1 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:21,879 We're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jashinski, 2 00:00:21,960 --> 00:00:24,960 culture editor here at The Federalist. As always, you can email the show 3 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:29,079 at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST, 4 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:31,440 and if you'd like to support our work, make sure to go to 5 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:35,920 our website and sign up for the Federalist Community as well. I'm really honored 6 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:39,200 today to be joined by Andrew Claven. He's, of course the host of 7 00:00:39,679 --> 00:00:43,560 the Andrew Claven Show over at The Daily Wire, but he also has a 8 00:00:43,679 --> 00:00:48,439 new book out. It's another edition in the Cameron Winter Mystery series. It's 9 00:00:48,479 --> 00:00:52,359 called The House of Love and Death. Andrew, thanks for coming on now. 10 00:00:52,399 --> 00:00:55,000 It's great to be here. Emily. Thanks tell us a little bit 11 00:00:55,039 --> 00:00:57,799 about the new book. And for people who haven't picked up one of the 12 00:00:57,799 --> 00:01:02,399 Cameron Winter Mysteries, if you could let them know a little bit about what 13 00:01:02,439 --> 00:01:06,400 they can expect when they do pick up a Cameron Winter Mystery, that would 14 00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:08,599 be awesome. Yeah. This is the first time, after a life of 15 00:01:08,599 --> 00:01:11,719 being a crime writer. I mean, this has been how I've made my 16 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:14,280 living most of my life. This is the first time I've ever done a 17 00:01:14,319 --> 00:01:17,560 series, And the reason I've done a series is because I have this character 18 00:01:17,640 --> 00:01:21,280 who really means a lot to me and is speaking into all the things I've 19 00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:25,799 been working on my whole life. Is a guy who has a very checkered 20 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:27,799 past. He's done some very dirty work for the government, but now he 21 00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:32,599 is kind of retired from that, and he is working as a professor of 22 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:38,439 English literature in a kind of liberal university that's always trying to shut him down. 23 00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:47,079 And he's a guy who just has this kind of instinct for finding criminal 24 00:01:47,239 --> 00:01:51,519 activities that he feels he can set right in some way. And the reason 25 00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:53,640 he fascinates me so much, and the reason I care about him so much, 26 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:57,680 is because he's exploring something that's been kind of the theme of my life's 27 00:01:57,680 --> 00:02:01,920 work, which is how to be a good man in a world that is 28 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:06,840 falling apart. And he's in in America that's falling apart, as I think 29 00:02:07,079 --> 00:02:09,960 all of us feel we are right now, and he's trying to both live 30 00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:15,680 down his past actions and find a way to be a good guy in the 31 00:02:15,719 --> 00:02:20,719 present. So, instead of being the typical anti hero that we've seen over 32 00:02:20,759 --> 00:02:24,000 these last thirty or forty years, in storytelling. He is a guy who 33 00:02:24,039 --> 00:02:29,759 has been an anti hero trying to become a hero. And in this story, 34 00:02:29,919 --> 00:02:34,439 a family has been wiped out in a very rich, gated community surrounded 35 00:02:34,759 --> 00:02:38,759 by a city that's falling apart, and he goes in to find out how 36 00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:44,599 an entire family has been wiped out while the police and the security and all 37 00:02:44,639 --> 00:02:47,800 the things that we're supposed to keep these people safe were in place. And 38 00:02:47,879 --> 00:02:52,639 you know, it got a starred review from Publishers Weekly. They say it's 39 00:02:52,639 --> 00:02:54,039 the best in the series. I've written the book so that you can start 40 00:02:54,039 --> 00:02:59,360 the series anywhere, but I'm really pleased with this one. You said something 41 00:02:59,439 --> 00:03:05,360 so interesting about how you are sticking with this series because the character really means 42 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:07,400 a lot to you, and I'm fascinated by that from the perspective of an 43 00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:12,800 author, what it means to create somebody entirely fictional, but at the same 44 00:03:12,879 --> 00:03:16,199 time, you sort of have this very intimate relationship with that feels in some 45 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:20,599 ways like a relationship with a real person, but of course isn't. Can 46 00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:23,080 you tell us a little bit about that, Andrew, Yeah, you know, 47 00:03:23,159 --> 00:03:27,560 I became a crime writer a very exact, very precise moment and it's 48 00:03:27,560 --> 00:03:30,280 the moment I read the first page of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep with his 49 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:35,800 tough guy detective Philip Marlowe. I was a kid, I was looking for 50 00:03:36,039 --> 00:03:39,039 male role models. I was looking at tough guy literature because I was always 51 00:03:39,039 --> 00:03:42,400 that was always something that was attractive to me. It spoke to me, 52 00:03:43,039 --> 00:03:46,280 and Chandler at the beginning of The Big Sleep writes the scene where Philip marlow 53 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:53,759 sees a stained glass window on a mansion with a night on it who is 54 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:59,199 rescuing a lady who's tied up, and Marlowe says to himself, if I 55 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:00,639 lived in this house, I would have to climb up there and help him, 56 00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:04,599 because he's not getting the job done. And the point I think the 57 00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:08,960 Chandler was making is that here's a man. He's a shabby little man. 58 00:04:09,240 --> 00:04:12,639 He doesn't make a good living, he's in a kind of disreputable profession. 59 00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:18,360 But somehow he's carrying inside him this notion of chivalry into a Los Angeles that 60 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:23,639 is just rife with corruption. And that's kind of been the theme not just 61 00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:26,120 of my work but of my life. You know, how do you become 62 00:04:26,639 --> 00:04:29,439 What Chandler said in one of his famous essays, and this is where we 63 00:04:29,519 --> 00:04:31,439 get the term mean streets. He said, down these mean streets, a 64 00:04:31,480 --> 00:04:36,000 man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnish nor afraid. 65 00:04:36,319 --> 00:04:39,560 And as a little kid, you know, fifteen years old, I 66 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:41,959 just said to myself, that's what I want to be. That is who 67 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:45,519 I want to be. And whether I failed to succeed, it is between 68 00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:49,720 me and God. But at least as a character, Cameron Winter can embody 69 00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:54,800 that at a moment when we don't really have an image of what a man 70 00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:58,000 should be. I mean, this is the really fascinating thing that the last 71 00:04:58,079 --> 00:05:01,959 great explosion of American culture, the Golden Age of television around two thousand, 72 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:06,600 when suddenly we had Breaking Bad and the Sopranos and The Shield, all stories 73 00:05:06,959 --> 00:05:12,759 about men who are going bad because the only way that they could express masculinity 74 00:05:13,160 --> 00:05:16,079 was as an outlaw, because masculinity itself had become more or less outlawed. 