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- [00:03]
Host 1
All right, guys. Today we're joined by a very special guest, Johan Kurtz, the author of Leaving a Legacy, Inheritance, Charity, and Thousand Year Families. He has a great substack. That's how we found him. Doug's a huge fan of his substack and keeps sending me. I'm like, I already subscribed Doug, but he sends it to me anyway. It's called Becoming Noble. It's excellent. You should definitely subscribe to that. But mostly we're here to talk about the book. And my first question for you about the book is that our recently published book is. Was stimulated by. And I think a lot of good books are this way. They're like a response to an unanswered question or like a rebuttal to something that's in the zeitgeist. Would you say that's the case with your book? And if so, what was that?
- [00:53]
Johan Kurtz
Very much so, yeah. Excellent question. So I observed this phenomenon particularly on Twitter, although in the culture more generally, where celebrities would make a very big deal, ranging from the multi, multi billionaires down to the sort of local, sort of media celebrity class, they would make a very big deal of making it publicly known that they were disinheriting their children, and they would frame this around this moral good that they weren't going to, you know, raise a Nepo baby, as that, as they're called, but they were going to give their money to philanthropy and they were going to expect their child to stand on their own two feet. In their minds, this was. This was a sort of good thing for the child, and it was a morally good thing to do. And each time this happened, you know, I was. I was pretty skeptical of that approach. And then more broadly, I observed this outrage that would accrue on Twitter, but it felt like people didn't quite have the moral language to express why they were outraged. So it became sort of very, very shouty. But I thought there was an interesting moral thread there. I did think there had to be a sort of compelling philosophical, theological, ethical argument that you could advance as to why inheritance, dynasty, multi, generational wealth was defensible. And so that was the question. Why should wealthy parents leave their wealth to their children and not to charity? Is how I provocatively framed it.
- [02:14]
Host 1
Or dogs, for example.
- [02:17]
Johan Kurtz
Or to your dogs. Yeah. Simon Cowell with his dog charities. Yeah, quite so, quite so. I mean, it really is a very viral issue. I mean, that Simon Cowell post recently about not leaving his wealth to his son reached over 50 million views on X, which is, you know, It's a fairly serious discussion. So I did think it deserved a serious philosophical treatment. It turned out once I started pulling at that thread, that you can't really answer that question in isolation because it pulls in all these different issues. Like for example, well, would that upset the nature of our society as a meritocracy where the best should rise? Are you interrupting other people's chances? Or for example, is it possible to raise wealthy children in a way which doesn't corrupt them? And we live in a very unusual time. There's this wonderful book called the Missing Billionaires by Haganian White. And they state this simple interesting fact, which is if the thousand wealthiest families in America in 1900 had simply invested their wealth, achieved very basic returns, spent within reasonable bounds for upper class families and reproduced at the normal rate, that cohort alone would have turned into 16,000 billionaires today. And yet there are only 700 ish billionaires in the United States and very few of them can trace their wealth back further than the 80s. So there's this interesting question of is it even possible to preserve wealth multi generationally and if so, which families are doing it and what are the qualities of those families? So these are the kinds of questions that I examined in the book and I think I sort of turned up some interesting answers and traditions.
- [03:55]
Host 1
What do you think is, what is it with parents today that don't want to pass it along? Like, what's the biggest lie they tell themselves, you know, to justify not doing it?
- [04:09]
Johan Kurtz
Well, I think, you know, I like to sort of be, to be charitable on this, on the subject and assume best intentions. And I think some of them subconsciously realize that they haven't raised children for whom a huge wealth event will actually be a positive good for their psychology. I mean, it's sort of well established in the general sense that lottery winners tend to have negative life outcomes because there's this sudden event which seems on its surface to be a blessing, but is actually very dislocating from routine friend circles, sense of purpose, the sort of trajectory of one's life that one had assumed. It's true.
- [04:48]
Host 1
But lottery players are also of a very unique cohort amongst themselves too, right?
- [04:55]
Johan Kurtz
Yes. No, I don't mean to in fact very much the point of the book is to show that it doesn't have to be this way. There is actually ways of absorbing wealth events which are very good. Um, but I think that, you know, one, one thing that is remarkable about the contemporary west and is in many ways a good thing, is this radical social Mobility that means that most ultra high net worth individuals today are self made. They're first generation wealth in that, in that bracket. But that means they, the, the, the flip side of that is they don't come from typically families who have these establishes established practices, ways of being wisdom about how to preserve wealth in a family for a very long time. And so families and sort of wealthy patriarchs and matriarchs sensing that they don't have access to that body of knowledge, I think they think, well I don't want to be in the situation that, and I don't want to name the names of certain celebrities, but there are celebrities who have these children that are famous for not working, doing anything productive and they don't want to be in that situation. So they sort of default to the mean and they say, well I'll make sure my child has a great education, has the best opportunities and after that I'll cut him or her loose. And so I think the purpose of the book is to try and chart a path which says if you do want to go about this in a rigorous way and you do want some historic examples from families like the Grosvenors in England who have this thousand year history going back to 1066 when the ancestral Grosvenor, now the Dukes of Westminster, first established his fortune and sort of managed to perpetuate and indeed grow it in this thousand year chain. What is it that is different about those families? And if that's something you want to pursue, hopefully this book gives you an idea of where to start.
- [06:41]
Host 1
Is this just for people with massive amounts of wealth like the Warren Buffett's of the world? Because there's a lot of tension you see online, I'm sure that is generally classed as like Gen Z complaining about boomers who plan to basically they want their money all to run out the day they die. You know, is it. And those are might be, you know, single digit millionaires even. Right?
- [07:12]
Johan Kurtz
That's, that's right. So I hope that there's a lot in this book that people whose parents or for readers who are themselves very wealthy, it's not exclusively for that class and I would highlight two things in particular. One of the chapters is about the morality of spending wealth down. You know, celebrity chef Guy Fieri famously and somewhat poetically said when I die, I'm going to die broke and you're going to be paying for my funeral to his son. Which is, you know, it's certainly a statement with impact and that that option is not really realistically available to the know, the very wealthiest in society, it be very challenging to spend your wealth down in an act of stupendous hedonism. So that chapter on a philosophical and theological case for why it is actually, even though for individuals who have worked very hard for their whole lives, who have legitimately earned their own money, and who have earned the right to enjoy their retirement, nevertheless I make the case for not taking the maximalist position in that and spending your wealth down.
- [08:18]
Host 1
Can you tell me about that case? Can you tell me about why that is?
