More Questions, More Answers (Mailbag pt. 2)
Added 2022-12-07 16:31:37 +0000 UTCMatt and Sam pick up where they left off in their recent mailbag episode and keep answering listener questions. Topics include: KYE merchandise, the existence of Hell, Francis Fukuyama, Mormonism, gun violence, and more.
Sources:
David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved (Yale University Press, 2019)
John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard University Press, 2012)
Francis Fukuyama, "Still the End of History," Atlantic, October 17, 2022
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (Free Press, 1992)
W.H. Auden, "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (1940)
Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976)
Sohrab Ahmari, "Urban Jeremiah: Mike Davis, 1946-2022," Compact, October 26, 2022
Comments
Late to post on this but I was re-listening to this episode recently, as I do with all the KYE podcasts. As always I get as much if not more out of re-listening because I inevitability miss a lot the first time through. This was especially true about the Fukuyama segment of this mailbag episode. I appreciate and agreed with your analysis, particularly about what "End of History" is actually referring to. I do remember reading his original book Back in the Day, when I came across his assertion that since liberal democracy "won" the Cold War, that it is now de facto the "final form of human government." As an historian by training and inclination, this stopped me dead in my tracks. Though packaged by Fukuyama as a new development, this trope has been used and reused continuously over time by virtually every currently dominant social-political-economic system to justify/explain it's primacy (and supremacy) and dismiss/discourage any challengers. (Usually cast in terms of divine right or ordination of course.) For example, the absolute monarchies of 16-18th century Europe, the British Empire, the American Slavocracy of the Ante-Bellum South, Puritan founding of a "City on a Hill" on "empty" land cleared for them by God, etc. With such a deeply flawed premise guiding Fukuyama's analysis, I found it impossible to engage with or even finish the book. Fortunately, Matt and Sam did the hard work and educated me on the basics of Fukuyama's analysis. Thanks guys! BTW, I too vote for more periodic Mailbag episodes as well.
Eric Ackermann
2023-02-19 15:58:50 +0000 UTCLove the mailbags and also want an "It's symptomatic" shirt!
Melissa Scroggs
2023-01-01 23:32:14 +0000 UTCJust here to cast another vote for more frequent mailbag episodes!
Christy Kilgore
2022-12-16 20:26:28 +0000 UTCI want a shirt with Reagan photoshopped into lil nas x style cowboy getup.
natesicles
2022-12-16 15:11:38 +0000 UTCYour question isn't muddled, David! At least in my view. There is a tension there, but I think the Claremont types have been moving away from Pure Jaffa-ism, or trying to reinterpret him. (Matt)
Know Your Enemy
2022-12-13 23:49:47 +0000 UTC“Tax the hell out of ammo” - Chris Rock was way ahead of you Matt lol. https://youtu.be/VZrFVtmRXrw
Mark K
2022-12-12 03:38:16 +0000 UTCThe book “Heaven and Hell” by Bart Ehrman documents how the Christian Hell evolved historically. In spite of what most people think, it was not always considered a place of eternal damnation. That was added later as it was needed by the Church. Worth a read for those interested.
Mark K
2022-12-11 23:40:37 +0000 UTCIt would be great to have more of these as your perspectives on current events are just as well thought out as when you’re discussing a 600 page book
Anthony Ostler
2022-12-11 19:25:07 +0000 UTCDang, wish I'd thought of this mailbag question earlier, but I'll insert it here if only to clarify the issue in my own mind. Would welcome a quick answer/opinion from anyone... On the one hand, NatCons (e.g. Yoram Hazony) seem to revile the Enlightenment, with its liberalism and natural rights. On the other hand, West Coast Straussians (esp. Jaffa) deified Lincoln as the redeemer of natural rights. Which is it? Or are NatCons even unified on this question? Or is my question muddled? Something I've been reading recently and puzzling about. Thanks.
David Foster
2022-12-11 17:11:18 +0000 UTCMerch: “KYE: for my sins”
JW
2022-12-11 16:28:39 +0000 UTCI love this podcast. As a former anarcho-mutualist now a civil libertarian and economic socialist, I love hearing the detail and intellectual attitude you guys put into the podcast and of course it feeds my want to understand the “enemy”.
Jordan Eubank
2022-12-10 17:55:52 +0000 UTCre: right-wing thinkers who have a good account of left-wing views: Joseph Schumpeter is the rare non-socialist economic thinker who seems to have a genuine understanding of Marx and incorporates this understanding into his worldview.
