

01:22:08.820 leaving what they perceived as a very powerful post for one that was less powerful, which was clear.

01:22:16.080 Um, even though it would allow me to raise my kids, that was not, and they had made different

01:22:20.700 choices and they are both moms. And I couldn't, I couldn't explain to them. You know, it's like,

01:22:27.020 if you don't understand why this is a priority for me and I, and I, it's, it's fine if it's not for

01:22:32.200 you. You know, I mean, there, there are plenty of kids who are raised by working moms who turn out

01:22:36.080 great, but I knew in my family, I needed more. I needed to be with them. So now I found a way to do

01:22:44.040 it all right now. I actually am doing it all because I get to work from home. I'm it's in the middle of

01:22:48.020 the day when they're at school. And now what I get Spencer is tons of people saying like,

01:22:51.240 when are you going to get it back on TV? When are you going to get back on TV? And I tell them the

01:22:54.600 truth, which is I have no desire to do that. I love my life right now. And it's not like I didn't

01:22:59.860 get here without some bumps and bruises, but you know, if you know what to prioritize, what's

01:23:05.160 important to you, you just keep trying and trying and trying again until you, until you, you know,

01:23:10.600 for you, you nail it for me right now, I'm nailing it. And it's in large part because I see my

01:23:15.680 children. Well, that reminds me in a weird sort of way. It reminds me of this amazing

01:23:21.580 moment in an essay by Wendell Berry, who's not really a man of the right at all. He's more of

01:23:27.660 an environmentalist, you know, essayist who kind of wrote about his life on a farm and so on and so

01:23:34.400 forth. But one of his essays, he recounts telling his, I think it was his grad school professor,

01:23:41.620 somebody, some mentor in New York, you know, the big city, he's starting to make it as a writer.

01:23:47.320 And he comes to this guy and he says, I think I need to go back to Kentucky, I guess it was,

01:23:51.660 you know, and I feel a call to the land, I feel a call to some more authentic engagement. And

01:23:57.380 he recounts it, it's as if he's speaking Swahili to this guy, because this is a person that can't 0.99

01:24:02.700 imagine that any writer would ever want to be anywhere but New York, right? How could you possibly,

01:24:07.200 what's, you know, reality is there for you to invest yourself in? And of course, this was the

01:24:12.340 making of him. You know, this was Wendell Berry's whole career was then to go back and his engagement

01:24:16.620 with the earth and with farming, that was everything he would write about. But we do have, I think,

01:24:22.720 largely among the laptop class, this vision of life that is purely commercial and incredibly provincial,

01:24:31.280 highly urbane, right? Just you live in the cities, you maximize your career ambitions,

01:24:36.340 and everything else is just weakness or failure or inadequacy. And that story you tell, right, is

01:24:43.180 anything but any of those things, right? Obviously, this is a journey for you toward

01:24:48.640 fullness and self-actualization. And that, you know, the family would be central to that,

01:24:53.660 I think is like, very foreign to a lot of our elite classes.

01:24:58.320 Mm-hmm. And it's almost like people were sort of advising me, you'll be weaker, right? You're

01:25:06.000 weakening yourself. When exactly the opposite was true. I was at my lowest. I was empty. I couldn't

01:25:15.300 have cared less that I had a powerful post and a bunch of dough. It's not like NBC didn't pay me well,

01:25:19.680 but I'm just saying like, that wasn't my driving motivation at all. I was empty. And not like that

01:25:26.200 was a great experience at my next organization. But now, now being with them, raising my own

01:25:30.860 children, having all this great time with them, not to mention my husband, I'm full again. I'm

01:25:35.540 great. I'm not going to make a stupid mistake with this full tank of gas and going back into that 0.99

01:25:40.140 mess, right? And people are like, do it. We're talking about cable. Come back to Fox. I'm like, 0.99

01:25:44.020 sister, I'm good. All right, listen, pause because we need another hour. This is when I'm sad I don't

01:25:49.560 have another hour. So much more with Spencer Cleven just ahead as we go into our last block. Don't miss it.

