大家好，欢迎来到读树不成林。这是一个由我和普林斯顿大学出版社共同推出的访谈系列。我会采访普林斯顿大学出版社最新的作者，至少是在我自己关心的政治、哲学、历史、思想领域的新书作者。本期采访和我进行对话的是 Laura Field，她在二零二五年出版新书《Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right》。
在这本书中，Laura Field 记录了新右翼的崛起历程。这是一个由学者、公共知识分子和意见领袖构成的网络，他们为特朗普主义源源不断地输送着意识形态材料。这个运动汇聚了右翼智库克莱门托研究所 (Clermont Institute)、呃国家保守主义者 (National
Conservatives) 和后自由主义者 (Post Liberals) 以及强硬右派 (Hard Right) 等等各方势力。
这些势力之前在我的播客里也有过讨论。这些人极力推崇民族主义经济政策、严格的边境管控、孤立主义外交路线以及带有复古色彩的社会价值观。在 Laura Field 的笔下，新右翼铁了心要掌控美国国家权力，并且试图以一种全新的反自由主义的方式去运用这些权力。他们的触角从大学校园延伸至国际舞台。我和 Laura Field 在这里的对话是用英文进行的。
如果你听不懂，我已经动用了我的人脉，这个 B 站知识区的负责人和普林斯顿大学出版社的编辑会给这期对话加上英文哦，加上中文字幕，上传到 B 站。五月，我还会和另外一个普林斯顿大学出版社的新书作者对谈，讨论西方人是从何时开始以西方人的方式自称？西方这个观念究竟是继承自古希腊人，还是由19世纪的帝国主义者杜造的？
西方一词如何在西方人那里演变成一种集体自我指称？大家敬请期待。读书不成林开展各种神奇业务。话说，我昨天在一个派对上碰见了哈佛大学出版社的头头。我跟他说：“你知道吗？普林斯顿大学出版社在跟我搞这个项目。”他说：“神马，我们也要卷起来！等我把我们出版社的最新作者也运输到你的播客里面，所以大家以后可以在读书不成林看到美国最顶尖的学术出版社在这里争奇斗艳，好吧？
啊，那我们进入我和 Laura Field 有关美国新右翼的采访。”大家好，我是种树。Hi everyone. Um, I'm very glad to have Laura Field here with me. Thank you to the editors at Princeton
University Press for making this interview happen. Laura Field is a fellow at Brookings. She is a visiting scholar in residence at American University
and a senior advisor for the Liberalism Studies Program at George Washington University.She holds a PhD in political theory from UT Austin and has
held faculty positions at Rose College, Georgetown, American University, and she just published a book with Princeton University Press in 2025. This
is why we're having her here with us to chat about the book. The title of the book is called Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right.So
welcome, Laura. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's it's great to be here. I'd like to just start by saying to since.mostly the people
that are going to be viewing our interview, I hope will be Chinese intellectuals or educated Chinese people who are curious about America or following
the politics of America closely.And I'd like to just, by way of starter, say that everybody here is talking about the book from the left and right.
I'm, you know, in a way, I am honored to. I'm. I look forward to having a long conversation with you here because everybody I know here on the East
Coast and everywhere else in America are reading your books. I mean, I even before the editors at Princeton.Inviting me, invited me for this
interview. I have in the podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis. I've I've heard you everywhere. I've heard you on Andrew Sullivan, on Francis
Fukuyama, on with Jonah Goldberg. Your book is reviewed not only on the, you know, I consider them sort of the center and the center right, and
also.On the left, I mean, every I've I've read about book reviews, uh, of your book on the Jacobin, on critical in the critical theory circles. So, by
way of starters, um, to the Chinese audience that are watching this interview, I want to say that this is an important book that here in the West, or
at least in in America, so many people are talking about it. Um, how do you understand the popularity and the reception of your book in the U.S. since
its publication? JustLate in October, twenty twenty-five. Why do you think has piqued so much interest in respectable circles? I mean, I know
that.Yeah, go ahead. I mean, thank you. I mean, yeah, it's been it's been kind of wild to see the reception. I think, I mean, it's hard to think of
anyone who's ever been benefited from just political reality as much as me with this book, right? Just the kind of, basically, I would say, I mean, to
listeners, it's a book that chronicles the emergence of what I call the MAGA new right, which is a group of intellectuals mainly. So it's one small
slice of MAGA.Right of the Make America Great Move again movement, um, that I think helps us to understand that the shift between the first Trump
administration and the second is the main thing that that it does for people, right? I mean, just because there's been this dramatic takeover of the
Republican Party.Not complete, not perfect, and it's certainly not the case that this movement is, you know, just one thing or simple. But there has
been quite a major shift, right? Where where the the there are new players that have sort of with new a new ideology that has taken over the right and
some of the major institutions. So the book is chronicling that, and I think, you know, before the second administration started.People were thinking
that this a second administration would be very much like the first, and and it isn't, right? It hasn't been. I mean, it's been very dramatic for
Americans. I'm sure you know.Um, you know, across the country, and so I think that from the very first day, this second administration has been so
active, so extreme in many respects, that that people have started to see, oh, something's different here, and and I think my book is part of the
explanation for what has changed.嗯，Yeah. So the book is, you describe it as a study of intellectualized Trumpism, and even I think at times you.You
write in the book, and I think that has also been the experience of people who are trying to describe an intellectualized aspect of the Trump
movement. That sometimes you get dismissed. I think you wrote something along the lines of "Trumpy intellectuals," that's an oxymoron. There, I think
for the people who want to.You know, for especially for the liberals who tend to who dislike the whole movement, they dismiss it and they don't tend
to take it seriously. I mean, part of the the answer seems to the reception of your book would be that you are taking them seriously, but you also
suggested in your.Answered just now that there is a difference between the twenty twenty twenty sixteen Trump and the twenty twenty four Trump. You've
written this book between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty four, if I'm not mistaken. So, what would you say is that difference between the two Trump
administrations that that you know that made you want to focus on the intellectualized aspect of it?Let me just say a couple things in response to
just sort of the. I'll answer the question, but.So let me let me just say a couple things because you are getting at some different sort of aspects of
why the book is is hitting a nerve. And I think, for one thing, I mean there is a kind of oxymoron here because Trump himself is not really the guy
leading the this part of his own movement. He they for them they really saw saw an opportunity with Trump. They saw that he represented something that
they.They liked and they liked the ideology. They liked some of the policy, but they they also and this was sort of a surprise in the research. They
saw that he represented an older strain of conservatism. That he represented a kind of conservative populism that for decades has and for for almost a
century, right, has been part of conservatism, but sort of on the fringes.And so they saw that he represented something intellectual. That doesn't
mean he cares about that stuff in an intellectual way, and it doesn't mean that they've managed to persuade him of this, but they have sort of filled
out.The intellectual institutions of the right and and managed to get a lot of power in the White House in the new administration. So I just think
it's important to be clear. It's not that Trump has become intellectualized. That is a true, you know, there is a real tension between that guy and
the rest the people I'm writing about. But their major success is really getting J D. Vance in there, right? Because he really is sort of their their
type of person. He's almost their creation.And so I think that's that's an important sort of piece of this, or just like subtlety here. That I am not
