Ben Cobley writes the blog, A Free Left Blog, and is author of The Tribe: The Liberal Left and the System of Diversity. Ben is a journalist by trade and a former Labour Party activist. 

In this episode, Ben and I talk about Being English and Englishness, what it is and how it has come under threat from the spread of progressive ideologies, what it means to be a part of a nation, why there might be a hostility toward the English and Englishness, the impact of liberalism on England and the world, the difficulty of finding the language to explain something deeply felt, the impact of modernity and cultural disintegration, the feeling of overpopulation in a small country, why Ben joined the Labour Party and why he left, and much, much more. 
 
Enjoy the show Classmates. And don't forget to subscribe. 

You can also check Ben out on:

• Unherd.com
• @existentialpolitics
• X/Twitter
• The Critic

You can follow Thinking Class on:  

• X/Twitter
• YouTube
• Substack

Connor Tomlinson is a writer and presenter at LotusEaters.com and Co-host of the Deprogrammed podcast by NewCultureForum. Connor has also frequently contributed to Talk TV and GB News, and writes for The European Conservative and The Critic.

In this episode Connor and I talk about why Gen-Z are not so much being anti-civilisational insomuch as they didn't receive a cultural inheritance at all, the impact of the internet and the post 1960s education system on cultural identity, why not all of Gen-Z is woke, why individualism and consumer capitalism has made everyone miserable, why the topdown erosion of Christianity has inflicted great harm on individuals, families, and communities, what the loss of train etiquette tells us about the state of things, why the West needs to abandon liberalism and rediscover an unapologetic faith in its heritage, how finding faith made life immeasurably better, the importance of looking to the past for wisdom to act prudently now and in the future, and why those on the right-wing of Gen-Z are so straight talking.

This was a heck of a ride and one of the most clinical, yet heartfelt podcasts yet. Connor is a deeply impressive young man. Articulate, passionate, and to the point. For those of us who look closely enough, we might see that Gen-Z is not exactly as we've come to expect it is and that perhaps us older generations need to take responsibility for any of its shortcomings. Connor's a positive young voice and smartly dressed to boot.

Enjoy the show Classmates. And don't forget to subscribe.

Check out Connor on:

• The Podcast Of The Lotus Eaters
• Deprogrammed
• European Conservative
• The Critic

You can follow Thinking Class on:  

• X/Twitter
• YouTube
• Substack

Lorenzo Warby writes for one of Substack's featured publications for 2024, Helen Dale's Not On Your Team, But Always Fair, as well as for his own Substack Lorenzo from Oz. Lorenzo writes frequently about evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary psychology, human nature, the institutional health of the West, the differences between civilisations, and the impact of political ideologies on public life. Lorenzo has a very interesting background, having worked in the Australian public service and non-profit sector, and now he puts on medieval and ancient days for schools. 

In this episode, Lorenzo tells us about human social dynamics and why women are not a finer form of Homo Sapien (and neither are men), why we shouldn't see the sexes as in competition with each other, the impact of feminism and feminisation of society, the advantages of Western Civilisation, how small networks of ideologically motivated people can have an outsized effect on society,  the different sides of egalitarianism, the cultural degradation of the masculine - expect to hear about the latest Star Wars films, and the impact of male coordination on human evolution.

This was one of my favourite conversations by a country mile. You can never get bored of speaking to very smart people and Lorenzo is very smart. He is a polymath and has an uncanny ability to avoid using jargon every other word.  Lorenzo's a learned man and great conversationalist. 

Enjoy the show Classmates. 

David Goodhart is a journalist, writer and thinktanker. He worked for the Financial Times for 12 years before setting up Prospect magazine in 1995. He has been involved with issues relating to equality and discrimination for 20 years.

In 2013 he published a book on race and immigration, 'The British Dream' (runner up for the Orwell prize). When director of the Demos think tank he set up the Integration Hub website as a focus for data and debate about ethnic minority integration and segregation. In his current role as Head of the Demography Unit at the Policy Exchange think tank he has contributed to most of the policy debates on race including cowriting a report, 'Bittersweet Success', on ethnic minority people in elite jobs. His two most recent books are 'The Road to Somewhere: The New Tribes Shaping British Politics' (2017) and 'Head, Hands, Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Stats in the 21st Century' (2020).

