Give the gift of everyday luxury and make every moment comfortable. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code COZYMMM for 20% off sitewide. And if you get a Post-Purchase Survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth at the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast.

The word 'meritocracy' was originally intended as a pejorative. It was coined in a 1958 novel written by the British social scientist Michael Young. In the dystopia that Young imagined, the old order has been overthrown and replaced with a tyrannical system obsessed with merit.

Today's guest not only joins Young in his critique of meritocracy, he also takes a further bold step in endorsing some extremely old fashioned ideas about wealth, family, and legacy.

In an age when celebrities routinely boast about their plans to disinherit their children and leave them to fend for themselves financially, Johann Kurtz makes a counter-cultural argument for nepotism. Do not give your money to charity, he says. Do not encourage your children to launch themselves into the meritocratic rat race. Learn, instead, from the ancient practices of aristocrats who had very different ideas about how to cultivate virtue in their descendants.

Kurtz is the author of the 'Becoming Noble' Substack. His new book is titled 'Leaving a Legacy: Inheritance, Charity, & Thousand-Year Families.'

Discussed in the show:

• 'Leaving a Legacy'
• Stress induced by downward social mobility
• 'Good Money' podcast series
• Survey on attitudes towards grandchildren
• 'Toxic Charity'
• 'Revolt of the Elites'

MMM is sponsored by 321 - a new online introduction to Christianity, presented by former MMM guest Glen Scrivener. Check it out for free at 321course.com/MMM. Just enter your email, choose a password and you’re in — there’s no spam and no fees.

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In this bonus episode, Ed West and I spoke about the mode of British governance that is simultaneously sinister and farcical, from the recent 'Prevent video game' to the police horses sent to re-education because they wouldn't walk over rainbow pedestrian crossings.

Discussed in this episode:

• Conservatives are more accurate in describing the beliefs of liberals
• "Met police hired black child rapist to boost diversity"
• "Met urges Epping migrant sex offender to hand himself in"
• "The Birmingham Maccabi scandal proves multiculturalism has failed"
• Garrett Jones book on migration and culture
• "UAE cuts funds for students keen to study in UK ‘over fears campuses radicalised by Islamist groups'"

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Give the gift of everyday luxury and make every moment comfortable. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code COZYMMM for 20% off sitewide. And if you get a Post-Purchase Survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth at the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast.

My guest today is George Owers, historian and author of a new book, 'The Rage of Party: How Whig Versus Tory Made Modern Britain.'

Owers traces our contemporary culture war back to the end of the seventeenth century, when the conflict between Whigs and Tories was the central drama of English politics. One side was isolationist, opposed to immigration, and preferred a small state. The other was open to the rest of the world, and had ambitious plans for tax rises and state expansion. The two sides differed on the role of religion in public life, and on which ideas and symbols ought to be considered sacred. Does any of this sound familiar?

Owers argues that we are still seeing this drama play out, not just in England but across the Anglosphere. Our political conflicts are still theological conflicts, and they are surpassingly important.

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