On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan introduce the brand new course “The Odyssey.”

Odysseus, the man of “twists and turns,” has been away from his home of Ithaca for twenty years. His home is plagued with a pack of suitors who court his wife, devour his goods, and mock his son. 

The Odyssey tells the tale of the cunning and crafty hero of the Trojan War on his journey home. After ten years of war, Odysseus faces another ten years of fantastic temptations, deadly monsters, treacherous seas, and impious men. Meanwhile, Ithaca is threatened by suitors who plague his wife and plunder his wealth. When Odysseus reaches home, he must slay the suitors, test the loyalty of his friends and family, and restore order to his marriage and his kingdom.

Discover the beauty of the Bible in “The Genesis Story,” encounter the brilliance of Plato and Aristotle in “Introduction to Western Philosophy,” and explore the true meaning of America in “Constitution 101” all with Hillsdale faculty. 

Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. I’m Jeremiah Regan.

And I’m Juan Davalos. We are on to a new course today, The Odyssey. We’re going to be covering lecture one today, Ithaca. And I’m going to start by making a confession here, which is that unlike Jeremiah, I know very little about Homer’s Odyssey for now. That’s right. So I am going to be actually just a student of this course, and I’m really excited about it because it’s one of those things that I’ve always wanted to dive into. And I started obviously watching with lecture one, and I’m really excited because it’s a beautiful course and Jeremiah can tell us a little bit more about it.

The Odyssey is an epic poem that was, we would say authored, but really because it was transmitted verbally, was created by the poet Homer, who was also the author of The Iliad. And the Odyssey takes place after the Iliad. The Iliad is mostly about the last few days of the Trojan War. It’s about the rage of Achilles and the will of Zeus. The Odyssey is named after its protagonist, Odysseus, and Odyssey, in our modern parlance, has come to mean like a long journey. And that’s because that’s what Odysseus undertakes in The Odyssey. He’s been in Troy, fighting the Trojan War for ten years. It takes him ten more years to journey home through many twists and turns, through many travails and temptations. But he makes his way back to his home, where he is a king and will have to re-establish his kingdom.

So I know that Doctor Whalen is going to go into more detail on this, but why should we? Obviously, this is a great story. It has survived the test of time. But why should we care about a story like this one?

It’s for several reasons. One is that it’s beautiful. Homer is an outstanding poet. He writes memorable nuggets, but also this is a very long extended poem. So he’s the master of the short and the long. It’s about ancient Greeks and Greek mythology. But Homer taps into the universal human condition, and he tells us something about all men at all times, the types of virtues and vices that men have, the temptations they face. So Odysseus, for example, does not have necessarily, though he is an accomplished warrior, the same martial skill as Achilles, the greatest warrior. Odysseus has other traits, though he’s very cunning, prudent. That means he’s able to look at circumstances and determine what actions will lead to the most good. But he’s also a character who undergoes development and improvement. Throughout the course of the poem, we watch as he learns lessons about hubris or arrogance that he later Applies to great success. The hubris early in the poem causes many problems for him and his men. Later in the poem, he is more humble and he’s wiser, and he’s able to avoid the types of disasters that could befall him had he not learned his lesson. So it’s a great historical work, and it’s a great human work. It’s as relevant today for human beings who are examining themselves as it was for the Greek listeners 2500 years or more ago. But on top of that, it’s filled with colorful characters, adventures, all kinds of things that make a story great.

If this is your first time jumping into this amazing story, I encourage you to go to hillsdale.edu/course and pick up a copy of the book. That’s hillsdale.edu/course. At the top, you’ll see the tab that says books, and you can buy a copy of The Odyssey. The translation is by Robert Fagles. That’s Edu forward slash course.

Now, let’s turn to Professor Whalen with lecture one of the Odyssey. Ithaca.

This is an epic poem from archaic Greece, composed perhaps around the year 750 BC, but set in a heroic age even more distant than that around maybe 1100 or 1200 BC at the end of the late Bronze Age. We know nothing about the author of this poem. We call him Homer. Other than the tradition that he was blind, he was, though undoubtedly a master storyteller and poet. I want to dive into the poem. But first, a word of encouragement. Nothing I say can replace or stand as a substitute for the reading of Homer’s Odyssey here at Hillsdale. We like our students to encounter the primary works, to read the great books. We don’t want our students just to read about them or to just know about the story, but to actually hear Homer’s voice. And in case you are intimidated by the thought of reading a nearly 3000 year old poem, I want to encourage you. You will be surprised at how readable, accessible, and even downright delightful Homer’s story is. We are working with Robert Fagles translation of The Odyssey, which is quite easy to understand and quite readable. It’s gripping and striking in many ways. So don’t be intimidated. Grab a copy, crack it open. You’ll find it as readable as any contemporary novel, and it’s one of the greatest works of Western literature. Hello, I’m Benedict Whalen, professor of English at Hillsdale College, and I’m delighted to have you join me as we read through Homer’s The Odyssey. Book one of the Odyssey starts with these words sing to me of the man muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course. Once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. Many cities of men. He saw and learned their minds many pains. He suffered. Heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home. But he could not save them from disaster. Hard as he strove, the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all the blind fools. They devoured the cattle of the sun and the sun. God wiped from sight. The day of their return. Launch out on his story. Muse, daughter of Zeus. Start from where you will sing. For our time to buy. Now all the survivors, all who avoided headlong death. Were safe at home. Escaped the wars and waves. But one man alone. His heart set on his wife and his return. Calypso, the bewitching nymph, the lustrous goddess, held him back deep in her arching caverns, craving him for a husband. But then, when the wheeling seasons brought the year around, that year spun out by the gods when he should reach his home. Ithaca. Though not even there would he be free of trials, even among his loved ones. Then every God took pity. All except Poseidon. He raged on, seething against the great. Odysseus till he reached his native land. Now the first 12 lines here are what we now call or describe as the epic invocation. It’s the part at the beginning of a great epic poem where the poet raises a prayer to the goddess, the muse, for inspiration. This becomes a convention in epic literature, following Homer, Virgil, Dante and following epic poets all offer invocations in a similar style. The epic invocation also establishes the subject of the poem. Here, the man of twists and turns. Now, to know more about this man, we need to establish a little bit of our background. What was this Troy that Odysseus plundered? To learn more about Troy, We would need to turn to Homer’s earlier epic poem, The Iliad. That epic poem is about a great war fought over a woman named Helen. Helen, the daughter of Zeus, the chief of the gods, was the most beautiful woman in the world. And when she was young, all of the greatest men, princes and kings of Greece, came courting her as they were trying to win her hand. They made an agreement. They swore an oath that they would all band together and support and defend and protect the marriage of whomever Helen ended up with. Helen ended up marrying the king of Sparta, Menelaus. Several years after their marriage, however, a young prince from the city of Troy. His name was Paris. He came and according to different traditions, he either seduced or abducted Helen and carried her off to the city of Troy. In keeping with the oath that they had all sworn, all of the great princes and men of Greece gathered their subjects together and joined Menelaus and his brother Agamemnon as they sailed to Troy to win back Helen. While there the great hero of the Greeks, Achilles fought, and after the close of the epic, finally died. He is the primary character of the Iliad. While at Troy, Achilles and the other great princes of the Achaeans fought to regain Helen. But they also fought to gain glory. Or, to use the Greek phrase kleos kleos means glory, or fame, or that which is heard about a person. It is the thing that heroes strove for as well as victory. Now different things can denote kleos, the armour of an enemy whom one has defeated the prizes one wins in a contest with one’s peers, or even the songs that bards sing about, one that carry one’s renown and fame, or kleos abroad to the larger Greek population. Now, in the Iliad, Achilles is given a unique choice. He hears a prophecy regarding his death. He can either fight and die at Troy while gaining undying Cleo’s undying glory, or he can live through the war and return home. But he returns home in obscurity and won’t have the kleos that he fights for now in the Iliad. Achilles is uncertain as to what he’ll really do until his friend Patroclus joins the combat and his friend dies at Hector’s hands, and Achilles desire to avenge his friend’s death leads him into the battle and finally to his own death. Now, in the larger mythology, after the close of Homer’s Iliad, the Greeks, the Achaeans do finally sack Troy. They do this through the plot of the Trojan Horse, Odysseus’s idea. Odysseus counsels his fellows to build a giant, hollow wooden horse that they leave behind as a trophy for the Trojans. The fleet should sail away and the horse should be left there on the shore. They follow this plot, but they fill the horse with all the greatest warriors of the Achaeans. The Trojans thinking they’ve won the war, bring the horse into their walls, and at night the Greek warriors burst out of the horse. They open the gates to the army that has returned in the night, and they sack the citadel. Now, this story is a famous instance of Odysseus cunning, or to use the Greek word, his mates. Odysseus was famous, renowned throughout the Achaean forces for his cunning, for his wisdom, for his practical intelligence. But in the sacking of Troy, many atrocities are done, different rapes and pillages happen, and certain temples of the gods are desecrated. This offends various of the gods of Olympus, and so the gods then punish the triumphant Greek warriors as they attempt to return home. Now, a triumphant homecoming or a return home was known among the Greeks as a nostos, and this was also very valued, very sought after by the Greeks. If, on the one hand, the Achaean warriors wanted Kleos, they also want to do accomplish a nostos a triumphant return home. The gods, angered by the behavior of many of the Achaeans during the sack of Troy, decide to punish the Greeks and interfere with their triumphant homecomings, their nostos. Some are struck down by the gods, some are blown all over the Mediterranean, and Menelaus brother Agamemnon, the leader of all the Achaean forces, as he returns home, is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra, who had taken up a lover Aegisthus, while he was gone in the ten years at Troy. Eventually, their son Orestes comes and avenges his father’s death by murdering his mother, Clytemnestra. Orestes will prove an important role model that characters in The Odyssey will think about. Now, all of that is important background information for us. But if we look at this poem, Homer’s epic invocation for the Odyssey, we learn several other interesting things. For instance, we learn that much time has passed since the sack of Troy, since the fall of that great city, before this poem opens. In fact, so much time has passed that all of Odysseus’s men have died. The passage of this time leads us to the convention that epic poets follow after Homer, which is. They start their poems in the middle of things, or, to use the Latin phrase in media res, the Iliad for Homer started nine years into the war against Troy. The Odyssey starts nine years into Odysseus attempt to get home. Now, the very first word in the Greek of the Odyssey is the word andra, which means man. And in the first line of the Odyssey in Greek, we have one important adjective that describes the man named there, and that is poly tropin, a form of that adjective is rendered here in Fagles translation as the man of twists and turns. Other translators render polytrope as crafty, or of roundabout ways, or of resourceful or of many ways. This is one of the most important attributes of the man that our poem is going to be about. Now, on one level, he is of many twists and turns of many ways because he has been driven time and again off course. That is physically in his journey. He has had twists and turns. But on a deeper level, metaphorically and about Odysseus’s character, he’s a man of twists and turns in that he doesn’t quite follow a straight line. He’s a deep man. He’s a man who’s hard to grasp, a man who’s hard to pin down. He will be a challenge for us to understand. This characteristic of Odysseus as a polytropic, tropin as a man of twists and turns is related to that earlier term. I already mentioned that Odysseus has Mattis. He has cunning. If he is a man of twists and turns of poly tropin, he is also a man of cunning and intelligence in many ways a man of poly moieties. That is, he has many different forms of understanding and thought. Poly moieties is one of Odysseus primary epithets. An epithet in ancient Greek literature is repeatedly used. Descriptive phrase Homer attaches many different epithets to his different characters. As you’re reading this epic, you’ll notice that Athena might be described as the sparkling eyed goddess or grey eyed Athena. We hear of weary Penelope or cautious Penelope. We even get epithets describing inanimate things like rosy fingered dawn before Odysseus. His most important and most commonly used epithet is Poly Mattis. It’s related to his being of twists and turns. He’s a man of many different forms of thought. Now, one of the ways in which Odysseus is a man of twists and turns and is hard to pin down, is reflected in the very poetry of this beginning. That is, we actually don’t get Odysseus name until 24 lines in. In Fagles translation in the original Greek. We don’t get the name of Odysseus until 21 lines in. So we hear, sing to me of the man muse, the man of twists and turns. But even his name escapes us for nearly 25 lines. This delay increases the dramatic nature, the quality. It emphasizes the man. He is slow to reveal himself to us. He is slow to come into vision for us. This is in contrast to Achilles, the main character of the Iliad. Achilles and his wrath is named in the very first line of that poem. Here Odysseus, with his very name, waits and lingers in the background. And when he does come before us, he will be a challenge for us to understand. Now, Odysseus’s name itself is also an interesting one. There’s some scholarly debate about the exact roots, the linguistic origins of Odysseus’s name. We certainly think that it is perhaps related to words meaning to be angry at, but it also seems to be associated with a verb that can mean who suffers pain or also, conversely, inflicts pain. And I actually like this duality in Odysseus’s name. That is, he is one who suffers pain and one who inflicts pain. Now, a few other important details that we get here in these opening lines is that we hear Odysseus, many cities of men. He saw and learned their minds. It’s a sort of a curious phrase. Here. We have emphasis here again on Odysseus intellectual qualities. That is, he sees cities, and he doesn’t just know their architecture or their religion or their cuisine, but he understands their intellectual makeup. He learns their minds. Odysseus is a penetrating and deep thinker. We also learn that Odysseus has survived something that destroyed all of the rest of his men. There is something grizzled, something hardened, something of the survivor. In Odysseus. He survives where others die. Then also interestingly, we learn that Odysseus is beloved by goddesses. There’s this nymph Calypso, who loves him, who wants him as a husband. But then he’s also hated by other gods. Poseidon, the brother of Zeus, a very powerful god, is bent on Odysseus destruction. So Odysseus has this funny quality where he’s beloved of some gods and hated by others. And despite it all, he manages to survive. The final, really important thing we see here in these opening lines is that Odysseus is striving to get home. He wants to get home to his wife, his heart set on his wife and his return. But this nymph, this goddess Calypso, wants him as her husband. That, as we see right at the beginning of this epic, that there is a threat to Odysseus marriage. Now, if we recall in the Iliad, we can think of a whole political order, a whole city of men brought to its destruction because it committed itself to the violation of the marriage of Helen and Menelaus. Here in the Odyssey we are immediately informed of a threat to Odysseus marriage. And we should, after reading the Iliad, also wonder about the political order that that marriage supports. We will discuss this more as our narrative unfolds. But marriage and its relation to the political order is of primary importance for Homer. Now, after this opening invocation, Homer takes us to Mount Olympus, the home of the gods, where we hear an interesting conversation between several of them. The very first spoken words of this epic are spoken by Zeus, the king of all the gods, and he has this complaint to make. But the other gods at home in Olympian Zeus halls met for full assembly there, and among them. Now the father of men and gods was first to speak, sorely troubled, remembering handsome Aegisthus, the man Agamemnon’s son, renowned Orestes, killed. Recalling Aegisthus, Zeus harangued the immortal powers. Ah, how shameless the way these mortals blame the gods from us alone, they say, come all their miseries. Yes, but they themselves, with their own reckless ways, compound their pains beyond their proper share. Look at Aegisthus now. Above and beyond his share. He stole Atreides wife. He murdered the warlord coming home from Troy. Though he knew it meant his own total ruin. Far in advance. We told him so ourselves. Dispatching the guide. The giant killer. Hermes. Don’t murder the man, he said. Don’t court his wife. Beware. Revenge will come from Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, that day. He comes of age and longs for his native land. So Hermes warned with all the goodwill in the world. But would Aegisthus hardened heart give way? Now he pays the price all at a single stroke, and sparkling eyed Athena drove the matter home. Father, son of Cronus, our high and mighty king. Surely he goes down to a death he earned in full. Let them all die so all who do such things. But my heart breaks for Odysseus, that seasoned veteran cursed by fate so long, far from his loved ones. Still he suffers torments. Now, this opening conversation is very interesting. On the one hand, we return to the theme of a threat to marriage. And here we see the threat to marriage from the other side that is, Aegisthus courted the hero’s wife while the hero was away at Troy. This, in fact, represents something that we will see with Odysseus’s wife, Penelope on Ithaca. Not only is Calypso a threat to the marriage in her pursuit of Odysseus, but there are suitors who are courting Odysseus’s wife, Penelope. So we see possible threats to marriage, both with the man and with the wife. But more largely, Zeus’s complaint here is that men blame the gods for the suffering that they bring on themselves. This raises another important theme for the Odyssey as a whole. What are the sources, the causes of the suffering that mankind endures? Are the gods the source of our suffering? Is it chance or is it the actions of men themselves? Homer will look closely at this in the following narrative. Now, as the story continues, Athena convinces Zeus to let them dispatch Hermes, the messenger god to Calypso, telling her she has to let Odysseus off her island, and she herself decides to go down to Ithaca. Odysseus. Home island to inspire his son Telemachus. Telemachus was an infant when Odysseus left for Troy, but the war took ten years, and Odysseus has been traveling for nine years. So Telemachus is about 19 years old, about 20 years old. At the opening of this work, and Athena decides to go down to inspire Telemachus to start to move him, to prepare for his father’s return. And so Homer tells us. And down she swept from Olympus, craggy peaks and lit on Ithaca, standing tall at Odysseus gates, the threshold of his court gripping her bronze spear, she looked for all the world like a stranger now like mentees. Lord of the Taphians. There she found the swaggering suitors just then amusing themselves with rolling dice before the doors, lounging on hides of oxen. They had killed themselves, while heralds and brisk attendants bustled round them, some at the mixing bowls, mulling wine and water, others wiping the tables down with sopping sponges, setting them out in place. Still other servants jointed and carved the great sides of meat. First by far to see her was Prince Telemachus sitting among the suitors, heart obsessed with grief, he could almost see his magnificent father here in the mind’s eye. If only he might drop from the clouds and drive the suitors, all in a rout throughout the halls and regain his pride of place and rule his own domains. Daydreaming. So as he sat among the suitors, he glimpsed Athena now and straight to the porch he went, mortified that a guest might still be standing at the doors, pausing beside her. There he clasped her right hand and, relieving her at once of her long bronze spear, met her with winged words. Greetings, stranger. Here in our house you’ll find a royal welcome. Have supper first, then tell us what you need. He led the way in Pallas. Athena followed. Once in a high roofed hall. He took her lance and fixed it firm in a burnished rack against a sturdy pillar there, where a row on row of spears, embattled Odysseus spears stood stacked and waiting. Then he escorted her to a high, elaborate chair of honour. Over it draped a cloth, and here he placed his guest with a stool to rest her feet. But for himself, he drew up a low reclining chair beside her, richly painted clear of the press of suitors concerned. His guest, offended by their uproar, might shrink from food in the midst of such a mob. He hoped once more to ask her about his long lost father. A maid brought water. Soon, in a graceful golden pitcher and over a silver basin, tipped it out so they might rinse their hands, then pulled a gleaming table to their side. A staid housekeeper brought on bread to serve them, appetizers aplenty too lavish with her bounty. A carver lifted platters of meat toward them, meats of every sort and set beside them golden cups. And time and again a page came round and poured them wine. Now we see here several important things. Of course, Telemachus is here as a young man yearning for his father’s return. We see his great desire for his father. We also see the presumptive and offensive behavior of the suitors. And in fact, Telemachus is worried that this guest, this stranger to his house, might be offended by the bad behavior of the suitors. We also see Telemachus attention to this guest. And this introduces another motif or theme that is quite important for Homer’s work as a whole. And that is the theme of hospitality, or Xenia in Greek. Hospitality was very important in this culture for many reasons. First of all, of course, travel was very difficult at that time, and so strangers, travelers from distant lands had already encountered great difficulties before arriving at your palace, at your house. But travelers were quite important because travelers could bring news of distant events, and news at that time would travel quite slowly. Travelers also could establish bonds between different cities, palaces, peoples and communities. That is, if you accept with hospitality, a traveler from distant Sparta say, then when you are traveling to Sparta, you might expect reasonably similar hospitality. So hospitality formed a sort of glue, a social bond that knit these different cities and peoples together. Travelers, in fact, were said to be sacred to Zeus. This principle of hospitality, this principle of Xenia, was a virtue that Zeus himself enforced. He said that we must be hospitable to strangers. Now, in this culture, the guest also has certain obligations. If he can expect to be fed, washed and housed, he should share news. He should entertain his hosts, tell stories, sing songs, perhaps compete with them in games, perhaps exchange gifts with the host. And he must be careful not to tread upon or violate this principle of hospitality. That is, while he can expect to be treated well, he should not over extend his welcome. He shouldn’t overstay his welcome. This is part of what we see the suitors doing. They are violating the principle of hospitality by using their hosts. Now, while the suitors are carousing in Odysseus halls, Athena and Telemachus have a conversation, and Athena inspires Telemachus by assuring him that his father is still alive. Then she turns and observes the behavior of suitors. Homer tells us. Still, the clear eyed goddess reassured him, trust me, the gods have not marked out your house for such an unsung future. Not if Penelope is born a son like you. But tell me about all this and spare me nothing. What’s this? Banqueting, this crowd carousing here? And what part do you play yourself? Some wedding feast, some festival. Hardly a potluck supper, I would say how obscenely they lounge and swagger here, look, gorging in your house. Why, any man of sense who chanced among them would be outraged. Seeing such behavior, Athena provokes Telemachus. With this, Telemachus goes on to complain that he doesn’t have the power or the authority to dismiss the men. The men are there ignoring young Telemachus and always trying to win the favor of Penelope. Telemachus goes on to say this curious detail about his mother’s behavior. Listen. All the nobles who rule the islands round about Dulichium and same and wooded Zacynthus too, and all who lord it in rocky Ithaca as well. Down to the last man they caught my mother they lay waste my house and mother. She neither rejects a marriage she despises. Nor can she bear to bring the courting to an end. While they continue to bleed my household white. Soon you wait. They’ll grind me down as well. Shameful! Brimming with indignation, Pallas! Athena broke out. Now Telemachus here presents us with an interesting detail and a difficult question. Mother neither rejects a marriage she despises, nor can she bear to bring the courting to the end. Why, if Penelope despises the proposed marriages. Why? If she is not interested in these suitors, does she not bring the courting to an end? It’s a very interesting question, one that Telemachus himself can’t answer, and one that sits for us as a very important issue at the opening of this poem. In fact, this question is repeatedly phrased over the course of the Odyssey and becomes one of the dominant motifs or questions that we have regarding our characters. What is Penelope really up to with the suitors who are besieging her household? We’ll follow this question as we go. Indeed, Penelope, like Odysseus, is going to be somewhat difficult to pin down. If Odysseus is a man of twists and turns and of Metis Penelope two, and presents interpretive difficulties for us. What exactly does she want? What are her ends? What are her aims? Now we’ll get a glimpse of Penelope in just a moment. But first Athena encourages Telemachus. She tells him he should gather all the nobles in a council the next morning to see if they will restrain the suitors. And then she says, if they won’t, he should sail to the mainland of Greece to visit Nestor in the city of Pylos, and then Menelaus in the city of Sparta, visiting those two men who had been with his father at Troy. They had both returned home. Their veterans who knew Odysseus well, and Telemachus, Athena advises him, should go to those cities to see if those veterans had heard anything about his father. We can see here Athena’s important role in the Odyssey in getting all of our action moving. She sends Hermes to Ogygia to free Odysseus, and she inspires Telemachus to move to the mainland of Greece. Now, at the end of this inspiring speech to Telemachus, she flies off like a bird, and Telemachus realizes that he’s been speaking to one of the gods. He is heartened and and inspired by this. And then our narrative turns to Penelope. Homer tells us amidst them. Still the famous bard sang on, and they sat in silence, listening as he performed the Achaeans journey home from Troy. All the blows Athena doomed them to endure. And now, from high above, in her room and deep in thought, she caught the inspired strains. Icarius daughter Penelope, wary and reserved. And down the steep stair from her chamber she descended. Not alone. Two of her women followed close behind that radiant woman. Once she reached her suitors, drawing her glistening veil across her cheeks, paused now, where a column propped the sturdy roof with one of her loyal handmaids stationed either side, suddenly dissolving in tears and bursting through the Bard’s inspired voice, she cried out, phemius! So many other songs, you know. To hold us spellbound. Works of the gods and men that singers celebrate. Sing one of those as you sit beside them here. And they drink their wine in silence. But break off this song, the unendurable song that always rends the heart inside me. The unforgettable grief. It wounds me most of all. How I long for my husband. Alive in memory. Always that great man whose fame resounds through. Hellas right to the depths of Argos. Now Telemachus, having been inspired by Athena, tries to act like the man of the house and tells his mother to go back to her chamber, and that he will deal with the suitors. But the depiction of Penelope here is quite interesting, that she is high up in her room and deep in thought, and that when she comes to the suitors, she descends to them. Penelope is high, both because her chambers above them, but also symbolically she sits above them. She is the thing the suitors are striving for. She’s also the person Odysseus is striving to return to. She’s also deep in thought. She resonates with Odysseus in this way. She is Matisse. She has her own cunning, her own intelligence. Here now why? Penelope will come down to the suitors and in front of them express her longing for her husband without dismissing her. Sending the suitors away again expresses this question what is it that Penelope is after? What is. What is she motivated by? What is she aiming for? We have here in book one of the Odyssey, a very interesting situation. Clearly we have a police in crisis. We have a marriage under assault, we have a lost ruler and a god setting things in motion. What Penelope is up to on Ithaca and Telemachus. Adventures on the Greek mainland are what we’ll look at in our next lecture.

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Once per week, Hillsdale College president Larry P. Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss Great Books, Great Men, and Great Ideas.

Dr. Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, joins Hugh Hewitt on the Hillsdale Dialogues to continue a series on The Second World War, Churchill’s sprawling memoir and history of World War II in six volumes.

Release date: 17 July 2026

Read more about Sir Winston Churchill including the official biography of Churchill by Martin Gilbert at the Hillsdale Official Store.

