Untranslatable...that's what you are...and forevermore...that's how you'll...stay? This week, prompted by a listener who's working on a very cool coding project, I'm talking a little bit about famously untranslatable words like logos, ruach, and my personal favorite, aphiēmi. It's an ancient problem, debated and fussed over basicaly since the Bible was written...can it be solved? Where to begin? I'll crack open the question today, and try to answer it next week.

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute (now offering Old English instruction!): https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM

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Is Anxiety a demon? It's a question raised, weirdly, by the most popular kids' movie in America right now--and by the entire practice of modern psycotherapy. Typically, when we try to understand mental illness, we refer to natural causes like brain chemistry or personal and family history. But are there some forms of cognitive disorder that don't originate within us--that invade us from the outside? I'm using sources both ancient and modern to tackle that question today after a listener wrote in with some provocative thoughts.

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

I maked this: Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/0fUMLN9f

Gateway to the Epicureans: https://a.co/d/03RaCAP5

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Scott Alexander's review of Robert Falconer: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-others-within-us?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Is AI taking on a life of its own? Or is it just a mindless machine? Sly grin why can't we have both?

Some of our earliest Western literature is fraught with the suggestion that one day we might make a machine so complex, it would think for itself. But what would that say about us? Our new, allegregorical way of talking about AI shows that when we fear that our machines might be like us, we're really afraid that we might be like our machines.

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

I maked this: "A Matter of Taste" https://americanmind.org/salvo/a-matter-of-taste/

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Next time you want to get everyone's attention for a speech at a party, try this: stand up on a table, pound your mead-chalice on a hard surface (you've got a mead-chalice, right?) and shout HWÆT! No one will have any idea what you're saying, but they'll have no choice but to listen. That's the power of Old English. We've hit bedrock in our excavation of the history of English, which brings us to Beowulf and what Seamus Heaney calls "the coffered riches of grammer and declensions."

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute (now offering Old English instruction!): https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM

Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com

Mark Forsyth's books on curiosities of the English language: https://a.co/d/fxudMAn

https://a.co/d/3A5XpbQ

Live reading of Beowulf from Hillsdale: https://youtu.be/CH-_GwoO4xI?si=tQCTnID9A7gi5s5_

Mother nature is one of the most ancient pagan deities, and also one of the trendiest in modern times. What gives--why is a character whose name you can literally find carved into primitive rocks also being portrayed by Octavia Spencer in Apple PR campaigns? In this essay, I argue that Mother Earth or Mother Nature represents one of the most natural assumptions for humans to make about the world, transformed by the scientific revolution into something materialist, and now re-made via allegory into something very like the old pagan god. I call it, an "allegregore": a supposedly metaphorical way of talking that takes on a life of its own.

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

I maked this: Gateway to the Epicureans: https://a.co/d/2uyMIWw

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I really enjoyed comparing notes with Johnathan Bi, whose journey in some ways mirrors my own: whereas I moved from a humanities background into an interest in science, Johnathan started in the science and tech world, then came to appreciate the importance of great literature. Together we discuss the rise of generalism, the promise and perils of the AI age, and what the canon has to teach us in our unusual times.

Take a look at Johnathan's website: http://greatbooks.io/

And his new lecture series: https://youtu.be/M0w2eQ-FcEA

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

I maked this: Paradise Lost, the audiobook: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/p/paradise-lost

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Will we ever get to stop hearing about Dr. Fauci? Does anyone even remember COVID anymore? These are the sorts of profound questions that define our times. I will not be answering them. Instead, I want to tell you a Very Young Heretics story about how the pagan gods found their way into modern science--and why they might be finding their way back out again in the age of "The Science" (TM). Plus: is listening to audiobooks the same as reading? No, but you should still do it anyway.

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

I maked this: Paradise Lost, the audiobook: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/p/paradise-lost

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The prologue of The Canterbury Tales used to be part of a standard-issue training set in English courses. Today I'm RETVRNing to tradition and rebooting the old practice of memorizing--or at least reciting--the first few lines of this defining English poem in Middle English. Plus: should whisky be spelled with an -ey, or a -y? The answer will show you just what a carnival the English language is.

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute (now offering Old English instruction!): https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM

Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com

Harvard's interlinear translation of The Canterbury Tales: https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/general-prologue-0

Can Europe survive without its Christian spirit? Can the West? It's a question that's weighing on more and more intelligent people's minds, and Novalis helps us to grapple with it in a unique way. In this episode I look at three key areas--science, religion, and politics--where the secular spirit of Enlightenment humanism has exhausted itself and needs a new source of inspiration. Perhaps those sources are to be found in the middle ages, and perhaps Novalis can help us find them.

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

I maked this: "How Woke Hierarchy Created an Upper-Class Underclass," at The Spectator World: https://thespectator.com/topic/how-woke-hierarchy-created-upper-class-underclass/

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Christendom or Europe? in a new edition, edited by Michael Martin: https://angelicopress.com/products/christendom-or-europe

My review of Tom Holland and further thoughts on cultural Christianity: https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-anxiety-of-influence/

Are we on the brink of a return to Medieval wonder? A collapse into total warfare? Both? Bear with me while I present my Unified Field Theory of Human History in thirty minutes or less, by way of introduction to the mind-blowing essay "Christendom or Europe," by Novalis. He's the most important figure you've never heard of in Western literature, and now is the perfect time to get to know him, because he's going to be with us in the years ahead.

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

I maked this: pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM

Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com

Christendom or Europe? in a new edition, edited by Michael Martin: https://angelicopress.com/products/christendom-or-europe