For more information about this book and where to buy it, as well as information about a series of talks I’ll give on themes from the book, check out: https://pmaurin.org/2024/11/02/the-gap-in-gods-country-themes-discussion-with-laurie-johnson-coming-up/ … More Starting Monday Nov. 18: Gap in God’s Country Sessions–Sign up on Eventbrite or Patreon
My latest book, The Gap in God’s Country: A Longer View on Our Culture Wars, published by Wipf & Stock/Cascade Books, was just published, and you can get it in paperback or electronic editions. I will be doing some live sessions through The Maurin Academy in November and December on themes from the book. I hope you get it now, and join us for these live sessions to discuss what’s going on in the US at a deeper “longer view” level. We need this discussion now more than ever. Here are the links you need to get the book and to get in on the sessions. … More The Gap in God’s Country: A Longer View On Our Culture Wars: Now in Paperback and Kindle
Maurin Academy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/maurinacademy Maurin Academy Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/the-maurin-academy-311669 Political Philosophy: https://political-philosophy.com Dustbowl Diatribes and Political Philosophy are podcasts of the Maurin Academy, which can be found on almost all podcast platforms! Follow the Maurin Academy on Twitter and Instagram for notifications about upcoming events, and get our free newsletter: https://pmaurin.org/newsletter/
nterview with Jeremy Cowan, an expert in organic and permaculture agriculture, we discuss our society’s prejudice against home, physical work, and native-grown food. We then discuss growing food nearby as a national security issue. … More Permaculture and National Security (Jeremy Cowan Pt. 2)
You know what they say… This is the third and final part of the interview I did with Dr Jeremy Cowan, an expert in organic and permaculture agriculture, we conclude our reflections on Distributism by breaking both taboos. In this one we deal with the role of religion and politics in changing the way we grow food, but we do more than that. We delve into questions such as why religion is often unhelpful and how it could be otherwise, why political divisions get in the way and what might solve that problem … More Religion and Politics–Whoops, We Talked About Both (Jeremy Cowan Interview Part 3)
t part of a conversation I had with Jeremy Cowan, who participated in my Summer 2021 Seminar on the economic theory of Distributism. Dr Cowan is a specialist in organic agriculture with a strong interest in its relationship to politics and economics. In this part of the conversation, we get into the polarizing character of current politics and how it gets in the way of imagining turning towards Distributism or any other alternative to our current corporate-dominated and state-supported capitalism. We discuss the strong agrarian strain in Distributism and whether that is still a relevant direction to change in today’s world. … More Could Agrarian Distributism Ever Work? (Interview with Jeremy Cowan Pt. 1)
In this concluding segment from the 2021 Summer Seminar on Distributism, I discuss why it is so hard to imagine actually changing the economy in any meaningful way. Our capacity for collective action has been hollowed out and replaced by an expressive identity politics that cannot satisfy but works wonders to keep us all working and buying. It very effectively stops any real change from happening. The seemingly radical idea that contemporary protests are largely ineffectual and should be replaced by direct action is introduced. … More Culture War Futility, Why Self Expression Beats Action (Distributism 5-Audio)
In this concluding segment from the 2021 Summer Seminar on Distributism, I discuss why it is so hard to imagine actually changing the economy in any meaningful way. Our capacity for collective action has been hollowed out and replaced by an expressive identity politics that cannot satisfy but works wonders to keep us all working and buying. It very effectively stops any real change from happening. The seemingly radical idea that contemporary protests are largely ineffectual and should be replaced by direct action is introduced. … More Culture War Futility: Why Self Expression Beats Action (Distributism 5-Video)
This is a section of audio from the Summer 2021 Seminar on Distributism, an economic philosophy that isn’t capitalist or socialist. Distributism advocates for a more even and equal distribution of private property. Hilaire Belloc was one of a few thinkers credited with founding 20th Century Distributism. In this video some of his ideas are discussed in the context of current application, particularly on the question of whether workfare would be recognized by Belloc as promoting the Servile State. … More Do We Live in a Servile State? ft. Hilaire Belloc’s Distributism (Seminar 2)
This is a segment from the first session of the Summer Seminar on Distributism (2021), part of an hour and a half long session on the origins of Distributism in Aristotle’s Politics and various Catholic encyclicals (the one mainly mentioned here is Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII, 1891, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution). Distributism is a line of thought that opposes both capitalism and socialism/communism as equally materialistic and destructive of freedom and proposes a third way–more widespread ownership of private property. It is separable from religion, because it is primarily a proposal about how to deal with property, but this session covers its roots in Ancient Greek and Christian thought. … More Can You Be Both Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Communist? (Seminar 1-Rerum Novarum)
Political Philosophy 