Post-liberalism of an earlier generation

Related reading and listening

• Ideas and historical consequences — Historian John Lukacs (1924–2019) discusses the relationship between institutions and character, popular sentiment versus public opinion, the distinction between patriotism and nationalism, and the very nature of studying history. (36 minutes)
• Milton Friedman meets Augustine — We present an interview from our archives with theologian William Cavanaugh, in which he examines the free market, consumerism, globalization, and scarcity, all parsed within an unabashedly theological framework. (37 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 161 — FEATURED GUESTS: Andrew Wilson, Kyle Edward Williams, Andrew James Spencer, Landon Loftin, Esther Lightcap Meek, Andrew Davison
• Carlson, Allan C. — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Allan C. Carlson is currently the John A. Howard Distinguished Fellow for Family and Religious Studies at the International Organization for the Family and is the editor of several publications.
• Distributist & sustainable economics — Two interview from 2010: John C. Médaille summarizes how distributist economics differs from both capitalism and socialism. Then Herman Daly discusses the danger of economic theory abstracted from the actual stuff of Creation. (44 minutes)
• Why economists need meta-economics — Joseph Pearce on the key insight of E. F. Schumacher
• The idolatry of giantism — E. F. Schumacher on why scale matters
• The family in modern context — Allan C. Carlson explores ways in which the family life has been reconfigured since the Industrial Revolution, with largely destructive effects. (29 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 157 — FEATURED GUESTS: Allan C. Carlson, Matthew Stewart, Steven Knepper, Holly Ordway, Norm Klassen, and Norman Wirzba
• Music, passion, and politics — In this interview from 2001, Carson Holloway discusses his book All Shook Up: Music, Passion, and Politics, which summarizes the dramatic chasm between the classical and modern views of political ends and of musical means. (45 minutes)
• Human dignity, cosmic hierarchies — Political scientist Robert Kraynak on how Christianity opposes worldly hierarchies with hierarchies of its own
• Challenging the “gospel of democracy” — Robert Kraynak argues that assumptions many modern Christians hold about liberal democracy are rooted in some false ideas about the nature and purpose of civil government. (46 minutes)
• Rejecting “two-tiered” Thomism — FROM VOL. 155 David Bentley Hart on how “two-tier Thomism” deviates from historic Christian understanding of the relationship between God and Creation. (42 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 154 — FEATURED GUESTS: Felicia Wu Song, Michael Ward, Norman Wirzba, Carl Trueman, D. C. Schindler, and Kerry McCarthy
• Religion within the bounds of citizenship — In a 2006 lecture, Oliver O’Donovan argues that the conventional way of describing Western civil society creates obstacles to the participation of believers (Muslim, Christian, and other). (68 minutes)
• Power to the people — Nathan O. Hatch on the DIY spirit of early American Christianity
• Republican freedom — and ideological flexibility — Mark Noll on the novelty of America’s Christian republicanism
• The tasks, conditions, and limits of democratic politics — Excerpts from three interviews with Jean Bethke Elshtain about her concern that democracy might not be able to survive widespread distrust or the dynamics of identity politics. (37 minutes)
• Pragmatism, Politics, and the Spirit of Tragedy — John Patrick Diggins discusses themes in two of his books: The Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority (1994) and Max Weber: Politics and the Spirit of Tragedy (1996). (27 minutes)
• Conventional “charismatic” speech, in service of the Zeitgeist — Richard Stivers on how the rhetoric of democracy invites tyranny
• The restless vanity of the untrammeled self — Sociologist Daniel Bell on the rise of “the idea that experience in and of itself was the supreme value”
• The legitimizing role of hedonism — Daniel Bell on what replaced the Protestant Ethic
• The obligation of prodigality — Daniel Bell on the hedonistic logic of the “new capitalism”
• Our commerce, our selves — Thomas Frank argues that the anti-establishment ethos of the counterculture was not a new phenomenon in the 1960s but was already present in corporate America long before the Beatles showed up. (23 minutes)