- [08:21]
Johan Kurtz
Certainly so the book is largely presented from a Christian frame. This is for two reasons. The first is that the cohort to whom it is primarily addressed are older, American wealthy individuals. And many of them are Christian. And I think they want a theological argument or a Christian argument as to what, why this is the case. And indeed they might have Christian objections to not giving all their wealth to charity. So I wanted to address it on those terms. Secondly, I'm a Christian myself, but I do think that the moral logic will be intuitive and very acceptable to people who are not practicing Christians themselves. The case I make in the book on that particular chapter is that what we now think of as our property is a historically fairly recent way of conceptualizing what property is. It's certainly a kind of post Lockian, post Enlightenment, I argue, sort of contraction of the meaning of property. So you might say, now what is my property? Well, it is that which I control and that with which I can do what I want, I have earned it, and therefore I can spend it as I choose. I argue that the richer and fuller and indeed more useful philosophical tradition here is one of not absolute sovereignty, but really this conception of stewardship, it's this multi generational concept. So instead of property, I prefer the term dominion, which is really a term that built the West. It's this idea that what you have is yours, but it comes with these privileges, this beauty, this wealth. It comes with a concomitant duty to your family, to society. And the root word for dominion is dominium, which is Latin for lordship, kingship. And it comes from this root word, this ancient root word, domus, which is house. So it's the idea that what you have is really an expression of this living, sort of breathing relational component of stewardship over things that affect the lives of those around you. And it is true that if you've worked very hard and you've earned great wealth, you, you should be, you know, given the latitude to make decisions about what you now control. And private property is absolutely essential in the Christian tradition, as in the secular tradition. But at the same time, it sort of has to be recognized that ultimately there is a lot that has led to our wealth that is not entirely of our doing. You know, if you are gifted with particular talents, if you are gifted with particular mentors or patrons, if you were raised by a particularly intelligent or. Or diligent father or parents who stayed together, if you were born into a peaceful and affluent country and time, all of these are sort of contingent factors, and you might have absolutely made the most of them. But part of an expression of recognizing your blessing from a perspective of humility is to regard this as an act of sovereignty, as an act of dominion. And given that this is fundamentally a theological or philosophical contention, it doesn't sort of stop at the legal moment of retirement. You know, like, I'm retired. That means I get to, you know, spend it all. To take the crude, you know, if I was. If I was representing the Zoomers, they would say, you know, spend it all on cruises and go, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But I do think. I think that's an invigorating message because it sort of communicates to older people who, you know, a life of hedonism and spending down your money is fun, I think, for a year or two. But ultimately what nourishes all of us is this sense of duty and purpose. And I think it's very demeaning to reach the conclusion of your, you know, your 9 to 5 career and to retire and to suggest that, okay, well, you've now given up all sense of. Of kind of kingship, of your estate and all the duties that brings. So I hope I make a compelling case.
- [12:15]
Doug
No, you. You. You do, actually. And it's another thing that I'd say about people that actively dissipate their wealth or don't care about it is. It displays a kind of hatred of other people where they don't want other people to have the things that they have and want to punish them for being. For being humans and perhaps destroying Gaia or destroying Mother Earth, which is kind of the. The reigning notion in today's world. Which. Which sect of Christianity did you grow up in or are you partial to today?
- [12:58]
Johan Kurtz
I'm. I'm a Catholic, although I will say that the book is. Is written again with that American audience in mind. And indeed, I have friends from the Calvinist tradition, other Protestant traditions. It is meant to be approachable to. To Christians and indeed the broader secular world.
- [13:14]
Doug
I'm just wondering, though I agree with everything that you've said. But it seems like a jump to go from Christianity to your views because of course we can divide the Bible or the New Testament. I should say forget about the Old Testament in this context, into two parts. One Jesus is supposed to have said and what St. Paul said. And it seems that wealth is not held in high regard in the New Testament at all. And you know all the quotes that would, would relate to it's harder for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle. There are many others and there are very few that, that speak well of wealth. How do you get around that apparent contradiction or is it a contradiction in your mind?
- [14:10]
Johan Kurtz
Well, I think the first thing to recognize is that wealth is certainly a temptation and it always has to be treated with this skepticism that it can be a corrupting force if unmoored. If you divorce yourself from this sense of duty. There are, if we follow that division and I don't want to put myself forward here as a theologian, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
- [14:36]
Doug
I'm sure you know what HR Mentham said about theologians. So we're not unhappy to hear that.
- [14:45]
Johan Kurtz
In the time of Jesus, in the story of Christ's life, there are these wealthy men who appear and are held up as using their wealth in ways which are beneficent for the Christian story. An example is Joseph of Arimathea, who's the wealthy man who gives Christ his own tomb. He's purchased this beautiful plot of land for himself. And then when he accepts Christ as Lord, he devotes that to. He gives that tomb over to Jesus body and sort of dignifies Christ's kingship with that noble tomb. And then by the time you get to St. Paul, I think, and the letters of the Acts of the Apostles, this tension is in full display in that you have in Corinthians and other chapters, commandments that suggest the giving up of wealth combined with these entreatments to leave an inheritance. So I happen to have the book here. Let me see. Maybe I won't flick through together. It'd be a bit obnoxious to pull lots of. But there's lots of the good man leaveth an inheritance for his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous and so forth. So there's, there's this tension there which is, and this is a very traditional Christian idea which is on the one hand it's a great risk and on the other hand it's this great commandment and you sort of have to Confront that in a forthright sense of if I am going to allow myself this wealth I have to go about it in a principled sense.
- [16:24]
Host 1
That makes sense.
- [16:26]
Doug
That makes sense. That certainly makes sense.
- [16:30]
Host 1
And what are the other beyond the theological argument, what's the philosophical argument?
