WEBVTT - How the Left Captures Institutions 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:11.240 From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:15.000 where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.840 nurtured and honored. This is the radio free Hillsdale Hour, 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.760 bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:25.200 across the country. 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:29.840 Think globally. Act locally. This was very popular in the 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.320 90s with the environmental movement, and it sounds kind of 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:37.120 intriguing at first. I propose that people think locally and 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:38.199 act locally. 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.720 This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:46.520 Free Hillsdale Hour. Part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.400 That was Seth Barron, author of the recent book Weaponized 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:54.920 The Left's Capture and Destruction of America's Sacred Institutions. We 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.880 talk in depth with Seth about his book today and 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:02.000 later on, Elizabeth Fredericks from Hillsdale's English department joins us. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.600 She'll begin a brief series on British literature of World 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.800 War One. First, we're joined by Seth Barron. He is 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.200 an editorial board member at the New York Post reporter 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.720 and editor. And he's also the author of the recent 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:22.560 book Weaponized The Left's Capture and Destruction of America's Sacred Institutions. Seth, 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:23.760 thanks so much for joining us. 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.200 Oh, thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure. 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.080 So the title of the book is weaponized, and we've 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.400 heard the term weaponization a lot more recently than, say, 15, 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.679 20 years ago. What do you mean by weaponization, as 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:38.600 you use the phrase throughout the book? 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.320 Well, I'm looking at the ways in which certain key 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:46.319 institutions in America, and I'm talking about civics. I'm talking 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:52.320 about education, policing, and housing, these key institutions that really 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:58.160 define the way Americans live. They've been infiltrated, subverted, and 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.600 turned against the people through a weaponization of, I guess, 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.480 you know, sort of our good nature and our sense 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:09.080 of of what's right. Okay. For instance, take the term 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:14.200 the American Dream. Uh, this used to refer to how 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.760 Americans saw their lives in regard to how their children 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.680 would would grow up. You know, Americans sought to provide 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.079 for their kids, get a house, take vacations, and maybe 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.359 their kids would do better than they did. But at 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.120 some point, a dream came to mean not something that 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:38.040 Americans aspired to, but something that foreigners had. Americans no 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.360 longer were participants in the American dream. The American dream 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:45.959 was something that we were that we owed to non non-Americans, 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.040 to people abroad, all of whom had a right to it. 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:53.440 So by twisting this phrase, they were able to, you know, 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.720 in my thesis is to change the way we view 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.280 citizenship and make it that we no longer really have 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:04.760 the right to determine who comes here, and that it's 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.519 essentially a global, a global right. 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.600 And immigration citizenship is one of the four main topics 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:15.680 in the book weaponized. We're concerned about the meaning of 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:20.120 citizenship and especially about assimilation to when a country stops 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:25.600 expecting newcomers to assimilate into a common national culture. What 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:26.600 do we lose? 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.320 I mean, we lose any sense of of unity. We 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.760 lose the sense of the nation as a nation. It 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.240 just becomes a place for people to come and hang 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.640 their hat like a clearinghouse. It becomes a place where 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.280 foreigners come in and they say, well, we don't really 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:45.480 like the nation, but we like what you've done with 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.920 the place. We think we'll turn it into something else. 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:55.640 So you wind up with society of disconnected people, people 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.640 who are very low trust in one another. You basically 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.800 wind up with something that's not really quite a nation anymore, 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.320 so much as it is just like an like a, 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.480 like an entrepot, like a, like a collection of people 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.320 who are in a place for commercial reasons and, and 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:13.280 nothing else. 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.799 Seth Barron the book is weaponized left the left's capture 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:21.480 and destruction of America's sacred institutions citizenship, policing, housing, education. 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.240 Those are the four quadrants you write about and weaponized, 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.840 and you argue early. If you control the operation of 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.599 those institutions, you're in a pretty good spot to control 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.800 the country. How why did you identify those four places 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.839 as being the centralized place to turn our focus? 