Découvrez des podcasts liées à Concepts with Shawn Whatley. Explorez des podcasts avec des thèmes, sujets, et formats similaires. Ces similarités sont calculées grâce à des données tangibles, pas d'extrapolations !
Rusty Reno on the Crisis of Solidarity, Post-Liberalism, and Quebec’s Bill 21 #106
Épisode 101
mardi 28 juillet 2026 • Durée 01:10:51
Rusty Reno offers insight into "our crisis of solidarity" that I haven't found anywhere else. In his book Return of the Strong Gods, he tackles the post-WWII liberal consensus that Karl Popper called The Open Society. It is an essential resource to help you understand our times.
Reno is also articulate on post-liberalism. It's not the simplistic idea you see dismissed in most of the legacy media. We also touch on secularism, and I tried to get him to use the contrast between Catholic and Protestant political theology to explain the issues in Quebec over Bill 21. He's too smart and didn't take the bait.
I hope you enjoy this one. Let me know what you think!
Thanks again
Shawn
Chapters and AI summary:
Host Shawn Whatley interviews Rusty Reno, editor of First Things and author of Return of the Strong Gods (2019; updated 2021), on how liberalism struggles to generate solidarity amid a “meta-crisis” of disintegration. Reno explains his critique of the postwar “open society” consensus shaped by Popper and Hayek and unpacks “neoliberalism” as a left-right, technocratic, globalization-era economic and cultural project that promoted openness, porous borders, and creative destruction, helping set the stage for populist backlash where immigration fuses economic and cultural concerns. They discuss universalism vs particularism, the “order of loves,” and why civic loyalty and a “pre-political we” matter for freedom. The conversation also addresses post-liberalism’s varieties, liberalism’s limits, and Quebec’s laïcité/Bill 21 tensions in a multicultural society.
00:00 Liberalism Lacks Solidarity
00:52 Meet Rusty Reno
01:16 Episode Roadmap
03:45 Rock Climbing Icebreaker
05:13 Introducing Strong Gods
07:04 Praise Words And God Terms
10:07 Neoliberalism And Weakening
15:42 Populism And Open Society
21:47 Universalism Versus Particularism
27:01 Political We And Self Interest
32:39 Crisis Of Disintegration
33:41 Canada And Multicultural Identity
34:34 Freedom and Solidarity
36:07 Critiques of Liberal Mind
37:28 Defining Post Liberalism
38:43 Post Liberal Theology Roots
42:55 Liberalism Not Enough
43:50 War Immigration Nationalism
46:45 Totalitarianism Debate
48:43 Quebec Bill 21 Laicite
55:10 Multiculturalism Managed Diversity
59:41 Republican We and Civic Virtue
01:02:04 Platonism and Real Nations
01:06:38 Metaphysical Density and Youth
01:10:34 Closing Thoughts and Farewell
Quebec’s Secularism Debate Explained: Bill 21, Laïcité, and Canada’s Two Solitudes w Lisa Richmond #105
1. French republicanism carries markedly different presuppositions than English liberal traditions.
2. We cannot ignore the political differences the follow from a Catholic vs Protestant starting point.
3. Language matters, e.g., freedom of conscience implies freedom to think as one sees fit, in French, and it means freedom on understanding of moral issues, in an Anglo-American tradition.
4. Why is Bill 21, Quebec's so-called secularism bill, so interesting today, when it wouldn't have been conceived in the 1960s?
Tons of essential political concepts in this episode!
Tell me what you think. I hope you get a chance to listen and check out the whole Nation and the Veil series.
Thanks for listening!
Shawn
Chapters and AI summary:
Host Shawn Whatley interviews Lisa Richmond (VP of Research at Cardus) about Cardus’s four-part audio documentary, "The Nation and the Veil: Quebec’s Struggle with Secularism and Religion," created over three years with Jean-Christophe Jasmyn and Étienne-Alexandre Beauregard to help English and French Canadians better understand Quebec and Bill 21. Richmond explains laïcité as a state-religion framework grounded in four principles: separation of church and state, equality of citizens, freedom of religion, and state religious neutrality. They compare Anglo-American liberalism and French republicanism, discuss how Protestant and Catholic histories shape fears of state vs religious power, trace Quebec’s church-state history through the Quebec Act and the Quiet Revolution, and explore why secularism and pluralism have become defining political questions alongside sovereignty, including differences in how “conscience” is understood in French and English.
Eric Kaufmann on Ethical Populism, Woke Extremism, and the Limits of Multiculturalism #104
Épisode 99
mardi 14 juillet 2026 • Durée 01:18:52
The data and demographic argument in support of slowing immigration is overwhelming. Even when people enjoy new neighbours, it takes years to build understanding and trust.