- [16:39]
Johan Kurtz
Well, let me give you one that relates to aesthetics and politics and governance. There's this sociologist I like, an American sociologist and another substacker called Aaron Wren put me onto him. He's called E. Digby Boltzell and he's largely forgotten now but some of his ideas persist very strongly in the culture, particularly the use of the wasp. So white Anglo Saxon Protestant was, was sort of coined and proliferated by him and he makes this very compelling case for a multi generational upper class. The point that he makes is, is that if you don't have that kind of historic continuity held in certain families with means, you end up in a situation in which the richest men in every generation are self made men who are new to money. And that you know, the presence of, of those men in a society is an indicator of healthy social mobility. On the other hand, people who tend to acquire their own wealth and to ascend to the very highest rungs of the wealth ladder themselves tend to have had a highly specialized focus, education and then career path. And yet the duties of the wealthiest in society, the richest and most powerful men in society are still well beyond a technocratic mandate. So they have to be the patrons of art. They have to be people who uphold etiquette, who define societal norms, who you know, patronize traditionally. I mean there are different expressions of art now but you know, ballet, music, who commission painters, who build the most beautiful architecture to glorify the city. I mean if you look at a family like the Medici, they understood this very well. They invested tremendously in these public works of art as a way to dignify and elevate the lives of the, the community around them. Partly in order to build loyalty, but also I think partly as a sense of calling, as a responsibility of the elite. And I think now we're really seeing now that we live in a society in which the majority of the truly financial elite are self made worth. They struggle with this responsibility greatly again to sort of assume the best motives of people. If you look at the richest men of today, the tech elite, I won't name names but their remarkable for their lack of commissioning any art. And I think like in terms of the fine arts which really have comprise western cultural and artistic aesthetic patrimony, this tradition that absolutely should be preserved. It's really struggling now and I think what we're seeing is like the slightly horrendous effects of governments now being the main patrons of art. In the UK it's the Arts Council and they commission a lot of stuff that is just hideous. It's highly politicized and ideological and not in the right ways. But our elite, I think are frankly intimidated to engage in that world. They work tremendously hard. Someone like Elon Musk, he's not a lazy man, he's still working round the clock. So this is not an expression of the dereliction of duties. I just don't think he's equipped to start commissioning art, architecture, culture at large. I won't criticize what he posts on his timeline, but I have my problems with it. And the argument is that actually there is no one person that can be all of these things in the course of one lifetime, or at least it's too much to ask that society depends on the existence of these rare sort of self made Renaissance man. I mean, you quote the Dos Equis man in your book and I think that's quite good. But actually what you see is that in the sociology of Paul Cell, which I find compelling, and he looks in particular at the contrast between Boston which built Harv, these tremendous museums, genealogical societies, architecture, and Massachusetts, which struggled despite being wealthier, is that has a lot to do with wealthy self made men taking on as part of their responsibility the need to raise a dynasty to pass on wealth to their children, but also to give them this broad Renaissance liberal arts education in the classical sense rather than the contemporary sense that equips them to be leaders in morality, in aesthetics, in taste, in etiquette, in patronage, in literature and so forth in a way that society I think really needs. And there is. We live in a time of tremendous abundance. But I think we all sense something. If you walk through an American city now, certainly if you walk through London, the most beautiful things around us tend to be those things that our ancestors have left. There is almost no beautiful building built in London in the last 60 years. Very, very few. And yet if you go back 100 years, I mean, and that's all you know, you don't have to go back very far in time. These beautiful buildings are being built time and time again and something really has changed. And I think part of that is that the 20th century has bought many wonderful things, including mobility, wealth, expanded wealth creation. But it has also broken this chain of artistic sort of dynasty that I think we're really Suffering from.
- [21:50]
Host 1
You think that in general, just the view of wealth and the burden of responsibility of that wealth has somehow been severed. Because you think about, like, Carnegie, who built libraries all over the United States, you know, and then he started Carnegie foundation, which has done a lot of bad things, frankly. But the library system is an amazing thing. It's an amazing gift to the people.
- [22:23]
Johan Kurtz
It's interesting you bring up Andrew Carnegie. I look at his philosophy a little bit in the book. Andrew Carnegie is a very interesting figure philosophically, because at the same time, he's asserting a bit of a break from traditional Christian conceptions of charity. So he's very much this founding figure in this notion of philanthropy as an activity which is distinct from charity. To give a very condensed version of this, charity comes from the Latin caritas, which is love, which in turn is a translation of the biblical Greek agape, which is a particular higher expression of love. And as such, charity and personal relationships tend to be synonymous. In the Christian tradition, you're responsible for the local poor. You have to go out and meet people. Love thy neighbor. Andrew Carnegie's philosophy is. It's one of a man whose Christian faith is clearly wavering. And he asserts this notion of philanthropy, which is far more scientific. It's enlightenment. It doesn't try and ease people's suffering. It actually tries to rearrange society such that their suffering never occurs in the first place. It's this much more. Go to the source. Let's look at this using the emerging sciences of sociology, psychology, governance, and so forth, and let's try and reconfigure society so that. So that these don't occur in the first place. Nevertheless, exactly as you say, he left all these beautiful things behind. I mean, the architecture, his house is magnificent in New York and so forth. And I think, like part of that is a reflection. Even though he was beginning to scratch out this notion of philanthropy, a lot of his assumptions and cultural tastes and so forth were still defined by the civilization at the time. And so his activity sort of reflected the culture that he was raised in. If you fast forward that, the problem is that that notion of the responsibility of the philanthropist to, for example, eliminate poverty within a society, if you look at the Gates foundation and so forth, these sort of just merge with the activities of government itself. Like you're actually engaging in something that looks like macroeconomic management and employment numbers, and it's at the very least governance, if not actively government. And the Gates Foundation. I haven't looked at the statistics, but there was a point at which he was contributing more than 10% of the world Health Organization's annual funding. It's probably more now, given recent US Skepticism. And as such, he was the second largest donor, after the nation of the United States, to the World Health Organization.
- [24:48]
Host 1
Define the global health policy.
- [24:50]
Johan Kurtz
Right, Exactly. So he became essentially a political figure. And that's all well and good, but politics, and certainly contemporary politics, is not a good mechanism for cultural transmission, for artistic transmission, for this kind of living, breathing reflection of ideals and, and sort of higher aspirations, aesthetics and so forth. So I do think in this transition from personal charity and responsibility and stewardship of one's own community to this bureaucratic, scientific, data centric governance model of philanthropy, this is not to argue that nothing good has come of that. I think you can make a very strong opposing case, but I do think that it has a lot to do with why our society has become personally dislocated. Deaths of despair, ugliness in communities and so forth. I think a lot of it can be traced back to that divide.
- [25:47]
Doug
Well, it's very interesting to me that the point that you make that you should be building dynastic wealth, and that of course implies that your dynasty should be properly educated and inculcated with proper values. And I don't think the average rich person today, certainly not the nouveau riche, does that. In other words, their kids are brought up by the school system and then thrown into the university system, which is like tossing them into a cesspool. So maybe that's a reason why rich people today don't want to leave their money to their kids because they sense they've been corrupted. And the funny thing is that they don't seem to sense that these charities, These foundations, these NGOs, were the big beneficiaries of wealth that's given to them. They give this money to these public entities that actually, they're the worst kind of people that run these things. They're professional wannabe elites. They're busy bodies that have the worst possible values, not just random values. So what's going on here? What's cause this change in society, do you think? And how can this trend be turned around if it can be turned around easily?