denying that Trump is kind of anti-intellectual, and he's his own sort of intuitive person. I think another thing that's important in just getting us
started is, and maybe maybe for for your audience in particular, it's hard to overestimate how dismissive.People in in the United States and liberals,
and you know, and in Europe and in Canada. I was, you know, I was raised in Canada. They're so dismissive of conservative intellectual life generally,
and especially.For good reason, when it comes to Trump and Trumpism, I mean, you can kind of intuitively understand why there'd be some resistance to
this. But it, I think, ultimately it speaks to a real shallowness and a real, real kind of.Taking things for granted in the liberal mind, right? And
this assumption that everybody thinks about the world the same way as they do, and there's a kind of blindness to some of the serious things that are
going on on the right, right? And some of the deeper things that these this this slice of the movement at least is tapping into, and Trump too is
tapping into in the population. So.So I think the book is kind of trying to take these ideas seriously, which is is sort of counterintuitive to a lot
of people. And I think they're ready to hear some of that. And so that's kind of I think those we probably covered all the reasons now. I you know it
had it's kind of struck a nerve. But but your question was about what's different.between the those are the between the first administration and the
second administration or was this last question more about what's new in the maga new right versus sort of older styles of conservatism do you want me
to start is there one or which would be better thing to go at first.Right, like both are interesting questions, but I'm just struck by. I listened to
your interview with Andrew Sullivan, and even you suggested there that yourself had a different view of Trump 2016 to Trump 2024. There seems to be,
and you're absolutely right that in the second administration, there.It seems more organized. There, there is Project Twenty Twenty Five going into
it. There are all these different conscious forces. I mean, he's not just putting up a cabinet sort of haphazardly. There is, there is a plan. So, how
would you characterize the difference between?Between that, so I mean, I think they're just so much more effective now. And you've listed some of the
things. I think of it in terms of, you know, policy, personnel, institutions, and culture. And if we think about that, I mean, just on the policy
level.I mean, so the book again tells the story of this takeover, and it was gradual. In the first Trump administration, this they were just sort of
emerging as a movement, and I think of the movement generally as like networked clusters of different factions. We could talk about the Claremonters
or the Natcons. There are all these different and the Catholic post liberals. So there are all these different groups, and they were just kind of
getting their feet coming together, doing some conferences and stuff, and and getting organized. And then during the Biden administration, they I
honestly thought they would sort ofExit the scene, right, right, yeah, you know, yeah. Like I just thought, you know, January sixth, some of these
people were caught up in some of that in the legal argument side of it, and um, and you know, not the violence, but sort of the grounds for the
violence and the arguments. And so I thought that they would just, I thought Trump would lead leave the scene.I thought this stuff would fizzle out,
and and some of the people were starting to support other politicians like DeSantis and so forth.But anyway, Trump obviously didn't. You know, he had
the staying power, and so did the intellectuals. And over the course, I I really wrote the book between twenty twenty two and twenty three. I had been
writing about these guys, but um, but during that period, it became very clear. You know, they were consolidating power. They got, you know, they
basically got their new president at the Heritage Foundation. They got a new president at the Intercollegiate Studies Institution.Institute and these
are old school kind of conservative establishment, you know, pillars of conservative DC life, right? And so they didn't take over all of them, but
they got they took over some important ones, like the not, you know, and the National Conservative people started.Staffing a lot of these places when
Trump got in, and then they got JD Vance, so the personnel thing. And then when when the White House when they won the White House.the these groups
like the Heritage Foundation that organized that policy project Project Twenty Twenty Five which was a whole they've always got policy projects for
any new incoming administration right but this was different it was far more radical it was far more sort ofjust just the language the setup was much
more extreme it's kind of like the new foreign the new secure the new security strategy there's a different kind of rhetoric around it and the
policies are more radical but they've they had that in place and they had these lists of staffers who they were ready to slot in to the new
administration and so whereas in the first administration there were a lot of people who were moreYou know, closer to the old GOP, who had been, you
know, civil servants or you know who were kind of holding the line on some of the older ways of doing things and the more standard way of doing
things. The new administration, that was all at the window, and you had Doge. So then they surprised, you know, they brought in Elon Musk and did some
crazy things. But that was all sort of they had they had started planning that. You know, you can listen to podcasts with JD Vance.Going back to I
think 2022, 2021, where he's talking already about these sort of retire all government employees and this stuff about you know getting rid of, firing
all these people, replacing the elites, all these pretty radical things from from an American perspective, right? Pretty new and radical. So that was
all set up. And then I I guess I haven't covered the culture side, which is.There's just been a shift, right, in some of the cultural institutions.
There's I in the book I chronicle all these, you know, these online influencer guys that I call the hard right.Who have PhDs in political philosophy,
but are also happen to be, you know, openly fascist or openly Christian nationalist or what have you? And so it's that's a pretty big departure. And
I'm not saying there's some straightforward, you know, trickle down from the elites at Harvard all the way to the manosphere, but there are these
interconnections, and there are there is a kind of new.There's, there's, there are these people who are kind of on the fringes, but who have quite a
bit of clout now, who I think have a big, have had a lot of influence in the the young people on Capitol Hill, basically, and in the think
tanks.Right, I mean, so let's get into those people that you describe in the book. The bulk of the book, you've alluded to, it describes three groups
of distinct groups of yeah, new right conservatives.the the Claremont people, the post liberals and the natcon national conservatives, and what's
distinct about them? I mean, I'm sure, I imagine speaking to a center center right U.S. audience people.Even if you're not super into those groups,
you would have heard some of them already. But I mean, it's really interesting to think about how to frame this for different audiences. But I mean,
let me just give a big, broad, general definition of kind of what's going on generally historically, and then I can go into the little groups, okay?