Every week. Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss great books, great men, and great ideas. This is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More [email protected] or wherever you find your audio.00:31S2

Morning glory needed. Grace America. I’m Hugh Hewitt. That music means the Hillsdale dialogue is underway this week. Doctor Larry Arnn and I are back into Winston Churchill’s World War II memoirs. We’re in the second volume, Their Finest Hour, chapters eight and nine, which are titled Home Defense and the French Agony. It’s a lot to cover in a half an hour of talking, but we want to start on what my volume is. Page 143. Doctor Aaron, the reader of these pages and future years should realize how dense and baffling is the veil of the unknown. Why does. Why does Churchill tell us that? He reminds us of that a few times in the course of these books. Well, he’s writing knowing what happened, but he didn’t know what happened or what happened in 1940.01:17S3

Yeah. Well, he. So anybody living his life doesn’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, you know. And so if you read history where the examples are about what life is like, you can experience through one life things and you get that experience as you go. And you don’t have much when you start and you only get one life’s experience, but you can get a lot of experience if you read history. But when you read it, you have to remember that the people who made it didn’t know any more about tomorrow than we know today. And that means that these shocking and cataclysmic and wonderful things that are told in this chapter and in this book. They were all accomplished or failed at by people who are just as ignorant as we are about tomorrow and even the state of things today. Because right now what we’re hearing is in these chapters is that the French army is collapsing on a scale and at a pace that an army that size had never collapsed in human history. And of course, nobody could predict that’s what would happen. In fact, Churchill definitely predicted it would not happen on the radio right after he became prime minister, and then a month later, he was proved wrong. And he’s coping with that every day while he’s getting ready to figure out how to stop the Germans from coming ashore.02:46S2

Well, that’s what he that’s what I took away from this, is that he wanted to communicate to everyone who would read this book, and we’re reading it 85 years after the fact, that the Brits were really worried about an invasion. I mean, they really were worried about invasion. Churchill writes, or would they go to Ireland? So maybe they’d go to Ireland first and then come across the Irish Sea. But that’s a palpable fear that we’ve never had in the United States, even after nine over 11. We weren’t worried about an invasion even after Pearl Harbor. We might have been worried about coastal California, but we weren’t worried about an invasion in force. We were worried about attack. They were worried about waking up some morning and seeing a reverse Normandy. That’s quite a burden to bear.03:31S3

Yeah, Churchill learned he doesn’t. Some of the best things are not in this book, in part because he was such an important man. And he’s writing about recent events. But one of them is the day he was informed when he went over the first war plans, that they couldn’t defend the beaches. He sort of implies otherwise in this book. But the truth is, if the Germans got ashore with a sizable force, they couldn’t contest it unless they had an equal, equal size force to fight them. But that meant that they had to gather the serious troops. And, you know, there was one division that was serious troops and well equipped. There were other divisions that were well trained, but they didn’t. They left their equipment behind in France. And so they had to they had to gather more higher up north. They had to gather away from the coast in concentrated areas and try to attack. And that meant that probably large swaths of territory in the South would be lost. London is in the south. And so when he saw that, and he sees at one point them, uh, because they didn’t have equipment, uh, he, you know, when he writes to the Dominion Prime ministers in the second chapter, we’re reading and all that, he doesn’t go into all this, but he actually witnessed them. uh, getting 55 gallon gas, petrol drums and putting wicks in them and timing how to make them explode at the right place. When they got down by the beach, that’s what they were going to try to do. And so it was a very bad situation. And if they had come, they would have taken a lot of territory.05:23S2

If Hitler had only kept up his momentum. He stopped once outside of Dunkirk because he didn’t know what was going on. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. The fact that Hitler is in the fog of war as well, and he doesn’t want to get overextended, but then he pauses Operation Sea Lion and he doesn’t. Come on. Churchill is a is a realist. I long for more regular troops with which to rebuild and expand the army. Wars are not won by heroic militias. And he’s also doing very practical things. He asked the Admiralty, the Navy for the benefit of the Steelers fan to transfer 50 trained and half trained pilots to Fighter Command because he realizes it’s all going to be in the sky. Um, it’s all going to depend upon who owns the sky. So he has a good strategic grasp of the situation. He just doesn’t have the instruments of war in his hand.06:16S3

Yeah. Well, so I refer everybody to Victor Hanson’s very great book, The Second World Wars. It’s a wonderful book, and I learned from it. And I’ve been studying that war for 40 years now or more. Uh, he goes into the British war effort and he, he describes how much it got out of itself, especially adjusting for its size. In the end, British war production was greater than German war. Production in Germany is a significantly larger country, and the reason for it is in this chapter, this, uh, avalanche of memos coming out, you know, they actually did invent a stamp here in 1940 that he would put on the memo saying, action this day, let’s, you know, and, and one of the memos we read in here is that the Indian troops were going to get we got a whole lot of troops in India. Bring them back. They can fight here. We’ll send some lesser troops to India. And then he says, two weeks later, we were told we could get some of them back in two weeks. And I learned that some of them have only just embarked for the journey. What’s going on? We gotta hurry, you know. Of course. It’s just think how? Think of an idea. And he also, by the way, arranges right after he becomes prime minister. And we’re in the second month of his premiership right now. And Germany is attacking and France is falling and all the world’s falling apart. Right. He says orders are given in writing. And he just dictated streams of these things. And, you know, Don Rumsfeld, whom I knew well and admired very much. He was famous for his snowflakes. Yep. As I say, these little memos would fall on people from all over. He was very good administrator, and he’s a very good man. I miss him, but he, uh. And I talked to him about it one time because I had heard complaints from people working for him, and I brought it up to him. He said, yeah, he says, it annoys people. And I said, did you know that Winston Churchill did just the same? And, you know, you could never win a point on Don Rumsfeld. He was a very competitive human being. He would say, of course I knew that.08:31S2

Well, since we’re talking rummy, he was a dangerous interview, meaning that if you were unprepared or said something stupid, he would be the first to let the audience know that you had done that. So more than once I got scorched by rummy, and that was endearing. I actually thought he was going to run for president at one point, I believe in 1980 against Reagan. Maybe it was 88 against H.W., and then he chose the better part of valour and decided not to.09:06S3

So I know some gossip that I’ll relate. Why not? It’s the honor of Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld was waiting by the phone in 1980, and George. George H.W. Bush was waiting by the phone. Reagan was going to call one of them to be vice president, and things happened. I won’t say what those were. And Reagan called H.W. and, uh, then he called Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld told me this, and he said, uh, I’ve called George Bush. And Rumsfeld said, thank God for it, Mr. President. Uh, there was another deal offered to him. I won’t say what it was. And, uh, and Rumsfeld replied, I was afraid you were going to take that deal. And, uh, Reagan replied, never. So the point is, he was a very important man, and he was not far from the presidency, at least, at least.09:59S2

Pause right there, doctor. At least for 20 years, not far from the presidency. Much more coming ahead. Don’t go anywhere, America. I’m talking with Doctor Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, all things [email protected]. All the prior Hillsdale dialogues at Q four hillsdale.com. New courses, by the way, [email protected]. All for free as is in Primus, the monthly speech digest. Just go to hillsdale.edu and sign up and stay tuned. I’ll be right back with doctor R. Welcome back America. Hugh Hewitt with Doctor Larry Arnn. When we broke off, we were talking about the 1980 Republican Convention and a deal that was under discussion there a couple times.10:40S3

In his.10:40S2

Life for the benefit of the audience. We should tell them what the deal was, because that’s a matter of historical record. Jerry Ford’s people had approached President Reagan, then candidates Reagan, then Governor Reagan’s people with the proposition of being a co-president. And Reagan dallied with that and then firmly rejected it. And I think, is that what the Secretary Rumsfeld was referring to? Thank God you didn’t accept that.11:04S3

Yeah. And see, Reagan, when the convention opened in 1980, Reagan was 17 points behind Jimmy Carter. You eventually beat him by 8 or 9, I think, anyway. The argument was you can’t win. People don’t trust you. But if I join you and Henry Kissinger joins you, then they will have confidence and we can win the election. That was the arrangement. And there’s nothing discreditable about it. But it’s much to Reagan’s credit that he didn’t take it and, uh, change, you know, it’s a good thing, but.11:38S2

Well, they proposed an extra constitutional solution, not constitutional. It’s a unitary executive. You can’t have a co-president. Let me go back to a line in home defense doctrine. This was a time when all Britain worked and strove to the utmost limit, and was united as never before. He You referred to that the one desire of all the males and many women was to have a weapon. The sense of fear seemed entirely lacking in the people, and their representatives in Parliament were not unworthy of their mood. You know, if the people of Iran had had a weapon, this would not be the despotism that it is.12:15S3

Yeah. That’s right. It. And remember, the habits of self-government are good for a person, right? That’s. We talked about socialism last week. If you don’t take care of yourself, right. What kind of person will you be? And then then if you get a citizen body that, uh, you know, it’s the two 50th here directly and we did a movie about it. Right. And, uh, last last week, you know, this week you quoted Churchill. Wars are not won by heroic militias. Well, the early battles of the American Revolution were, in fact, won that way. And later there was an army and a French army too involved. And that was necessary. But that army, our army was built on a heroic militia.13:06S2

And on heroic men. Just last week, our mutual friend, Eric Metaxas has a new book out on the American Revolution, and we spent the large part of our time talking about one man, Henry Knox, about whom not many people know the Large Man, 300 pounder bookseller. And Washington says to him, I need some cannon from Saratoga. And he leaves. Boston goes all the way too far. And heck, back to upstate New York in the middle of winter, grabs £15,000 of cannon and gets them on sleds and brings them back and forces the Brits out of Boston, which remains forever thereafter, free. That’s one guy, and that’s a militiaman. He’s not a soldier. He’s a bookseller.13:50S3

Yeah, that’s right, that’s right. I mean, you know, Paul Revere, who was a really radical guy. He was a silversmith, I think. And, uh, he, you know, but, you know, they lived in the country even if they lived in the city and they knew about horses and they knew about work, and they knew about axes and hatchets and farm equipment, and they knew about guns and, uh, you know, come to find, you know, the British, uh, there’s a, in this, we made this film Revolutionary America, which you’ll soon be able to watch on streaming. And there’s a wonderful quote from the General Burgoyne, I think was the first British general. And he said, they’re fighting with great spirit, and he insults us more than in the in the Seven Years War, the French and Indian War. And we’re not used to this kind of warfare. Well, that’s the only that’s the only kind the colonists knew how to wage.14:44S2

Because they had been waging it on the frontier forever. But before we move on to the French agony, I do want to bring the fact that Churchill was so much in the weeds, I imagine, um, that you are in the weeds at Hillsdale College and people don’t know when to expect something. He writes a memo to his Minister of information who’s not like in the war cabinet. It’s just some fellows, the Ministry of Information, asking him to ask the public, quote, to handle air raids in a cool way and on a diminishing tone of public interest. In other words, to make the abnormal normal and not to lose your head. Even if the neighbor’s house gets blown to bits, that’s that’s in the weeds.15:27S3

Well, if I’m not mistaken, the Minister of Information at that moment was Alfred Duff Cooper. Oh, great. A great Churchill friend, and he certainly was later that I think he was on this day. And, uh, he was a firm man. His what son? John Julius Norwich, one of the great historians of Venice, is I think he’s still alive. He’s older now, Anyway, he was like his daddy. They were both great characters. They were really great people to have a good dinner with. They could talk into the night and they were not averse to drink. And Alfred Duff Cooper was quite a guy. And, uh, good to be able to say a word about him here.16:12S2

I want to also, before we move to French, you mentioned this, that Churchill summoned the troops from India and was upset that the troops from India had not arrived. I think it is little appreciated. I put in my notes that the British Empire, as in Empire one, saved the the West saved democracy. You know, colonialism is much abused now and it will never come back, I don’t think. But it was the British Empire that saved the world from Hitler, and only the Empire could have done it.16:44S3

Yeah, well, I looked it up this morning to refresh my memory. It was only in July of 1944. That’s six weeks after D-Day that the Americans had more troops fighting on the continent than the British. And for from what? From June 1940, the month we’re in right now until the summer of 1941, the British were alone and we didn’t join them. And that’s when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. It’s his former ally. And we didn’t join the war until December 1942. So that’s two years, two and a half years alone, more or less. And, uh, the fact that they stood up to that is just amazing. And, uh, uh, the fact that the Empire and remember, there was no imperial soldier in the dominions or in India, the remaining part of the empire that was not self-governing. There was no power in London to conscript any soldier in any of those countries. They sent them. And see India had an all volunteer army in both World Wars, and they had A million, 2 million in the first war, and a million something in the Second War fighting. And in the first war, very large part of them fought in Europe and they were all volunteers. And so that meant that Churchill was right about something, and that is that the empire is a association of sentiment.18:13S2

He is right about a lot of things, doctor. We’ll come back and talk about more of the things. He was right. An association of sentiment. Love that. Don’t go anywhere, America, except over to hillsdale.edu, where you’ll find all things, including applications for you rising seniors to Hillsdale. Stay tuned. Welcome back America. Hugh Hewitt with Doctor Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, all things [email protected]. We are talking about the Empire. When we went to break Doctor Arnn, the empire that Winston Churchill presided over as Prime Minister during the war.18:46S3

When Indians worth commenting here. When Indian independence came, the Indian soldiers were all offered service in the British Army if they wanted it. And the British Army was generally surprised that almost all of them didn’t. In fact, a minority did, which indicates something. I don’t know a lot of places where I think Winston Churchill was wrong, but I think he was probably wrong in thinking that India had not yet become a country, because it’s had a very difficult history and it’s a very promising nation today. But it showed even from 1945, 1948, when independence came, it showed that it was becoming a nation. It had been a conglomeration of different.19:36S2

He might have been right on the timing, though. Doctor, I just finished rereading Freedom at Midnight. It was a pretty awful birth. It was a massacre. Yeah.19:45S3

And well, he he predicted a million dead. And there were about that that were killed in the Civil War that ensued. And of course, Pakistan split off. And that’s chiefly Muslim nation. And India is chiefly a Hindu nation, and they’re both mixed up. Some too. And they, you know, don’t get along very well today. And they both have nuclear weapons. So he was right about some important things, too. And, you know, the main thing to comment about that was, in my opinion, Churchill. Well, all you gotta do is read it. I’ve written about it. Churchill was well meaning to the Indians, and he never denied their right to govern themselves. He just thought they weren’t ready to do that yet.20:28S2

So let’s move to the French, who ought to have been better prepared to govern themselves than they were. I’m not sure what to think about the average Frenchman in 1940. De Gaulle is all honor to de Gaulle. He’s a strong man from beginning to end. He never wavers. He gets out of the country in time. Churchill is driven crazy by him throughout the course of the war, but he had a great courage. I don’t know what to think about Reynaud or or. I know what to think about Patton. What do you make, generally of the collapse of so many Frenchmen at the top? Because they could have withdrawn to Burgundy. They could have gone to the south of the country, and they. Darlan could have kept on the fight, and he chose not to either. Well.21:12S3

France is a great nation. The best. I can explain it, of course, because there was a lot of heroism. By the way, Churchill had several friends who comported themselves beautifully in this collapse. But I think that maybe they were afflicted by the same thing that afflicted British politics in the 1930s. And that was the cost of the First World War was so grievous. And, you know, we on a on a global scale, we met in the First World War lessons that were apparent in 1864 in our country, in the last battles of the Civil War. But of course, Much expanded and much intensified, and the body count was enormous and the fighting conditions were terrible. And then now here, what are we going to do that again? And they just weren’t ready to do it. And their army was not ready to do it.22:08S2

And you can sort of understand that. Uh, stay on standby, doctor. We’ll be right back and continue on with the French collapse and all that followed. Welcome back America. I’m Hugh Hewitt. Hillsdale dialogue time all things [email protected]. All of our dialogues with Doctor Larry Arnn, my guest collected at hue for hillsdale.com. Doctor Arnn, when we went to break, we were talking about the rapid French collapse in 1940. And why did it happen?22:36S3

They built this, uh, they staked their hopes on a wonderful defensive line, maybe the strongest ever built, called the Maginot Line. And Churchill tells the story of that in these chapters. What the Germans did was go around it using the tanks. Right? And then they didn’t. They penetrated it in a place or two very late. But most of it was intact when the armistice came. And one of the commanding generals said, I don’t want to lay down my arms. All of our defenses are still intact here. Right. So they had staked so much on that. And, I don’t know, maybe they put their best troops in there, too. But the ones that were not in there were just basically not ready to go. And they, you know, and you got to hand it to the Germans, even to Hitler, their plan until about two years, I think it was before the war, was to repeat what they had done in the First World War, to go around through Belgium, swing to the right, you know, take the the army from the north West, and they built this Maginot Line to force that. And the Maginot Line runs from basically the beginning of the Ardennes forest, which is thought to be impassable. North and west, up toward Belgium. And then the idea was the British and the French armies would gather at the Belgian border and maybe go over into Belgium. Belgium was an ally and fight the fight the German army there. That was the plan. Well, what Hitler did was he got Rommel and Guderian, his best generals, probably. Rommel certainly was one of the best to come up with another plan. And they thought they could get tanks through the hilly, even mountainous passageways and through the Ardennes forest and attack them from behind. And that’s what they did. And they got between them in Paris, and they cut the communications of the Allied armies and everything was a mess. It was chaos, right. And communications broke down. And the British, it’s very it’s a wonderful story how all this happened. And, you know, my father in law was in this retreat and left Dunkirk Beach the last day. And he could recount to you about it, you know, first of all, everything’s a mess. The maps are completely disorganized, and there never really was an order given. You guys fight your way to the beach and come home. And there never was an order given you guys the French. You guys break with the British and retreat to the south toward Paris and maybe south of it. The British just sort of started moving that way. They just it was chaos and nothing was working. The communications were terrible and they started fighting their way home. And they did fight in good order and kept themselves together marvelously. I mean, it’s remarkable how they performed and are in retreat. And, you know, the famous soldiers of Calais that we talked about in the previous week. They rescued their army and considerable part of the French army. But the French, they just got their way back toward Paris, and they basically just fell apart.26:14S2

General Alan Brooke, who later becomes the George Marshall for Great Britain, the chief of the General Staff, sends a note to the Secretary of War, Anthony Eden. At that point, the position is hopeless. All further reinforcements should be stopped in the remainder of the British Expeditionary Force. Now about 150,000 should be re-embarked at once. And they did indeed get 136 136,000 Brits and 20,000 poles off Churchill. Though I think this is a wonderful note on which to end. He. He censors bad news. There’s sinking of boats even as France collapse. And he says, quote, the newspapers have got quite enough disaster for today. At least he he realises he’s got to buck up a country that that maybe is the difference between he and the French Prime Minister Churchill is. Yeah, well, the task of revitalizing his country.27:07S3

If you want to read, you should read this book. And then I would suggest that you read the chapters in Martin Gilbert’s big biography, the eight volume biography. Just go find. Volume six is what this is in the volume is entitled Finest Hour. Read the story of his visits to the French. I’ve recounted crazy on this show, but they’re very. And he. Churchill is trying to get them to say, send out an order that everyone is to fight and fight their way someplace south and keep it up till the coast and then run to Africa. If you’ve got to write Churchill, then in these chapters shows that he’s giving similar orders to the British civilian population in the event of an invasion. In other words, there was no command at the top that we’re going to go on no matter what. And and Churchill, in a very moving moment, says, you can destroy two German Army corps in the streets of Paris and says, we’ve ordered the surrender of Paris. And Churchill says nations that die fighting rise up again. Those that surrender tamely are gone forever. And that’s a very low moment in the in the story of these four trips.28:30S2

It is indeed. And hold that thought. We’ll be back for a little bit more on the collapse of France from Winston Churchill’s memoir, all the prior dialogues on the World War Two memoirs are [email protected]. Welcome back America. I’m Hugh Hewitt with Doctor Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, all things Hillsdale hillsdale.edu. Doctor, since we’re talking about the low point of France in 1940, let’s also talk about Charles de Gaulle, who gave some hope in that moment. But Churchill de Gaulle gets out.29:00S4

Of France.29:01S2

De Gaulle keeps fighting, and he has de Gaulle address the British nation the night he arrives in the United Kingdom. I think that’s a brilliant stroke, even though they’re collapsing across the channel. We’ve got this French general here, and he says, fight on, because they got all the North African Empire to worry about, right?29:18S3

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they, you know, de Gaulle was a he was a serious man. He was a wonderful man. Uh, Churchill was mentioned in this chapter that he walked up. He just noticed de Gaulle, who was not a senior. He wasn’t a general. Why was he in the room? Uh, he had to spit for it. And people recognized that. Churchill just noticed his demeanor, his countenance, and he walked up to him at one point and said, man of destiny. Man, Amen. Man. My mom, Justine. And, uh, Churchill was right about that. Now, it is true that they fought like cats and dogs through the war, and de Gaulle fought with Roosevelt like cats and dogs. He got to the place where Roosevelt would hardly talk to him. And, uh, uh, and, you know, later, de Gaulle would not join certain parts of NATO. Correct. Very independent minded costs. And whatever was the spirit that kept him strong in the face of this defeat, he he kept France together. And the spirit that led him do that also made him a very difficult ally.30:28S2

When we come back next week, I want to talk about French exhaustion and maybe American exhaustion, but we’ll leave that for next week. All of you are interested in this. All of the dialogues on Churchill’s World War II memoirs are collected [email protected], and they go back quite some time. We’re on volume two, and we’ll be picking up on chapter nine and or ten and 11 next week. If you want to catch up with us and read the Bordeaux Armistice and Admiral Darlan and the French Fleet. Quite the dramas them both. Until then, stay tuned. And I’ve got to say about Admiral Darlan, if any of you do not know if it hadn’t been for de Gaulle, Darlan would be the last Frenchman that you’d ever have heard of from World War Two. But de Gaulle got out and Darlan, who went back and forth. And we’ll get into his complicated story next week. Admiral Darlan went back and forth. Uh, he could have stood up as de Gaulle did, stand up just as France was falling. But he didn’t. He made his peace with the Vichy government in Pétain and the. And, uh, it was just a very sad moment for the Admiral. He redeemed himself a bit. We’ll talk more about that next week. Until then, though, we’re in volume two. I have the paperback edition, as I was just mentioning. Uh, I think it’s easiest one to work with rather than the expensive and original first edition volumes or the memoirs that are everywhere. You can find and use bookstores. They’re heavier to carry. I like the paperbacks. They’re easy to work with. All the Hillsdale dialogues are [email protected] and everything. Hillsdale, including brand new online courses for free and the opportunity to sign up for Imprimis, the monthly speech digest for free. You can find [email protected]. Thank you Adam. Thank you doctor. Thank you Harley. Thank you Generalissimo. I’ll talk to you on Monday on the next hear your show.32:23S1

Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More [email protected] or wherever you find your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to hillsdale.edu.

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Kathleen O’Toole, associate vice president for K-12 Education at Hillsdale College, delivers a lecture elaborating on the relationships between liberal, civic, and moral education and their aims.

Dr. O’Toole delivered this lecture as part of the Classical Education Forum on Hillsdale College’s campus on February 12th, 2026.

Learn more: https://k12.hillsdale.edu/

A 20-minute podcast featuring professors, K-12 teachers, and friends of Hillsdale College, all speaking about classical education—what it is, why it’s still relevant today, and what makes it unique. Hosted by Scot Bertram.

Welcome to the Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education podcast, bringing you insight into classical education and its unique emphasis on human virtue and moral character, responsible citizenship, content, rich curricula, and teacher led classrooms. Now, your host, Scott Bertram.

Thanks for listening. The Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education podcast is part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More [email protected] or wherever you get your audio. You also can find more information on topics and ideas discussed on this show at our website, k12.hillsdale.edu. Thanks for listening. Liberal and civic education. Two essential components of a real human education are united in purpose through an honest approach to history and civics. During the Classical Education Forum hosted on Hillsdale campus earlier this year, our associate vice president of K-12 education, Doctor Kathleen O’Toole, elaborated on the relationship between liberal civic and moral education and their aims. Here’s doctor O’Toole.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk with you this evening. This year is America’s Semiquincentennial have you been calling it that Semiquincentennial or have you just been saying two 50th birthday? We try to say semiquincentennial, but then we get together and practice to make sure that we do it properly. Here in this room, all of us are doing the hard and important work of educating students at a divided and perhaps increasingly polarized time in America. Our nation is divided over many things. How ought we to educate students? We’re perhaps even more deeply divided over how to talk to them, about America, about our common past, and about the regime that has shaped and formed us all. It seems like a good time to reflect on liberal education or classical education and its relationship to civic education. And so that’s what I’d like to do this evening, briefly, in what does real education consist and how can we recover it? I think traditional or classical education can be divided into three subcategories. One would be liberal education, which I’ll say a few things about. One would be civic education, which I’ll say a few things about, and one would be professional or technical education. That’s those three things are kind of the traditional way of educating students. Now, no one seems to doubt the value of that last part of traditional education. There can be no doubt that one crucial purpose of education is to equip individuals with the knowledge and the skills that they need in order to take care of themselves and their families and be productive members of the community. That seems uncontroversial. But what is controversial, and what raises some fundamental questions, is the relationship between liberal education and civic education. Let’s take liberal education first. The end or purpose of liberal education is simply to see the truth. The truth about any and all things falls under the horizon of liberal education. But there is only so much time, and so liberal education prioritizes the pursuit of truths that are the most fundamental or important for us. What are those things? Well, we human beings are that part of the universe that seeks to know where we stand in it. We are the ones who wonder about the universe’s ultimate origins and character, and were driven by a desire to know ourselves, to understand our essential natures and purpose in life. We’re interested in the natural things and in the human things. Thus, liberal education seeks knowledge of the natures of things, and especially the nature of man and the universe as a whole. The surest guides for this two fold quest are the greatest works of philosophy and political thought, and the greatest works of art that mankind has produced. The former analyzed the natures of man in the world, whereas the latter reveal those natures by amplifying certain aspects of them, by depicting their ideal forms and the ideals that drive them, and by throwing them into action, by telling stories about them. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, these works aren’t that difficult to identify. They’re marked by their revolutionary, foundational, and intransigent character. No honest, intelligent surveyor of human civilization could unite the. Could deny the unique brilliance of Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Locke, Rousseau or Melville. But liberal education requires something else, too. The broad base of its pyramid is the study of history. Like Odysseus, the student of liberal education, must learn of the mines and cities of many other men. That is, he must learn of their politics, their ideas, their way of life. That is what history provides. By studying the variety of political, social and economic arrangements under which men have lived, as well as their actions and deeds, and their competing philosophical and religious beliefs, students greatly expand their appreciation of human nature, the breadth and limits of its capacities, as well as its dominant characteristics and needs. But it should be said that the liberal study of history isn’t only pursued for the purpose of general reflections on man or politics. We also want to know the particular stories themselves. That’s because to know himself, man must learn his place in the world. A major part of which is his place in the unfolding of the human story. This story fires the imagination and fascinates the active mind. It need not tell of some developmental ascent, as the progressive educator hopes it does. Its scope is truly global, though. In order to appreciate the most profound philosophical, religious, and political ideas mankind has grappled with, as well as the ideas that have most decisively shaped the world. The student of liberal education must especially study Western history. This includes Greek and Roman history, the Middle Ages and the modern age. And further still, men are bound to their own and they need to know their own place within the broader human story. That’s one reason why it’s especially important for Americans to have a rich and robust knowledge of their own American history. Liberal education liberates man in the true sense. It liberates us from ignorance and confusion, from prejudice and delusion, and from the wild passions and fanciful hopes that can degrade and destroy us. It liberates human beings by making us rational, allowing us to see the world clearly and honestly in revealing our nature. It necessarily reveals what we need by nature, what is right and good for us. For these reasons, liberal education provides in part a moral education rather than do violence to human nature in a vain attempt to remake it. Liberal education cultivates human nature so it can grow properly and flourish. It takes up the hard but essential task of character formation. Liberal education aims to guide us into freedom by making us self-reliant and responsible, capable of governing ourselves and taking part in the self-government of our communities. Liberal education makes us fit to be true citizens, but still, serious thinkers have always recognized some tension between liberal education and civic education. The former is open minded and seeks truth and wisdom wherever it may be found. The latter aims to make men dutiful and devoted citizens of a particular regime. The inquiries of the former necessarily call into question the commitments of the latter. Plato, the first and greatest thinker to take up this theme famously distinguished the virtues of the human being and the citizen. He divided liberal education from civic education and the philosophical understanding of virtue from the political understanding. Yet he and the greatest thinkers have also always recognized the necessity of civic education. It turns out that the serious pursuit of liberal education leads one to conclude that the life of the mind and the very existence of liberal education depend on the existence of civilization. Not to mention political order, security, and freedom of thought. And it turns out these goods are very hard to achieve. Of course, it’s not only thinkers who need these goods. All peoples, and especially free peoples, depend upon them for their well-being. The essential foundation for these goods is an education that forms the people and inculcates in them the virtues that maintain Civilization. If free people are to remain free, they must be taught their rights and duties how to exercise their freedom responsibly and the principles and institutions that make self-government possible. On this point, our American founders were most instructive. Unlike the progressives, they didn’t think that progress would make the threat of tyranny and strife things of the past. These dangers are ever present. Freedom can only survive where there is a vigilant and enlightened citizenry. Here’s how George Washington made the point in his farewell address to substantially true. He said that virtue, or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of this fabric. Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge in proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. Civic instruction and moral instruction are not the sole objects of education. But, as the founders saw, they are its most important objects for the country. And for this reason, they wrote, we should place those things at the heart of all levels of schooling. Once we look to the content of liberal and civic education, we find that any tension between the two approaches dissipates and they end up complementing each other. This is because an honest assessment of the truth has a sobering effect, making one wiser and more realistic about the ways of the world, and more capable of appreciating what makes civilization thrive and what destroys it. In the American context, it allows one to grasp the merits and prudence of our founding principles and our constitutional system. How well they take into account both the noble and base aspects of human nature. And it makes one less prone to exaggerating or getting angry at their imperfections. When history and civics are taught properly, the truth is sovereign. And this is. Actually what allows them to achieve and align the dual purposes of liberal and civic education. Consider how those subjects should be taught. What distinguishes the honest approach to history and government from indoctrination is the refusal to condescend to students. The honest approach respects their intelligence and their thirst for the truth. An honest approach doesn’t offer them crude summaries that simplify complicated issues. It weighs the merits of the competing claims, seriously giving all sides their due. In doing so, it makes liberal use of primary sources, allowing students to encounter the actual books, speeches and arguments in all of their complexity and depth. The honest approach to teaching history checks the mistake of reducing the causes of human affairs to vast, impersonal social forces, and it thereby teaches students of the significance of human freedom, deliberation, and choice. It makes use of social, economic and cultural history, but it goes up against the grain of recent times by restoring, alongside those historical studies, the serious study of political, military and intellectual history. Indeed, it recognizes the preeminence of politics in human affairs, and it accordingly restores politics to its preeminent place in the study of history. It is unafraid, then, to give special focus to the special contributions made by a powerful or elite few. It doesn’t neglect groups and classes that are less powerful, less fortunate or weaker, but it gives them their proper due, neither dwelling on their hardships too little nor too much. Similarly, it doesn’t shy away from, but rather embraces the study of injustice and tragedy in human affairs, including the darker sides of the American story. But where it defies the contemporary trend is its insistence on understanding such episodes with rigor and intelligence. Its perspective is moral without being moralistic. Now consider the effect of the honest approach to history and civics, how it combines the purposes of liberal and civic education, or how in pursuing truth, it also trains students for citizenship. The honest approach presents the human story in all its harshness and glory. In effect, it acquaints students with the full complexity of human affairs, including the persistence of strife, injustice, and misfortune. And it acquaints them with human greatness and virtue at their peak. It shows students that arguments often have many intelligent, competing sides. And it shows them how difficult political decisions often are, how they always involve tragic trade offs, and always fail to satisfy everybody. Thus, it further has the effect of teaching students the limits of what man, no matter how enlightened, can achieve in this world. It chastens his longing for heaven on earth and thereby cultivates a spirit of sobriety, moderation, and wisdom. The student of this education learns to understand and deal with, rather than lose heart in the face of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Rather than learning to hate his country or the world for its evil and injustices, he learns to appreciate and cherish those pillars of civilization in the rare places in which they stand. those pillars he comes to understand include strong families, mores, traditions, and communities. Effective, stable, representative and limited government. The rule of law and the protection of civil rights and property. A powerful military that defends rather than threatens the people’s freedom. Religion, the arts, and, of course, public support for education. He also learns of the inherent fragility of civilization and thus its persistent need for fortification and defense. That it depends upon the virtues of citizens and statesmen who are willing to fight and sacrifice on its behalf. And he sees that reason must play a role in founding, building, and guiding great civilizations. And when great civilizations decline and fall, reason must play a role in rebuilding or refounding them. Finally, in our American context, an important effect of this honest approach to history and civics is to cultivate patriotism. One can begin to acquire a serious and mature form of love for country simply by gaining knowledge about the country. This sort of love isn’t superficial. It’s not infatuation. Rather, it’s like a love that comes about from spending a long time in a marriage or a family where one comes to know his or her spouse or the other members intimately seeing their faults, yes, but more importantly, truly understanding them and being therefore in a position to truly recognize their virtues. As the student becomes an enlightened patriot, he can love his country both for what it is and for its ideal form as as expressed in the founding. And he can measure the health of the former in light of the standards set by the latter. It turns out, then, that it’s not foolish to expect that liberal education and civic education should work together. That we should provide an education in America that both teaches the truth honestly and produces patriotic citizens. It’s the progressives who despise what they don’t understand, who actually seek to vulgarize and distort education for the purposes of propaganda and indoctrination. And it’s no coincidence that in America today, the enemies of patriotism are also the enemies of learning. Thank you very much.