- [27:24]
Johan Kurtz
Yeah, no, great question. I think, you know, going back to what I think you made an excellent observation earlier, which is that there's. There's actually something very nihilistic in the actions of wealthy people today, and I think it's unspoken and subconscious, but there is something about, sorry, if you can hear my kids in the background, there is something about Giving to these mega foundations, that feels a lot like someone essentially trying to destroy their wealth without admitting to themselves that, that what's, that's what they're doing. Because the mega foundation is this very useful abstraction. If you give, if I give my wealth to the Gates foundation or whatever other foundation, I have no idea what it's being used for. I have no idea who's benefiting. I've just completely lost any direct chain of understanding between myself and the effect on another person who is the recipient of that. So it's the closest thing of sort of making that money disappear. And I think that sort of speaks to this really lost art of the moral use of money itself. I think you're absolutely right about the public school system. One thing that I argue in the book is that a lot of wealthy people make the mistake of thinking, well, what I should do when I raise a wealthy child is just surround them with people who are not themselves wealthy and then they'll turn out to be sort of normal and well adjusted. And you can kind of see the logic there. Unfortunately, one of the very interesting things I found out while researching this book is that there's now a whole industry of psychologists who cater to the product of that system. Because what happens is children, teenagers are very sensitive to being the odd ones out. So they go into a friend circle in which they're conscious that they are the only wealthy people they're constantly self conscious of. Are these people really my friends or are they just interested in my wealth? I'm the odd one out that often. Not always, certainly. I mean, I'm sure there are very well adjusted wealthy people who've gone through the public school system who don't have a pathological relationship with their wealth. But often they shun it, they want to move away from it. They just want to do what their friends are doing, which is just get on the bottom job of, you know, go to a party college, get on the bottom rung of an average job. That's, that's the kind of milieu that they move in. There's this interesting phenomenon wherein some of the most hateful people towards wealth in history have been raised in great wealth themselves. So if you look at, for example, Fidel Castro, basically all of the major communist figures of the 20th century, with the possible exception of Joseph Stalin, were raised in conditions of wealth, Mao, et cetera. These are all from prosperous merchant class families. But there's this sort of pattern of various missteps that their parents took. Anyway. This was never a direction that I expected the book to take, but it became this, almost like a guide in the same way that Machiavelli, and I'm not comparing myself to Machiavelli, but Machiavelli is attempting to write a work which guides princes on the art of politics. It sort of became a guide to raising wealthy children. And what I did there was I looked at these aristocratic families who have a very specific set of practices which at every stage of the child's formation. And it starts very young. It's not the kind of average mistake that multi generational businesses make now, which is someone is just bought in at the end of the headship of when the. When the patriarch is ready to retire. They just shunt their son or daughter in at the last minute and they're completely out of their depth. It starts very young, merging in the minds of the child the notions of wealth and responsibility. And, you know, to make a very trite comparison, but at least one that I think a lot of people will understand. If you watch something like Downton Abbey or if you go back to, you know, the works of. So forth, what you see, You see patriarchs that are very wealthy that live maintenance of this entire economic ordinance. The.
- [31:25]
Host 1
Sorry, we lost about the last 30 seconds of what you said the Internet broke up. Could you just say that again?
- [31:30]
Johan Kurtz
Yes. Apologies. Just stop me if I. If it goes again. What was the last thing you heard?
- [31:38]
Host 1
Well, you were explaining the way you're raising kids with an idea of wealth and responsibility together. And that's about when it broke up.
- [31:49]
Johan Kurtz
So it starts at a very young age. In aristocratic families. The forms this takes are. I go into a lot of them in the book. They sort of layer together, but it is, A, the gradual assumption of responsibility from a very young age over different parts of the estate. B, it is an education which impresses upon the young responsibilities as well as agency at a young age. I'm seeing the low network bandwidth.
- [32:14]
Host 1
We can still hear you, though. It's good.
- [32:17]
Johan Kurtz
Excellent. And then C. One thing I spend a lot of time talking about in the book is this sense of the transcendence of the moment into an eternal time. So the sort of lived presence of one's ancestors around you and a very personal responsibility. Aristocratic families, obviously, they surround themselves with portraits, they surround themselves with stories, with artifacts, with family heirlooms and so forth, in such a sense that, you know, Alexis de Tocqueville says that all generations were, as it were, contemporaneous. Like you feel that you live in the context of your family. The great works of your family, the expectations of your ancestors, the responsibility to the children, the generations who will follow. And this has a lot to do with ritual. It has a lot to do with how these families order their estates. They tend to be very illiquid. It's not stocks and shares, it's land, it's property, it's businesses, it's artworks. It's these other asset classes that are far more illiquid that convey this notion of stewardship very directly. They're not just things that can be cashed in and exchanged for liquid wealth whenever the temptation strikes.
- [33:31]
Host 1
Have you, did you look at the, like the Roman traditions in the way that it was handled in your, in your research for this? Because I've done just a bit. And understanding, you know, the patriarch was a steward, was a facilitator, essentially, and like one of the gods they worshiped would be the prior patriarch in their, you know, in the household. And so everyone understood kind of this relationship because they could see the existing patriarch, their worship of the previous patriarch, and understanding that sort of handoff that occurs in stewardship. Did you study any of that at all?
- [34:11]
Johan Kurtz
Not for the book, although I think an idea that resonates is I read a long time ago, this very interesting work. It's called the Ancient City by Noumel Fostel de Calange, who's this kind of 19th century antiquarian historian. And it's a sort of exploration of the culture that likely preceded the Roman culture that we have well established in our historical records now. And one of the things he makes the case for is exactly as you say, this notion of ancestor worship, which is directly tied to the continuing establishment of the same home, that because your forefathers are buried near you and you are able to pray, or you are able to engage in religious rituals in proximity to them, you are able to honor them, to sustain their souls going forwards in time in a way that is very, very richly or religiously important. So there's this combination of ancestor, home, responsibility, ritual, transcendence that are all bound up. Now, as a Christian, I have to say I don't literally believe in that metaphysical system, but I do think it is grasping towards this greater truth, which is that a man's relationship to the land, to his home, to his community, to his family are the moral center of his universe. And that this highly abstracted, liquid, bureaucratic approach we have to all these moral issues now is so dislocating that I think we have, we've gained this pathological wealth to family, this pathological Relationship to both family and wealth and charity as a result.
- [35:54]
Host 1
Yeah, I agree with you and I don't buy into the metaphysics of it specifically, but you can imagine, but you could. What I liked about it was that just like, you know, when my kids were little, I told them that Santa Claus was real. And you know, you look at it and say, oh, that's lying to your kids. But it's actually very difficult to communicate to my children the sense of Christmas spirit. Not in a disembodied form, you know, but you embody it in Santa. And the stories around Santa, I could communicate an idea to them that was not possible without Santa, you know. So to me, that that sort of ancestor worship of the former patriarch, it did the same thing. It showed that. That the house still stood beyond through that period and that the current patriarch's role was just to steward the ship well, you know, in the meantime. And that somebody else would take that mantle ultimately. And I don't know, I thought that. I think there's something really amazing in that, in that thinking. That's where I first got to the idea of the stewardship, that my job, my job is just as a steward. I see that with my kids. I have an 18 and a 20 year old and I'm just trying to do the best I can with what I have for the sake of not myself. You know, it's not self sacrifice, but there's something I'm working on that's larger than me.
