Thinking Class

Ricardo Duchesne is a Puerto Rican-born Canadian historical sociologist. He studied history at McGill University, received his PhD in Social and Political Thought from York University (awarded the Doctoral Prize for best dissertation of the year), and served as professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick until his retirement in 2019. His major works include The Uniqueness of Western Civilisation, and Greatness and Ruin. 

In this conversation, we think out loud about:

— What made the West so continuously innovative across thousands of years — from the Indo-Europeans through Greece and Rome to the modern era
— Why the Faustian drive — the relentless urge to create, discover, and push beyond every known boundary — appears unique to European civilisation
— The discovery of the thinking self in ancient Greece and why
self-consciousness and reason developed differently in the West
— Why the very qualities that made the West great — rationalism,
individualism, universalism — contain the seeds of its own unravelling
— How liberal progressivism evolves logically from John Locke through John Stuart Mill to open borders and multiculturalism
— Why capitalism and liberalism together have created a system that structurally resists reform
— Whether civilisational recovery is possible — or whether we are witnessing an irreversible decline

Find Ricardo Duchesne:
X: x.com/dr_duchesne
Books: https://link.amazon/B00NSP1LA

Related episodes you might enjoy:
— Iain McGilchrist — There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western
World And This Is Why: https://youtu.be/yrlmkVl86-0
— Carl Trueman — The West Killed God. Then It Killed Man. Now
Something Darker Is Coming: https://youtu.be/zwhbWVc1PgU?si=za3CftJjNxgiKXBd
— Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is
Responsible: https://youtu.be/OKHcEo2QrJg?si=BR4hwL26sdoMS8_4
— Pierre d'Alancaisez — The Custodians Of Beauty Became Its
Gravediggers: https://youtu.be/KXn2z3mfCDk?si=AHSHOEcfvNNKYq7G

The Call of England — a documentary series retracing a 1927
journey through England to discover what remains of the national
inheritance: 

- Watch Episode 1 here: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ?si=T1W7cpepCo-qCwmv
- Watch Episode 2 here: https://youtu.be/jbVZfSR3ZF4?si=Sblz4ZW_U2Gh8RWV

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
✍ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615
🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

Clement Knox is a writer and historian. He is the author of The Scramble for America: How the United States Conquered a Continent (William Collins, 2026), and writes at Past Notes on Substack.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, the United States was thirteen coastal colonies clinging to the Atlantic seaboard. Within a single lifetime, it became a continental empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific — and the founding generation openly called it exactly that: an empire. This conversation asks how it happened, and who actually did it, because the people who crossed the Appalachians, fought the wars, and settled the frontier were not a random sample of humanity. They were the descendants of specific English and British folkways, and their story tells us a great deal about the inheritance they carried across the ocean.

In this conversation we think out loud about:

• Why the founding generation openly called their own project an empire — and why that fact became invisible to later Americans
• Frederick Jackson Turner's argument that America only became culturally distinct once settlers crossed the Appalachians and had to build civilisation anew
• David Hackett Fischer's four British folkways and which of them actually drove the push westward
• Why the Scots-Irish Borderers who settled Appalachia resemble the Bedouin of Arabia more than they resemble the East Coast settlements they left behind
• The recurring tension between liberty and order in the Anglo-American character, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the modern day
• George Washington as a land speculator and enclosure man who died the richest man in the country — the story behind the myth
• Why neither the settlers nor the Native Americans held a monopoly on civilisation or savagery, and what a forensic reading of the primary sources actually shows
• Why Clement changed his mind about universalism — and what that means for how the modern world's institutions were built

And if you haven't already, go and watch The Call of England — my documentary series retracing H.V. Morton's 1927 journey to find out what's left of the old country. Episode one and two are live now on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCHptEOmbMRzSV7TQqVMJxAVohAEnvLdA&si=VcpwRhAUmrcrWOTm

Find Clement Knox:

• Substack: https://clementknox.substack.com

Related episodes:
— Gary Gerstle — The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: https://youtu.be/KbCyaKcj0E8?si=jtY9S8tX493eqUkz
— Michael Lind — Why America & Britain Keep Betraying Their Working Class: https://youtu.be/YN212csIsvU?si=a9BsVmo0sqGI-qoy
— David Starkey — Britain as a Disaster Since 1945: https://youtu.be/aI3tBbqMmXY?si=SI9B_qVavRQH-EGb
— Katharine Birbalsingh — She Told 4,000 People The West Is Committing Suicide: https://youtu.be/L60dtIoALgA?si=yXhD5G8C-4zEueiR

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615
🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

Katharine Birbalsingh is the headmistress and founder of Michaela Community School in Wembley, and a former UK Social Mobility Commissioner.