75 00:05:16,639 --> 00:05:20,519 And I was writing about that in the nineties with novels like True Crime, 76 00:05:20,959 --> 00:05:25,639 and I started to feel like, Okay, we've explored this, we've talked 77 00:05:25,639 --> 00:05:28,639 about this, but now it's time to come back. Now it's time to 78 00:05:28,680 --> 00:05:33,319 see if we can recover that chivalry that Raymond Chandler brought into a corrupt world, 79 00:05:33,439 --> 00:05:41,439 especially this our world is becoming increasingly corrupt and increasingly unpleasant and even evil 80 00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:46,360 in places, and so it's just important to me personally to work that out 81 00:05:46,959 --> 00:05:48,040 in fiction, which is the only place you can work it out. The 82 00:05:48,079 --> 00:05:51,319 only place you can work these issues out is in the arts, maybe in 83 00:05:51,319 --> 00:05:55,600 philosophy, but you can't do it in politics. You're never going to get 84 00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:58,360 purity in politics. You're never going to get purity in real life. You 85 00:05:58,399 --> 00:06:02,279 can only work out these ideas and the culture and hopefully someone you know, 86 00:06:02,519 --> 00:06:06,240 like I was looking for that kind of role model, we'll find him in 87 00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:10,720 camera and winter and start to explore this in his own life as I have. 88 00:06:11,959 --> 00:06:14,360 I'm so glad you mentioned that because I wanted to. You mentioned the 89 00:06:14,399 --> 00:06:16,560 anti hero model earlier as well, and I actually wanted to pick up on 90 00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:20,000 that point because it's fascinating and at the same time, you also wrote the 91 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:24,879 book true Crime. You literally wrote the book tr crime, which is the 92 00:06:24,879 --> 00:06:30,000 most you know, the most popular genre arguably in some different ways now in 93 00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:35,560 the country. Is there a cultural shift that took us from the golden age 94 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:41,000 of television, as you mentioned, the oughts with sopranos and breaking bad and 95 00:06:41,120 --> 00:06:47,199 arguably Madmen, to having this obsession that we have as a culture now with 96 00:06:47,920 --> 00:06:55,360 documentaries, crime documentaries, podcasts. Did something shift? Are these two entirely 97 00:06:55,399 --> 00:06:58,720 different things or is there any connection between the two? No. I think 98 00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:02,920 that you have a country that is a default setting. It's not just the 99 00:07:02,920 --> 00:07:08,319 country, it's the era of the age is at a default setting of unbelief. 100 00:07:08,319 --> 00:07:11,360 We're in a default setting of materialism, by which I don't mean greed, 101 00:07:11,439 --> 00:07:14,600 I mean just the idea that everything is made of stuff and the only 102 00:07:14,639 --> 00:07:17,160 thing that's real is stuff, and we don't even have We don't have souls, 103 00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:20,600 we don't have any you know, we talk about people talk about having 104 00:07:20,680 --> 00:07:24,519 depression. They don't talk about I am depressed, you know. They talk 105 00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:27,800 about, you know, getting an endorphin rush. They don't talk about being 106 00:07:27,839 --> 00:07:30,680 excited. We think, we actually think even the people who think they have 107 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:35,639 faith, underlying that is this idea that we are just material. When you 108 00:07:35,959 --> 00:07:41,720 have that idea, you actually don't have any way to conceive of the good. 109 00:07:41,959 --> 00:07:45,800 All you can do is conceive of the bad, and what opposes it. 110 00:07:46,199 --> 00:07:49,480 So if you can find stories of evil, you can give yourself the 111 00:07:49,519 --> 00:07:56,360 satisfying experience of having that evil resolved or solved in some way. But you 112 00:07:56,399 --> 00:07:58,279 don't really have an image of what it means to be good. If you 113 00:07:58,279 --> 00:08:01,800 think about what we think of as good soldiers, cops, doctors, all 114 00:08:01,879 --> 00:08:05,759 of them are defined by what they're fighting, whether it's disease or the enemy 115 00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:09,600 in war, or criminals. To come up with an idea of what it 116 00:08:09,639 --> 00:08:13,279 means to be good when you're just walking down the street is much different. 117 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:16,240 That's the idea of faith, the idea that there is something actually good that 118 00:08:16,279 --> 00:08:22,680 you can be, and I think we have lost that idea and therefore lost 119 00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:26,360 the way of telling stories about it. We don't really know what a good 120 00:08:26,399 --> 00:08:28,959 man looks like. We know what a man who fights evil looks like, 121 00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:33,360 but we don't know what a man who just walks down the street and is 122 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:37,159 by the virtue of who he is a good person. We have no concept 123 00:08:37,480 --> 00:08:41,120 of what that means. That wasn't true when they invented the idea of chivalry. 124 00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:43,840 They knew exactly what a good person looked like. He looked like a 125 00:08:43,919 --> 00:08:48,039 knight in shining armor and I think that in this moment, in this deeply 126 00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:54,240 materialist moment, when we are either going to collapse into the wages of materialism, 127 00:08:54,639 --> 00:08:58,840 some of which I think we see in, for instance, the philosophy 128 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:01,519 that you can cut up a child's body and change its sex. It's a 129 00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:05,559 very materialist idea. If we're going to lapse into those ideas, we're going 130 00:09:05,600 --> 00:09:09,639 to lose our ability to tell stories and think about ourselves as human at all. 131 00:09:09,960 --> 00:09:13,519 And there's a real movement toward that anti humanism, or real movement to 132 00:09:13,559 --> 00:09:16,559 say you're not a soul, you're just a body. Change your body, 133 00:09:16,639 --> 00:09:20,720 change yourself, even get rid of your body and just become downloaded onto a 134 00:09:20,799 --> 00:09:28,039 computer. These are issues that are all becoming extremely real and in a technological 135 00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:31,559 culture that has the ability to see them through. So to go back, 136 00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:35,440 for me, to go back and think about what it means to be good, 137 00:09:37,159 --> 00:09:39,600 and what it means to be a man, and what it means to 138 00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:41,879 be a woman, because that's what my novels are about as well. Is 139 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:46,159 very different than just looking at a crime, you know, and just exploring 140 00:09:46,159 --> 00:09:48,919 the evil and a crime and just kind of getting a thrill from the evil 141 00:09:48,919 --> 00:09:52,600 of crime and I think true crime in that sense, you know, in 142 00:09:52,639 --> 00:09:58,559 the sense of studying criminality and studying criminal actions is kind of a philosophical dead 143 00:09:58,639 --> 00:10:05,480 end. It's kind of attractive and mesmerizing and almost hypnotizing, But in the 144 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:07,840 end, I think we're going to have to return to something, to a 145 00:10:07,919 --> 00:10:11,120 higher ideal than that, And again I think only the arts can do that. 146 00:10:15,159 --> 00:10:18,039 In just a few years, the deep state has pushed radical policies that 147 00:10:18,159 --> 00:10:22,799 undermine families, destroy the economy, put safety