Episode 29 - Conservative Minds with Kyle Sammin

“Welcome to Conservative Minds – a podcast dedicated to examining conservative intellectual history to determine the core values of American conservatism. What does it mean to call yourself a conservative? What did it mean in prior times and how did we get where we are today? We explore these questions and more by turning to conservative political thinkers from the past and present. Each episode we select readings and conduct a discussion to share with you our investigation.”

Thus begins each episode of the Conservative Minds podcast. In a dizzying weekly release, cohosts Corey Astillck and Kyle Sammin read a notable work of a conservative intellectual leader and hold a discussion summarizing the reading and comparing/contrasting what they’ve found to previous readings. The result is an interesting and in-depth approach to examining the many nuances of the conservative worldview.

Since conservatism isn’t a rigid ideology that can be traced back to a single godfather, it can be notoriously difficult to define. What’s more, there are inherent tensions throughout the worldview that create interesting paradoxes. Sometimes conservative thinkers will emphasize one aspect of conservatism over another and the seeming contradictions may take considerably time and effort to work through. Part of Saving Elephant’s mission is to help clarify and define the conservative worldview—no easy task—and Corey and Kyle have made much progress in this endeavor.

Thus far their podcast has included examining the writings of:

Barry Goldwater

Richard Weaver

John Locke

George Will

Robert Bork

Edmund Burke

Milton Friedman

Robert Nisbet

Irving Kristol

William F Buckley

Patrick Buchanan

Friedrich Hayek

Alexis de Tocqueville

Antonin Scalia

In this episode of Saving Elephants, Kyle Sammin joins host Josh Lewis to offer a summary of the discussions he’s had in season one of Conservative Minds. Kyle lives in Pennsylvania where he practices law and writes. His contributions have appeared in The Federalist, National Review Online, Hardball Times, University Bookman, and the Weekly Standard. You can listen to the Conservative Minds podcast here. And you can listen to this episode in the link below:

LISTEN HERE

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Spring Break

This is just a brief note to let my loyal readers know I’ll be taking a break from my regular Friday blog posts through the month of April to refresh and refocus. The podcast will still go out as scheduled and—come May—we should be back up and running with more great content. Until then, enjoy the lovely weather everybody!

Josh

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Episode 28 - Unjust with Noah Rothman

There are just two problems with social justice: it’s not social and it’s not justice. So says Noah Rothman, Saving Elephants’ guest and author of the new book Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America.

Noah walks us through the evolution of the concept of justice in the West to show how some political activists (perhaps unwittingly) have twisted it. Social justice may be well intentioned and be useful as a philosophical perspective. But when applied to practical politics, the results are anything but just. Perhaps most surprisingly, social justice is no longer chiefly a tool of the Left, as some groups on the Right are learning how to wield the weapon of retribution.

In a society governed by “social justice,” the most coveted status is victimhood, which people will go to absurd lengths to attain. But the real victims in such a regime are blind justice—the standard of impartiality that we once took for granted—and free speech. These hallmarks of American liberty, already gravely compromised in universities, corporations, and the media, are under attack in our legal and political systems.

Social justice is a creed born of grievances, some of them undoubtedly valid. But Noah shows that tribalism and the fanatical pursuit of retribution threaten to destroy a political culture that is historically unmatched in its friendliness to justice. Social justice is an ideology that runs counter to the American ideal, and it must be stopped. And on this episode Noah offers some guidance on how it might be stopped.

Noah is the associate editor of Commentary, a journal of scholarly opinion and analysis that has been in continuous publication since 1945, a contributor to MSNBC/NBC News, and a widely followed commentator and guest on such notable shows as Tucker Carlson Tonight and Real Time with Bill Maher. He graduated from Drew University with a degree in Russian studies and political science and received a master’s degree in diplomacy and international relations from Seton Hall University. He lives and works in the New York City area.

LISTEN HERE

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