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 riot and America's founding history. -- Big Tech is cracking down on conservative voices, but you can ...
Feb 02, 2021•54 min
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 civil disobedience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jan 26, 2021•1 hr 1 min
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 choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 19, 2021•55 min
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 Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics Le...
Jan 12, 2021•1 hr 11 min
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 monarchy. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15...
Jan 05, 2021•57 min
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
Dec 29, 2020•52 min
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 receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics Learn more about your ad...
Dec 22, 2020•1 hr 4 min
"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 Brandon Van Dyck. -- Learn a language and have fun doing it. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and re...
Dec 15, 2020•51 min
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. Meet the Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlangua...
Dec 08, 2020•49 min
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 Ancient Language Institute and receive 15% off with the code HERETICS: https://ancientlanguage.com/y...
Dec 01, 2020•1 hr 4 min
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. Here's the amazing story of our proud country's improbable beginnings. Learn more about your ad choic...
Nov 26, 2020•54 min
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 fate overlap to make one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the West. Learn more about your ad ...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 3 min
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 politics in Rome and America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Nov 10, 2020•1 hr 15 min
Happy Halloween! It's a bizarre year—Halloween is basically forbidden in some of the stricter lockdown states. On this special episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan, with help from the great American master of horror Edgar Allan Poe, dives into the history of the day and explains why the people who attack it are absurd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 31, 2020•51 min
This. Is. Sparta!!!! "300," the blood-soaked Zack Snyder movie adapted from Frank Miller's graphic novel, is based on stories of the Persian War told by the first historian ever, Herodotus. But how accurate is "300" really, and does it matter? In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan tells the real story of the 300 at Thermopylae, and argues that "300" is a better take on the whole thing than you might expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Oct 27, 2020•58 min
The "Maltese Falcon" is a groundbreaking movie and a seminal work of American literature. It's more than pop culture, though it is pop culture at its finest. It's also a tale of what it takes to be a man in America. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan defends the work's place in the canon and analyzes its enduring greatness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 20, 2020•58 min
One of the biggest lies we're told is that celebrating our ancestral past is stupid, dishonest, or worse. None of that is true. "Beowulf," the Anglo-Saxon masterpiece about England's Germanic forefathers, is a sophisticated tale full of weirdness, complexity, and melancholy—plus, it's an awesome romp with lots of crazy monsters and sick fights. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan uncovers the poem's greatness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Oct 13, 2020•1 hr
Want some self-help that actually works? Despite being complicated and somewhat intimidating, Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" is actually a very practical book with advice you can use. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan unpacks Aristotle's profound insights in one of the most life-changing books you'll ever read. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 06, 2020•1 hr 13 min
If you really want to talk pandemics, then let's talk Julian of Norwich. She lived in religious seclusion, but she understood deeply that there are no guarantees in life—no safety other than in God. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan talks through the weird, intense, and powerful visions of Julian and what they say about God and womanhood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 29, 2020•56 min
"Gone with the Wind" is the movie they don't want you to see. Following HBO pulling it from streaming services and then putting it back up with a ridiculous health warning, Spencer Klavan insists on rewatching it. In this episode of "Young Heretics" Klavan proves why the movie is not just a masterwork, but a triumph of American culture in the best traditions of Western art, and a tragedy in the true sense of the word. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Sep 22, 2020•44 min
Francesco Petrarca, commonly known as Petrarch, lived at the dawning of a new age. He's credited with helping to revive classical learning when it went dormant, which makes him an excellent guide for our own day. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan reads Petrarch's poems and contemplates how to revitalize the wisdom of the past—not through nostalgia, but through rebirth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Sep 15, 2020•1 hr
How do you acknowledge the wild forces of the world without letting them destroy you? Euripides, the youngest Greek tragedian whose work survives, asked exactly this question in his radical, boundary-pushing play "The Bacchae." In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explores how, with the clarity of an artist's vision, Euripides saw the downfall of Athens coming and spoke wisely into the heart of his moment—and our own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Sep 08, 2020•1 hr 4 min
The Peloponnesian War was one of the most catastrophic conflicts of the ancient world—protracted, brutal, and disastrous for the Athenian hegemony that had grown over the course of the early 5th century BC. In this episode of "Young Heretics," classical scholar and military history expert Victor Davis Hanson joins Spencer Klavan to discuss the war's causes, tactics, and consequences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Sep 02, 2020•1 hr 4 min
T.S. Eliot's God was no mere fantasy or abstraction: he was a tough, strange, sorrowful savior presiding over a world gone terribly wrong. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan concludes his series on Eliot by walking through the passages in "Four Quartets" which outline the trinity to reveal what God looks like in the modern world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 25, 2020•39 min
How do you find authentic faith in a world that is falling to pieces around you? In this episode of “Young Heretics,” Spencer Klavan returns to his series on T.S. Eliot—this time with a study of "Four Quartets," Eliot's greatest Christian work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 18, 2020•46 min
Why is capitalism good for music and what does any of it have to do with outer space? In this episode of “Young Heretics,” classical composer Stephen Limbaugh joins Spencer Klavan to discuss the thrilling profusion of musical creativity that accompanied the Belle Époque period. Plus, Spencer and Stephen get into the wonders of music theory, the benefits of patriotism, and the future of American art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 13, 2020•49 min
As cancel culture is on the rise, freedom of speech is all over the news. Why do we even believe in freedom of speech in the first place? Take a look at John Milton, the revolutionary firebrand whose writing nearly cost him his life. In this episode of "Young Heretics," Spencer Klavan explores the connections between Milton's views on speech, sin, and revolution in "Areopagitica." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Aug 04, 2020•54 min
America is not only a great nation, it is also the inheritor of the best the West has to offer. In this special episode of "Young Heretics,” Spencer Klavan sits down with Senator Ted Cruz to talk through the enduring principles of the United States Constitution, their roots in English law, and their relevance for all time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 28, 2020•43 min
Does this story from the fall of the Roman republic hold wisdom for America in her troubled moment? In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explores how Gaius Gracchus tries and fails to propose an entirely new constitution. But it's more fun than that! An unsolved murder mystery, a trip to Africa, and a deadly riot later, we will find our takeaway from this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 21, 2020•1 hr 4 min
To prevent our own republic from failing, we must look to the wisdom of Western history and find insights from moments similar to our own. If only our elite professors would pay attention! In this episode of Young Heretics, Spencer Klavan explores the "Gracchan disturbance," a turbulent and dramatic period in Roman history, to find wisdom for our own unsettled times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 14, 2020•1 hr 13 min