• Totalitarianism in a new mode — John Milbank on how liberalism has a marked tendency to become illiberal
• Words as fulcrums — Wendell Berry on the mediating responsibilities of poets
• Liberalism’s totalitarian logic — Antonio López on the logic of liberalism’s totalitarian tendencies
• Diagnosing our political conflicts — Michael Hanby explains why the modern pursuit of freedom — obeying its founding logic — has taken such a destructive turn. (36 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 148 — FEATURED GUESTS: Steven D. Smith, Willem Vanderburg, Jeffrey Bilbro, Emma Mason, Alison Milbank, and Timothy Larsen
• The problem of a degenerate electorate — Aquinas, Augustine, and Aristotle on good government, as summarized by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 147 — FEATURED GUESTS: R. Jared Staudt, Jason Peters, D. C. Schindler, Craig Gay, Mary Hirschfeld, and Patrick Samway
• Confronting modernity through farming — Jesse Straight, who nurtures the life of Whiffletree Farm in Warrenton, Virginia, talks about how he decided to pursue a vocation as a farmer in an effort to discover a way of life that worked against the characteristic fragmentation so dispiriting in modern culture. (24 minutes)
• Lessons from quarantine: Making do with tinned fruit — In this audio reprint of “Wendell Berry and Zoom,” Front Porch Republic editor Jeffrey Bilbro reflects on two metaphors that can help put our new-found “dependency” on web-based video conferencing into perspective: tinned fruit and a prosthetic limb. (17 minutes)
• Loving your neighbor during a pandemic — Brad Littlejohn reflects on how best to ask and answer some of the questions raised by our current disease-ravaged circumstances, particularly questions related to Christian freedom and love of neighbor. (29 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 146 — FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Mitchell, Hans Boersma, Henry T. Edmondson, III, Brian Clayton, Douglas Kries, Conor Sweeney, and Carole Vanderhoof
• The nature of freedom reconsidered — In anticipation of this Fall’s Areopagus Lecture entitled “‘For Freedom Set Free’: Retrieving Genuine Religious Liberty,” we present selections from interviews with three MARS HILL AUDIO guests who have raised questions about the modern understanding of freedom. (27 minutes)
• John Lukacs, R.I.P. — Historian John Lukacs discusses the vocation of studying history and how it is more a way of knowing human experience than it is a science. (23 minutes)
• The inevitability of escalating public animosity — With excerpts from books and lectures by Alasdair MacIntyre, Oliver O’Donovan, and Wendell Berry, Ken Myers argues that modern political theory has guaranteed increasing levels of public conflict. (19 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 140 — FEATURED GUESTS: Matthew Rubery, James A. Herrick, Jack Baker, Jeffrey Bilbro, Timothy Gloege, David Hollinger, and Barrett Fisher
• Christopher Lasch: “Conservatism against Itself” — In this early article from First Things, historian Christopher Lasch poses the question of whether cultural conservatism is compatible with capitalism. (42 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 138 — FEATURED GUESTS: John Milbank, Adrian Pabst, Glenn W. Olsen, Rupert Shortt, Oliver O’Donovan, David Bentley Hart
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 134 — FEATURED GUESTS: Chris Armstrong, Grevel Lindop, Michael Martin, William T. Cavanaugh, Philip Turner, and Gisela Kreglinger
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 133 — FEATURED GUESTS: Darío Fernández-Morera, Francis Oakley, Oliver O’Donovan, Thomas Storck, John Safranek, Brian Brock, and George Marsden
• “Let us live to make men free” (in a specific way) — Patrick Deneen on liberalism’s hegemonic sense of freedom
• In defense of unity — Peter J. Leithart on the relationship between ecclesial unity and religious liberty
• Only domesticated religions are safe to be free — Stanley Hauerwas on why “freedom of religion” carries subtle temptations
• God is more than a choice — Kenneth R. Craycraft, Jr. (and Michael Sandel) on why religious freedom is poorly understood (and vulnerable)
• Skepticism and totalitarian drift — John Paul II on how a loss of confidence in the reality of truth accentuates the will to power
• Persons without natures — John Milbank on the pure individual of liberalism
• Doing business: selfishly or generously? — David L. Schindler on Adam Smith’s big mistake