Interview: How To Save The West
Spencer Klavan on societal roles, WAP, Toy Story and our crisis of meaning
For quite some time I have wanted to experiment with working audio into This Is The Way. My journey as a communicator started with podcasting more so than the written word, penning essays or a book. Today we begin that experiment with an author interview.
Spencer Klavan is someone whose work I genuinely admire. It’s weighty, tough, and takes some time to process. I mention in this interview that I have to slow down when reading Klavan. He’s an academic speaking beyond academia, a Classics writer taking aim at modern problems. Like anyone worth reading he’s opinionated, well-read himself, and controversial. His new book, How To Save The West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises is a really great read. His book tackles the Crisis of Reality (AI, Social Media, Futurism) the Crisis of the Body (Trans Ideology, Gender, Health) the Crisis of Meaning (Stories, Mythology, Origins) the Crisis of Religion (Where do we come from and whom do we serve?) and the Crisis of the Regime (Legitimacy of Government & Institutions).
Here you can listen to my discussion with Klavan focused on one of those five crises, the Crisis Of Meaning. Because This Is The Way centers around stories, popular fiction and history, it felt fitting that our conversation revolved around narratives of video games, popular music and Pixar films.
If you’re interested in Spencer Klavan, we’ve talked a few times before about politics, hope, January 6th, masculinity/femininity and much more.
I hope you found some value in this discussion with Spencer Klavan. This Is The Way will strive to do more audio content, interviews and perhaps even article narrations in the months ahead. Experimentation is good. Let me know what you’re liking and what you’re not. That helps.
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Be well. This is the way.