Canada, especially, has pretended that demography and assimilation don't matter. All that matters is world-leading levels of immigration.
Dr. Eric Kaufmann is another refreshing academic who speaks plainly, and he has suffered for it.
I shortened my comments at the start; trying something different.
Let me know what you think!
Thanks for checking it out
Shawn
Chapters and AI Summary:
Shawn interviews political scientist Eric Kaufmann about his article “Toward Ethical Populism,” arguing the post-Trump right should combine disruption of ideologically captured institutions with Scrutonian respect for norms and due process. Kaufmann discusses his book The Third Awokening, defining “woke” as sacralizing marginalized identity groups and pursuing equal outcomes, which he says harms merit, authenticity, free speech, and national cohesion through measures like affirmative action, DEI, and historical revisionism. He contends Canada is especially susceptible due to moralistic universalism and weak historical attachments, with multiculturalism and political correctness as precursors to woke extremism. Kaufmann defends government action against private censorship in universities and corporations, urges organized lobbying and education reform, and in White Shift argues demographic change drives populism, assimilation is slow, and high immigration—especially in Canada—should be slowed.
Nihilism, Relativism, Western Civilization & Leo Strauss w Dimpee Brar #103
Épisode 98
mardi 7 juillet 2026 • Durée 01:12:20
Conservatism is experiencing a renaissance in the West. It is gaining a new self image beyond its historic passion for economics.
Dimpee Brar has entered the scene in high gear. Over the last few months she has written provocative pieces at a rate of roughly one every two weeks. She's been on panels, podcasts, and interviews. I hope she can maintain her output!
The tide is turning, and old ideas are resurfacing in the mainstream.
Let me know what you think of this episode!
Thanks again,
Shawn
Chapters and AI Summary:
Why Conservatives Need Culture, Harold Innis, and National Cohesion (w/ Prof. John Bonnett) #102
Épisode 97
mardi 30 juin 2026 • Durée 01:02:12
Most civilizations prioritize space or time. They either choose empire and expansion (space) or permanence (time).
Durable civilizations choose both.
Harold Innis was a giant in Canadian academia in the early 20th century, but most people have never heard of him. He offers deep and helpful insights on civilization, progress, and culture. Professor John Bonnett wrote his thesis on Innis and introduces us to his work.
We discuss a draft article Bonnett has written on Innis. Once it's published, I'll try to update this with a link.
Thanks for checking this out!
Shawn
Chapters and AI summary:
The host interviews Brock University professor and Innis scholar John Bonnett about an upcoming article arguing that conservatives are renewing a focus on culture as essential to Canadian national cohesion, especially as digital technology and AI disrupt society much like the printing press did. Bonnett explains Harold Innis’s importance to Canadian thought (influencing McLuhan and praised by George Grant), his “staples” analysis of Canada’s development, and his communication theory that technologies shape cognition and impose costs. Drawing on Innis, they discuss historical anxieties about new media, the dangers of information overload destabilizing politics, and “monopolies of knowledge” created by space- or time-biased media that can trap cultures and reduce innovation. Bonnett outlines adaptations—expressive and cognitive diversity, combinatorial thinking, democratizing cultural institutions like the Canada Council, and using digital/augmented-reality landscape art to renew culture.
00:00 Why Culture Matters
01:19 Meet Professor Bonnett
05:00 Which Conservatives
08:08 Why Innis Matters
13:17 Where To Start Reading
Free Expression, Beauty, State Control. Christine Van Geyn on Maple’s Garden & Pandemic Panic #101
Épisode 96
mardi 23 juin 2026 • Durée 01:09:04
Christine Van Geyn captured the central debate around freedom of expression vs state control and put it into a children's book.
As Interim Executive Director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, Van Geyn has the deep knowledge and experience required to explain the essential elements of free expression in a short book titled, Maple's Garden: A Canadian Freedom of Speech Story.
Shawn Whatley interviews Christine Van Geyn, interim executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, about her children’s picture book Maple’s Garden, inspired by the Mississauga case involving Wolf Ruck and Ontario rulings that a naturalized garden can be protected expression reflecting subjective views of beauty. They discuss how governments and bylaws can overreach by enforcing aesthetic standards, the difference between harmful invasive or dangerous plants and taste-based complaints, and why free expression protects disagreement. Van Geyn also explains her co-authored book Pandemic Panic as a documented record of civil liberties impacts, cases, and “memory-holed” incidents from COVID-19, including the Freedom Convoy and the Emergencies Act challenge. The conversation ends with a primer on Charter Section 2(b), Section 1’s Oakes test, and concerns about human rights tribunals being used to penalize speech, citing cases in BC and Ontario’s Emo flag dispute.