- [37:22]
Johan Kurtz
I think that's absolutely right. And Christmas is this wonderful example. I actually talk about it a little bit in the book. There's this very interesting finding in the psychological literature which is that damaged people, people with personality disorders and so forth, amongst that cohort, radically overrepresented, are people who grew up without any sense of ritual whatsoever. So families who never observed anything like Christmas or the importance of birthdays, anything like this. And part of the reason for this is that the whole of existence takes on this mundane character when you don't carve out particular days, particular events, particular aesthetics and rituals and meaning as special. So one thing you're doing by introducing the notion of Santa to your children is it's not so much making this strong truth claim about the existence of Santa. It is signaling to your children that there's something wondrous about this day, something that doesn't quite make sense, something that breaks up mundane time and introduces this new quality to existence that bears contemplation and grappling with the strangeness. And that's actually Very powerful for influencing people's behavior. I mean, everyone associates the act of Christmas, certainly all parents, all adults, with the act of giving. It's funny, like Christmas is thought of as this very indulgent event with presents and so forth, but basically all you're doing once you're a parent is thinking about, how can I make my kids happy? You know, how can I get the family together? How can I. So there's this merging of ritual and responsibility and this very deep seated sense of rightness that all comes together in that ritual. And one of the things that I think is very sad about contemporary society is that Christmas is kind of the last man standing of that approach. But if you go back to, to the high medieval ages, I have this wonderful book called Merry Old England, which is a Victorian history of, of like the English liturgical, liturgical calendar, but also calendars of festivals and funny traditions and pranks that are played on certain days. It wasn't just Christmas. It's like every month there's, you know, all these different fates and the guilds compete to put on the best, you know, morality play at the fate. And like there's all this pageantry and it's quite wonderful. And I, I'm certainly thinking about how to get back to that. I'm, I'm, I'm lucky. My, my wife is, is very artistically and aesthetically gifted. So we're sort of having fun trying to like spread that Christmas, if not the actual feel of Christmas itself, that underlying philosophy throughout the year.
- [39:47]
Host 1
Yeah, that's fantastic.
- [39:48]
Doug
We can, you know, maybe it's much deeper than that. It's that the idea of Western civilization and all of its values is being washed away right before our very eyes. And you referenced artwork before. It's absolutely prevalent there. I mean, it would have been out of the question for a rotten banana to be taped to a wall and sold for $6 million not so long ago. And there's lots of examples of that type of thing that go on, but it's. Western civilization has lost traction almost everywhere. And it's. I suppose it's true. It's sad. I don't know if it's true for a fact that the fastest growing religion in the world is Mohammedanism. And there's been a battle between Christianity and Islam. I actually don't like to use that term because it means submission and when you use the adversary's language or actually giving up ground to them. We used to call it Mohammedanism, just like followers of Muhammad and the followers of Christ are called Christians and Buddhists. Anyway, what about the collapse of Western civilization? This is part and parcel to all of this. And the fact that in England and all over Western Europe, the current inhabiting tribe is being washed away much the way the Indians were washed away in North America, when Westerners. In other words, we're in the same position that the Indians were in North America in many ways. So what about this? Do you feel like you're standing astride the great wave of history saying stop, but you almost can't win because it's bigger than any of us? Doesn't that give you a sense of pessimism or not?
- [41:55]
Johan Kurtz
It's a good question. So I think in my mind I try and divorce two different concepts. One is like the directionality of society itself at the grandest possible level. Can it be saved in its present configuration? My answer to that is probably not. I don't think. I think that trend of dissolution which you're identifying has gained so much momentum, it's going to be difficult to turn it around. On the other hand, is there this ability of families, of communities, of faith communities, other groupings of people to assert control over and stability and indeed flourishing in smaller outposts? My hope is absolutely, you know, to. It's very difficult because if you go back to the Enlightenment, to Locke and so forth, and the foundations of contemporary liberalism, which is in some sense the notion that the individual is sovereign from unchosen bonds of servitude to those around him, right? So you have a more contractual relationship, a relationship based on consent and choice to the other individuals in society. That was quite a wondrous philosophy. But it was also a philosophy which made sense in its cultural context, in a system of Anglo, Saxon and then English, you know, fair play culture, relationships to the land, to the wider community, such that you could sustain that system in a way in a context of moral responsibilities that didn't act as a kind of acidic quality on. On social bonds. The problem is, is that when you lose all of that integrity and you only keep the kind of liberal social norms, so you lose the moral superstructure of society, you lose the integrity of communities and peoples and self conception and traditions and. And really everything else. And you only have this kind of liberal dimension that is retained in this kind of vague. Anyone can do what they want. You can't tell me what to do. You know, that is not a good, that is not a strong foundation on which to resist pernicious ideas or to form social solidarity. On the other hand, I do think that there's, you Know that that doesn't mean that we have to give up the best of the Anglo tradition, which is a. Which is a culture of radical independence, you know, sovereign thinking, the. The sovereignty of the family to sort of assert their own place, to have their own castle, as it were. But I do think we have to take seriously this notion of obligation again. And it's funny, I think all these things are interrelated. One of the reasons that I think people are hesitant to pass on large dynastic estates, financial transactions and so forth now to their children is that they don't have the moral language and structure to equip their children to receive that gift. Well, and funnily enough, I think Christianity did provide that. Equally, one of the reasons that we're really struggling to reproduce as a society, that our birth rate is so low, which is necessitating, or some would claim as necessitating, very large quantities of immigration into the west, is again, this lack of a sense of duty. I returned to the faith in my early 20s and my wife sort of came with me, as it were, and we took seriously this notion that we didn't really feel before that actually you have this commandment to create souls. It is actually difficult having children. It's expensive, especially when none of your friends are doing it and the healthcare system in Britain is collapsing and so forth, but you actually have more than ever.
- [45:37]
Host 1
But it's the best.
- [45:37]
Johan Kurtz
Exactly, yeah. Anyway, I think that we sort of need to reunite, as part of my broader argument, the sense of duty and privilege. Like that's the common theme here.
- [45:49]
Host 1
Yeah. I mean, one of the things with this. There is this seed of emancipation that came out of the Enlightenment. You know, the power of the individual is so good and yet it is the same seed that is driven the trans movement. It's to be emancipated from all bounds for the individual. And it's, it's. And I. I've had a hard time reconciling this idea of something that is, I see as so good and yet taken to its extent, losing maybe the. The structure of society that you're talking about ends up actually being the seed of destruction.
