Your Questions, Answered
Added 2023-10-28 17:36:50 +0000 UTCOnce a year Matt and Sam take questions from listeners—and they always prove to be incredibly smart and interesting. This time around was no different, with questions that include such topics as: the crisis in Israel and Palestine, the influence of postliberal thinkers on the right, polarization and our political future, the state of the GOP, Willie Nelson, conservative art (and artists), and more!
Sources:
Joshua Leifer, "Toward a Humane Left," Dissent, Oct 12, 2023; read Gabriel Winant's reply, "On Mourning and Statehood," and Leifer's response to Winant here
Patrick Deneen, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023)
Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano (1952)
Kurt Vonnegut, "Harrison Bergeron" (1961)
Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (2018)
Samuel L. Popkin, Crackup: The Republican Implosion and the Future of Presidential Politics (2021)
Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats (2016)
John Spong, "Daniel Lanois on Recording Willie Nelson’s Landmark Album 'Teatro,'" Texas Monthly, June 2023
Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins (1971)
Suzanne Schneider, "Light Among the Nations," Jewish Currents, Sept 23, 2023
Ellis Sandoz, Political Apocalypse: A Study of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor (1971)
Mark C. Henrie, ed., Doomed Bourgeois in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman (2001)
Comments
Always appreciate a KYE music rec! I just saw Lucinda live and am now curious which albums/tunes of hers are your favs. As for the could we be more polarized q, it made me wonder what the effect of roe being overturned would be. I've already read of med students choosing to study in states with abortion and thus more likely to live more permanently in those areas, further limiting medical care in conservative states. I also personally know academics limiting their job search based on it too. Thanks!
Megan Baker
2023-11-02 19:30:18 +0000 UTCFeel like DEMONS is Dostoevsky's most conservative/reactionary work.
Darius Tahir
2023-10-31 19:26:46 +0000 UTCAs the probable sole listener from North Dakota (there are very few of us!) totally agree and the Senate should definitely be abolished. I lived in California for a time and I trust them way more than whatever Burgum is doing lately 😂 WRT questions for the next episode- I always do wonder, how apparently broken do you think our system can become before things change? Say, Biden wins the popular vote in 2024 by 20 million, but Trump wins the electoral college. Would that be enough to build the mass movement to make an amendment to fix the unfair distribution? Or will it take a gap of 30 million? 50 million? Etc.
bmueller
2023-10-30 22:43:50 +0000 UTCLove in the Ruins is great, tried to publish about it in a medical journal last year and was told its un-PC themes were not appropriate for the times
momilli
2023-10-30 14:48:57 +0000 UTCI'm only about 15 minutes in, but you comment about the reformicons vs illiberal right moved me to comment as soon as I heard it. I just had this reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha7HAG6jVqc. There are substantive differences between the two groups (obviously). But it drives me bananas when illiberals, when asked what they're about, put forward policies that are basically just what the reformicons were saying, except they're totally unmoored from the need to pretend to be a party of limited government. "Pro-life New Dealer" doesn't mean illiberal. While I can't say I know a ton about abortion politics in the 1930s, I feel safe saying that a great may New Dealers were pro life and yet obviously members in good standing of the liberal family. Someone also told me that "all they [natcons] want are blue laws." (restrictions on doing business on Sunday) Whatever you think of those, that's something that you can put on a ballot initiative next to a measure to issue a bond to build a new off-ramp on the highway. This kind of ball-hiding makes me pull my hair out. This weird kind of bailey-and-motte thing is an interesting reversal from the Tea Party days. While I'm sure that some of the more hard-edged conservatives from 2010 genuinely wanted to abolish the IRS, most of them just used that as a rallying cry for lower taxes (and less tax enforcement). This would be like saying "we're going to halve the capital gains tax rate!" and then planning to downsize the treasury department to a strip mall check-cashing place. TLDR, I'm sick of having my leg pissed on while being told it's raining.
Still Want Willkie
2023-10-30 02:30:07 +0000 UTCCan you please clarify your position on the original, Townes version of ‘Poncho and Lefty’?
Jasper Nathaniel
2023-10-30 00:10:43 +0000 UTCGreat episode, look forward to the bonus!
DC
2023-10-29 23:10:49 +0000 UTCTrump seems to agree with whomever he's talking to at the moment, so it could have been an interesting unfolding of events from there
Dan Anderson
2023-10-29 22:25:02 +0000 UTCWith regard to low density representation, small states like North Dakota only get one representative. The entire state of North Dakota is a single congressional district. The state is insignificant in the House of Representatives. That is fitting considering its population. That sort of means that low density, low population places don’t matter all that much.
erik w bjorke
2023-10-29 21:48:32 +0000 UTCThe right seems convinced that the left has moved far left. I could say more but everything that comes to my mind seems to move towards bothsidesism.
erik w bjorke
2023-10-29 21:43:52 +0000 UTCThought you might like this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/doonesbury/strip/archive/1977/10/26
Tzvi Mackson
2023-10-29 19:52:19 +0000 UTCYeah, a Dostoevsky episode would be great! Gotta cover ‘Demons,’ too.