01:25:56.200 So Spencer, my team found you on a podcast. Forgive me, I don't have the woman's name in

01:26:04.400 front of me, but it was actually a really interesting exchange you had with this gal who

01:26:07.540 seemed to be into the classics as well. And you on this podcast, we're talking about

01:26:12.080 the concept of freedom that humans should strive for. And you were making the point that most people

01:26:17.280 think about freedom as freedom from something like big government, the thumb, the boot, or freedom

01:26:23.780 to do something, whatever you want. But you had a different notion of freedom and the way people

01:26:30.220 should be thinking about it. And I'd never heard it described in this way. Do you remember what that

01:26:35.260 was? Yeah, yeah. And I actually remember the name of the podcaster whom I'll shout out because she's

01:26:41.420 really a wonderful, her name is Alex Kashuta. And the podcast is called Subversive. And she does a

01:26:46.720 really awesome job living up to that title. So yeah, so she was asking me about, you know,

01:26:53.260 there's all this debate on the right right now about do we have too much freedom? Or, you know,

01:26:57.980 is drag queen story hour a natural result of our American idea of liberty? Because you just let 0.93

01:27:05.740 everybody do what they want. Eventually, they're going to do depraved and harmful things. And

01:27:10.060 my take on this is a little bit different, as you indicate. And it goes back in part to book nine

01:27:18.320 of Plato's Republic, which we just recorded an episode about this on Young Heretics. So it's

01:27:22.720 fresh in my mind. And Plato says something kind of one of those mind blowing insights that you carry

01:27:28.880 with you, which is that the tyrant, the man who rules over a city is actually the most enslaved man

01:27:36.580 alive. And you think of him as the guy that can do absolutely anything. He snaps his fingers and

01:27:41.280 one man is beheaded and he snaps his fingers again, and he has a feast in front of him. And this

01:27:46.000 whole idea of the tyrant is that he has freedom according to the ways of the world. But says Plato,

01:27:52.220 in fact, the tyrant is the man who is completely enslaved to his desires, to his appetites. And the

01:27:59.760 whole idea of the Republic is that your soul has these different conflicting parts in it. It has its,

01:28:05.320 you know, appetites and its hungers, but also you have reason and you have courage and you can

01:28:09.320 use these things in the right way, which is to orient them toward the reason, or you can use them in the

01:28:14.860 wrong way, which is to just follow the commands of your desires. And you see this a lot now people

01:28:21.680 will say, Oh, well, my desire, you know, is just that it should self justifies, right? Like you,

01:28:27.360 Andrea Long Chu, one of the famous transgender writers wrote in the New York Times, you know,

01:28:31.760 the desire shouldn't be measured by happiness, I should just be able to follow my own desires,

01:28:36.080 even if they make me miserable. And this is a kind of perverted idea of freedom that is just the

01:28:42.180 maximal freedom from right, nobody can tell me what to do. Nobody can tell me the government can't

01:28:48.360 tell me what's right and wrong. And, you know, if you if you go all the way down the road of freedom

01:28:52.560 from then you have freedom from the moral universe itself, which you're getting now to write freedom

01:28:56.580 from biology, freedom from absolute truth, whatever I say is the truth for me. And that's obviously

01:29:04.640 not the highest good. That's obviously not the way we're supposed to live our lives. But that's why

01:29:10.260 the tyrant is enslaved, because you ultimately become just the puppet of your own momentary

01:29:15.020 desires, whatever sex, whatever food, whatever anything I want in this moment, that's where I'm

01:29:19.220 going. And I have no control over myself. And that's where you get to freedom to because to really

01:29:23.900 have freedom to do good things, to strive and to work and to triumph. You need to dominate your

01:29:31.300 desires. You need to have control over. It doesn't mean you never indulge yourself. It doesn't mean

01:29:34.900 you don't have to take pleasure in things. It just means that you need to be in the driver's seat.

01:29:39.320 Your logos, your reason, your mind needs to be the one pointing the way toward the good. And this was

01:29:45.760 very live for the founders. The founders knew that this was something that was necessary for our

01:29:50.180 republic to work. It was a strong religious and virtuous people who gained freedom mastery over

01:29:57.120 their desires so that they could have freedom to do all of the great things and build civilization.

01:30:02.980 And we've taken our political idea, which is freedom from, that the government can't infringe

01:30:08.060 upon your God-given rights, and made that into our entire idea of freedom. It's my freedom just to

01:30:14.080 debase myself. And it's like structurally, formally speaking, you do have that freedom. But

01:30:18.700 in truth, that's actually not freedom. That's slavery, slavery to your desires. And so what we

01:30:24.260 ought to be doing is calling people to full freedom out of their baser instincts and toward what we all

01:30:30.540 know we are, which is embodied souls, souls oriented toward the good who do best when we let our reason

01:30:37.600 guide us rather than our lower passions. How much does your own Christianity play into that belief of

01:30:45.480 yours? Because I know you came to it like your dad late in life. He was, he was, he converted age 50,

01:30:52.100 I think, if memory serves, and you at age 18.