In this episode, David and I talk about so much, including the motivations of the political tribes, the anywheres and the somewheres, and how they have influenced British politics, the disappointment in how the anywheres have used their power as the dominant class, whether immigration is as economically beneficial as it is frequently claimed to be, the impact of mass immigration on internal migration, how the mass education sector has damaged social cohesion, the impact of the welfare state on productivity, whether the UK has found itself in a doom loop, and how the role and status of the family has been diminished in recent decades and how we might raise its status once more. 

Enjoy the show class mates.

Emma Wells is an English church historian, academic, consultant author, and broadcaster, specialising in the ecclesiastical and architectural history of the late medieval and early modern age. Emma is the author of two books, including the 2021 book Heaven on Earth: Lives & Legacies of the world's greatest cathedrals; and the 2016 book Pilgrim routes of the British Isles. Emma is working on her third book at the time of recording.

In this episode, Emma and I talk about why the medieval and dark ages gave us much more than we give them credit for, why so many cathedrals were built and what drove the elites who built them and funded them, the nature of beauty and whether it is objective or subjective, why we came to prize efficiency and utility over beauty, if our cities are becoming increasingly ugly because we have become less spiritual, and why our towns would be better off if the planning office was overseen by King Charles III.

Emma and I agreed on so much, however not so on whether beauty is objective or subjective. Emma makes the argument that what is deemed beautiful goes in and out of fashion, while i don't believe that anyone would really find brutalist architecture beautiful in a month of Sundays. This is because i believe beauty and awe are linked and that awe-inspiring beauty is something which touches the soul rather than simply being about taste. I'd be interested to hear what you all think.

Before you dive in, you would be really helping me out if you clicked subscribe on whatever platform you are listening to the show on. The more subscribers we have, the more guests we can attract, and the faster Thinking Class grows.

Enjoy the show Classmates.

Dr Carl Trueman is a Christian theologian and ecclesiastical historian. Carl is Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. He has written many books including, 'The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.' He contributes to First Things), blogs regularly at Reformation21 and co-hosts the Mortification of Spin podcast.

In this episode, Carl and I talk about the importance of our cultural elite in shaping how we see the world, what the four ages of man are and why we're now living in the age of psychological man, why modernity and the ideas of today make us less human, the impact of the God-shaped hole the Western world in modernity on us all, how behaviour in the public square has become increasingly coarse even among our leaders, the surprising return of Christianity to the public sphere, why Richard Dawkins is in the horns of a dilemma now that he is part of 'Team Christianity', and the ideological and religious choices in front of us.

This was a deeply engaging and heartfelt conversation. Carl is a wonderful soul. I admire his ability to present such a clear-eyed analysis of the ideas that have shaped us for good and ill in such an everyday human way. Whatever your beliefs - from all faiths or none - I think you'll resonate with what's being said here.

Before we dive in, you would be really helping me out if you clicked subscribe on whatever platform you are listening to or watching on. The more subscribers we have, the more guests we can attract, and the faster Thinking Class grows.

Enjoy the show class mates and don't forget to subscribe.


Show notes
- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rise-Triumph-Modern-Self-Individualism/dp/1433556332/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Zhe0jozC4dOISFQbImVqoDfab1IMd5dIYABdOcUdgB0mu8-Q11e8zTvmkajuduUWQhbOJh9CcLoem4mO6AYfMw.dG_u9asc19H0FVXCx4Ve7ZgaMu3S1V_By_Hn_C-WBDw&qid=1715319879&sr=8-1
- https://amazon.co.uk/Crisis-Confidence-Reclaiming-Historic-Individualism/dp/1433590018/ref=sr_1_2?crid=7YJ5LF5COQGW&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zCpJnm_BzpAFYaEHBqybEedfDynaHjE94YOVq3qiuq1A9ZQ5yN9SG_F9Y17k0l27yWHe4Y-V6dB9GLmPMZNNWHw5jcVqK1p-yNoU20-jfVxjP0r1PhgNitvFBq6a9dbVN8QZ5niGiQC_1KRV5EcW_a-SK2ircImI3IevwGEo_ia6cjjHF1bkM_zFRWFV7ZvZFQcsV3xzaXa2Gm8e2ov6FW4pMukigXoR3b8nMfaVesI.O9ZiJQfmyKW0qUUXtdwCl0zxcNoPQ4O_qtfnWnLTv0Y&dib_tag=se&keywords=carl+trueman+books&qid=1715319925&sprefix=carl+tru%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-2

Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham. He is the author of Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities (Penguin, 2018; Abrams, 2019), Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth (Profile, 2010), Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution (Forum, 2024) and numerous academic books and papers.