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:44.000 Well, when I started thinking about the country in general, 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.520 and I wanted to write a book about, you know, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.080 what I saw the problems that were happening mainly from 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:51.720 the left. It occurred to me that, okay, the way 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.159 America was, was founded is the idea that the people 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.640 are sovereign and all power stems from the people, not 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:00.640 from a king, not from the top, but from the 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:07.760 people whom God has invested self-evidently with liberty and, you know, 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:14.360 natural rights of self-government, basically. And so in the American system, 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.360 power derives from the bottom and through the communities and 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.560 then up to the states and then to the country. Well, 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.960 this drives the left crazy because they have a universal 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.520 vision that they want to impose everywhere all at once. 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.800 So it's annoying to them to have to consult every 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:36.440 different district, every different community, and gain consensus that way. 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.240 They would prefer just to, you know, they have their 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.000 diktats and they'd like to just impose them from the top. 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.120 So it seemed that what was happening was that power 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.120 was being lifted from the bottom and away from the 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:53.850 people and, and raised up to these unaccountable levels like 0:05:53.890 --> 0:05:58.250 people who have no accountability to, to the, to, to 0:05:58.290 --> 0:06:02.450 the base. Essentially, an expert class should rule everything. And 0:06:02.450 --> 0:06:04.890 just to go back to citizenship for a second, like 0:06:04.890 --> 0:06:08.970 it occurred to me the same way that people are not, 0:06:09.330 --> 0:06:12.530 you don't really have a say over who comes to America. Well, 0:06:12.529 --> 0:06:16.130 I was looking at housing and zoning and the way 0:06:16.130 --> 0:06:20.450 in which how decisions about what communities should look like 0:06:20.490 --> 0:06:24.810 are being taken away from zoning boards and the community 0:06:25.010 --> 0:06:28.089 and lifted up into like the state level where some 0:06:28.089 --> 0:06:31.810 expert could say, yes, you have to build affordable housing here. 0:06:31.810 --> 0:06:36.650 You have to allow quadruplexes here, you have to build a, 0:06:36.690 --> 0:06:40.289 you know, an apartment building near the transit line. And 0:06:40.290 --> 0:06:42.489 so basically what I saw was the same thing happening, 0:06:42.490 --> 0:06:44.650 which is that the people who live in a place 0:06:44.890 --> 0:06:48.370 no longer get to decide what happens there. So I 0:06:48.370 --> 0:06:51.250 saw it happening at the top at such a broad level, 0:06:51.290 --> 0:06:55.849 like the borders and citizenship. And then at this micro level, 0:06:55.890 --> 0:06:59.370 like what happens in neighborhoods. And it occurred to me, yeah, 0:06:59.370 --> 0:07:02.370 this is the problem. The left wants to capture all 0:07:02.370 --> 0:07:07.210 the power and they do it by, um, you know, essentially, 0:07:07.890 --> 0:07:09.770 you know, here's the thing, I don't know if you've 0:07:09.770 --> 0:07:13.810 heard this phrase before, think globally, act locally. This was 0:07:13.810 --> 0:07:18.050 very popular in the 90s with the environmental movement. And 0:07:18.050 --> 0:07:21.250 it sounds kind of intriguing at first. It's like, oh yeah, 0:07:21.690 --> 0:07:25.090 we should think globally, you know, have like a general 0:07:25.130 --> 0:07:29.850 vision of things and then act locally. But what this 0:07:29.850 --> 0:07:32.530 really means is don't trust the evidence of your own 0:07:32.530 --> 0:07:36.890 senses and your own capacity to think. We have experts 0:07:36.890 --> 0:07:39.690 over here who've done the thinking for you. They've got 0:07:39.690 --> 0:07:43.290 the big picture. So they're going to impose their thought. 0:07:43.290 --> 0:07:47.810 And you just think globally, meaning you, you, you adopt 0:07:47.850 --> 0:07:51.090 whatever construct they have. So. Oh, well, we can't use 0:07:51.210 --> 0:07:55.450 plastic straws because those destroy the environment. We have to, 0:07:55.730 --> 0:07:59.210 you know, get rid of our gas stoves because, uh, 0:07:59.250 --> 0:08:03.530 that releases carbon and eventually seeds will drown Florida. This 0:08:03.530 --> 0:08:08.650 doesn't necessarily with the reality, you see, but they've duped 0:08:08.650 --> 0:08:12.890 everybody in a sense to, to take on this, this vision. 0:08:12.890 --> 0:08:17.730 So I propose that people like think locally and act locally. 0:08:18.170 --> 0:08:21.210 And I think that's the real American. That's the American 0:08:21.210 --> 0:08:22.810 spirit that we've kind of lost. 0:08:23.010 --> 0:08:25.850 Seth Barron is with us. The book weaponized the left's 0:08:25.890 --> 0:08:31.090 capture and destruction of America's sacred institutions. On policing, you 0:08:31.090 --> 0:08:35.170 point out that those who advocate for defunding the police 0:08:35.170 --> 0:08:40.370 always have this picture of some harmonious society that emerges afterwards, 0:08:40.370 --> 0:08:43.610 not not one of lawlessness. And there's this discussion of 0:08:43.610 --> 0:08:47.610 root causes of crime. And the root causes for our 0:08:47.610 --> 0:08:51.570 friends on the left. Never are are. going back to 0:08:51.610 --> 0:08:54.410 the actual person committing the crime. When they talk about 0:08:54.410 --> 0:08:58.130 defunding and the society that emerges without police, are they, 0:08:58.170 --> 0:09:00.970 in a sense, saying that police are the root cause 0:09:01.130 --> 0:09:03.250 of crime in our cities? 0:09:03.530 --> 0:09:06.530 Well, that is I think that's a thesis that goes 0:09:06.530 --> 0:09:10.490 back to like the the 19th century with certain radical 0:09:10.490 --> 0:09:15.170 thinkers who said, yes, the, the cause of laws or 0:09:15.490 --> 0:09:18.089 the idea being that laws are put in place in 0:09:18.090 --> 0:09:23.089 order to protect capital and to protect the elite. And 0:09:23.530 --> 0:09:27.530 that's the and then the police are there to essentially 0:09:27.530 --> 0:09:31.650 just carry that out. And the idea being like, like, 0:09:31.690 --> 0:09:36.370 as Zoran Mamdani has said, violence is just a construct. 0:09:36.410 --> 0:09:40.530 The idea of. So he would say that having landlords 0:09:40.570 --> 0:09:44.770 is a form of violence. Having prisons is a form 0:09:44.770 --> 0:09:48.530 of violence. Having, you know, punishment as we know it 0:09:48.610 --> 0:09:52.890 is violence. These are all means of of using state 0:09:52.890 --> 0:09:57.730 power to control people. So what they would like to 0:09:57.730 --> 0:10:00.610 do is, well, they say what they'd like to do 0:10:00.610 --> 0:10:05.610 is to undo these, these strictures and these, these modes 0:10:05.610 --> 0:10:09.770 of state power and institutional control and come up with a, 0:10:09.850 --> 0:10:13.010 I don't know, a more humane society. I think what 0:10:13.010 --> 0:10:15.730 they really are mad about is the idea that that 0:10:15.730 --> 0:10:20.770 the police are a they are a recipient of public taxes, 0:10:20.809 --> 0:10:24.770 public revenue that they don't. The left actually cannot control. 