In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Fr. J. Augustine Wetta about his book Humility Rules: Saint Benedict's Twelve-Step Guide to Genuine Self-Esteem. The world teaches us to assert ourselves, to follow our passions, to speak up, talk back, “get yours,” don’t let anyone stand in your way. But it doesn’t really work. As Tyler Durden proclaims in Fight Club: “We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars...
Mar 27, 2025•1 hr
In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Catherine Pakaluk about her book Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth Over the last 200 years, we have seen a decline in birth rates in the United States and abroad, especially in Western countries. Most European countries are no longer at replacement rates and face serious population decline. Reuters reported that Japan’s population will decline by a staggering 30% in the next fifty years. In the United State...
Jul 25, 2024•2 hr 26 min
Photo Credit: Tyler Follon - Wingman Visuals In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast, I speak with Professor William Easterly of New York University about his work in development economics, and the problems of technocracy and social engineering of the poor. Easterly worked at the World Bank from 1985-2001 and began to be troubled by a number of things, including how aid is given without much concern about how it is distributed and managed thus subsidizing bad governance and harming the ...
Apr 25, 2024•1 hr 34 min
This episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast is a talk I gave at AmPhil’s Center for Civil Society conference in November, 2023 on the “Rise of the Nones.” According to Pew Research, those who declare no religious affiliation - None - are now the largest religious category in the United States. In this talk I address several overarching reasons for the decline of Christianity and address how five dominant visions of the human person including person as a cog or scourge, transhumanism & tran...
Feb 26, 2024•43 min
In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Hungarian Ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta, Ambassador Eduard Habsburg, about his book The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times . We discuss a number of themes including some history of the Habsburg Dynasty, the life and death of Blessed Charles of Austria, the last Austro-Hungarian emperor, including the remarkable tradition of the funeral for Habsburg emperors. We also discuss themes of marriage, ...
Feb 14, 2024•1 hr 1 min
In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Seth Kaplan about his book Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society One Zip Code at a Time . Seth has spent his career working in fragile states around the world — countries that are unstable and prone to violence, war, and political problems. About 10 years ago Seth was increasingly asked if the US was becoming fragile. As he turned his attention to studying the United States, he concluded was that while the US is not fragil...
Feb 01, 2024•1 hr 18 min
In this episode I speak with Fr. Cajetan Cuddy O.P. about Thomistic Psychology: A Philosophic Analysis of the Nature of Man, by Fr. Robert Edward Brennan, O.P., edited and with an introduction by Fr. Cuddy. Aristotle wrote that “to attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.” We often read psychology because we want to understand ourselves and our behavior- and the behavior of others. While we don’t normally think of St. Thomas Aquinas as a psych...
Aug 10, 2023•1 hr 24 min
In this episode I speak with Professor Vigen Gurioan about the revised and expanded edition of his book Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Imagination . We discuss the power of stories, how they help can us develop self-knowledge, and how fairy tales and classic stories are essential for education and moral formation for children — and for adults. Fairy tales and classic stories can impress upon us profound philosophical and often theological insights about life an...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 8 min
In this episode I speak with heart surgeon, Dr. Philip Ovadia MD, about metabolic health, diet, science, cholesterol, insulin resistance, the US government food pyramid, Ancel Keys and the cholesterol - saturated fat -heart disease hypothesis. We discuss medical education, health insurance, scientism, and some of the obstacles doctors and scientists face with “group think.” Dr Ovadia tells his story of how lost 100 pounds changed everything he learned about fat and food. He explains that while h...
Feb 16, 2023•1 hr 37 min
In this episode I speak with Titus Techera about Dune, Bladerunner, science fiction, dystopian film, technocratic view of humanity, and the formative power of science fiction on the imagination. We discuss contemporary technological society, social breakdown, loneliness, men and women and decline in marriage, technology and trans-humanism/ transgenderism, and the predictive power of dystopian film. We talk about what it means to be human and the relationship between digital technology and humani...
Feb 01, 2023•2 hr 2 min
Pope Benedict XVI / Joseph Ratzinger passed away on December 31 at the age of 95 years old. His writing and teaching have been a major influence on my thinking. So in honor of his memory and gratitude for his example, this episode is a talk I gave on Pope Benedict XVI on Five Crises of Culture and the Intellectual sources of Secularism and the New Evangelization. I go through five intellectual themes/crises that Benedict identifies in the West “where the roots of Christianity are deep but who ha...