Taylor Washburn
2023-10-29 19:13:51 +0000 UTCAlso, I kind of can’t believe much my personal sensibilities overlap with yours (plural). In addition to sharing your love of country music, I’m also a big fan of Whit Stillman, and my own favorite piece of conservative art is Dostoevsky’s ‘Demons’—which I think is more overtly conservative than ‘The Grand Inquisitor.’
Taylor Washburn
2023-10-29 19:04:23 +0000 UTCAnd I’d go with Willie followed by Guy Clark as my favorite Texas songwriters—recognizing that there are so many geniuses in this category that it’s almost impossible to come up with a ranking. Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Cindy Walker, Kris Kristofferson, Rodney Crowell, Billy Joe Shaver, etc., etc. But the greatest Texas singer is a runaway: GEORGE JONES! I think even Willie and Waylon would concede that.
Taylor Washburn
2023-10-29 18:41:56 +0000 UTCI love all of Willie’s early-mid ‘70s work (especially ‘Yesterday’s Wine,’ ‘Shotgun Willie’ and ‘Red Headed Stranger’), but I’d vote for ‘Phases and Stages’ (1974) as THE greatest Willie album. It doesn’t have any of Willie’s iconic hits outside of “Blood Mary Morning,” but it’s a beautiful, empathetic portrait of a broken marriage, told from the woman’s perspective as well as the man’s. The production is elegant and spare, and the backing band (the Swampers of Muscle Shoals) is incredible. Country isn’t really an album genre, but ‘Phases and Stages’ might be my favorite country album ever, along with ‘Honky Tonk Heroes.’
Taylor Washburn
2023-10-29 18:32:50 +0000 UTCPlease please please do the Dostoevsky ep
Justin Scheer
2023-10-29 18:20:58 +0000 UTCI was disappointed that neither the question nor the answers about favorite Texas country singers included any mention of Lyle Lovett.
Adam Blistein
2023-10-29 17:24:32 +0000 UTCAs someone who studied literature in college, I would love an episode on Dostoevsky and The Grant Inquisitor. Please do that! Although I enjoy almost every topic you guys cover, the literature talk really makes me nerd out. 😅
Axel Herrera
2023-10-29 17:08:06 +0000 UTCAnd vice versa
Klaus Yoder
2023-10-29 15:07:08 +0000 UTCTeaching—>podcasting, yes
Klaus Yoder
2023-10-29 15:06:57 +0000 UTCThank you for your support! (Matt)
Know Your Enemy
2023-10-29 02:52:46 +0000 UTCMatt, I’m right there with you underlining in pencil. It’s got to be straight! Highlighting is indeed an abomination.
Benjamin Pletcher
2023-10-29 02:39:06 +0000 UTCI GIGGLED WHEN MATT SAID HE LIKES WILLIE MORE THAN SAM AND THAT HE REALLY LOVES WILLIE
Roflmaocopter
2023-10-29 02:03:17 +0000 UTCAfter listening to this episode I had a weird little flash of inspiration: what if, in 2015, Donald Trump had come down that escalator and announced, "I am running for President of the United States -on the Democratic ticket." Some (many?) of his populist notions would have resonated at least as much with the Democratic base as with the Republican base. Perhaps some novelist will take this up as an alternative history project... In any case: fun episode. Thanks for recording.
Jerry Callen
2023-10-29 02:02:17 +0000 UTCInteresting comments about enjoying reading. It really has to do with what you are reading. I read a lot of philosophy. One reads philosophy for the ideas and arguments. You don’t read philosophy for pleasure. I suppose there are moments when I have been struggling to understand a passage or argument and the light bulb comes on and I get. That is cool. But for the most part one doesn’t read philosophy for pleasure. I’m not confused and my head doesn’t hurt. I can solve that with some Wittgenstein.
erik w bjorke
2023-10-29 01:32:15 +0000 UTCIt's been years since I watched Damsels in Distress, but remember liking it a lot (and finding it funny). And that dialogue you quote is such vintage Stillman, ha. Thanks, Matt
Know Your Enemy
2023-10-29 01:21:01 +0000 UTCWhit Stillman's "Damsels in Distress", probably the funniest movie I can remember watching in a theater, especially this line: "I don’t know about you but I don’t think anyone should feel embarrassed about not knowing stuff. What’s embarrassing is pretending to know what you don’t -- or putting down other people just because you think they don’t know as much as you. I’m happy to admit I’m completely ignorant. That’s why I’m here and plan to really hit the books. The next time you see me, I’ll know more than I do now. I’ll be older, but also wiser -- or at least know more stuff."
Theophylact Pay (née Buy)
2023-10-29 00:59:24 +0000 UTCThanks for a great answer to my question!
Sigurður Hreinsson
2023-10-29 00:34:08 +0000 UTCAlways love these. So glad the questions have only gotten better since the last bout! Great insights and answers!
Aric Rosenveldt
2023-10-28 23:08:45 +0000 UTCThank you both so much for taking my Willie Q, I've got some great listening to do
Lou Guberti Ng
2023-10-28 18:59:58 +0000 UTC
