Know Your Enemy
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More Questions, More Answers (Mailbag pt. 2)
🕑 Added 2022-12-07 16:31:37 +0000 UTCMatt and Sam pick up where they left off in their recent mailbag episode and keep answering listener questions. Topics include: KYE merchandise, the existence of Hell, Francis Fukuyama, Mormonism, gun violence, and more.
Sources:
David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved (Yale University Press, 2019)
John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard University Press, 2012)
Francis Fukuyama, "Still the End of History," Atlantic, October 17, 2022
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (Free Press, 1992)
W.H. Auden, "In Memory of Sigmund Freud" (1940)
Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976)
Sohrab Ahmari, "Urban Jeremiah: Mike Davis, 1946-2022," Compact, October 26, 2022
Comments
Eric Ackermann
Late to post on this but I was re-listening to this episode recently, as I do with all the KYE podcasts. As always I get as much if not more out of re-listening because I inevitability miss a lot the first time through. This was especially true about the Fukuyama segment of this mailbag episode. I appreciate and agreed with your analysis, particularly about what "End of History" is actually referring to. I do remember reading his original book Back in the Day, when I came across his assertion that since liberal democracy "won" the Cold War, that it is now de facto the "final form of human government." As an historian by training and inclination, this stopped me dead in my tracks. Though packaged by Fukuyama as a new development, this trope has been used and reused continuously over time by virtually every currently dominant social-political-economic system to justify/explain it's primacy (and supremacy) and dismiss/discourage any challengers. (Usually cast in terms of divine right or ordination of course.) For example, the absolute monarchies of 16-18th century Europe, the British Empire, the American Slavocracy of the Ante-Bellum South, Puritan founding of a "City on a Hill" on "empty" land cleared for them by God, etc. With such a deeply flawed premise guiding Fukuyama's analysis, I found it impossible to engage with or even finish the book. Fortunately, Matt and Sam did the hard work and educated me on the basics of Fukuyama's analysis. Thanks guys! BTW, I too vote for more periodic Mailbag episodes as well.
Melissa Scroggs
Love the mailbags and also want an "It's symptomatic" shirt!
Christy Kilgore
Just here to cast another vote for more frequent mailbag episodes!
natesicles
I want a shirt with Reagan photoshopped into lil nas x style cowboy getup.
Know Your Enemy
Your question isn't muddled, David! At least in my view. There is a tension there, but I think the Claremont types have been moving away from Pure Jaffa-ism, or trying to reinterpret him. (Matt)
Mark K
“Tax the hell out of ammo” - Chris Rock was way ahead of you Matt lol. https://youtu.be/VZrFVtmRXrw
Mark K
The book “Heaven and Hell” by Bart Ehrman documents how the Christian Hell evolved historically. In spite of what most people think, it was not always considered a place of eternal damnation. That was added later as it was needed by the Church. Worth a read for those interested.
Anthony Ostler
It would be great to have more of these as your perspectives on current events are just as well thought out as when you’re discussing a 600 page book
David Foster
Dang, wish I'd thought of this mailbag question earlier, but I'll insert it here if only to clarify the issue in my own mind. Would welcome a quick answer/opinion from anyone... On the one hand, NatCons (e.g. Yoram Hazony) seem to revile the Enlightenment, with its liberalism and natural rights. On the other hand, West Coast Straussians (esp. Jaffa) deified Lincoln as the redeemer of natural rights. Which is it? Or are NatCons even unified on this question? Or is my question muddled? Something I've been reading recently and puzzling about. Thanks.
JW
Merch: “KYE: for my sins”
Jordan Eubank
I love this podcast. As a former anarcho-mutualist now a civil libertarian and economic socialist, I love hearing the detail and intellectual attitude you guys put into the podcast and of course it feeds my want to understand the “enemy”.
Jesse
re: right-wing thinkers who have a good account of left-wing views: Joseph Schumpeter is the rare non-socialist economic thinker who seems to have a genuine understanding of Marx and incorporates this understanding into his worldview.
BeanCurd
re: Fukuyama, the main problem with his argument is that it frequently slips between description and prescription. Is it that liberal democracy is the unstoppable, natural end result of modern political economy, or that it is so fragile we need to defend it at all costs? Because it can't be both!
dyke madigan
Love the mailbag episodes! Do more of them!
Dan Seel
Love these episodes, please keep doing them PS maybe this is too topical but any chance of a soccer/international right-wing episode since the WC is on? Lots of interesting stuff there especially with the role of ultras in politics or like the bolsonaristas on the Brazilian team
Colin Gillis
Love the mailbag episodes! Please do more!
Clayton Cowles
Love these episodes. More please!
John Keating
Any chance of a “Based & Freudpilled” T shirt?
Dónal Gill
Merch idea: A t-shirt featuring an image of an altogether respectable and bespectacled law prof contemplatively strumming a banjo to a small gathering of folk plump on funds from the shadow conservative welfare state. Upon close viewing one individual in the crowd shows just the slightest hint of a rather pregnant doubt that he’s in the right place.
Kori Sparks
“Libidinal Attraction” with a photo of Matt and Sam torn in half a la fatal attraction.
giulietta karras
mormonism. How about the influence of his father, George Romney. Who is a very interesting republican. Civil rights.
giulietta karras
When you talk about Mitt Romney and the influence of
Michael Murray
More mailbags! For merch, besides the obvious and iconic “What are they giving themselves permission to do?”, you should work in these KYE vocab words: -“ventriloquize” -“synechdoche” …Emblazoned t-shirts will up our nerd status!
Julian Frost
“I think there’s a way in which…”
Thomas Donnelly
KYE mailbags are the only ones I listen to. More please whenever. I would like to hear Sam’s origin story fwiw
Gavin Dluehosh
I think you need a tshirt of Sam saying “KYE: the apotheosis of podcasting”
WER
Thanks for your thoughtful answer to my question re: gun control. Such a grounding, clarifying discussion, means more than you know
Ryan Mills
Lots to love about the mailbag episodes. Please keep doing them! Especially in this one, multiple topics with very insightful and interesting commentary. Thank you
Marshall Crenshaw
Love these episodes!
Jeffrey Otter
Please, please do the Mormon episode!
Know Your Enemy
I really want to make a trip out there eventually! (Matt)
Derek Hart
Thanks for answering my question about doing a Mormon episode! The whole “don’t call us Mormons” thing is a global marketing strategy, so we don’t seem like weird outsiders (but we are…). I like “Mormon”; others (like the current prophet) will disagree To me, the photo is spooky partly because Goldwater “looks the part” - most of the people that speak at our conferences are austere old white guys. Anyways, nothing but love for your show
Kyle
I really enjoyed your discussion about heaven and hell and doubt about salvation. I grew up in a mainline Christian household, but ended up in the evangelical church for a time, and even though I don’t attend church anymore, those questions still linger. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Derek Hart
And of course also stop by Gilgal gardens to see Joseph Smith carved into a sphinx sculpture!
Rick Perlstein
You guys have to see Temple Square in SLC. Worth the price of the trip alone to see the sculpture of Joseph Smith and John the Baptist, just chillin'.