Because I think that's probably easier. But I mean, basically on the right, there's a traditional. I think anybody who's 30 years or younger or older,
excuse me.Well, when they think about Republicans, they think of Reagan, fusionism, Bush, right? And it's a kind of policy platform that involves free
trade, like capitalist economics, and social conservatism, and a kind of international, a kind of internationalism, which also clearly, you know.Tips
often into adventurism abroad, right? So, but like liberal activity, I mean, not liberal, liberal internationalism all the way to like liberal
interventionism, um.或帝国主义。
所以，你've got that's， but that's the kind of familiar structure of American conservatism. That's kind of the the inheritance, and the new right, the
MAGA new right, pivots away from a lot of that. Michael Anton, who's one of these key figures in 2016, defined it, defined Trumpism as nationalist
economics.So, as opposed to free trade, nationalist economics, secure borders, and America first foreign policy. Now, in a way, that's not that
different, but but on the international stuff, it's pretty different, right? It's kind of like a close the borders down, almost isolationist, at least
in theory. And then social conservatism is still a very important part of this. And so, in the broad sweep of American conservative history, a lot of
those things are sort of radical or like considered.Um, old-fashioned, more radical paleo style of conservatism, which has always been there, and it's
got, you know, you've got these figures like Goldwater, Papu Can, and the Tea Party stuff. It's kind of been festering, and it's really kind of
revived itself.Through Trump, Trump was the vehicle for that, and so that has come in and basically taken over, and it it did battle with the old GOP,
and now it's dominant. There's still a lot of infighting, there's a lot of tensions, but that's sort of the general sweep of things.And so, it's a
turn towards a different kind of foreign policy and a different style of economics, and a doubling down on the old old conservative sort of
traditional values. So the different factions of the GOP.嗯，and I guess in the general way you could think of it, or I've defined it as a that the new
the MAGA new right stands against liberal internationalism, and for a kind of nativist populism at home.So, okay, but if we get into the factions,
they sort of stand for different flavors of conservatism, right? And you have, I talk about the Claremont Institute group, and these are these are a
group of young, well, not young anymore. I mean, a group of conservatives on the West Coast who are not especially interested in policy. They've got a
radical kind of culture warrior streak, or they they've always been interested more in shaping culture.Than in policy, though they stand sort of
opposed to the administrative state, right, and to the big, massive federal government. So that's that's a key thing they've always stood for, and
they they see their mission as restoring the principles of the American founding. So they really see themselves as standing for those original
principles of the founding, and in their way of seeing things, the current situation in America.Sort of starting in the '60s, probably around then,
has become so untenable and so sort of detached from those original founding principles that they think now at this point a counter revolution is
warranted. And for them, that's what Trump represents: is this effort to turn back the clock. They're very against pluralism, and so.It's it's I think
it's been sort of their view of the American founding has kind of been corrupted by a a sort of nativism and homogenous homogenizing impulse. So so
the book kind of chronicles that. But that's the one group, the Claremont group, obsessed with the founding, counter revolutionary and.And against the
administrative state, the clearest sort of contrast with the Claremonters is the post-liberal group, which is a group of conservative Catholics, quite
quite traditionalist.Conservative Catholic scholars who call themselves post-liberals, who are oriented towards the Catholic social good and and what
they call the common good, and so their idea is not so much to return things to a.Original founding America, it's much more to reorient the whole
state apparatus towards new common good purposes and a more communitarian organizing principle grounded in.To various degrees, Catholic social
teaching, and so they talk about the common good. They've got a radical critique of liberal democracy, right? As something that eats away at the
cultural fabric that, that you know, is based on a false individual anthropology. I'm sure we could talk for many hours about this because you're a
political theorist too, right?And it seems to you that the common good founding is not American necessarily. I mean, America was not founded on
Catholic common good. I mean, he tried. Adrian Vermille is a scholar that's doing the best. Like he's making a sincere. Well, I don't know that it's
sincere, but it's it's a genuine effort to argue that that the theThat we've forgotten this basically Catholic natural law foundation to the American
founding, and that if we kind of squint hard enough, though, he thinks it's just the truth that there's this objectively true.Communitarian foundation
underneath, sort of the lib, the more liberal version of the Constitution. I think it's very slippery, and I think he's falsifying. I think he's
rewriting that history. I don't think it's true. I think that you can see there are there's I think a historical case to be made that it's that the
that the founding was maybe not quite as liberal or truly liberal as as you know others might tend to think.That it's more complicated. That there are
these other principles that need that are part of the background of the English common law and and the religious traditions. Like, of course, that's
all that's all there. And you can, I've heard, you know, liberals make those arguments too.But he goes much further and argues for something, you
know, quite quite radical. I think quite a historical. And so I think there's a little sneakiness there. Honestly, I mean, I'm not sure it's totally
honest when you when you think about the historical record. And even like Patrick Deane, who's his comrade, really in in arms, right? He's these are
part of the same post liberal group. But Patrick Deane is very upfront. Of course, America had a liberal founding.It's the most liberal founding, you
know, in history, and we want to. And he's sort of like, we need to change that regime. There's not, so there's some tensions in there, but, but
basically, these post liberals are thinking.Something's gone. If it wasn't already wrong at the beginning, something has gone very wrong, and it's bad
enough that we need to reorient the whole apparatus.There's some radical stuff, and they replace all the elites, change the regime, you know, and and
sort of redirect things to a whole a whole new way of thinking. And so that's that's a pretty dramatic thing. They're much more comfortable with a
strong executive, and much more comfortable with a big administrative state. It's just that you'd have to tweak it so that it's reoriented towards
things that ah conservative principles basically.And so they've written, Remeil has written a whole constitutional, like a whole redesign of of
conservative jurisprudence that's meant to replace originalism, which I'm sure you know, you know that's the dominant conservative way of
understanding judicial, you know, legal interpretation. So that's the second group, but they're very different from the Claremont group, right? But
they are kind of in conversation and having these arguments.And then the final, the the the other, the third most important group is the National
Conservative Group, which is really the political organizing body for all of this. And they do have their own doctrine. It's just nationalism. It's
capital N nationalism. It's a homogenizing.Effort, Yoram Hazony is is the lead here, and he has organized these conferences since two thousand and
nineteen in in the United States, also in Europe, all around the world. I think he's visited India. You know, he's trying to build nationalism
international and sort of these these new alliances.And his idea is that for a place to really thrive, you need quite a homogeneous culture. You need
shared history, shared traditions, shared teachings, shared religion. And I mean, there's if that makes more and less sense in different places, but
in the United States, it's quite a departure from you know the last 50 years for sure. And and going back to the founding. So, but that's the
organizing principle. There is this kind of nationalizing, you know, get rid of pluralism or to the extent you can embrace Christian nationalism if
you can.And so that's the organizing body again, bringing all these different factions together. And then there's the hard right, which I've kind of
alluded to, which is the.The sort of nasty, fascist, and violent underbelly, where you get really gross rhetoric, some some big clashes and tensions
between these different different people in in those circles, but but kind of just an interesting through line because there are people in the
administration who seem to have some real familiarity with some of these characters and and connections.Yeah, thank you. I mean, I want to get back to
those groups in greater detail in a little bit, but just as a broad question, as a Chinese who I was raised in a period of time when America, you
know, the kind of old Republican.Conservatism was at its, you know, at the height of of that, and and the world. I mean, I I agree with you that not
only now the new right, but also the liberals look back at that period and say that America was doing a lot of, um.Imperialistic wars all over the
world. I mean, those things are not without blame. On the other hand, it also set itself as the beacon of liberty for for a long time. So, I mean,
those two things go hand in hand. And I grew up in a China where Chinese liberals.The word for America was the beacon country, you know, the beacon as
in the beacon of liberty. So, and that has gone into that word has become a sarcastic word as well in the past ten years. Amazing, and I think that.