- [46:32]
Johan Kurtz
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think in the book I talk about how we're very confused in our moral decision making because we've kind of lost contact with the actual meaning of the terms we use, which is this very confusing reality now. And I think that's happened to the concept of freedom as well. Like freedom is properly understood it the maximalist case for freedom as people now understand it. Doesn't really make any sense because at the end of the day, I am bound by all kinds of laws. I'm bound by the law itself. I'm bound by the laws of physics. I can't be whoever I want. I can't do whatever I want. I'm bound by my financial situation. I'm bound by my responsibility to my children. Like free freedom doesn't mean this maximalist, like, totally atomized individual. What it means is kind of freedom from the improper imposition of tyranny by other organizations, which is to say, like disordered inflicting of power upon me, which removes my ability to choose from a range of good options which are rightfully mine as a man and as an upstanding person. And a key component of that freedom is in fact this rigorous sense of self mastery of the discipline to say no to the temptations which will otherwise prey upon you and eat you alive. And we live in this society now of radical temptation. You know, it's, you know, now the fastest or one of the fastest growing in, in industries in the United States is sports betting. This. It's kind of like gambling. I. I could go on. I don't want to get into the. The many forms of vice which are proliferating now and which I believe are kind of preying on this young generation who are hopelessly addicted because they don't have the moral foundations to build the strength to resist them, to say no to them. So freedom is like this very complex, nuanced thing. And I really believe that at this time, when everyone believes we're more free than we ever have been before, we're actually less free because a lot of the social infrastructure, the moral foundations that are necessary to assert your sovereignty and to sort of take advantage of that sovereignty, project one's will into the world in an ordered way, those have been so, so undermined that I actually think we're less free than we ever have been before.
- [48:54]
Host 1
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Doug, go ahead.
- [48:57]
Doug
Well, what's to be done, Johan? As Leiden said, I charity begins at home. And of course you're ordering your own life out of your family and perhaps your new community to improve things. But what's your prognosis for the next 10 or 50 years in the West? What can be reasonably done to change the trend? Or perhaps this is a megatrend, much like the collapse of the ancient world. The old religions, the old ways of philosophizing all fell apart. Well, after Constantine anyway, that was a major turning point. And we're never to return. Maybe the same thing is happening to western civilization and Christendom, if you would. Maybe it's that kind of a major turn that's happening right now. Do you have any thoughts about any of these things, the future, what to do, where things are going?
- [50:04]
Johan Kurtz
Certainly. I mean, look, I'm not going to put myself forward as a prophet, but I'll tell you about how I'm reasoning through these issues personally. And maybe there's something interesting in there. I come from Britain and I was born in London. I grew up in London. I went to university, did graduate studies in London. London is very much my home. All my family live there. And I chose to leave London recently, which was no small decision from me. It's really the center of my universe. And the older members of my family were very confused by this. And in their minds, London, England, that culture, that sense of prosperity and beautiful, you know, the higher things in life has a permanence to it that I actually don't think it any longer has. I mean, London has undergone a radical transformation of the foundations of what perpetuated that particular civilization. There are a million ways to express this. The easiest one to say is that 50 years ago, Cockney was synonymous with the east end of London. There are no cockneys in London anymore. It's this like complete evisceration of one of the cultural. They were priced out, they were moved out. They don't live in London anymore. And there's a kind of like slightly anemic version of that culture that survives on in Essex, but they were driven out of their home city. And there are a million other cultural ways, bodies of people, sets of beliefs and, and so forth that have also been driven out of that city. And I think England at large. I will never, you know, I'm. I'm a patriotic Englishman. I, I never want to. I never want to. To, you know, cry doom and tell everyone to get out of the ship. I love England and I, I very much hope that it comes out of this stronger. On the other hand, as a realist, you know, we tried to put my, my child, my eldest son, in the local school and there was almost no one. One of the problems we had and the reasons we changed is that none of the parents spoke English. So it was like, it was just not like being in England at all. And, and so like that, those superstructures, countries. I, I actually do think anyone that lives in somewhere like England should prepare for radical instability in terms of security, culture, the ability of the state to provide basic services like Unless you have been through a serious operation at the NHS yourself, it is difficult to believe how bad things actually are. Like, I know people who have had children in the NHS and almost lost their lives due to the most basic things, like being promised a certain procedure that just never materialized or whatever. It's pretty bad. So anyway, what I would say is that is too great for any one of us to control. But what you can do, and what I intend to do, is make sure that we embed ourselves in small units, communities, you know, families, sets of families who know each other very deeply, who can be relied upon to help each other and to form these sort of islands of stability. You know, like if you look back in history, in the history of the west, these things that survive for very long times are monastic communities, even in times of great turbulence in Ireland and elsewhere. And I think there's something inspirational to that, like that these small, ritual, principled institutions with deep beliefs who have ways of doing things, who care for each other, can weather the most radical storms. So, yeah, I think you just go back to fundamentals, friends, family, strong communities, and try and inculcate in your children a love of life. Uh. Cause I think that's what a lot of people are struggling with now.
- [53:49]
Host 1
How old are your kids today?
- [53:51]
Johan Kurtz
Uh, they are three and four.
- [53:53]
Host 1
Okay, good, good ages. Um, what are you doing to raise them with the thinking that you're trying to communicate in this book? I mean, I know they're still too young for too much of it, but how do you. How do you see that rolling out as they get older?
- [54:14]
Johan Kurtz
I'll give you two examples of things we're doing now. Let's set aside the basic things, like everyone should be reading to their kids far more than the average person does, having dinner with their kids far more than the average person does, all that stuff. The first is going back to the Christmas discussion in terms of raising our kids in the faith. We're really trying to make that fun. So lots of saints days, you have special cakes, you show special pictures, whatever. So I think the broader point there to non Christians is whatever your beliefs are, make sure that you're not beating them into your child, that you're actually giving them a love of their cultural heritage and your beliefs and your time with you on this earth. So we're trying to tie together this kind of belief with this sense of warmth, of nostalgia, of ritual that they'll really enjoy and keep with them. The other thing, there's lots of little slightly random tidbits I discuss in the Book. Even things like birthday parties can be approached very intentionally. So a birthday party, yes, of course, is about giving your children presents and celebrating their birthday. But aristocratic families have always used them as more broader cultural events. So it's a wonderful opportunity for a child to become comfortable talking to adults that they don't know, thanking them, manners, even speaking in front of a crowd, maybe even performing in front of a crowd, a little song or something.
- [55:33]
Host 1
Of.
- [55:34]
Johan Kurtz
You know, being introduced to the community. And a birthday party, you know, a noble birthday party, they make this huge show of them. And part of the reason for that is it's a kind of assertion of continuity, of legacy, that this child will be the next representative of the family. We want everyone to know them, we want everyone to honor them. So there's lots of little things like that. It's sort of like this very first principles approach to all the societal conventions. And, and what you find is, is when you go back into the history of basically anything that we just hold now is like, yeah, of course that's what people do. We have birthdays. There's actually this very interesting history that these cultural institutions have been constructed by intelligent people for a purpose. And reconnecting with that purpose turns them into this incredibly powerful asset. But again, which is fun, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of good hobby.
- [56:26]
Host 1
Yeah, I agree with that 100%. And do you think, have you found it important also to give your kids a sense of identity within your family that goes beyond like talking stories of older generations, stuff like that? I mean, how do you. Is that a piece of it?
- [56:47]
Johan Kurtz
Yeah, I'll give you an example. And by the way, I don't want to put myself forward as anyone. That's perfect on these.
- [56:51]
Host 1
No, you're trying though. And that's what matters.