at risk, criminalize free speech, 148 00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:26,679 and make it difficult for conservatives to govern effectively. That's where Project twenty 149 00:10:26,720 --> 00:10:31,000 twenty five comes in, equipping the next conservative president with what they need to 150 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:35,720 turn America around on day one. The next conservative president needs to be ready 151 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:41,919 with trained staff and solid policies. More than seventy five organizations, led by 152 00:10:41,919 --> 00:10:46,679 the Heritage Foundation have come together to make this possible through Project twenty twenty five, 153 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:52,159 with a policy agenda, presidential personnel database, Presidential Administration Academy, and 154 00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:56,840 one hundred and eighty day playbook. Go to Project twenty twenty five dot org 155 00:10:56,000 --> 00:11:05,559 to learn more. You know, the the tough guy archetype. I want 156 00:11:05,559 --> 00:11:11,639 to ask about that too, because there's an argument that before, you know, 157 00:11:11,799 --> 00:11:20,440 the ravages of postmodernism were wildly or sort of over corrected. Baked into 158 00:11:20,440 --> 00:11:22,759 that, of course, is the idea that something needed correction, that's something 159 00:11:22,759 --> 00:11:28,879 in the sort of tough, tough guy archetype from the pre sexual Revolution days 160 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:35,039 in some ways needed to be moderated or corrected. Men needed to be more 161 00:11:35,039 --> 00:11:41,000 comfortable with their emotions, and that sort of shift away from stoicism in some 162 00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:45,399 sense had a benefit. Is that true? Was there something that needed to 163 00:11:45,440 --> 00:11:50,600 happen to the tough guy archetype that allowed American men, Western men to be 164 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,200 in any way more comfortable sort of with their emotions and and you know, 165 00:11:56,279 --> 00:12:03,320 was there something that was unhealthy about that pre sexual revolution archetype or was it 166 00:12:03,399 --> 00:12:09,039 you know, have we strayed entirely from a basic that was much much healthier. 167 00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:11,600 Yeah? Actually I think it was healthier, and I think it was 168 00:12:11,600 --> 00:12:16,440 misunderstood. And one of the things that I think feminism has done has lied 169 00:12:16,679 --> 00:12:20,480 a lot about what the culture was. You know, when you hear feminism 170 00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:22,960 talk about women in the movies, they say, well, they were either 171 00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:26,159 housewives or hookers. Go back and watch the old movies. That's just not 172 00:12:26,159 --> 00:12:30,519 true. It's just not true. I mean, women played various roles in 173 00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:35,559 classic American movies always, and go back and look at who the tough guys 174 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:39,200 were. I mean, look at Humphrey Bogart and Casablanca devolving into tears because 175 00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:43,559 he's lost the love of his life. He sits there and cries into his 176 00:12:43,600 --> 00:12:46,840 whiskey because he's lost the love of his life. So that the idea that 177 00:12:46,879 --> 00:12:50,679 men had no emotions was just a falsehood about the tough guy as well as 178 00:12:50,679 --> 00:12:56,120 about all kinds of men who lived all kinds of different ways. A tough 179 00:12:56,120 --> 00:12:58,000 guy is, as far as I'm concerned, is a guy who sees the 180 00:12:58,039 --> 00:13:03,440 world clearly and understands the price he is going to pay for going against the 181 00:13:03,559 --> 00:13:09,480 values of the world. When I say that a character like Philip Marlowe had 182 00:13:09,480 --> 00:13:11,559 a knight inside him, what made him a tough guy was knowing, as 183 00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:13,960 he says, this is a direct quote, he said, this is not 184 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:18,279 a game for knights, And what he meant by that was he was going 185 00:13:18,279 --> 00:13:22,039 to get beaten up, that the bad guys were going to win, that 186 00:13:22,159 --> 00:13:28,600 he was going to be cursed and excluded and arrested and shot at because of 187 00:13:28,639 --> 00:13:31,639 his values. So not that he gave up his values, but in Gospel 188 00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:35,399 terms, he picked up his cross, and that is that's what a tough 189 00:13:35,399 --> 00:13:39,679 guy does. A tough guy doesn't abandon his emotions. He simply doesn't live 190 00:13:39,720 --> 00:13:45,159 by his emotions. A tough guy doesn't think that the world is going to 191 00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:48,720 conform to his values. He simply pays the price to live by his values. 192 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:52,960 And those are the things that we got rid of when we became I 193 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:56,960 believe a kind of whiny and I hate to use the word feminized because I 194 00:13:56,960 --> 00:14:01,200 think women should be feminized, I think, but I don't think everyone should 195 00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:05,399 be feminized. I don't think men should be feminized. And so I think 196 00:14:05,399 --> 00:14:09,879 when we lost the idea of what a person is and what he or she 197 00:14:09,039 --> 00:14:13,720 is for, we lost the idea of how we could construct that kind of 198 00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:20,399 person. So a really good example in feminine terms is all the women you 199 00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:24,600 see in the movies now who are strong, quote unquote. They always have 200 00:14:24,679 --> 00:14:28,919 their their fists on their hips. They punch men and men fall over. 201 00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:31,840 I've seen women punch men and what happens is their handbreaks and then the man 202 00:14:31,919 --> 00:14:35,679 just beats the living crap out of them. That scene never appears in movies 203 00:14:35,919 --> 00:14:39,759 because we don't know what a woman is for anymore. We can't even define 204 00:14:39,799 --> 00:14:43,720 what a woman is. The same thing is true of men. It's not 205 00:14:43,799 --> 00:14:46,440 that men don't have emotions. We all have emotions. Is that they don't 206 00:14:46,519 --> 00:14:50,759 live by their emotions, and they're not supposed to live by their emotions. 207 00:14:50,799 --> 00:14:54,320 Nobody wants a father who lives by some emotions. We want a father who 208 00:14:54,320 --> 00:14:58,879 lives by his lights. And that that's a very different way of conceiving of 209 00:14:58,919 --> 00:15:01,600 a man and what he is is the idea that men don't have emotions, 210 00:15:01,639 --> 00:15:07,120 it's just such a nonsense. It's such a political piece of propaganda. You 211 00:15:07,159 --> 00:15:09,879 know, I have plenty of emotions. I don't live by my emotions. 212 00:15:09,919 --> 00:15:15,240 I live by my lights. And that costs you, and it's painful sometimes, 213 00:15:15,279 --> 00:15:18,799 and it means we're pressing your emotions and stuffing them down when you'd rather 214 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:22,600 indulge them. But it's what you do because it makes the world a better 215 00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:24,679 place, and it makes your life a better life, and it makes the 216 00:15:24,720 --> 00:15:28,919 people around you safer and more protected. You know. I simply think that 217 00:15:28,960 --> 00:15:33,600 the things that we've been told are lies, you know, the things that 218 00:15:33,639 --> 00:15:35,879 we've been told about the pastor lies. So it's not that there's no need 219 00:15:35,919 --> 00:15:41,440 for reform about institutions and things. There's always need for reform and always things 220 00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:45,399 can always be done better. But the idea that men were mistaken by being 221 00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:50,039 men and women mistaken by following their instincts as women, it is a lie 222 00:15:50,080 --> 00:15:52,600 and a mistake put forward by people who knew it was a lie. They 223 00:15:52,639 --> 00:15:56,559 did it on purpose, and I think we've been living by it ever since 224 00:15:56,600 --> 00:16:00,840 and living with the consequences ever since. Men and women are much less happy 225 00:16:00,879 --> 00:16:08,240 because of it. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I mean one of the 226 00:16:08,279 --> 00:16:12,200 thing interesting things about the Cameron Winter books is there mostly that almost all the 227 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:17,159 important characters in them, except for Cameron Winter, are women. And I 228 00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:18,720 didn't plan it that way, but I saw it unfolding that way. And 229 00:16:18,759 --> 00:16:25,159 I think because men and women are relational, are defined by their relations with 230 00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:27,240 each other, and they're out of whack and finding out how to get them 231 00:16:27,279 --> 00:16:34,639 back in whack. This is basically the task and confronted with from the studio 232 00:16:34,679 --> 00:16:40,000 that brought you Sound of Freedom and the Chosen Comes After Death, an unprecedented 233 00:16:40,039 --> 00:16:44,320 deep dive into the phenomena of near death experiences, which I'm fascinated by and 234 00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:47,840 I'm sure many of you are fascinated by too. This movie, After Death 235 00:16:47,879 --> 00:16:52,279 by Angel Studios, explores the ultimate mystery of what happens after we die from 236 00:16:52,279 --> 00:16:56,159 the perspective of individuals who have visited and studied that realm. The unique film 237 00:16:56,279 --> 00:17:00,840 uses first person accounts, careful research, sign to acknowledge, and philosophy to 238 00:17:00,919 --> 00:17:04,920 paint a fascinating picture of life in the next realm. It is rated PG 239 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:08,920 thirteen and it features experts in the fields of science, philosophy, and medicine, 240 00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:14,759 each with unique insight into the phenomenon of the near death experience. And 241 00:17:14,799 --> 00:17:18,920 these nationally known individuals, some of them have been spotlighted by NBC, BBC, 242 00:17:18,079 --> 00:17:22,720 National Geographic and OPRAH, include everyone from Don Piper, who's the author 243 00:17:22,759 --> 00:17:26,039 of Ninety Minutes in Heaven that was a life changing book for me. I 244 00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:29,880 can say he was involved in a head on collision you may remember, with 245 00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:33,319 a semi truck while he was on his way home from a church event and 246 00:17:33,359 --> 00:17:37,240 he was pronounced dead at the scene. To doctor Mary Neil, She's the 247 00:17:37,279 --> 00:17:41,559 author of To Heaven and Back and she was on a kayaking excursion in South 248 00:17:41,559 --> 00:17:47,079 America when disaster struck, she drowned, before regaining life, experienced heaven and 249 00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:51,839 a life changing conversation with Jesus. According to her book, Now after Death 250 00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:55,680 hits theaters on October twenty seventh, twenty twenty three. You can get your 251 00:17:55,759 --> 00:17:59,880 tickets in advance. You can purchase them online at angel dot com. Slash 252 00:18:00,039 --> 00:18:03,920 the Federalist, I just watched the trailer. I'm so excited to watch this 253 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:07,039 movie. As I said earlier, I'm fascinated by near death experiences. Our 254 00:18:07,079 --> 00:18:12,240 culture is fascinated by near death experiences. But these stories are so often told 255 00:18:12,359 --> 00:18:18,319 in a secular context that can't really explain them, and it can't really account 256 00:18:18,559 --> 00:18:23,519 for everything that people tell us they experience when they've been pronounced medically dead. 257 00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:29,599 Now after Death is going to tell you these stories, is going to give 258 00:18:29,680 --> 00:18:33,119 you this insight in a way that is compelling and in a way that will 259 00:18:33,240 --> 00:18:38,039 make sense to so many people. And these kinds of stories are persuasive, 260 00:18:38,400 --> 00:18:44,359 they're inspiring, and they are amazing. They can bring us closer to Jesus. 261 00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:48,279 They can help our faiths thrive. So make sure to get your tickets 262 00:18:48,319 --> 00:18:52,440 once again at angel dot com slash the Federalist, leave your preconceptions at the 263 00:18:52,480 --> 00:18:56,640 door, and prepare for a never before seen glimpse into what the next life 264 00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:00,200 could entail. And after Death opening on October twenty seven. So to get 265 00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:03,920 your tickets today or to pay it forward, visit angel dot com Slash the 266 00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:10,039 Federalist. That's Angel dot com Slash the Federalist after Death. The End is 267 00:19:10,079 --> 00:19:15,519 only the Beginning, rated pg. Thirteen. Yeah, now, this is 268 00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:21,839 the moral confusion. I think that you've been talking about. You had made 269 00:19:21,839 --> 00:19:23,559 a really good point on Twitter, or I guess I have to say X. 270 00:19:23,599 --> 00:19:26,200 Now. A couple of days back, you tweeted, I no longer 271 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:30,759 tell the difference between I can no longer tell the difference between lets and white 272 00:19:30,759 --> 00:19:33,880 supremacists. They both think George Floyd is the typical black man, and they 273 00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:37,000 both hate Jews. It's like a sequel to Face Off, where Stalin and 274 00:19:37,079 --> 00:19:41,960 Hitler change identities and it makes no difference at all. And I want to 275 00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:47,599 ask you about that in the context of historical precedent. A lot of times 276 00:19:47,599 --> 00:19:51,559 people jump to this idea that we are living in times that have absolutely no 277 00:19:52,079 --> 00:19:56,119 precedent that what we see with the sex and gender have no precedent, although 278 00:19:56,160 --> 00:20:00,720 that might be true, but you know, within the last one hundred years, 279 00:20:00,720 --> 00:20:03,079 a blink of an eye in the course of human history, there is 280 00:20:03,119 --> 00:20:07,160 some precedent for this kind of Nietzscheen moral wasteland. And I wanted to ask 281 00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:12,759 andrec you could maybe flesh out how you were thinking about that post October seventh. 