It's the age of the anti-hero, and Machiavelli can hlep explain why. Talking through the life of Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, and discussing the portrayal of him in The Prince, Spencer probes deeper into the uneasy line between recklessness and courage, shamelessness and virtue. Can we find our way out of the war between the sexes to a real vision of what it means to tame the lion of the soul? Plus: a close reading of Taylor Swift. Sort of. Sign up for my newsletter to ask mailbag questions: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Check up my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/fUJfnkJ

This 4th of July, it's hard to feel confident that everything is gonna be just fine. But that's the point: nobody said it was easy, and it may be you were born for such a day as this. Continuing a series on the cardinal virtues, Spencer pauses to consider the nature of courage in America now and at its founding. Plus: more tips from the build-a-soul workshop. Sign up for my newsletter: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Check out my book: https://a.co/d/bZKnihe

Gather round, one and all, and learn from Plato about how to get a date. Or start a workout routine. Or really...do anything good. Spencer embarks on a catalogue of the cardinal virtues--the principal forms of human moral excellence--beginning with moderation. It's not just some bland, middle-of-the-road stasis: it's a dynamic harmony among all the parts of you, and an antidote to the shallow philosophy of "following your heart." Sign up for my mailing list: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/?r=4q74h&utm_campaign=pub-share-checklist Purchase my book: https://a.co/d/6YqXKqf

At long last, the people's cries have been heard--Young Heretics returns! Every day seems to bring some new catastrophe, and it's easy to see all the things that have gone wrong. But what would it mean to go right? You can't build a philosophy, or a life, on saying "no" to things. Somewhere you have to say "yes." In this new series, Spencer explores the nature of virtue and what it means to seek a truly good life (rather than just a not-bad one). Sign up for the mailing list: http://eepurl.com/dvMw6H Buy How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for Five Modern Crises: https://a.co/d/6gjMDkl

For the penultimate episode of the show, Spencer Klavan is joined by friend and Dante expert Catherine Illingworth to approach the Commedia's beatific vision. Tying together threads from the whole series, and the whole podcast, Spencer and Catherine discuss the roles of flesh and spirit in love as the pilgrim makes his final approach to God in paradise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this middle portion of his series on Dante, Spencer Klavan outlines the lay of the divine "land" in Dante's Commedia. Traveling from the lust of the damned up to the longings of the saved, Dante the pilgrim meets Beatrice the redeemed soul, seeking a way to purify and channel his fleshly desires. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. -- Cozy Earth was created to enhance people’s lives by offering the softest, most luxurious, and responsibly sourced bedding in the world. Go to CozyEarth.com/HERETICS and save 35% off your order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this final series of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan charts a map of Dante's career and the structure of his greatest work, the Commedia. Walking through the politics, metaphysics, and artistic background of the poem, Spencer approaches the beginning of Dante's journey to discover the true nature of love. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Cozy Earth was created to enhance people’s lives by offering the softest, most luxurious, and responsibly sourced bedding in the world. Go to CozyEarth.com/HERETICS and save 35% off your order. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the Devil visits Ivan in the Brothers Karamazov, he looks at first like a rather unimpressive gentleman. But lurking under his seemingly distracted conversation is a sinister depiction of the world broken down into infinite matter, formless and void. What answer can we possibly give to this satanic vision? Spencer Klavan explores Dostoevsky's alternative to modernist perdition. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Cozy Earth was created to enhance people’s lives by offering the softest, most luxurious, and responsibly sourced bedding in the world. Go to CozyEarth.com/HERETICS and save 35% off your order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Everyone is guilty for everything before everyone”: This week, through the mystery of Father Zosima's life and sermons, Spencer Klavan unfolds Dostoevsky's answer to Ivan, to Nietzsche, and to modern skepticism and scientism. The words of Zosima are at the heart of this sprawling novel, and their wisdom is, if anything, more relevant now than when they were written. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ivan, the most brilliant and also the most tormented of the brothers in Dotoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov," saw something that few others could see: if there is no immortal soul and no God, then everything is permitted. It's something that Nietzsche realized as well, and it drove him mad. How did Dotoevsky avoid the same fate—and how can we? Spencer Klavan picks up these questions in the second installment of this series. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dostoevsky was the kind of artist who peers so deep into the heart of the present that he becomes a prophet of the future. His last and greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, can be difficult to get into—but if you manage to crack the spine, it will be well worth your while. Spencer Klavan offers a little Young Heretics-style help to get you started. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- Cozy Earth was created to enhance people’s lives by offering the softest, most luxurious, and responsibly sourced bedding in the world. Go to CozyEarth.com/HERETICS and save 35% off your order. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you want? In this final episode of his series on Thomas Traherne, Spencer Klavan explores Traherene's daring suggestion that you might not want enough. The 17th-century mystic argued that God gives us the world anew each time he creates a new human being—a thought that can radically change the way you look at basically everything. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can we retain a sense of joy in the teeth of suffering? What does it mean to forgive? These hard and painful questions are the subject of the second installment in Spencer Klavan's series on Thomas Traherne and Matthew 6. Breaking down the Greek of the gospels and using Traherne as a guide, Spencer points the way to a joy that persists even when happiness doesn't. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Cozy Earth was created to enhance people’s lives by offering the softest, most luxurious, and responsibly sourced bedding in the world. Go to CozyEarth.com/HERETICS and save 35% off your order. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Take care that ye perform not your righteousness to be seen of men." These words, familiar to Christians around the world, have an urgent and profound meaning for our time that needs unlocking. Using the Greek of the gospels and the profound meditations of Thomas Traherne, Spencer Klavan explores what it means not to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Cozy Earth was created to enhance people’s lives by offering the softest, most luxurious, and responsibly sourced bedding in the world. Go to CozyEarth.com/HERETICS and save 35% off your order. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this final episode of his series on Athenian democracy and citizenship, Spencer Klavan tells a few rip-roaring myths and true stories from the history of Athen—from the birth of King Erichthonius out of the ground to the fraught relationship between Cleisthenes of Athens and King Cleomenes of Sparta. Then as now, the question was: what does it mean to be equal before the law? -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay, so we have a country—but isn't that a little mean? Drawing on Aristotle's definition of citizenship and politics, Spencer Klavan examines the question of open borders and asks what it really means to "love thy neighbor" in a political context. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is a citizen, and who gets to be one? With immigration all over the news, Spencer Klavan takes a Young Heretics look at the nature of citizenship, starting with Aristotle’s politics. From 3rd-gen Athenian philosophy to Martha’s Vineyard, all in 60 minutes! -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this final installment of the series on Owen Barfield, Spencer Klavan explores how the first and last Inkling's ideas can help us understand the arguments over the multiverse, the creation story in Genesis, and the very fabric of reality. Plus he reads some of Barfield's poetry. And all in under an hour! -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Owen Barfield's "Poetic Diction" is a book about etymology that turns out to shed light on much more than language. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan describes his own life-changing experience discovering the book and explores how Barfield's vision of human perception can help unlock the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything. From scripture to science, the first and last Inkling has much to say to our modern predicament. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- You’ll have more energy and feel healthier when you take Field of Greens. Get 15% off your first order and another 10% off when you subscribe for recurring orders. Use promo code HERETICS at https://fieldofgreens.com. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What kind of knowledge does science give us? Is it the "God's-eye view" of things—a third-person, objective understanding of reality's bedrock? Owen Barfield, one of the less well-known Inklings, argued powerfully that it is not. Heeding Barfield's words can help us break free of the false religion that holds scientific truth up as the only real knowledge and makes science into a kind of new religion. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan introduces Barfield and embarks on a journey through quantum physics, Copernican cosmology, and the Book of Genesis. