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Dr. Michael Bonner | The Continued Value of Philology, Directing Policy and the Defense of Civilisation | Episode #4
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Show Notes:
(0:18) Michael’s languages background
(3:41) How Latin operates as a gateway drug for appreciating the general structure of language
(6:50) Why philology is the atomic element of historiography
(8:26) How Michael sent a letter to every federal minister in Canada
(14:48) The dangerous and precarious dynamics of a life in policy
(19:08) Anything the government says or does is technically policy and all policy has both an operational and a political aspect
(20:10) The artefacts of policy work
(25:30) Michael’s connection with Nassim Taleb and an argument for how we should think about multiculturalism in the context of history.
(35:44) How this connection led on to a connection with Tom Holland
(38:11) Expanding our knowledge of history as the route to better understanding of a broader multiculturalism
(39:36) Spengler and how a historian can remain truthful but still say interesting things
(45:28) The vision of the Sassanian empire as the continuation of the Near Eastern tradition of civilisation
(50:34) Michael’s new book In Defence of Civilisation
(58:38) The foundations of civilisation evidenced in old kingdom Egypt: Clarity, Beauty, and Order
(1:05:14) Homer as the preservation of a high culture that was no longer present
(1:15:30) How our subjectivity has triumphed over our sense of a universal humanity
(1:20:54) How relativity, and chaos theory have affected art
(1:23:41) China’s present day attempt to recapture civilisation through a return to Confucianism
References made in this episode:
- Michael’s personal site. He’s also active on Twitter
- Jason Kenney, a Canadian conservative leader and the former premier of Alberta
- Nassim Taleb, the cantankerous defender of statistical accuracy and the author of The Black Swan
- The infamous Mary Beard Tweet, Taleb’s response and Michael’s article on the topic
- Oswald Spengler and The Decline of the West. This lecture gives a great summary
- Michael’s most recent book The Last Empire of Iran and his next book In Defence of Civilisation (set for release in April 2023) here’s a teaser Michael released
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