282 00:20:14,559 --> 00:20:18,359 Well, yeah, I mean, I have this very belief that makes 283 00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:22,200 people very uncomfortable, which is that the Jews are special people. Doesn't mean 284 00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:26,079 that a Jew is a special person, obviously that would be ridiculous. Each 285 00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:30,680 person is special or unique in his own way, but it means that the 286 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,680 history of the Jews is special, especially in Western culture, as being the 287 00:20:33,759 --> 00:20:40,680 place where, depending on what you believe, either God reveals himself to the 288 00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:45,960 world in the Jewish history or the God of our imaginations is implanted in our 289 00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:48,480 imaginations. So, in other words, you don't have to believe in God 290 00:20:48,519 --> 00:20:53,720 to understand that the Jews hold a very special place in a culture that used 291 00:20:53,759 --> 00:20:59,720 to be called Christendom, that was formed by the Bible, that worshiped in 292 00:21:00,279 --> 00:21:04,519 Christianity, a religious Jew of Jesus Christ who lived and died a believing Jew 293 00:21:07,039 --> 00:21:11,599 when people hate the Jews. It is because they hate that image of God, 294 00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:14,720 that image of God who requires of us that we put our idols away, 295 00:21:15,039 --> 00:21:19,319 that we put our desires second to obedience to Him that expects us to 296 00:21:19,359 --> 00:21:23,240 live in the kingdom, knowing that means we might be crucified because we're not 297 00:21:23,319 --> 00:21:29,119 in the kingdom yet. All of those things that Christianity and Judaism before it 298 00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:30,880 asked us to do, we don't like, and we take it out on 299 00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:34,000 the Jews. I don't think we hate the Jews because they're successful. I 300 00:21:34,039 --> 00:21:37,079 don't think we hate the Jews because they're funny. I don't think we hate 301 00:21:37,079 --> 00:21:41,559 the Jews because they're doing anything wrong. I think we hate them because God 302 00:21:41,599 --> 00:21:47,440 plays out his relationship with man in the theater of their history. And I 303 00:21:47,519 --> 00:21:51,599 know this. I can almost prove it by simply pointing out the fact that 304 00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:56,880 no matter what situation the Jews are in, this anti Semitism, this virulent 305 00:21:56,960 --> 00:22:00,519 anti Semitism, rises up again and again. Some people call it. The 306 00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,000 call the Jews the Canarian the coal mine, because they're the first to go 307 00:22:04,079 --> 00:22:08,480 before Western civilization is attacked. But I call anti Semitism the devil's flagpole. 308 00:22:08,599 --> 00:22:14,160 Because I think that evil can creep into any philosophy. You can be a 309 00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:15,880 leftist, you can be a rightist, you can believe in God, you 310 00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:19,039 cannot believe in God, and evil can get into you. And when it 311 00:22:19,079 --> 00:22:23,839 does, the sign that it's there is that viru and anti Semitism. So, 312 00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:27,319 of course, people who are white supremacists, I believe there are about 313 00:22:27,319 --> 00:22:30,480 one hundred of them in America. But people who are white supremacists are going 314 00:22:30,519 --> 00:22:36,480 to hate the Jews above all. And of course people who are leftists and 315 00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:41,000 basically hate God, you know, because that's the first principle of leftism is 316 00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:44,240 that there is no God. It is that we are going to make life 317 00:22:44,279 --> 00:22:48,440 perfect with our own hands in our own world. Of course they're going to 318 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:52,680 hate the Jews. So eventually these two ends of the circle become one thing, 319 00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:56,519 and it happens again and again. You know, there was a Stalin 320 00:22:56,559 --> 00:23:00,039 and Hitler back before it invaded the Soviet Union. We're good buddies, you 321 00:23:00,079 --> 00:23:04,559 know, And so this is something that we should come to recognize. The 322 00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:11,359 only way out of that circle is believing in human freedom and in the idea 323 00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:15,240 that man is made in God's image, that there is some connection. When 324 00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:18,079 I say that, just to put it in practical terms, what it means 325 00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:23,960 is that there is some connection between our conscience and objective moral reality that when 326 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:29,759 we look upon someone beheading a baby or raping a woman on the body of 327 00:23:29,799 --> 00:23:36,240 her murdered boyfriend, something in our hearts says to us, this is wrong, 328 00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:38,920 and we can't define it, we can't prove it, we can't even 329 00:23:40,079 --> 00:23:44,279 know it, but we do know it. And it's when we develop ideologies 330 00:23:44,319 --> 00:23:48,519 that silence that voice inside us, that we end up, you know, 331 00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:52,960 devolving into due hatred and violence and the kind of stupidity we're seeing on our 332 00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:59,200 college campuses where they have been talked out of the most basic primary information that 333 00:23:59,279 --> 00:24:02,240 human beings had. What is a woman, what is she for? What 334 00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:03,519 is a man? What is he for? What is good? And what 335 00:24:03,599 --> 00:24:07,839 is evil? So what we're seeing now, you know, I will tell 336 00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,960 you, in all honesty, is weird as it may sound. When I 337 00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:18,000 heard, you know now it's now years ago, when I heard major institutions, 338 00:24:18,519 --> 00:24:23,160 major media outlets, major colleges saying that you could butcher the body of 339 00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:29,079 a child and call a gender affirming care. One of the first thoughts that 340 00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:33,839 went through my mind was soon they will be killing Jews. Not because there's 341 00:24:33,839 --> 00:24:37,079 a connection between killing Jews and transgenderism, but there's a connection between evil and 342 00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:40,720 killing Jews, that's the thing. And it is evil to do that. 343 00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:45,839 And if you've developed an ideology where you can't see that it's evil to kill 344 00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:49,640 a baby a minute before it's born, and you can't see that it's evil 345 00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:55,880 to teach children about deviant sexuality in school, and you can't see that it's 346 00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:00,960 evil to butcher a child, you have lost your way. You've lost your 347 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,599 way in a way that you almost can't define it. You can't explain it, 348 00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:07,440 you can't argue it. You know, my friend and I love him, 349 00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:11,200 and I feel so deeply for him because I know how deeply he's connected 350 00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:15,160 to Israel Ben Shapiro. I keep hearing him say, look look at what 351 00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,480 they've done, and I keep thinking they know what they see, they see 352 00:25:18,519 --> 00:25:22,039 it, they just can't feel it anymore because their ideology has overcome their conscience. 353 00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:26,079 And I think that that's a situation where men and women of conscience have 354 00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:30,920 to stand up and act their conscience out. You know, it's a very 355 00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,079 painful thing to have to do it sometimes you wind up getting eaten by lions 356 00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:37,519 in the you' see if you do that, but if you don't do it, 357 00:25:37,559 --> 00:25:41,000 people cannot see what they know in their hearts but have shut down because 358 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:48,039 of their ideology. So that's been weighing heavily on me just the last couple 359 00:25:48,039 --> 00:25:55,599 of weeks, watching and even you know, some ostensibly decent kind of members 360 00:25:55,640 --> 00:26:02,279 of the online left who care very deeply they say about human rights, and 361 00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:07,960 will you know, do things like pivot immediately to Gaza and say it's not 362 00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:12,599 worth, you know, crying over what happened on October seventh in Israel. 