So, I mean.Part the I think the main task of your book, in a way, is to chronicle this movement, this this new replacement of the the Republican Party
now that.I I I I imagine I'm not mischaracterizing you when I say to you, the people that you have described are not liberals. Like they attack the
good old ideals of liberalism and they reject it openly. This, I mean, I I think would you say that?Now to understand America as a beacon of liberty,
it would is a it in a way it's outdated. I mean by just by looking at what these groups of conservative new conservatives are new right are up to. On
the other hand, I mean here's the tension that I do want to.Here, what you have to say. They are claiming a lot of them, not all of them, but I mean,
definitely not the hard right, but like a significant amount of these people in the new right that you characterize are claiming to be reviving what
seems to them to be true, true liberty. At least, you know, the the Claremont people that that considers the American founding transcendental. They
are saying the founders really founded.The true, you know, the most liberal republic there is, and also, I mean, maybe not Adrian Vermille, but
Patrick Danin, like you said, he also wants to defend this kind of.a a kind of freedom that you know was not possible in the liberalism that that he
saw to be um uh to be character just the person it destroys true politics or I I don't know how you would see that tension and if your book um I meanI
I I guess another way to ask about the purpose of your book is that on the one hand you claim to chronicle this movement that a lot of people are
overlooking or dismissing unjustly, and so you you take them seriously and you want to expose both the highs and lows, but mostly the lows of of what
they're up to. On the other hand.嗯，to the most straightforward thing to ask is, do you have a normative agenda? Are you kind of right, right, right,
calling them out for, yeah, what, um, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's totally fair question, and I'm, I'm pretty, I think I'm pretty upfront about this
because you're right. I do think, I mean, the agenda is a to chronicle it, right? I mean, that's you know, it's.I think it was important. I didn't
know they'd win. I didn't know that they'd continue have this this power that they do. But I still thought it was important to kind of get it on the
historical record, right? And there are other people doing this too, right? Journalists and so forth. But, you know, I have a kind of angle because of
my own history and political philosophy and kind of understanding some of the language in a way that most most people here just don't, right? They
they're not at all familiar with.Much political philosophy to begin, let alone this kind of weird the way that these guys talk, right?But and that I'd
say second thing is I did also want to show, though I don't think it's sort of such an analytic exercise so much as a kind of writing exercise to show
how it can be seductive, to show the depth of the arguments.Even if I don't agree with the arguments, right? Which I don't. Many, most of these I
don't agree. I mean, I agree with like a lot of the stuff they talk about, but not the way they're approaching it. But I did want to show why a person
could be drawn to.Why, you know, my critique of liberals is that they don't even know how to talk about the meaning of life, right? I might not agree
with the conservatives about their assessment of what the meaning of life is and whether that should be imposed on everybody, but at least they're
having the conversation, right? And it's like, and they're open to kind of some of these questions. Where is, you know, in liberal academia, inliberal
circles. It's not really. It's not really. It's almost a faux pas, right, to take things so seriously and earnestly, and to like listen to podcasts
about, you know.about what you should be doing with yourself. It's just not really part of the culture, right? And there's good historical reasons for
that. I'm very fascinated by all of that, but so I really wanted to thread through the book.a some signaling to say you know this stuff they're
they're on to something there's a lot here that you could like learn from or think about that you don't think about dear liberal right.But then I
think the main thing I also wanted to do, if like, and I think I'm pretty honest about this, is I did want to expose it and shine a light on it
because part of what makes me really angry, right? Because I, you know, we're all furious in America, right? I mean, we've all got some of this in us,
but I'm angry because I think they're abusing some of this history, right? I think they're mischaracterizing.这些传统，I think the Claremont School has
some has some very good arguments, but ultimately I don't I think they've betrayed Abraham Lincoln, and I love Abraham Lincoln. You know I love his
legacy in this country. I love the Declaration of Independence, and I'm I'm quite happy to have arguments about you know you know all kinds of things.
Whether there's been too much immigration, right? Whether you know whether there's been too much DEI, whether there's beenI mean, there's all kinds.
Whether the economy has been failing working class Americans, right? Of course, these are big problems that that um you know America has not done very
well to solve, and Trump has been very good at articulating.Um and fear mongering, but I think a lot of what's going on here is a bit of a betrayal of
some of these rich traditions, and so and let alone a betrayal of other traditions like you know Martin Luther King or James Baldwin and other things
that are part of the inheritance. Um, that that I think you know Americans can learn from, and and so so yeah, I was trying to do all that. I mean,
it's written, it's not written, yeah. So it's written for.mainly I was thinking a liberal audience to kind of bring them in and also like show them
why it's fascinating and also scary, but I guess I have one more thing, okay? Because going back to your question about.Um, how this sort of works in
my thinking, I, and how America works as a beacon, yeah, or not? I mean, they're they're replacing. I mean, they're yeah. You you've described the
replacement. On the other hand, um, I think that that group, I mean, in general, they're not interested in claiming that.I think in general they're
not, but you're right that some like the Claremont people. I think they see themselves often as working within that tradition and as a beacon of, and
that they're doing what needs to be done to actually preserve America, right? I think a lot of those people, some of them are grifters or dishonest or
just in it for the power, but I think a lot of them think that they really have an understanding of how politics works, and that this is the way.To do
it, and that this is these are necessary interventions to protect America, and I disagree with them, but I could I think that that's worth
understanding, and so they would see themselves as sort of the the true guardians, right, of something like these the you know the Lincolnian
inheritance, I guess.For all kinds of reasons, I lay out in the book. I'm skeptical about that they're being right about that. But I also think what's
happened is because some of them are kind of so in their heads and so online and so catastrophizing about the state of the country. Right? They're so
hyperventilating, and you know, I really don't think they're right about just. I don't think the country is unraveling.I don't think we're at some
huge crisis point. I mean, there's a plenty of stuff I that's bad and going wrong, but that's kind of always true, right? And so.Excuse me, and a lot
of the changes that we've seen in the last fifty years, I think, are good. And so, so you kind of have this catastrophizing, I think, highly
intellectualized diagnosis of the country that a lot of the people I write about are subject to or have persuaded themselves of.And I think it's quite
deranged and and detached from a lot of what else what's going on in America, and so in terms of and I do think of it in terms of a kind of elite
cluster of people who have kind of got through a lot of chance events have gained a hugely outsized amount of power and are sitting in there with you
know sitting there with Donald Trump, helping him make some very bad decisions.And I don't think it's popular with the American people in a lot of
ways. I don't think it's popular even with a lot of MAGA voters. I think they're not as radicalized, they're not as extremists, and they're not as a
liberal, right, as a lot of these guys are. So that's kind of how I think about the politics. I don't know that I'm right, but there, you know, I have
seen, you know, I have seenYour average MAGA voter is not is not as radicalized as these guys who have all this power. And so, and I guess I think my
view is we see that in America. We see a lot of people standing up for liberty, right, and protesting in the streets, and doing what they can. And so,
so I'm hopeful that the the beacon thing maybe not totally over.Yeah, let's talk about them because I think you, I mean, it's clear that you're not
with them on their anti-liberal projects, and also you're, I mean, in a way.You are describing, like you said repeatedly, a bunch of PhDs who know a
lot about difficult things, complicated topics, and they are.They, those are not the group of people that we usually see in politics. We don't really
we think of them as nerds living in their studios, reading books, and not, you know, in the National Security Council advising the president. Um, and
and that's the group of people that you're describing. And I want to talk about them too. I mean, what's what seems to me to be a interesting aspect
of your book is that.Like I said earlier, it's a mix of highs and lows, right? You you repeatedly emphasize, like these people know more than you
think. They're not just insane bloggers on the internet. I mean, that's how liberal.Um intellectuals dismissed them in the past because they have
weird pseudonyms. Um, they they they make Roman references and and honestly, a lot of the blog posts. I can't imagine the amount of work that you. I
mean, reading those some of the blog posts seems to be a very unpleasant. Yeah, I mean, I dipped in and out. I mean, methodologically, I do not make
any claims to have synthesized comprehensively any of that stuff. Right? I kind of I I knew who who mattered.From paying attention, and then I dipped
in and out because I couldn't, I couldn't sustain, you know, a a deep analysis of like Bronze Age Perverts podcast. I just wouldn't have been able to
do it personally, you know.I mean, and you know, I want to say that isn't there a difference between a professor at a respectable university who you
know is say has written a serious book about Homer to like an online like Bronze Age pervert? Your books.I mean, if I have to say a kind of injustice,
my first reaction to it is to group them these people together and and say that injustice, yeah.Yeah, I mean, I think that's that's fair, but I did, I
don't think I did because I clearly classified them in different places, right? I'm not equating Bronze Age pervert to anyone else on that list. I
mean, I think the the chart maybe is a little misleading and so far, but I was trying to give a visual representation of what's actually in the book.