00:00 Parents vs State Power
00:36 Why Free Speech Matters
01:30 Meet Christine Van Geyn
04:20 Why She Wrote Maples Garden
06:23 The Garden Case Explained
Conservatism as a Coalition: NatCons, Trump, Media, & Bright Lines w Liberalism | Josh Lewis #100
Épisode 95
mardi 16 juin 2026 • Durée 59:54
How do we unify the very different voices on the non-Left? Do our differences mean we are doomed to a soft tyranny of centralized messaging?
Josh Lewis has been wrestling with this, and many other issues, for the last 9 years on his podcast, Saving Elephants. He's hosted many of the biggest influencers in American conservatism, including a number of voices from Canada and Europe.
The conservative movement is a jigsaw puzzle. Conservatives need to distinguish themselves from all the factions on the Left, while also retaining the distinct shapes of each puzzle piece. For conservatives, this is a conversation without end. If we grow tired of it, the coalition will fracture.
Of course, we can't talk about American politics without talking about Trump -- plenty of that in this episode too.
Thanks so much for checking this out! Let me know what you think.
Shawn
Chapters and AI summary:
In the 100th episode of Concepts, host Shawn Whatley welcomes back Josh Lewis, founder of the Saving Elephants podcast, to discuss the coalitional nature of American (and Canadian) conservatism and how to handle disagreements within the movement. Lewis outlines enduring conservative factions—libertarians, traditionalists, and anti-communists—while exploring the rise and uncertainty of NatCon and post-liberal currents, Trump’s role as both aberration and lasting influence, and what Trump reveals about leadership, courage, and cultural “rot.” They also talk about why Lewis chose podcasting, where millennials and younger generations get information, how “bridge” institutions translate ideas, and competence as a key voter demand. The conversation culminates in proposed bright lines between liberalism and conservatism and reflections on how to appropriately mark America’s 250th anniversary.
00:00 Can Ideas Fix Politics
00:22 Episode 100 Welcome
Identity Politics as an Incomplete Religion | Joshua Mitchell: American Awakening #99
Épisode 94
mardi 9 juin 2026 • Durée 01:04:22
Professor Joshua Mitchell is courageous. He argues for his positions even when they go against the grain of politically acceptable thought.
Mitchell says conservatives have done a good job at addressing the debt and tradition economies. We are strong on fiscal policy, and we stand up for the debts we owe to our fathers. But we are almost completely blind to the more profound, urgent, and critical debt of guilt. Conservatives are blind to spiritual debt.
The Left understands guilt and spiritual debt. It's their main focus. Criticize them for having bad data or for emotionalizing things, but the Left addresses an inescapable issue that the Right seems to miss entirely.
I'd love to hear what you think of this episode. It's deep in places but also pointed and provocative.
Shawn Whatley interviews Georgetown political theorist Joshua Mitchell about his book American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time and his article on the Reformation in America. Mitchell argues the West’s turmoil is fundamentally a religious crisis, with identity politics functioning as a quasi-Christian, “incomplete religion” seeking purity and redemption without a Christian solution. He contrasts a “regime of competence” with a post-1989 suspension of history, critiques the feminization of public life as mercy detached from justice, and outlines three “economies” humans inhabit: payment, tradition, and spiritual debt. He contends conservatives focus on the first two while lacking language for the third, leaving the left to politicize guilt, stain, and redemption. Mitchell offers three futures—endless incomplete religions, Nietzschean rejection of Christian categories, or a return to Christianity—and emphasizes America’s covenantal Protestant imagination as key to overcoming identity politics.
Conservatism’s Drift Toward Battle | Elizabeth Corey on Culture and the Contemplative Life #98
Épisode 93
mardi 2 juin 2026 • Durée 01:05:41
Professor Elizabeth Corey says conservatism is about far more than fighting. In fact, its major emphasis lies outside politics altogether.
Corey offers a thick view of intellectual conservatism. She invites us into something challenging and deep.
I tried to push her on whether she was asking too much. Was her approach practicable? Should we never ever fight? What role does conflict play in a conservative philosophy?
Professor Corey does not shy from these issues. She sees them as real questions for her students, but also in her own life.
Let me know what you think of this episode! Thanks so much for checking it out.
Host Shawn Whatley welcomes Baylor University honors program director and political science professor Elizabeth Corey to discuss her concerns that modern conservatism has become increasingly adversarial, reducing politics to winners and losers and neglecting culture, education, and the “realm of experience” beyond the friends-enemies dichotomy. Drawing on thinkers such as Oakeshott, Scruton, Pieper, Kirk, and Aristotle, Corey argues for understanding tradition as learned “practices” and for balancing the active and contemplative lives, resisting the urge to instrumentalize knowledge. They address internal conservative pluralism and the Philadelphia Society’s big-tent approach, the role of humility and charity in debate, and Corey’s reading of Laura Field’s Furious Minds on MAGA-linked institutions like Hillsdale and Claremont. Corey also discusses Hazlitt’s “pleasure of hating,” her First Things piece on admiring, and her forthcoming book The Heart of Learning.