Jan 06, 2023•57 min
In this episode I speak with Flagg Taylor about the life and writing of Vaclav Benda, and his idea of the parallel polis, decentralization, and creating space in society for culture, the family, charity, education, and human flourishing. Though he was writing under communist regimes, Benda’s writings are very relevant today in light democratic pressures to conformity, de-platforming, and especially as a new ontology of the person is being written into law — and dignity is used as weapon against ...
Dec 22, 2022•1 hr 44 min
In this episode I speak with Jonathan Bi about the ideas of Rene Girard, social pressure, authentic and false desires, victims and scapegoats, persecution, and Girardian theories on imitation and violence. We also discuss how Girard’s work sheds light on woke capitalism, right and left totalitarianism, Max Scheler, Hannah Arendt, Alexis de Tocqueville, and more. We discuss many themes including: Christianity and Girard’s theory and the secularization and falsification of Christian values such as...
Dec 16, 2022•1 hr 59 min
In this episode I speak with Rachel Ferguson about her book Black Liberation Through the Marketplace: Hope, Heartbreak, and the Promise of America, co-authored with Marcus Witcher. The book address issues of social justice, exclusion, opportunity, race and discrimination, classical liberalism, and the economic history of African Americans since the civil war. Themes we discuss include Racism and exclusion from justice, property, and rule of law Classical Liberalism Property Rights Freedom of Con...
Oct 28, 2022•1 hr 24 min
peak with Bill Rivers about this novel, Last Summer Boys. The novel is about a rural Pennsylvania family and the adventures of three boys and a cousin and set in the tumultuous summer of 1968 with the Vietnam war, the assignations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. “Summer 1968. When thirteen-year-old Jack Elliot overhears the barbershop men grousing, he devises a secret plan to keep his oldest brother, Pete, from the draft. If famous boys don’t go to war, he’ll make his brother their sma...
Oct 20, 2022•1 hr 11 min
In this episode I speak with two psychologists, Paul McLaughlin PsyD and Mark R. McMinn PhD, about their book A Time for Wisdom. The provide a unique perspective by examining wisdom from a psychological viewpoint. They divide it into 4 categories, both to explain and provide a guide to develop wisdom in our lives. Knowledge Factual Knowledge,Know-How, self-knowledge and what they call “Enriched Knowledge,” the core of wisdom. Detachment Not only from material things, but from ideas and ideology....
Sep 21, 2022•2 hr
In this episode of The Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Deion Kathawa about his essays at Public Discourse Technology and Dignity. We discuss a number of topics including digital technology social media biotech genetic engineering CRISPR post and trans-humanism transgenderism technology and power how tech effects the rich and the poor and middle class Kathawa argues that the new digital and biotechnology threaten our human in explicit and implicit ways from distraction to liquidation to de...
Aug 19, 2022•1 hr 46 min
In this episode I speak with Jeffrey Bloom and Rabbi Jeremy Kagan about the book Spinoza, Strauss, and Sinai: Orthodox Judaism and Modern Questions of Faith published by Kodesh Press . The book is a collection of essays edited by Jeffrey Bloom, Alec Goldstein , and Gil Student . Jeffrey Bloom grew up secular, Jewish family and the idea of actually practicing Orthodox Judaism was outside of the realm of possibility. He studied at University of Chicago where he took a class with Professor Leon Kas...
Jul 19, 2022•1 hr 45 min
In this episode, I speak with Jeremy Tate, the founder of the Classic Learning Test about school testing, curriculum, and the classical versus industrial models of education. Jeremy argues that the current testing regime of the SAT and ACT have a tremendous influence on the curriculum taught in public and private schools. They promote a utilitarian vision of learning and drive students away from the classical Western tradition and serious reflection on what makes a good life. In response, Jeremy...
Jul 01, 2022•1 hr 12 min
In this episode, I speak with Michael Ward about his book, After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis The Abolition of Man. I think The Abolition of Man is of the most important books in the twentieth century. It addresses important issues that are relevant today — from what it means to be human, reason, passion, and the emotions, to how to think about technology, power, and beauty. It’s a short book but can be a bit difficult to understand at times, and Michael Ward does a great service by going thr...