0:10:24.809 --> 0:10:26.690 So I think they basically would like to sort of 0:10:26.730 --> 0:10:30.569 nationalize the police, basically bring the police under their umbrella 0:10:30.570 --> 0:10:33.930 the same way they did for the teachers and for, 0:10:33.970 --> 0:10:38.130 you know, certain other public sector groups. But yeah, I mean, 0:10:38.210 --> 0:10:41.330 they do they do make a very radical argument that that, 0:10:41.410 --> 0:10:46.530 that policing is, you know, essentially, they say it developed 0:10:46.650 --> 0:10:51.490 evolved out of slave catching practice in the 1850s or so, 0:10:51.530 --> 0:10:54.370 where they would deputize people to go out and find 0:10:54.410 --> 0:10:57.689 slaves and catch them. They see the modern police department 0:10:57.690 --> 0:11:01.210 as directly, directly connected to to the to the old 0:11:01.210 --> 0:11:04.770 slave catchers. That's what police are. They're just people out 0:11:04.770 --> 0:11:07.329 to enforce modern day slavery. 0:11:07.370 --> 0:11:11.370 That's Seth Barron. His new book, weaponized the left's Capture 0:11:11.370 --> 0:11:15.809 and destruction of America's sacred institutions will continue with Seth 0:11:15.809 --> 0:11:18.930 in just a moment. First. You might have seen. And 0:11:18.929 --> 0:11:22.850 judging by the box office, many have seen the new 0:11:23.010 --> 0:11:27.730 Odyssey feature film. Well, here at Hillsdale College, we can 0:11:27.730 --> 0:11:30.490 fill in the blanks. We can tell you what you 0:11:30.490 --> 0:11:32.810 might have missed. We can give you the joy and 0:11:32.809 --> 0:11:36.730 satisfaction of reading The Odyssey, and we do that through 0:11:36.730 --> 0:11:41.570 our Hillsdale College online course, The Odyssey, with Doctor Ben Whalen. 0:11:41.570 --> 0:11:46.410 He's your teacher. Join him for 12 lectures on the Odyssey. 0:11:46.450 --> 0:11:57.130 Find it at hillsdale.edu/course. You'll explore themes of love, marriage, kingship, duty, piety, encounter, 0:11:57.130 --> 0:12:01.490 Homer's epic, which displays the full human experience. If you've 0:12:01.490 --> 0:12:04.689 seen the movie, you've got to take the online course, 0:12:04.690 --> 0:12:18.330 The Odyssey with Doctor Ben Whalen. hillsdale.edu/course. hillsdale.edu/ewcourse. For the Odyssey, 0:12:18.730 --> 0:12:22.490 we continue with Seth Barron. His recent book weaponized the 0:12:22.490 --> 0:12:27.410 left's capture and destruction of America's sacred institutions. Seth, we 0:12:27.410 --> 0:12:29.210 see this time and again when we have some of 0:12:29.210 --> 0:12:33.610 these far progressive, far left progressive candidates, socialist candidates, DSA 0:12:33.650 --> 0:12:37.850 candidates who are are talking about defunding the police, that 0:12:37.890 --> 0:12:41.690 their support does not come largely from the communities that 0:12:41.690 --> 0:12:47.809 these policies affect. How does the argument and ideology survive 0:12:47.809 --> 0:12:53.090 when the consequences are hurting the intended beneficiaries? When the beneficiaries, 0:12:53.130 --> 0:12:55.689 quote unquote, don't even support the policies? 0:12:56.010 --> 0:12:59.170 You know, that's a great question. And, you know, for instance, 0:12:59.650 --> 0:13:03.250 you know, you you see that the, the first victims 0:13:03.290 --> 0:13:07.850 of like defunding the police or, or lessening policing are 0:13:07.850 --> 0:13:11.490 people in like black communities because they're, they have the 0:13:11.490 --> 0:13:14.449 highest rates of crime and thus the highest rates of 0:13:14.450 --> 0:13:17.810 crime victimization. You know, there's this great trick on the 0:13:17.809 --> 0:13:20.090 left where they can just say, well, we haven't done 0:13:20.090 --> 0:13:24.770 it right. We didn't implement it correctly. There wasn't enough funding. 0:13:24.929 --> 0:13:27.050 There was too much resistance from the other side. So 0:13:27.050 --> 0:13:28.890 we just have to keep trying. I mean, it's the 0:13:28.890 --> 0:13:31.490 same thing you hear when they say when they explain 0:13:31.490 --> 0:13:35.770 why socialism is a failure everywhere it's tried. Well, it 0:13:35.770 --> 0:13:39.090 hasn't really been tried. It's always been it's always been 0:13:39.090 --> 0:13:44.929 hurt by American intervention, by sanctions. So sabotage. So we 0:13:44.929 --> 0:13:48.490 just have to keep going. Um, it's a wonderful trick 0:13:48.490 --> 0:13:51.490 they have built into it that they can never be 0:13:51.490 --> 0:13:56.930 seen to fail. It's always just a question of doubling down. So, 0:13:57.370 --> 0:14:00.250 you know, and then you can just convince your followers 0:14:00.250 --> 0:14:02.490 that that's the problem. Well, you know, we just have 0:14:02.490 --> 0:14:06.329 to keep going, comrades. Uh, so yeah, this has been 0:14:06.330 --> 0:14:09.010 going on for a long time, but it seems to 0:14:09.010 --> 0:14:11.130 keep working, which is remarkable. 0:14:11.250 --> 0:14:14.090 Weaponized is the book The Left's Capture and Destruction of 0:14:14.090 --> 0:14:18.689 America's Sacred institution. Seth Barron is the author. On housing, 0:14:18.890 --> 0:14:23.090 you argue that fair housing or affordable housing is a 0:14:23.130 --> 0:14:27.010 sneaky way for the left to wage war on the suburbs. 0:14:27.090 --> 0:14:29.490 Why do they hate the suburbs and what do they 0:14:29.490 --> 0:14:30.650 want to do about it? 0:14:31.890 --> 0:14:34.250 The left hates the suburbs, has hated the suburbs for 0:14:34.250 --> 0:14:38.450 a long time. They see the suburbs well, they formulate. 0:14:38.490 --> 0:14:41.970 They see the suburbs as a source of conformity. Uh, 0:14:41.970 --> 0:14:49.610 Of conservativism and essentially racism. Thesis of the left goes that. 0:14:49.650 --> 0:14:55.930 Cities are where people like where real human life and 0:14:55.930 --> 0:15:01.890 real human interaction takes place. And the idea being that 0:15:01.890 --> 0:15:05.930 the people in control hated this. So they decided to 0:15:05.970 --> 0:15:10.610 build the highway system in order to sell cars and 0:15:10.610 --> 0:15:16.090 funnel white people out into segregated suburbs where they could 0:15:16.290 --> 0:15:21.609 all be regimented and routinized and, you know, essentially factory 0:15:21.610 --> 0:15:26.010 produced into these idealized robots. Now, of course, this is 0:15:26.050 --> 0:15:29.250 a nonsensical point of view. I'm just explaining what they believe. 0:15:29.610 --> 0:15:33.650 And according to this thesis, the cities remain the source 0:15:33.690 --> 0:15:37.930 of all value and wealth creation. And the suburbs just 0:15:37.930 --> 0:15:42.170 exploit the cities and extract all the wealth. And this 0:15:42.170 --> 0:15:45.930 is something that the Brookings Institution even recently said, that 0:15:45.930 --> 0:15:49.610 suburbs extract wealth from the cities, even though, you know, 0:15:49.650 --> 0:15:52.170 the mechanism by which that happens is never made clear. 0:15:52.530 --> 0:15:55.290 So and then, you know, what we've wound up with 0:15:55.290 --> 0:16:00.450 are cities that are largely Democrat many times that's, you know, 0:16:00.490 --> 0:16:02.930 very there's a lot of crime, there's a lot of poverty. 0:16:03.490 --> 0:16:06.410 And this drives the left crazy because they would like to. 0:16:06.850 --> 0:16:09.890 Ideally they would they basically want to annex the suburbs. 0:16:09.890 --> 0:16:14.490 This was Obama's vision, a regionalization of urban areas to 0:16:14.530 --> 0:16:18.650 connect the cities and the suburbs around them, to make 0:16:18.650 --> 0:16:22.410 the suburbs take on the burden of providing for the 0:16:22.450 --> 0:16:27.090 poor people who live in the city, namely through affordable housing. 0:16:27.370 --> 0:16:31.010 And this is the affirmatively, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, which 0:16:31.010 --> 0:16:33.610 was part of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, and 0:16:33.610 --> 0:16:38.210 extending that to mean economic equality to to to achieve 0:16:38.410 --> 0:16:41.890 economic Integration. So the idea being that you have to 0:16:41.930 --> 0:16:45.290 force suburbs to take on the burden of building affordable 0:16:45.290 --> 0:16:49.290 housing and affordable in this in this instance, just means subsidized. 0:16:49.570 --> 0:16:53.570 That's a tricky word switch they've used to. I mean, 0:16:53.610 --> 0:16:56.930 of course, everybody wants to have an affordable house, but 0:16:56.930 --> 0:17:00.130 technically speaking, any house that someone lives in is affordable 0:17:00.130 --> 0:17:03.690 to them. What they what they mean by affordable is subsidized. 