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We did it! The final installment of the Republic series is here. In this last and possibly most infamous book of his masterwork, Plato calls for a complete and total shutdown on artists until he figures out what the hell is going on. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan discusses Plato's challenge to art, and the ways we might grapple with it today. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Drawing on Plato's highly sophisticated account of the relationship between psychology and politics, Spencer Klavan delivers an important message for the ages: turn off your dang phone! At least before bed. In Book IX of the Republic, Plato's Socrates explores what it means to be tyrannical—to be enslaved to your own desires—and how we can avoid that fate. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If your ship of state really is sinking, what can you possibly do about it? As we reach the conclusion of our series on Plato's Republic, psychology and politics converge upon some striking answers to this very pressing question. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan talks through Socrates's survey of kinds of state and kinds of people, and reveals why you should turn off your durn phone if you want to save the world. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Rocket Money is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://rocketmoney.com/heretics. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 13th century, the world held its breath as it waited for a new kind of art to be born. Then came Cimabue—or was it Duccio? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan walks through the fascinating and complicated history of early Florentine Renaissance art, asking along the way what it might mean for us to seek rebirth out of a dark age. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How dark were the middle ages, really? And are we living through our own period of decline today? By studying the good and the bad of how art developed after the fall of the Roman Empire, Spencer Klavan reflects on our own time of fracture and uncertainty. It may be we are due for our own rebirth, and sooner than we think. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today begins a journey through Florence, the hub of rebirth in what Giorgio Vasari called the "rinascita" and we call the Renaissance. Vasari will be our tour guide through this explosive period of transformation. Much like movies and TV in our day, the art of the Medieval period had exhausted its possibilities. Then as now, we might ask: what comes next? -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does history only ever move in one direction? Is decay inevitable? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan argues that it is not, using the example of America's greatest founding figure—George Washington. Washington's refusal to seize more power than he needed made him the anti-Caesar, and the perfect hero for our nation. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Bambee is an HR platform built for small businesses. Automate the most important HR practices and get your own dedicated HR Manager. Get your FREE HR audit right now at https://bambee.com/heretics. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shakespeare's great tragedy, Julius Caesar, carries the story of Caesar forward beyond the Rubicon and beautifully dramatizes the tragic machinery of history that led Rome's republic to its downfall. Did Caesar have a choice? Do we? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan discusses all this and more in the latest installment of the Shakespeare series. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When was Rome doomed? What about America? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan tells the famous story of Julius Caesar's choice to invade Rome, but with a twist: since no one knows exactly what happened in that fateful moment, the story becomes an opportunity for reflection on the great conflict between destiny and free will. This is the first of a series on the fall of Rome and the future of America. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Bambee is an HR platform built for small businesses. Automate the most important HR practices and get your own dedicated HR Manager. Get your FREE HR audit right now at https://bambee.com/heretics. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's often said that our politics has become "post-truth." But how far back does that problem go, really, and what are its deeper causes? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan examines these questions with the help of Plato's Republic, bringing our series on Athens, democracy, relativism, and virtual reality to a close. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a lot of hype around Web 3 and the Metaverse. But what can the sales pitches for these new technologies tell us about the governing philosophy of our elites? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan applies Platonic insight to modern tech proposals to show what's really going on behind the news cycle. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Bambee is an HR platform built for small businesses. Automate the most important HR practices and get your own dedicated HR Manager. Get your FREE HR audit right now at https://bambee.com/heretics. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Athens' late-stage democracy to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. Why should that be so? In a discussion ranging from the quadrivium, to Dante's Paradiso, on into Star Trek, Spencer Klavan explores the close connection between lies and violence. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plato's cave is one of the most famous metaphors ever. But what does it really mean? At long last, this Young Heretics series on the Republic has gotten us far enough to understand what Plato is saying about Athenian society—and our own—in book 7. Plus: how do you find your purpose in life? BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: Pre-order your copy of Spencer Klavan's new book, "How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises" today: https://www.amazon.com/How-Save-West-Ancient-Wisdom/dp/1684513456 -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Bambee is an HR platform built for small businesses. Automate the most important HR practices and get your own dedicated HR Manager. Get your FREE HR audit right now at https://bambee.com/heretics. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you find the truth in a world designed to keep it from you? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan talks through statesmanship, philosophy, and the relationship between the two in a culture that rewards power, but not truth. From the cave to Twitter, most of what passes for philosophy is just regime enforcement—Spencer unpacks Plato's advice for turning the mind toward the true, the beautiful, and the good. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final installment of his Young Heretics series on rights, Spencer Klavan asks how we can ever make changes and reforms to longstanding laws without hurtling down the slippery slope. Can we advance to meet the challenges of the day without dissolving into madness? Using Chesterton, Newman, Burke, Lewis, and the Seneca Falls declaration, Spencer shows how the tree of tradition can bear new fruit without cutting off the roots that feed it. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Matt Walsh recently embarked on a journey around the world to ask one, simple question: “What is a woman?” Now, this exclusive documentary is available to watch only for members of The Daily Wire. Check it out at https://whatisawoman.com. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're so used to talking about "human rights" and "human dignity" that it's easy to just nod along when people start declaring the brotherhood of man. But how did we get here? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan argues that God is a load-bearing pillar—cut him out, and sooner or later the whole building comes crashing down. From the Enlightenment to the present day, if your rights are going to be secure, they have to come from God. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. -- Bambee is an HR platform built for small businesses. Automate the most important HR practices and get your own dedicated HR Manager. Get your FREE HR audit right now at https://bambee.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If all men are brothers, then who is their father? If we have rights, who gives them to us? In today's episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan embarks on a series of episodes to trace the history of natural law and natural right that underlies our modern debates about abortion, euthanasia, and so much more. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS through March 31st. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is Joe Biden your president? Was Donald Trump? Whatever your political outlook, bad leadership is a crisis. Shakespeare's Richard II is one of the West's most profound meditations on what happens when a human leader doesn't live up to his country's divine mandate. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature have taken action against Disney in the battle over parents' rights. But are conservatives betraying their free-market values? What even are those values, and why do conservatives hold them? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explores the history behind corporate law in America and the deeper truths that underlie free enterprise. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. -- Ralston College is a new institution of higher education that is both a revival and a reinvention of the university, an intellectual home for all those who seek the truth with courage. Ralston College is launching its first in-person degree program for an MA in the Humanities, and the application deadline is May 21st. Apply at https://ralston.ac/heretics. -- Bambee is an HR platform built for small businesses. Automate the most important HR practices and get your own dedicated HR Manager. Get your FREE HR audit right now at https://bambee.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an era of emotional partisanship, it's tempting to retreat into pure, cold reason. But that way madness lies—Spencer Klavan discusses rationalism throughout the ages, from Plato and Bacon to Bayes, Aella, and Slate Star Codex. We need our minds, but we need our hearts too—they have their reasons that reason knows not of. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. -- Bambee is an HR platform built for small businesses. Automate the most important HR practices and get your own dedicated HR Manager. Get your FREE HR audit right now at https://bambee.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is there such a thing as too much justice? How about too much reason? In Plato's Republic, Book V, Socrates follows the constraints of his argument to conclude that the ideal city would be one of eugenics and sexual communism. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan discusses some of Plato's most controversial arguments, and the danger of snuffing out your gut instincts. -- Bambee is an HR platform built for small businesses. Automate the most important HR practices and get your own dedicated HR Manager. Get your FREE HR audit right now at https://bambee.com/heretics. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS through March 31st. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Romantic poets lived in an age much like ours: science was ascendant, religion was collapsing, and revolutions in mores and politics were tearing down everything that seemed certain. How did they find their way through their turbulent time—and how can we find our way through ours? In this episode of Young Heretics, Andrew Klavan joins Spencer Klavan to discuss his new book on the subject, "The Truth and Beauty." -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are officially 100 episodes into the Young Heretics journey. Looking back with gratitude at the growth of the show during its lifetime, Spencer Klavan gives an assessment of where the West currently stands, where hope lies, and why a classical education is more urgent than ever. Plus: a secret Locals announcement. To get access to Spencer’s secret announcement only on Locals, use promo code ANNOUNCEMENT for a 3-month free trial, valid only through the end of April: https://youngheretics.com/locals. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. -- If you like great books that people will be discussing 100 years from now, then you need to order "The Sufferings and Glory of Christ," a publication by the Albertus Magnus Institute. Get your copy today at https://magnusinstitute.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If women ran the world...Aristophanes' Assemblywomen is a play about the abolition of the family, the imposition of matriarchy, and communism of absolutely everything—including sex. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explains the play's raunchy humor and its surprising significance for today. To get access to live chats, the Young Heretics mailbag, and more exclusive content, use promo code ASSEMBLY for a one-month free trial of the Young Heretics community: https://youngheretics.com/locals. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. -- If you like great books that people will be discussing 100 years from now, then you need to order "The Sufferings and Glory of Christ," a publication by the Albertus Magnus Institute. Get your copy today at https://magnusinstitute.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

God is not ashamed of the female body: that is Christine de Pizan's simple yet radical assertion. It was radical when she made it in the 1400s, and it is radical now, when a new kind of rhetoric is reducing women to "menstruators" and turning human beings generally into collections of parts for sale. Spencer Klavan concludes his series on womanly virtues with a reflection on Christine's enduring message for the age of transhumanism. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- Don’t let the stress of daily life weigh on your body. Make it through the day tension-free with Theragun. Try it for 30 days starting at $199: https://therabody.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- If you like great books that people will be discussing 100 years from now, then you need to order "The Sufferings and Glory of Christ," a publication by the Albertus Magnus Institute. Get your copy today at https://magnusinstitute.org.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Misogyny is a real thing, even though the word has lost all meaning. But what does it really mean to be pro-woman, and what are the highest womanly virtues? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan introduces Christine de Pizan, a Medieval advocate for the excellence of women who puts modern feminists to shame. -- To get access to live chats, the Young Heretics mailbag, and more exclusive content, use promo code WOMANHOOD for a one-month free trial of the Young Heretics community: https://youngheretics.com/locals. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS through March 31st. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With his country hemorrhaging money and its leadership too weak to function (sound familiar?) William the Marshal, a man of seventy, had to lead English forces against the French at the Battle of Lincoln. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan discusses the courage that took, and how we can learn from it today. To get access to live chats, the Young Heretics mailbag, and more exclusive content, use promo code MARSHAL for a one-month free trial of the Young Heretics community: https://youngheretics.com/locals. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Once you know the comfort, the pain relief, the improved performance enhancement and injury prevention benefits of Sole foot beds, you will want them in every shoe you own. Get 50% off your first order at http://yoursole.com/heretics. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Headlines across America have been unanimously proclaiming the death of chivalry for decades—10 out of 10 tastemakers agree, it's sexist, hippocrytical, and probably somehow racist to aspire to manly excellence. So why won't chivalry stay dead? Using the biography of England's greatest knight, William Marshal, Spencer Klavan uncovers the true meaning of chivalry, and its enduring importance for today. To get access to live chats, the Young Heretics mailbag, and more exclusive content, use promo code CHIVALRY for a one-month free trial of the Young Heretics community: https://youngheretics.com/locals. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Stop throwing your tea into the harbor, and start celebrating America’s tea heritage with Gold River Trading Co.’s specialty blends. Get 10% off your order with promo code HERETICS: https://goldriverco.com. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS through March 31st. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, Spencer Klavan explored the crucial role of first principles in debates of every kind. This week on Young Heretics, he applies those ideas to one of America's most heated public discussions—the discussion about abortion. Why can't we stop fighting? A look at the first principles involved shows why. To get access to live chats, the Young Heretics mailbag, and more exclusive content, use promo code PISTIS for a one-month free trial of the Young Heretics community: https://youngheretics.com/locals. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS through March 31st. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

American public discourse is breaking down. On abortion, on coronavirus, on war, we just seem to be talking past each other—why? Using the abortion debate as an example and Aristotle as a guide, Spencer Klavan gets at the philosophical heart of America's first principle problem in this episode of Young Heretics. To get access to live chats, the Young Heretics mailbag, and more exclusive content, use promo code AXIOM for a one-month free trial of the Young Heretics community: https://youngheretics.com/locals. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS through March 31st. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. -- Once you know the comfort, the pain relief, the improved performance enhancement and injury prevention benefits of Sole foot beds, you will want them in every shoe you own. Get 50% off your first order at http://yoursole.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why can't we come to terms with the horrors of Gulag? Why were so many of us taught about the Holocaust, but not about Stalin? In this next installment of his series on Solzhenitsyn's masterwork, Spencer Klavan describes the dark shadow-religion that swept over Russia and created concentration camps in the archipelago. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Once you know the comfort, the pain relief, the improved performance enhancement and injury prevention benefits of Sole foot beds, you will want them in every shoe you own. Get 50% off your first order at http://yoursole.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shakespeare's As You Like It is a reflection on social roles: how they work, and what happens when they don't. Escape with Spencer Klavan to the Forest of Arden, where you can be free from the expectations of society, MAN. Or can you? -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Take the guesswork out of taking care of your skin with Disco. Check out Disco and try their incredible skincare products for 30% off your first order with promo code HERETICS: https://letsdisco.com. -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS through March 31st. -- Ned offers a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. To get 15% off plus a FREE De-Stress Blend Sample on orders over $40 use the promo code HERETICS: https://www.helloned.com/HERETICS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In The Apology of Socrates, Plato exposes the pretensions of self-styled experts and authorities. Socrates was the only man in Athens who admitted he was not wise—and neither was anyone else. This didn't make him very popular, but he was willing to die rather than give up the truth. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- Once you know the comfort, the pain relief, the improved performance enhancement and injury prevention benefits of Sole foot beds, you will want them in every shoe you own. Get 50% off your first order at http://yoursole.com/heretics. -- The Magnus Fellowship is the college to end colleges and serves as a tuition-free alternative for those who need an online resource that is equally as rigorous. Apply to the Magnus Fellowship today and receive a free gift at https://magnusinstitute.org/heretics. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The fight for life is a crucial issue that touches on the deepest principles of the West. Without the right to life, there are no other rights. In a Young Heretics special, Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins joins Spencer Klavan to discuss her bold new campaign to restore and preserve the most fundamental right for the most vulnerable members of society. It’s the Final Fight for Freedom. The pair examines why this moment is so crucial both for the pro-life and conservative movement, and what we can do to make abortion both illegal and unthinkable. Get your copy of Students for Life’s battleplan at https://studentsforlife.org/fight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Experts hate to be laughed at, especially when they have something to hide. Aristophanes, the genius of Old Attic Comedy, shows us how it's done in Clouds, his goofy satire of an education system in decline. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explores the question, was Socrates part of the problem—or part of the solution? -- Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. Get a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/HERETICS through March 31st. -- Diversify your savings and get up to $1,500 of free silver today with American Hartford Gold: text HERETICS to 6-5-5-3-2. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the year of our Lord 2022 and Spencer Klavan is here to spoil your fun. Not really, but since the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become such an enormous cultural touchstone, it makes sense to ask: where do its ideas come from? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan takes a deep dive into the multiverse, an ancient concept that is now gaining currency in art and physics alike. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- The Magnus Fellowship is the college to end colleges and serves as a tuition-free alternative for those who need an online resource that is equally as rigorous. Apply to the Magnus Fellowship today and receive a free gift at https://magnusinstitute.org/heretics. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- Take the guesswork out of taking care of your skin with Disco. Check out Disco and try their incredible skincare products for 30% off your first order with promo code HERETICS: https://letsdisco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the new year rolls in, most of us think about how to be better—but what does that even mean? Luckily, our journey through Plato's Republic has taken us to the perfect book for thinking about excellence of all kinds. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan discusses the cardinal virtues and how to cultivate them. NEW YEARS SALES ARE HERE: Become a Young Heretics VIP at a limited-time discounted rate between now and January 15 at https://youngheretics.com/locals. Get your exclusive Young Heretics merch at 20% off with the promo code CHEERS at https://youngheretics.com/shop. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- Once you know the comfort, the pain relief, the improved performance enhancement and injury prevention benefits of Sole foot beds, you will want them in every shoe you own. Get 50% off your first order at http://yoursole.com/heretics. -- Take the guesswork out of taking care of your skin with Disco. Check out Disco and try their incredible skincare products for 30% off your first order with promo code HERETICS: https://letsdisco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The final installment in the Space Trilogy, "That Hideous Strength," is a perfect allegory for our Fauci-worshiping times. In this episode of “Young Heretics,” Spencer Klavan describes the logic which Lewis reveals in his myth of megalomania and satanism—a logic which is still at work today. NEW YEARS SALES ARE HERE: Become a Young Heretics VIP at a limited-time discounted rate between now and January 15 at https://youngheretics.com/locals. Get your exclusive Young Heretics merch at 20% off with the promo code CHEERS at https://youngheretics.com/shop. -- Once you know the comfort, the pain relief, the improved performance enhancement and injury prevention benefits of Sole foot beds, you will want them in every shoe you own. Get 50% off your first order at http://yoursole.com/heretics. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- The Magnus Fellowship is the college to end colleges and serves as a tuition-free alternative for those who need an online resource that is equally as rigorous. Apply to the Magnus Fellowship today and receive a free gift at https://magnusinstitute.org/heretics. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the second book of the Ransom trilogy, C.S. Lewis imagines what it would have been like if Eve got a second chance in the Garden of Eden. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan reads from this rip-roaring tale of demonic possession and space travel to tell a Christmas story about the cosmic power of one human choice to change the world. NEW YEARS SALES ARE HERE: Become a Young Heretics VIP at a limited-time discounted rate between now and January 15 at https://youngheretics.com/locals. Get your exclusive Young Heretics merch at 20% off with the promo code CHEERS at https://youngheretics.com/shop. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Take the guesswork out of taking care of your skin with Disco. Check out Disco and try their incredible skincare products for 30% off your first order with promo code HERETICS: https://letsdisco.com. -- The Magnus Fellowship is the college to end colleges and serves as a tuition-free alternative for those who need an online resource that is equally as rigorous. Apply to the Magnus Fellowship today and receive a free gift at https://magnusinstitute.org/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometimes to see earth clearly, you have to look down on it from mars. C.S. Lewis's space trilogy is a classic of sci-fi literature but it's also, weirdly, the perfect thing to read at Christmas. In "Out of the Silent Planet," Lewis takes his place alongside Dante and Milton with a Christian vision of the worlds beyond our world. CHRISTMAS SALES: Become a Young Heretics VIP at a limited-time discounted rate between now and Christmas at https://youngheretics.com/locals. Get your exclusive Young Heretics merch at 20% off with the promo code SANTA at https://youngheretics.com/shop. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Once you know the comfort, the pain relief, the improved performance enhancement and injury prevention benefits of Sole foot beds, you will want them in every shoe you own. Get 50% off your first order at http://yoursole.com/heretics. -- Achieve gifting greatness with Omaha Steaks! Incredible flavor, incredible value and 100% guaranteed. Get 8 free steaks at https://omahasteaks.com keyword HERETICS. -- The Magnus Fellowship is the college to end colleges and serves as a tuition-free alternative for those who need an online resource that is equally as rigorous. Apply to the Magnus Fellowship today and receive a free gift at https://magnusinstitute.org/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We say "never forget"...but do we really mean it? We deceive ourselves if we think that murderous tyrants like Stalin are uniquely evil in some way that we ourselves could never be. Reading through Volume 1 of the Gulag Archipelago, Spencer Klavan shows how ordinary people can consent to terrible things. CHRISTMAS SALES: Become a Young Heretics VIP at a limited-time discounted rate between now and Christmas at https://youngheretics.com/locals. Get your exclusive Young Heretics merch at 20% off with the promo code SANTA at https://youngheretics.com/shop. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- The Magnus Fellowship is the college to end colleges and serves as a tuition-free alternative for those who need an online resource that is equally as rigorous. Apply to the Magnus Fellowship today and receive a free gift at https://magnusinstitute.org/heretics. -- Achieve gifting greatness with Omaha Steaks! Incredible flavor, incredible value and 100% guaranteed. Get 8 free steaks at https://omahasteaks.com keyword HERETICS. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan begins a journey through Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's masterwork, "The Gulag Archipelago," which exposed the horrors of Lenin's and Stalin's Russia to the West. Describing how Russia's Empire was overthrown and replaced with a socialist state, Spencer explains the nightmare philosophy behind it all and reveals what really made Stalin's rule so gruesome. CHRISTMAS SALES: Become a Young Heretics VIP at a limited-time discounted rate between now and Christmas at https://youngheretics.com/locals. Get your exclusive Young Heretics merch at 20% off with the promo code SANTA at https://youngheretics.com/shop -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Achieve gifting greatness with Omaha Steaks! Incredible flavor, incredible value and 100% guaranteed. Get 8 free steaks at https://omahasteaks.com keyword HERETICS. -- Truebill is the new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions you don’t need, want, or simply forgot about. Save thousands of dollars a year: https://truebill.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You've heard about the "first Thanksgiving," but have you heard about the miraculous sea crossing that made it possible in the first place? In this Young Heretics Thanksgiving special, Spencer Klavan talks about the journey of faith that gave birth to the American spirit. -- The Magnus Fellowship is the college to end colleges and serves as a tuition-free alternative for those who need an online resource that is equally as rigorous. Apply to the Magnus Fellowship today and receive a free gift at https://magnusinstitute.org/heretics. -- Take the guesswork out of taking care of your skin with Disco. Check out Disco and try their incredible skincare products for 30% off your first order with promo code HERETICS: https://letsdisco.com. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are video games art? What about a urinal? And how about splotches of paint on a wall? We all have instinctive answers to these questions, but it can be hard to articulate the logic behind them. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan discusses one of the West's oldest and most sophisticated books on the topic and how it can help us solve modern problems about censorship and cancel culture. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Achieve gifting greatness with Omaha Steaks! Incredible flavor, incredible value and 100% guaranteed. Get 8 free steaks at https://omahasteaks.com keyword HERETICS. -- The Magnus Fellowship is the college to end colleges and serves as a tuition-free alternative for those who need an online resource that is equally as rigorous. Apply to the Magnus Fellowship today and receive a free gift at https://magnusinstitute.org/heretics. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you want a perfect state, you have to seize the means of artistic production. That's something that both the Right and the Left now instinctively understand... which is why we're fighting so hard over things like Netflix. Plato saw to the heart of the matter in the third book of his Republic, which is why that book has caused, shall we say, quite a bit of trouble. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explains. -- Take the guesswork out of taking care of your skin with Disco. Check out Disco and try their incredible skincare products for 30% off your first order with promo code HERETICS: https://letsdisco.com. -- The Magnus Fellowship is the college to end colleges and serves as a tuition-free alternative for those who need an online resource that is equally as rigorous. Apply to the Magnus Fellowship today and receive a free gift at https://magnusinstitute.org/heretics. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- Get exclusive access to more truth, beauty, and the stuff that matters by becoming a Young Heretics VIP. Claim your one-month, risk-free trial with promo code HERETICS: http://youngheretics.com/locals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone's talking about mob rule these days—but why is it happening now? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explains insights into mob rule from the French anthropologist, philosopher, and literary critic René Girard. Using Girard's brilliant exposition of the Gospels, Spencer explains everything that's going on in our politics... and what to do about it. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Ned offers a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. To get 15% off plus a FREE De-Stress Blend Sample on orders over $40 use the promo code HERETICS: https://www.helloned.com/HERETICS. -- Take the guesswork out of taking care of your skin with Disco. Check out Disco and try their incredible skincare products for 30% off your first order with promo code HERETICS: https://letsdisco.com. -- Get exclusive access to more truth, beauty, and the stuff that matters by becoming a Young Heretics VIP. Claim your one-month, risk-free trial with promo code HERETICS: http://youngheretics.com/locals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

W.W. Jacobs was a one-hit wonder, but his one hit is a Halloween masterpiece: The Monkey's Paw. In this Young Heretics holiday special, Spencer Klavan reads the story and reveals the theological truths behind it—without which, many of our modern ghost stories are doomed to fall flat. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Take the guesswork out of taking care of your skin with Disco. Check out Disco and try their incredible skincare products for 30% off your first order with promo code HERETICS: https://letsdisco.com. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- Get exclusive access to more truth, beauty, and the stuff that matters by becoming a Young Heretics VIP. Claim your one-month, risk-free trial with promo code HERETICS: http://youngheretics.com/locals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an age when everyone wants us to think we are bound to our time, our race, and our place, Henry James's story "The Great Good Place" reminds us of the brotherhood of man. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan reads from this gem of a story and joins it with the witness of Machiavelli, Raphael, and DuBois to show that we are more than the here and now. -- Ned offers a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. To get 15% off plus a FREE De-Stress Blend Sample on orders over $40 use the promo code HERETICS: https://www.helloned.com/HERETICS. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- Get exclusive access to more truth, beauty, and the stuff that matters by becoming a Young Heretics VIP. Claim your one-month, risk-free trial with promo code HERETICS: http://youngheretics.com/locals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your right to make your own choices is under assault. But where does that right come from anyway? Conscience is one of the oldest and deepest ideas in the Western tradition, developed by millennia of thought stemming from both Athens and Jerusalem. Spencer tells the story of conscience and defends your right to choose. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Ned offers a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. To get 15% off plus a FREE De-Stress Blend Sample on orders over $40 use the promo code HERETICS: https://www.helloned.com/HERETICS. -- Get exclusive access to more truth, beauty, and the stuff that matters by becoming a Young Heretics VIP. Claim your one-month, risk-free trial with promo code HERETICS: http://youngheretics.com/locals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Young Heretics, we follow St. Thomas More to his death, and ask how it can be that he managed to find the strength for martyrdom. Spencer Klavan offers comfort and guidance from the great Saint for a moment when the powers of the world seem both powerful and threatening. -- Ned offers a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. To get 15% off plus a FREE De-Stress Blend Sample on orders over $40 use the promo code HERETICS: https://www.helloned.com/HERETICS. -- How can you learn Latin, Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew in order to read the classics of the ancient western world, in their original language? Get 10% off of your Ancient Language Institute course with promo code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/heretics. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- Take the guesswork out of taking care of your skin with Disco. Check out Disco and try their incredible skincare products for 30% off your first order with promo code HERETICS: https://letsdisco.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an age when anxieties about state persecution are running high, Spencer Klavan looks to the ironclad perseverance of Saint Thomas More. More lived in a far more dangerous time than our own, and his confidence in the reality of the hereafter kept him firm in the face of tyranny. This episode of Young Heretics is the first of two on how one man gave it all rather than buckle under pressure. -- Celebrate the moments that matter most with a professional, hand-painted portrait from Paint Your Life. Get 20% off your painting right now if you text the word HERETICS to 64-000. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. -- The Young Heretics community on Locals is THE place to be, with workout tips, Q&As, and ad-free episodes. Get a one-month free trial of the annual VIP membership, completely risk-free with the promo code HERETICS: https://youngheretics.com/locals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can a good and just God allow suffering? The Book of Job is where the Old Testament looks this question squarely in the face. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan discusses this masterwork of wisdom literature, drawing out lessons for patience in suffering that go beyond happy talk and nihilism. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- Ned offers a natural remedy for some of life’s most common health issues. To get 15% off plus a FREE De-Stress Blend Sample on orders over $40 use the promo code HERETICS: https://www.helloned.com/HERETICS. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Thrasymachus the sophist thoroughly spanked and sent home crying, the real philosophers in the room get to work. That's the premise of Republic Book II, in which Socrates embarks with Glaucon and Adeimantus on a monumental project of imaginary civilization-building. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explores the question, can they craft a city of pure justice, or just a totalitarian nightmare? -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- The Liz Wheeler Show is a personal, researched, and unapologetic take on how we think about our culture. Subscribe for new episodes three times each week at https://lizwheelershow.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Romeo and Juliet are two truly iconic characters—Shakespeare's tragedy has made them so powerfully real that it's almost as if they're still alive. But who are they, really, and why did this one play stick so firmly in the mind of the West? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan talks through the high drama, the classical sources, and the world-famous speeches of this classic play. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Don’t let Big Tech rule our relationship. Submit your email so Spencer can stay in touch if—when?—Big Tech pulls the plug: https://youngheretics.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do we put blood guilt to rest? It isn't pretty. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan walks through the conclusion of Aeschylus' Oresteia and traces the ideas it conveys throughout Western history. In the end, the question is not "what are we owed," but, "how can we live?" -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- The Spectator believes that life is bigger than politics, which is why it covers arts, culture, food, wine, travel, and life all around. Sign up today and receive three free months, plus a free hat with promo code HERETICS: https://spectatorworld.com/specialoffer. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- Lifting is infrastructure. This exclusive Young Heretics muscle shirt is NOW AVAILABLE, but hurry, because there's only a limited number. Get yours today at https://youngheretics.com/shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who is Orestes? What kind of man will he be? That is the question on which the middle play of the Oresteia turns. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan walks through the tragedy and the questions it raises for men and women facing the unfairness of life today. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Get 3 months free: https://expressvpn.com/heretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Lifting is infrastructure. This exclusive Young Heretics muscle shirt is NOW AVAILABLE, but hurry, because there's only a limited number. Get yours today at https://youngheretics.com/shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are the sins of the father really the sins of the son? That's the question driving Aeschylus' Oresteia, the only surviving complete trilogy of Greek tragedies. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan begins a three-part journey through Aeschylus' prizewinning masterwork, seeking wisdom for today's debates over the history of racism. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/heretics. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Get 3 months free: https://expressvpn.com/heretics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can we still do America anymore? Is the Constitution just hopelessly outdated? In a world governed by elites who think the whole America thing doesn't work, Spencer Klavan uses Aristotle's "Politics" to examine what living in political community means, and how we can (still) make it work in this country. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Get 3 months free: https://expressvpn.com/heretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Don’t let Big Tech rule our relationship. Submit your email so Spencer can stay in touch if—when?—Big Tech pulls the plug: https://youngheretics.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The First Crusade is one of the most maligned events in all of Western history. But what was it really about? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan discusses the history of the Crusade and its impact on The Song of Roland. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Get 3 months free: https://expressvpn.com/heretics. -- Lifting is infrastructure. This exclusive Young Heretics muscle shirt is NOW AVAILABLE, but hurry, because there's only a limited number. Get yours today at https://youngheretics.com/shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Song of Roland" is a glorious legend about the doomed hero, Roland, and his tragic defeat at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan talks through the history behind this great epic and what it can tell us today. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit https://minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 25% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Get 3 months free on ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/heretics. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- Lifting is infrastructure. This exclusive Young Heretics muscle shirt is NOW AVAILABLE, but hurry, because there's only a limited number. Get yours today at https://youngheretics.com/shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Gawain gallops toward his potentially deadly encounter with the Green Knight, he faces an unexpected challenge: seduction. In the second Young Heretics episode on "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," Spencer Klavan discusses the tradition of courtly love poetry and what to make of its more scandalous elements. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Get 3 months free: https://expressvpn.com/heretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- If you're not already a Young Heretics VIP on Locals, now is the time! Become one of the first 50 people between now and the end of July to become an annual VIP and receive a FREE Young Heretics t-shirt: https://youngheretics.com/locals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is the chivalric code one of civilization's great achievements, or is it all just a lie? That's the question Spencer Klavan takes up in the first of two episodes on "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," a jewel of Middle English literature and of chivalric poetry. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer reads Simon Armitage's masterful translation and argues that the high ideals of honor can still guide us today. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Get 3 months free: https://expressvpn.com/heretics. -- Lifting is infrastructure. This exclusive Young Heretics muscle shirt is NOW AVAILABLE, but hurry, because there's only a limited number. Get yours today at https://youngheretics.com/shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The royal history of England is a story of triumphs and mishaps—but is there a plan behind it all? For that matter, is any of us free to affect the course of history? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan walks through Shakespeare's tale of war and loss, asking what the medieval kings can teach us about our present crisis. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Get 3 months free: https://expressvpn.com/heretics. -- If you're not already a Young Heretics VIP on Locals, now is the time! Become one of the first 50 people between now and the end of July to become an annual VIP and receive a FREE Young Heretics t-shirt: https://youngheretics.com/locals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are all cultures, all countries, all governments as good as each other? How do we know what's right and wrong? In this episode of Young Heretics—the first of many episodes on the foundation-stone of Western political philosophy, the Republic—Spencer Klavan walks through the context, the history, and the profound impact of Republic Book 1. Get your copy of "The Republic of Plato" here: https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Plato-Allan-Bloom/dp/0465094082. -- Public Goods is the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order at https://publicgoods.com/HERETICS. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- How did we get to the point that political correctness dominates our culture and society? Order your copy of “Speechless” by Michael Knowles to find out: http://speechlessbook.com. -- If you're not already a Young Heretics VIP on Locals, now is the time! Become one of the first 50 people between now and the end of July to become an annual VIP and receive a FREE Young Heretics t-shirt: https://youngheretics.com/locals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Young Heretics is the classical education you've been denied. But what is a classical education, anyway? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan walks through the history of the three- and four-fold way (the "trivium" and the "quadrivium") to explain how we can shape our souls to love the good in a degraded age. Get your copy of Allan Bloom's translation of Plato’s “Republic” here: https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Plato-Allan-Bloom/dp/0465094082?tag=youngheretics-20 Get your copy of David R. Slavitt's translation of "Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy” here: https://www.amazon.com/Consolation-Philosophy-Boethius/dp/0674048350?tag=youngheretics-20 -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- If you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number-one-rated VPN on the market. Get 3 months free: https://expressvpn.com/heretics. -- How did we get to the point that political correctness dominates our culture and society? Order your copy of “Speechless” by Michael Knowles to find out: http://speechlessbook.com. -- Lifting is infrastructure. This exclusive Young Heretics muscle shirt is NOW AVAILABLE, but hurry, because there's only a limited number. Get yours today at https://youngheretics.com/shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Was Milton on the devil's side? The great revolutionary confronted the limits of rebellion in his masterwork, "Paradise Lost." In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan takes a first look at the epic to expose the logic of Milton's Satan and how it turns everything inside out. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics. -- America is under siege. As the new president of Young America's Foundation, Governor Scott Walker is launching The Long Game to fight back. It's a bold plan to win the culture battle and the culture war. Get your free copy at https://yaf.org/longgame​. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Miracles aren't magic, they're real life. But what really did happen on the cross? In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan describes how scripture and sculpture both can express the profound truths of life, death, and resurrection that Christians commemorate this time of year. -- Big Tech is cracking down on conservative voices, but you can protect your online privacy with ExpressVPN. Get 3 extra months free with a 12-month plan: https://expressvpn.com/heretics -- America is under siege. As the new president of Young America's Foundation, Governor Scott Walker is launching The Long Game to fight back. It's a bold plan to win the culture battle and the culture war. Get your free copy at https://yaf.org/longgame​. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals​ and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You can't cancel the West. You can try, but its truths are eternal and the great conversation across generations marches on. That's the vision of Raphael in his masterwork, the School of Athens. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan walks through the history and meaning of his favorite painting. -- Big Tech is cracking down on conservative voices, but you can protect your online privacy with ExpressVPN. Get 3 extra months free with a 12-month plan: http://expressvpn.com/heretics -- America is under siege. As the new president of Young America's Foundation, Governor Scott Walker is launching The Long Game to fight back. It's a bold plan to win the culture battle and the culture war. Get your free copy at yaf.org/longgame. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting youngheretics.com/locals and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Led by communists like Antonio Gramsci, progressives began their long march through the institutions in the 1960s. They indoctrinated students with dangerous socialist ideas beginning at the earliest levels of education. The effect has been a hatred of America that persists even in today's youth. In this "Young Heretics" special, Spencer Klavan sits down with the new president of Young America's Foundation, Governor Scott Walker, to break down YAF's new action plan, a plan that Walker says will wrestle back education and culture from the clutches of Left. You can join the fight to save America as we know it by joining The Long Game at https://YAF.org/LongGame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Paul stood in the Athenian court on the Hill of Mars (the Areopagus) to plead his case for Christianity before the Epicureans and Stoics, no one knew what would happen. Would he be laughed out of town? Or put in chains? What nobody expected was what eventually came to pass. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan discusses how the obscure faith of this Jewish scholar took over the world. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 20% off men's grooming and shave kits. -- America is under siege. As the new president of Young America's Foundation, Governor Scott Walker is launching The Long Game to fight back. It's a bold plan to win the culture battle and the culture war. Get your free copy at yaf.org/longgame. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting youngheretics.com/locals and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plato dreamed that philosophers would rule the state; Marcus Aurelius made that a reality. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan examines Aurelius's Stoic belief system as articulated in his famous "Meditations," which have made him an enduring model of manly self-control for all the ages. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 20% off men's grooming and shave kits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Atoms bouncing off one another in an infinite void, a world without interference from God, and a life of seeking pleasure above all else...sound familiar? That's the ancient philosophy of Epicureanism, and it dominates our lives today though we don't know it. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan discusses, and criticizes, the teachings of Epicurus. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 20% off men's grooming and shave kits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Philosophy isn't an abstract academic subject: it's a way of life. After lots of requests, Spencer Klavan sits down in this episode of "Young Heretics" to talk through the Hellenistic philosophical schools of ancient Athens, starting with Stoicism—its roots in Greece, its encounter with Christianity, and what it has to say for us today. -- "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. -- Everyone wants a beard that looks like Spencer Klavan's. Visit minimoustachery.com/heretics and use the code HERETICS to get 20% off men's grooming and shave kits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan answers questions from listeners who have supported the show and want to dig deeper into some of the great ideas of the West. Plus, "Young Heretics" is now on Locals! You can become a Young Heretics VIP by visiting https://youngheretics.com/locals and subscribing for only $4.99 per month. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics -- Big Tech is cracking down on conservative voices, but you can protect your online privacy with ExpressVPN. Get 3 extra months free with a 12-month plan: http://expressvpn.com/heretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why is Game of Thrones better than WAP? Or is it? This kind of question is always flying around on Twitter, especially among conservatives. But it has an ancient pedigree: from Plato's "Republic" and Aristotle's "Poetics," on through Philip Sidney and Camille Paglia, the critics and philosophers of the West have puzzled over what it means to enjoy depictions of weird or even ugly things. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan digs into that history to help resolve our modern controversies. -- Big Tech is cracking down on conservative voices, but you can protect your online privacy with ExpressVPN. Get 3 extra months free with a 12-month plan: http://expressvpn.com/heretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where do we go from here? Home. In this episode of "Young Heretics," the series on America's and the world's present crisis draws to a close with a survey of localism, from G.K. Chesterton in Dublin to Wendell Berry in America. Spencer Klavan argues that building outward from our immediate surroundings is the key to healing our damaged country. -- Big Tech is cracking down on conservative voices, but you can protect your online privacy with ExpressVPN. Get 3 extra months free with a 12-month plan: http://expressvpn.com/heretics -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is political violence ever justified? The question has never felt more serious in our lifetimes than it does today. The hard truth is, America was founded on political violence, and yet, our founders understood the gravity and terrible cost of their drastic actions. When is that cost worth paying? In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan takes up that question in light of the Capitol riot and America's founding history. -- Big Tech is cracking down on conservative voices, but you can protect your online privacy with ExpressVPN. Get 3 extra months free with a 12-month plan: http://expressvpn.com/heretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When is civil disobedience justified? It's a question that has loomed over the past year and continues to haunt us. With lockdowns crushing businesses and riots terrorizing the streets, Spencer Klavan begins a three-part series to bring the great wisdom of the West to bear on this modern crisis. In this episode of "Young Heretics" he covers Sophocles' "Antigone" and the philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you learn only one Greek word, learn this one: mimēsis. It's the explanation of everything—or at least, it describes something profound that governs human nature and the cosmos. In this episode of "Young Heretics", Spencer Klavan explains how the pattern of mimēsis is everywhere—from the structure of musical scales, to the shape of Creation, to the Crucifixion itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a tense moment for America, and there's a lot of talk in the air of national decline. It's a good time to be thinking about how things can go wrong. In this conclusion to his two-part discussion on the Roman monarchy, Spencer Klavan explains how kingship tends to fall apart—and what a person can do in the midst of dark times. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lots of people are thinking it, but not that many people are asking it out loud: is America in for a monarchy in the near future, and would that be such a bad thing? Spencer Klavan thinks the answers are "no" and "yes." In this episode of "Young Heretics," the first installment of a two-part discussion, he explains why by working his way through Livy's remarkably even-handed portrayal of Roman monarchy. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you honor most? In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan offers his prescription for saving the republic: honor virtue and seek to imitate it. He explores the importance of honor in ancient Rome through the thrilling legend of Horatius Cocles, who held up the young republic's defenses against all odds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a very Young Heretics Christmas, which can only mean one thing: we are going straight to the good stuff. In his first foray into the New Testament on the show, Spencer Klavan gets at the heart of the story of Jesus' birth and its meaning in the grand sweep of Western history we've been studying all year. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Liberty" and "liberalism" are overused words—but what do they even mean? Are all kinds of freedom good per se, or do we need boundaries like the kinds provided by religious teaching? There are profound and urgent debates raging on these questions right now. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan navigates some of the major issues with his friend and fellow traveler, the academic Brandon Van Dyck. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Herodotus, the West's first historian, is also much-maligned as the father of lies. In this episode of "Young Heretics," superstar historian and lifelong Herodotus fan Tom Holland joins Spencer Klavan to explain the genius of Herodotus and the meaning of his myths, from urinating Egyptians to the divine lineage of the Persians and everything in between. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The name Machiavelli calls a thousand things to mind: pitiless conquest, hard-nosed realism, violent death. But who was the man, really, and why did he leave such a mark? Machiavelli was a man in full—humanist, diplomat, scholar, mastermind. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan gives Machiavelli the fresh introduction he deserves. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the story they don't want you to hear about the holiday they don't want you to celebrate. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan walks through the real history of Thanksgiving—the good, the bad, and the amazing about the Pilgrims' journey from Europe to America. It's a story of faith, providence, human nature, and the small mercies of God in the sad history of human affairs. Here's the amazing story of our proud country's improbable beginnings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shakespeare's "Macbeth" is a gory, nail-biting, creepy romp. But it's also a brilliant depiction of how the world caves in upon a man who violates the law of God, and how intimate, personal relationships can change the course of history. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan dives into his first Shakespeare episode (but certainly not his last) to take a look at how free will and fate overlap to make one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the West. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How you think about your founding fathers determines how you think about yourself. That's something America is learning right now, and it's something of which ancient civilizations were acutely aware. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan tells the story of how the Trojan hero Aeneas became Ancient Rome's central founding figure through Virgil's "Aeneid"—and what that means for politics in Rome and America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Halloween! It's a bizarre year—Halloween is basically forbidden in some of the stricter lockdown states. On this special episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan, with help from the great American master of horror Edgar Allan Poe, dives into the history of the day and explains why the people who attack it are absurd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This. Is. Sparta!!!! "300," the blood-soaked Zack Snyder movie adapted from Frank Miller's graphic novel, is based on stories of the Persian War told by the first historian ever, Herodotus. But how accurate is "300" really, and does it matter? In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan tells the real story of the 300 at Thermopylae, and argues that "300" is a better take on the whole thing than you might expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The "Maltese Falcon" is a groundbreaking movie and a seminal work of American literature. It's more than pop culture, though it is pop culture at its finest. It's also a tale of what it takes to be a man in America. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan defends the work's place in the canon and analyzes its enduring greatness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the biggest lies we're told is that celebrating our ancestral past is stupid, dishonest, or worse. None of that is true. "Beowulf," the Anglo-Saxon masterpiece about England's Germanic forefathers, is a sophisticated tale full of weirdness, complexity, and melancholy—plus, it's an awesome romp with lots of crazy monsters and sick fights. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan uncovers the poem's greatness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want some self-help that actually works? Despite being complicated and somewhat intimidating, Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" is actually a very practical book with advice you can use. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan unpacks Aristotle's profound insights in one of the most life-changing books you'll ever read. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you really want to talk pandemics, then let's talk Julian of Norwich. She lived in religious seclusion, but she understood deeply that there are no guarantees in life—no safety other than in God. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan talks through the weird, intense, and powerful visions of Julian and what they say about God and womanhood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Gone with the Wind" is the movie they don't want you to see. Following HBO pulling it from streaming services and then putting it back up with a ridiculous health warning, Spencer Klavan insists on rewatching it. In this episode of "Young Heretics" Klavan proves why the movie is not just a masterwork, but a triumph of American culture in the best traditions of Western art, and a tragedy in the true sense of the word. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Francesco Petrarca, commonly known as Petrarch, lived at the dawning of a new age. He's credited with helping to revive classical learning when it went dormant, which makes him an excellent guide for our own day. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan reads Petrarch's poems and contemplates how to revitalize the wisdom of the past—not through nostalgia, but through rebirth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you acknowledge the wild forces of the world without letting them destroy you? Euripides, the youngest Greek tragedian whose work survives, asked exactly this question in his radical, boundary-pushing play "The Bacchae." In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explores how, with the clarity of an artist's vision, Euripides saw the downfall of Athens coming and spoke wisely into the heart of his moment—and our own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Peloponnesian War was one of the most catastrophic conflicts of the ancient world—protracted, brutal, and disastrous for the Athenian hegemony that had grown over the course of the early 5th century BC. In this episode of "Young Heretics," classical scholar and military history expert Victor Davis Hanson joins Spencer Klavan to discuss the war's causes, tactics, and consequences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

T.S. Eliot's God was no mere fantasy or abstraction: he was a tough, strange, sorrowful savior presiding over a world gone terribly wrong. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan concludes his series on Eliot by walking through the passages in "Four Quartets" which outline the trinity to reveal what God looks like in the modern world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you find authentic faith in a world that is falling to pieces around you? In this episode of “Young Heretics,” Spencer Klavan returns to his series on T.S. Eliot—this time with a study of "Four Quartets," Eliot's greatest Christian work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why is capitalism good for music and what does any of it have to do with outer space? In this episode of “Young Heretics,” classical composer Stephen Limbaugh joins Spencer Klavan to discuss the thrilling profusion of musical creativity that accompanied the Belle Époque period. Plus, Spencer and Stephen get into the wonders of music theory, the benefits of patriotism, and the future of American art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As cancel culture is on the rise, freedom of speech is all over the news. Why do we even believe in freedom of speech in the first place? Take a look at John Milton, the revolutionary firebrand whose writing nearly cost him his life. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan explores the connections between Milton's views on speech, sin, and revolution in "Areopagitica." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

America is not only a great nation, it is also the inheritor of the best the West has to offer. In this special episode of "Young Heretics,” Spencer Klavan sits down with Senator Ted Cruz to talk through the enduring principles of the United States Constitution, their roots in English law, and their relevance for all time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does this story from the fall of the Roman republic hold wisdom for America in her troubled moment? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explores how Gaius Gracchus tries and fails to propose an entirely new constitution. But it's more fun than that! An unsolved murder mystery, a trip to Africa, and a deadly riot later, we will find our takeaway from this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To prevent our own republic from failing, we must look to the wisdom of Western history and find insights from moments similar to our own. If only our elite professors would pay attention! In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explores the "Gracchan disturbance," a turbulent and dramatic period in Roman history, to find wisdom for our own unsettled times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometimes, you have to face up to despair before you can find an honest way to hope. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan returns to T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land to uncover the surprising hope that waits just beyond the edges of Eliot's dark vision. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is known as one of the most depressing poems ever. Eliot refuses to offer any BS or happy talk: his spare, cold look at the woes of modernity can help us understand where hope lives when everything else goes dark. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan argues that this work also contains the seeds of Eliot's eventual conversion to Christianity and hope for us in our own depressing age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The victory of Greece over Persia at Salamis blew everybody's mind. In Persians, the great tragedian Aeschylus looks back on the wars he fought and questions what makes a civilization great. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan walks listeners through the play, the genius of tragedy, and the Western tradition of honoring your enemies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Was C.S. Lewis the 20th century’s greatest thinker? Lewis was a war veteran, the unofficial pastor of the West in its darkest hour, and a supremely gifted philosopher with a masterfully light touch. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan takes the audience through a close look at Lewis’s The Abolition of Man to prove that those who dismiss Lewis as “just the Narnia guy” are just plain wrong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's more than sex. In fact, sex is just the beginning. Plato's Symposium is the hilarious, weird, and profound story of one magical night on which the erotic secrets of the universe were unveiled. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan does a deep dive into the world of Socrates and the mysteries of love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the Battle of Actium, the fabled lovers Antony and Cleopatra made a doomed last stand against Julius Caesar's heir, Octavian. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan and Cornell historian Barry Strauss talk through the battle that ended the Roman republic, and the sex, treachery, and feuding that transformed the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Prophecy of Isaiah is so much more than the excerpts you hear at Christmas. It's a story of war and politics, of defiance in the face of utter despair, and of faith when everything you believed in—even the city of God—comes crumbling to the ground. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan tells the story of this enigmatic genius from the 8th century BC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It all starts with Homer: the man, the myth, the musician. In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan walks through the glorious tale of valor, tragedy, and heroism known as the Iliad, reading aloud from the rhythms of the original Greek and recounting this ancient tale of the war for the most beautiful woman in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is reading Shakespeare racist? Is it too exclusive to study Homer? On Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan has only one thing to say about identity politics: it's crap. Why not leave it in the garbage where it belongs? Young Heretics does just that, instead focusing on the enormous wealth of wisdom that is found in Western culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices