Young Heretics

Do you want to see the world as it is, or as it ought to be? This difficult question is at the heart of the millennia-old debate over morality and art. Pulling back the camera to ask how we got to our current dysfunction, Spencer moves from Homer and Isaiah to Nabokov and Matthew Arnold, looking for answers to the questions that are currently wracking the culture. The digital age has shattered a l...

What does it mean to be a man in a fallen world and a degraded age? Crime novelist and professional person-I-have-never-heard-of Andrew Klavan joins the show to discuss his brilliant new novel The House of Love and Death . We discuss Klavan The Elder's literary inspirations, thoughts on chivalry, and experience writing a recurring character almost against his will. Plus: why university administrat...

"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all." So wrote Oscar Wilde in his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray , defending himself against charges of corruption in his art. But was he right? His own art, no less than his own sad and morally compromised private life, suggest otherwise. Spencer discusses the history of "art for art's...

Digital alienation, material politics, and the re-enchantment of the world: this week, reactionary feminist Mary Harrington joins Spencer to discuss the disorenting transformations wrought upon human societies and psyches by the advent of digital technology. The discussion ranges from Mary's realization that woke politics was destroying her life, to the war between the sexes, to the return of some...

At the turning of the year, as fall passes into winter, the world hovers for an instant between past and future in the "otherworld," the space between life and death. And that is where we meet the Aes Sidhe, fearsome people of the hollow hills, who roam the earth each year in what has become Halloween. In this holiday special, Spencer dives into the haunted history of the enchanted world. Sign up...

Do you even pray, bro? Teresa Mull is the assistant editor of The Spectator World . Her book,  Woke-Proof Your Life, offers practical and concrete suggestions for opponents of the woke revolution to put their money where their mouths are. Spencer talks with Teresa about how families and single people alike can suit their actions to their words, and their words to their actions. Plus: some reflecti...

Divine love: the most natural, and the least natural, thing in the universe. In this conclusion to his series on virtues, Spencer walks through the history of Christian love from its earliest origins in the church to its extremes in the most exalted realms of human life. We have arrived at last at the virtue that suffuses all others and defines their objective. It's been quite the journey. Sign up...

What is going on with men? For that matter, what is going on with women? The war between the sexes has entered a new phase, as whatever wave of feminism we're currently surfing produces its own backlash. Helen Roy--mother, writer, and podcaster--joins Spencer to discuss how men and women alike can get past the narrative mill and come together again. Listen to Helen's podcast,  Girlboss, Interrupte...

It's been years since the days when we Young Heretics discussed Plato's  Symposium . But now we've come back around a second time to that fundamental question: what is love? (Baby, don't hurt me.) This time, Spencer takes a thousand-year look at the question from the Hebrew angle while--GASP--actually saying something less than favorable about C.S. Lewis. As the series on virtue draws toward its c...

A revival in classical education is sweeping the nation. But where are we going to get good classical educators? In this interview, Josh Herring of Thales College discusses how he and his colleagues are equipping teachers to rise to that noble calling. From the humanities to the natural sciences, we need leaders who can do more than just pass on information. Josh and Spencer discusses who will sha...

If faith is the substance of things hoped for, what is hope? Reaching back into Jewish history and the Hebrew Bible, Spencer explains the gritty determination that saves us from despair in the valley of the shadow of death. As war rages in modern Israel after a savage terrorist attack by Hamas, it becomes as urgent as it's ever been to know where hope can reside securely in a darkened world. Sign...

What does it look like when people who don't hate humanity build technology that doesn't suck? Emmet Penney is one of the most original thinkers when it comes to industry, energy, and the long history of human stewardship on earth. We discuss his departure from the left wing of the environmental movement, his search for a new aesthetics of nuclear energy, and the crisis of faith in the technologic...

A voice comes down from heaven--or was it thunder? Your answer will depend on what you believe, and what you beleive will change the way you see. In this episode, Spencer explores the twisted paradox of faith, and the Christian' Church's history of wrestling with it. From Heraclitus to Martin Luther, the question is who can possibly give sight to the blind. Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://re...