But I think if you read the book, it's pretty clear that I, you know, have a different level of respect for some of these different people. But the
truth is, you know, that guy got a PhD at Yale, right?He turned fascist after that, and but his, you know, his dissertation is full of some pretty
crazy stuff. And I don't necessarily blame the people who passed passed who signed off on it. That's not what I was trying to do. I think that that's
part of being in a free country. You're going to have some crazy Ph.D.s that are passed, right? And so.But he he did, you know, he got this Ph.D. He
turned, he was very very canny in turning it into turning and using the the respectability and the prestige that comes with that, and and transforming
that.呃，into a you know or not? It's not like it was just that he was using. He's very talented and he's very rad. He's very you know fascist and
radical and willing to use all kinds of crazy, violent language and ideas that are pretty sophisticated, right? And he, I'm talking about Bronze Age
pervert, right? He's willing to do all of that.And then he he he trades in the prestige, you know. And so I wanted, I think that's that's a real thing
people do. They use those p the the Ivy Leagues here in this country. I mean, I don't need to tell you. I'm sure, right? You're in Boston. I mean, how
just how much power that has in our culture? The right is the right is right about that, right? There there are these elite.Institutions that have a
huge amount of clout, and those guy, you know, Patrick Denne knows that he's at the University of Notre Dame. Adrian Vermule knows that he's kind of
untouchable.Because he's sitting there at Harvard, but he's arguing for Karl Schmidt and a kind of Catholic theocracy, right? So, and that's—I'm not
saying he should lose his job. I'm saying it's it's totally fine for someone to, I think, like me, or I'll defend myself, saying it's it's okay to
come along and point that out that he really, you know, he's using that prestige in ways that.You know are are pretty questionable, and we should take
a close look at it. I mean, you're in a way when I am reading your book, the I.It it seems to me you are also the chronicling, you are chronicling a
new period of, like you said, how prestige functions and how intellectuals are supposed to work. Because that's like a lot of these intellectuals are
not what you, they're not doing the professorial things that you think of, like publishing. Like Adrian Vermieux, you like you said, he when he
publishes academically, they're like boring.You know what we think of as a typical administrative law professor that publishes books that I probably
will never buy or read, but you also describe that there is this online presence. I mean, I like let's grant that he is a very serious scholar,
established. Absolutely, I mean he he is.他 extremely impressive, and he's very, you know, he's got this long pedigree. He's he's clearly very
brilliant. I mean, these other books, the administrative state books, right? All this executive power, he he.I mean, he's clearly super impressive,
and but then he's got this other life, and and at least since 2016 or 2015 when he converted, um, he's he and he's got, but I don't, I think it goes
back quite a bit further, a kind of authoritarian impulse in his thinking.And which is also like that's allowed. It's just that it should be. I'm
happy to expose it too, you know. I mean, so he's very brilliant, and and I think he he is, but he's cushioned at Harvard.Right, and in your book,
it's littered with the people that you call kind of bookish and online. Like they're, yeah, yeah, yeah. The, I mean, it seems to me that they're.A lot
of the people that you describe almost have a rupture in their academic rigorosity, seriousness in the in their expertise in a field, and also this
meme like. I mean, I wouldn't call Adrian Vermule meme like, but but it is like a online. He's pretty funny online. He's got a big Twitter presence,
you know, or he. I don't follow it very closely, and a lot of them block me. Um.So, but yeah, I mean, you're you're right. There's something here. I
I. Did they block you after the book? Is that or blocked me before the book? I mean, they they. Yeah, I mean, many of them, not all of them. You know,
it's it's, and I'm not on Twitter very much, so it's not. You know.If that's true, then they're at least as sensitive as they the snowflakes that they
make fun of, because that's what the left, yeah, the left do to you know they are. It's either that or they're sort of. I mean, we could go into that
maybe another time about what what is going on with these guys, right? They're so they're so protective of themselves, or or or I think they might
know that they are engaged in a certain kind of. I I don't want to call it a game, right? But they're they're doing they're they are political actors.
I think that.Many of these guys really are politically active. They are, they have, they do have an agenda. They're quite, they're not always
perfectly open in their academic writings about this, but they're pretty open, you know, in the scheme of things. And I wouldn't want to generalize. I
mean, maybe you're right that it's opening a whole new mode of academic engagement. But I think, and there's some truth to that. Like it's kind of
like all bets are off, right?And I don't know the extent to which that's true across the spectrum. I don't really. I think we just don't know yet
what's going on. I would. I almost welcome a kind of much more direct and open style of engagement that's let that's less pretending to be academic.
Like I was trying to in my book do that, where I I didn't want to. I don't like the kind of view from nowhere objectivity.I like to try to get, you
know, you want to get a synthetic understanding. I'm not against truth or anything like that, but I think that there's a kind of pretension, right?
That's part of academic life. That I'd be happy. I don't know. I'm just, I'm just talking out loud here, but I'm not totally against a kind of opening
up of some of these confrontations. I mean, this kind of attitude would suggest that. I mean, I think you would also agree with this. You know,
there.They position themselves in the beginning to as conservatives do, as reactionaries. They have things that they want to criticize, like either
the what's wrong with the university, what's wrong with higher ed, what's wrong with.Um, teaching Americans about being what being an American means.