She built the most successful school in Britain from nothing — in one of London's poorest boroughs — by insisting on the things the educational establishment now treats as radical: discipline, gratitude, knowledge, and the belief that every child is capable of excellence. Her results are extraordinary. Almost nobody in the profession will copy her.

In this conversation, we think out loud about:

• Why Katharine believes children are born naughty rather than good — and why saying so out loud triggered a national media storm
• Why the most progressive schools in Britain are often the expensive private ones, not the state schools everyone assumes are failing
• What actually happens inside a school that treats children as capable of excellence rather than victims of circumstance
• The ARC speech that caused a stir — on minoritarian victimhood, institutional shame, and why she thinks a certain group of people in Britain need to simply "take a break"
• Her real disagreement with Connor Tomlinson — whether ancestry or shared values are what actually holds a nation together
• Why she believes schools now shape children more powerfully than families do — and what that means for the future of the country

Find Katharine Birbalsingh:
- Strictly Education: https://www.youtube.com/@StrictlyEdPod
- Michaela School: https://www.michaela.education/

Related episodes:
- Lord Tony Sewell — Life At The Bottom In Broken Britain: https://youtu.be/WKf26_Va_yM?si=AjIKvZdCndHSyTx4
- Frank Furedi — In Defence of Populism: https://youtu.be/qTdxAR40T4E?si=MREy9eLow-XGWoS4
Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://youtu.be/OKHcEo2QrJg?si=cE6cr_Ypgs6geVyh

The Call of England — a documentary series retracing a 1927 journey through England to discover what remains of the national inheritance. Watch Episode 1 here: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ?si=y2zHLbn8juRbQidl

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
✍ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615
🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

Pierre d’Alancaisez is a writer, curator, and researcher working with the multiple politics of the arts. He is the resident art critic for the English magazine The Critic, and his writing has appeared in outlets such as ArtReview, The Spectator, and Compact. 

*NOTE: If you downloaded this before 11th July, there are sync issues on the audio, therefore please re-download for a better listening experience*.

In 2024, he co-founded Verdurin, a space for experimentation in aesthetics, learning, and the difficult conversations which drive today’s culture.

Pierre previously directed waterside contemporary, a gallery that tested social and political questions in the art market. He curated exhibitions with artists who included Turner Prize nominee Oreet Ashery and has commissioned works with artists such as Mirza and Butler which traveled to Artes Mundi and Sydney Biennale.

Having trained in the sciences before coming to artistic practice, Pierre also worked on cultural exchange and engagement strategies in higher education and the charity sector and has held senior positions in publishing and financial services.

Pierre writes for The Critic and runs Verdurin, a London-based salon, publisher, and events series.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms.

Find Pierre D'Alancaisez:

• Personal website: https://petitpoi.net/
• Verdurin website: https://verdur.in/
• Substack: https://verdurin.substack.com/profile/notes
• X: https://x.com/verdur_in
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@verdurin

Related episodes:
— #127 Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://youtu.be/OKHcEo2QrJg?si=DY2XKBvRopuluvM-
— #106 Carl Trueman— The West Killed God. Then It Killed Man. Now Something Darker Is Coming: https://youtu.be/zwhbWVc1PgU?si=xGJ4g5784J9qGcZd
— #130 Iain McGilchrist— There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western World And This Is Why: https://youtu.be/yrlmkVl86-0?si=k6egq2NGvyo1mnxU

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615
🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

Frank is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent and the author of twenty-eight books on the cultural forces shaping Western societies, including his most recent, In Defence of Populism. Frank is also a Senior Fellow at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Brussels.

In this conversation Frank and I think out loud about: 

• the spirit of populism, why the credentialized class fears it
• how anti-populists restrict democracy while claiming to defend it
• why fascism and populism are not just different but opposite
• why nostalgia underpins cultural continuity
• why 60% of the crisis starts in the schools
• whether assimilation is possible in a normless society
• and why to be a real conservative you must be very radical.

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615
🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

Max Klinger is a lawyer and political analyst. He writes at Max Klinger's Newsletter on Substack and his work has appeared in The Spectator.