Today's guest is someone whose life has been transformed by classical literature. Erik Rostad has reorganized his life around reading, with remarkable effects. We discuss how he was called to seek truth and beauty in the canon, which books have shaped him most deeply, and how he manages to read, run a business, and take care of his family all at once. If you're looking for strategies to get you st...

"Man of the worldly mind, do you believe in me or not?" That's what Jacob Marley's ghost asks Ebenezer Scrooge in  A Christmas Carol . In this episode, Spencer points out that  everyone  believes in something they can't see--the question is, what? So begins the first episode on faith in our tour through the three theological virtues. Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.c...

Everyone wants to be happy--so why are so many people miserable? That's the simple question that the early Christian bishops posed to the canonical authors of the Greco-Roman world. It's also the question that kicks off Spencer's new series on the "theological virtues," or the Christian contribution to the classical philosophy of ethics. Using the basic experiences of everyday life, Spencer makes...

Today on Young Heretics, a minor topic: the origins of the universe. Very casual. New details and images from the James Webb Space Telescope have called into question the standard model of cosmology in Physics, leading Spencer into a series of reflections on the deeper histories of thought and of the universe (not so distinct as you might initially imagine). Plus, a cosmic mailbag question: what w...

In the interval between finishing the cardinal virtues and starting on the Christian virtues, Spencer takes some listener questions in a special Office Hours episode of Young Heretics. Topics include: Getting kids interested in the classics, differences between Judaism and Christianity, Body Count Discourse, and naked women doing political protests. Plus: a close read of  The 6th Sense . Sign up f...

There's a movement afoot--and its coming from the ground up. All around the internet and the real world, there's a spirit moving people to reconsider the nature and purpose of consciousness in creation. Drew Weatherhead is one of those people--a writer and pocaster red-pilled by COVID and moved to explore some of the themes that have also been of urgent importance to Young Heretics. We discuss his...

From the Ballad of Ye and the Kardashians to the Hatfields and the McCoys, there are a million ways to get justice wrong. Straight is the road and narrow is the gate: in this final installment of the cardinal virtues series, Spencer discusses justice at the macro level, not as a collection of prohibitions but as a law of love. Sign up for my mailing list: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/ Chec...

Why isn't every book on philosophy like this one? Alex Priou, classicist and co-host of the New Thinkery podcast, has written an exploration of Plato's  Symposium that is both readable and profound. It's a text we've talked a fair bit about on Young Heretics, and Alex has a great sense of what it can reveal to a modern reader. We discuss the true meaning of love, the nature and limitations of scie...

We hear the word "justice" and immediately think "punishment." But justice in the truest sense isn't only a set of rules: it's also a virtue. From Plato to Dante by way of Stephen Sondheim, Spencer explains the last of the four cardinal virtues as both a source and a destination of love. Plus: an extended mailbag question about dealing with gender dysphoria. Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://r...

For this week's interview, Spencer is joined by Faith Moore, relation, to discuss her upcoming novel  Christmas Karol . The two siblings discuss the power of storytelling to change hearts, how to truly recognize the value of motherhood, and why Charles Dickens's tale of Christmas has become such an enduring classic. Plus: stories about how annoying it was to grow up with Spencer. Pre-order faith's...

How do you decide whether to start a side hustle? Who to vote for in 2024? When to pop the question? These moment-to-moment decisions, large and small, are the stuff character is made out of. Spencer discusses decision-making tactics in the modern and the ancient world, ranging from Brexit and the OODA loop to Aristotle and the virtue of practical wisdom. Mailing list and mailbag signup: https://r...

How does a wandering mind find its way to the classics? How do you cultivate renewal in a world of ruin? Spencer interviews Shane Sorensen, author of Renaissance Wisdom , about his self-instructed entry into the great conversation, and the pursuit of eternal virtues at the end of an age. Much like Petrarch and the leaders of the Renaissance, we find ourselves today on the cusp of something altoget...