0:17:04.090 --> 0:17:07.370 So this is kind of why they hate the suburbs. Suburbs. 0:17:07.609 --> 0:17:10.930 Suburbs are inhabited by people who have an investment in 0:17:10.930 --> 0:17:14.530 the community they own. There's more home ownership, right. And 0:17:14.530 --> 0:17:18.810 home owners are very conservative. They're very attuned to home 0:17:18.850 --> 0:17:21.530 to the value of their homes. This is their major asset. 0:17:21.530 --> 0:17:24.129 And the left hates this. They call it the home voter. 0:17:24.490 --> 0:17:29.450 People whose voting patterns are closely tied to how they 0:17:29.450 --> 0:17:34.450 perceive policies will affect the value of their homes. So 0:17:34.730 --> 0:17:38.899 undoing this power is, is key to the left's vision, 0:17:38.900 --> 0:17:42.100 and that's why they've changed zoning laws to make it 0:17:42.100 --> 0:17:45.740 that the state can determine what happens in your community. 0:17:46.020 --> 0:17:50.420 Why Obama and Biden would sue communities if they didn't 0:17:50.420 --> 0:17:54.740 have enough subsidized housing for poor people. It's a very 0:17:54.740 --> 0:17:58.500 long campaign they've been waging, and it's somewhat effective. Yeah. 0:17:58.540 --> 0:18:01.100 And so even though suburbs are where most of the 0:18:01.100 --> 0:18:03.820 economic growth is happening in America today, that's what they 0:18:03.820 --> 0:18:06.540 don't want to admit. It's not really happening in the cities. 0:18:06.940 --> 0:18:09.900 And more than that, this idea that the suburbs are 0:18:09.900 --> 0:18:12.780 where the white people live and the cities are where 0:18:12.780 --> 0:18:16.100 the black and brown people live, is also false. More, 0:18:16.220 --> 0:18:20.540 I think a majority of the minority population lives in suburbs. 0:18:20.619 --> 0:18:23.900 That's where all of the population growth is happening. So 0:18:24.460 --> 0:18:28.420 it's an outdated model that they're they're addicted to. And 0:18:28.420 --> 0:18:32.619 then you wind up with leftists flocking to, to cities 0:18:32.619 --> 0:18:37.420 like in New York, voting for people like Mamdani. And 0:18:37.500 --> 0:18:40.780 they have this vision of the world where everyone should 0:18:40.780 --> 0:18:47.940 live in tightly dense like conurbations. Suburbs should be essentially 0:18:47.940 --> 0:18:51.900 made illegal. And, you know, there's a social control element 0:18:51.900 --> 0:18:55.260 to it. People in the cities tend to be, you know, 0:18:55.300 --> 0:18:57.460 it's hard to raise a family in a city, so 0:18:57.460 --> 0:19:02.460 there's less family formation, etc., etc.. So this is the vision. 0:19:02.660 --> 0:19:06.020 On education set that might be, uh, one of the 0:19:06.020 --> 0:19:09.140 four that has most buy in or most acceptance that 0:19:09.180 --> 0:19:11.780 there has been a capture and a change, but it's 0:19:11.780 --> 0:19:16.180 also different because there are alternative charter schools and private 0:19:16.180 --> 0:19:19.740 schools and even home schooling. Does that mean that education 0:19:19.740 --> 0:19:24.300 is the area, perhaps where institutional capture can be reversed 0:19:24.300 --> 0:19:25.380 most quickly? 0:19:25.940 --> 0:19:28.100 You know, that's a great question, and I do see 0:19:28.100 --> 0:19:30.100 it that way a little bit. I don't necessarily see 0:19:30.100 --> 0:19:32.300 that it can be reversed most quickly, but I see 0:19:32.300 --> 0:19:36.380 it as a model action because this is one place 0:19:36.380 --> 0:19:40.340 where the teachers unions are the most powerful unions in 0:19:40.340 --> 0:19:42.980 the country. They're the largest unions, and they put more 0:19:42.980 --> 0:19:46.100 money into politics than any other entity, I believe billions, 0:19:46.180 --> 0:19:49.460 billions of dollars. This is all taxpayer money. Of course, 0:19:49.780 --> 0:19:53.020 taxpayer money that goes into the schools goes to the 0:19:53.020 --> 0:19:57.460 teachers unions, who have the power to negotiate their contract 0:19:57.460 --> 0:20:00.460 and have the power to, you know, affect the political 0:20:00.460 --> 0:20:04.620 system by putting money into it. So, yes, and they've 0:20:04.660 --> 0:20:08.780 taken it over. But like you said, people have pushed back. 0:20:08.780 --> 0:20:11.619 And so there are these movements like the charter school movement, 0:20:11.619 --> 0:20:16.619 which is incredibly popular at, you know, at, at the roots, homeschooling, 0:20:16.820 --> 0:20:20.700 private education. They, the left wants to destroy all of these, 0:20:21.140 --> 0:20:24.939 these alternatives, but they've been unable to. Mhm. And all 0:20:24.980 --> 0:20:30.500 of this happens at just with people operating locally. Um, 0:20:30.619 --> 0:20:34.260 and that I again, like this whole think globally act locally. 0:20:34.260 --> 0:20:37.340 I really see this as the vision. That's how charter 0:20:37.340 --> 0:20:42.699 schools got going. That's how homeschool homeschooling networks evolved. So 0:20:42.740 --> 0:20:46.820 I see I see education and the pushback against the 0:20:47.500 --> 0:20:53.659 relentless institutional capture by the left as one, you know, 0:20:53.700 --> 0:20:56.540 as a model for how how the people can start 0:20:56.540 --> 0:20:57.860 to take back America. 0:20:58.180 --> 0:21:00.700 Seth Barron with us. The book is weaponized. Seth, if 0:21:00.700 --> 0:21:05.859 this is institutional, the problems are institutional in these areas 0:21:05.859 --> 0:21:10.660 rather than electoral. What difference does winning elections make? How 0:21:10.700 --> 0:21:14.820 much can winning elections even begin to fix or address 0:21:14.820 --> 0:21:15.580 the problem? 0:21:15.859 --> 0:21:18.820 Winning elections is great. Okay. We need to win elections. 0:21:18.820 --> 0:21:21.899 But we also have to recognize the way the left operates. 0:21:22.300 --> 0:21:25.420 The left sees politics as something that happens every day. 0:21:25.900 --> 0:21:29.020 The right sees politics, like you said, as like the midterms. 0:21:29.020 --> 0:21:32.420 And then every four years, the elections. The right has 0:21:32.420 --> 0:21:34.780 a lot of things going on in their day. They 0:21:34.780 --> 0:21:40.780 have jobs, they have families, they have religion. They have hobbies. 0:21:41.140 --> 0:21:45.859 For the left, politics is their religion. Politics is their 0:21:45.859 --> 0:21:52.460 love life. Politics is their circle of social circle. Politics, 0:21:52.460 --> 0:21:55.420 in many cases is their job because they work in 0:21:55.700 --> 0:21:59.580 the nonprofit or the government sector. So we have to 0:21:59.619 --> 0:22:05.100 take on their model, which is relentlessly being involved in politics. 0:22:05.140 --> 0:22:07.179 I mean, it's unfortunate that that's what it comes to 0:22:07.220 --> 0:22:09.980 because nobody really wants to do that. People want to 0:22:10.180 --> 0:22:12.740 hang out with their friends at church and with their 0:22:12.740 --> 0:22:16.220 family and, you know, do projects on the weekends and 0:22:16.220 --> 0:22:19.260 so forth. But we have to we have to recognize 0:22:19.260 --> 0:22:23.020 that for the left, they're always engaged in politics. And 0:22:23.020 --> 0:22:26.659 then elections are kind of like, you know, one of 0:22:26.660 --> 0:22:29.580 the fruits winning elections is one of the fruits of 0:22:29.619 --> 0:22:35.379 their hard work. Um, So elections, we definitely need to 0:22:35.380 --> 0:22:39.780 win elections. Absolutely. But we have to recognize that politics 0:22:39.820 --> 0:22:44.379 is a much larger process, and it really requires a 0:22:44.380 --> 0:22:48.540 certain awakening that the left is ahead of us on this. 0:22:48.580 --> 0:22:52.500 They're they're very, they're, they're, they're, they're always working. Like 0:22:52.900 --> 0:22:54.900 when we get up, they've been doing, you know, they're, 0:22:54.900 --> 0:22:56.700 they're sitting at the edge of the bed waiting for 0:22:56.700 --> 0:23:00.100 us to, um, they've already, you know, done, done push 0:23:00.140 --> 0:23:03.140 ups all night while we've been sleeping, basically. 