Free Speech in Canadian Law Schools? Tim Haggstrom on Runnymede, Rule of Law, and Tim vs U. Sask #97
Épisode 92
mardi 19 mai 2026 • Durée 01:13:46
Tim Haggstrom doesn't just promote theory. He bears the personal scars of legal practice. He leads an organization focussed on legal theory, while fighting (personally) for free speech.
This caught me off guard. I thought Tim was simply an exemplary leader of a noteworthy organization. I had no idea that he was also personally up to his neck in litigation about the legitimacy of race-based scholarship.
You won't meet a nicer, more thoughtful guy. Tim goes out of his way to ring-fence his own case from the organization he represents. You need to know about the Runnymede Society. The Society appears even more worth, and necessary, when you hear about Tim's case, at the end of the episode.
Let me know what you think!
Thanks again
Shawn
Chapters and AI Summary:
Host Shawn Whatley interviews Tim Haggstrom, National Director of the Runnymede Society, about whether freedom of speech exists in Canadian law schools and how students learn “no-go zones” on contentious issues. Hagstrom explains Runnymede’s founding in 2016 amid concerns about insufficient debate over constitutional change, citing the Supreme Court’s 2015 Saskatchewan Federation of Labour decision on a Charter right to strike, and outlines the Society’s mission to promote constitutionalism, the rule of law, and fundamental freedoms through debates it does not adjudicate. They discuss taboo topics, civil discourse, and competing views of the rule of law, interpretation, legal neutrality, and substantive equality (including the 2020 Fraser case). Hagstrom then recounts his personal judicial review against the University of Saskatchewan after being found guilty of non-academic misconduct following letters defending dialogue and critiquing race-based policies, linking the dispute to university commitments to decolonization and anti-racism training.
00:00 Free Speech in Law School
00:22 Meet Tim Haggstrom
Concepts with Shawn Whatley, podcast de Shawn Whatley - Statistiques, épisodes et classements - My Podcast Data
00:00 Why Quebec Secularism Matters
03:04 Welcome and Episode Overview
05:17 Inside the Audio Documentary
09:42 Defining Laïcité
13:07 French Republican vs Anglo Liberal
21:19 Locke Rousseau and Minorities
26:38 Catholic vs Protestant Secular Fears
37:48 How Quebec Became Catholic State
42:47 Church Runs Society
43:46 Governance Vacuum After Conquest
45:48 Church Role Reconsidered
47:26 Common Law Versus Civil
49:41 Great Darkness Explained
51:23 Quiet Revolution Reframed
55:11 Laïcité Political Flip 58:23 Bear Pelt Metaphor
01:03:14 Secularism Versus Sovereignty
01:09:40 Conscience And Common Good
01:17:44 Canada Two Solitudes
01:24:16 Closing Plug And Thanks
00:00 Cancellation And Merit
02:58 Meet Eric Kaufmann
03:55 Ethical Populism Explained
07:43 Foxes Versus Lions
10:39 Deculturation And Woke
16:02 Academic Backlash Story
21:18 Canada And Moralism
28:09 Why Government Must Act
35:40 Private Censorship Lock In
39:05 Common Ground Conservatism
39:32 Free Speech Fabric
40:35 Leviathan Debate
45:13 Ethical Populism Rules
46:50 Twelve Point Blueprint
50:09 Education Culture War
53:34 Canada Identity Crisis
57:36 Multiculturalism Origins
01:04:53 Populism Demography Data
01:08:05 Liberal Ethnicity Future
01:13:30 Fertility Reality Check
01:18:39 Closing Thanks
Host Shawn Whatley interviews Diimpee Brar, Director of Engagement at Allies for a Strong Canada and a prolific columnist, about defending Western civilization and Canada’s founding principles. Brar describes moving from studying neuroscience to the humanities, encountering what she calls nihilism in academia, and being “redeemed” by Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, which led her to political philosophy and Leo Strauss. She defines nihilism as meaninglessness and argues that modern democratic decline expresses itself as relativism, erasing distinctions between good and bad and enabling fanatics to rule, particularly in Canada. The conversation covers liberalism versus conservatism, the friend–enemy distinction, and Brar’s view of the 1839 Durham Report as a founding document emphasizing one nation and assimilation through education. They also discuss Islam and the “Red-Green” alliance, and end with Brar identifying Nietzsche as a dangerous thinker and noting debates about Strauss, Judaism, and atheism.