He is an editor of the journal Nations & Nationalism, and has written for New York Times, Times of London, Financial Times, Newsweek International, Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines.

In this episode, Eric and I talk about why the spread of Woke ideas contributed to him leaving his long-held post at Birkbeck College, University of London for the University of Buckingham, how to define woke academically, whether universities can be reformed, how public and private leaders have become more culturally aligned to the left over the years, the nature of cultural socialism, cultural liberalism, and cultural conservatism, and why the former doesn't lead to flourishing, whether diversity, equity and inclusion can be reformed, how we came to be governed by the anti-racism taboo, whether there is a link between woke and mental health, and the impact of cultural leftism on the ability to have public discussion about salient political topics like immigration.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode. Eric shows the benefits of taking a clear-eyed analysis to popular ideologies that have spread. I've nothing but admiration for him standing up to the mob and for forging a respectful path for the rest of us to follow in talking about the issues of the day without being governed solely by emotion.

Before we dive in, you would be really helping me out if you clicked subscribe on whatever platform you are listening to the show on. The more subscribers we have, the more guests we can attract, and the faster Thinking Class grows.

Enjoy the show class mates

Sebastian Milbank is the Executive Editor of The Critic magazine, and a journalist, writer and academic with a special interest in political theology.

In this episode, Sebastian and I talk about why the changing media landscape is due to dissident energy, why liberalism has a dark side, why the concept of freedom itself is about more than just free choice, how the liberty won in the French Revolution continues to have an impact today, why the centre right has been losing so much over the years and the left has been winning, why Britain's governance and infrastructure is suffering grave issues, what self-governance is, why it's important, and whether we can get it back in a world obsessed with central government and outsourcing responsibility, and the necessity for modern Britain to rediscover its history and culture, and why leaders are failing because they have fallen into the habit of following.

Enjoy the show class mates.

Helen Pluckrose is a political and cultural writer and commentator, addressing current affairs from a liberal humanist perspective. Her particular focus is Critical Social Justice (woke) scholarship and activism. Helen took part in the Grievance Studies Affair (along with Peter Bogossian and James Lindsay) which submitted shoddy, ridiculous and ideologically biased papers to academic journals known for publishing Critical Social Justice scholarship. 

In 2020, she co-authored Cynical Theories with James Lindsay, which traced the evolution of postmodern thought into Critical Social Justice scholarship. In that same year, she co-founded Counterweight, an organization for helping individuals push back at authoritarian Critical Social Justice policies and training programs at their place of work, university or child's school. Helen continues to work with individuals and organizations to resist ideological capture. Helen really just wants you to value evidence-based epistemology and consistently liberal principles.

Helen and I talk about why critical theories are too narrow a way to see the world, why they have lead to the authoritarianism we see today, what prospect we see of a freer world, why some say liberalism is dead and why those who value liberalism must practice it if it is to survive, if conservatism and liberalism can live side by side, and why leaders of public and private institutions should be guided by gentle reform over revolution.

What this conversation brought out for me is why even in these fractious, polarised times, where it is easy to find yourself self-censoring or being censored and that there are many who wish to censor their opponents, that we should be careful not to fall into tribalism.

Enjoy the show class mates.

Show notes
- Cynical Theories - Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
- The World of Yesterday - Stefan Zweig
- The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism - John Gray

Dr. Paul Morland is an author and broadcaster who writes and speaks about population and the big demographic trends across the world, both contemporary and historic.

Described as the 'UK's leading demographer' and 'one of the world's pre-eminent demographers', Paul has written three books: ‘Tomorrow’s People’, ‘The Human Tide’ and ‘Demographic Engineering’ and his work has been translated into nine languages. He has written for and been interviewed in many of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines including the Financial Times, the Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Toronto Globe and Mail, Der Spiegel and the Jerusalem Post. He has broadcast on many outlets including BBC Radio 4.

In this episode, Paul and I talk about the reasons behind population decline, why demographic models are so trustworthy when others aren't, whether immigration policies can make a difference in the face of huge movements of people, the nature of diasporas and the potential for integration, the ability of societies to maintain themselves with crashing birthrates, the impact of religion and culture on birthrates, and whether government policy or differing personal priorities are best-placed to lead to a demographic renaissance.

Enjoy the show class mates.

Show notes
Tomorrow's People: The Future of Humanity In Ten Numbers