0:23:03.180 --> 0:23:05.340 Seth Barron is on the editorial board at the New 0:23:05.380 --> 0:23:08.859 York Post. You can find him writing elsewhere and editing places, too. 0:23:08.980 --> 0:23:12.860 The new book weaponized the left's capture and destruction of 0:23:12.859 --> 0:23:16.460 America's sacred institutions. Seth, thanks so much for joining us 0:23:16.460 --> 0:23:19.139 here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. 0:23:19.180 --> 0:23:21.540 It's been such a pleasure. Thank you for having me on. 0:23:21.580 --> 0:23:25.420 Up next, Doctor Elizabeth Fredericks, associate professor of English here 0:23:25.420 --> 0:23:28.820 at Hillsdale College, returns to begin a brief series on 0:23:28.820 --> 0:23:33.379 British literature of World War One. I'm Scott Bertram. This 0:23:33.380 --> 0:23:52.500 is the radio free Hillsdale Hour. Welcome back to the 0:23:52.500 --> 0:23:56.300 radio free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertram. Be sure to 0:23:56.300 --> 0:24:00.580 follow us on X at Hillsdale Radio and Hillsdale College 0:24:00.580 --> 0:24:06.459 Podcast Network at h c. We're joined by Doctor Elizabeth Fredericks, 0:24:06.500 --> 0:24:10.060 associate professor of English here at Hillsdale College. Doctor Fredericks, 0:24:10.060 --> 0:24:10.980 thanks for returning. 0:24:10.980 --> 0:24:11.980 Thanks for having me. 0:24:12.020 --> 0:24:15.419 Starting a brief series here about a very interesting course 0:24:15.420 --> 0:24:20.300 that you just completed, teaching British literature of World War One. 0:24:20.340 --> 0:24:22.260 And it's great because we have a little bit of 0:24:22.300 --> 0:24:25.300 of cross-pollination here, both little literature, a little bit of 0:24:25.340 --> 0:24:28.580 history coming through that literature as well. And we start 0:24:28.580 --> 0:24:32.740 with something that I call the war. They thought they 0:24:32.780 --> 0:24:38.300 were fighting as World War One begins in 1914. What's 0:24:38.300 --> 0:24:42.659 the emotional tone that's dominating British writing and what's driving it? 0:24:42.700 --> 0:24:45.460 Yeah. So the tone is, is a time of change. 0:24:45.460 --> 0:24:49.379 The poets overall are sometimes resisting the lingering traces of 0:24:49.380 --> 0:24:52.340 the Victorian era. Modernism is still in its very early 0:24:52.340 --> 0:24:55.620 stages and is mostly a fringe avant garde movement. And 0:24:55.619 --> 0:24:57.700 so the poets who are trying to innovate away from 0:24:57.700 --> 0:25:01.139 the Victorian period are actually still very formal poets. A 0:25:01.180 --> 0:25:04.939 lot of their work is very pastoral, bucolic, sometimes a 0:25:04.940 --> 0:25:08.419 kind of rehashed romanticism. They're sometimes called the Georgian poets. 0:25:08.420 --> 0:25:11.540 After some anthologies that a number of them appeared in. 0:25:12.220 --> 0:25:15.140 And the tone of some of the poetry, including by 0:25:15.140 --> 0:25:18.660 other poets who are sort of lingering major figures that 0:25:18.660 --> 0:25:21.620 carry over from the romantic period, like Rudyard Kipling. There's 0:25:21.619 --> 0:25:26.300 a real desire for some kind of new test of 0:25:26.300 --> 0:25:30.900 courage or national identity. There's a real hunger to prove themselves. 0:25:30.900 --> 0:25:33.700 The last war that Britain had really been in was 0:25:33.700 --> 0:25:35.940 the Boer War, which of course had very mixed results 0:25:35.940 --> 0:25:39.100 and was very far away from home. So you see, 0:25:39.140 --> 0:25:42.820 you see this desire to kind of push and re-establish 0:25:42.820 --> 0:25:47.699 and establish masculinity and patriotism. And alongside it, then you 0:25:47.700 --> 0:25:51.660 also have this, like I said, pastoral, bucolic, romantic sort 0:25:51.660 --> 0:25:55.260 of tone of the English countryside. It's very idyllic in 0:25:55.260 --> 0:25:57.700 a lot of ways. So those are sort of kind 0:25:57.700 --> 0:26:00.300 of some of the dominant strains or modes that you 0:26:00.300 --> 0:26:04.340 see in that poetry in 1914, even before the war. 0:26:04.500 --> 0:26:07.500 And then especially once the war begins, you have major 0:26:07.500 --> 0:26:11.620 poets like Robert Graves, Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and D H. 0:26:11.660 --> 0:26:14.740 Lawrence are all kind of very significant younger poets at 0:26:14.740 --> 0:26:17.139 this particular point in time. And they are, as I mentioned, 0:26:17.180 --> 0:26:20.820 also very formal poets, too. They're writing in very traditional 0:26:21.180 --> 0:26:25.500 meters and forms. Modernism hasn't made its inroads yet. Imagism 0:26:25.500 --> 0:26:28.260 and futurism are these very avant garde movements that are 0:26:28.260 --> 0:26:30.780 read only by very small groups, and are also seen 0:26:30.780 --> 0:26:33.179 as having too much connection to either Europe or America 0:26:33.180 --> 0:26:36.379 to really be English enough to sort of satisfy the 0:26:36.380 --> 0:26:37.780 desire at this point in time. 0:26:37.820 --> 0:26:41.340 World War One has been called the most literary war. 0:26:41.660 --> 0:26:45.060 Do you think that's right? And maybe a little bit here, too, 0:26:45.100 --> 0:26:47.820 as to how you conceive the course while you're interested 0:26:47.820 --> 0:26:48.740 in teaching this? 0:26:48.940 --> 0:26:51.580 Yeah. So one way I conceived the course was that 0:26:51.580 --> 0:26:54.940 I was always teaching around this period in other courses 0:26:54.940 --> 0:26:57.140 that I taught. So I regularly teach a course on 0:26:57.140 --> 0:26:59.699 Victorian and modern British literature. We always do a day 0:26:59.700 --> 0:27:03.340 on the World War One poets. We always do THETS 0:27:03.340 --> 0:27:07.300 Eliot's The Wasteland as well. And I always do Virginia 0:27:07.300 --> 0:27:10.740 Woolf's To the Lighthouse. And all of these works have 0:27:10.740 --> 0:27:13.459 their either very explicit connection to the wars. In the 0:27:13.460 --> 0:27:15.660 case of the World War One poets, we focus primarily 0:27:15.660 --> 0:27:20.139 on Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. There especially. But to. 0:27:20.180 --> 0:27:23.700 The Lighthouse also has in that famous time passes sequence 0:27:23.700 --> 0:27:26.940 in the middle. Some very direct references to the war 0:27:26.940 --> 0:27:30.340 and war poetry. And of course, one way to look 0:27:30.340 --> 0:27:33.020 at T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland is that it's this poet 0:27:33.060 --> 0:27:38.180 of post-war England and post-war London in particular. So those 0:27:38.180 --> 0:27:40.419 were things that I just I really loved them. I 0:27:40.420 --> 0:27:41.939 really enjoyed them. I also taught a course on the 0:27:41.940 --> 0:27:45.540 Bloomsbury Group. These are all writers who lived through the war. 0:27:45.580 --> 0:27:48.740 They mostly don't fight in it, but they do engage 0:27:48.740 --> 0:27:52.060 in it in different ways. E.M. Forster, for instance, works 0:27:52.060 --> 0:27:56.300 in the National Gallery during the time period in which 0:27:56.340 --> 0:27:58.940 London is actually on the receiving end of some air 0:27:58.940 --> 0:28:03.540 raids and is putting like the best masterpieces in storage 0:28:03.540 --> 0:28:06.180 and putting the third rate masterpieces on the walls, which 0:28:06.180 --> 0:28:09.340 he said felt very appropriate. That's the correct company for 0:28:09.340 --> 0:28:12.580 him is the third rate masterpieces. And he also then 0:28:12.619 --> 0:28:17.100 worked in the Mediterranean identifying, uh, soldiers who were missing 0:28:17.100 --> 0:28:20.419 in action among the wounded. So you have all these connections. 