Britain's progressive establishment spent a decade re-racialising public life. It racialised Brexit, policing, and every institution in the name of anti-racism. Now the wider British public has adopted the same lens and applied it in the opposite direction, and the establishment is horrified. 

In this conversation we think out loud about:

• In what specific ways the British establishment has gone off at the deep end
• The real-life impact of anti-racist and DEI policies on the British public
• How the progressive left re-racialised British public life — and is now horrified that the wider public has adopted the same lens
• Ash Sarkar, Novara Media, and the hypocrisy of racialising everything until the racialisation turns against you
• Two-tier policing, two-tier sentencing, and the cases of Valdo Calocane and Henry Novak
• The Islamisation of Britain — jihadism, blasphemy law by stealth, and the demographic projections
• The future of British Jews and whether the trajectory is recoverable
• Whether the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish are allowed an ethnic identity in the same way as every other group
• The emergence of English national identity and why suppressing it is the most dangerous thing the establishment can do

Find Max Klinger:

• Substack: https://maxthinks.substack.com
• X: @MaxE2Review

Related episodes:
— #102 David Betz — What Britain Will Look And Feel Like When Things Get Nasty: https://youtu.be/gUtltMklkcM?si=Hz7qNjqOh-7WaYTz
— #106 Driss Ghali — France's Identity Crisis: Violence, Islamism & The Risk Of Social Fracture: https://youtu.be/Y2hS_7WkkDA?si=h1FvChJjhLL20hty
— #129 Andrew Hussey — France Is Fracturing: https://youtu.be/U5aKUYgHL8M?si=hph--ETBQjeVpJAW

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615
🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

Professor Andrew Hussey OBE is Dean of the University of London Institute in Paris and Director of the Centre for Post-Colonial Studies at the University of London's School of Advanced Study. Born in Liverpool, educated at the University of Manchester and Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, he is the author of The French Intifada (Faber, 2014), Paris: The Secret History (Penguin, 2006), The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord (Jonathan Cape, 2001), and Fractured France. He was awarded an OBE for services to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and France. He writes for the Observer, the Guardian, and the New Statesman. His forthcoming book, The White In-Between Sea, explores the real life of the South of France from Corsica to the Spanish border.

In this conversation, Andrew and I think out loud about: 

• Why France is fracturing into fragments that do not speak to each other
• The three Frances: the citadels, the banlieues, and the forgotten white working-class periphery
• How French prisons became the engine room of radicalisation
• The difference between Maliki Islam and Wahhabi puritanism and why it matters
• Why the French Republic's promise to make everyone a Frenchman is being tested to destruction
• The RN rallies: Hussey spent time with the supporters and found not fascists but ordinary people
• Whether the progressive left's grievance politics has made integration permanently impossible
• The Charlie Hebdo demonstration and the moment Hussey converted to French Republicanism
• Naboukh la France: what the ancient curse really means and why it matters
• What all of this tells Britain about what is coming

Find Professor Hussey's work:

• The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs - https://amzn.to/4vOVW84
• Fractured France: https://amzn.to/4aG8g2j

Related episodes:

• #077 Driss Ghali — How France Was Colonised: https://youtu.be/NycF1IiVcnQ?si=DbynKwta-eU671iQ
• #106 Driss Ghali — France's Identity Crisis: Violence, Islamism & The Risk Of Social Fracture: https://youtu.be/Y2hS_7WkkDA?si=AWgwO8VbKnV0U40w
• #102 David Betz — What Britain Will Look And Feel Like When Things Get Nasty: https://youtu.be/gUtltMklkcM?si=bObsQUD8C1-77RLa

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

Professor Gregory Clark is a British-born economic historian at the University of California, Davis and holds a DNRF Chair at the Danish National Research Foundation and a professor at the Historical Economics and Development Group (HEDG) at the Department of Economics, SDU. Furthermore, he is a Visiting Professor at London School of Economics (LSE) and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UC Davis. He is the author of A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World and The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility.