We’ve been hearing Doctor Kathleen O’Toole, associate vice president of K-12 education here at Hillsdale College, from her lecture during the Classical Education Forum earlier in 2026 on Hillsdale College’s campus. Thank you for listening to the Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education podcast.

The post Kathleen O’Toole on Liberal and Civic Education appeared first on Hillsdale College Podcast Network.

Host Scot Bertram talks with:

Benedict Whalen, chairman and associate professor of English at Hillsdale College, to preview his brand-new online course, “The Odyssey.” 

And Carson Holloway, department chair and professor of political society at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a Washington fellow at the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life, discusses the shortcomings of American libel law and his new book, No Liberty to Libel: The Constitutional Case against New York Times v. Sullivan.

From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, nurtured and honored. This is the radio free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.00:25S2

We are living in a new age technologically, in which anybody can publish anything almost instantaneously, and we need to think through how to handle that, because you need legislation to protect reputation, you need libel law.00:37S3

This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was Carson Holloway, author of the new book No Liberty to Libel The Constitutional Case Against New York Times v Sullivan. Yes, we talked in depth about libel law later on in today’s program. First, we’re joined by Doctor Ben Whalen. He’s associate professor of English here at Hillsdale College. Also your teacher for the brand new Hillsdale College online course, The Odyssey. Find more hillsdale.edu/new course. Doctor Whalen, thanks for joining us.01:18S4

Oh, thanks so much for having me.01:19S3

Excited to talk today about the Odyssey. Every Hillsdale College student reads The Odyssey as part of the Great Books curriculum here. Why has Homer and this work remained at the foundation of a liberal arts education for now? Hundreds, actually, thousands of years.01:39S4

Uh, it’s it’s, it’s really a sort of a funny thing that the oldest work of literature we have in Western culture is, is also, uh, so great. Um, it’s, it’s sort of a remarkable thing. It actually, um, it’s well known that Homer, uh, probably didn’t write the story down himself that this it emerges from an oral culture where bards are reciting and singing songs. And, uh, it’s a testament to the excellence of the story, uh, that, uh, it’s been preserved from Homer’s time on. It was, in other words, it was immediately recognized as a truly great work. Uh, and people wanted to hear it and they wanted to hear Homer’s version of it. And, uh, so it was preserved and then eventually set down in writing and has been passed on to us. It’s a story that it obviously it part of its excellence is it just has so many great, uh, narrative moments. So of course, you have things like the Cyclops and the homecoming, the, the, the fight with the suitors, the Lotus eaters, these different goddesses, etc.. But it’s also excellent because it really does have, uh, philosophical, uh, reach. It’s got, it gets after deeply, universally human things. And so it’s, it’s really excellent because it, it not only has those sort of gripping, uh, moments of, of, of a really thrilling story, but, but it, it really helps you understand what’s, what’s proper to a human life and in all sorts of ways. So it’s, uh, it makes sense that even those earliest Greeks would retain and retell and, and finally write down Homer’s story.03:22S3

So we’ve got this major new film adaptation of The Odyssey. It’s one of the reasons we have the online course out. One of the reasons we have this conversation today. Why is this a good time to, to go back and maybe not just see the movie, but actually read Homer himself?03:38S4

Yeah. Well, I’m excited to see the movie, obviously. Christopher Nolan, great director, very interesting and thoughtful, uh, filmmaker, the, uh, the book itself though, and this, I love this about Hillsdale College that they, they wanted to produce a course on on the book itself, because we can’t let or we shouldn’t let even a great film, uh, obscure or or stand between us and the book. Uh, it is one of the things I love about the Odyssey in particular, both the Iliad and the Odyssey is that it’s, uh, remarkably easy and accessible despite its riches. And so I’ll tell students this, we’ll dive in and we’ll read a lot here. I teach it every year, uh, at Hillsdale. Uh, but, but that actually, as soon as you get into it, you’re having fun. You’re studying like very serious literature with real serious questions. But, but it’s delightful. It’s accessible. It’s a joy to read. And so I’m happy Nolan has made the film, and I hope it just inspires more people to actually go and read the book, because the book also will be fun and delightful. It’s not a labor to read. It’s a joy.04:51S3

Talking with Doctor Ben Whalen. He’s your teacher for the new Hillsdale College online course, The Odyssey. Find [email protected] slash. New course NEWCOURSE for the Odyssey. Your lectures here in the course follow this journey all around. Finally, at the end back home. How does each stop along this journey reveal something new about Odysseus?05:18S4

Yeah. Uh, so, um, in, in terms of overall chronology, the Odyssey essentially starts, um, uh, we hear about it in the middle of the work after the fall of Troy. Odysseus has been at Troy, they’ve sacked the city, and Odysseus starts his journey home. And one of the really interesting things is that what you see is that Odysseus, when he leaves Troy and starts to head home, the very first thing they do is they land on the shores of another city of the Cicones, and they sack that city and they they haul off plunder. And so you see that this immediately post Troy version of Odysseus is not actually a man who is most profoundly driven by a desire for home, yet. And he’s he’s not really ready for the role of king and husband and father. Instead, he’s more a marauder. He behaves more like a pirate than, than the king of a of an island or a husband or father. So the different stops over the course of the Odyssey, in fact, show a growth and an education, even for the old grizzled veteran. Odysseus needs to go through to learn that he really does belong back in Ithaca. And, and that that really is where his heart is. And he has to fight to get there. And he has to correct and change certain aspects of his character that were shaped by ten years at war. And so it’s, it’s a really wonderful thing to watch that. And it’s, it’s, it’s painful in parts. And it’s also illuminating. Eventually, Odysseus goes to the underworld at the very center of the book, we hear about this, his his journey to the land of the dead. And it’s there that he meets his mother. And she has died from heartbreak, yearning for Odysseus to return. And you see, that’s one of the moments where you see Odysseus learning, I really have to change what I’m what I’m doing, and I do. I need to go home.07:12S3

Throughout the lectures, throughout the course, you show that Odysseus isn’t just fighting monsters, but there’s also confrontations with various temptations along the way, too. Why are the internal battles that we learn about just as important as the external battles through the work?07:30S4

Yeah, I like when you say The Odyssey. I think people think of a Cyclops or maybe the suitors, and those are those are external trials, uh, man versus monster, man versus other men. But it is true. What what we see with Odysseus is that he’s given multiple, in fact, uh, I sort of joke with my students. Multiple options of island women that he could stay with. But but actually what he does is he these are sort of temptations and they entail different things. So one of these one of these goddesses offers him immortality. It’s a remarkable thing. And it only grows more profound as you read the work that Odysseus turns down the offer of immortality. He chooses his wife and his home and death, all of those things together. And not only death, but also Ithaca involves difficulty and suffering. He chooses all that together. Because as as Homer reveals to us, in fact, sort of a meaningful, noble human life, one in which a happiness can be true happiness. The deepest forms of happiness can be found also entails mortality and suffering and struggle. And that all this together makes up that which we find humanly meaningful.08:49S3

Doctor Ben Whalen is your teacher for the new Hillsdale Online course on the Odyssey. hillsdale.edu/new course. Uh, Odysseus is famous for his cleverness, but he also matures over the course of this story. How does Homer depict that growth for the reader? What lessons should we take from it?09:11S4

Yeah, one of the things I think that the work is particularly rich on is it’s, um, the education of Odysseus, both in his need and desire to get home. He has to prioritize that, but also that there’s a difficulty for men who become habituated to violence and force as the means of resolving problems that arise in life. And so in these ten years at Troy, Odysseus is he’s a he’s the he’s described as the, the masterful Tactician. Um, he’s he’s he’s brilliant. Uh, and he’s thoughtful, but it’s entirely in terms of the sort of exercise of force to get your way to conquer a city. And I think that one of the things that Homer shows us over the, over the course of the work is that the virtues of the warrior are not enough, uh, for the husband, father, uh, King, that the husband, father king does need to be able to exert force like Odysseus does have to actually kill these suitors when he gets home. But there’s something more that’s required for a a truly good and virtuous man. There are these other sort of domestic and more more intellectually, uh, or, um, peaceful if or if not peaceful, more sort of properly ordered ways in which a man has to direct his life. And we see Odysseus grow in that over the course of the over the course of the work. So that finally, when he does arrive home on Ithaca, for instance, uh, he he does not reveal himself, but instead, uh, thinks, okay, I can suffer this too, and I can. And he’s very slow and very careful and thoughtful. And it’s those it’s being slow and careful and thoughtful that are actually some of these virtues most necessary for a good king, a good husband, a good father.11:10S3

Talking with Doctor Ben Whalen, associate professor of English at Hillsdale College, also your teacher for the new online course, The Odyssey at hillsdale.edu/course. If you’re online a bit, there’s a little bit of side conversation around the release of the film about the women in the Odyssey. Yeah. The course that your course highlights Penelope as much as Odysseus. Really what makes her one of the truly great characters in Western literature?11:39S4

Yeah, I, I have strong opinions about this, actually. If you get to a book 24 at the very end of the work. Odysseus has butchered all these guys. I’m going to plot spoiler here, but he 2500 years. That’s right, that’s right. He butchers all these suitors who were paying court to his his wife and. And book 24 opens with this scene where all of these suitors souls, the shades of the of the suitors go down to the underworld, and they’re greeted by some of the great heroes from the Battle of Troy. And in this remarkable moment, Agamemnon says to these suitors when he hears how they came to die, he. He says the gods will lift up an immortal song in praise of the glorious Penelope. This song that will never die. And that’s. That’s actually really what the Odyssey is. It’s. It’s Homer’s great song in praise of Penelope. Penelope is, uh, she’s an awesome character. She’s she’s. I always stress this to my students. She is certainly beset by these different suitors. So she’s sort of holding the household together and it’s under assault. Um, but she’s the opposite of a just a helpless damsel in distress. That’s not Penelope. Instead, she’s resourceful, she’s cunning. She, uh, she tricks the suitors. She she she really holds the whole kingdom together, uh, through her wit and intelligence. Until Odysseus returns. And it’s been 20 years, for heaven’s sakes. So, I mean, it’s that’s no minor undertaking. She’s she’s a great character. And really, uh. Homer. Homer’s work points towards her. Homer does not neglect her significance or. Homer’s work does not neglect the significance of women. Uh, really, the poem is much more ambivalent about Odysseus character than Penelope’s. She’s the one who has the sort of virtue and consistency and excellence that you. You can’t help but admire and, and think about, uh, throughout the whole work.13:42S3

Loyalty is one of the defining virtues in The Odyssey. And of course, that ties into Penelope as well. Why does Homer place so much emphasis on faithfulness inside the Odyssey?13:53S4

Yeah, I that’s a that’s a great question. At one point in Odysseus journeys, he comes to the land of the lotus eaters and, uh, the land of the lotus eaters. It’s, it’s this sort of strange, drug like substance that makes people forget their home and where they’re from and who they, they have no desire for anything but to just sort of lie around eating Lotus. And, uh, that’s sort of the, uh, in a certain respect, the antithesis of loyalty. So loyalty entirely. It consists of remembering who you are, who you have debts towards, who’s been your benefactor, who you love. And, and you stay true to that. And so, yes, throughout the Odyssey, there’s this interesting tension Between, say, the call of the lotus Eaters, where you. You could just lose yourself in momentary pleasure and in in the in the day to day and forget and and the man. And that’s that’s in contrast to the man of loyalty or the woman of loyalty who remembers and recalls and lives according to that code. So Penelope is a great figure for loyalty. There’s another wonderful figure, Eumaeus, the swineherd who has taken care of Odysseus, flocks on Ithaca, and he’s he’s described by Homer as the soul of loyalty because he remembers. He remembers his master, he loves him and he serves him. And it’s it’s it’s it becomes very obvious to us that that sort of memory and loyalty is, is a virtue of, of great significance compared to just momentary pleasure and forgetfulness.15:31S3

Readers who are experiencing the Odyssey for the first time might be familiar already with some pieces Cyclops, the Trojan horse. There’s a lot more to it than that. What are some of the overlooked moments that students tend to appreciate after reading The Odyssey?15:51S4

Oh, that’s a great. There are so many. I’ll share one that’s just a personal favorite. When Odysseus finally escapes from this island where he’s been held captive for 7 or 8 years, he. He’s sailed on a raft, and then he gets shipwrecked. And so he lands on this island, the island of the Phaeacians, where Nausicaa is the Princess. He lands there with with absolutely nothing, not even a shred of clothing. He is. He is naked and alone has nothing. And so he. He climbs ashore after this great storm, and he sleeps under this bush. And so he’s covered in leaves and twigs, and he’s. He’s filthy. And then the next morning he wakes up and he hears these young women playing with this ball. They’ve done. They’ve been washing some clothes in this stream, and they’ve been throwing a ball back and forth. And Odysseus hears them and he comes out of the bushes to to see what they are and, and where he is. And Homer has this wonderful simile where he likens Odysseus to suddenly this this lion about to come and prey on this, this well-defended homestead with these rich flocks. And I like to pause there with my students and encourage them to think about like, what does it mean that Odysseus naked without a weapon, without a tool, in a strange land, he’s got nothing. And yet in this simile, Homer likens him to a predator, you know, rather than rather than the suppliant, the beggar. He’s that’s how um, how dangerous he is, how forceful, how resourceful Odysseus is. So you get these wonderful little moments where this is another thing that Homer is so wonderful in is his similes. So you have on the level of the story, just this action going along. But then Homer will liken it to something and that shows you a whole different angle, a whole different way of, of seeing the character or the situation.17:53S3

Is there a particular one of these lectures inside the new online course, The Odyssey that you’re excited for students to experience?18:01S4

Uh, that’s yeah, the, I mean, I’m excited for students to think about what Odysseus goes through when he goes to the land of the dead. Uh, it’s actually a katabasis is the phrase or the term that refers to the a great hero’s journey to and return from the land of the dead. It’s actually a sort of in a certain sense, and I’m not trying to Christianize this, but there’s, there’s a way in which, in fact, early Christians would even read these stories and see that there’s a sort of resurrection motif, or the greatest of heroes, your Hercules or your Odysseus. They. They travel to the land of the dead, and then they return with with some sort of profoundly deepened knowledge or understanding or it’s the mark of the greatest heroes. And so what’s interesting though, is when Hercules does that, it’s. It’s simply because one of his feats and he’s he’s the archetypal hero. When Odysseus does it, though, it’s about reordering the very desires of the human heart. And so it’s, it’s intellectual has to do with one’s loves and with one’s self understanding. And so I’m excited for students to, to get to that, to see Odysseus confront Achilles and Agamemnon in the land of the dead, to meet his mother, and then and then to realize really in part through that where he belongs and how he should conduct his life.19:29S3

Doctor Ben Whalen is associate professor of English here at Hillsdale College, and he’s your teacher for the new Hillsdale College online course. The Odyssey hillsdale.edu/course. NEWCOURSE, the Odyssey. Available now. Doctor Whalen, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.19:54S4

Thank you very much, Scott.19:55S3

Up next Carson Holloway is with us. We’ll talk about his new book, No Liberty to Libel. I’m Scott Bertram. This is the radio free Hillsdale Hour. Welcome back to the Radio free Hillsdale Hour. I’m Scott Bertram. Be sure to find more great Hillsdale College audio on Hillsdale College Podcast Network. You can find it [email protected]. Older editions of this show, plus more from The Larry Arnn Show, Imprimis and the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast, wherever you get your audio. We’re joined by Carson Holloway. He’s department chair and professor of political science at the University of Nebraska Omaha and a Washington fellow in the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life. His brand new book is No Liberty to Libel The Constitutional Case Against New York Times v Sullivan. Carson, thanks so much for joining us.21:05S2

Thank you for having me, Scott. I really appreciate it.21:07S3

I have to say, I enjoyed the the typeface on the book, which makes it look like it’s New York Times type typeface. I’m sure that was somewhat intentional.21:15S2

Yes, yes. I think they did a great job encounter books did an excellent job with the look of the book.21:20S3

Very good. All right. So look, there’s a there’s a subset of Americans who likely have no idea what we’re about to talk about, which is libel law. And New York Times v Sullivan. Take us inside. Why New York Times v Sullivan matters. why? It’s an important First Amendment case. And then after that, we’ll get into why you think it’s wrong.21:39S2

Okay, that sounds great. New York Times versus Sullivan is considered by practically everybody to be one of the great landmark First Amendment freedom of the press rulings of modern times. It was decided by the Supreme Court in 1964, the Warren Court Justice William Brennan, one of the very consequential justices, a liberal justice, wrote the opinion for the court in that case. And the opinions important or the ruling is important because it changed the libel standards that the country has for public officials. And then later, the court extended the new standards to public figures as well as public officials. Libel, of course, is when people sue for defamation for the publication of false information that damages their character. And the court decided in New York Times versus Sullivan that libel cases involving public officials. And then, as I say later on, public figures raise a First Amendment problem. They. They create a problem in relation to the freedom of the press that the First Amendment is supposed to protect. So seeing that problem in the court’s mind, the justice’s mind. In 1964, they came up with a solution for that problem. And that solution is called the actual malice test or the actual malice standard. What the court said in the Sullivan opinion was that if you are a public official and you sue to protect your reputation in a libel suit, you will have to show not only that the publication about you was false and defamatory or injurious to your reputation. You’ll also. That’s what ordinary people would have to show, right? You’re going to have to show something else in addition to that, which is that the publication was made with actual malice. And that’s a technical term that the court devised to mean the following. Either the publisher knew that it was false, or they published with reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the report. So I would say the significance of New York Times versus Sullivan is that it sets up under the allegation that the First Amendment requires this. It sets up a two tiered libel system in which ordinary people basically have to show that they were defamed by a false report, and public officials have to show that, plus this actual malice. Right. And one other thing I’d like to say about that, just by way of clarifying what it means in practice, the court was very clear in subsequent cases in which it elaborated on the doctrine that actual malice is something far more extreme and far worse than ordinary negligence. So basically what it means is it gives the press running room to be negligent with the reputations of public officials and public figures, because they’re going to have to show something worse than negligence. They’ll have to show, again, actual malice. And in practice, it turns out to be very hard to meet that standard, which is why there are not very many successful libel suits brought by public figures in the kind of Sullivan era.24:33S3

Come back to that question about reputation a little bit later on in the conversation. Americans today, I would guess a good number of them assume that freedom of the press means that there is broad protection, even for false statements about public officials. Is that how the founders understood freedom of the press?24:50S2

No. I think we are laboring under a delusion that’s been created by the Supreme Court. The founders, of course, did value freedom of the press very highly, including a kind of wide ranging and brawling culture in which you’re going to be criticized if you’re a public official, for sure. But they did not think about it in the same way that the court did in New York Times versus Sullivan. My book is an originalist argument, so I’m basically saying the courts departed from the original understanding of the freedom of the press that’s embodied in the First Amendment and in the broader public and legal culture of the founding. You know, there were protections for freedom of the press in many of the state constitutions. It’s not just a federal issue. So let me go back a moment to what I said about the Sullivan court. When I said they saw a problem, they saw that a libel suit involving a public official is impinging on freedom of the press. See, I think that’s the first error. The founders did not look at it that way. Their view was simpler. It was derived from what they learned from Blackstone’s commentaries on the laws of England. And it’s based upon the kind of classical moral distinction between liberty and license or licentiousness. I think the founders believed that libel, in the sense of defamatory, false publication about somebody, is simply outside the scope of the freedom of the press. It’s something that’s not protected. And in fact, there’s a long tradition in the Supreme Court and American courts prior to New York Times versus Sullivan, in which the justices or judges would say, kind of transmitting that tradition, that libel is one of the forms of unprotected speech, along with obscenity and fighting words and things like that. It’s not the kind of expression that was intended to be protected by the freedom of the press. It’s an abuse of the freedom of the press, or it’s an act of licentiousness that is outside the lines, so to speak. So the founders would not have thought that this kind of suit raised the kind of problem that the New York Times court thought that it did. And the other part of my argument would be that there’s nothing like the idea of actual malice in the thought of the founders not seeing this problem. They don’t devise the solution. There is some ways in which they would say that the standards are different in a libel case for public officials versus ordinary people. And I can talk more about that if you want me to explain that. But suffice it to say, in relation to what the court did in the Sullivan decision, there’s nothing like the actual malice doctrine at the time of the founding. They don’t think that a certain class of people have to prove something extra in order to prevail in a libel suit.27:25S3

Let’s talk about some guys with Carson Holloway, the author of the new book No Liberty to Libel, James Wilson, James Kent, Joseph Story, these legal commenters of the early Republic. Did any of these thinkers from the early Republic anticipate this more modern argument that public figures, or just some figures, should receive less protection than from libel than private citizens?27:50S2

Right. Yeah, they don’t anticipate that. And let me explain using them what I was hinting at just a moment ago. They do. They’re building on Blackstone, who I mentioned before. These are Americans of the early Republic who are great jurists and great legal commentators wrote big, massive, learned treatises on American law. They do anticipate the idea that the standards would be different for a public official versus a private person. In the case of the truth defense for libel. Now, let me explain the background to that just a little bit. Blackstone, the great English legal commentator, made clear that according to the common law, a criminal libel could even be a true statement because, he said, the libel, the criminal libel laws of the English common law are looking to prevent breaches of the peace more than they are looking to protect reputation. And since a humiliating publication about somebody that happens to be true might provoke them to violence, you could be punished for a true publication under the English common law. The founders liberalized that and come up with a more permissive and they thought, a more reasonable standard, which was that there ought to be a truth defense in a criminal libel proceeding. Alexander Hamilton, in the famous case, people versus Croswell, New York, case from around 18031804. Maybe. Hamilton said the truth defense should be understood as. You can defend yourself against a charge of libel. If what you published was true and published with good motives and for justifiable ends. Now that tells you that they understood the truth defence as being qualified. If you publish something true about somebody out of pure desire just to hurt them or to humiliate them in front of the public, you might still be, you know, liable for libel, so to speak. So where they’re anticipating a different standard for public and private people is that they basically all say, especially Kent, that, uh, there should be much more running room for a truth defense if you’re dealing with a public official. Right. Because the people have a right and a need to know about that person’s character. So if what’s published is true and actually relevant to your reputation, we’re going to give you more room to make that defense. But they all talk as if the publication is false and defamatory. Then if you’re the defendant, you lose already. Right. They’re all pretty close to what you might call strict liability for false defamatory statements. So there’s nothing in them to anticipate what the Sullivan Court is doing, which is creating a kind of protection even for publications that are admittedly false and that are damaging to reputation.30:33S3

That’s Carson Holloway. His book is No Liberty to Libel. We’ll continue with him in just a moment. First, I want to make sure you are aware there’s a brand new episode of The Larry Arnn Show available now, talking about leadership, talking about being a Navy Seal. Leif Babin is Doctor Arne’s guest. He’s a former U.S. Navy Seal officer, co-author of The New York Times best seller Extreme Ownership How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win, and co-founder of Echelon Front. They’ll talk about the lessons that he learned about leadership from his time in the Middle East, what real ownership, humility and command under pressure looks like from someone who’s learned the lessons the hard way and the challenges and threats America’s military faces. Today, Doctor Arne asks the questions Leif Babin provides the answers. The brand new episode of The Larry Arnn Show is available now. Find it at YouTube for the full video version. You can also find the audio version wherever you get your audio, including podcasts.hillsdale.edu. Check out the brand new Larry Arnn show. We continue with Carson Holloway, his new book, No Liberty to Libel The Constitutional Case Against New York Times v Sullivan Libel Law here in the U.S., Carson chapter four begins this look at the case itself New York Times v Sullivan and the Brennan majority opinion, which relied on discussions around the Sedition Act of 1798. And you argue that this use is I think it’s opportunistic and unconvincing, meaning that it’s it’s it’s sort of using originalist language when the opinion of Brennan is not originalist in any real way. Is that is that about right?32:24S2

That’s right. Like I said, I’m making an originalist critique of Brennan’s opinion, especially what the court did in the Sullivan case. He does have a kind of originalist window dressing, I would say, in his appeal to the Sedition Act controversy, which you just mentioned, and which takes up a few paragraphs in the opinion. And if you want to argue for a very permissive or libertarian approach to freedom of the press and freedom of speech, you can get some mileage out of great American founders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who were opponents of the Sedition Act of 1798. But I think that that’s not a convincing argument. So let me try to explain that here. Basically, what Brennan does is to show that the Sedition Act included a truth defense along the lines of what we were talking about before. Nevertheless, it was assailed as unconstitutional by great men like Madison and Jefferson. So Brennan concludes from that. And also we should say that the Sedition Act was kind of, as Brennan points out, repudiated by the country. Right. The Jeffersonians won overwhelmingly in 1800. And and, uh, the Federalists took a real beating, and the country seemed to come around to the view that the Sedition Act was not constitutional. So the lesson that Brennan wants to derive from this is that there is evidence at the time of the founding that even false statements that are defamatory are protected by the First Amendment. I find this unconvincing because, frankly, Madison and Jefferson are arguing in the Sedition Act controversy that Congress has no power at all over the press because there’s no enumerated power in the first place. And then they think that’s confirmed by the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of the press. When people would say to them, in the context of that controversy, wouldn’t it be terrible if public men had no way to vindicate their reputation? Their response is, well, they can sue in the States, they can sue in state court where they can bring a libel suit. So I think that the the use of the Sedition Act controversy by the Brennan opinion in the Sullivan case is opportunistic and unconvincing, because it’s really proving something that the Sullivan Court doesn’t even affirm, namely, that there is no power at all in the federal government over the press. That’s not really a position that many people would defend these days. And in any case, it’s not a position that has to do with the meaning of the constitutional concept of freedom of the press.34:51S3

Mhm.34:52S2

You really can’t find Madison or Jefferson saying that public officials would have to demonstrate actual malice, say, to approve, to prove their case in a in a state libel proceeding. And in fact, they try to reassure people in various places, including in one of Jefferson’s inaugural addresses, that it’s perfectly legitimate for public officials to have recourse to libel law, to vindicate their reputations in that inaugural address, Jefferson kind of makes a show of saying, you know, I didn’t sue anybody because I’ve got better things to do. The administration has a lot of work to do. But he says that’s not to denigrate the purpose of libel law implicitly, even for public officials.35:31S3

Carson Holloway with his book No Liberty to Libel. There’s a chapter in which you go over a number of cases, some including Teddy Roosevelt. Um, these cases through the through the 1900s, including were courts generally capable of protecting vigorous public debate before this actual malice standard, before New York Times v Sullivan.35:53S2

I think so. Um, now, this is one of the big arguments about what would be the consequences of going back on New York Times versus Sullivan. A lot of the arguments that I find that are made are consequentialist in their character. I think it’s very hard to be an originalist and think that the Sullivan opinion is correct. But a lot of people have worries about abuse of libel law to silence people and stop them from criticising the government or criticising public officials. That’s understandable. I mean, I think as someone who’s fairly conversant with American political history, that our our history shows that our public discourse has been pretty candid and powerful and even brawling a lot of the time, even in the old days when when a public official or a public figure could bring a libel suit under the old standards. Interesting remark on this, by the way, is by one of the great jurists of the period. You were mentioning, William Howard Taft, who of course, later went on to be president of the United States, and Chief Justice. I’m talking about a period in his life where he was a federal judge, and he heard a libel case involving a public figure, we might say, a candidate for the House of Representatives. And, um, some of these arguments that the court relied on in New York Times versus Sullivan were brought up, or versions of them were brought up by the newspaper trying to defend itself. And basically Taft. This is in the late 19th century, batted those away and said, well, the standard really is that if, uh, if it’s false and defamatory, you’re going to have to answer for it. And then he talked about this concern that, uh, to use a term that the, uh, gets used much later on, that there would be a chilling effect on properly protected speech by this danger of libel. Taft just says, and it’s based on his observation at the time, he goes, nobody who knows the politics of Great Britain or the United States would think that the press is unduly hindered in its commentary on what public officials are doing. So, I mean, I take him as a serious observer of the scene. And yeah, I think that, uh, you did have a robust public discourse, even though there was a danger of libel suits. One other thing to remember on that, by the way, is that it ought to be possible, ordinarily, to have a very forceful discourse about public issues without defaming somebody’s character. Right. I mean, sometimes it’s necessary to do if someone really is guilty of wrongdoing and therefore disqualifying disqualifies themselves for public office. But I think one of the problems with the culture that’s created by the Sullivan Standard is that it permits so much running room for attacks on reputation that it distracts us from what we really ought to be concerned with, which is debates about public issues and what policies to pursue rather than, you know, often unconfirmed reports about alleged wrongdoing by public officials.38:46S3

Carson, a couple of things I picked up while reading No Liberty to Libel. There seems to be this underlying argument at times that that reversing New York Times v Sullivan is also additionally a benefit, a way to fix our media. Right. There’s so many issues people don’t trust the media. Overturning New York Times v Sullivan. Does that have the ancillary benefit of perhaps, uh, Improving media’s standing among Americans.39:15S2

I hope so. Um, again, the core of my argument is kind of a principled, legalistic or constitutionalist originalist argument. I think one of the key benefits, therefore, of reversing New York Times versus Sullivan would be simply returning to the country to the correct understanding of the First Amendment. Another benefit would be creating better protection for reputation, which the founders did think is a very important right. Just as important as property or personal security. It’s a natural right, I think, in their thinking. But there is this other problem, which is, as I mentioned in the book, trust in the media is at a very low point. I don’t know if it’s at an all time low, but it’s not great. The publisher of The New York Times gave a speech about this a couple of weeks ago, and he even admitted this and kind of blamed it on President Trump for his attacks on the media. But I think it’s more plausible that the media’s reputation is at a low point because they report a lot of hysterical charges that are designed to damage the reputations of certain public officials that don’t always pan out and don’t turn out to be true. So they generally Revere the ruling because they think it’s essential to their work. But I would counsel them to reflect on the fact that the way they’re doing their work undermines the public’s confidence in them. And so it might be better if there were a legal standard that were more strict to hold them, to be more careful about the reputations of the people on whom they’re reporting more careful of the truth generally. I mean, I would say one more thing about that, though, since I mentioned the expression truth, even if you were to reverse New York Times versus Sullivan, there would still be a lot of room for media to make mistakes and even to publish things that turn out to be not true, because libel is not an action against any untrue statement. It’s an action against one that’s damaging to an individual’s reputation. So even if you had the older standards, there could still be a lot of fake news. But I think having the older standards would nevertheless encourage a greater respect for truth in relation to the reputations of leading public figures and public officials, which would help our public discourse. And this is, by the way, the way a lot of the early jurists talked about it. And I go over this in the book, you’ll find the early Republic judges saying things like, well, the public has an interest in knowing only the truth about the people they entrust with public authority. So they, you know, they think that the standard is helpful to keeping the public discourse the way it should be.41:48S3

Carson, you write in no liberty to libel that reputation is a right as precious as any other. The public has a vital interest in receiving true info about public figures. I know it’s an originalist argument, but in this social media age, when false claims can can rattle around all that more quickly, Does the argument against Sullivan then become even stronger when it comes to reputation?42:14S2

Yeah, I think so. Um, we are living in a new age technologically, in which anybody can publish anything almost instantaneously. Uh, and we need to think through how to handle that. And even correcting our constitutional interpretation won’t solve all of our problems because you need legislation, uh, to protect reputation, you need libel law. And it may be that things need to be treated differently depending upon how they’re published or what kind of platform is used. But it’s an old principle, I think, of defamation that, you know, slander is spoken, defamation libel is published, defamation. And the traditional approach was to treat slander as less serious because less damaging. If you publish something, you’re basically telling it to the whole world in principle. But if you simply say something, the reach of that may not be as great. So the sense was that the threat to reputation and the damage is worse in a libel case. But now we live in a situation in which practically anybody can publish their thoughts immediately and kind of individualistically through these social media platforms. So there’s a lot of there’s just a lot more publication going on, and it might require some thinking that I admit I haven’t done yet to figure out how to regulate those kinds of things. Um, and maybe treat them differently from what other like more formalized publication is doing. But the underlying principle we would get from the founders would certainly be that there has to be accountability for people’s right to publish and to speak, because you can’t use those precious rights in such a way as to damage the rights of other people, namely, their right to reputation.43:50S3

Carson Holloway is a department chair and professor of political science at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. In a Washington fellow in the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. His brand new book is No Liberty to Libel The Constitutional Case against New York Times v Sullivan. Carson, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.44:12S2

Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.44:14S3

That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Doctor Ben Whalen from here at Hillsdale College, your teacher for the new online course, The Odyssey. Find it now at hillsdale.edu/course. hillsdale.edu/course. And Carson Holloway, his book is No Liberty to Libel. Remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this station. You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews, or listen anytime to the podcast. Find [email protected] or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I’m Scott Bertram, and this has been the radio free Hillsdale Hour.

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Dr. Matthew Spalding, vice president for Washington Operations and dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government, discusses the events in the aftermath of the Founders signing the Declaration: the King’s repudiation, Parliament’s reaction, and the war that ensued. 

Celebrate America’s 250th anniversary with Hillsdale in D.C. professors, co-hosted with WMAL radio host Larry O’Connor. Discover the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, American culture, and more. New episodes every other week! 

To celebrate 250 years of freedom. Hillsdale College’s Matthew Spalding, along with professors from Hillsdale in D.C., sit down with Larry O’Connor of WMAL to discuss the truths that make this country great. This is Hillsdale on the Hill.

We are pleased, as always, to be joined by Doctor Matthew Spalding. He, of course, from Hillsdale, DC, where he shapes minds full of mush into future leaders here the Hillsdale way. I borrowed a little from Rush Limbaugh Doctor Spalding, but I doubt you mind. Thanks for joining us as always. Nicely said. Listen, we’ve been we’ve been having this year long conversation here on a regular basis about America. 250. And so last week was the big kahuna. We had the fireworks. July 4th has passed us. Story over. Right. That’s it. We declared independence and everyone walks away. It’s done.

Right, right. Well, this is this is always, you know, one of the hard things in teaching this era. And, and especially from a civic citizens point of view, you know, we a lot of times we think, well, there was nothing was going on. All of a sudden, Jefferson wrote the declaration, and then there was a little war in between. And then all of a sudden, James Madison came along and, and with a bunch of other guys wrote the Constitution, whereas it’s much you know, that didn’t happen that way. Indeed, it was a close fought thing. I mean, you know, if we did didn’t mention it before. I’ll mention it here. When those guys signed the the Declaration of Independence, it was literally their death warrant. They after the after they signed it. Once the war starts moving, they’re all hunted. Many of their children are captured. Some of them are captured and shot. In one case, a signer from New York named Lewis. He wasn’t home, but they went to his home. Calvary went to his home, and his wife were there. So they. They had a gunboat. She refused to surrender. So a gunboat in Long Island Harbor opened fire on her until she surrendered and she was imprisoned. So, you know, this is not exactly a just an armchair intellectual exercise that that we, in hindsight, we know, played out. This is an exciting story. And but what was accomplished in the midst of all that was, was extremely important. And, and recall, this declaration declared independence. But it also announced a nation which meant, among other things, it triggered a war which quickly became a worldwide war once the French get involved and reshaped, you know, obviously our history, but really much of all, all of world history, when you think about it, that that’s yeah, this is a very important moment. And it’s not just a life worth.

Yeah. It’s funny, I always sort of get amused by the British Embassy and, and various newspapers in England. When we celebrate July 4th, they always, you know, jokingly say happy treason day colonialist, you know, that sort of thing. But but in reality, you know, let’s, let’s transport ourselves. 250 years ago this week, the week after the signing of the declaration, and we’re walking the streets of London. What was the buzz like there? What what was their reaction?

Well, so the so the, the document signed on July 4th. And that afternoon, John Adams, uh, was, was ordered by the Continental Congress to take it around the block, literally to a guy named Dunlop, an Irish immigrant who had a print shop. And that night, meaning literally overnight, all night on July 4th, they printed about 200 copies of what are called the Dunlop Broadsides. That’s the broadside that, among other things you see currently hanging in the president’s office, the Oval Office. Mhm. Uh, there are very few copies around. You’ve got one. Hold on to it. They’re worth, uh, many, many millions of dollars. Uh, but the British also got one of those copies surreptitiously. We don’t know how they probably, you know, caught it in transport somewhere. They put it on, put it on a packet ship and sent it immediately to England. Um, and it didn’t get there till August 10th.

Oh. Okay. So it wouldn’t have been now. It would have been in a couple of weeks.

Well yeah, there was no internet. There was no email. There was no telegraph. There was nothing. Uh, but to your, to, to your point, right. The, the king has already declared them to be rebels before things get moving. He’s already refused to read the olive branch petition. Uh, so they all know this is moving towards war very rapidly. So the declaration was kind of a potential in the air, but it does, you know, when it gets there, when it arrives, it’s, you know, if you think of it’s on a ship on its way over there now. Well, obviously the British commanders in, in the North American colonies, they know about it. They know it means war. Um, they send it back to England. And, uh, let’s put it this way. They were not happy. And indeed, there’s actually no evidence the King of England actually saw it or read it probably didn’t, because he’d already decided war was going to be the outcome. And they couldn’t they couldn’t officially recognize it because if they did so, that would be to recognize these colonies as independent nations. So, Larry, you’ll appreciate this. They did what, uh, what any good political leader would do when he can’t put his fingerprints on it. They hired a hack. A hack political writer named John Lind wrote a response to the Declaration of Independence on behalf of the Parliament.

Uh, wow.

Uh, which was it’s it’s an attack on the on the declaration. You can look it up. It’s a long pamphlet, mostly going after the grievances because that was the attack on the king. Uh, so they saw it for what it was. But the, the, the overarching thing is they knew it meant for sure. War. And the Americans are now the British had already decided on war. Uh, the Americans have now accepted war by declaring independence. So it really did seal the deal.

Uh, let’s get back to that Dunlop broadside. Uh, they made all of these copies, sent one to London or one got surreptitiously sent to London. What about the others? They they had, they had to distribute them around the colonies. Right.

This raised this raised the question, what who is the audience for the Declaration of Independence? You know, we we oftentimes think, well, it was the European audience, and they were especially appealing to the French court. I can tell you, the French court wasn’t exactly excited about an attack on on the monarchy, uh, whether it was in England or France for that matter. So, uh, the other thing we know and, you know, keep this between.

Can I, can I pause there for a second? Because this is important to point out that this the declaration is not just about our grievance. I mean, a lot of it is our grievances with King George the Third. But the fundamental principle is that we, the people, are allowed to govern ourselves. That affects every monarch. That’s why I think it’s.

It’s not outright attack on monarchy per se, the way, say, um, common sense by Thomas Paine was. But but clearly, I mean, you can’t read without seeing that. It’s about all men being created equal. I mean, that’s that’s exactly not not exactly good for the sun god of France. Right. So they weren’t necessarily happy. But but here and this is, you know, very secret and confidential. Don’t tell anybody this, Larry, but I’m convinced the next, um, American Treasure movie is going to be on this topic. So they sent a, the right after the declaration, they sent one of those copies to France to their agent in France that would translate, uh, take it to the king or the King’s men because they wanted support from the French. Oh. Well, that copy of the declaration in a sealed pouch was tossed overboard somewhere in the Atlantic when the ship was boarded by the British. So I’m convinced the next great movie about the declaration is going to be a subversive movie. Looking for a lost copy of the declaration somewhere at the bottom of the sea. But don’t tell anybody. I’m going to make millions. So keep it.

I tell you. what, we had Jon Voight on a couple of months, I think about eight weeks ago, and I asked him about the next day. He he was tight lipped, but it does seem like there’s a script in in the works. That would be brilliant. Uh, what about up and down the colonies, though? Uh, what about getting the word out to the Americans?

I think the international audience wasn’t the primary objective. It was the domestic audience. This is a a document declaring that there’s going to be a war and rallying the troops. So most of those Dunlop copies go to all the colonies, all the committees of correspondence, all over the colonies. But by order, it specifically went to, uh, George Washington to be read to the troops and all of his armies. So we just celebrated on July 9th. They got a copy to Washington very quickly on on July 9th, he ordered to be read aloud to his troops. So it’s read aloud on July 9th to his troops. And then in great American tradition and fashion, a bunch of his soldiers went down to the park on lower Manhattan and got some ropes and tore down a huge statue of George the Third, which did not make George Washington happy. He thought that was a little too revolutionary. He doesn’t like that kind of rabble rousing. Yes.

This is this is a gentleman’s rebellion. We don’t do that sort of thing.

But he. But he did give permission and allow it to be melted down to make bullets. Musket balls.

I love that story so much. I for the longest time I thought that was apocryphal. It was just sort of like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. But yeah, when you go to lower Manhattan, they actually have a little plaque there that shows where it happened. It’s so cool.

Yeah.

And that means obviously the war is on. And when we last checked in in New York, that British Armada was right there. They’re sitting there in the harbor. They were approaching our troops.

What’s so great? What’s so great about this story about the declaration? You know, we think, oh, it’s a document. And they sit around writing it in comfort and and, you know, in their little safe space in Philadelphia. But all the while, Washington is reporting on on the British, and he reports early on June early June that the ships have left Halifax, Nova Scotia. And then he reports a little bit later they’re heading south. And then, you know, come the end of June, June 29th, they’re spotted off of Sandy hook, which is a spit of land in new Jersey, which is right across from the New York Harbor. And so on July 2nd, the same day they pass independence. And this is just one of those coincidences of history which is overwhelmingly fascinating and powerful. The same day they decide independence, which they they same day they sign their own death warrants. Uh, the British Navy is landing troops on Staten Island in preparation for another attack, which will be a cross strait attack onto Long Island, formerly which is launching the war.

We’re going to get into what comes next with the military campaign. And also, I want to ask Doctor Matthew Spalding of Hillsdale about this report that we discussed last week coming out of the white House about some problems with the Smithsonian and how they’re viewing American history. So we’ll get to that all coming up next. This is O’Connor and company. Keep it here. And we’re continuing on O’Connor and company here. Our regular conversation with Doctor Matthew Spalding. By the way, you need to know about Hillsdale’s great programs, especially the graduate program in Washington, D.C. in government, you will get an education like none other. And I often mention Doctor Spalding, that Hillsdale Mafia. You get into Hillsdale family and there are a lot of job opportunities, professional opportunities in this town.

As a good family, we protect each other. So I kind of like being called Mafia because that means I’m a don.

There you go. We kiss the ring when you see Doctor Spalding around town. And, uh, and so it’s, it’s a great education, but it’s also a great career move. So you’re going to get all that information for you at Hillsdale. Uh, what? When we last, uh, spoke here moments ago, the Navy was landing Staten Island. They’re looking at Long Island. Uh, this is very real now. And is that part of why George Washington, General Washington wanted to read the declaration to the troops for a morale boost. He wanted to let these men know what they’re fighting for.

Of course. Well, let’s put it this way. If he’s. He’s literally on the tip of Manhattan Island. Well, the the the you know, the harbor of New York is some, you know, I don’t know, 3 or 4 nautical miles. It’s a pretty big harbor. But if you’re looking across the harbor on a clear morning and you see a massive British warship, those are huge 60 gun warships. The with with your naked eye, you could probably see British ships in the distance. So absolutely, he wanted to read that declaration because now, after a year of warfare, they have formally declared independence, which now is this is now a cause. So it changed the whole dynamic. Uh, they’ve been preparing for this potential invasion. It’s now upon them. They know it’s coming. They don’t know where. They don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. And this then becomes the, um, the great battle of Long Island. So this will be in August when we next can talk about we come back. We’ll probably be at that point, but that formally begins the war. But the British, they’re already landing those troops, including which was not known until Washington’s intelligence. It’s announced in the Declaration of Independence. And now they’re landing to a Hessian soldiers hired German mercenaries who are ruthless. And they know they’re. Those guys are there, too. So this is not exactly a nice little warm welcome to to, uh, they’re giving the British here, uh, and recall, how about this, that the British naval invasion of Staten in Long Island. This is what we’re talking about right now that Washington is watching before his very eyes. It’s the largest naval and land invasion in world history prior to World War Two. So think about that for a moment. These guys have just signed a death warrant and they’re about to be overwhelmed.

But before I lose you, Doctor Spalding, I do want to ask you about this report. We discussed it quite a bit last week. The white House came out with kind of a scathing analysis of what the Smithsonian Institute’s been doing with the museums in Washington, D.C. I think tourists, especially international tourists, will be surprised to come to Washington and go to the Museum of American History and not hear stuff like this. They hear very different narratives coming out of that museum. Talk to me about this report, what you know about it, and why it is important in terms of reorienting the Smithsonian’s role.

It’s it’s extremely important. First of all, it’s it’s a it’s a massive report. It’s it’s 140 pages, 150 pages or something. So it’s, this is not a light, uh, you know, small little thing. It’s a, it’s a serious report. Tons of stuff in it. But you know, the, what I find most compelling, uh, which you can’t ignore. And this, the key audience here in many ways is the Regents of the Smithsonian, which is headed up by the chief Justice. And the vice president is one of the regents and some other appointed members of the Senate and the House. They can’t ignore this. This is not a petty, small minded stuff. There’s a lot of detail, a lot of little stuff, a lot of shocking little things having to do with every issue you might dislike. But what’s overwhelming is this the the put it all together. And the accusation here is this amounts to ideological capture. And it has a lot of it’s their own internal documents, their planning documents, their annual reports, those kinds of things. And they say it themselves. They their purpose here is to kind of reorient history to, to reframe it, to change it away from the narrative. There’s no story. I don’t know if you’ve been there. You’re I went there recently myself. Looking around, it doesn’t tell a story at all. There’s no narrative. It’s not like we’re disagreeing about the narrative. They don’t tell one. Instead, what they want to do is, is tell kind of the shocking things around the edges, which granted, or the bad aspects of American history which we should teach, by the way, slavery in particular. But that’s all.

It’s not the entirety of.

All it is. And so there’s no story to go. Go with it. There’s no context. There’s nothing. So they make it very clear. The purpose of this is to undermine the American story to decenter, as they say, the American founders, that narrative and to make it the ground for an activist population. So it’s it really is crazy radical and it has to be addressed.

It is. And the report is the beginning. But now action needs to take place. And Doctor Spaulding, I’d love to have you back to talk about what actions need to be taken, but we’re up against it. Go to Larry for hillsdale.com to get information about the great graduate program in DC. And we’ll be back on O’Connor and company.

Thanks for listening to Hillsdale on the Hill, presented by Hillsdale College. To learn more about the Van Andel Graduate School of Government and Hillsdale’s work in our nation’s capital, visit dc.hillsdale.edu. That’s dc.hillsdale.edu.

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Prepare for the upcoming The Odyssey online course from Hillsdale College as Jeremiah and Juan discuss Homer’s Odyssey before introducing a lecture from Dr. David M. Whalen.

Enroll in The Odyssey here: https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/promo/odyssey

Homer’s Odyssey—which tells the tale of the Greek hero Odysseus and his journey home after the fall of Troy—is one of the great works of Western Civilization. With this poem, Homer establishes the context in which the great cultural and political flowering of 5th century Athens takes place.

Discover the beauty of the Bible in “The Genesis Story,” encounter the brilliance of Plato and Aristotle in “Introduction to Western Philosophy,” and explore the true meaning of America in “Constitution 101” all with Hillsdale faculty. 

Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. I’m Jeremiah Regan and.

I’m Juan Davalos, and we’re back on a special episode. If you remember, last week we did Homer’s Iliad, and this week we’re doing Homer’s Odyssey.

These are both lectures from our Great Books 101 course, one of the original online courses, one of the foundations for our program. And we’re doing them because of a big Hollywood movie coming out about the Odyssey. We want to teach people who are interested in that story. In addition, we ourselves are producing two courses, one on the Iliad, one on the Odyssey, 12 lectures each that will really dive into the story. The Odyssey is a story of homecoming. It’s the story of prioritizing family and statesmanship over mere glory on the battlefield, and it deserves a lengthy retelling. This lecture again from our Great Books 101 course is an outstanding introduction. It is taught by the father of our forthcoming course. Professor, this is David Whalen and you will later this summer see and hear from his son, Ben Whalen.

So now let’s turn to Doctor Whalen on Homer’s Odyssey.