Jesse
2022-12-10 17:36:22 +0000 UTCre: Fukuyama, the main problem with his argument is that it frequently slips between description and prescription. Is it that liberal democracy is the unstoppable, natural end result of modern political economy, or that it is so fragile we need to defend it at all costs? Because it can't be both!
BeanCurd
2022-12-10 17:34:14 +0000 UTCLove the mailbag episodes! Do more of them!
dyke madigan
2022-12-09 18:55:54 +0000 UTCLove these episodes, please keep doing them PS maybe this is too topical but any chance of a soccer/international right-wing episode since the WC is on? Lots of interesting stuff there especially with the role of ultras in politics or like the bolsonaristas on the Brazilian team
Dan Seel
2022-12-09 18:27:23 +0000 UTCLove the mailbag episodes! Please do more!
Colin Gillis
2022-12-09 17:55:10 +0000 UTCLove these episodes. More please!
Clayton Cowles
2022-12-09 16:11:50 +0000 UTCAny chance of a “Based & Freudpilled” T shirt?
John Keating
2022-12-09 00:03:21 +0000 UTCMerch idea: A t-shirt featuring an image of an altogether respectable and bespectacled law prof contemplatively strumming a banjo to a small gathering of folk plump on funds from the shadow conservative welfare state. Upon close viewing one individual in the crowd shows just the slightest hint of a rather pregnant doubt that he’s in the right place.
Dónal Gill
2022-12-08 21:40:51 +0000 UTC“Libidinal Attraction” with a photo of Matt and Sam torn in half a la fatal attraction.
Kori Sparks
2022-12-08 20:37:45 +0000 UTCmormonism. How about the influence of his father, George Romney. Who is a very interesting republican. Civil rights.
giulietta karras
2022-12-08 12:23:49 +0000 UTCWhen you talk about Mitt Romney and the influence of
giulietta karras
2022-12-08 12:20:59 +0000 UTCMore mailbags! For merch, besides the obvious and iconic “What are they giving themselves permission to do?”, you should work in these KYE vocab words: -“ventriloquize” -“synechdoche” …Emblazoned t-shirts will up our nerd status!
Michael Murray
2022-12-08 09:12:46 +0000 UTC“I think there’s a way in which…”
Julian Frost
2022-12-08 05:18:12 +0000 UTCKYE mailbags are the only ones I listen to. More please whenever. I would like to hear Sam’s origin story fwiw
Thomas Donnelly
2022-12-08 03:37:07 +0000 UTCI think you need a tshirt of Sam saying “KYE: the apotheosis of podcasting”
Gavin Dluehosh
2022-12-08 02:20:02 +0000 UTCThanks for your thoughtful answer to my question re: gun control. Such a grounding, clarifying discussion, means more than you know
WER
2022-12-08 01:15:21 +0000 UTCLots to love about the mailbag episodes. Please keep doing them! Especially in this one, multiple topics with very insightful and interesting commentary. Thank you
Ryan Mills
2022-12-07 21:42:32 +0000 UTCLove these episodes!
Marshall Crenshaw
2022-12-07 21:36:45 +0000 UTCPlease, please do the Mormon episode!
Jeffrey Otter
2022-12-07 21:06:19 +0000 UTCI really want to make a trip out there eventually! (Matt)
Know Your Enemy
2022-12-07 20:24:17 +0000 UTCThanks for answering my question about doing a Mormon episode! The whole “don’t call us Mormons” thing is a global marketing strategy, so we don’t seem like weird outsiders (but we are…). I like “Mormon”; others (like the current prophet) will disagree To me, the photo is spooky partly because Goldwater “looks the part” - most of the people that speak at our conferences are austere old white guys. Anyways, nothing but love for your show
Derek Hart
2022-12-07 19:14:16 +0000 UTCI really enjoyed your discussion about heaven and hell and doubt about salvation. I grew up in a mainline Christian household, but ended up in the evangelical church for a time, and even though I don’t attend church anymore, those questions still linger. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Kyle
2022-12-07 19:00:16 +0000 UTCAnd of course also stop by Gilgal gardens to see Joseph Smith carved into a sphinx sculpture!
Derek Hart
2022-12-07 18:48:27 +0000 UTCYou guys have to see Temple Square in SLC. Worth the price of the trip alone to see the sculpture of Joseph Smith and John the Baptist, just chillin'.
Rick Perlstein
2022-12-07 18:33:54 +0000 UTC