- [56:54]
Johan Kurtz
Yeah, yeah. My son has a, my son's the 4 year old. He has a. It's kind of a great, great experience for a father. We took him into the, the shop at the British Museum and he was allowed to choose a toy for himself. And he chose this. I'm surprised they had it. But he chose this giant crusader helmet, like, you know, like a kind of full, full 13th century knight helmet. And also so we got him in a company wooden sword and shield. And my family is not an aristocratic family, but we do have a kind of shield, a family insignia which goes back 10 generations or so. Doesn't have any title attached or anything like that. It's just a nice sort of English tradition. And my wife Sort of painted the family shield on his wooden shield. So now when he's playing and fighting, there's this very visible assertion of our family identity. But more than that, you know, we've just got portraits of my, my grandfather, who's a great hero of my book. The book is, is dedicated to. And we try and spend as much time with family as possible. We're going to see my parents this Christmas, of course. And yeah, I think, you know, I think a lot of this stuff, people think of it as this terrifying responsibility. And that's the last thing I'm trying to communicate. You know, it's, it's kind of like fun family belief. It's. It can all be tied together in this very lovely way.
- [58:14]
Host 1
Yeah, I agree with you. Now, what about families? Not everyone has a great benefit of 10th generation family crest. What do you imagine? You're starting from scratch? What do you do?
- [58:28]
Johan Kurtz
It's a good question. I mean, one thing that I don't think enough people do. You know, one of the interest. If you look at American history, there's this fascinating fascination that people have with their ancestry. And so in every major city, there's a flourishing genealogical society. In the 19th century, the 18th century, people really care about where they came from. And the truth is that unless you somehow really have no idea about your origins, you have no idea who your forefathers were, which is of course true for some people, but even then, it's a really healthy and innovating experience to reach back into the history, to trace your family history, to look at significant figures, those things can be revived. The truth is that everywhere, most people have lost contact with their sense of ancestors in place. But no, I mean, I just encourage people to read about the history of where they come from, the history of their family to the extent that's available to look up that slightly eccentric aunt that has the entire family tree mapped out or whatever.
- [59:32]
Host 1
Yeah, there's always one. There's always a one.
- [59:33]
Johan Kurtz
There's always one.
- [59:34]
Host 1
Yeah, yeah.
- [59:36]
Johan Kurtz
But no, it can be a project, you know, just.
- [59:39]
Host 1
Do you think that's critical in understanding that in order to do what you're trying to do, which in advancing the future?
- [59:48]
Johan Kurtz
I think so. I mean, it's. My hero is my grandfather, for reasons that I actually don't get into in the book, but he was a great war hero of the Second World War, incredibly brave and highly decorated, made a tremendous sacrifice. But one of the things you can communicate to your children, a sense of responsibility by highlighting the studies of what the kind of Noble, upstanding men of your family have always done. But equally, by making those individuals a personal presence in the life of a child, you actually empower them because every child wants to be like their heroes and they believe they can do what their heroes have done. So knowing that your grandfather did this brave thing is actually a very empowering experience because you say, you know what, his blood still runs in my veins or whatever. I want to be that hero as well. So, again, I think it's this kind of healthy thing to do, and children respond wonderfully to it. They want heroes, they want an identity, they want guidance and formation and. And I think boys in particular really need that. Probably girls too, but. But yeah, no, I think it's. I think it's very important.
- [61:00]
Host 1
Yeah, I agree with you. 100. I grew up without any understanding of my family history at all. But I had one in my family who didn't know, you know, who, and, and pulled me aside when I was like 10, told me some stories. You know, I had my ancestor. I had one that came over on the Mayflower. It was the guy who fell overboard, actually, you know, but he managed to be rescued and, and I found those stories and I gathered many more for the benefit of my children because I never had any sense of identity really growing up, you know, I'm just, you know, and I found it really empowering and very, very useful for them. And then later we designed our own family coat of arms and a family motto that we all. We did it together. It doesn't, it doesn't have the same power of something that goes back, even one generation before them, but it, but it is something, you know, and it does try and coalesce is like, we are a thing, you know, it's not just you're a thing, but like we are a thing moving forward together.
- [62:03]
Johan Kurtz
Absolutely. And the kind of unspoken truth of even, even someone from Britain that knows a few aristocrats is that they all started somewhere, Their families started somewhere. You know what I mean? There was one family somewhere, somewhere that did exactly what you're doing. And it takes on this kind of shine to it after generations of being upheld. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it's still just a continuing expression of what you're doing. And there's nothing fundamentally different about what you're doing from the greatest families of history. It's just a question of how you perpetuate it.
- [62:38]
Host 1
Do you think you'll.
- [62:39]
Doug
In addition to continuing to write your blog, which is very enjoyable and I would. Although it's late in the podcast to emphasize this. Everybody that's listening to this, in my opinion, should sign up for it. It's called Becoming Noble.
- [62:57]
Host 1
Yes. I'll include a link with the video and we will post this on substack. We'll go directly to you so that hopefully some of our subscribers will be very easy for them to get on your list.
- [63:08]
Doug
And how about, are you working on another book? Because as Voltaire said, every book I write is another soldier. I send marching. And books are very. They last longer than podcasts and such do. So are you planning on any other books at the moment?
- [63:27]
Johan Kurtz
Yes. Yeah. So there's kind of two parallel efforts. I'm trying to convince myself not to immediately jump into writing another book. I have two ideas for books works which I'll cover in a second. But I have this separate conviction that I have a lot of friends with substacks. I have a substack. And for those that don't know, this is essentially an email list attached to a blog. So it provides this very intimate connection of trust between author and community and readers because you read them and long form these carefully articulated ideas directly in your inbox. And I think there's actually a lot that can be done to turn that trust into real world institutions in a way that is very beneficial for materializing actual community in a way that I care about. So one of the things I'm doing is, as a result of the practices in the book, is to try and actually maybe build some kind of society or club of families who are trying to live out these principles in such a way that they can connect their children together and have these kind of like debutant balls and form these networks and so forth, such that that importance of community which I mentioned earlier, can materialize in their own lives if they don't currently have access to it. So doing that properly and in a really first class way that people would trust and trust enough to involve their families in is something that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about in terms of books. One thing that I became conscious of is a lot of people message me to ask me for advice after the release of the book, which is very gratifying. I'm aware that I have a lot more to say at the moment to young men than young women. And I do think women's life paths. One of the sad things about modernity is that it's just kind of assumed that women are just another form of men and we should just push them into like male life paths. I actually don't think that's the best thing. So I do think this question of dynasty looks different for girls than boys, But I want to figure out exactly what that means before I start throwing advice around, because it is. It's a. It's a subject that needs careful consideration. That's the. That's the first thing I want to cover, I think.
- [65:28]
Host 1
Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, you saw our book that we wrote for young men, and.
- [65:35]
Johan Kurtz
While.