Jun 07, 2022•1 hr 10 min
In the episode I speak with Mary Eberstadt about her latest book Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics. She argues that the revolutionary changes to family structure across the western world: fatherlessness, divorce, abortion, single parent homes, the shrinking of the family –have caused deep hurt in people and that many of the social problems we face today are manifestations of a “primal scream” for belonging. Eberstadt explains that the breakdown of the family has...
May 14, 2022•1 hr 30 min
What is Justice? What do we owe to each other? The theme of justice is core issue of all human societies and pervades myth and philosophy. Plato’s Republic and Gorgias are reflections on justice and the right ordering of the soul and society. So is Aristotle’s Politics. The Hebrew Bible, the Tao Te Ching, the Analects of Confucius, the writings of Buddhism, and the Stoics all contain reflections on justice. C.S. Lewis notes in his appendix to the Abolition of Man that in every land and every cul...
Apr 13, 2022•1 hr 55 min
In the episode, I speak with Professor Margarita Mooney about her time in Nicaragua and how these experiences shaped her scholarly work and teaching at the intersection of sociology and philosophy. Margarita tells a story of her time in Nicaragua and how a weekend trip to a political rally in a small community where she almost was kidnapped challenged her assumptions about elite education in the United States. Margarita explains how her engagement with poor women farmers and micro-entrepreneurs ...
Mar 23, 2022•1 hr 6 min
In this episode, I speak with James Poulos about his book, Human, Forever: The Digital Politics of Spiritual War . We discuss a wide variety of themes including technology, human memory, what it means to be an embodied person. James argues that instead of worrying about an impending crisis, we need to realize that it has already happened — Digital entities have taken over. We need to recognize this, figure out what has happened, and orient our senses and sensibilities around what technology does...
Mar 11, 2022•55 min
In this episode, I speak with Professor Carter Snead about his book, What it Means to be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics . We discuss how the dominant view of the human person forgets the body and ignores our social nature, and how this plays out in law which further shapes our moral lives and cultural attitudes. Snead argues that contemporary law in bioethics around issues like abortion, euthanasia, and IVF is actually applied philosophy of the person that favors the strong ove...
Sep 01, 2021•1 hr 53 min
In this episode, I speak with Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson about her writing and research on literature and totalitarianism. We discuss how both violence and entertainment and distraction are used a tools of state control. We discuss Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, some of the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Julia Alvarez's novel, In the Time of Butterflies, about life under the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. We also discuss Victor Frankl, Josef Pieper, Michael O'Bri...
Aug 23, 2021•1 hr 7 min
What is education for? In the episode, I speak with Heidi White about classical education and human flourishing. We discuss why classical education is important to pass down a cultural memory and why reading good literature and classic texts matters on multiple levels. We discuss the difference between a modern, contemporary education and a classical vision of education, the relationship between classical education and religious education, and how STEM and classical education can relate together...
Aug 04, 2021•1 hr 31 min
In this episode, I speak with Elizabeth Corey about life beyond politics, friendship, learning, and the work of Michael Oakeshott. We discuss a wide range of issues, including rationalism and politics, the value of the reading of classic texts, and Oakeshott's idea of different modes of engaging with the world: the practical, scientific, historical, and poetic. We discuss Eric Voegelin, Russell Kirk, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Rod Dreher, what it means to be a conservative, and some recent development...
Jul 21, 2021•1 hr 45 min
In this episode, I speak with James Madden about his book, "Mind, Matter, and Nature", about philosophy of mind, and what it means to be an embodied and an embedded person. We discuss how the loss of a sense of ourselves as embodied and embedded leads to a loss of contact with the world and ultimately to nihilism. We discuss competing visions of the person—materialism, dualism and Aristotle's and St. Thomas Aquinas' idea of Hylomorphism—a union of form and matter—and what it means for a person t...
Jul 14, 2021•1 hr 39 min
In this episode, I speak with Titus Techera and Flagg Taylor about several films that address communism and the effects of tyranny and deceit on the human soul. We discuss themes of courage, freedom, privacy, shame, the purpose and role of art, and how we can become comprised over time by assenting to falsehood. We discuss how these films portray the challenges for regular people and how the experience of living under communism has lessons for us today. We also discuss the question of art and it...
Mar 29, 2021•2 hr 15 min