363 00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:17,799 You know, this is the children of Gaza, you know, deserve more 364 00:26:17,799 --> 00:26:23,920 attention because what happened in Gaza was this outpouring of anti colonial sentiment whatever I 365 00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:27,160 mean. There's different versions of this argument that have been circulating over the last 366 00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:33,880 couple of weeks, and I wonder who's really to blame because on a certain 367 00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:37,519 level, especially I'm talking specifically about young people who were born after nine to 368 00:26:37,559 --> 00:26:45,319 eleven and grew up in this total moral confusion, just absolute fog, through 369 00:26:45,319 --> 00:26:48,200 no falls of their own, they were born into it. At the same 370 00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:55,200 time, these these horrors are stark, there can be no confusion when you 371 00:26:55,240 --> 00:27:00,559 see the videos that hamas live streamed, and yet there manages to be among 372 00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,160 ostensibly good people. So, Andrew, maybe I just want to pick your 373 00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:08,799 brain a little bit about how to deal with this generation of social justice minded 374 00:27:08,839 --> 00:27:12,839 young people who maybe don't know what they should know and everything that they should 375 00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:18,799 know for reasons that relate back to the culture. How should we think of 376 00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:23,160 their stances in these times? Well, you mentioned Niche before, and Nietzsche, 377 00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:29,640 in many ways was a prophet who simply pointed out that when he said 378 00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,279 God is dead, when he had a madman cry out in the street, 379 00:27:32,279 --> 00:27:36,640 God is dead, you know what he meant by that was that we haven't 380 00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:40,160 lost our faith and we are inevitably losing our faith in the face of many 381 00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:44,839 things that happened at the same time, Science, the disruption in the church 382 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,880 that was the Reformation, all of these things made people think, well, 383 00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:49,200 you know, what can we believe? What can we hold on to? 384 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:57,680 And he predicted, Dostoevski predicted many people predicted that when you lose faith in 385 00:27:57,759 --> 00:28:06,119 God, morality disappears. Anything is permitted when you lose faith in God, 386 00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:08,400 and so you start to say, well, I can rewrite morality, I 387 00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,559 can rewrite my gender, I can rewrite my body. I can rewrite anything 388 00:28:11,599 --> 00:28:17,039 I want, because there is no thing that I am modeled on that means 389 00:28:17,039 --> 00:28:21,400 anything. And you really have to sit down for a minute and consider what 390 00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:27,000 the ramifications are of that. In The Brothers Karamazov, a great, great 391 00:28:27,039 --> 00:28:32,720 novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, there's a brother. One of the brothers is a 392 00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,960 guy who believes in God but feels that God is not doing right by the 393 00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:38,680 world, and that God essentially allows too much evil, and he won't forgive 394 00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:42,519 God for that. And he says, when you abandon God, and when 395 00:28:42,559 --> 00:28:49,279 you abandon the idea of immortality, not only do you reject morality, but 396 00:28:49,319 --> 00:28:53,279 your morality becomes the opposite of what it was. And the service of the 397 00:28:53,319 --> 00:29:00,799 ego, even into doing evil, becomes the moral good things that people have 398 00:29:00,839 --> 00:29:04,039 been warning us about all this time. And now that bill has come due, 399 00:29:04,079 --> 00:29:08,079 I mean, we have reached an utterly materialist world. Even people who 400 00:29:08,119 --> 00:29:14,519 think that they're religious are materialists. They do not believe that there is something. 401 00:29:14,759 --> 00:29:18,680 You know, you saw it during COVID when people would come on Andrew 402 00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:22,839 Como I remember it came on and said the alternative to locking down is death. 403 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,279 There's nothing worse than death. Well, death is a terrible thing. 404 00:29:26,319 --> 00:29:30,240 I'm no friend to death, but there are plenty of worse things than death. 405 00:29:30,319 --> 00:29:33,920 Slavery is worse than death, dishonor is worse than death, all kinds 406 00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,279 of things. Fear, living in fear is worse than death. And you 407 00:29:37,319 --> 00:29:41,039 can't know that unless you believe in something beyond life, right, unless you 408 00:29:41,079 --> 00:29:47,359 believe in something that is worth more than your physical body. So people have 409 00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:52,160 to sit down and think about the ratlifications of what they believe, because I've 410 00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:56,039 noticed this on university campuses. God is not a football team, you know, 411 00:29:56,079 --> 00:29:57,400 it's not. Religion is not a team where you're the good guys and 412 00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:00,440 they are the bad guys. It's a way of living, a way of 413 00:30:00,599 --> 00:30:04,319 perceiving life. And a lot of people have been talked out of seeing what 414 00:30:04,359 --> 00:30:10,839 they see. So you know, when you can, when you can look 415 00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:12,079 at you know, when my friend Matt Watsh goes out and says what is 416 00:30:12,079 --> 00:30:15,559 a woman? And people can't answer him. The reason people can't answer them 417 00:30:15,599 --> 00:30:19,359 is that's just something you know, that's an axiom that's a self evident truth. 418 00:30:19,759 --> 00:30:22,759 When you start to lose your grip on those self evident truths, you 419 00:30:22,799 --> 00:30:26,559 have to go back and say, how did I get talked out of that? 420 00:30:26,039 --> 00:30:32,000 And I think that when we talk to young people now, one of 421 00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:33,759 the things that really bothers me on the right is this making fun of young 422 00:30:33,799 --> 00:30:38,920 people for being unhappy because of the culture has destroyed their lives. I mean, 423 00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:42,559 especially young women. Young women are so unhappy. They're so unhappy, 424 00:30:42,799 --> 00:30:45,559 and I don't make fun of that. I don't think it's their fault. 425 00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:49,200 I think the culture has told them something that is untrue about their lives. 