The Aaron Renn Show

David and Jason Benham, entrepreneurs and investors, join to discuss their book Expert Ownership - and their own journey to business success after being cancelled by HGTV. Buy Expert Ownership: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1736807005/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=theurban-20

Creating community and social capital is a frequent topic of conversation in our world, one in which we sense the decline of our existing community building structures. This podcast provides practical examples that you as an individual can use to start building community where you live. It's focused around various forms of institutionalized hospitality, ranging from Sunday night dinners to po...

Generation X has been something of a lost generation. Sandwiched between the much larger Baby Boomer and Millennial generations, Generation X has often been overlooked. It has also preferred standing aloof, ironically critiquing society rather than seeking to take the reins and reshape it. Today, as American struggles under aging Boomer leadership, and Millennials and Gen Z get absorbed into techn...

Julius Krein is the editor of American Affairs magazine, a reformist conservative policy journal, joins me to discuss why the Republican Party as currently constituted can't succeed, what's untrue in conservative dogma, and what conservatives should do next to be more successful and to genuinely help the country. American Affairs Journal: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/ Julius Krein&...

Demographer and Lutheran Lyman Stone joins us to discuss Lutheranism in America. What are the distinctives of Lutheranism? How did Lutheranism get established in the United States? What are the unique features of how it is organized? Why is the profile of American Lutheranism lower than some smaller denominations like Presbyterianism? Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Since listeners expressed an interest in hearing about this, I revisit the sexual harassment and abuse accusations made against against former Willow Creek pastor Bill Hybels. In contrast to those many against many others, which were heavily substantiated, very little evidence was publicly presented demonstrating that the accusations were true. This is not to say that Hybels is innocent, merely th...

Leading cultural analyst and policy maven Joel Kotkin will join me to discuss his book The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, as well as the state of California vs. Texas and more. Kotkin will help provide a map to understand the today's geopolitical and economic realities in America. Buy Joel Kotkin's The Coming of Neofeudalism: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1641770945/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl...

Many Republicans love to criticize the "Chamber of Commerce." But what is the chamber of commerce? In this podcast I answer that question, as well as describing the different types of chambers of commerce (there are many of them).  I examine what they do, their basic political orientations, and why they will always oppose social conservative ideas. Article Referenced: Indiana under Repub...

Conservatives haven't tended to oppose things.  As William F. Buckley famously put it, to "stand athwart history yelling Stop!" But purely oppositional or defensive approached tend to get steamrolled in the long term.  You can't be something with nothing. You can't be someone else's proposal, even a bad proposal, to fix a real problem with no proposal. This is seen mo...

So many arguments today de facto reduce the definition of societal flourishing to some economic definition such as GDP growth, per capita GDP, or per capita income. While economic growth is important, there are other dimensions of life that matter to most people. For example: how socially intact a community is (drugs, crime, out of wedlock birth rates, etc), the political functioning of the countr...

A listener asked how people who don't live on homestead farms can start creating a productive household. I share some thoughts about how people who live in urban environments can do that, primarily through in-sourcing things we presently pay people to do. And also through hospitality.

Returning to the theme of passing on our patrimony, I discuss the great patriotic and folks song of America, using Columbia the Gem of the Ocean as an example. Contrary to popular belief, the celebration of Christopher Columbus in America did not originate with Italian-Americans in the early 20th century. Instead, Columbus has a very long history of association with the United States. In fact, Col...

Sean Clifford is the CEO of Canopy, a company that produces software for blocking pornography on phones and other devices. We'll discuss the problem of porn today, how today's porn differs from yesterday's, how Canopy works to block porn, and how we can create a broader cultural pushback against pornography. Visit Canopy's Web Site at: https://canopy.us/ TGC: The Most Effective...

Everybody today likes to complain about the failures of elites. There's a lot to complain about. But are we willing to be elites ourselves? Are we willing to step into elite roles and change things for the better? We have to be the elite we want to see in the world if we want better leadership in today's world. Become a Subscriber (limited time only $5/month through Dec 2021) or Member (...

Occupations are regularly created and destroyed in modern industrial America. But Rory Groves went back to the jobs that existed at the founding of the country to see which ones have stood the test of time for over 200 years, compiling them into his book Durable Trades: Family-Centered Economies That Have Stood the Test of Time . From farmer to midwife to coachman to brewer, Rory and I talk about...

Tell people you are starting  a church to reach the homeless, a new immigrant ethnic group in town, a neighborhood, etc. and you'll be praised. But people would look at you sideways if you said you wanted to start a church to reach the elite. This episode discusses the need for more Protestant elite formation, why existing elites who are still theologically orthodox continue to stay with main...

As we approach the US Thanksgiving holiday, I again remind people not to give into despair, to apocalyptic thinking, etc.  Things are in some ways far worse than people think in the US, but there's more room for hope than people believe.  Deliberately going through all that we have to be thankful for is a good way to avoid giving into apocalyptic thinking and stay hopeful. Also: Indiana under...

Michael Foster and Dominic "Bnonn" Tennant join me to discuss their web project and forthcoming book It's Good to Be a Man . We discuss: How they got interested in men's issues How they met and launched It's Good to Be a Man The "war of the patriarchies" The relationship of Fatherhood to manhood Gravitas Fraternity Mission The manosphere  and pagan masculinity mo...

Religion is in decline in America, but there's an exception: the Mormon church. Mormonism is growing, has strong family formation dynamics, healthy communities, good aesthetics, and strong finances.  One factor in Mormon outperformance is the way Mormons choose elites. Rather than relying on a self-selected professional leadership pool, Mormons screen for, identify, develop, and promote peopl...

John Moody is Kentucky a homesteader with an M.Div. who founded an organic food buying club in Louisville. He joins the show to talk about equipping your family for the 21st century world through creating a fertile and productive household by acquiring skills, growing food, etc.

Using the recent celebrations of Reformation Day and All Saints Day, I discuss why the church (especially the Protestant evangelical church) needs to be more attuned to its history and cultural patrimony.  This includes things like the great English language hymns, but also simply a greater awareness of the incredible legacy of faithfulness and sacrifice that previous generations made to bring us...

There's been a recent flurry of articles and podcasts discussing the failure of evangelical elites, whether they have in fact failed, wondering who these so-called elites are, disclaiming that people are elites, etc. This week I look at the question of who the evangelical elite are, and whether or not they are doing a good job. I start by reprising the elite theory of E. Digby Baltzell, and a...

There's a low grade moral panic about the state of Generation Z, fueled by bizarre Tik Tok videos, stories of teen girls suffering depression from not getting enough likes on Instagram, etc. But moral panics over the degeneracy of the youth are recurring features of our society. The hippies, the goths, etc. surely inspired similar reactions.  This is not to say that all is well with Generatio...

Women initiate the vast majority of divorces. It used to be that women felt the need to give a justification for divorcing their husbands. For example, they might say that he was emotionally abusive or neglectful. But today they increasingly no longer feel compelled to do that. Recent articles in the New York Times from Lara Bazelon and Vogue about the British singer Adele feature women proudly st...

In my previous podcast series on American conservatism, I observed that they have a pattern of jumping into the breach to try to defend their opponents from the consequences of those opponents' own ideology. For example, they defended the school administrators against the student radicals of the 60s when the administrators themselves were liberals implacable hostile to conservatism. In fact,...