ACFmovie podcast

Titus & Mark Henrie talk about Peter Lawler--his work as the ISI to teach political philosophy to young conservative academic elites, his life & his family, his heritage as a Catholic, & finally his work in appreciation of Whit Stillman.

Titus & Yuval Levin talk about Peter Lawler--their work together on the President's Council on Bioethics, Peter's understanding of modern & American dignity, & the necessity for institutions, moderation, & a realistic estimation of our abilities & the challenges we face.

Titus & Flagg Taylor talk about the new Agnieszka Holland movie about Stalin's starvation of the Ukrainians, the Holodomor, & the liberal conspiracy to conceal the truth, orchestrated by Pulitzer winner Walter Duranty (the NYT never returned the prize).

Titus & Richard Reinsch talk about our late friend Peter Lawler, their work on Orestes Brownson's American Republic, & the broader them of the complexity of American life & politics, our need to restore our relational life after a long series of excesses in the name of individualism, & the move to a new conservative majority.

Titus & Ben Sixsmith talk about the riots defacing national memorials in the UK, the weakness & vacillation of authorities that were eagerly harassing law-abiding citizens until the day before yesterday, but now find themselves suddenly meek & accommodating, & the disappointment of Boris Johnson as a PM. After all, Macron has been far more serious...

Titus & Pat Deneen talk about Peter Lawler, the late professor of political philosophy & public intellectual, the postmodern conservative that gave us our series name. Post-modern conservatism is an attempt to correct the excesses of modernity by retrieving our pre-modern inheritance.

Titus & John Wilson & Jody Bottum talk about Stray Dog, Kurosawa's movie about the honor of the police facing Japan's catastrophic war & need for refounding. In a new world of democracy & individual rights, the police bear witness to the misery & confusion of an entire generation of young Japanese survivors whose future was stolen.

Titus & Justin Lee talk about Dark City, the Alex Proyas sci-fi neo-noir cult hit--we talk tragedy & science, Plato's cave, soul & the divine spark in men, reanimated corpses & behavioral psychology...

Titus & Zena Hitz talk about Sullivan's Travels, Preston Sturges's great comedy about the place of comedy & storytelling in America, the difficulties with bleeding heart liberalism, & the importance of dignity, community, & Christianity.

Titus & Chris Wolfe talk about Kurosawa's first story confronting Enlightenment & Japan's past--a doctor in a slum in post-war Japan tries to save a beautiful young yakuza from death by TB, only to be caught up in the intrigues of organized crime. Everything from equality for women to the place of science in the regime to the other elements of the influence of America is packed into this story.

Titus & Michael Kochin discuss his new book, An Independent Empire, on the American founding--empire means domination of land and people and American politicians from the beginning were decided on dominating the vast continent, in face of hostile Indian tribes and European powers.

Titus & Chris Arnade discuss front row & back row America, the new educational elite & the people they have forsaken--the way community is built around McDonald's--the difficulty of pointing out the importance of dignity & the indignity of the federal bureaucracy, the failures of liberal institutionalism & the need to help out the worst off among us.

Titus & Jody Bottum & John Wilson discuss The Bad Sleep Well, Kurosawa's harshest criticism of the corruption of modern Japan, which leads to the destruction of the noble & the weak alike. The combination of private traditionalism & public deference to superiors creates not patriarchy, but mere oligarchy.

Titus & Scott Beauchamp discuss the view of America from the military--what knowledge of honor, ritual, traditions, hierarchy, & community adds to understanding what's missing in our culture, in our lives, & even in the way we think about our longings. To begin with, we've replaced honor with celebrity.

Titus & Tanner Greer discuss the future of conservatism, the conflicting ideas about what will replace the previous Republican consensus, & the varieties of Very Online ideologies & cults counter-attacking elite liberalism's woke theology. While older conservatives look back in shock at the 2016 elections, younger conservatives look forward in fear of the unfolding Great Awokening that started aro...

Titus & Pete Spiliakos talk about politics in the age of the plague--what's so insane about supply-side economics, what it means to think politically & prudentially, what the common good requires, & how to understand our weaknesses & what we may do to deal with them.

Titus & Oliver Traldi talk about Progress, liberalism, the IDW, the transformation of the internet, generational politics, & also Aristotle's treatise on the soul!

Titus & Telly Davidson talk about Paddy Chayefsky's Network, a satire of TV's effect on America, turning everything from news to terrorism into fantasies on screen. Liberalism's Enlightenment dreams turn into madness & fear for America replaces mid-century confidence.

Titus & Rod Dreher talk about traditional conservatism & Christianity under attack by the Pink Police State--kink not only approved, but mandated by power. We talk about his books Crunchy Cons, The Benedict Option, & the upcoming Live Not By Lies, about what we learn from Christians who survived totalitarian persecution, & what faith may do for communities in the near future.

Titus & Jody Bottum & John Wilson discuss Kurosawa's view of modern nihilism in his last modern movie--High & Low, or Paradise & Inferno, a movie about the class differences in post-War Japan, where envy, resentment, & a Dostoevskian crime lead to the downfall of a titan of industry.

Titus & Peter Paik discuss this year's Best Picture Oscar winner, Bong Joon-ho's Parasite, a character study set among the conemporary Korean middle class, where the desire to avoid suffering & secure comfort leads to tragedy.

Titus & Chris Wolfe talk about our generation's Christmas movie--Die Hard, a story of an unlikely redeemer come in the thick of winter. Seriously, we're talking about the redemption of Sgt. Al Powell, the importance of his friendship with John McClane, & the redemption of America, faced with an elitist temptation.

Titus & Henry Olsen discuss the angry democracy of our times--very high turnout in elections, parties & politicians that cannot get a hold of their electorates, much less represent them, increasing distrust in elections that seem to not even lead to the formation of stable governments, much less sound policy, & the possible path, by way of crisis, to a new majority coalition, & tranquility.

Titus & Scott Beauchamp discuss his new book on his war experience, on becoming a man & a writer, & on what the military taught him about what's wrong with society in an age of individualism & consumership. We talk about community & honor, about the need to make sense of uncertain times & to know on what to rely, as well as the difficulties with talking seriously about our predicament in the first...

Titus & Oliver Traldi talk about the origins of the Intellectual Dark Web--online culture & wokeness in academia clashing to produce a backlash of academics calling bullishit on Progressive pieties, tactics, & habits. We talk about the attempt to create a new etiquette & ideology for a class that defines itself by TED talks intellectualism--& the reaction of the dark parts of the internet that res...