426 00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:55,640 And I think you have to start by daring to speak the truth to them 427 00:30:55,839 --> 00:31:00,640 and daring them to embrace the truth. That's a really hard thing to do 428 00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,119 because you come across as a fuddy duddy, You're not modern, You're you 429 00:31:03,119 --> 00:31:07,359 know, it's okay, okay, boomer stuff. You know, all of 430 00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:11,279 that stuff you are going to face. You're going to risk the most deadly 431 00:31:11,359 --> 00:31:15,839 thing that can happen to any American. You become irrelevant. You know, 432 00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:21,400 God forbid you should become irrelevant. So when you go before people and you 433 00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:26,200 say, who told you that a man could become a woman. And why 434 00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:30,359 did you believe it? What on earth? What on earth made you think 435 00:31:30,599 --> 00:31:33,839 that? Because some clown and a you know, a liberal arts colarge told 436 00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,200 you that that you should believe it. You know, those are questions that 437 00:31:37,279 --> 00:31:40,519 have to be asked. And the reason you know that they have to be 438 00:31:40,559 --> 00:31:44,920 asked is because you get demonetized on YouTube for saying them. You get thrown 439 00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:48,640 off Facebook, you get silenced, you get censored, you get condemned by 440 00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:52,440 the mainstream. That's how you know when you're speaking the truth. You know, 441 00:31:52,519 --> 00:31:56,119 that's that's the giveaway. If you can say almost anything, you can 442 00:31:56,119 --> 00:32:00,480 say you know, the Jews are to blame for their own murders, you 443 00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:04,319 can guess. You can say that without losing your monetization on YouTube, But 444 00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,920 you cannot say that a man can't become a woman on YouTube without being demonetized. 445 00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:12,200 So that's how you know you're speaking the truth. So I've been saying 446 00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:15,759 this now for so long that it's getting to beginning to feel like I'm beating 447 00:32:15,759 --> 00:32:19,279 your drum. But if you don't have the courage, if you don't have 448 00:32:19,359 --> 00:32:22,240 the courage to speak the truth, especially to the young, if you don't 449 00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:27,240 have the courage to pay the price on social media. I mean, you 450 00:32:27,279 --> 00:32:31,160 know, pay the price in social relevance and pay the price in money because 451 00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:36,079 it costs your money to do it. Then you can bet that the truth 452 00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:38,160 is going to is going to die. You can bet that people are not 453 00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:39,880 going to live by the truth. They are going to live by lies. 454 00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:44,599 And when you live by lies, you start killing people. That's when the 455 00:32:44,599 --> 00:32:46,440 body's pilot. You know. When people used to say about Donald Trump, 456 00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:50,000 and I'm no big fan of Donald Trump, when people say he's literally Hitler, 457 00:32:50,039 --> 00:32:52,720 I would say, show me the bodies, show me the bodies. 458 00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:57,359 That's how you know someone's literally Hitler, because because they're bodies. Now, 459 00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,799 we see the bodies. Now since October seventh, we see the bodies, 460 00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:05,119 and nobody cares. You know. The New York Times has a guy as 461 00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:09,079 a videographer in Gaza who's an actual fan of Hitler, who's literally a Hitler 462 00:33:09,079 --> 00:33:17,000 fan, covering the Israel Gaza War. So if you're not going to speak 463 00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:20,160 the truth, you're not going to live the truth. You're not going to 464 00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,440 pray in truth. You're not going to stand out and say, you know 465 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:27,240 what this world actually the world you want, actually doesn't make sense. If 466 00:33:27,319 --> 00:33:30,880 we are living in a godless world, no one's going to hear the truth. 467 00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:34,359 And that's a tough assignment, but you really have to do it, 468 00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:36,119 and all of us have to do it, and all of us are going 469 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,920 to pay a price for you. Hey, y'all, this is Sarah from 470 00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:44,599 the Sarah Carter Show. 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That's 485 00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:58,039 Saar. Get super bee t s dot com code Sarah to get fifteen percent 486 00:34:58,119 --> 00:35:07,719 off your first order. Get superbeats dot com promo code Sarah. I want 487 00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:13,920 to ask about the value of fiction in a time when there's so much less 488 00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:16,280 reading that's happening. I mean, there's a lot of binging and a lot 489 00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:20,079 of binging of fiction, but there's also a lot of binging of TikTok, 490 00:35:21,199 --> 00:35:25,119 a whole lot of binging of TikTok and Instagram, where you're not really watching 491 00:35:25,199 --> 00:35:30,320 for the most part art. You're watching other people react to art in some 492 00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:35,519 cases, but you're watching other people just go about their lives and share their 493 00:35:35,519 --> 00:35:37,239 thoughts. And that doesn't lead a whole leave a whole lot of time for 494 00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:45,719 actually the imagination, the moral imagination, the literal imagination. How important or 495 00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:51,119 what role do you think fiction can play at helping people be better, be 496 00:35:51,119 --> 00:35:55,199 better versions of themselves in such a difficult time. It's a great question, 497 00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:59,800 and it's basically the core of what we're talking about. Yeah, first, 498 00:36:00,119 --> 00:36:01,559 you have to know what you're talking about when you talk about art. Art 499 00:36:01,639 --> 00:36:07,320 is a way that human beings communicate the experience, the internal experience of being 500 00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:09,920 human, from person to person. That is what art ups. You can't 501 00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,519 do it any other way. I cannot tell you what it feels like to 502 00:36:13,519 --> 00:36:16,119 see your first child born. I cannot tell you what it feels like even 503 00:36:16,159 --> 00:36:21,199 to stub your toe. I have no way of communicating those things to you 504 00:36:21,559 --> 00:36:23,480 through language. I can only do it by drawing a picture, by telling 505 00:36:23,519 --> 00:36:27,320 a story, by writing a song. Those are the only ways I can 506 00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,519 communicate to you what it feels like to be a human being, the wholeness 507 00:36:30,559 --> 00:36:36,719 of a human being. When you don't have that, you begin to rely 508 00:36:37,119 --> 00:36:40,440 purely on reason. And I can reason my way to any damn thing I 509 00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:44,920 want. I can reason my way and to murder. People have done it, 510 00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:46,400 They do it all the time. You know, I have to do 511 00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:51,880 this because this and this. I am doing this because it's decolonization. Decolonization 512 00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,199 is unfair. Therefore it's fair to slaughter anybody I decide as a colonialist. 