Driven in part by the revival of a classic knit sweater emblazoned with an American flag, "Ralph Lauren nationalism" has emerged as a trope among online talking-heads. Well-dressed political scientist Samuel Goldman is also known for his sharp takes on menswear. He joins host James Patterson to discuss his recent article for Compact magazine that tackled the concept. There may be something to the Ralph Lauren aesthetic that captures an essential quality of the American character, Goldman argues, but it's not exactly what the highly-online chatterers think it is.

"The Meaning of Ralph Lauren Nationalism" by Samuel Goldman

Neighborhoods are one of the most important human support structures, argues Seth D. Kaplan. Yet modern politics, economics, and social habits all seem aligned to undermine them. Discussing his recent book, Fragile Neighborhoods, Kaplan explains why neighborhoods are irreplaceable sources of human community, and why they are often in such bad shape today. "No government or philanthropic program can replace the benefits that the day-in-day-out love of parents and the continuous support of the community provide. Social services may address material needs and they may help mitigate specific problems after the fact, but they're rarely equipped to provide the care nurturing and targeted discipline that a supportive family and community deliver.”

Daniel DiMartino calls balls and strikes on the ongoing, highly partisan debate over immigration, legal and illegal. The border ought to be secure, and asylum limited to those who have a genuine need for it, he argues. But border policy ought always to bound by law. When it comes to legal immigration, according to DiMartino, we do well to avoid an economics of nostalgia and should welcome the kind of immigration that adds to American life. DiMartino also recalls a recent run-in with the residual cancel culture at Columbia University.

What Solzhenitsyn called "the ideological lie" was not limited to a single country, government, or movement. And it did not, unfortunately, die off in 1989. In his new book, Mahoney presents the lie as the replacement of traditional categories of "good and evil" with "progress and reaction," a change that ripples through political and social ideas in a way that opens the door to the replacement of truth by an imposed, false reality. Though we shouldn't pretend that America today approaches the kind of tyranny seen in the twentieth century, we should recognize that the totalitarian impulse is alive and well.

The drive to pursue wisdom is engrained in every human being, right? Many have believed so. But in his new book, Ignorance and Bliss, Mark Lilla argues that a certain "will to ignorance" is also part of the human experience. Like Plato's Thrasymachus, many often want to throw up their hands in resignation rather than commit themselves to the pursuit of truth, creating a tension in human life that is sometimes reasonable and sometimes pathological. Lilla offers an explanation for this phenomenon, drawing on philosophy, religion, psychology, and history. He joins James Patterson to discuss the book.

"Christian Nationalism" splashes across headlines regularly. But there is no clear definition of it. Is it just an epithet? A concept used for partisan manipulation? A real trend in socio-religious thought in America? Smith, Hall, and Williams consider different definitions, which ideas might be lumped into the category, and how it relates to American pluralism, historical Christianity, and contemporary populism.

Philip Rieff adopted the categories and language of Freud, but reinterpreted them in a way that supported culture and the moral life. Batchelder and Harding have edited a new volume of essays on Rieff, who they argue is a key thinker for any attempt to diagnose late modern cultural life. They join host James Patterson to discuss Rieff, Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan Sontag, and unimaginable depravities.

Historically grounded assessments of the American republic's relationship with religion require nuanced thinking and an appreciation for ambiguity. Unfortunately, those qualities don't sell. So American history is replete with attempts to construct a simple narrative of a Christian nation or a wholly secular liberalism. Jerome Copulsky and Mark Noll join James Patterson to discuss Copulsky's book, American Heretics, which examines certain strands of religious thinking that, in one way or another, have sought to overcome the fact of American religious pluralism.