Homer’s odyssey. Sing to me of the man, muse. The man of twists and turns driven time and again off course. Once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. But we have to stop right there, don’t we? Sing to me of the man muse itself. The opening of this poem is arresting. It’s arresting because we wonder why he says sing instead of tell. We wonder why he’s asking the help of something called a muse to begin with. Sing to me of the man muse. So begins the poem, but also begins Western civilization. We’ll come back to that in just a moment. But let’s let’s look at this invocation, this famous invocation of the muse at the beginning of the poem. First of all, the poet asks for help. Divine help from a goddess, a muse. The help is necessary because it’s understood that the poem is not simply an evening’s entertainment, although it’s certainly that the poem is not simply a story, though it certainly is. That, or maybe I should say it is a story, but we tend to give stories too little credit for the amount of work they do in our ability to understand the world. So Homer begins with a request, a prayer, asking the muse to assist him in telling this story and singing this song. And it’s appropriate that it’s a prayer, because the burden of poetry is not, as I say, merely entertainment, but rather an attempt to penetrate, to cut through the chaos, the randomness, the clutter of everyday life and everyday experience in order to discern meaning, in order to penetrate through to mystery. Now, mystery may sound like it is the opposite of meaning, but. But there’s a great deal of human experience which if you consult your own experience, you can confirm at once that is understood but difficult to articulate. That is grasped, but difficult to drop into some convenient propositional form. That’s the kind of mystery that attaches to the very deepest things in human experience love, mortality. War, Home family. Those are real, evident, immediate things and none of us can claim to understand them fully. We understand them, but mysteriously. And the burden and the weight of that kind of understanding does seem to be a little bit beyond the ordinary man or woman’s grass, beyond our ability to simply do or discuss with the easy grace with which we approach what we have for dinner, or what is the price of gasoline this week. So it’s appropriate that it begins. The poem begins with a prayer and a request for help. Um, though it comes many, many years later, another poet by the name of Robert Browning has one of his poetic creations. Say this world’s no blot for us nor blank. It means intensely and means good to. Find its meaning is my meat and drink. Let’s put a little heart. Not harshly, but crudely. It’s put a little bluntly and directly. But that really is the work of poetry itself, and Homer is doing the work of poetry itself. To find the world’s meaning. That’s Homer’s meat and drink. It is Homer’s prayer. But I also said, this is the beginning of Western civilization. That’s something we should dwell upon for just a moment as well. It’s the start of Western civilization precisely because. This poem and its. And its companion, the Iliad. This poem has furnished, has filled. But. But you might think. Furnished the Western imagination. Since its composition in the ninth century B.C. this poem filled the minds and imaginations of all those great Greeks in the classic fifth century BC. The Greeks, who gave us so much poetry, drama, philosophy, history, politics that Athens that launched Western civilization was educated by and in Homer. Even when they repudiated Homer or Homeric things, even when they stepped aside or developed or said, we’re going to do something a little bit different from our great forebear, Homer. Homer. He was the context, as it were, within which they worked. So this, this it sounds melodramatic, but it isn’t. It’s really true that this poem, this poet, is very seriously the father of Western civilization. Well, I want to say something about this muse to this divinity. We understand, I hope, a little bit why we might have to pray to a divinity to assist us carry the burden of this mysterious inquiry or inquiry into the mysteriousness of of human experience? Sure. But what about a muse in particular? Why not Zeus? Why not Apollo? Why not Athena? She’s the goddess of wisdom, right? Well, the muses. The muses don’t get a lot of press. They’re not talked about a great deal. You might expect that the word is etymologically related to our word music or amusing or muse. Also, it seems to be related to words like mute, which is even more mysterious. But we don’t have time to explore that relation or connection. But it’s worth noting that the muse or the muses were nine daughters. They’re all female, their daughters of Zeus, so they have some important Olympian parentage. But their mother, the mother is the key here. The mother of the muses is a goddess named Mnemosyne MNE. Now, the neat thing about Mnemosyne is that those of you who picked up the etymology know that that has to do with memory. She’s the goddess of memory. So what we have are these muses, little minor deities given the responsibility to endow or to inspire. People with understanding things that are generally beyond our Ken. Understanding things that are generally beyond our ability to understand readily, especially things that that, that, that are framed in what we would call beauty. The beauty could be astronomical. There is a muse of astronomy. The beauty could be epic poetry, the beauty could be lyric poetry. There was even a muse of history. But the point is, these muses are, are to inspire us so that we can do the work of this form of understanding and their mother’s memory. Now, this doesn’t mean the muses are memory tricks or I’m not suggesting that the muses are related to memory by way of. Here’s a nifty way to remember this or that tidbit. Rather, if you think about Homer’s humility before his subject matter, if you think about Homer’s. I need divine help. I can’t do this on my own. I’m going to have to begin with, frankly, a prayer. If you think about that, what. What is clear is that the memory transcends mere individual retention. What? What Homer is appealing to by invoking the help of a muse, is the ability of man, both individual and a culture, to preserve, to maintain its identity. I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Think about it without memory, we lose our identity as individuals. Without memory, a culture loses its. Identity, it loses itself. Homer seems to be aware of all of these things as he opens his poem. When I teach this in an ordinary class. I usually use the phrase. I adapt my translation somewhat. Sing to me, muse. And we spend 50 minutes on that alone. So this condensed introduction will have to suffice us here. But I emphasize the point that in such little things as that is all the burden and the weight of great beauty, the great beauty of this poem, but also the great meaning and the import for individual readers and for, as I say, Western civilization itself. So Homer’s Odyssey, the muse assists Homer in telling the story of this man Odysseus, this great chieftain who fought with the Achaeans at Troy. Odysseus is known as the wily one, the clever one, the trickster, the great tactician. He, of course, is great and mighty in combat as well, but he is credited with having devised the scheme of the Trojan Horse. In the main, however, we should understand that Odysseus, in terms of the epithet he is given the first time is mentioned. His name is mentioned in the poem, and that is Odysseus, which means man of many turnings, poly trapos. When I teach this in. In an ordinary class, students will sometimes stop thinking while they’re taking notes and just turn into Transcriptionists. At that moment, I’ll do something like tell them that poly means poly plastic means teeth. So it’s Odysseus, the man with dentures. If they inscribe that into their notes, then I know we’re in trouble and we’re going to have to start all over. Um, it’s important to think with the professor as the subject is undertaken and rather just rather than just transcribe these words. But, but Polytrope was man of many turnings is an echo of his own name, which is a man of pain or son of suffering. Many turnings means clever. It means much experienced. It even means well traveled. But. But it applies especially to that capacity. Odysseus has to apply a kind of tactical wisdom that can extricate him from the difficulties in which he very often finds himself, often through his own fault, by the way. But this Odysseus, after having helped win the Trojan War, departs for home with his men and his ships. He is a chieftain, the king of Ithaca. Ten years later, when he finally steps onto Ithaca alone, having lost all of his men and all of his ships, he is a somewhat chastened. But he’s still a vigorous warrior, and he’s still an ingenious tactician. This polytropic. Um, it took ten years to get home for a variety of reasons we can’t detail here, but he has a series of adventures. Stories within stories occur to Odysseus over that ten year period, delaying him sometimes for years at a time, and eliminating ship after ship, man after man, until finally he arrives home alone. And at at a certain point in that trip, in that journey home, Odysseus is asked to recount his adventures. Thus far. It’s actually very close to his having to his returning home, and he’s asked to recount his adventures. And in fact, the bulk of this poem is Odysseus speaking to. They’re called the Phaeacians King, Alkinoös and Phaeacians who want to know his story. He actually tells the bulk of this story, but by the time he steps back onto his home island of Ithaca, his house is besieged by 108 suitors, all of whom have presumed, perhaps Wishfully, thinking, that Odysseus is dead and they’re courting, if you want to call it that, his wife. We’ll come back to that a little bit later, too. That’s extremely important. They essentially have the house under siege. Odysseus returns, adopts a disguise with the help of Athena, and ends up. In rather decisive fashion, killing them all. He even kills the. The waiting women who were in collusion with these suitors. The poem, as all of this story is underway, takes up many things that are of perennial importance permanent things. It takes up the nature of home ordered and disordered. It takes up the nature of hospitality, which in this poem is not simply being nice to people, being nice to strangers. It is a virtue looked out for by Zeus himself. It’s taken extremely seriously. It is a kind of index of civilization itself. It’s not going too far to say this is a poem about hospitality. I once knew a fellow who said, it’s not going too far to say this is a poem about eating, since so much of it concerns meals, feasting, dining. But that is part of hospitality, In fact, this is a poem about fidelity. Odysseus wife those 20 years he was gone. Ten at Troy, ten coming home. Odysseus wife Penelope is is loyal, faithful to him. Agamemnon, a colleague of Odysseus. Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra is compared to Penelope in this poem. She not only was unfaithful to her husband Agamemnon, but she killed him. She and her lover killed Agamemnon when he returned home from the Trojan War. At one point, Agamemnon. Odysseus ventures into the underworld and speaks to Agamemnon, the spirit of Agamemnon, and Agamemnon praises Penelope and says she would not behave as did Clytemnestra. So this is very much a poem about loyalty. Um. This, one of the most famous characters in all of literature is a swineherd, Eumaeus, Odysseus, loyal swineherd, while so many other people in the island have, as it were, made their peace with the barbarous suitors. Eumaeus did not. Odysseus takes shelter with him initially on his return to Ithaca, and enlists his help in taking back in repossessing his. His home. But the essential quality of mind I mentioned a minute ago. This. This thing that Homer describes as the ability to overcome adversity through clever, quick, tactical thinking is not always seen in adversarial situations. Homer depicts that quality of mind, that cleverness in other ways as well. At one point in his journey, he’s alone. Now Odysseus is beset by Poseidon, who for various reasons, wants to thwart Odysseus intentions to return home. And. And he. He’s alone on a raft. Poseidon kicks up a storm. Odysseus raft is smashed. He’s thrown into the raging ocean. His clothes are ripped off. He swims for days and finally crawls. He’s lost. He has no idea where he is. He crawls exhausted onto shore, naked, hungry, sleepless, exhausted. He crawls into an olive bush and falls asleep. He wakes up to the sound of young girls playing. They’re actually playing ball and the ball goes into the water. Odysseus wakes up, sees his condition, and sees that these young teenage girls are his only hope for some kind of help. Now think. Think about the rhetorical situation. Think about the challenge. You’re a 40 odd year old man, Very powerful and build very strong but naked, covered with brine from the sea. Beaten up. You look like death warmed over. You look like a dangerous death warmed over. And you’ve got all these 1416 year old girls you need to enlist the help of. And I repeat, you’re naked. How do you get out of that one? That takes some skill, Odysseus says when he wakes up. Man of misery, whose land have I lit on now? What are they here? Violent, savage, lawless, or friendly to strangers? God fearing men listen, shouting, echoing around me. Women, girls, or the nymphs who haunt the rugged mountaintops in the river springs and the meadows lush with grass. Or I really close to people who speak my language up with you. See how the land lies. See for yourself now. And he does. Muttering so great. Odysseus crept out of the bushes, stripping off with his massive hand a leafy branch from the tangled olive growth to shield his body, hide his private parts, and out he stalked as a mountain lion, exultant in his power strides the wind and rain in his eyes ablaze. And he charges sheep or oxen or chases wild deer. But his hunger drives him on to go for flocks, even to raid the best defended homestead. This violent hunting imagery is exactly the kind of association that Odysseus in this situation doesn’t want to excite, right? He needs these girls to stay put and not feel threatened. So Odysseus moved out, about to mingle with all those lovely girls, naked now, as he was for NE drove him on a terrible sight, all crusted, caked with brine. They scatter, they run. But the king’s daughter is there among them. Now. Sitka is her name. The local king, Alcinous, has this teenage daughter who’s just beginning to think about marriage. She stands firm with Athena’s help. She turns and faced Odysseus, torn. Now. Odysseus has to think there’s a certain protocol. If you’re beseeching someone’s help. The normal thing, the proper thing to do. The protocol, is to run up and grab their knees. You embrace their knees. You reach around them and hold them. Should he fling his arms around her knees, the young beauty plead for help or stand back, plead with a winning word, beg her to lead him to the town and lend him clothing. This was the better way, he thought. Plead now with a subtle winning word, and stand well back. Don’t clasp her knees. The girl’s might. The girl might bridle. Yes, he launched in at once endearing sly and suave. What follows is a speech a little bit I hope we can read that demonstrates Odysseus’s exquisite rhetorical skill. Now, when people hear about rhetorical skill, they often assume that means some kind of deception, some sort of sleight of verbal hand, as it were. But this is not this is not the case at all. The the the the cleverness, the tactical wisdom Odysseus has doesn’t in this case move him to deception, although he’s perfectly happy to deceive when the need arises. He’s got this horrible circumstance he’s got to overcome. And the best way to do that is to put her at ease. Here I am, at your mercy, Princess. Are you a goddess or a mortal? Now everyone chuckles and says, ho ho ho! Isn’t that flattery, you know? Wow, look at this goddess. But remember, Odysseus has been spending a lot of time with goddesses. And when he woke up said to himself. Who are these women, girls or the nymphs who haunt the rugged mountain tops? So Odysseus actually doesn’t know with whom he’s dealing. Um, but nevertheless, he does know that if it’s a goddess, one would not want to be mistaken for a mortal. If it’s a mortal, one wouldn’t mind being mistaken for a goddess. Here I am. At your mercy, Princess. Are you a goddess or a mortal? If one of the gods who rule the skies up there. Your Artemis to the life. The daughter of mighty Zeus. I see her now. Just look at your build, your bearing, your lithe, flowing grace. Now you might be thinking. Oh, back away. Oh, no no, no, don’t go. There it is. Just watch. He knows. He knows what he’s doing. But if you’re one of the mortals living here on earth three times. Blessed are your father, your queenly mother, three times over. Your brothers too. How often their hearts must warm with joy to see you striding into the dances. Such a bloom of beauty. True, but he is the one more blessed than all other men alive. That man who sways you with gifts and leads you home. His bride. I have never laid eyes on anyone like you. Neither man nor woman. I look at you in a sense of wonder. Takes me. Clearly, by mentioning family things sacred, or at least very likely sacred to this young girl. Father, mother, future hope and husband, her brothers, home. All of these references that he makes are designed to signal to her. I think they’re perfectly sincere, but they’re designed to signal to her, you have nothing to fear. You have nothing to fear. If he had evil intentions, he would not be mentioning father and brothers and mother and marriage and home and those. grand staples of a stable family life. He then asks for her help. Athena, um, gives her courage and indeed she does help him. Gives him a covering and some oil. He bathes, dresses himself, and she takes him to her father’s court. And it is at that court that we get the bulk of the poem. So so this, this ability that Odysseus has to extricate himself from difficult and complex situations isn’t always just having a clever trick to deceive your enemy or a good right arm. It is also understanding human nature. What does a young girl who’s just beginning to think about marriage, what does she regard as, as as sacred, as valuable, as precious, as. As important for a good life? How can I appeal to that? How can I, as it were, move or navigate into that in order to get her to see my fundamental need? And also her fundamental safety with him. Now, this reception that Odysseus receives here is in violent contrast with the reception that he receives in the famous famous episode concerning the Cyclops. I won’t read the passage. I hope you will. But the Cyclops episode is almost an archetypal presentation of everything barbaric. That is. How does man or monster get public social common life wrong? And by public social common life I mean everything from family, home to community. The Cyclops is is spoken of as lawless as not having any communities, not having a council where people meet and deliberate. He rules his wife Tyrannically, his wife and his children Tyrannically. He lives in caves, not in real homes. He doesn’t even cultivate the earth. He doesn’t grow food. He. He’s a shepherd. He keeps sheep. But. But he won’t, even, as it were, exercise the discipline necessary to cultivate a crop. Okay. These are the things that that that Homer will point out often very rapidly, almost as an aside. But as as you probably know, the the Cyclops encounter turns out very badly. Odysseus goes there with several men, the Cyclops in it’s, shall we say, a rather shocking breach of hospitality eats them. Not all of them. But he takes one man in each hand, smashes their brains out on the floor and stuffs their bleeding bodies in his mouth and swallows. Odysseus finally manages to work out an escape, which involves, by the way, his playing on the barbarous intemperance of the Cyclops. He manages to get him drunk, and when drunk, injures the Cyclops in a way that isn’t fatal, but does render him harmless to the remaining the remaining Ithacans with with Odysseus. Well, this this this is a pattern you see over and over in the poem you see the presentation of the. A proper kind of welcome or hospitality and reception and a barbarous welcome. Absence of hospitality, non reception. You see it over and over again. And of course most graphic. Maybe that was the most graphic, but you see it very graphically when Odysseus gets home and his house is besieged by these suitors eventually. Um, this is a very difficult poem to talk about in a summary fashion because the richness is so much not just in the plot, but in the details you really want to read the lines? The words you want to notice all the details? Homer certainly notices them. Um, but but for our purposes. Suffice this. When Odysseus returns disguised as a beggar, he is reunited with Telemachus. He, Telemachus and Eumaeus conspire together to trap the suitors in such a way that allows Odysseus to destroy them. This is successful. Um. Penelope is unaware or apparently unaware of Odysseus identity. Again, he’s disguised as a beggar. The the the ruse that they they scheme they devise is successful. They’re all slain. And Odysseus then presents himself as the long lost husband to Penelope. Now Penelope is a wife worthy of of Odysseus. Um, she’s no fool. She’s been putting those suitors off for many years by weaving this funeral shroud by day and unweaving it by night, promising that she’ll make some choice of a future husband when she finishes the shroud. Well. She weaves. She’s finally caught out at that. So darn it all, she has to finish the shroud. Um, but but she is no fool. She knows that Odysseus has been gone a long time. She’s inclined to think this must be Odysseus, but she puts him to a test. And I think we have time to read a snippet of that test. She says, well, I think you might be Odysseus, but I’m not sure we’re going to wait and see. We’re going to hold off for a while. And Odysseus says, strange woman, so hard that gods of Olympus made you harder than any other woman in the world. What other wife could have a spirit so unbending, holding back from her husband home at last for her after bearing 20 years of brutal struggle. Come, nurse, make me a bed. I’ll sleep alone. She has a heart of iron in her breast. She replies. Strange man. Wary, Penelope said, I’m not so proud, so scornful. Nor am I overwhelmed by your quick change. You look how well I know the way he looked. Setting sail from Ithaca years ago aboard the long oared ship. Come, Eurycleia, move the sturdy bedstead out of our bridal chamber. That room the master built with his own hands. Take it out now. The sturdy bed that it is, and spread it with deep, deep with fleece blankets and lustrous throws to keep him warm. Odysseus. Homer then clues you in that this is a test, putting her husband to the proof. But Odysseus blazed up in fury, lashing out at his loyal wife. Woman, your words cut me to the core. Who could move my bed? What we. What we learn is that Odysseus made their marriage bed out of a living rooted olive tree, not lumber cut down a tree rooted into the earth. That tree he shaped into one of the posts of the of the bed attached. The rest of the bed literally built the room and the house, around that tree and around that bed. Clearly significant of the stability, the strength, the rootedness of family, of marriage, of man and wife, of home. This is clearly the perfect symbol for a home restored to order, strength and stability. This is the resolution, as it were, of the poem. That symbol, I think, sums it up perfectly. So this this is very much a poem about family. It’s very much a poem about the thing that gives rise or that gives birth to all social order, to all public peace. It can certainly, as we have seen, be a place of great disorder disruption. But if there is going to be peace and harmony, it begins there in families, in marriages, men and women, and in homes. Odysseus, you recall, had said to Nausicaa, and I will conclude with this. He said to Nausicaa. He offered her a blessing. I hope this for you. It’s worth noting that the Odyssey concludes, there actually is reference to one little journey. He’s going. This big journey, but a journey he’s going to have to take in addition. But it comes with the promise of peace and stability thereafter. So I say that the poem does conclude with Odysseus realizing, Restoring in his own world, in his own family, that which he wished for and blessed. Now sick with that is again a husband and house and lasting harmony to no finer. Gift in the world than that when man and woman possess their home. Two minds, two hearts that work as one. Despair to their enemies. A joy to all their friends. Their own best claim to glory. Not Odysseus martial valor, not Odysseus tactical cleverness. Not even Odysseus. Brute strength and force or rhetorical ability. His best glory is his home, his family stability there. And with that, we’ll conclude a very cursory, hopefully mildly tantalizing discussion of Homer’s great poem, The Odyssey. Thank you.

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The post An Introduction to Homer’s Odyssey appeared first on Hillsdale College Podcast Network.

Once per week, Hillsdale College president Larry P. Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss Great Books, Great Men, and Great Ideas.

This week: The future of British democracy, the growing wealth disparity between generations, and the rise of socialist candidates in New York City. Dr. Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, joins Hugh Hewitt on the Hillsdale Dialogues.

Release date: 10 July 2026

Every week. Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss great books, great men, and great ideas. This is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More [email protected] or wherever you find your audio.00:29S2

Morning glory and evening Grace America. I’m Hugh Hewitt. That music means it’s time for the Hillsdale dialogue. Doctor Larry Arnn is in the house. President of Hillsdale College, enjoying his summer in Michigan after he returned from Hillsdale Cruise. I’m not sure where he went on the cruise. I think it was Norway. Did you go to England? Did you go to the United Kingdom at all, Doctor Arnn?00:51S3

I did go. I, of course, always go and see my wife’s family. And my friend Roger Kimball bought dinner for me and my A wife and his her brother and sister and sister in law. And so that was a wonderful culture experience because Roger’s a very cultured man, but also very American. So they got another look at America. It was fun.01:13S2

I’d be very afraid to have dinner with Roger Kimball because he’s very, very smart. And I think that would show that I’m not. Where did you where did you dine with Mr. Kimball?01:23S3

Well, that was the thing. See, I was going to buy the dinner, but, uh, we dined at the Garrick Club, to which she has. He has reciprocal rights, and the Garrick Club is from the 1830s, named for the actor, still somewhat famous, called somebody named Garrick. And so, you know, many famous people were and are members of it. And it’s, uh, entertainment is the theme, but distinction is the rule.01:50S2

So is the food any good?01:52S3

It was good. It was very good. Roger recommended the toffee something dessert. That was really good, but it was all good. And it’s, it’s quite, it’s a, it’s a, you know, it’s a London club, a famous old London club. And I’d never been in it before and didn’t know much about it. But um, it’s cool. It’s, you know, we ran into Lord Hannan there. Daniel Hannan oh yeah. Remember the European European Parliament. So we were rubbing shoulders with the great and the Near-great.02:24S2

Well, I wanted to begin today’s programme by looking forward to July 17th when the United Kingdom will get, I believe, its seventh Prime Minister in eight years in the form of the former mayor and now member of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, who is replacing the rather unpopular. And that’s putting it mildly. Keir Starmer and I want to read to you from The Guardian, which is a left wing newspaper, uh, about Mr. Burnham. It says it’s not entirely clear how Burnham will navigate the limits of the Labour Party, and bring his unique politics, unique brand of politics to the revolving door posts that would make him the seventh Prime minister in a decade. He’ll lay out his economic vision in a speech soon. At the moment, Andy Burnham is being almost hailed as held up as a folk hero. That will save British politics, said Matthew Flinders, politics professor at the University of Sheffield. The tide is changing in. The big issue for Andy Burnham is that when the world suddenly moves against him and he becomes a folk devil, how will he sustain the pressure? He is genuinely and generally understood to be to the left of Keir Starmer, which is not hard to be in the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. That means to me he’s bound to fail. But what does it mean to you, doctor?03:44S3

Uh, well, he’s, uh. I don’t know much about him, of course, but I’ve been reading up and hearing all the time because, you know, my wife is English, and she follows the British press, and I do some, uh, first of all, he’s probably formidable. He’s a serious man, you know. He’s a worker. He, uh. He’s from the North, where he actually, his constituency is 30 miles from where my wife grew up. Oh, he. Manchester is one of the great cities in the North. He just won a parliamentary by election there. And Labour’s not doing well in those by elections generally. He’s a socialist. He calls himself a business friendly socialist. Yes. Um, he made some important part of his career fighting for the North of England and against the south of England, where all the people live and where all the money is. And, uh, so he’s he’s got some folk hero chops because of that. Uh, by all accounts, he’s energetic. Starmer is mostly just seemed confused. And I think it’ll be different that he doesn’t seem confused all the time. Now, the Guardian is very right. There broke and, uh, you know, uh, and they, they need, they, they had resignations. One of the immediate provocations of Starmer’s fall was that, uh, the defence minister and a couple of senior defence officials resigned because Labour made a commitment to spend 3% of gross domestic product on defence. And they’re coming in at 2.6. And they have no track toward 3% right now. And, uh, Starmer has warned Burnham in public not to borrow any money for defence. It’s not easy for Britain to borrow money. We’re the only ones in the world that can borrow more, more money than we ought to, but we really do. And so Burnham has mentioned war bonds. They had, uh, when they were in the transition to net zero, which has been disastrous for Britain, in which they’re they’ve they’ve in they’ve incurred enormous costs and they’re not going to get there by the deadline, which was 2030, I think. And so they did some green bonds to help pay for that. And now they’re talking about war bonds. But I’ll mention it’s you know, it’s sad, right, that, uh, they’ve got an immigration problem. And what the problem is, is that there’s lots of people in the country who don’t feel themselves British or respect its laws. And then, uh, the, uh, some of the, some of the members of the cabinet are very violently green. And so they found a bunch of natural gas up in Lancashire. Manchester is in Lancashire. My wife grew up in Lancashire, in the north famous county, where the war of the roses was heavily fought with Yorkshire. They found a bunch of natural gas there and they had a bunch of wells, and a year ago or so they poured concrete down those wells. Oh my gosh, they’re not going to. So and, you know, energy costs are the highest in Europe, in Britain. So there, you know, it’s it’s a mess and it’s sad. Uh, but I have to say a good word for them too, because, uh, I did go to a conference heritage and Claremont Institute put it on, and I was asked to be the keynote speaker because I happened to be in town. And, uh, there’s a guy named Danny Keegan. Danny Krueger is his name. And I didn’t know anything about him, but he has left the Tory party and joined the Reform Party. And he gave a simply beautiful speech. And he said, we haven’t had a strategy in Britain since Suez Canal crisis in 56. I think it was where we, by the way, thwarted them in an attack on Nasser, who was in the grip of the Soviet Union at the time. Uh, and we got to make one. And what should it be? He said, Britain is still Britain and it can recover. And if it recovers, it’s not a rival to the United States, but it can be the most important nation in Europe if we are the indispensable partner to the United States, because the United States has to look east toward China, and we in Europe have to handle Russia. And if we do that with that division of labor, we can do both at a at a manageable cost. And I just thought the speech was just lovely. I just.08:20S2

Well he’s right. I’m glad to hear that there’s optimism. I always remind myself when Thatcher took over, it was very bleak after the Heath years and the Conservative Party. And then, uh, it just was bleak. And now I’m of the opinion that that it doesn’t have to be bleak. Uh, maybe they can turn it around, but they can’t turn it around if they don’t send us any ships when we’re in a fight with Iran. If they simply declare neutrality, you can’t turn it around if you’re a neutral.08:48S3

Well, you know, and they don’t I mean, if you if you read the British press, which I do a little, there’s a problem. Do they have any ships they can send there because a lot of their ships are not in working order. And you know, you got to have a bunch to keep one on the station all the time. And so it’s a sad you know, they’re in a poor state. And the, you know, I was corresponding over the weekend with my student, Jillian Melchior, who writes for the Wall Street Journal. And I can tell you something she wrote to me because she’s published it. There’s a big sense of danger in Europe that Russia is aggressive, that they’ve Ukraine has cost them a lot, but they still aggressive. And they’re developing means to attack other countries and they’re not able to do anything about it. They’re not doing anything about it. He’s worrying about it. Except if voices like Mr. Kruger get in the majority, then maybe they will do something about it. I hope so.09:52S2

When we come back next week to Winston Churchill’s World War Two memoir, we’ll revisit the fact that Britain’s been in a bind before, and it was able to emerge. But they had an empire then, and then they had a commonwealth, and now they’re kind of on their own, except for us. So let’s hope they turn towards us. Don’t go anywhere, America. I’ll be right back with Doctor Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, all things [email protected]. All of our prior Hillsdale dialogues are found in hue for hillsdale.com. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America to the Hillsdale Dialogue. I’m Hugh Hewitt. My guest is the president of Hillsdale College, doctor Larry Arnn. Now we’re about to talk about the MOU and Iran in the United States. But we are pre-taping this a week early because of my and Doctor Aaron’s schedules. And therefore we’re guessing as to what may have happened from the talks underway in Qatar between Witkoff and Kushner and a variety of different people. Maybe the Iranians, maybe not. But we are guessing on a big subject, doctor. You were abroad when the fighting broke out again. What do you think is ahead between our country and Iran?11:00S3

Yeah, it’s the best I can make of it. First of all, it’s likely that there’s a long road to travel still with Iran. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if we were in a position to ignore them? And, uh, you know, they’re dangerous. And if they get nuclear weapons and and, uh, a long missile and they were their missiles are getting longer now. They can reach they fired some in this conflict that reached far enough that if they’d gone in a different direction, they could have reached Western Europe. Well, that’s a problem, right? Because they’re intense people and crazy, despotic, zealous. It’s a problem. And they’re located in that place. That means that half the world’s oil or something goes through there. So it’s a long term problem. What I make of it right now is that, uh, the president hoped that he could address it decisively in a few weeks. And he has. He has. You know, Iran is much weaker than it was. You have to call this a victory. I mean, it’s amazing how much we’ve reduced them. We haven’t destroyed them. And that means that they may come back. And that’ll go on for a while. I like it I said this, you said that you hadn’t heard anybody say it before, so I’ll say it again. I like it that when you set out to do it, he justified what he did entirely in the interest of the United States. He didn’t say, we’re going to bring democracy to Iraq. Iran, sorry, you said that about Iraq. And that’s a recognition that that’s, first of all, not our job. The Declaration of Independence says government exists to protect our rights and that all governments should exist with the consent of their government. And that’s the foreign policy of the American Revolution. And so you act according to your interest. And that’s one reason why Trump is, uh, able to maneuver. And he does seem to me to be maneuvering a lot. He’s looking for a cease fire. He’s looking to calm it down. He’s hurt their power a lot. And they hit us and we hit them back. And if that keeps on, that’ll keep on. I would guess that there’s going to be a lull in a long term conflict here right soon. But we’ll see about that. Guess.13:07S2

Well, maybe because we’ve been reading the Churchill memoirs and we have just finished in recent weeks the phoney war period that ended as it began after the invasion of Poland was concluded, and before the invasion of France by the Nazis had begun. Uh, a period of indecision, tentativeness, alarm on some part, defeatism on other parts. I think we’re in kind of a phoney war, at least until after the election, because the president doesn’t want to try to obtain the Congress, either the House or the Senate majorities with gas prices at $5 a gallon or $6 a gallon. And that’s prudent. I think that’s prudent. But I have no prediction after the election. AM I overreading the pause there, doctor?13:52S3

No. I think he’s left himself some flexibility and he’s using it. And those are part of the reason. Also, it’s not you know, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And Iran is not going to be reformed in a day. It’s a deep problem. And see, Iran by itself is one thing. Iran wedded to China and Russia is a more formidable thing. Very much it isn’t. It isn’t the end of the world. But it could be. And so, uh, he’s maneuvering and that’s what he should be doing, in my opinion, I don’t you know what I don’t like. Uh, let me state a general theory I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Uh, in in London, I was asked to give a talk under the title, and I didn’t make up the title. Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, Washington, Churchill and the Anglo American Alliance. And I got to thinking about that and realized that the immediate effects of the career of George Washington and the immediate effects of the career of Winston Churchill as regards Britain and America are simply opposite.14:53S2

Yes.14:54S3

What George Washington, what what George Washington did.14:59S2

What an odd.15:00S3

Title. Yeah. But I liked it, and I made a virtue of it because I actually believe that those two men, roughly speaking, and adjusting for conditions meant the same thing in the world. Uh, what what Washington did was deprive Britain of an empire the size of the Roman Empire at its peak and refused to set foot on British soil afterwards. And so he was, you know, and then he was neutral in the wars that followed between Britain and our ally in our Revolutionary War, France. So he looked after the interests of the United States. That is also what I think Winston Churchill did. but you have to adjust for some big facts. One of them is Britain is an island, cannot feed itself with its own food, has to trade. Built an empire mostly by accident, seldom by conquest. And. And then he’s living in a world that’s dominated by amazing achievements in modern science that make the world safer and healthier and more dangerous and deadly and totalitarian nations armed with with, uh, weapons of mass destruction, totalitarian movements at home. And so what do you do? Well, what he did and I can, you know, I’ve written a book that purports to prove this and think it does. What he did was look to the interest of the of Britain first. And that required broad thinking. And, uh, and I think that’s what we have to do too. And we have to go in that order all the time. We have to think about the interest of the United States. We have to restrain our enemies when they’re dangerous to us. We are not going to try to govern them.16:46S2

Amen on that. And with that, we will. We’ll return in a moment. Don’t go anywhere. America. The interests of America. That’s where Doctor Arnn was when we left off in the last segment of the Hillsdale Dialogue on all things [email protected]. All of our prior [email protected]. You leave the country for a couple of weeks. Doctor Arnn and three communists get elected as their Democratic nominees in New York. So I really don’t think you should leave again. I am using the communist word because our president uses it. And I’ve listened to the three people, and for all intents and purposes, the Democratic Socialists of America are anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic. That puts them very close, if not actually foursquare with communists. What do you make of this? Of this? And there may be more in your state. In, um, Minnesota, there may be more radicals nominated by the Democrats. Before we know it, what do you make of what’s going on there?17:50S3

