Young Heretics

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...

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....

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 priv...

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 F...

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...

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://y...

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 Loca...

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...

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 th...

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 e...

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,...

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 ri...

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 ci...

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 c...

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 Languag...

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 mon...

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 receiv...

"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 Br...

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. M...

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...

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. H...

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 fa...

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 polit...