Sunday Thoughts: Authoritarianism in Brussels, Disinformation, and Dark Enchantment
And a milestone
Class mates. Let’s start with milestones. The Thinking Class Substack hit 103 subscribers, up from 84 last week. The YouTube channel jumped from 75 to 130 subscribers. Viewing and listening figures are growing sharply too. In the last week the Thinking Class podcast hit 12,000 views, downloads and plays in total. 6,000 of those came from the last 6 episodes, the other 6,000 from the previous 17. 3,000 came from the last two episodes alone. The episode with Paul Morland on the demographic destiny of the world has been very popular, racking up just over 2000 views on YouTube in its first 48 hours. Thank you mysterious algorithm gods.
Whatever’s behind it, here’s to an ever upward trending curve. Whether this will be due to Lady Fortuna smiling on me or the fruits of my attempts to be a better interviewer makes no odds, I suppose. All I can do is commit to keep engaging with guests from different philosophical, political, and professional backgrounds as we seek to uphold the good, the true, and the beautiful in our world.
In the real world, outside of my subscriber and viewing stats, there have been a couple of rather high profile goings on, which show why freedom is not in rude health. If you don’t know about the happenings in Brussels at the National Conservatism conference, then do read the articles below. The UnHerd expose of the disinformation industry is well worth a watch too.
Links and recommendations
Government
Inside the disinformation industryA government-sponsored agency is censoring journalism | by Freddie Sayers in UnHerd
Here are a couple of articles on the attempts of Belgian authorities to shutdown National Conservatism conference in Brussels
‘Between Caliphate and Dictatorship’ |
inMayor with Turkish Islamist Links Shuts Down NatCon Brussels |
inNatCon triumphs in Brussels | Also from Rod Dreher
We must become Chernobyl Wolves | John Michael Greer in UnHerd
Culture
Cultural Christianity and the vulgar wisdom of memes | by Sebastian Milbank in The Critic
- in
From Dante to Solzhenitsyn—The Worst Thing about Progressive Ideology | by Ernst Roets in The European Conservative
This week’s podcast
Check out the latest episode with
who is well known for her work on critical theory (and making it look very silly as a governing philosophy). In this episode, which you can listen to here and watch here, Helen makes the case for each of us to continue practicing liberal values in an increasingly illiberal world.Popular Thinking Class clips and episodes
Here are some clips from the incredibly popular episode with Paul Morland on the demographic destiny of the world with a particular focus on Britain:
A heartfelt explanation from Lionel Shriver as to why she left Britain:
I’ll always be a big fan of
invoking Plato to explain why using AI makes us lesser beings.Coming up
You can expect to hear episodes with Sebastian Milbank, Executive Editor at The Critic,
Professor of Politics at University of Buckingham, and in the next month or so.Until next time, class mates.
I've added a recommendation from my site. I hope it will help your subscriber numbers.