I mean, they have all these very clear reactionary stances taken by most of most of these. I mean, each one of the three schools that you bring bring
up, they start off as criticisms against status quo. Um, but but your book, I mean, it seems to me that you are also suggesting that.This is not just
conservative. It's gone beyond, you know, the the kind of reactionary attempt to conserve, right? Some things, some a good thing. Yeah. So, I mean, I
mean, I guess I'll phrase this in a two part question. On the one hand, the new right fundamentally, they they it's it almost feels like a rebellion
against liberalism. I mean, which part of their criticism?Do you find to be serious and worthy of consideration? And on the other side, the second
part of the question is: To what extent do you find this movement to be actually reactionary? I mean, in the first, you know, you report on this as
well. Their claim is that they are reacting to woke Marxists, woke Marxist takeover of the universities since the sixties. But but your but your
characterization of them.Clearly suggests that they've gone beyond that. There is something more than just like taking the university back from the
evil woke Marxist and you know actually giving them a good liberal education. If that's the case, I'm sure you'd be more sympathetic to what they're
doing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's. I think that's right. I think.It's it's tempting to think maybe they're trying to overshoot the mark to then bring
things back to a more moderate place, right? Maybe best case scenario, that's how they think of things, like that this is what's necessary to you go
very far in a reactionary mode, the hope being that things could kind of settle down in some sort of compromise zone, and and maybe that maybe that
can happen, you know, in in you know in the longer longer term future, but.I think that the the worrisome thing is that their arguments are not that
right. Their arguments are quite, you know, if you think of Patrick Denin, his when he describes what his ideal for liberal education, it's almost
it's he kind of excludes the Enlightenment and the early moderns. He's kind of like they should get off the syllabus.And I don't think that's because
he thinks that there's too much. I mean, partly he thinks there's too much of it, but I think he actually thinks they're dangerous and bad, you know.
And so that in his sort of, if he could control things, he would just have a much more traditional Catholic, ancient, you know, biblical teaching that
might have some classical.texts from, but it would be quite censored, you know, and let alone post modernism and all the other stuff everybody's
reading. So, I mean, I think that that that there is a quite radical attempt to do something quite a bit more radical and to really.reshape things and
impose a a new kind of morality, a new old-fashioned world, right? Is how I think I mean, but there's a kind of a desire to impose those traditional
value systems.That is, I think, deeply illiberal, and can help us understand the distinction between these conservatives and the old conservatives.
Because, you know, if we think about the old establishment, they were sort of liberal pluralists. They they were personally conservative, and many,
you know, you know, deep, you know, Christian.Traditionalists and and really held onto that as their own, you know, as not only valuable and they were
fighting for more space for that in public life, but they also.were fighting for, you know, religious liberty, and and with the understanding being
that there would still be space for people who disagreed, right? You might they might not like.嗯，marriage equality， but they could they could kind of
make their peace with it for other people, right? They would still allow that kind of basic liberal pluralism that seems to be protected by the First
Amendment and and so forth. I think this new the MAGA new right really rejects that kind of pluralism. They've done it very explicitly in many cases,
and they they really have spoken about just like retaking things and then imposing this old value structure that's pretty monolithic.onto the country,
so I think that's an important distinction. But I think that the thing that they're doing that's that's kind of interesting, or I mean, it's scary
interesting, but I think is a real thing. Is this they see that liberal democracy?fails people or has at least the way it's evolved, and been taken
for granted. It kind of fails people on the level of meaning, and so conservatives are always arguing about how liberals just are floating off the
fumes or like sustaining themselves off the fumes of the old religion and the older ways.And I think there's a lot of truth to that. And liberals
haven't yet figured out how to deliberately sustain and and support and build community and to build meaning and to kind of foster those in those
cultural inheritances so that they can be sustained. You know, liberals are obviously going to be much more comfortable with transformation and change
and novelty and creativity and all kinds of things, right? That I love, but not conservatives don't.And so, but there's something there that they see
clearly about liberalism, and they're coming in to fill the vacuum, you know. And and I think liberals really have a real problem there that they need
to start thinking about.Yeah, but we're yeah, great. But I'm wondering, on the one hand, both from the liberal perspective, in the at the end of the
book, you kind of say like, what they don't offer a good.Defense against that attack, which which would suggest that that attack is partly right. I
mean, I agree with you on the lack of meaning part. If if liberals can't supply that meaning for themselves, then they're kind of up for grabs.
They're up for grabs from extremisms, yeah. And also on the other hand, where do you draw the line between?I mean, I'm just asking this sort of
generally, not not personal attack attack against you. Where does one where does one draw the line between serious criticism and reflection on, um,
you know, liberalism, which is a fact of life in America, and also these online figures? Frankly, I, you know, like we've mentioned before, they're
they're quite distasteful and honestly, kind of disgusting in in the remarks that they make, especially against women. I, I mean, they're.Drawing that
line, making that difference between serious and unseriousness, seems to be an impossible task. And it has to—I mean, this is where the fact value
distinction—you can't make that. Yeah. No, I mean, I think part of it in the book, it's like I—I talk in the conclusion about.Well, I I just want to
make a small point. I talk about in the conclusion. I have this section where I try to like restore the humanities and build these new centers, right?
And I say we should we should invite these these MAGA new right people to to co chair, right? These new departments or whatever that I've imagined.
But I do say not all of them, right? Like you got to draw some lines. And I was not trying to I really there I had to write the book in a way that was
trying not to launder some of this stuff, right? To just be direct. Like this stuff is.is pretty vicious and and not it's perfectly fine for it to
exist in a liberal society. That's just going to be how it is, right? You're always going to have extremists and, um.whatever, but that doesn't mean
you install them in an institution of higher education, right? I mean, at a certain point, Bronze Age pervert goes off and becomes fascist. He's not
welcome at Harvard anymore. Sorry, I mean, you draw you draw the line.Um, and so that, of course, you have to think about where that line is drawn,
how you do that, and and there's a lot of way. I mean, we that that can be done. You know, that I think everybody can agree that there's some, and and
you can still sort of advocate for great accommodation of people who are, you know, acting in good faith who have strong disagreements for whatever
reason, and still exclude someone like, unless he make make some sort of reparations for himself, right? Maybe maybe he could be forgiven, but as far
as I'm concerned, you you keep that out.嗯，And I guess I'd just say on the question about liberalism, you know, and its failures and how it's been so
bad at defending itself, and I mean, I agree with all that, but I also think,Liberals do live virtuously, right? They do have very good lives. There
are a lot of them in this country, and there are a lot of like conservative liberals, right? There are a lot of people who live conservative lives but
still believe in political liberalism. And so, I think.All of those things, it can be very disappointing. I think that there's a kind of project of
the future for Democrats and for centrists and for Americans to just become more conversant in moral questions and in questions about the good life,
without necessarily becoming zealots for any particular piece of it.But just also to be sort of educated in these different traditions, like I think
that's possible. But I also think part of what needs to happen is for people to just be able to articulate what it is they're up to in their lives,
because liberalism can be. There's this great book, "Liberalism as a Way of Life." I don't know if you've had that. Maybe you should interview
him.Alex Lefebvre, um also Princeton, and it's like liberals do live very good lives, and it can be defended on moral ground too. But it's um it's not
it's not easy, and liberals are terrible at it. So I think I think there's a lot there to work with. But it's you're right. I mean, nobody's very good