Well, it’s dangerous and it’s big. Right. I there are a lot of causes for it. You have to sort of give a history of the American society since the 60s, probably. I heard a talk by your friend and mine, Brian Westbury, on the cruise. That was simply riveting. And it helps to explain young people today. Uh, the talk was about the Federal Reserve. And come to find out, I didn’t know this since in the last 18 years, that’s the time period the Federal Reserve has tripled the amount of money in circulation in America. That’s unprecedented. We never did anything approaching that before. But the next step is money is only valuable for what it can buy. And so that means money gets allocated to the goods available, whatever there is to buy. That’s where the money has to go. Finally, that’s why inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Well, all that money got allocated to assets and it benefited very greatly. People who own assets, which would be boomers, you and me. Right. And and our assets have climbed in value greatly. And that hurts people who don’t have any. The young. And so what they look out on now is housing prices that are through the roof and they don’t see a future. And and look, the government has its hands on half the economy. And so socialism is just. What about the other half. And I think that that’s. And he said, Brian Wesbury who’s been on your show a lot and should have a by the way.19:37S2

He’s a very smart.19:37S3

Guy. He’s in really he’s in really good form these days. He it was just a riveting and shocking talk. And he closed it by speaking of his son, who graduated a couple of months ago from Hillsdale College. He said, are you Gen Z? Typekit must hate us boomers. And his son does not hate him. His son’s actually going to work for him, with him. But, uh, he said, you’re darn right, dad. We do. So there’s something going on there that, you know, a lot of this stuff is provoked by dysfunction.20:13S2

And it’s interesting to reflect, Larry, on how we would have had that conversation with our fathers. I don’t know your dad, but my dad came back from the war and went to school and finished school and got married and bought himself a house for $13,500 and built a life. But a house costs $13,500 when he bought it in 1961. That’s different now, and I don’t think they came back to a land of opportunity, not scarcity, because there were fewer rules and productivity was higher on the basic goods. Is that.20:50S3

That’s it? That’s it. Yeah. My dad, my daddy was a school teacher. Uh, first one in our family to go to college. Uh, went to college on the GI Bill, and he was waiting to go to Japan. He didn’t go abroad. He was waiting. He was training to go to Japan if the atomic bomb had not dropped. Well, when my father died, he left an estate of 150 grand. Uh, he had a good retirement from 30 years of teaching. And the last his last mortgage payment, which he had made 4 or 5 years before, was $88. And, uh, he had nine, nine acres and a fair house in Pocahontas, Arkansas. Right.21:36S2

So that is remarkably similar, though. My dad got to Japan not in time for the war. He loved Truman because he didn’t have to invade Japan, but he occupied it there. Probably born around the same time, 23, a different world because the country was productive and you could build you could build a life on nine acres in Arkansas or an acre in Ohio. And it was possible. I just don’t know if that’s. Well, we’ll talk about that on the other side. The DSA is tapping into that, but it doesn’t work. Their solution does not work. We’ll find out what Brian Westbrook had to say about that when we come back. Take care. Welcome back America. I’m Hugh Hewitt. The Hillsdale dialogue is underway. All things [email protected]. As I’ll tell you after the break after Doctor Arne is gone. But I do want to say to you, doctor, tell us what Brian Westbury’s, who was a very brilliant man recipe for recovery is because it’s not envy of generations. In fact, you could change the law to make it easier for the boomers to leave their assets to the Gen Zers and millennials. Right now, the government confiscates a lot of that, which is insane. It’s absolutely insane.22:47S3

Yeah, well, the prescription is the old homespun prescription. We have to work our way out of this. Yeah. Brian likes the fed chairman. Fed chairman Warsh thinks that he’s got the root of the matter in him. And he thinks that we need solid money and we need a revival of work and effort and innovation. You know what I believe is the like I’ve been thinking a lot about China and its military and stuff like that. And I think we have an asset that China cannot duplicate. And the asset has a name. Name three Palmer Luckey, Elon Musk, Alex Karp, Peter Thiel. People like them. Yeah, right. They just think of ways that are, you know, and and you don’t know where they’re coming from. And so the trouble with socialism is it conscripts all that and thereby stifles it. So we have to produce and grow and young people need work, right. Like what? You know, the kids who graduate from college do pretty well when they leave, right? Well, one reason for that, I mean, they’re smart and they’re, you know, all that. That’s very important. They’re used to working. You gotta work and and you gotta, you know, you gotta work. And so we, we, there’s no question that we can work this ourselves out of this mess and even rapidly, but we can’t do it by that path because that path is more of what’s killing us.24:22S2

That path being we cannot get ourselves out of this, as Mayor Mamdani is attempting to do in New York with his promise of free buses and city run grocery stores. Well, we remember what was in the stores in the Soviet Union. More importantly, he just imposed rent control on a million plus units. And you and I know from our California days, when we were opining and arguing against rent control in Santa Monica and other places, it never does anything except destroy the existing housing stock, as landlords will not invest in what they cannot control. It’s like rule number one. But can the Democratic Party be reawakened to what it believed in, even as recently as Jack Kennedy? Because that’s not that long ago. Well.25:10S3

Events and persuasion and votes. Right. In other words, I mean, look, we’re in a mess in the West and in America, and maybe we won’t get out of this mess. We just sort of know how. Right. And and will we do that? I think that’s up to us. And it. And as for predicting the future of the Democratic Party, I when, uh, you know, we’re old now, right? So we’ve watched Ronald Reagan get elected when we were young and we watched two guys named Bush get elected. And both times there were a plethora of articles saying, now the Democratic Party will reform. They took a beating. Now they’ll reform. They don’t. And the reason is they’re gripped in a some of them, right, are gripped in an ideology. And it gets fueled in part by dysfunction in the society. And there’s always dysfunction in society. And my own view is that it’s made worse by the government and its consumption and its regulation and its interference. And we need a people that work and support themselves and feel like they ought to do that. I mean, goodness, if you worry about the national debt. Add to that the problem of babies. You know, we need to form Gen Z. Apparently they’re not dating and let alone getting married and having babies. And, uh. And that’s, you know, it. I end up talking to students a lot about marriage because I have a good marriage, and it’s sort of visible in the town. And they always want to talk about that. How does that work? Right. Well, it’s a partnership and it completes the members of it. And they both have to value it like that. And then they have to think of the responsibilities that come from, because there is this one high, sacred, difficult responsibility that’s available to every human being, and that is have a child and raise it. Have a bunch better, right? And then what will happen? You know, uh, I know all about your children and your grandchildren and your noble military offspring and in-laws, right? And I know all about that because that’s important to you and Mrs. Hewitt and my wife and I. What you know, what is our relationship? 46 years of marriage. Now, today, after I do this, I’m going to complete building a mud kitchen in my workshop for my two grandchildren. And then I’m making picture frames to frame some drawings that our wonderful daughter Alice, the architect who just had a child, her first, uh, we got to put them up on the wall. Right? That’s our marriage. After 46 years. It’s about children and grandchildren. And we have work to do in common, too, because, you know, we. I run the college, and we have 2000 something guests a year over here, and she deals with all that and without pay. And everybody loves her. She’s great. But the main thing is our family. That’s our relationship. And then it’s our responsibility to help them and tend them. We brought them into the world. And so that, you see, that’s life. That’s human life. And we can’t abandon that. It was a great. Churchill was an anti-socialist all his life, and he knew the inventors of Fabian socialism. He was elected to Parliament the first year that any socialist was elected to Parliament in 1900. And he gave a wonderful speech one time. And it’s about the many, many things we do in common that are naturally socialized. And then the many, many things we do not do in common. Like, for example, Mary, our spouses and raise our children and live in our homes. Right? And we need that. And, and you need to produce that to have a human life.29:27S2

And that is that is the secret, though. Next week, you’re going to have to tell me what a mud kitchen is. We don’t have time today, but that is it. No wonder Hillsdale College students are not only successful, but they marry at a higher rate and have more children than does the average college student in America. That’s a guess, but I’m pretty much willing to wager a lot on that guess. Doctor Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College. Thank you. Next week, back to Churchill.29:58S1

Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More [email protected] or wherever you find your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to hillsdale.edu.

The post The Rise of Socialism at Home and Abroad appeared first on Hillsdale College Podcast Network.

Chris McCourry, artist and director of jazz ensembles at Hillsdale College, joins host Scot Bertram to discuss the principles of jazz music, what makes a great jazz musician, and what jazz music can teach us about democracy.

Learn more: https://k12.hillsdale.edu/

A 20-minute podcast featuring professors, K-12 teachers, and friends of Hillsdale College, all speaking about classical education—what it is, why it’s still relevant today, and what makes it unique. Hosted by Scot Bertram.

Welcome to the Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education podcast, bringing you insight into classical education and its unique emphasis on human virtue and moral character, responsible citizenship, content, rich curricula, and teacher led classrooms. Now, your host, Scott Bertram.

Thanks for listening. The Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education podcast is part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More [email protected] or wherever you get your audio. You also can find more information on topics and ideas discussed on this show at our website, k12.hillsdale.edu. We’re joined by Chris McCurry. He’s an artist and director of Jazz Ensembles trumpet here at Hillsdale College. Chris, thanks so much for joining us.

So happy to be here.

Talking about the jazz Constitution and how it relates to education for listeners who might not be musicians or familiar with the term. What is the Jazz Constitution? What does that phrase mean?

Jazz is the perfect metaphor for the for democracy. And the reason for that is because the three aspects of jazz are improvisation, the concept of swing and the blues. If I go back and unpack those. Improvisation is the ability for each player in the ensemble to play what they feel. They get to play whatever they want. Nobody can alter what they’re playing. If I don’t like what they’re playing, that’s too bad because that is their interpretation. I’ve got to listen to it and I’ve got to incorporate it into what I do, and that’s part of the improvisation. Now in swing is a little a little more complex because sometimes when we say swing, people think about swinging eighth notes. But the way to think about it is if you hear a really good band or a jazz musician, here’s a really good band, say the Basie band and says, man, the Basie band was swinging last night. Oh man, they sounded so good. Oh, they were swinging so hard. What does that mean? Well, if we compare it to circumstances, this has happened to me where people will say, hey, the band sounded good. And I’ll say, yeah, but they weren’t really swinging. You know? What does that mean? Basically, what that means is that everybody is on the same page. Everybody is balanced. Everybody is pursuing the same goal. Make the band sound good. Now, a lot of times you can have a drummer that plays way too loud because drummers like to do that, or you have, say, a saxophone player who solos way too long. Saxophone players do that. They’re very well known for that, you know? What do you do about that? There’s nothing you can do about that. You’ve got to make it work and you’ve got to make it work. Now when you have to make something work. The idea of you standing out or you standing above the rest has got to be curtailed for the greater goal of the ensemble. Mhm. I’m, uh, we just had a great basketball tournament. The next one. I’m not happy about it, but they won. Uh, but I’m a big Cleveland fan. Okay. Right. So if we think about who the greatest basketball player is, it’s not LeBron James, it’s Michael Jordan. Everybody knows that. Now. It’s not necessarily because Michael Jordan won more championships, but it’s because Michael Jordan there was a game. It was the seventh. It was the seventh game. I can’t remember who was playing, but it came down to the final shot And Jordan passed the ball off to Steve Kerr, who was open and hit the three. And that blew everybody’s mind because Jordan was the greatest player. LeBron hadn’t been around. The greatest player should take the last shot. But Jordan passed the ball off and they won the game. He was about winning. I used to think that when I played in a group of lesser musicians like my students, now I love them all. But you know, they’re not on you’re not on the same level that because I was say so much better than more skilled that I would really stand out and look really good. But that’s not the way it works. I come off as I’m showing off or it just doesn’t work. Now, in the classical world, it works a little easier. I used to play in brass quintets. I’d be the first trumpet and I could carry the group and that would work. But in jazz it doesn’t work. You have got to play to the level of the players you are with. I was talking to a saxophone player, and he was telling me when he was a student at New England Conservatory one night, but it was a 3 a.m. and Roy Hargrove walks through the door. Now, if you don’t know who Roy Hargrove is, think of him as the modern Miles Davis. Okay. He’s phenomenal. He passed away a while back, but he’s one of. He’s one of my favorite trumpet players. He’s one of every trumpet players. Favorite trumpet players. Well, Roy Hargrove comes in at 3 a.m.. And at this jam session. And and Israel was playing and and he’s like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe Roy just walked in. So they’re like, oh, Roy, Mr. Hargrove, you come up and play. And Roy said, yeah, we’ll eventually, you know, let me hear you guys play first. So they played and he said, we sounded horrible. He said, I took a solo, I sounded horrible, it was all awful. And we were just. We couldn’t believe it. So Roy comes up to play and all of a sudden it sounds good. All of a sudden the band sounds good. And you know, Roy wasn’t doing any crazy stuff. He was just fitting into the group. And it wasn’t because Roy was such a great player. There was something about him that the players felt that he trusted what they were doing. He was with them. He wasn’t there to show him off, show, show him up or anything like that. Um, now, since I experienced that, when I go in to play with younger people, I really dial it down. I’m trying to be on their level and bring them all up together. So, so that’s an important part of swinging. It’s an important part of swinging because if somebody’s out of balance, it ruins the band will not swing. And that’s the ultimate goal. Like Michael Jordan, the the goal was to win the seventh game. It wasn’t about him taking the last shot. And I think that’s why people look at him as like such a great player. Uh, LeBron’s first year in Cleveland. I mean we were very excited. I mean they made it to the playoffs. But you can’t win with one guy. And they got swept by the San Antonio Spurs. It was terrible. But later a few years later you know he had J.R. rider. He had uh, Irving in there. I mean, he had a team and they were able to win. So I do think that that’s the difference between, you know, one person trying to dominate and another person going, look, the ensemble is what needs to dominate and what does that mean? What is my part in that? You know, if you’re if you’re a drummer, you don’t play louder than the bass player. If you’re playing second trumpet, you don’t play louder than the first trumpet. It’s all got to be balanced and you got to know your job. So with that in mind, you know, things like egos are not very beneficial. Uh huh. Um, I’m always telling my students the ego is your central vision. Your central vision you’re trying to defeat. I mean, especially as a trumpet player, boy, trumpet players have egos that are just ridiculous.

Worse than saxophonists.

They’re the very worst. They’re the well, let’s see, I’m not including violinists or pianists because they’re pianists or something else. But, uh, but yeah, the trumpet, because of its dominant position in all the ensembles, it’s easy to take that approach. And I sometimes will do too. I’m a strong player, but if I play that way and I have gotten reviews from students, I have all the students write reviews of all the concerts I’ve been accused of showing off. And, you know, it would be put in different ways, but it wasn’t easy to hear. But I had to recognize they’re saying something. So, you know, I changed my approach a little bit. I don’t go to be the guy, all right? I’m going there to make the ensemble. And that was a hard thing for me to to come to terms with. But I’ve learned that that’s what makes the overall product better. So, you know, you, uh, there’s times, you know, where I won’t even play a, I, we did a concert, uh, two years ago and I wrote one of the tunes and the guys in the band were surprised that I didn’t take a solo on those tunes, but it had gone on enough. If I added me, it would have just been too much. And so I’m learning those lessons. But of course, I’m 63 now, so it comes with age and comes with age.

So we talked a little about improvisation and swing. Do you want to say a little more about the third aspect of the blues?

Yeah, the blues is a very important part of jazz. The blues are real unique. First of all, harmonically speaking, the main chord is not a traditional one chord that we find in European music. It’s a dominant chord. Now, why the slaves, when they came over, were drawn to that chord so much, I don’t know. It has a lot of tension in it, and it takes a little getting used to being a one chord that’s also dominant. So that’s a little theory, a little get into theory. So that’s a unique thing. But in all that complexity, there are basically three chords. You’ve got your one chord, your four chord and your five chord. Now those can be changed and dressed up in different ways. But we have a song form that is both very simple and also can be very complex, because there’s a lot of stuff you can add to that. Um, so aside from the harmonic issues, there’s the idea of the blues. Now, a lot of times people think of the blues as sad and it’s not sad. It’s, it’s about life. And when we have a blues tune, we’ll have, we’ll have lyrics and the first two lyrics will be the same, you know, maybe something like, um, today I got up and I’m feeling some blues. DUP dup dup dup. That’d be the answer. Second line. I woke up today and I’m feeling the blues. But don’t get up. And then the last line will be different and hopeful. I know I’m going to make it because I always do. Now that is kind of the form of the blues where we have a call and response. The call was the words I sang. The response was the little scat thing I did. You heard the first two are the same, and then the last one’s different, and it’s generally hopeful. So the blues is not sad. What the blues is, is accepting the troubles in life and being hopeful about them. So that’s why the blues is such an important song form, because it’s it raises our spirit, you know. It recognizes the difficulties in life, but it also recognizes we have the ability to overcome. So and there is no jazz without blues. There’s so many concepts melodically, blues notes. There’s also you tend to do alternate sounds, more half valves, moans, cries, shakes, all that stuff. That’s just more emotional. You’ll find that in the blues. And then there’s the blue notes, which are flatted notes from the regular, which gives it so much more pull. So, so improvisation, the ability to swing, which means staying together and having the the final goal be a great performance. And the blues, which is essential to all jazz. So those three things.

Let’s talk about a couple of details there. So how is trust earned among musicians in a in a jazz group? And then once you have that trust, what does it allow you to do musically?

That’s a great question. The trust has got to be given as just the basic beginning where you start. You’ve got to trust that person now. There are times where you run into somebody that you can’t really trust you, and then you don’t work with them no more. Now, that doesn’t happen very often because for the most part, jazz players understand the final result is what we’re looking for. But you got guys with personalities sometimes that you know, as you may have worked something out and then one guy decides, no, I’m going to take I’m going to take 50 courses here. You know, and you’re like, all right. Or and then sometimes when that happens, the rhythm section will stop playing even. And the saxophone player will just keep playing. It doesn’t even notice. You know, so there’s that. But there’s the trust issue is very important because you’re making things up on the fly and you need people to support you and make you sound good. If I’m playing an altered harmony on a chord, and the piano player plays an unaltered harmony on the chord because he’s not listening. It’s going to be a big clash. So they have to listen and do that. And if they’re not listening, you know, you could get somebody to do it on purpose. I don’t know, you know. Uh, but the trust issue is very important. And if and here’s the thing, I can play brass quintet music or orchestral music with people I don’t particularly like or trust, but I can’t do that in jazz. Um, I’ve run into that problem and it just, there’s something about it that just destroys the feeling. Now, sometimes you have to do that, but it’s not the same feeling. It’s not a feeling of joy. It’s not a feeling of camaraderie. It’s a job. It turns into a job at that point. And, um, so trust is very important. It’s very important to feel that from the other guys. And the interesting thing is, is that these issues tend to not be a problem in the jazz ensemble. It’s very rare because we’re all in the same boat, you know. As that goes. So yeah, that’s a good question though.

You’ve got creativity in jazz and, uh, and that creativity is celebrated. But you also do that within the structure that’s been established, this trust that we’ve talked about.

So that’s right.

Do you need these standards and these agreed upon rules to actually have kind of true freedom?

Absolutely. You’ve got to have a reliance or a recognition of the form of the tune. If it’s a 12 bar blues, you follow that form. Um, there’s also historical precedence, things like swing, uh, things like trading, uh, passages, all that type of stuff, uh, that you have to have a knowledge of. It would be like trying to, uh, learn French without ever hearing French, you know, or hearing the dialect. So, so there’s that. But there are norms as far as form goes, of course, balance is, you know, got to be maintained as far as dynamics on different instruments. Many of them are very different. Some are amplified, some are not. They’ve got to balance it just between the drums and the bass. You’ve got the the softest instrument and the loudest instrument that have to play together as one. And, you know, when you’re working with young drummers, they always just play so loud. You know, it’s, it’s hard for them to even understand how soft, uh, you have to play. And then the skill comes from being creative and having the touch at that soft, uh, dynamic. Like our Larry Ogletree is a great drummer here. Uh, he’s playing, he’ll be here tomorrow to play with the band. And he’s fantastic. He’s fantastic. He’s got that light touch. Yeah, he still has the drive in the sound. It’s just it’s unbelievable.

So so you mentioned the example of a saxophonist continuing a solo, even though the drums and bass have completely.

And the piano completely.

Dropped out. Right? So clearly listening, Reacting is a key part of playing jazz. What are you listening for? What kind of cues are you trying to pick up from others? Even something as little as not as little, but something as simple as as volume. We just talked about what are you listening from?

It would be the similar. It would be similar to if you were on a panel and having a discussion, say three people are on the panel and you’re talking, you’re listening to what those people are saying. And then when it comes time for you to speak, uh, you’re going to, if you’re smart, you’re going to work in some of the things he said. Like, like my, my friend here just said, I mean, that’s like one of my favorite lines. Like my friend here just said, when I’m playing jazz and I’m, I’m say the saxophone player is playing and I’m going to take the next solo. I almost always start my solo with material that is related to what they did. So I’m just carrying that on. So this is what I tell my students about this. You don’t have to think of what you’re going to play. Just listen to what the guy played before you and go off that. Yeah, and it works. And you won’t have to worry about what are you going to play? You’re going to listen to what’s happening and you’re going to play off that. And that’s the way to do that.

Let’s kind of circle back toward our beginning statement here. What would you say or how would you draw these parallels between a good jazz ensemble and a good functioning democratic society?

Well, it would be the same thing. How does the society sound or how are they doing? And, you know, you could judge from that. I mean, the way things are going here, I’ve heard the society sound better. So I, uh, you know, there’s things I’m the last summer I’m traveling and I noticed so many more road rage issues from people I saw people get. I remember one day I saw three road rage issues. The funniest one was one guy stopped, got out of the car, and then when the other guy got out of the car who was much bigger than him. He got back in his car, drove away. I thought that was so funny. But, you know, I don’t know. I mean, it’s a strange time. We’ve been through a lot and, um, you know, just just the trust issues. Trust issues is really, uh, I think the biggest thing. Um, so hopefully we could take a message from that. But like I said, when I’m in a jazz group, you know, that that kind of stuff just doesn’t raise its ugly head at all. Um, because everybody’s got the same goal, which is to sound good, to make it work. Um, nobody is thinking I have to be the best soloist in the band. I mean, I’ve never thought that. Mostly because I play with such great guys. I usually am not the best soloist in the band. But yeah, it’s it’s, it’s never that. It’s always what is the what is the end product of this? People going to say the band sounds like, man, you guys are swinging. You guys are swinging. Meaning that we were together, we had the same emotions, the same feel. And that’s what you strive for. Um, so I wish we strive for more for that. Just things working better. You know.

Chris McCurry is artist director of jazz ensembles trumpet here at Hillsdale College. As we talk about the jazz Constitution. Chris, thanks so much for joining us here on the Hillsdale College K-12 Classical Education podcast.

I enjoyed myself very much. Thank you.

I’m Scott Bertram. We invite you to like us on Facebook, search for Hillsdale College, K-12 Classical education. You also can follow us on Instagram at Hillsdale underscore k12. That’s Hillsdale underscore k12 on Instagram. Thank you for listening to the Hillsdale College K12 Classical Education Podcast, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. [email protected] or wherever you get your audio.

The post America 250: Jazz appeared first on Hillsdale College Podcast Network.

Guests: Gad Saad and Stephen Smith

Host Scot Bertram talks with Gad Saad, professor, evolutionary behavioral scientist, and host of The Saad Truth podcast, about the potential dangers of altruism and his new book, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind.

And Stephen Smith, dean of humanities and Temple Family Chair in English Literature at Hillsdale College, discusses the life and teachings of St. Thomas More and his new book, The Last Riddle: Advice on Living and Dying Well from the Imprisoned Saint Thomas More.

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From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, nurtured and honored. This is the radio free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.
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Socialism can never die. A new generations of imbeciles will come along that will fall prey to that reflex. That infantile logic is perfectly justified when I’m five years old in kindergarten.
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This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was God Sword, author of the new book, Suicidal Empathy Dying to Be Kind. We’ll go in depth with him on today’s program. Also later on, Doctor Stephen Smith from Hillsdale College. He’s written a new book, The Last Riddle Advice on Living and Dying Well, from the imprisoned Saint Thomas More. First, very pleased to be joined now by God. He is an evolutionary behavioral scientist, a professor, a noted author. His previous book, The Parasitic Mind, is brand new. One is Suicidal Empathy, dying to be kind, and it is available now. God, thanks so much for joining us.
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Oh, thank you for having me, Scott. Great to be with you.
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Suicidal empathy. A good virtue gone bad, as the first chapter says. What’s the problem with too much? And you’re you’re careful to say it’s not empathy itself. You have a problem with. But what is wrong with too much empathy?
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So let me explain it using some evolutionary principles, and I’ll draw first an analogy, and then it’ll lead back to your question. So let’s suppose that you and I, Scott, were to meet at a party and prior to you coming up to introduce yourself and shake my hand, I noticed that you had been incessantly sneezing into your hand. And so I had scanned the environment for potential threats, which is an evolutionarily adaptive mechanism. Then I shook your hand politely, and then I quietly and discreetly headed off to the bathroom to wash my hands because I don’t want to catch your cold. So what started off as an adaptive process can now become maladaptive in the following way. If you suffer from germ contamination fears, which is a form of obsessive compulsive disorder, you end up sticking in the bathroom for the next eight hours until your skin is falling off, scalding hot water because you can’t extricate yourself from that action once it begins. So what started off as an adaptive well-modulated well calibrated mechanism becomes maladaptive when it misfires. The exact same principle applies in the distinction between empathy and suicidal empathy. Empathy, as you correctly pointed in the introduction to your question, is a perfectly laudable virtue. We are a social species for you and I to have a meaningful conversation, I need to put myself in your mind and vice versa. That’s called cognitive empathy or theory of mind. But like Aristotle explained to us several thousand years ago via his golden mean, too little of something is not good. If I have no empathy, I’m a psychopath. Too much of something is not good, and much of life is finding that sweet spot. So suicidal empathy is really a three part monster. Number one, it is hyper active. It hyper fires in the wrong situations towards the wrong targets of your empathy. Once you put those three together, you’re well on your way to ending Western civilization.
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And you say it is never a good idea to ignore the warning signs of reality. So what’s the what’s the flashing light on the dashboard that’s telling you that far too many of us are suffering from suicidal empathy.
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Well, of course, the book is about identifying endless manifestations of suicidal empathy, both in terms of domestic policies and foreign policies that speak to your question. But let’s take maybe the the most ominously flashing sign, although we can then drill down to other examples if you’d like. Immigration is is a wonderful thing if it is well calibrated. Gad Saad is an immigrant who was granted status in Canada because I was escaping the Lebanese Civil War. Elon Musk is an immigrant who then has gone on. He came to Canada first and then moved on to the United States. The fact that Gartside and Elon Musk are immigrants, as is Ahmed Muhammad Hussain, who is a frequent guest in the summer camps of al Qaeda in Waziristan. We’re all called immigrants, but the likelihood of us equally contributing to society, and equally likely in internalizing the ethos of American exceptionalism, is not true. To be equal, suicidal empathy says no. You’re all immigrants. Therefore you all are equally likely to share in the beautiful experiment called United States. If you argue that there is a difference in the likelihood of people coming in and contributing positively, then you are a bigot. You’re an islamophobe, you’re a racist, you’re a and so on. And therefore, let’s have open border policies, because everyone should have the chance to contribute to the great American experience. So open border policies is the fastest way by which suicidal empathy is going to lead to the demise of the West.
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God is with us. His new book, Suicidal Empathy Dying to Be Kind. So many of these chapters are wonderful. I enjoyed the second chapter on forbidden knowledge and the idea of calling things what they what they are. You just talked about immigration. Are they illegal immigrants? Are they illegal aliens? Are they simply undocumented? We have Brett Kavanaugh has attempted assassin who for everyone is clearly a man. And the media insists on calling him a woman because he has asked them to. Why is it so important to call things and identify things for what they are?
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Right? Look, a foundational feature of being homo sapiens is we have a prefrontal cortex that allows us to navigate through daily reality in a way that is meaningful, right? So, for example, the most defining feature of our respective personhood is our biological sex. We are a sexually dimorphic, sexually reproducing species consisting of two phenotypes called male and female. That reality was known very clearly to the 117 billion people that had lived on earth. That’s an actual estimate since Homo sapiens became a distinct species. So until 15 minutes ago, when we took progressive biology courses at Oberlin College, we were able to fully adjudicate the very difficult conundrum of identifying who’s male or female. That’s why our ancestors were able to do. Or what is that thing called mating? But 15 minutes ago, we realized that we had been really succumbing to heteronormative reality. In saying that, I know that if if you look at God’s art, he’s actually male based on his clear visual markers. That’s why I need to put a pronoun thing in my bio so that you know that I’m really male, not female. Now, once we rape and murder truth for such a ridiculous context, then all possible truths are up for grabs, and they be and they become part of forbidden knowledge. Don’t recognize something as truthful if it has any chance of hurting the feelings of some marginalized group. So what you’re doing then, Scott, forgive me for the long winded answer is you’re applying what’s called a consequentialist ethic to deontological principle. Deontology are absolute statements. So if I say it is never okay to lie, that would be deontological statement. If I say it is okay to lie, to spare the feelings of someone I love, that would be a consequentialist statement for most things in life. It makes perfect sense for us to be consequentialist, but for foundational principles such as freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry, presumption of innocence those have to be deontological. Once I apply a consequentialist lens to that, we’re off and running.
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God is with us. His book, Suicidal Empathy Dying to Be Kind A Chapter on cultures and you argue not all cultures are equal. Is it harmful for us not to acknowledge that perhaps the West is best?
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Well, it’s very harmful, right? I mean, if you were an individual going to see a therapist for a pathological lack of self-esteem, no one would say that’s a terrible thing that that that you actually are going to see a therapist. It’s wonderfully healthy for you to self-flagellate all day long about how insignificant of a human being you are. It makes perfect sense for you to go see a therapist who hopefully will extricate you out of your personal self-loathing. But if you apply that exact self-loathing to the West, then you become someone who we all want to invite to the progressive, cool kids parties in Manhattan. Because we’re defined in our progressive ethos by the fact that we recognize that all cultures are equal, except the West is less equal than the other cultures. Now what? What is the parasitic idea that allows this kind of nonsense to flourish? I discussed this, as you kindly pointed out in the intro in my one of my previous books, The Parasitic Mind, where I talk about cultural relativism as a parasitic idea. Cultural relativism renders me impotent to make value judgments about the practices and beliefs of another culture, especially, God forbid, if that other culture is not a white culture. So if the other culture wishes to cut off the clitorises of five year old girls, shut up. Racist. If the other culture wants to engage in child brides, shut up racist. If the other culture wants to stone women to death, shut up. Racist. Well, now you could see how if I internalize the parasitic idea of cultural relativism that creates the fertile ground for my open border immigration policy, because I’m no longer able to say, these folks from these cultures are more likely to assimilate than those folks from that culture.
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We have two interesting, I want to say, experiments, but we have two interesting things happening when it comes to the world of criminal justice and some of our urban areas. There is an increase in policing, an increase in arrests, and thus we see a decrease in crime, particularly in public transit situations in Washington, D.C., where President Trump has had some activity. On the other hand, we have candidates and some who are winning primaries here in the United States, arguing for no prisons and no police, and making every excuse possible for those who are breaking the law. As a chapter here where you say reflexively mitigating the actions of violent criminals by proposing external root causes, it’s not that person’s problem, not that person’s fault that he or she is doing what they are doing. I’ve seen stories recently where there are people who are attacked, who are hesitant to press charges. They don’t want to have the person who have who has harmed them to face consequences. Why is there such this tendency to want to overlook people who clearly want to do harm, either to you personally or to society at large?
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Because in their view, the suicidal, empathetic folks. There is a competing hierarchy of more of a moral calculus and the highest aspiration. As I stroke my luxuriant hair and looking at my reflection in the mirror of moral preening, is that I do not ever punish felons of color because I’m a good person. Now, why is that? What’s the reflex there? This is why I use the new term that I introduced blank slate felons. Blank slate comes from another parasitic idea that I discussed in the parasitic mind called social constructivism. Social constructivism argues that all realities that you see before you are. Due to socialization. We are born tabula rasa, empty slate, blank slate. And it is only the vagaries of our idiosyncratic life trajectories that make us who we become. We’re all born with equal potentiality, equal likelihood of criminality, and so on and so forth. So now imagine if you internalize that ethos, then you argue that someone who is born black in the terribly white supremacist society known as the United States has already been existentially punished. So now you’re going to tell me that you’re going to put this noble felon of color in prison. If only he committed 193 previous crimes, don’t you think you should be a good person and give him a second chance? And by second chance, I mean 194th Opportunity to make good in his life. So because I’m a good person who bathes in the infinity pool of suicidal empathy, I don’t think that it serves anybody any purpose to to put a felon of color in prison.
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God. God is with us. We’ll continue in a moment with more on his new book, Suicidal Empathy. We are past July 4th, but we can still celebrate the Declaration of Independence and our founding 250 years ago. You might remember me telling you about revolutionary America. Well, if you missed it in theaters, now you can find it online. Search for Revolutionary America on YouTube. It is the first documentary about the American Revolution that you can trust from Hillsdale College. 250 years ago, a group of ordinary people did something very, very extraordinary. With America’s anniversary now past us, we still have time to remember exactly what they did and why it still matters. Watch Revolutionary America from Hillsdale College now on YouTube. We continue with God sod. His new book is Suicidal Empathy Dying to Be Kind. God, as you explain, I think in the introduction early in the book, there is narcissism, existential guilt that is driving suicidal empathy. And people like the ones you describe see this as penance for their unearned advantage in that way. Is there any limit to that kind of suicidal empathy?
15:18
S2