513 00:36:55,639 --> 00:37:00,679 The fact that their reasoning can be disproved or doesn't make any sense doesn't matter, 514 00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:05,119 because they have lost touch with the full experience of being a human, 515 00:37:05,159 --> 00:37:07,880 which is only partially reasonable. There are things that we know that we don't 516 00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:10,599 know how we know what is a woman, what is good? What is 517 00:37:10,599 --> 00:37:14,480 evil? What is a man? Those are things we know without knowing how 518 00:37:14,519 --> 00:37:17,639 we know that we cannot put our knowledge into words. If you are not 519 00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:25,320 schooled by some kind of civilizing art, you will be taken over by ideology. 520 00:37:25,519 --> 00:37:30,679 Those are basically your two choices. It's the difference between worshiping God and 521 00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:34,480 worshiping a little statue that says it's a God. It's the difference between worshiping 522 00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,719 God and worshiping Donald Trump or Barack Obama. You know, It's the difference 523 00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:45,599 between ideas and ideals and ideology art if you use it right, I mean, 524 00:37:45,679 --> 00:37:47,159 you can't just you can't just look at it. You have to engage 525 00:37:47,159 --> 00:37:52,960 with it. But art and religion, which is art in a way in 526 00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:58,920 itself, are the ways that you turn your you deepen the experience of being 527 00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:01,840 human, So you can set it off against bad ideology, so you can 528 00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:06,679 set it off against the fervor of your emotions in a moment, so you 529 00:38:06,679 --> 00:38:08,320 can set it off against the mob, so you can set it off against 530 00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:14,320 your desires for approbation, for approval, for fame, for money, for 531 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,760 sex, whatever it is that you desire. You need to be a whole 532 00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:22,000 person. And the way you become a whole person is through art and through 533 00:38:22,119 --> 00:38:23,679 ritual. That is what makes you a whole person. There is no other 534 00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:29,159 way. And so if you're not reading, if you're not experiencing art at 535 00:38:29,159 --> 00:38:34,079 a deep level, if you're not experiencing prayer and ritual at a deep level, 536 00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,480 you are not going to be a full human being. And you can 537 00:38:37,519 --> 00:38:40,559 see it. You can see. You know, the thing that makes people 538 00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:45,519 angriest when I talk on my podcast. The first thing is if I say 539 00:38:45,559 --> 00:38:50,360 Donald Trump is being a jerk. That makes people angry. But the thing 540 00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:53,559 that makes them even more angry is when I tell them to stop smoking dope. 541 00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:58,880 And that really makes me laugh, because you know, I get it. 542 00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:00,559 I like a drink from time time. You know, I'm not saying 543 00:39:00,559 --> 00:39:04,559 you shouldn't have vices. But people smoked op at a level that I don't 544 00:39:04,599 --> 00:39:07,679 think anybody understands. They smoke it every day. It's so much more powerful 545 00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:09,840 than when I was a kid, and it made you a little buzzy. 546 00:39:10,039 --> 00:39:15,440 Now it makes you stone. To live in the world is a very intense 547 00:39:15,519 --> 00:39:20,360 experience, and people dull it with all these things, with alcohol, with 548 00:39:20,559 --> 00:39:23,760 sex, with pornography, with money. They dull the reality of life. 549 00:39:24,079 --> 00:39:28,960 But when you live in the reality of life and become a full human being, 550 00:39:29,079 --> 00:39:31,679 the joy of that experience and the vitality of that experience pays you back 551 00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:37,800 almost for everything I would say. And so art is the way you humanize 552 00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:40,760 yourself. Ritual and art are the ways you become a human being. And 553 00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,079 if you're not a human being, I can tell you what you will become. 554 00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:47,199 You will become a sheep. You will become a follower of the guy 555 00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:51,639 who offers you the most pleasure, the most money, the most power. 556 00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,599 Whatever it is that people are holding up and giving you. You will fall 557 00:39:54,599 --> 00:39:58,679 for that. You will fall for that, you know. I mean. 558 00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,559 I talk to these kids in colleges. My heart breaks for them because they 559 00:40:02,559 --> 00:40:07,760 are being told that they will be a good person if they only believe this, 560 00:40:07,159 --> 00:40:10,559 that they will be their authentic self, that they will only dress like 561 00:40:10,599 --> 00:40:14,920 this, that they will be, you know, the master of the universe, 562 00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:17,119 if they will only speak these words. All of those are lies. 563 00:40:17,559 --> 00:40:22,599 That the idea of being a human being is so complex that only art, 564 00:40:22,679 --> 00:40:28,559 only culture, only religion, and the experience of religion can actually give it 565 00:40:28,599 --> 00:40:30,039 to you, and it's worth everything to have it. We live in a 566 00:40:30,159 --> 00:40:32,440 very you know, we used to live in a healthier society. It wasn't 567 00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:35,960 a better society. There's still plenty of evil in it, but it was 568 00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,559 a healthier society. But we live right now in a very unhealthy society. 569 00:40:38,599 --> 00:40:42,000 And the only way we're going to get it back is person by person. 570 00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,800 You know. This is why, this is why for the last twenty five 571 00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,920 years, I've been telling conservatives, stop saying that this is the election of 572 00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:52,519 your lifetime. Stop saying everything depends on the next election, because you didn't 573 00:40:52,559 --> 00:40:57,159 lose the country in the elections. You've lost it at the movies. You 574 00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:00,840 lost it where people lied into the human heart and twisted it there. And 575 00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,719 that's where we have to win it back. It's going to be a long, 576 00:41:05,119 --> 00:41:07,559 slow slog I mean, it's not going to happen overnight. It's not 577 00:41:07,599 --> 00:41:13,800 going to happen if Donald Trump wins the next election or DeSantis wins it. 578 00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:20,280 It's only going to happen when we start creating beauty and narratives and rituals that 579 00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:25,119 tell the human truth. The House of Love and Death by Andrew Clavin, 580 00:41:25,159 --> 00:41:30,800 another Cameron Winter mystery, has a Halloween release state that's out on October thirty 581 00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:32,679 first. Andrew, I want to thank you so much for joining the show. 582 00:41:32,679 --> 00:41:36,039 I appreciate it. I'm such a big fan of your work. Thank 583 00:41:36,079 --> 00:41:37,679 you. Thanks, Emily, it's great talking to you. I appreciate it. 584 00:41:38,159 --> 00:41:42,639 Of course you've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. 585 00:41:42,639 --> 00:41:45,960 I'm Emily Rashinsky, culture editor here at The Federalist. We'll be back soon 586 00:41:45,119 --> 00:41:50,239 with more. Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the friend