131 – Witnessing Whittaker with Sam Tanenhaus
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
Release Date: 05/16/2023
144 – Conservative Historian Redux with AD Tippet
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
Earlier this year Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis was on AD Tippet’s podcast, . This episode is a re-podcast of that conversation that covered a wide variety of conservative topics from both the past and today. About AD Tippet AD Tippet (the podcast formerly known as Belisarius Aves) is the founder and publisher of the Conservative Historian and . “History is too important to be left to the left,” writes AD. “The Conservative Historian provides content and opinions on conservative thinking through the prism of history.” You can follow Bel on Twitter @BelAves...
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143 – The Conservative Mind at 70 with Michael Lucchese
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
In 1953 a little-known political theorist Russell Kirk repurposed his doctoral dissertation as a book for publication. His book, The Conservative Mind, would quickly become a bestseller, give the nascent conservative movement its name and intellectual moorings, be reviewed and debated in respectable publications across the country, and launch its author to international fame. Seventy years later, the book is still going strong. Now on its seventh edition and reprinted in multiple languages, The Conservative Mind is among the indispensable tomes for understanding the...
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142 – Jiving with Jaffa with Seth Root
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
While Leo Strauss was famous for influencing men and women who became intellectual heavyweights in the conservative movement—names like Allan Bloom, Irving Kristol, Harvey Mansfield, Thomas Pangle barely scratch the surface—few stand as tall as Harry Jaffa. A cantankerous and quarrelsome debater to some and a beloved architect of restoring conservatism to a more American-focused and principled-based approach to others, Jaffa lived a remarkably long and productive life. His writings persuaded William F. Buckley, Jr. away from a more sympathetically Southern conservatism and,...
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141 – The Soul of Civility with Alexandra Hudson
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
Everyone supports civility, in theory, when the “other side” is behaving themselves. But what is the role of civility in an era of growing political division? Is civility a weakness that can be exploited by our political opponents? Is it simply being well-mannered and exceedingly nice, or is there more to it? Those are the very questions Alexandra Hudson set out to answer in her new book, . Alexandra joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to unpackage how civility holds the timeless answers for humanity’s timeless struggle with living alongside the “other...
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140 – Back to Burke
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
The name Edmund Burke is used quite liberally on the Saving Elephants podcast as host Josh Lewis makes no bones about being a “Burkean” conservative. But who was this Irish statesman, economist, and philosopher? What were his contributions to conservative thought? Why does Josh hold him in such high regard? And why do some conservatives argue there’s no place for Burke in conservatism? Rather than inviting one guest to tackle these pressing questions, Josh explores the various conversations had on the podcast with past guests about Burke to help us navigate...
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139 – Perspectives from Across the Pond with Sarah Stook
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
The United States and United Kingdom have enjoyed and, at times, endured a symbiotic history, culture, politics, and global relationship. Often understanding the quirks of one nation helps us better understand our own. Sarah Stook, journalist of American politics and history, joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to discuss what Americans and Brits can learn from one another, what unique challenges face young, British conservatives, the importance of the British monarch, and whether American politics looks as off-the-rails from an outsider’s perspective as it does from those...
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138 – The Conservative Historian with Belisarius Aves
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
“History offers not simply a chronicle of events but, more importantly, opportunities to gain insights about the human condition from the experience of other times and places,” writes Thomas Sowell in his provocatively titled book . “That is, it offers not merely facts but explanations.” Yet history’s capacity to benefit us is naturally limited by our natural biases. “History cannot be a reality check for visions when history is itself shaped by visions.” To learn how to extract beneficial explanations from history, therefore, we must first learn how to...
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137 – Political Theology with Jonathan Cole – Part 2
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
Christian or not, it’s undeniable that Western civilization, and the United States in particular, has deep historical roots in Judeo-Christian teachings. Scripture has shaped much of our culture, thought, values, and politics. But while plenty of Biblical passages appear to have political implications, there’s little consensus among the general population—to say nothing of the religiously devoted—what a political worldview based on the Bible should look like. Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis continues his conversation with Jonathan Cole on the topic of political...
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136 – Political Theology with Jonathan Cole – Part 1
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
“I never discuss anything else except politics and religion,” English writer, philosopher, and Christian apologist G. K. Chesterton once quipped. “There is nothing else to discuss.” For some sensible, genteel Americans, politics and religion are precisely what you don’t discuss in public and—perhaps even—in private company. Others discuss both with ease yet may have trouble thinking through what their politics might say about their religion, or how their religion ought to inform their politics. The discipline of political theology specializes in studying...
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135 – Cool Ellul with Jason Thacker
Saving Elephants | Millennials defending & expressing conservative values
Modern views on how future technology is likely to change our lives range from bloviatingly aspirational visions of utopia to musings on whether the latest advancement in AI will destroy humankind in our lifetime or merely enslave us all in Matrix-style battery capillaries. Yet debates on whether technology is a neutral tool for our benefit or a near-unstoppable force leading us to a particular destiny are nothing new. In 1964, French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul wrote , in which he argued technology had a totalizing effect that could potentially dehumanize our world...
info_outlineIn 1948 Whittaker Chambers shocked the nation when, while testifying before Congress, he gave the names of individuals he claimed were working within the United States government as Communist spies for the Soviet Union. Among those named was Alger Hiss, Chamber’s close friend and former Communist comrade. The ensuing trial quickly divided the nation into competing narratives. Who was lying and who was telling the truth? Was Chambers insane or, perhaps, seeking to destroy Hiss due to some personal grievance? Was this merely a pretext to the coming Communist “purges” under the McCarthy hearings that took place a few years later? Or had Chambers alerted the nation to the fact there were Soviet spies deep within the government and the prevailing liberal elite of that era had failed completely to respond to the threat?
Sam Tanenhaus, American historian, biographer, and journalist joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to take a deep dive into the remarkable life of Whittaker Chambers, including how Chambers came to break with Communism, whether Hiss was truly guilty, the real threat of Communism of that era, what the Chambers/Hiss trial came to represent for the nation as a whole, Chamber’s association with William F. Buckley and the burgeoning conservative movement, and his lasting impact on the Right.
About Sam Tanenhaus
Sam Tanenhaus is the US Writer at Large for Prospect and the editor of both The New York Times Book Review and the Week in Review section of the Times. From 1999 to 2004 he was a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, where he wrote often on politics. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and many other publications. Tanenhaus’s book, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. His books also include The Death of Conservatism and a soon-to-be-released biography of William F. Buckley Jr. and is the US Writer at Large for Prospect.