at it.Yeah, and if we look at the the movement of the new right that you chronicle as a phenomenon, take you know taking a step back and ignoring
their agencies.There, there's a reason why that narrative is appealing today. They describe, I mean, there's a group of people that describe
liberalism as something that weakens the core of the human being and destroys community. And like you say, they sap meaning away from our lives.If
that's not true, then they they would just be cuckoo voices, you know. They wouldn't have gained, they wouldn't have attracted, especially so many
young men. Like I think your book, one interesting aspect of it is you don't hide the fact that it's being written by a woman. It's been written by a
mom and.And the the the the the fact that they speak to young men who would do and say things now in real life. I mean, they've they've they've had
Texas, right? I mean, it helps you understand Pete Hegseth when you read. I think the book.Yeah, and and and they've said personal insults insults
against you. That's sort of on the first page of the book. So, I mean, I think on the one hand, I agree with you that you know that's.What the the
solutions that some of them are putting out are just horrible to, and and you know BAP is a is a is a symptom more than he is he is a phenomenon and
but the symptom doesn't really point to.I mean, I don't think from from at least I don't know from a liberal perspective how can liberals provide a
satisfactory answer to the to those symptoms.Well, I mean, I think partly though, so much of it is so online, and so if I mean, I think partly we have
to be.I I think a lot of liberals have their head in the sands about the crisis of masculinity, right? I mean, they sort of deny that it's real, and
they say, well, women are still so hard done by, and I agree, I agree with that. But that doesn't mean that men aren't struggling and that they don't
have real problems that are obviously festering, right? And so.I think partly it's like just acknowledging the reality there that this is a massive
problem whether you like it or not, you know, for women and men. And I think, but the other thing is to just not not totally young men and young
people generally. Like I was pretty radical and crazy when I was young. I was attracted to all sorts of stuff. Who knows who I'd be listening to on
the internet, you know? And so, I think.You know, there's some patience there, and it's important not to overestimate how many people are getting
sucked into this stuff for life. You know, it can be attractive, it's shiny, it's exciting, and it and I think it also wears out. And I think some of
the stuff is kind of healthy for these, and and it, you know, some of the stuff exposes them to cultural, maybe some cultural.Things that were
missing. I mean, I think Jordan Peterson is the good example of this because he's not like Bronze Age pervert. He's a much healthier version of it,
even if he's kind of lost his mind and seems to be possibly, you know.Dangerous or crazy right now? I don't really know. I haven't paid that close
attention to him, but and he's not in the book. But like, there's this clear appetite for cultural renewal, right? For for deep thinking, those things
are not naturally there. That doesn't mean those things are conservative or that conservatives have a monopoly on it. Any, you know, you can you can
do all that stuff deeply. It's just that our institutions have failed to do any of that. And I think for real historical reasons.Um, liberals have
failed on those things, but I don't think that's I don't think that's because of liberalism. I mean, maybe that's where I push back on a theory. I
think that I mean it is and it isn't. It doesn't mean it can't be renewed. It doesn't mean it can't those traditions can't be fostered. So I think, I
mean.I don't think you know so many of the traditions that that are deep and impressive and can attract young people have nothing to do with
conservatism. Yeah, and I guess I know you disagree. You would disagree with the people that you describe about this. Do you see this? Do you see this
movement or the new right in general as?On the one hand, it is a symptom of liberalism's crisis. But do you see them ultimately as the beginning of
a?New political order. Um, because I mean, I mean, let me just preface this by being a little sharp again. Yeah, you admitted that you admitted that
you were wrong about this for the like once already. You thought that this movement was gonna disappear. Um, before the second administration, it
existed before the second administration of Trump. Um, and I guess you and I.Both didn't expect um that them to gain so much real political power once
Trump ascended into the office of presidency. So, I mean, I think now if I interview, if I'm interviewing one of them, um, they would probably say
that this is the this is the new political order in America. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I would disagree with them.But I would go. I
would probably say in twenty six in twenty twenty I would have said, or in twenty twenty what I would have said, it's probably over. That was a that
was kind of a blip, and hopefully we can right the ship.Now I'd say no. I wouldn't say they they don't they do not have control of this new political
order. I mean they're just too unpopular. They don't have what they need. I don't think. I would suspect you know that they are do not have what they
need. I think that the Democrat. I mean I don't want to prognosticate, but I don't think it's it's not very it's not very settled. It's not very
stable. So I would say we've entered a new era, a new political dynamic.You know they do not have the order, but I don't think there's any going back.
I don't think it's a blip. There's a new order that's emerging, a new a new dynamic that's emerging would be what I would say. Because you can't say
there's a new order because there's so much resistance to it. I mean, they tried to do some, they did some crazy things in Minneapolis.And this, like
ten percent of the city came out in protest, right? So that that's that's real. That's real too. That's part of the new dynamic. So I think I think
that there's some good work being done on illiberalism. I mean, I'm at this GW Institute of a you know liberalism studies program and.The director
there, Marlene Larwell, is a wonderful scholar who's talking about illiberalism instead of populism. But it's she talks about it as this new, newly
emergent kind of dynamic in liberal places that have been liberal, who now have to contend with this illiberalism that's kind of that it's constantly
in a dance with. And I think I think that's how I'm thinking about it too now.I see, I, um, I guess, just by way of kind of ending this conversation,
um, we've already spoken for almost an hour. You criticize the new right, and at the end, um, we touched on this as well. You say that there are
things to be learned from them, and um, you, I, I've noticed that you begin a lot of your um interviews with.American, intellectuals in this way. You
say that you've been educated by them too. You grew up in those circles. That kind of, you know, it marks your first rebellion. It's from personal
experience rather than from just an outside observation from the groups of people that you you you describe in your book. What what if anything do you
actually think that they got right? And and and also you you know.Being trained and educated in in that circle, what what I mean, what is there
anything that you admire? And even though you spent a whole book kind of ranting about, you know, the the unpleasant aspects of of the new right,
yeah, I mean, I was trying. I think that I agree with a lot of their assessments of American politics for the last.So, thirty years, right? I mean,
you can see where this has come from. The um, there's the end of communism. You have nine eleven and a and an some catastrophes for the United States
in the Middle East and for the world.You have the financial crisis in twenty eleven that or twenty eight or whatever two thousand and eight that was
dealt with pretty badly and and never fully. I think a lot of people resented that because it it ruined a lot of lives and there was never any real
reckoning with with some of that. So I mean, and not I don't think I think that I'm sympathetic to to that critique not just of the the response to
the financial crisis, but a lot of the sort of neo liberal economic policies.That have done that have, I think, maybe we're maybe we're important and
good in a lot of ways, but have also done a lot of damage that nobody's really acknowledged. And so that that matters. And I think for me
personally.Um, on the cultural plane, I mean, I'm not gonna go after the left because I think, um, I mean, I do a little bit in the book, right? The
patriot, I I try to articulate, you know, what's real here and the the sort of I'm not a big anti CRT person because I I'm genuinely impressed by a
lot of that scholarship and I think it's important and the history there matters, but.There is, there has been this kind of almost a total evacuation
of the academy of normative thinking, right, and of thinking about and of great books and the humanities. And there's been, you know, it's just been
pathetic. The, um.How the country? Yeah, I think there's been a real failure there in the academy. So, I mean, I think Alan Bloom was kind of right in
a lot of ways. I also think he was exaggerated and wrong in a lot of ways. But my own education benefited tremendously from a different style of, you
know, liberal education that that isn't very common, and I think should be much more common. It should be it should be open-minded and pluralistic.