In this conversation Greg and I think out loud about:

• Why some societies became rich while others remained poor — and why it has little to do with institutions
• Why Indian cotton mills in the 1920s could not match Lancashire despite identical technology
• What Clark discovered from studying more than 422,000 English people across four centuries
• Why social mobility appears largely unchanged since the Middle Ages
• Why Denmark and Britain have almost identical mobility rates despite radically different welfare states
• Why family size, birth order, and the death of a father have no measurable effect on life outcomes
• Why the upper classes decline at the same rate the lower classes rise — and what that symmetry means
• Whether England has been a meritocracy since 1300
• Why governments may be attempting to solve problems that are largely resistant to policy
• Clark's forthcoming book — and why it is proving difficult to publish

Find Professor Clark's work:

• A Farewell to Alms: https://amzn.to/4vak59q
• The Son Also Rises: https://amzn.to/4okonIx
• London School of Economics: https://www.lse.ac.uk/people/greg-clark

Related episodes:

• #130 Iain McGilchrist — There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western World: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2277944/episodes/19292333
• #034 Garett Jones - Why Migrants Make Countries Like The Ones They Left: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2277944/episodes/15347853
• #127 Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2277944/episodes/19175544

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615
🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

Dr Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London, a former research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, and since September 2025 the Chancellor of Ralston College. He lives on the Isle of Skye. He is the author of The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale University Press, 2009) and The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World (Perspectiva Press, 2021). He writes at Channel McGilchrist and on Substack.

Something has gone wrong with the Western mind. Not recently and not with any particular government or policy but rather at a deep structural level, over centuries. Iain McGilchrist has spent his career as a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and literary scholar trying to make sense of it.

In this conversation we think out loud about: 

• The difference between the actions and thoughts produced by the left and right hemispheres of the brain 
• The most visible symptoms of civilisational decay in Britain and the West
• The key inflection points in history that set the West on a road to ruin, having previously defined the path to greatness
• What the Romantics were longing for in the industrial era — and why nostalgia is not a bad thing but necessary
• Why we need more new Romantics to show us how to live more fully human lives in the machine age
• What the industrialisation of man has done to our souls
• What the world we have built is doing to our minds and why mental health diagnoses are so prevalent amongst the young
• The mistake made by the West in becoming post-Christian
• Why Iain would rather die than sever his relationship with the faith — What Iain has not changed his mind on

Find Dr McGilchrist's work:

• Channel McGilchrist
• McGilchrist Substack
• The Master and His Emissary
• The Matter with Things
• Ralston College

Related episodes:

• #126 Gary Gerstle — The Iran War Is Ending The Global Economy As We Know It
• #110 Renaud Camus — The Disaster: The Great Replacement, Elite Failure & The Crisis Of The West
• #042 Peter Hitchens - How Britain Witnessed A Moral And Cultural Revolution

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615
🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

William Clouston is the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the United Kingdom and a member of the advisory board for Restore Britain. 

Firas Modad is an analyst and political economist focused on the Middle East and global geopolitics. He runs his own consultancy, Modad Geopolitics, helping companies and investors understand the commercial impact of political, economic, and security risks they face. Firas Modad is a host on Podcast of the LotusEaters.

Britain built its economy on the assumption that global stability was permanent. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed for nearly three months. William Clouston and Firas on what is actually happening, how Britain ended up this exposed, what a sane government would do, and what the crisis reveals about a deeper civilisational loss of will.

We think out loud about:
- What the Strait closure actually means militarily and whether it will ever reopen
- How Britain ended up with no strategic reserve, no energy self-sufficiency, and no industrial base 
- Why successive governments stopped thinking like custodians of a nation
- What a sane government would actually do on energy, manufacturing and borders
- The ideological double whammy: free trade purism and net zero combined are lethal doe Britain 
- How the financial sector was ideologically captured and failed to see the crisis coming
- Whether the integrated global economy is finished and what will replace it 
- How the faith crisis underpins the nation's morale crisis and why power stations alone will not fix it
- What ordinary people should actually begin doing differently in their own lives in response

Follow their work:
- SDP Investment State Green Paper: https://www.sdp.org.uk
- Firas Modad Geopolitics: https://modadgeopolitics.com
- The Lotus Eaters: https://lotuseaters.com

Related episodes:
- #126 Gary Gerstle — The Iran War Is Ending The Global Economy: https://youtu.be/KbCyaKcj0E8?si=Hzc1TNvhkuK90Wa- - #109 William Clouston — Why British Politics Governs Against The National Interest: https://youtu.be/Rm2Qp-1qnJw?si=5W0MSjBKe0tyFj1k
- #112 Firas Modad — Britain Is Losing Control At Home And Abroad: https://youtu.be/KMOwGx9ZtMI?si=MKl__0WCHBbdRnmu

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.

▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615
🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses

New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.