“Welcome to Conservative Minds – a podcast dedicated to examining conservative intellectual history to determine the core values of American conservatism.  What does it mean to call yourself a conservative?  What did it mean in prior times and how did we get where we are today?  We explore these questions and more by turning to conservative political thinkers from the past and present.  Each episode we select readings and conduct a discussion to share with you our investigation.”

 

Thus begins each episode of the Conservative Minds podcast.  In a dizzying weekly release, cohosts Corey Astillck and Kyle Sammin read a notable work of a conservative intellectual leader and hold a discussion summarizing the reading and comparing/contrasting what they’ve found to previous readings.  The result is an interesting and in-depth approach to examining the many nuances of the conservative worldview. 

 

Since conservatism isn’t a rigid ideology that can be traced back to a single godfather, it can be notoriously difficult to define.  What’s more, there are inherent tensions throughout the worldview that create interesting paradoxes.  Sometimes conservative thinkers will emphasize one aspect of conservatism over another and the seeming contradictions may take considerably time and effort to work through.  Part of Saving Elephant’s mission is to help clarify and define the conservative worldview—no easy task—and Corey and Kyle have made much progress in this endeavor.

 

Thus far their podcast has included examining the writings of:

 

Barry Goldwater

Richard Weaver

John Locke

George Will

Robert Bork

Edmund Burke

Milton Friedman

Robert Nisbet

Irving Kristol

William F Buckley

Patrick Buchanan

Friedrich Hayek

Alexis de Tocqueville

Antonin Scalia

 

In this episode of Saving Elephants, Kyle Sammin joins host Josh Lewis to offer a summary of the discussions he’s had in season one of Conservative Minds.  Kyle lives in Pennsylvania where he practices law and writes.  His contributions have appeared in The Federalist, National Review Online, Hardball Times, University Bookman, and the Weekly Standard.  You can listen to the Conservative Minds podcast here.