No. I mean, so and let me let me describe another term that I use in the book that I think would be very apropos to what you just asked. I often will call someone bathing in just completely fatal suicidal empathy. I call them a wood cricket. Why do I do that? Because a wood cricket is an insect that wants nothing to do with water. It avoids water, but when it is parasitized by a parasite called a hair worm, the hair worm needs the wood cricket to jump into water happily and merrily, committing suicide in order to suit the reproductive interests of the hair worm, which could only complete its reproductive cycle in water. So it is literally taking it to the extreme. I’m willing to give up my life in this case if I’m a wood cricket because I’ve been parasitized. Okay, well, let’s apply it to the human context. I and there are endless examples of that, but I’ll give one that’s very powerful. A woman is intercepted on the street by one of those street interviewers. I think it’s in Manchester. She’s at a free, free Palestine, you know, eradicate the Jews in Palestine and so on. And she’s she’s clearly a British woman. Uh, so the interviewer says, oh, you’re your free, free Palestine. Okay, well, do you know what they do to gay people and queer people in Palestine? And she goes, yes, I know I’m queer myself. So then he’s taken aback and he says, well, what do you mean? So you’re you’re supporting the society that if you were there, they would kill you. She goes, yes, he goes, but how could that be possible? He’s he’s really incredulous. He doesn’t understand it. He hadn’t read my book yet. And so and so then he and then she says, well, I don’t care just the. Just because they’re going to kill me doesn’t mean that they’re not worthy of my support. They have a right to exist. Well, that’s what a human form would cricket looks like. So there is no end to my suicidal empathy. I’m willing to die at that altar once I’ve been parasitized by that mindset.
17:29
S3

That leads me to a question about the chapter on meritocracy scientific knowledge. You say that it’s tantamount to white supremacy in the minds of those who are suicidally Empathetic. And yet, if we look at the areas in which those things don’t matter anymore, you point out aviation people flying our planes, uh, medicine at UCLA has come under fire for their admission practices and how they gauge who is going to be admitted to their doctoral programs. These are areas in which we all can bear the consequences. It’s not some, some, some thing out in space that has no bearing on our life. The people who fly our planes, the people who diagnose our illnesses, the people who are practicing surgery on us. These are people who are going through this idea that meritocracy and scientific knowledge itself are white supremacy. Do people understand the potential consequences of that and not care? Like that woman you explained?
18:26
S2

Uh, well, in academia, they don’t care. The average person walking in the street understands how insane this is, but they feel as though they don’t have the power to affect change, which is simply not true. If you speak out. The silent majority. The tests. All this stuff. But they are completely locked in. A tragedy of the commons. You know what? Let God speak out. He’s a big boy. He can handle it on our behalf. I simply have too many costs to bear if I actually speak out against this nonsense. God can handle it on our behalf. But the reality is. I mean, it’s aviation. It’s medicine. But let’s discuss another one. How about firefighting? How about the deputy chief of the L.A. Fire Department, who is a obese woman of color, who is also queer, explaining to the rest of us simpletons that listen when when you’re going somewhere, you know, to save someone from a burning fire, you want to know that the person who’s saving you looks like you. And then using my now legendary satire, I said, absolutely right. When you are an obese, queer woman who weighs as much as a California seal. You don’t want some tall, muscular, heterosexual firefighter saving you because he can’t understand your plight. You want an equally immobile, fat, queer lesbian to get you out of your predicament, because then she really understands your plight. That person who uttered those words, Scott, was not being satirical. She has fully internalized the cancer known as diversity, inclusion, and equity. So from her vantage point, what she said makes perfect sense.
20:15
S3

God is with us. Suicidal empathy is his new book, Dying to Be Kind. We have to talk a bit about socialism and the rise of some of these DSA candidates here in the United States, recently winning primaries in New York, but also winning mayoral elections across the country. You say in the book that Socialism’s rise is fueled by the allure of empathetic fairness. Would you point to that as the primary factor in what we’ve seen over the past few years, and perhaps this year, in particular with these DSA Democratic Socialists of America candidates winning and the the allure of socialism among some of our younger, college educated Americans, but also some of our wealthier white liberal Americans as well.
21:04
S2

Exactly. Right now, it’s a one two punch. So it’s first, one of the seven deadly sins is envy. In the Ten Commandments, we have the allure of covetousness, right? Or look, he, that bastard neighbor of mine has that, uh, Porsche, and I don’t have it. Right. That’s positional economy. I compare myself to the other. So take envy. Which moral philosophers and theologians have known as a alluring trapped as part of the architecture of human beings, and then coupled that, coupled that with the supposed empathy of creating equality. It’s simply unfair. If I’m a suicidally empathetic person that Elon Musk has so much money, when someone else who works very hard doesn’t have enough to necessarily put food on the table, that existential reality is grossly unfair. So why don’t we have an empathetic overlord? Because they are seeking to maximize existential fairness. Come and take all the money from those gluttonous, wealthy people and give it to other people. Therefore, we could all live in this wonderful unicornia where we’re all equally miserable. Right. And so it is absolutely rooted in that reflex that socialism can never die. That’s why I call it akin to the phoenix that always arises from the ashes. Because as long as we’ll be reproducing new members of Homo sapiens, a new generations of imbeciles will come along that will fall prey to that reflex. But now here’s the issue, Scott. That infantile logic is perfectly justified when I’m five years old in kindergarten, this is when I learned that sharing is caring. It’s not right for Johnny to have four toys while Billy is sitting twiddling his thumbs with no toys. So we teach them to internalize the message of sharing is caring. But then once I become older and I’m slapped by this thing called reality, I understand that human beings are a hierarchical species. Now, why is that important? Because some of us are taller or shorter, harder working or less harder working. So we are not communistic in our inherent human nature. E.O. Wilson, the famous Harvard biologist who studied social ants. Social ants are communistic. There is a reproductive queen, and then there is an indistinguishable class of worker ants and soldier ants. So it is literally the case that social ants are communistic. When he was asked Professor Wilson, what are your thoughts on socialism slash communism, he gave arguably the greatest answer of all time. He said, great idea. Wrong species. So when you are constantly imposing a socio political economic system that is incongruent with our phylogenetic history, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it will always fail wherever it’s tried. But apparently Bernie Sanders and occasional cortex AOC will usher the real socialism once they take power from the rest of us.
24:27
S3

God is with us. Suicidal empathy is the new book. You say that Donald Trump’s second election does not spell the end of the lunacy that has gripped the West. Is there any long term change that you see from the president’s second term that can’t be undercut by someone else coming to power, someone else becoming president for from a different party?
24:52
S2

The you want me to lie or give you the honest.
24:55
S3

Give us the honest truth.
24:57
S2

No. The fact that Donald Trump has come in in the same way that he signed an executive order ending the trance lunacy in collegiate sports, the next person comes in and reverses it through the same mechanism. This is why I said exactly when you led with your question, that we can be we can breathe a sigh of relief momentarily, that it was Donald Trump that won and not the opponent, because then that would have just, you know, doubled and tripled down on all the lunacy. But he only serves as a temporary temporal doorstop for in order for the problem to go away forever. The parasitic ideas that eventually lead to suicidal empathy have to be vanquished. Now that doesn’t happen by having one president serve one term and hopefully getting rid of the woke monster. You really. Now, let me just kind of give a timestamp on some of these parasitic ideas, depending on which parasitic idea we’re speaking of. These spawned and flourished on university campuses somewhere between 50 to 100 years ago. So, for example, cultural relativism was developed by a cultural anthropologist named Franz Boas. That’s about 100 years ago. The postmodernist, uh, monster as a parasitic idea was really developed by a bunch of French philosophers Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault. This is about 50 or 60 years ago now. I’d like to think that it won’t take 50 to 100 years to eradicate that which took that long to flourish. But it’s not going to start and end with Donald Trump, I’m afraid to say.
26:35
S3

God. God is the author of the new book, Suicidal Empathy Dying to Be Kind. It’s available now. And there’s the cover. God, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
26:47
S2

Great chatting with you. Thank you for having me, Scott.
26:49
S3

Up next, Doctor Stephen Smith from Hillsdale College will discuss his new book on the advice from the imprisoned Saint Thomas More. I’m Scott Bertram. This is the radio free Hillsdale Hour. Welcome back to the radio free Hillsdale Hour. I’m Scott Bertram. Be sure to follow us on Acts at Hillsdale Radio for updated show and guest information. We’re joined by Doctor Stephen Smith. He is Temple family chair of English literature at Hillsdale College, also dean of Humanities here. And his new book is The Last Riddle Advice on Living and Dying Well from the Imprisoned Saint Thomas More. Doctor Smith, thanks so much for joining us.
27:52
S4

Thank you for having me, Scott. Pleasure to be here.
27:54
S3

Interesting, uh, interesting conversation today about these letters from Thomas Moore that he wrote in your analysis of them. For our listeners who might not be so familiar, we always like to begin by cluing them in. So who was Thomas Moore and why was he even imprisoned?
28:11
S4

He was the famous English statesman, father and friend who lived from 1478 to 1535, and he was an author who was famous for writing Utopia. He was also speaker of the House, Lord Chancellor of England. And then in the events of the 1530s, he was imprisoned for refusing to take the oath of the act of succession that had come his way through Henry and Henry’s ministers. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1534, and then on July 1st, 1535, he was put on trial, found guilty of malicious treason, and he was executed on Tower Hill on July 6th, 1535.
29:01
S3

Also mentioned that there’s a series of videos at Thomas More studies.org, a video series that Doctor Smith’s involved in. You can check out. We will find out a bit more about that later. These writings in The Last Riddle, you describe them as meditations on life’s ultimate questions, which like to become very clear when you’re in his position. Why do you think these final months of his life still fascinate readers some 500 years later.
29:28
S4

Well, the idea of the book is that you can begin on the morning of Moore’s first interrogation and follow his footsteps, his mind, his heart, through these letters and prayers, right to the trial and to his death. And I think that the reason the tower is so fascinating to, to readers and to history is that it really shows us a great man at the testing point of his life. Moore was in his 50s at this point. He had held many offices. He was famous. But this really is the testing point of his whole life, of his integrity and questions of principle and compromise and virtue come up. But also, it’s a family drama, a drama of friendship and a drama about the rule of law as well. So the story of the Tower of London and the plight of this great man for those 15 months is powerful, fascinating, unforgettable.
30:31
S3

Before he became a martyr, you mentioned all these things Moore had done and accomplished lawyer, statesman, diplomat, husband, father. Do we see a particular side of Thomas Moore emerge clearly in these writings inside the Last Riddle?
30:46
S4

I think that Moore is among the most versatile authors I have studied personally. So yes, he has many sides, kind of many minded, many sided, versatile man. And I think that in the tower letters, um, the lawyer certainly comes out in regard to the rule of law. Um, on the more personal side, the fatherhood of Thomas Moore, uh, comes out and his lifelong commitment to friendship. Finally, one of the great Yale scholars of Thomas More. Louis Martz has called the letters in particular some of More’s greatest literary masterpieces. So there’s an art and a beauty to the writing that I think makes them, um, just unforgettable.
31:39
S3

Talking with Doctor Stephen Smith, his new book, The Last Riddle Advice on Living and Dying Well from the imprisoned Saint Thomas More. When you read these letters inside the last riddle, you. You do notice that there’s warmth and there’s humor. Uh, even for a man in More’s position, how does he remain cheerful while facing his ultimate end?
32:02
S4

Well, the title refers to the last riddle, refers to the riddle he told his daughter he was living in the Tower of London, which is how a man may lose his head and have no harm. Mhm. So I, joking with the production team at Word on Fire. It’s a bit of a guide to decapitation. Personal kind of Mary guide to How to Lose Your Head. But it’s a good question. You know, I don’t think the family thought the riddle was all that funny. Sure, sure. They wanted their their father husband. They wanted him back. They wanted him out of the tower. But he was famous for his humor. Scott. Um, he’s described like a laughing philosopher early in his life. The Merry More. This is the man who jested on the way to decapitation, famously. But I think the important thing to see here is that the humor is not frivolous. It’s not just like, you know, we’re just not reaching that guy. Like, you know, he’s just out of place. Humor. It was a deep sense of humor at human things, at earthly things, a mirthfulness, a merriment. And what you find if you study the especially the tower writings, is that his good humor was an expression of his hope. Mhm. Uh, his hope in God, his perspective on eternity and on human life. And yes, he did love laughing at the ridiculous, as so many of us do. He had a keen eye for it. But his last wish at trial, even to those who who condemned him, was that they would all make merry together in heaven. So he sees eternity as a place of laughter and good humor as well.
33:42
S3

Is there a particular letter inside the last riddle where we might encounter, or you think we encounter the real Thomas More most vividly?
33:53
S4

Yeah. I think that, um, there are about three different answers to that question. Um, the interrogation letters, you really see Moore’s poise and command and peace of soul under tremendous pressure. That’s a very hard to do in real time. And those interrogation letters show us the high stakes life and death interrogation of Thomas Moore. But obviously the letters to his daughter, I think, are where that, uh, fatherhood comes out and the friendship, uh, very beautifully. His relationship with his daughter was famous. Um, Erasmus, you know, was, was very familiar with it, for example. And Moore took great pains educating his daughters. So the more Meg relationship is at the heart of the book. And maybe the last one I would single out is the letter to Anthony Bonvisi, um, which he wrote a month before his trial and death. And it is a tribute to friendship across an entire lifetime, I will confess, is probably my favorite letter, along with his last letter to Meg, um, which was written the day before his death. So the interrogation letters, the letters to Meg, and then the letter to this man of mystery, Anthony Bonvisi, his lifelong friend, celebrating the Goodness. The beauty of friendship.
35:21
S3

Doctor Stephen Smith with us. He is the Dean of Humanities, temple family chair of English Lit here at Hillsdale College. His new book is The Last Riddle on the letters from Saint Thomas More. The letters include these ones to his daughter you mentioned earlier it’s a family story, too. They’re very famous. In one of these letters, he cautions his daughter not to let natural affection override conscience. How does Moore himself balance love for his family with loyalty to what he believes is right? Is he could have he could avoid all this by taking the oath, right?
35:57
S4

He sure.
35:57
S3

Could. He sure could. So how does he how does he balance that?
36:00
S4

Yeah. I mean, that door, he he could have unlocked it from the inside and walked right out that door. Um, I think he sees his stand of conscience and his, um, stand of truth as being the best way he can love his family, even though it may have maybe a tough form of love. His wife really wanted him to come out of the tower to come to his senses. His daughter wanted him not to get himself executed. So it’s it’s a really painful in part story. And yet at the heart of it is this great kind of man of with great piece of soul fidelity to conscience and truth. What I would say is his consistency and his stand was the best way he could actually love them. Um, as difficult as it was for some of them to understand at the time.
37:02
S3

One of the recurring themes through the letters is that suffering can actually become spiritually meaningful. How does Moore try to teach that lesson to his daughter, Meg?
37:14
S4

Well, Moore had a lifelong devotion to the passion of the of the Christ. And. And so he understood his own suffering in the light of the cross. And he. And he tried to share that not only with Meg, but also with all of his friends outside of the tower. And he had many. If readers are interested in the full view of Thomas More on Suffering, the two other works he wrote in the tower are the Dialogue of Comfort against tribulation and the Sadness of Christ. And both of these, among other things, are a profound meditation on human suffering on the cross and on the goodness of of it ultimately. So, yes, more, more suffered. But he put his suffering to good service, to the service of his family, of his friends, of his God, of his country.
38:11
S3

Doctor Stephen Smith, with his book The Last Riddle Advice on Living and dying well from the imprisoned Saint Thomas More. These letters in the last riddle reveal any moments of doubt, fear or uncertainty. Uh, was more the real deal. Was he. Is he as steadfast as. Perhaps we. We imagine he was.
38:33
S4

Well, he had spent his entire life practicing the virtues that are exhibited in these letters, cultivating them, struggling. An ordinary human being, sharing human nature with all of us. But his was a lifelong project. You know, he didn’t just appear in the Tower of London in April 1534, you know, ready to roll. He he had been living a particular way deliberately, courageously, day by day for an entire lifetime. When he came to the Tower of London. So part of the story of Maud, it’s important to really understand is that is that lifelong, um, preparation and, um, even over the oath, you know, he didn’t just sort of say, you know, one day I don’t, I’m not going to take the oath. It, it was the fruit of much study, much deliberation, making himself sure. Uh, and then, you know, taking that, that stand of conscience and not budging from it. I mean, his peace of soul and his consistency are quite striking in these letters.
39:47
S3

Throughout the letters, friendship, friendship seems almost as important as politics or theology. Why was friendship so central to More’s understanding of living a good life?
39:59
S4

Well, more, uh, was famous for being a friend, and he enjoyed the largest number of friendships of. Well, among many of the great folks I’ve studied. It’s an incredibly rich life of friendship, right down to that last letter I mentioned. Second to last letter in the Tower of London. Erasmus, his moor’s lifelong friend, said that if you were looking for a great example of true friendship, you can find it to no better purpose than in Thomas More. He loved friendship, Scott. He wrote poems on friendship. Friendship unites his writings from from beginning to end of his life. And so I think that he joins Cicero and Aristotle and Aquinas and Scripture in seeing the greatness of friendship and the need that we have for it. Also, ultimately understanding his relationship with God in terms of friendship as well.
40:58
S3

Moore spends a good deal of time thinking and writing about the thing you might think he’d be thinking and writing about, which is his death. What does he believe through these writings? A person should focus on one confronting mortality.
41:14
S4

Well, certainly it should be taken seriously, and human life should be seen with a reliable, true perspective in its entirety. And human beings, we tend to see things differently. We tend to put things out and push things out of view. So we need that, that full, real perspective. But I think in the, in the here and now, it’s that focus on, um, living well now, uh, for the right reasons, with good conscience, with peace of soul, with real desire, with love, with faith. That is the best preparation. There’s a prayer, Scott, that he wrote right toward the end. And it’s within days of his death. And he and he concludes, the things that I pray for in this prayer, Lord, give me the grace to labor for. So even at the very end, with just hours to live, days to live, he Still had this present business, this present work to perform with God’s grace, with God’s help. And he put himself into that. And I think that was the, um, that living well, the best preparation. And one, one of the reasons for the subtitle of the book, Advice on Living and Dying well, is that when you read more, you discover in these letters and the prayers that they are just as much about living as they are about dying.
42:42
S3

Mhm.
42:43
S4

You know, we often tend to think, go right to the death part or to the dramatic decapitation. Um, but more returns our focus regularly, consistently to living well.
42:56
S3

Now I have to ask one other question about the the death. I think it’s in your introduction that you explain after his decapitation, his daughter Meg retrieves his head after decapitation. I got to ask about was that normal practice? Was that unusual? What was the meaning? Why did you do it?
43:14
S4

Well, the heads of traders were not exactly treated gently. They were displayed as a warning. And then, you know, Saint John Fisher’s head was just tossed into the river unceremoniously after this. So Meg, um, courageously found a way to retrieve the head. And that’s why, to this day, you may visit Thomas Moore’s head. It was eventually arrived in Canterbury at Saint Dunstan’s and is buried there deep in the floor. So it was Meg Roper, his daughter Margaret, who retrieved the head and also played a vital role in these letters, surviving and in Moore’s writings, eventually coming to print afterwards as well. I think that the Meg Roper story, that the other detail from her life that’s worth remembering. You may have seen it in pictures or in art is that after her father was condemned at trial, she pushed her way through the guards and embraced him. It’s a very famous scene. And then. And then she did it again. And with One Day to Live, when Moore writes his very last letter to her, he singles that out and he tells her, I never liked your manner better than when we parted last. You know, he ends with this beautiful like he said that, you know, that was virtue. And then he thanks her for everything she did for him while in the tower. So the more Meg relationship is really at the heart of the book as well.
44:49
S3

Doctor Stephen Smith with his book The Last Riddle on the writings of Saint Thomas Moore from prison at the very end, there’s this section of prayers, and you say that this can be read as another kind of correspondence, a correspondence with God. What do we learn about Moore from the way he speaks to God?
45:07
S4

Yeah, I do. I do think that, you know, we have letters to family and friends. We have letters, um, also, um, in his lifetime to, to really just about everyone. But these last prayers are the same man’s, you know, if you will, letters to, to God. And I think what, what we see there is the vitality of his relationship to God. We see his habit of prayer and his habit of approaching God as what he called a tender, loving father early in his life. That’s another thing he never really moved from as a as a man and as a writer. Early on, he describes God as a tender, loving father. And these prayers at the end, uh, really bespeak that, you know, filial sense of, uh, of humanity and how we stand before God. One last thing I might add is one of the coolest things that I’ve ever experienced in my life involved going to Yale’s Beinecke Library and holding the Prayer Book of Saint Thomas More in my own hands. We had Jerry Wegener and I put out the essential works of Thomas Moore with Yale in 2020, and I was able to visit Beinecke and see a bunch of their great Moore Holdings as part of that project. And the Prayer Book is famous because it has not only, um, a bunch of prayers in it, but it has Moore’s handwritten on one of his great handwritten prayers in the margins and on top of the page. Bottom of page. Top of page. Bottom of page. And even though I have stood in the tower cell of Saint Thomas Moore in London, I never felt closer to him than when I held that prayer book in my hands. So the prayers are a beautiful and eloquent and unforgettable.
47:07
S3

Doctor Stephen Smith. We mentioned earlier that there is this eight part free video series over at Thomas more studies.org that you were involved with creating. What can people find there?
47:18
S4

Well, if you want to find out how much more there is to know about Thomas More, the video class begins at the beginning of his life and follows his footsteps from there all the way to the tower, and it focuses on his major writings and the major turning points of his life. It’s meant to be an introduction to this, this great author, this great man, this great saint, and to show how much more there really is to Thomas more than most of us realize.
47:52
S3

Thomas. More studies.org for the video series. The book is available. The Last Riddle Advice on Living and Dying well from the imprisoned Saint Thomas More. Doctor Stephen Smith, your author, temple family chair of English literature here at Hillsdale College and also Dean of Humanities. Doctor Smith, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
48:14
S4

Thank you for the invitation, Scott.
48:16
S3

That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to God, sod and Doctor Stephen Smith from Hillsdale College. Remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this station. You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews, or listen any time to the podcast. Find [email protected] or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I’m Scott Bertram, and this has been the radio free Hillsdale Hour.

The post Suicidal Empathy and the West appeared first on Hillsdale College Podcast Network.

Despite the Phi Sigma Epsilon fraternity closing its doors on the Hillsdale campus in the late 1980s, for more than 40 years the Phi Sigs continued to gather on their property on Hillsdale Street for Homecoming and other special events to reconnect, remember, and celebrate their friendships. In 2016, Phi Sig alumni came up with a pavilion idea and concept for their property. Partnering with the College, that plan was eventually finalized, and in 2024, the Phi Sig Alumni Pavilion was built and dedicated. Two of those Phi Sigs, Trip Banks and Ross Anderson, talk about the project and their lasting legacy.

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Informative. Inspirational. Uplifting. Those are the goals of the White and Blue podcast. We are here to tell the interesting stories of Hillsdale College alumni, who number more than 15,000 strong. Our guests will share about their time and experiences while on campus, and also the impact they have had on the world since graduating. What makes the Hillsdale College graduate unique? We will explore that question and more, including how alumni have impacted the past, present, and future of the College. Won’t you join us?