- [65:36]
Host 1
Many of the ideas certainly apply to young women, the truth is, is that young women have different hopes, fears, aspirations for the future and realistically encounter the world in a very different way than young men do. And, you know, they. They need. We need a different one for them. So we're in that same position, really, where next on my plate is trying to craft a version of that intelligently for young women. So, yeah, I totally agree. I really love how your book taps in. It's like. It's really like the book that I would want a young man to have after they go through the process in ours, because it gives them an understanding of the bigger picture, whereas we're trying to give them a set of tools for thinking properly and a set of actions they can take that will develop them into strong and independent and successful young men. But then what? And I think that your book is the answer to the then what?
- [66:43]
Doug
Yes, because we don't talk about leaving a legacy as such.
- [66:51]
Johan Kurtz
Yeah, no. One of the things I like about your book is, I mean, there's this tension and all. All dynasties go through this, wherein it is true that there's a lot you can do to raise a son, to morally form them, to make sure they're strong. But at a certain stage, part of being a man is learning separation, is going off into the world to do hard things, to have a quest to be tested, to experiment, take risks, to fail to succeed, to form new networks, to expand outwards. Like, being a man means stepping outside the home. And I mean, this is a subject I could talk about at length, but I don't want to introduce it because it's such a big subject. But there's that interesting boundary. My book sort of concerns everything the family can and should control. But a lot of being a man is actually stepping outside the comfort and the security of the home, to take. To take risks and have adventures.
- [67:46]
Host 1
So, yeah, and for that young man to be. To really become a future steward, they must go through this hero's journey on their own. You know, it must happen not entirely on their own, with the help and support and encouragement of their family, hopefully. But. But they have to do it. And then they come back as a force multiplier for the family.
- [68:10]
Johan Kurtz
Absolutely.
- [68:11]
Host 1
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think what you're doing is really great, and I will link to the book in it and I wish you great success with this. I wonder, how will you measure. What's your standard for whether or not you accomplish what you're hoping to accomplish with this book?
- [68:30]
Johan Kurtz
Well, one thing I was trying to do with the book is I have an audience on substack or 15,000 odd readers, and the blog goes back several years, so we're all kind of comfortable with each other's ideas. Although they're unusual from a societal perspective, we kind of all know they're very.
- [68:47]
Host 1
Normal in your group.
- [68:48]
Johan Kurtz
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But the problem is that creates a bubble. And this is a subject which. I actually think it's very grandiose to say this, but, like, civilization has to tackle one way or another. And maybe my book isn't the right way to do it, but we do do need to work through it. So I wrote the book not to just satisfy and reaffirm the priors of my community. I wrote it in a way that I think will be meaningful and intelligible to your average patriarch or person who might be receiving a legacy in the broader community. So it's not a kind of specialist academic or truly radical work. It's meant to make a mark on the broader culture. So I think the extent to which this is successful will not be measured in, like, copies sold. I think it will be the extent to which it punches out of my little sphere, my little part of the Internet, and into the broader dialogue, other communities. Which is one of the reasons, by the way, I'm so grateful you had me on. Because while there's clearly a lot of alignment of ideas here, this is a totally different community. Yeah, yeah. So. But it's been successful in that regard. I mean, I won't say exactly who because we haven't figured it out yet, but I had a sort of mainstream reporter reach out and ask to do a review of the book and so forth in an American paper that's widely read amongst the older generations. So, yeah, I mean, hopefully it can make a modest mark, I think, when.
- [70:19]
Host 1
You get your first boomer sending you an email going, you know what? I'm not going to spend it all before I die.
- [70:29]
Doug
And God forbid, I'm not going to leave it to some foundation or charity either.
- [70:35]
Host 1
Yeah, that's a. I'm sure it'll Happen. I'm sure it'll happen. It's an amazing work. It should have been done a long time ago, but of course it wasn't. You know, and all the other books on this topic, I deal with technical matters like trust formation and stuff like that. They don't deal with the philosophical underpinnings, the righteousness of doing it. And I think it. This does, and that's good. The strange thing is it's coming from such a young man. Why is that? Why are you. Why. Why you.
- [71:08]
Johan Kurtz
Why.
- [71:09]
Host 1
Why is this the topic that you wanted to tackle?
- [71:13]
Johan Kurtz
Well, I think a lot of my peers are struggling with this issue at the moment. They want to approach their parents and have this discussion with their parents in a loving and productive manner. So it's something that a lot of my friends and contemporaries are struggling with. One of the nice things about this book is that this is not a sort of work of original philosophy. I might be relatively young, I am a married father, but I'm drawing on a lot of older men's thought here. So it's a work of history. You know, edp, Boltzel, Pope John Paul ii, John Hancock, the founding father of the United States. All these different figures make strong appearances and recommendations. So very much standing on the shoulders of giants there.
- [72:00]
Host 1
You know, our book, most often it's a parent who buys it and gives it to their child. I think this is exactly the opposite of that. This is where. Yeah, no, I wouldn't say young men, but men who are, you know, like you earlier in the. Relatively early in their life. It's the kind of book they ought to buy and give to their parents. Right. That's the ways we get sort of transmitted in the culture, probably.
- [72:30]
Johan Kurtz
Definitely. And, you know, I've had. I've had. I've had a few messages which were like, I'd love to give this my parents, but it's so awkward giving my parents a book which basically says, I want all your money, don't give it away way. And that is very much not the. The framing of the book. It is designed to be a kind of, you know, a positive and. And. And sort of like pro family message as opposed to, like, give me all your money type situation.
- [72:53]
Host 1
Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course it does.
- [72:55]
Johan Kurtz
Yeah.
- [72:56]
Host 1
And I think that's what's so great about it. So I love it. I think it's a great idea. I've been railing, not nearly in as eloquent a way as you do, about the necessity of thinking about the next generation with the wealth that the boomers have, you know, been through hard work and determination and, and some luck also, you know, developed over the course of their life. But do something worthy with it. Do something worthy of it. And I think your book does an amazing job of that. So it's fantastic and I encourage everyone to buy it. And where's the best place to buy it?
- [73:34]
Johan Kurtz
Amazon is, is. Is where it's listed. This was a bit of a one man show, so you'll. You'll forgive me for, for taking the easy option here, but, yeah, if you search. Yeah, Leaving a Legacy, Johan Kurtz in Amazon, it should pop right up.
- [73:49]
Host 1
Okay. Awesome. Well, best of success to you. I thank you for writing something like this. It needed to be done and it's really awesome to see that a young man like you did it. I think that's fantastic. So thanks for joining us today. I really appreciate it and hope to talk to you again as things develop.
- [74:08]
Johan Kurtz
Brilliant. Thank you so much for having me.
- [74:10]
Doug
And I always look forward to your blog when it appears. I've got to emphasize that again, John.
- [74:16]
Johan Kurtz
Thank you, Doug.
- [74:17]
Host 1
All right, thanks, guys.