The Aaron Renn Show

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The Quest for Legacy Jun 06, 2022

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The desire for a transcendent connection to the past and future is a primal human desire. We want to know where we came from. We want to know that we will be remembered in the future, that the experience and possessions we've accumulated will live on in and with others. Our world, which is explicitly liberationist, attempts to destroy these longings and organic connection to a lineage beyond ourselves. But it hasn't succeeded, as the rise of people doing 23 & Me or researching their family tree shows. Thus our world will continue to create dissatisfactions and anxieties in the people.

Conservatives Don't Fund Art May 23, 2022

Show notes

Michael Anton has a new essay talking about conservative funding of art and journalism. I discuss this, as well as reiterate my points about conservative organizations not being especially interested in primary or ethographic research either. But even with funding or institutional support, there also has to be the talent to take these projects on, and the desire to seek truth, not just confirm pre-existing biases or dogmas.
Michael Anton: The Tom Wolfe Model - https://im1776.com/2022/05/13/the-tom-wolfe-model/
My Review of "American Made" - https://americancompass.org/the-commons/coming-apart-hoosier-state/
Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

This Is Your Country (Newsletter #64) May 16, 2022

Show notes

The idea of American exceptionalism has long blinded us to our country's legitimate faults. Having said that, activists attempt to use America's faults to morally debilitate its people in order to accomplish their own agenda. As Americans, this is our country. We can love it for that alone, without any further justification. We don't have to apologize for America and how we feel about it anymore than a Han Chinese immigrant has to feel shame over what his people are doing to the Uighurs back in China. No ethnic group or nationality should be subjected to this type of moral debilitation. We just rejected attempts to morally debilitate us. Yet we must also be willing to acknowledge America's faults where they exist, and work to correct them in the ways that we are positioned and feel called to do so. To riff off of Chesterton, we don't love America because she is great, but her greatness comes from our love of her.

Life at the Cultural Center May 09, 2022

Show notes

Reflections on the differing perspectives of people at the cultural center and the cultural periphery. Very successful people and those in the cultural center tend to have a more positive view of society and are less likely to support fundamental or outside the Overton Window change.
The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/02/the-three-worlds-of-evangelicalism

Only the Paranoid Survive May 02, 2022

Show notes

Evangelicals often take a dismissive or even smug attitude towards the decline of the mainline denominations. They'd be will served instead to ask themselves some tough questions like, "Why isn't the same thing going to happen to us?"

Managerialism vs. Localism Apr 25, 2022

Show notes

If, as I laid out in newsletter #63, we live in a managerial society in which power resides in large institutions, how should we think about localism and localist movements? I examine this question in the latest podcast.
Newsletter #63: Understanding the Managerial Revolution - https://aaronrenn.substack.com/p/newsletter-63-understanding-the-managerial
County Before Country Conference: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/county-before-country-22-tickets-317725755287

ANDREW CRAPUCHETTES: Navigating the Woke Job Market Apr 19, 2022

Show notes

Andrew Crapuchettes founded the job board Red Balloon to connect employees with jobs at companies that did not have a Covid vaccine mandates. It's grown rapidly and become a place for both companies and employees looking to focus on business and avoid politics in the workplace. He joins to discuss today's job market and how workers can navigate it.
Visit Red Balloon: https://www.redballoon.work/
Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Outsider Cultural Change Apr 18, 2022

Show notes

Many people subscribe to James Davison Hunter's view that cultural change is driven by elites and institutions in the cultural center. That's a generally true statement, but can easily mislead us into thinking that all change must originate with elites. While elite buy-in may be necessary to institutionalize change, the ideas themselves can originate on the margins. I explore this by looking at the views of Eric Hoffer, who puts forth a view almost completely opposite of Hunter, arguing that the new almost always originates with outcasts, misfits, and failures rather than highly successful elites.
Eric Hoffer's The Ordeal of Change: https://www.amazon.com/Ordeal-Change-Eric-Hoffer/dp/1933435100/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=theurban-20
Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Understanding the Managerial Revolution (Newsletter #63) Apr 11, 2022

Show notes

An introduction to James Burnham's concept of the managerial revolution, or how managers and bureaucrats came to dominate society (vs. old school business owners or political leaders). We discuss industrialization's revolution in scale that created the managerial class and the transformations wrought by managerialism. We also cover managerialism's limits and weaknesses, and key lessons that an understanding of the managerial nature of our regime can teach us.
Subscribe to my newsletter: https://aaronrenn.substack.com/

Immigration, Chaos and Order Apr 04, 2022

Show notes

Many things in life are a product of dualisms like chaos and order, yin and yang, hot and cold, change and preservation. Unlike with good vs. evil, these are not simple opposites, but principles that need to be integrated. The right balance is not a static one for all time, but depends upon the needs of the time. I discuss this principle using immigration as a case study. Immigration is not a matter of simply good or bad, but finding the right balance of dynamism and rootedness for the times.

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