Welcome to the white and Blue podcast. I’m Doug Goodnow and my co-host is Colleen McGuinness. We are here to tell the interesting stories of Hillsdale College alumni. Or more accurately, help them share their own stories. Here’s a little bit about today’s guests. Despite the Phi Sigma Epsilon fraternity closing its doors on the Hillsdale campus in the late 1980s, for more than 40 years, the Phi SIGs continued to gather on their property on Hillsdale Street for homecoming and other special events to reconnect, remember, and celebrate their friendships. In 2016, Fisk alumni came up with a pavilion idea in concept for their property. Partnering with the college, that plan was eventually finalized, and in 2024, the Phi SIG Alumni Pavilion was built and dedicated. Two of those Phi SIGs trip Banks and Ross Anderson are here today to talk about the project and their lasting legacy. Trip and Ross, thank you for joining us today. Well, thank.

You so much for having us. It’s exciting. Great to be here.

So I laid out the the plan already, you know, the 2016 plan. So walk us through the beginnings of all that and why you decided to go this route.

I think it goes before the plan. Why don’t why don’t you talk about coming back? Because you were doing that before I was.

Well, you mentioned it. We kept gathering. We’ve never not been connected. And as we were walking over here today, we were having this conversation about our education. And I said, there’s really two here. You know, there’s the academic and then there’s the other, you know, the, the life, the life, education, the social education. And both have been critically important to me at least. And so we never, we never not connected. So when folks started communicating about about gathering on the lot and on the property, you know, we made phone calls at the time people came and they wanted to be together. So it was during those meetings where, you know, inevitably the question would come up, what are we going to do with this beautiful piece of property? And over time, Doug McPherson, for example, reached out to, I think, a cousin of his, um, who happened to be a designer and architect. And he put together a draft of a potential structure. And we all kind of got behind that idea quickly. But the problem was somebody needed to take the first step. And so after several years really of coming back and, and discussing this, we were sitting in our circle, you know, where we, we were holding our business meetings on the lot in our lawn chairs. And, um, you know, I looked over at Mark Koenen sitting next to me and, and I, I said to Mark, I said, why don’t we, why don’t we take this? Why don’t we just jump in and do this? Mark was a banker his whole life. I’d been in business my whole life. We’d both been in leadership roles. You know, it was just a I’m sitting there literally looking at broad lawn and looking at the beautiful green space. And I said, this, this has to work. This will work.

Well, each year we got closer and closer to thinking, well, pretty soon we’re gonna have to build wheelchair ramps here. You know, what are we going to do? Yeah. And, and if you sell the property, I mean, it’s not going to be life changing, you know, to divide the money or anything like that. So the initial discussion was, as you said, what are we going to do with this place? And so we’ll donate it to the school possibly. And Doug came up with this concept and it looked more like a park house. I mean just a four posts in the roof and. Okay. Well, but we were going to name each of the posts learning character, faith and freedom or something along those lines. We wanted we wanted some recognition that the Greek life does parallel hillsdale’s ideals. So that’s that is I’m backtracking a little bit, but that’s kind of where it started. And once we decided on that. Yeah.

Well, so we reached out, we just made a connection and actually I made a connection too early. Um, I reached out to Rich Poway to set up a meeting and my team wasn’t ready. So I got, I got yelled at. Um, so we canceled that one. You know, when we were ready, we, we reached out to Rich and to Colleen and we had put together a little presentation packet to kind of explain where our minds were, what we, what we had in mind. And, and we came up and pitched and, uh, you know, it was interesting because the looks on the faces in the room, you know, as someone who studies those things look on Colin’s face was another project you had so much going on. And Rich’s face was. He was. You could just tell. He was thinking he.

Well, he always does.

He was. He was clicking through, you know, the ideas and the thoughts. And when we broke up that afternoon, there was no promise that anything was going to go forward. But I just felt really good about the connection we’d made there. And, uh, and lo and behold, took off.

I was going to say, when you came back and reported to us, he said, I don’t know what happened. It was just I’m not sure where we’re going, guys, but we made our made our presentation. Yeah.

So here’s I want to go back just a little bit because what I find so remarkable about you both and the rest of the folks that have led this group, and then the group, is your interest and passion for staying connected with the college. You’re connecting with each other. Sure. And that’s a tie that’s been very unifying for many years. But you’ve been using that tie to benefit Hillsdale, especially as as a recent and I am also a Greek as a pi phi. And a lot of the other, I will say groups. They are, they stay involved for their own for their own entities benefit. And I don’t see them as much engaging with the work of the college and trying to further that and that as the former alumni director and is still working with alumni in a variety of ways. That’s what we want. I mean, that’s like the ultimate pinnacle of what we want alumni to do and be. And where does that come from with your group, and how have you stayed so close for so long in such an organized way?

I think part of that’s a legacy of Hillsdale in general, and not just necessarily the Phi SIGs leadership and self-governance and that sort of thing. You know, it’s not like we had a grand plan and, okay, let’s go do something. But what we have three, three and a half board members right now, you know.

Giving back on the alumni board.

Alumni board. Right. And these guys all volunteered and well, Ross took a little persuasion.

But Ross is just a pensive guy.

I was busy.

But that is part of the legacy, I guess, is the leadership side of things, you know? And we were all Ross and I were both president of the House, Ross twice. As a matter of fact, we also had leadership positions on campus and a lot of the physics did as well. I mean, year after year. And so I just think that’s part of our general legacy is to stay involved. I don’t know, it was a plan.

Obviously it wasn’t a plan, but I would say this, if you were to survey our guys, they would probably to a man, say that the days we spent together here were so meaningful to us. And, um, so it, It became pretty easy, really. As we got into the conversation about what we would have to give up to get, you know, what we wanted to accomplish. It was it was kind of an easy decision. We just felt like that that piece of land, that property, it just deserved to be.

A great spot.

Yeah. Part of the college. And so it was, it really wasn’t. It really wasn’t a difficult decision. But I think it all, it all stems from the fact that, um, the, the time, the time we spent here was, was just super meaningful and, um, you know, as, as students, but also just as people who are learning to live life and I wouldn’t trade, I wouldn’t trade a minute of it. I wouldn’t trade any one of them to this day. And we don’t, we don’t always agree on everything, you know, but.

Um, no, we.

Don’t. That’s part of that’s, that’s part of life. and um, so yeah, yeah.

Conflict is important to move forward, right?

That’s one of the important things I’ve always said about the Greek system, and I’m not quite sure how this fits into the question and all, but um, once a week you’re in a meeting with your peers and, you know, chapter meeting and you learn when to speak up. You learn when to shut up, you learn usually you learn when to agree with friends and you have to disagree with friends and that sort of thing. And you do that once a week for four years. What class can you take that teaches you that none, you know? And so I think a lot of the stem, it just carries on after when you’re out of school too. And you notice that in the business world, you can whatever, I think you can tell the people that have been used to meetings and, uh, leadership or whatever. And so I think our group has just continued, continued that. And I think all groups would, if they’re led a little bit or. Well, we’ve talked about that a little bit too.

At risk of upsetting other alumni. I actually hope I’m not going to upset them, but I’m going to motivate them. But you guys as a group, I would say, are more involved and engaged on campus than any other group, Greek group in particular, but also other groups. And you don’t even have a house or a chapter here anymore. So that to me is kind of the crux of the matter.

And I was going to add on to that. That’s actually where I was going next is, you know, a lot of a lot of the Greeks and a lot of the different folks who have been involved in different things. Like I was a baseball player, you got different areas. The fact that your house no longer was there, your chapter’s no longer is there. I mean, I think, well.

We’re back.

Oh you’re back. So you got the best you got the best Greek house on campus.

Now we got a great house.

But the fact that, you know what was there and now is gone, maybe is.

That well, that’s a thought.

You know, forged the bond because as adult sig, you know, the house is there and a lot of my friends are like, oh, yeah, I’ll come back to the house. Well, you don’t you didn’t have a house to come back to and your chapter was no longer there. And you know, your your house and the ticks are, I think are pretty strong alumni for a lot of these other houses. I think they’re maybe take that for granted. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but I think that maybe, you know, even though it was a obviously a bad thing at the time to have to close the chapter, but that’s what maybe connected you more to the college and made you appreciate more of that connection.

I think so, and I, you know, I guess I didn’t say it crystalline, but, you know, when we dedicated the pavilion and I made a little speech and I guess for me and for a lot of us, it just we owe so much to the start that we made here. Um, you know, I said during that talk that changed my life. And without question, being here, being around these people, the education totally changed my life in the four years that I was around. So for me, the day I left here, That thought was in my head that when the time comes, I just hope that I’m able and smart enough to give back in the way that I want to, because it really did change the whole trajectory of my world. And I’m not the only one in our in our group that.

It took me, took me a while to realize that or appreciate what we really gained here, you know, and then coming back and seeing everybody and what we could. It was always in there. I just never, I guess, identified it, you know, as much as you have because you always speak of it.

Sorry. There was a pretty significant gap in your involvement.

Very much so. Yeah. First, first couple of years I came back because you still know everybody and then all the life got in the way type of stuff. And then I, I was involved always in organizations within the industry and other things, but not with not with Hillsdale.

What brought you back in, back in? Um, because now you’re one of our most engaged alumni.

I would say.

Well, a lot of, a lot of the same. Why don’t you just get back here? Just come on back, you know, and probably Ross, you know, peer pressure.

Peer pressure.

And bring a folding chair.

Yeah.

But, you know, that’s one of the fascinating things. So as we talk to people because we still we push hard on our guys to get back here whenever possible. And we, we, we, we reach out to him all the time, probably more than they’d like sometimes. But.

But they.

Come.

They come. And, and what we say is it doesn’t matter what you did with your life, it doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter if you added £30. It doesn’t matter if you’re married or not married. Just just come, just sit, talk.

And be with, be with a brother. Be with the relationship you.

Have and.

Get away from the politics of the school. If that’s an issue, whatever, you know, really that’s.

And the and they step back in that circle and it’s like they never left. And, and that that’s just that’s.

Just.

Like at breakfast today. Welcome home. Yeah. You know, so exactly.

So as you sorry, Doug, I’m, I’ve got questions. Uh, so as you were kind of growing that group who was coming back year after year. And I have to admit, I didn’t really notice you guys over there until I became the alumni director. And then I was like, these men come back every year without fail and have their camp set up. And I just thought it was really cool, but I just didn’t I wasn’t aware of it until, until I, you know, was more involved in the alumni world. But anyway, tell us about how that relationship with the college started growing even before the rich pay way meeting.

I would say for me, it was always a source of pride to have been here. And as I went through my work life, I would run into people, you know, who learned one way or another that I came to Hillsdale. And, um, part of part of the education here was and of course, I was here when George Roach was here and I was here at the very inception of the Freedom Fund project and that Independent spirit that that, you know, we don’t we don’t need the wrong help. We want the right help. And we’ll help you get through that. Spirit of independence just stuck with me and resonated. And so I have just always been proud to have been able to, to be here. So when that turns into an opportunity to engage or, or give back in some way, it was really for me a very easy decision. The heart, the hardest thing was just making the knock on the door the first time. But once we did.

You were very nervous.

Well, we had a lot.

Understandably so.

But we had a lot at stake.

And oh, it was a big it was a concept we were selling. I mean, it’s a big concept.

We just had an idea.

So CCA also started when we were on campus. So think about all these things that were happening and thinking reflecting a little bit more on what you’d asked when I started coming back. So the first time was, you know, these guys kind of got me back and everything. So I walk off with a t shirt and a cap or whatever, and you’re walking around and Hillsdale starting to get a lot of notoriety. I mean, it is. And all of a sudden there’s I started thinking about, I go, yeah, I really am proud about this place, you know, and that’s when you want to let’s do something about that, you know.

So.

I, and I also remember the stories of, of building the relationship across the street with broad lawn and the firewood and things.

Like that.

Oh, yes. Yeah. I thought you were going to say the Atos. Like when did that start?

No.

Yeah. Just teasing.

Well there.

You know, there was a, there was a small handful of people that were showing up here. You know, that’s not something Tripp and I can take any credit for because there was a there was a small group of people who were showing up every single year, you know, pulling a camper onto the lot or.

Like 8 or 10 small, I mean.

Yeah.

Very small. And, you know, sometimes homecomings in October and it gets pretty chilly out there. There’s been snow out there. And um, and literally Penny walked across the street and offered offered those guys firewood and said, just take what you need. And and that that started something special that, you know, Doug said it the other day when he said, you know, sometimes the smallest of, of acts of kindness can, can have huge impacts.

You know, that.

Bring something.

That brings something else up to before we really engage with this whole idea and everything. Doctor and Penny used to walk across the street and I mean, they’ve got their hands full during homecoming. They’ve got bigger fish to fry, but they would spend 20 minutes, a half hour with us every time. Just walk over and Doctor Arnold just gets swarmed and everybody’s throwing questions at him. I think he kind of enjoyed it.

Oh yeah.

And one time he just kind of said, you know, you guys are crazy. That’s what I like about you, you know.

And it was just sounds like him.

Well, it was just very it was very warm. And all of a sudden, yeah, there is another connection here. And, and they like us too, you know. So it was fun.

Yeah. And we’d always, we’d always tell people that if you’re coming to homecoming on Saturday, chapter meeting is going to be at ten. Well, it’s never at ten because it’s whenever it’s whenever the ions decide that they’ve had enough and they go back across the street. So we, we kind of build, we kind of build the weekend around it.

Yeah.

I love that story.

That’s a great story. I think we’re going to take a quick break here. And we’ll be back with the White and Blue podcast in just a moment.

Good. Meet the white and blue.

Now it’s time for the Hillsdale History Minute, where we bring a slice of Hillsdale College history to the White and Blue podcast. The 82nd anniversary of D-Day was June 6th. The only Hillsdale College student known to have fought and died in the Battle of Normandy was Frank Moran. The Seattle area native attended Hillsdale after briefly enrolling at Washington State University and was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. He was also a member of the Army’s 507th parachute Infantry Regiment. That was part of the D-Day operation. According to newspaper accounts. First Lieutenant Moran was killed in action on June 15th, 1944. He is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery near Omaha Beach. A group of Hillsdale alumni and friends recently visited his grave during the Alumni Europe tour and paid their respects. Welcome back to the White and Blue podcast, where we have Phi Sigma Epsilon alums, Trip Banks and Ross Anderson. Guys, we’re talking about Doctor Arnn and Penny before the break here. And, uh, we wanted to, uh, follow up a little bit. So Colleen.

Is it true that you crowned I don’t know, is it pinned uh, or whatever it is presented. Um, penny, Mrs. Arnn, as your sweetheart?

That is true.

Absolutely.

Yep.

Easy to do.

Yep. So that little act of kindness that we talked about really resonated. And so I’m sure it was Doug McPherson who came up with the idea that, you know, let’s let’s honor that. And it was funny because, you know, we’d come back, we’d come back every year. And, you know, in true five, six style, we’re, we’re like, well, we’ll have tea with, we’ll have tea with Penny. So, you know, we’re, we’re literally heating water up in a little in a little pot in the tent, you know, where we’ve, we’ve tapped into electricity someplace. And I’m sure there was a tea bag involved and.

I’m.

Sure it was terrible.

Probably the worst tea she’s ever.

Enjoyed.

Enjoyed in her life. But, you know, true to true to form, she she smiled.

Very gracious.

Very gracious about it. So but you know.

Well, well, we, we, we went out in the Phi sig official flowers, a white tea rose and you just don’t find those everywhere. So we, I think we had to have them specially ordered in or something. So we ordered those and we gave her white tea rose and then we had a beautiful award that had her name on it, spelled it out and thanked her for, for her friendship. So yeah.

It’s.

Really cool.

It’s a.

Great.

Story.

Well, she’s. The kindness went a long way, and, uh.

She’s very special.

Well, so during the dedication, I look up and here’s a station wagon that’s backed up to the pavilion and the back flips up. Penny gets out and there are all these red flowers or whatever that she has, and she’s putting them around. I go, what are you doing? She goes, well, Red, your your color, isn’t it? I said, you’ve got to be kidding me. And then she said, I put some across the street too. So they all match.

Yeah.

She, she went over. I remember she went over and, and emailed me and said, I just don’t think it’s, you know, I want to prepare the place for the dedication a little bit more than it is. And I didn’t think a whole lot of it, but I was like, that’s great. You know, I’m in the middle of things and thanks, that sounds great. And she did that. So I mean, it’s really, really special.

It’s surprising she didn’t want any credit for it. You know, she does know.

So we talked about the pavilion. Now it’s finished. So let me ask you this. What’s your favorite part of the pavilion.

As Ross and Tripp look at.

Each other.

I stumped you.

That’s a first.

I tell you what the whole thing is. It’s wonderful. Yeah. I don’t know that I have a favorite part. I think the, um. The fire pit is great because it’s large enough that you can put a lot of people around it. Every time we get together, if it’s not raining, that thing’s being.

It.

Eventually ends up there.

And. Yeah. And the, and the night ends up there.

But and we originally just wanted a barbecue grill. We’ve got a whole outside kitchen, the indoor area, you know, we did last year, we’ve had trouble getting some people back and we actually did a zoom with some. Well, what it was wasn’t quite as successful as we wanted, but we did a Zoom and got an alumni back. And so the whole group is in there inside with the big TV monitor up there. I mean, that was really cool to be able to start bringing people in. And I think, you know, that’s something that a lot of other groups on campus could try is doing some sort of zoom. It may sound kind of sappy, but it worked. It got, you know, it’s we’re going to pursue that this year too.

And actually, that goes back to when we were still in the process of trying to get an agreement. You know, the biggest kind of negotiation. There were two negotiations, by the way. There was one with our guys and there was one with Hillsdale. And, you know, we had a we had an idea what we wanted, but we had never actually put it on paper. I think Rich had an idea what was going to work. And so we were talking to each other and sometimes a little bit around each other. And we had some pretty spirited conversations within our group about, you know, what we really wanted to, to pull together. And, and we finally got on the same page. We got on the same page. And then I remember during a particularly spirited call, you know, we were, we got a little frustrated with each other and, you know, things get said. But out of that Came the seed that turned into a literal cut and paste exercise on a piece of graph paper sent that across, and we put together a basically a narrative saying we need to think a little bigger because think about what this could be. And so kind of crafted up a note, a conversation, if you will, about how this space could be used and what it could be. What we really wanted to make sure we got done was we wanted an indoor space as well as an outdoor space, because at our age, we really didn’t need to sit around, you know, the a fire pit in the snow any longer. So, you know, if we could, if we could create an indoor space that could be used for multiple purposes, everybody was going to win. And, you know, once we, we kind of had that breakthrough, then it was really smooth sailing after that.

It’s like any business presentation, you kind of decide who your audience is, what the purpose is, and then you come up with a product, you know, it’s like marketing 101 almost, you know. And so once we backtrack a little bit and decided, okay, how is this going to be used? We’re in the kitchen. Yes. Do you want a fire pit? Yes. Do you want indoor? Yes we do. And Rich really ran with with it. I’ve got to say. I mean he was so helpful.

And another thing that helped was he reached out to the student Activities Committee here.

Yeah.

And he heard from them many of the things he was hearing from us.

So here’s a blank piece of paper.

What do you guys want. Yeah, yeah.

And that was beautiful.

So and you had you had objections. I remember them. And and you’re sharing them now that you had objections from within your own body. How did you get around those? What would you say was the kind of the driving force in your leadership that enabled you to bring everyone together on this, you know, project and get them behind it? Because that’s not an easy thing to do.

That was the hardest thing to do. It was because everybody was emotional about what we were trying to accomplish, no matter how they demonstrated it. Everybody had a real emotional stake in trying to get the best thing done that we could. We just kept pounding away and compromising, pounding away and compromising. And then literally, we started passing pictures around.

You should talk to Congress about that.

Yeah. No kidding. No kidding.

No kidding. Um, but we literally were passing diagrams around saying, you know, what about this? What about that? And we were naming rooms. We were putting.

We.

Were having fun naming rooms.

We were putting.

Dimensions on.

There, all Greek names.

Because we, we just wanted it to be super useful and comfortable, you know, um, you know, we get 40 people back and if it’s raining outside, we need a place for 40 people. Um, if we want to do a dinner outside underneath the roof and we have 40, 50, 60 people, we want it to be comfortable. We finally, we finally got through all of that internally, but it was just the process to your question, the process was we just kept we just kept pounding away. And, um, and, and sometimes, you know, sometimes we argued. Mhm. Um.

But a lot.

Of, a lot of it came down to, we just said, listen, this is what rich does for the school day in and day out. Look how many projects he has. We’ve got to trust him on dimensions and the scope and some things like that. You know.

It’s such an important word because if there was one thing that we had to that was never really said out loud, but that we had to overcome, it was the trust factor. We had to.

Well, you’re giving your property, you’re relinquishing, you know, the control you’d had for years and.

Exactly, exactly right. And I think that was, you know, I, I got there quickly because, and it was because I was the one talking with Rich, you know, I was the one in front of you guys. I knew we were on a good path, but we had to, we had to, we had to convince everybody else that we were and, and make them comfortable that this was going to.

Well, then we had we had to also overcome losing Mark in the middle of this whole process as well.

Right.

Which is kind of when I got involved because somebody had to. In fact, I wrote Mark when he was sick. I said it was okay if I kind of help out. Well, until you get well.

And I think.

If you want to, for the listeners, if you want to, you know, share a little bit about Mark now, that would be great. It’s people that don’t know.

Mark was my college roommate and one of my best friends in the world. And, um, so when, you know, when I kind of had the, a vision for what, what the next step should be, I tapped him, you know, he, he got drafted. Um, he didn’t really have an option, but he played a, you know, he’s very, Mark was very analytical. He was a banker his whole life. And so, you know, he’s very much a realist about things. So as we’d go through the process and we would be talking amongst ourselves or with or with Hillsdale, um, he’d always be the, the guy that would come to us and be that voice of reality about, you know, you’re you’re aiming too high, you’re aiming too low. That’s never going to fly, you know.

Pretty.

Pretty blunt. But he had a with a good wit, you know. Right.

And so I’m, I’m the communicator. I’m the one interfacing with the school. Doug is kind of the driver in the background. Marc was the guy in between us. And so, you know, one of the purposes he served and did a really good job of during the process was when when Ross got frustrated, Ross was calling Marc and Marc would set me straight. Um, I’m sure Doug had somebody he was calling as well, but but it was the three of us that figured out how to work together. Uh, and we had different roles to play and we, and we did it. And Marc did a great job. So, you know, other than being one of my best friends in the world, he was really instrumental in, in keeping, keeping it moving. And, um, and unfortunately, he, He contracted a fatal disease before the pavilion was ever built, and he never. He never got to see it. So we’ve.

Dedicated to.

Your credit. You picked up you just talked about how organized he was. So we would have tentative dates for. Let’s address this at this date, this this date and on and on. Ross was on top of that every time with the school or with us. Whichever the situation was, he’d always give it a few leeway days. But then right away, guys, we missed our deadline. What are we going to talk? When are we going to get to this? And you did that. You kept it moving.

Yep.

Very neat.

Yeah.

So in part, why you’re here today is, uh, we decided to kind of break our rules a little bit with our alumni awards and, uh, usually honor individuals and this time around for the Tower Award, which is our service award to the college, we picked the, the Phi sigs. So since You’re kind of a special group already. Tell me.

About.

Tell me about.

You know, mom.

Always said I was special.

Yeah, well.

The tower word is for to honor folks for their service to Hillsdale. So it’s a kind of unique. It’s a very special word. In my opinion. It’s it’s the best word. So.

Well thank you.

So yeah, tell me a little bit about, you know, when you heard that news and, and what it means. Well, you know, as a group to be able to get this award.

We were so flattered, astounded, surprised. I don’t know what adjectives we can all use. You know, I just said this never happens, you know, and, and our group really, you know, just because we take a lot for granted. As I said, we don’t have a grand plan. Let’s help the college and do this and do this. Things are just kind of organic and it happens in a great way, obviously. Uh, and so when this came out in the courts, rules were broken or whatever and be the first ones we really felt that was, that was something we appreciated, believe me.

Well, and, and the word that I keep coming back to is grateful. That’s how I feel about it. It was, uh, a bit of a shock. A stunner.

Mhm.

And I, for one, am so very grateful. So very happy about it.

Awesome.

Well, we are too.

It’s very deserving.

Very deserving. Thank you.

I don’t know, anyway, but it’s been such an honor for me to work with you all. And I think my part was trying to drive and facilitate the fundraising aspect of the pavilion, which was a lot of fun. Of course, when it was all said and done, not only are you guys giving the property to us, but you also ended up helping and raising most, you know, the majority of the.

Funds from.

Within your group. Um, so just your generosity to the college in so many ways, all of the ways in which we want alumni to be involved time, treasure, talent, you know, helping to grow the mission of the college in whatever way that you can. It’s just been such a joy for me to get to know all of you guys. And so I really appreciate you.

I want you to know.

And and I’m glad, I’m glad that you said that, because I’m so proud of how our Phi SIGs stepped up and, you know, trusted us with the process, trusted that we’d get a a great outcome, donated what they could. And, and at the end of the day, a lot of money.

Mhm.

Um, and thankfully, and not surprisingly, the end result, I think far exceeded what many of us thought was going to be possible going in.

And when I talked about, you know, know your customer and we try to, you know, what are the uses is going to be used. We could never imagine everything is being used for right now.

That’s awesome.

I mean, somebody classes.

Oh, there was a.

Studying. There’s parties.

There’s a well, yeah, there was a graduation party for the Academy recently, things like that. You know what I mean? Just how fantastic.

It’s a great.

Spot.

I’ve been buying. There have been two different groups and one guy barbecuing and somebody else over at the fire pit, you know, at the same time. I mean.

Yeah, red, white and blue weekend. Um, we actually had another group we let use it last night instead of our own space. So that’s.

How.

That was a mistake. Doug.

It was.

But.

But it shows you how much it’s in demand as my point was being. So, you know, it’s definitely getting more and more popular, it seems, by the year. And I think, um, you know, the, the vision that you guys laid out for this is.

You know, and I see a new student or something, I’ll, you know, I’ll say class of 76. Uh, and I said, well, I, I was involved with the 560, boom. And then then all of a sudden it, you know, it registers.

Let this be a lesson.

And usually with a thank you.

To the others.

Yeah.

What are you going to do for us? No, I’m just kidding.

Well, wait till you see what we got planned next.

You know, I would say this, and, you know, maybe maybe Doug says something about it. You know, at the awards banquet, there are other groups around around campus here that if they have an idea, um, a little flicker of flame about something they’d like to get accomplished. Yes, it can be done. And, um, it just takes, it takes that first knock on the door. Um, but.

But it also, you know, might not be. So we gotta make sure we, uh, lay the groundwork for good expectations there.

Well, I think that’s right.

I think the key word is partnership. Right? You guys were willing to partner with the college, not just come in and tell the college this is what we’re doing.

The most.

Critical point.

It.

Went two ways. Obviously, you know, we didn’t know what to expect. Well, when’s the last time this was done? Never. You know, so so now we’ve set the pace. Maybe others hopefully will consider make some considerations.

And my message is, is simply don’t be afraid. You know, try think of think about it and try. Um, maybe it’s a no but that’s okay.

Yeah.

And I think I think especially when alums, as Doug just said, with partnership, when they come alongside the work of the college and want to enhance what we’re doing. Like we, you know, we’re all maxed out and, and pretty serious goals and objectives for the college and for the future and what we where we want to go. And when alums come alongside us and say, you know, here’s how I want to help advance also with you. Like that’s, that’s a huge blessing to us if it’s, you know, diverting us from what our grand grand mission is. And it’s tough, but you guys did that. That’s what you did. You came alongside and this will, you know, benefit the college in so many ways. And and it was exactly true.

Especially when the quads torn up. Where else do you go.

You know that’s that’s a very good point. Who knows how long that will be, but hopefully soon. Rich as good as his job.

So indeed he is.

Well guys, I know I’ve been blessed to get to know you through this whole process.

Thank you.

You know, when I came back, this was literally like the first project that Colleen handed to me is like, hey, help these guys raise some money and get the word out about this project. So, uh, it’s been a fun ride. And, uh, it’s great to be able to see the finished product and, and.

You helped us a lot with, uh, sending out asks on letterheads for the different houses and stuff like that. I mean, you had a lot of unique concepts.

Yeah. Well, it was my pleasure. And again, just thank you for, for being involved and, and taking an interest in the college and, and all the things that you’re doing. So hopefully you have a great weekend this weekend with all your, your brothers and we’ll see what comes next.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank.

You.

Appreciate it.

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