But that.But it, but none of, but it's not, it's that isn't very common. And I think so that that I, I definitely think they're you're talking about a
Straussian education focused on reading great books. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not going to say that's going to solve the future, but I think that ifAnd
I I certainly wouldn't want it to be Straussian. I mean I'm sincere about that. I think that there, you know, it doesn't. It would not have to be
that. But it would be, I think, just an old fashioned the the way Strauss understood liberal education as something that's for you know liberating the
mind and the spirit and maybe teaching you virtue.And I would I would emphasize that I would also emphasize history, like historical, you know,
there's so much great history being done, but there aren't any history jobs for people because they're not, you know, administrators don't care that
young people take history courses, and I think that's terrible. So, you know, there's a lot to be done on the cultural plane. I think.Um and the new
right, they they understand that, like they're talking my language. I I think they are very reckless in a lot of ways, right? And my my version of of
a good education would would be different, but not totally different. And I and I I don't hate some of the things that they're doing with the with
these institutions, you know, the civics institutions and so forth. I think there's a lot of potential there. I just I just think that they are really
thoughtless about the rest of the academy. So.I I just want to push you a little bit. What would you think a good education entail? I mean, it seems
like even in your book, you outline a lot of the problems with the.Kind of the canonical approach of the typical Straussian. What would, how would you
think, what is a good education? Um, according to if if Laura Field is now the president of Harvard University, how would you change the core
curriculum, or what kind, what is a good liberal education?Well, I would do. I would certainly do a couple years' worth of great books, right? As this
good Straussian would conceive of it, and so say we do a couple, maybe maybe a full year course every year for four years, and in canonical books you
could move historically through it. But it would be pretty. It would be kind of maybe you know that would have to vary region by region. But some of
it would involve.Comparative literature, right? It wouldn't just be limited to the ten books I had to read for my political philosophy. I mean, I'm
joking. It wasn't that bad, but you know, I'd open it up a little bit, and you know, maybe in, maybe in Seattle they read a few more books, right?From
China, right? I don't know. Like you, you mix it up, right? And it's in the South, they read more James Baldwin. I don't know, right? But it would, it
wouldn't be a single formula. And you'd also have a full year every year in college if you're talking about just the people who want to do the
humanities track.And I'm not saying this should be for everyone, but I think that a good college education in liberal arts would have—you'd have some
sciences for sure, right? And that would be forced. And you'd also have history. You'd have a lot of history, and you'd have maybe legal, public
law.You know, I don't, I don't, I wouldn't want to get super didactic about a specific program, but, but you know, my own education has a lot of
faults, and, and it was sort of ideas heavy.And great books heavy, and I think there's a lot of, you know, I think history is really important for
people to just read a lot of history. So that's, I mean, that's where I'd sort of start. I'd say I'd I'd do like a general template people could fill
in the specifics, and then there'd be art education, right? Music, great music.Are you know? I I would that's what I would want for people philosophy.
I mean, I guess we're getting a little utopian, but that is, I think, the core of a good liberal education. I think it'd be something like St. John's,
maybe would be a good way to go. But you could have it a little more updated, a little more, um, and and a lot. You'd also include, you know, more
black people and women in the in the on the syllabus, like.Some of these places they do great books, but they don't include some of these great
writers from the last couple centuries. Right. I mean, it seems like where you stand wouldn't be very far from, I'd say, like the av—you know—the the
young average student who.The young Laura, who in your in your teens, became attracted to to these teachers in the first place. But really, the what
the book seems to go after, seems to me to be going after is elite radicalization. It's it's like these kind of at the highest level with people that
are.Um, this tendency for for very learned, very serious, highly educated thinkers to move toward a radical, anti-democratic, anti-liberal positions,
and the whole, I mean, it seems to be a kind of mixture of grievance and ambition together, operating that that that that could, you know, sometimes
lead to truly unpleasant.Words and opinions being expressed mostly online, and also sometimes in real politics. And in your book, you kind of, I
think, your attitude is clear where you said there is something deeply disturbing to you for these students, serious students of political philosophy,
to spend so much time.In politics, like that, you know, they have in a way you can talk about Machiavelli and how to dress well on the one hand, and
then the next day you're writing about like vote for Trump, or you are like on that plane that will crash into the, you know, that will fly into the
twin towers. There's something deeply disturbing to you to to combine the the theoretical.The highly theoretical and and and the kind of the
combative.The combative side of politics. I mean, probably temperamentally, yes. I don't. I'm not interested in doing that. I don't think I have a. I
don't think I'm opposed to that in theory. I think, you know, if you can do it well and be prudent, you know, then that that's really value. That's
that's amazing, right? And there have been a few statesmen who the Claremont people also love, right? Like.I mean, Lincoln's the go-to guy, but the
founders were pretty good at some of this stuff, right? And they struggled. You could see that they struggled with some. You know, you read about, you
know, Jefferson. He he was so idealistic and and kind of anti-slavery at some points in his life, and then he struggled and he and he and he kind of
lost it, you know, like he. So these people are struggled. They're serious people. They struggle over big moral questions. I don't really see.Some of
the people I'm writing about, some of them are, I think, and and some of them have just become fanatics. And I certainly, I mean, I'm writing about a
historical moment, right, of like a course of eight years, and I'm trying to represent it honestly. But it's not to say that that this doesn't happen
all the time on the left, and that it's not been a long part. You know, that's not a part of intellect. That's a problem with intellectualized life.
You know, people want to go over the go after the Straussians.For having all these nefarious effects on politics, and I don't see it that way, right?
I see it as, ideas actually are dangerous. They are seductive. They are they can change the world, and if if you're not, you know, careful.And if
you're not a prudent person who's struggling deeply with the moral implications of what you're arguing for, you know, it it can be really, really bad.
And so, but that's not the Straussian's fault. I mean, that's Plato's. Plato talks about this stuff too, right? I mean, these are questions that
Strauss illuminated, made, you know. So, that's kind of how I see it. I do think you're right. It is a book about, you know, intellectual
radicalization and the dangers of that.And I'm not. I don't think there's much we can do, like on a on a like human condition level, to prevent that
from happening. But I mean, I I'm, and and I don't flatter myself. I don't want to be sort of pulling the levers of power. I'm I don't trust my
judgment, you know. Like I the book is pretty political. I did my like I I that was already, you know, a lot. But I don't. I I'm glad I'm not the one
arguing, you know, to use, you know, using Machiavelli to affect.Contemporary politics. I'm I'm probably much more conservative, in my temperament,
than some of the people I'm writing about. You know, in terms of what I'm willing to do in politics. I don't think my book is. There's much in there
that is like radical, dangerous, you know.I mean, this book is a political intervention. It is a political intervention. So if I'm and if I'm wrong,
I'm wrong, right? If they're right about the world, then you know I took my risk. But if if I were to characterize this intervention, it would be your
attempt to save, to defend liberalism against its critics and save.And by way of doing that, save liberalism from its own failures, because those the
new right is a product of the failures of liberalism, as much as.I think that's fair. I mean, it's a little grandiose, but sure. All right, well,
thank you very much, Laura. I really enjoyed talking to you. I hope. Yeah. What a pleasure to talk with you. It's fun.