One of my French intellectual friends, Pierre Valentin (follow him on X, if you’re interested in France), recently started a show called Transmission, which boasts what strikes me as the most wonderful lineup for intelligent conversations anywhere in the world just now, available on YouTube. One could think of it as a defense of civilization from the part of the Catholic liberal-democratic rightwing in France.
His latest transmission is a conversation with the venerable Rémi Brague, a historian of thought specialized in the Middle Ages. Many of Brague’s books have been translated in America, four of them by my friend & fellow PoMoCon Paul Seaton:
Pierre’s upcoming interviews this month are even more impressive: Chantal Delsol & Pierre Manent, the most accomplished writers in France now, who are unsurprisingly Catholics. I’ll write more in the future about the interesting fact that Catholics seem less vulnerable to nihilism than the triumphant intellectuals of the left, who were the great successes of the 20th c., not despite, but because they were nowhere near as impressive as thinkers as the great (& sometimes terrible) figures on the right—Heidegger, above all.
That said, Pierre interviews young & middle-aged men & women as well, usually figures of the center-right who criticize the dangerous developments in society & thought nowadays. Granted, for those who do not speak French, there is a significant language barrier, but so far as I’ve checked the YouTube auto-translated subtitles in English, they’re fine. If you have some French, but are not fluent, I bet the French auto-generated subtitles would prove helpful. To the extent to which you can overcome the barrier, I recommend the interviews, especially with the venerables of French thought, because they are remarkably charming & there is a humanity in their conversation that is rare, perhaps at all times, certainly today.
Nor are the conversations scholarly, they’re what we call intellectual & a useful reminder of what that means. After you listen to a few of these, you realize immediately that there are no intellectuals in American society. The media exclude such thoughts & thinkers, as do the other liberal institutions of the elite, the festivals of ideas &c.
You can listen here to M. Gauchet, who is a historian of thought, but is here to talk politics in light of the career of President Macron & what he embodies, the end of the 5th republic.
Thanks for the plug and for bringing PIerre V. to our attention. I'd come across him earlier and was/am much impressed.