01:30:56.080 Yeah, that's, that's right. That's when I was baptized. And it was a long process, maybe another

01:31:00.240 time we can get into that whole story, because it would probably take, probably take the hour. But

01:31:05.380 yeah, I would say this, you know, there's an ancient debate in the West about Athens versus

01:31:12.180 Jerusalem. And in some ways, the West just is, we're talking about the West, we're talking about

01:31:15.540 the cultural inheritance of Athens and Jerusalem, these two great centers of thought and belief and

01:31:20.820 striving. And Jerusalem, obviously, the holy city where, you know, where God's temple is, and where

01:31:29.460 the Messiah comes and where, you know, crucifixions of Judaism and Christianity, basically, and the 0.65

01:31:35.900 thought that comes out of those traditions. And then Athens, the pagan side of things, right? The,

01:31:40.460 the, the great Athenian philosophers, and all of the Greek tragedies, and, you know, everything that

01:31:47.500 we cherish from that side of the ancient world. And Tertullian, one of the great Christian

01:31:53.040 polemicists of the early church says, famously, what hath Athens to do with Jerusalem, meaning

01:31:58.220 everything true is in the Bible. And you already you don't want, you know, if it's true, in Aristotle,

01:32:03.300 you don't need Aristotle to tell you, you can get it from from Revelation. And my approach to this is

01:32:07.740 a little bit different. I think, you know, I hope and strive for my Christianity to inform all that I

01:32:14.640 do and to be the last word on everything. And, you know, people can quibble with me about how I live

01:32:20.060 that out. But I'm sincere in my desires to do that in my effort to to think seriously about that. But

01:32:26.980 that doesn't mean that, you know, there's nothing to be gained from from the pagan world. In fact,

01:32:31.580 when when in Revelation, it says he who is sitting on the throne makes all things new.

01:32:35.980 And when in on the road to Emmaus, Christ opens the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures and shows

01:32:41.880 how it was all always pointing to him. I think that applies to everything good and true in the

01:32:46.340 world. It's obvious to me that there's wisdom and truth in in pagan literature. But to me, what it

01:32:53.160 looks like is that there's this kind of Christ shaped hole in it that they're like almost tapping on

01:32:58.260 the glass of what would be revealed at Calvary. And Thomas Aquinas is somebody that I often read to

01:33:04.220 discover this because he's a great they call him the baptizer of Aristotle, that he he basically

01:33:09.000 consummated the truths of the ancient pagan world by Christianizing them. And that's, you know,

01:33:15.100 John says through him, all things were made and not one thing was made that was not made through him.

01:33:20.540 And that means anything true, all whatsoever things are true, lovely and of good report,

01:33:24.760 come ultimately from God and can be best understood through that lens, even if they come from elsewhere.

01:33:30.720 Hmm. I asked your dad, what's a great place to start for people who want to start getting into

01:33:35.580 classics? I don't have to ask you that because I do know young heretics is a great place to start. 1.00

01:33:40.920 Spencer, he talks like this on his podcast. You'll get some of the references. You won't get all of

01:33:45.560 them if you're like me and newbie to it, but you'll follow enough to learn. And he makes it

01:33:50.700 entertaining. And it's quite dazzling, to be honest with you, just listening to you talk like

01:33:55.500 this and inspirational to make, you know, the rest of us crack open these, these wonderful books.

01:34:00.300 Thank you so much for what you do every day and for what you've done today and to be continued,

01:34:04.780 I hope. You're so kind, Megan. As you know, I'm a longtime fan, longtime listener, first time caller,

01:34:09.700 and I hope it will be the first of many. Thank you for a really lovely time. Same.

01:34:15.020 Thank you all so much for joining us today. I feel enriched. Do you feel enriched? I hope you feel

01:34:19.020 enriched. Tomorrow, you're going to feel good too, because we have an exclusive interview with

01:34:23.600 Richie McGinnis. He testified in the Kyle Rittenhouse case. He was on scene that night

01:34:28.480 for the first time since the trial. He's ready to talk. He was also smeared by the New York Times

01:34:34.820 when he was on site on January 6th as a reporter. We'll get into that as well. Fascinating guest.

01:34:40.120 You don't want to miss him. Download the show. Follow us on YouTube. Help us get to 500,000.

01:34:44.560 Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

01:34:45.820 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - August 30, 2022

Speaking Your Mind, Markle's ＂Diva＂ Moment, and the Importance of Dads, with Spencer Klavan ｜ Ep. 382

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