The General Eclectic

Rod and Kale talk about the shifting conversations about culture, authority, costs, and ruin. Rod learns how to read through an enchanted lens, and also gives up caring about being called a fascist. Topics covered: Live Not By Lies on Paperback; Communism's invisible crimes; uncounted costs; Hollywood goes broke on woke; woke preaching comes for David; the loss of credible authority in public health; the Bulwark goes full affirm and unveils the truth; Chris Rufo and the Origins of Drag Queen Story Hour; Heather Heying's piece trying to wake up Mama Bears; what is real in the wake of Dylan Mulvaney; Matthieu Pageau's Cosmos; the sexual revolution and the abuse of the real; Rod's Sex after Christianity; meaning is intrinsic to matter, contra to modernity; aborting Jesus is a-okay; Macintryre' crucial turning point; "Rod Dreher, American Fascist"?

Rod and Kale kick off their weekly show with a discussion about the darkness hovering just below the surface. FBI chaplains, covering abuse, the compelling nature of the trans narrative and cultural boredom. We move on to discuss Hanby's Metaphysical Catastrophe and the need for real authority. -conversations with an FBI Chaplain and the darkness under the surface -the evil you fight works on you; you are changed by what you fight -the compelling nature of the trans narrative -power of sexuality outside of norms -affluence and boredom, and the preconditions for cultural collapse -The Beautiful Ones -Hartmut Rosa's Resonance, and the limitations of the material -need to Struggle and the First Man and the Underground man -Need for norms and the creation of idiots -the limits of conservative legalism -Hanby's Metaphysical Catastrophe and the lack of Authority -McGilchrist's Left Hemisphere temptation -Shigilov's plan -Matthieu Pageau and the Language of Creation -Hopkin's Grandeur of God and Hiedegger's Standing Reserve -Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: the balance of power and meaning -We must contend with the fact that our world is not Christian -the law absent spirit is tyranny; the Grand Inquisitor -are we all just LARPing? -Avatar Politics and senate races -Megyn Kelly and Trump's position of primacy -Statesmanship -Synod on Synodality extension and a defacto Vatican III -"good guys" and "bad guys" -Peter and Paul's listening tours

Rod and Kale return to discuss the latest in the ongoing ferment of cultural churn. Rod is settling into his new digs in Budapest and they discuss notions of exile and disrupted homecomings. Taking Dante as a jumping off point, they go on to discuss Rod's departure from Louisiana and the tragic dimensions of life. Topics covered: -Dante -Exile, -Dante, and another man's stairs -Learning how to suffer -Learning how to love correctly -Erik Kaufman's latest on Political Demography -Kids and Culture: necessary transmissions -Philip Reiff -Need for "Friction" -Looming energy crisis -Ian McGhilchrist -Louise Perry -Crimes of Noticing Rod's GOODBYE, LOUISIANA. I TRIED Rod's FORGETTING HOW TO BE A CIVILIZATION Kale on "NORMS" Kale's Substack THE UNDERNEATH

Rod and Kale return after a hiatus to discuss:

• war continues in Ukraine, and a dark and cold winter awaits
• potential breakup of the European Union?
• do the elites truly believe that they "create their own reality"?
• institutions continue to lie and burn through cultural capital; what is left to trust?
• can the organs of cultural transmission be salvaged?
• English departments as one-time de facto theology departments
• Kale's trip to Oxford and the statements of faith
• St. Michel, or "The Wonder"
• learning to inhabit a space, and the appreciation of old things

Rod and Kale meetup to discuss all things TGE after Rod's travel sagas land him back in England and then Budapest. Topics covered, in order: - Oxford and Cambridge adventures; no more atheists - WEIRD folks are the outliers who must contend with the robustness of belief - insufficiency of pure materialism - snuff with Cardinal Muller - English Christianity, Malcolm Guite and Martin Shaw's conversion to the "true myth" - liturgies and Christian dreaming - Thin Spaces and Thin Experiences - "re-wilding" of Christianity - necessity for metaphysics and the insufficiency of mere politics - policy disputes as a substitute for real talk about what we are for - importance of attention - lost America and the return of the 80's - dignity done: Tiara Mack and performative senatorial twerking - Rod on the Jordan Peterson podcast - divorce and the Dark Wood LINKS: Read and subscribe to Kale's new substack Read and subscribe to Rod's substack Mary Harrington on Satanism

Kale sits down with Tara Ann Thieke to discuss The Machine, Spirits, Technology and the struggle to be human. In the first half of the show they talk about what it could mean to be in a "post-Christian" world and the limits of the liberal order, and in particular what the implications are for people raised in this order and the reality of the meaning crisis. In the second half they talk about spirits. Topics covered:

• Ellul and Illich
• Edith Stein
• paying attention to the face as an antidote to memes
• human person as Icon rather than thing or instrument
• curating your own social media game
• Spirits and compulsion
• Millennials have been lied to
• Benedict Option for those who have "timed out"
• the spirit of Ahriman
• Buffered and Porous models
• no neutrality in the spirit world

The guys discuss the aftermath of yet another mass shooting, the rush to assign blame and score it, and the need to create a sense of control in the face of American nihilism. They move on to talk about the world given to us by our elites, and the loss of the wisdom of "how to live." In the second part they get into things more personal, in the context of the breakdown of authority, and Rod's own "domicide." Links:

• Jonathan Pageau on Sacrifice
• Joshua Mitchell's America's Awakening
• Auron MacIntyre TWEET
• Alison in New Orleans

Rod and Kale are joined by filmmaker, podcaster, and best-selling children's author Matt Walsh of DailyWire.com to discuss his new hit movie "What is a Woman?" The interview is the first half, followed by a debrief between Rod and Kale in the second.