0:28:20.420 --> 0:28:23.380 And I also really love some of the more recent 0:28:23.380 --> 0:28:25.670 literature that's come out about World War One by Pat 0:28:25.670 --> 0:28:30.510 Barker and Itchy and Hutchinson and some other writers. And 0:28:30.510 --> 0:28:31.790 so I was just going, I really just want to 0:28:31.790 --> 0:28:35.430 pull this all together into one class and see what 0:28:35.430 --> 0:28:37.790 it's like to go through it. The big challenge of 0:28:37.790 --> 0:28:42.070 producing the class actually became how to order it, because 0:28:42.070 --> 0:28:45.390 the works are not published in the same order as 0:28:45.390 --> 0:28:47.310 the time periods they deal with. And so if we 0:28:47.310 --> 0:28:51.030 read by chronological order, we would read, for instance, the Wasteland, 0:28:51.030 --> 0:28:54.110 which is about post-war London, before we read something like 0:28:54.110 --> 0:28:57.110 David Jones's in Parenthesis, which is about his actual time 0:28:57.110 --> 0:28:59.430 fighting in the war. And so he'd be constantly bouncing 0:28:59.430 --> 0:29:02.270 around time wise. And so I actually, and this went 0:29:02.270 --> 0:29:04.550 very much against my instincts in some ways organized the 0:29:04.550 --> 0:29:06.310 course according to the time period in which the works 0:29:06.310 --> 0:29:09.710 were set, rather than the time in which they were published, 0:29:09.710 --> 0:29:11.990 in order to give us a more coherent reading experience. 0:29:12.150 --> 0:29:13.990 But I've never had a course where that was such 0:29:13.990 --> 0:29:17.030 a problem to kind of grapple with. So yeah, so 0:29:17.030 --> 0:29:20.270 going back to World War One as the most literary war, 0:29:20.310 --> 0:29:22.150 I think in a lot of ways it is right. One, 0:29:22.190 --> 0:29:24.590 and it's part of this is some sociological things that 0:29:24.590 --> 0:29:27.350 are going on. You have the educational changes of the 0:29:27.350 --> 0:29:30.630 Victorian era that have caused this explosion in popular literacy, 0:29:31.070 --> 0:29:33.990 as well as the rapid increase from the same time 0:29:33.990 --> 0:29:37.310 period in print and periodical culture, which just means people 0:29:37.310 --> 0:29:40.510 are accustomed to reading. And also more and more people 0:29:40.510 --> 0:29:42.830 are accustomed to writing. So you have more and more 0:29:42.870 --> 0:29:46.750 working class writers or lower middle class writers, as opposed 0:29:46.750 --> 0:29:49.430 to the production of literary material being the work of 0:29:49.430 --> 0:29:52.390 the literary elite or the cultural elite. And so you 0:29:52.390 --> 0:29:56.070 have this army where people are just so accustomed to 0:29:56.110 --> 0:29:58.150 reading and writing, and that makes it very easy for 0:29:58.150 --> 0:30:01.870 them to produce work and also to consume work, whether 0:30:01.870 --> 0:30:03.430 that's about the war or other things. A lot of 0:30:03.430 --> 0:30:05.310 what they're reading in the trenches is actually not war 0:30:05.310 --> 0:30:09.350 material as well, which is really fascinating. Another interesting effect 0:30:09.350 --> 0:30:11.990 of this being a literary war is that because the 0:30:11.990 --> 0:30:16.390 Western Front is so close to home, it is incredibly 0:30:16.390 --> 0:30:20.910 easy for soldiers to quickly receive books and newspapers from England. 0:30:21.070 --> 0:30:23.630 And so you have soldiers who will write back to 0:30:23.670 --> 0:30:26.030 their family in the UK and say, I would really 0:30:26.030 --> 0:30:28.190 like a copy of this book that came out last month. 0:30:28.190 --> 0:30:30.070 Can you send it to me? And sometimes within a 0:30:30.070 --> 0:30:31.910 week they would have a copy of it, if not 0:30:31.910 --> 0:30:34.590 even less. And so there was just this very quick 0:30:34.590 --> 0:30:37.790 delivery time back and forth. So books were shipped to 0:30:37.790 --> 0:30:41.270 the trenches quickly and easily and then circulated among soldiers 0:30:41.270 --> 0:30:45.550 in the trenches. Newspapers also came very rapidly. Also, one 0:30:45.550 --> 0:30:47.550 of my favorite details is that you had the production 0:30:47.550 --> 0:30:50.990 of trench newspapers themselves. Soldiers on the front lines were 0:30:50.990 --> 0:30:55.430 producing material, newspapers and magazines for themselves in a variety 0:30:55.430 --> 0:30:57.590 of ways. Sometimes these were handwritten. They would just take 0:30:57.590 --> 0:31:00.630 paper they had and produce a handful of copies, writing 0:31:00.630 --> 0:31:03.470 them by hand, and then circulate them. Sometimes they would 0:31:03.470 --> 0:31:07.550 make use of military printing materials and supplies in order 0:31:07.550 --> 0:31:10.550 to produce them on actual printing materials. And then sometimes 0:31:10.550 --> 0:31:14.110 they found printing equipment in towns that had been evacuated 0:31:14.110 --> 0:31:16.070 and then just made use of those as well behind 0:31:16.070 --> 0:31:18.870 the front lines, and then circulated those newspapers or magazines 0:31:18.870 --> 0:31:21.190 up to the front lines. And so the just the 0:31:21.230 --> 0:31:25.469 sheer quantity of printed material that's produced is incredible. Even 0:31:25.470 --> 0:31:28.350 away from the front lines. You have conscientious objectors in 0:31:28.350 --> 0:31:32.270 prison who are also producing newspapers in prison, sometimes on 0:31:32.270 --> 0:31:35.030 squares of toilet paper, which they would then post in 0:31:35.070 --> 0:31:37.830 toilet stalls for the other prisoners to read because they 0:31:37.830 --> 0:31:39.870 were forbidden to actually speak to each other. And so 0:31:39.870 --> 0:31:44.590 just the impetus to write everywhere is, is remarkable. And 0:31:44.590 --> 0:31:47.110 they produce a tremendous amount of material as a result. 0:31:47.150 --> 0:31:50.390 Talking with Doctor Elizabeth Fredericks about the British literature of 0:31:50.390 --> 0:31:53.430 World War One these early days here, what do some 0:31:53.430 --> 0:31:57.950 of the early war poems reveal about how that conflict 0:31:57.990 --> 0:32:01.910 was imagined before people really understood what was happening? 0:32:01.950 --> 0:32:05.350 Yes, there's this real notion, especially in the early days 0:32:05.350 --> 0:32:11.790 of 1914, of defending both small nations like Belgium and 0:32:11.790 --> 0:32:15.870 also defending Englishness itself. There's a lot of pastoralism in 0:32:15.870 --> 0:32:19.390 these early poems, a very idealised picture of rural England 0:32:19.430 --> 0:32:23.110 that poets like John Masefield and John Freeman invoke in 0:32:23.110 --> 0:32:25.670 their particular work. And so they give this sort of 0:32:25.710 --> 0:32:29.790 very idealized rural place. And how people think this. Imagine this. 0:32:29.790 --> 0:32:32.670 This is what you're fighting for. This sort of heart 0:32:32.670 --> 0:32:35.550 of Englishness, which is also such a fascinating move because 0:32:35.550 --> 0:32:37.390 most of the soldiers on the front lines don't actually 0:32:37.390 --> 0:32:40.350 come from there. Most of them come from industrial environments. 0:32:40.350 --> 0:32:43.430 And so it's a very imagined world that they're kind 0:32:43.430 --> 0:32:48.030 of being encouraged to fight for. Thomas Hardy, interestingly, is 0:32:48.030 --> 0:32:50.230 one of the few who sees this war from very 0:32:50.230 --> 0:32:53.550 early stages as a real rupture between the two nations, 0:32:53.550 --> 0:32:56.310 who were linked in many ways, reflecting on the fact 0:32:56.310 --> 0:33:00.229 that their monarchs are cousins, for instance, by intellectual and 0:33:00.230 --> 0:33:03.550 artistic traditions that become very entwined in the 19th century. 0:33:04.030 --> 0:33:06.670 Like other English writers, he does blame the Germans for 0:33:06.670 --> 0:33:10.150 the war primarily as the aggressors who have started it, 0:33:10.150 --> 0:33:12.550 but he finds it appalling. He finds it a real 0:33:12.550 --> 0:33:14.950 shift from what he sees as this 19th century culture 0:33:14.950 --> 0:33:18.590 of exchange and mutual improvement that is just suddenly warped 0:33:18.590 --> 0:33:21.870 and defaced into violence and horror. 0:33:22.470 --> 0:33:25.790 Poems by Rupert Brooke are covered in the class two. 0:33:25.830 --> 0:33:28.790 Why are his poems so powerful and so persuasive at 0:33:28.790 --> 0:33:29.310 the time? 0:33:29.350 --> 0:33:32.230 Yes. So there's I mean, one is that he is 0:33:32.270 --> 0:33:35.430 a poet on the rise, so he's already a pretty 0:33:35.430 --> 0:33:40.350 well respected and admired young poetic figure, very talented by 0:33:40.350 --> 0:33:42.550 all accounts, also very beautiful. So he has this kind 0:33:42.550 --> 0:33:45.190 of public persona that's built on both his appearance as 0:33:45.190 --> 0:33:49.070 well as his work. And so there's there's that name 0:33:49.070 --> 0:33:51.830 recognition that comes. It's also impossible to avoid the fact 0:33:51.830 --> 0:33:54.750 that he dies very, very early in the war and tragically, 0:33:54.750 --> 0:33:57.990 not even in conflict. He dies of septicaemia from an 0:33:57.990 --> 0:34:03.270 infected mosquito bite that he actually retains in 1914. So 0:34:03.270 --> 0:34:05.550 he doesn't he barely even makes it to combat in 0:34:05.550 --> 0:34:08.190 a meaningful way. Nonetheless, he does a lot of the 0:34:08.190 --> 0:34:10.790 things that we sort of talk about. He presents this 0:34:10.790 --> 0:34:15.189 very beautiful, again, rural, idealised England that he imagines he's 0:34:15.190 --> 0:34:19.469 fighting for. He also gives there's this very interesting, very 0:34:19.469 --> 0:34:23.190 beautiful religious tone, famously in his five part sonnet sequence, 0:34:23.190 --> 0:34:25.910 The Soldier. He gives us that line about, Thank God 0:34:25.910 --> 0:34:28.750 who has matched us with this hour, and the sense 0:34:28.750 --> 0:34:31.310 that this is going to be something that makes people 0:34:31.350 --> 0:34:37.149 better versions of themselves. There's this image of idealized masculinity 0:34:37.150 --> 0:34:40.469 that he offers, this idea of like soldiers into clean water. 0:34:40.630 --> 0:34:43.830 Slipping is one of the images that he gives. And 0:34:43.830 --> 0:34:46.350 then in the fifth poem of that sequence, he gives 0:34:46.350 --> 0:34:49.029 this idea of, if I should fall in battle. Think 0:34:49.030 --> 0:34:51.910 of that as there's some corner of England that is 0:34:51.910 --> 0:34:56.390 forever there. Now, like if I die abroad, Englishness is 0:34:56.390 --> 0:34:59.390 there too. And so we sort of spread it in 0:34:59.390 --> 0:35:02.669 this way our ideals, our virtues, our beauty, our kind 0:35:02.670 --> 0:35:06.549 of everywhere. And it's a sort of romantic death that 0:35:06.550 --> 0:35:09.110 he offers one that's very in line with all these 0:35:09.350 --> 0:35:12.910 young public school men raised upon classical literature, and this 0:35:12.910 --> 0:35:16.870 ideal of dying in battle gloriously and beautifully. These poems, 0:35:16.870 --> 0:35:19.029 I think, kind of feed upon that and offer that 0:35:19.030 --> 0:35:24.230 as well. And so it's, it's a just this intensely idealized, 0:35:24.270 --> 0:35:27.630 gorgeous picture that he offers of what it means to 0:35:27.670 --> 0:35:29.910 go and fight, and then also what it may mean 0:35:29.910 --> 0:35:33.910 to go and die. That downplays the terror and elevates 0:35:33.910 --> 0:35:36.710 the nobility of what he thinks that he is doing. 0:35:36.750 --> 0:35:40.350 Idealized masculinity is a phrase you use. Do. Do we 0:35:40.350 --> 0:35:44.989 see that? Do we see duty? Do we see sacrifice 0:35:44.989 --> 0:35:48.230 that become integral parts of this early writing? 0:35:48.310 --> 0:35:50.870 There's a lot. And Kipling is one of the most 0:35:50.870 --> 0:35:53.990 interesting writers to turn to to see some of this. 0:35:54.510 --> 0:35:57.150 One thing you do see is a lot of, um, 0:35:57.190 --> 0:36:01.149 Christ like imagery that appears particularly in his work. If 0:36:01.150 --> 0:36:04.109 you look at his poem The Children, for instance, where 0:36:04.110 --> 0:36:06.509 he's talking about because Kipling, of course, is too old 0:36:06.510 --> 0:36:09.150 to go and fight himself and has incredibly poor eyesight, 0:36:09.150 --> 0:36:10.989 so they wouldn't take him even if he wasn't over 0:36:10.989 --> 0:36:14.230 40 years old. But so he's reflecting on the children 0:36:14.270 --> 0:36:16.989 of people like himself who are going off to fight, 0:36:16.989 --> 0:36:19.350 and he has the remarkable line, he says, where they 0:36:19.350 --> 0:36:21.870 bought us anew with their blood. And you're like, that's 0:36:21.870 --> 0:36:25.029 just this inevitable Christ like image that he's offering of 0:36:25.030 --> 0:36:27.230 the sacrifice that the soldiers are giving. And this is, 0:36:27.230 --> 0:36:29.470 of course, his poetry in the early days there as well. 0:36:29.510 --> 0:36:32.189 His very famous poem from very early in the war, 0:36:32.230 --> 0:36:35.989 from almost the literal beginning for all we have in 0:36:35.989 --> 0:36:40.310 our lives, this very borderline religious as well as patriotic duty, 0:36:40.310 --> 0:36:42.549 that you must go fight because it's not just what 0:36:42.550 --> 0:36:44.670 your country asks of you, but in some way it 0:36:44.670 --> 0:36:47.630 must be what God is asking of you too. And 0:36:47.630 --> 0:36:51.670 so both the the duty and sacrifice elements there have 0:36:51.670 --> 0:36:54.549 this very strong religious pull that's, that's very hard to 0:36:54.590 --> 0:36:57.230 resist there. And the masculinity piece is definitely part of 0:36:57.230 --> 0:36:58.950 it as well. Like this is also just what you 0:36:58.950 --> 0:37:00.549 would do if you're really a man, you will go 0:37:00.550 --> 0:37:03.190 and defend England, and you'll also go and defend the 0:37:03.190 --> 0:37:06.950 little countries like Belgium, who are small and don't have 0:37:06.950 --> 0:37:10.310 big armies and need, like the brave Tommy, to come 0:37:10.310 --> 0:37:12.390 and stand up for them. Jessie Pope, a very famous 0:37:12.390 --> 0:37:15.589 propaganda writer for this time writes, for instance, poems that 0:37:15.590 --> 0:37:18.549 cast the British Tommy as the David who stands up 0:37:18.550 --> 0:37:21.750 to the Goliath who fights, and so again cast in 0:37:21.750 --> 0:37:24.630 the strongly religious as well as patriotic mode. 0:37:24.670 --> 0:37:27.989 Talking with Doctor Elizabeth Fredericks about the British literature of 0:37:27.989 --> 0:37:31.029 World War One in the early days. Right now, the 0:37:31.030 --> 0:37:35.470 39 steps. It's not about trench warfare, but it is 0:37:35.469 --> 0:37:38.750 in this World War One conversation. Why does it belong? 0:37:38.989 --> 0:37:42.630 Yeah. So the 39 steps is by the novelist and 0:37:42.630 --> 0:37:46.870 politician John Buchan. And it's not explicitly about trench warfare. 0:37:46.910 --> 0:37:48.629 It was also the very first thing we read in 0:37:48.630 --> 0:37:51.750 this class. And my students, the day they came in 0:37:51.790 --> 0:37:54.950 to talk about the first day, they just looked slightly puzzled. 0:37:54.950 --> 0:37:56.430 And I was going, I bet you guys didn't think 0:37:56.430 --> 0:37:59.069 you were allowed to have this much fun in a 0:37:59.070 --> 0:38:02.030 class about World War One literature. And they went, no, no, 0:38:02.030 --> 0:38:04.950 we did not expect that because it is a tremendously 0:38:04.950 --> 0:38:08.469 fun novel. Now, Buchan doesn't fight in the war, but 0:38:08.469 --> 0:38:12.430 he has this history in British government and military. He 0:38:12.510 --> 0:38:16.430 was stationed in South Africa after the Boer War in 0:38:16.469 --> 0:38:19.989 Lord Kitchener's kindergarten, as it was called, which is a 0:38:19.989 --> 0:38:23.870 number of young, sort of upwardly mobile people who become 0:38:23.870 --> 0:38:27.549 political and economic figures in Britain later. And so he's 0:38:27.550 --> 0:38:29.990 one of those. When he returns to England, he remains 0:38:29.989 --> 0:38:35.830 involved in the civil service and in 1915, 1914, 1915, 0:38:35.870 --> 0:38:38.109 we actually don't have a very good handle on what 0:38:38.110 --> 0:38:40.350 he was doing, which has led some to suspect he 0:38:40.350 --> 0:38:44.189 was doing intelligence work, but he also, at one point 0:38:44.190 --> 0:38:46.430 is ill. Or maybe he says he's ill and he's 0:38:46.469 --> 0:38:49.430 actually doing intelligence work again. It's a little fuzzy for 0:38:49.430 --> 0:38:51.790 people who've actually dug into it, but that's the time 0:38:51.790 --> 0:38:54.790 period in which he writes the 39 steps is in 0:38:54.790 --> 0:38:59.750 early 1915. And so the war has begun, and Buchan 0:38:59.750 --> 0:39:02.669 has this eye towards morale on the home front from 0:39:02.670 --> 0:39:05.910 the very beginning. Significantly, he does become the director of 0:39:05.910 --> 0:39:10.590 information in 1917, which makes him a propaganda, essentially the 0:39:10.590 --> 0:39:14.590 head of propaganda for the British government, and he later 0:39:14.590 --> 0:39:19.549 becomes the head of intelligence. So very interested in morale, 0:39:19.550 --> 0:39:21.910 in what people are thinking and in controlling the image 0:39:21.910 --> 0:39:24.670 of the war. And so the 39 steps, while it's 0:39:24.670 --> 0:39:26.989 not explicitly about the war, if we think of it 0:39:26.989 --> 0:39:30.910 as propaganda, writing about that indirectly about the war, it 0:39:30.910 --> 0:39:33.910 fits very well. It's not about trench warfare, but it 0:39:33.910 --> 0:39:36.989 is about a conspiracy to start an international war in 0:39:36.989 --> 0:39:39.750 Europe by assassinating a head of state suggestively headed by 0:39:39.750 --> 0:39:44.029 German conspirators. So it's barely subtext that it's about World 0:39:44.030 --> 0:39:46.310 War One. And so it's written very early in the war. 0:39:46.310 --> 0:39:50.790 It's serialised in Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine in summer 1915 and 0:39:50.790 --> 0:39:53.230 then published in full in the fall. And it's it's 0:39:53.230 --> 0:39:57.350 a thriller. It's essentially just a domestic espionage thriller with 0:39:57.350 --> 0:40:02.030 this main character, Richard Hannay, who's just an ordinary guy. No, 0:40:02.030 --> 0:40:05.070 no one particularly special, as he goes to great pains 0:40:05.070 --> 0:40:08.150 to point out. He just stumbles into this conspiracy rather 0:40:08.150 --> 0:40:10.880 by accident, and then has to do something about it 0:40:10.880 --> 0:40:16.439 because he's just a good, straightforward, honest British man. Made 0:40:16.440 --> 0:40:19.640 his pile in South Africa has this connection to Scotland. 0:40:19.800 --> 0:40:21.719 And so this is this is sort of the figure 0:40:21.719 --> 0:40:24.360 that you have. He's very ordinary, like your soldiers who 0:40:24.360 --> 0:40:27.640 were fighting in the war, not particularly prominent, not particularly 0:40:27.640 --> 0:40:31.280 skilled in special things, but he just has this decency 0:40:31.280 --> 0:40:35.200 of character and this determination to do what's right and 0:40:35.200 --> 0:40:37.680 to do what must be done. And because he has 0:40:37.680 --> 0:40:39.279 spent this time in South Africa, he also has a 0:40:39.280 --> 0:40:43.200 remarkable number of practical skills as well. So that's very helpful. 0:40:43.200 --> 0:40:46.560 And it's immensely popular in the trenches. There's a soldier 0:40:46.560 --> 0:40:49.080 who writes to Buchan saying that he ripped through the 0:40:49.080 --> 0:40:51.800 whole thing in a single night when he was posted 0:40:51.800 --> 0:40:54.680 on the front lines. So it gets passed around. It's 0:40:54.680 --> 0:40:58.279 immensely popular, and it does give you this character of like, 0:40:58.320 --> 0:41:02.480 oh yes, here are what ordinary British citizens are capable of, 0:41:02.480 --> 0:41:06.560 which is foiling tremendous evil just through their sort of 0:41:06.600 --> 0:41:11.040 practical intelligence, common sense, and basic decency, and he goes 0:41:11.040 --> 0:41:14.040 on to write multiple. He writes multiple novels throughout World 0:41:14.040 --> 0:41:17.200 War One that continue to be very popular and then continues, 0:41:17.200 --> 0:41:19.200 of course, to write them after World War One as well. 0:41:19.360 --> 0:41:22.080 But it's this immensely popular trench novel, and like I said, 0:41:22.120 --> 0:41:24.719 immensely popular work of propaganda fiction as well, when you 0:41:24.719 --> 0:41:25.640 look at it that way. 0:41:26.360 --> 0:41:29.960 The description of 39 steps makes it all the all 0:41:30.280 --> 0:41:34.200 too clear why it became a Hitchcock film later on. 0:41:34.600 --> 0:41:37.279 Yes, Hitchcock film has been a miniseries, and now it's 0:41:37.280 --> 0:41:40.719 also an extremely successful comedic play as well. It's just 0:41:40.719 --> 0:41:42.760 its afterlives are extraordinary. 0:41:42.760 --> 0:41:47.240 So if literature was providing a some, some a morale 0:41:47.280 --> 0:41:50.720 boost or providing some reassurance to the home front during 0:41:50.719 --> 0:41:53.960 the beginning days and years. Well, beginning months of the war, 0:41:53.960 --> 0:41:56.920 let's say, where do we first begin to see some 0:41:56.920 --> 0:42:00.760 cracks forming in that confidence story of the war? 0:42:01.000 --> 0:42:05.480 You see, the cracks begin to form throughout 1915 as 0:42:05.480 --> 0:42:08.520 it becomes clear that this war is not going to 0:42:08.520 --> 0:42:12.120 be one of a consistently moving front or these interesting 0:42:12.120 --> 0:42:15.640 and and quick offenses that create rapid changes in the 0:42:15.640 --> 0:42:19.640 conditions of the war. But they really expand significantly in 0:42:19.680 --> 0:42:23.560 1916 with the particularly devastating battles of that year that 0:42:23.560 --> 0:42:26.880 continue into 1917 as well. The long battle of the 0:42:26.880 --> 0:42:31.000 Somme in the summer in particular, is just especially horrifying 0:42:31.000 --> 0:42:34.320 for the soldiers who were fighting. Uh, and numerous soldiers 0:42:34.320 --> 0:42:37.040 serve in that battle. The novelist David Jones, for instance, 0:42:37.040 --> 0:42:40.480 himself points to 1916 as a year where it really 0:42:40.480 --> 0:42:43.719 felt like things changed. Famously. You have like the Christmas 0:42:43.719 --> 0:42:47.000 truce of 1914, where the soldiers came out of their 0:42:47.000 --> 0:42:51.640 trenches and played soccer in no man's land and exchanged gifts. 0:42:51.840 --> 0:42:55.760 And and so that happened in 1914. More sporadic, smaller 0:42:55.760 --> 0:43:00.000 versions of it happened in 1915. But after 1916, nothing 0:43:00.000 --> 0:43:04.960 like it ever happens again. Things harden. There's just more disillusionment. 0:43:04.960 --> 0:43:09.640 There's far more suffering and, and things just aren't changing. 0:43:09.640 --> 0:43:12.840 And you just have such heavy casualties in these battles 0:43:12.840 --> 0:43:15.080 where you have, for instance, a million casualties in a 0:43:15.080 --> 0:43:20.760 single day of particularly terrible offenses. And just it's really 0:43:20.760 --> 0:43:23.560 impossible to maintain that sort of bright and lively picture 0:43:23.560 --> 0:43:26.799 of the war you get from something like the 39 steps. 0:43:26.800 --> 0:43:29.719 It's hard to maintain that sense of sort of clean, 0:43:29.719 --> 0:43:33.520 idealized beauty that you get from Rupert Brooke. The soldiers 0:43:33.520 --> 0:43:36.160 are suffering from things like trench foot, which is what 0:43:36.160 --> 0:43:39.120 happens when you're wearing all these wet shoes and wet 0:43:39.160 --> 0:43:43.880 socks for days upon days. And and so, yes, the 0:43:44.080 --> 0:43:46.719 struggle of all of that just becomes more miserable when 0:43:46.719 --> 0:43:50.400 your reality is rats and lice. It's hard to be 0:43:50.400 --> 0:43:53.560 rosy about the situation that's happening and go, yes, indeed, 0:43:53.560 --> 0:43:56.239 this is the this is the idealized picture of the 0:43:56.239 --> 0:43:58.120 world that we came here to fight for. 0:43:58.160 --> 0:44:00.399 In part two, we'll talk about telling the truth about 0:44:00.400 --> 0:44:04.040 what's happening in those trenches during World War One. Doctor 0:44:04.040 --> 0:44:08.400 Elizabeth Fredericks with us, associate professor of English at Hillsdale College, 0:44:08.400 --> 0:44:12.040 talking about her course on the British literature of World 0:44:12.040 --> 0:44:15.040 War One. Doctor Fredericks, thanks for joining us on the 0:44:15.040 --> 0:44:18.960 Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. That will wrap up this edition 0:44:18.960 --> 0:44:22.720 of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Seth Barron. 0:44:22.719 --> 0:44:26.759 His book weaponized the left's capture and destruction of America's 0:44:26.760 --> 0:44:33.080 sacred institutions. And Doctor Elizabeth Fredericks from Hillsdale English Department. Remember, 0:44:33.080 --> 0:44:35.759 you can hear new episodes every week on this station. 0:44:35.880 --> 0:44:39.080 You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews, 0:44:39.080 --> 0:44:45.600 or listen any time to the podcast. Find it@podcast.hillsdale.edu or 0:44:45.600 --> 0:44:50.480 wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertram, 0:44:50.560 --> 0:44:54.440 and this has been the radio free Hillsdale Hour.