Hillsdale College Podcast Network Superfeed

Episode: Andrew Klavan Finds Light in Humanity's Darkness
Date: May 9, 2025
Host: Scott Bertram (Hillsdale College)
Guest: Andrew Klavan, author and media commentator

Episode Overview

This episode centers around author and commentator Andrew Klavan’s latest book, The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness. Klavan explores how some of history’s darkest murders have inspired works of art—and what this transformation reveals about the human impulse towards love, meaning, and beauty in the face of evil. In conversation with Scott Bertram, Klavan discusses the philosophical, artistic, and theological implications of evil, and how art both challenges and redeems our understanding of humanity.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Klavan’s Definition of Evil

[01:27–02:44]

• Absence of Love:
  Klavan sees evil as the “absence of love,” arguing that humans are created for love, connection, and compassion.

  "I call evil the absence of love. Because what I believe is that our actual selves, our created selves are created for love." – Andrew Klavan [01:43]

• He critiques the common perception that good is merely a reaction to evil, positing instead that “love is the primary fact of life,” with evil emerging when that is missing or obstructed.
• The ultimate expression of evil, in Klavan’s view, is murder—the destruction of another’s inner world.

2. Art Inspired by Crime: The Three (and a Half) Murders

[02:44–07:06]

• Klavan outlines a chain of influence, beginning with a notorious 19th-century French criminal, extending through Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Nietzsche’s philosophy, the Leopold and Loeb murder, the Ed Gein murders, and culminating with biblical Cain and Abel.

• Key murder cases & their transformation in art:

  • Pierre Lasonnaire’s murder (1830s France): Inspired Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.
  • Leopold and Loeb (1920s, USA): Inspired numerous plays and films (including Hitchcock’s Rope).
  • Ed Gein (1950s, USA): Inspired Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs, and the slasher genre.
  • Biblical Cain and Abel: Serves as the underpinning of countless stories; Klavan explores its thematic recurrence throughout scripture and culture.

• Art as Redemption:
  The underlying thread is how artists transform darkness into beauty and revelation, offering not just connection to God but also a means for finding joy despite surrounding evil.

  "...artists take darkness and evil and turn it into beauty. And through beauty, revelation, and not just a connection to God, but a way of sort of maintaining joy." – Andrew Klavan [06:39]

3. The Morality of Slasher Films and Social Decay

[07:06–11:01]

• Slasher films, while often considered superficial or exploitative, embody latent morality, often punishing transgressive behaviors and showing survivors as the virtuous.

• Klavan connects these trends to a Nietzschean “death of God” in the West, wherein authority shifts from external divinity to internal, subjective construction of meaning—including gender.

• Psychiatric figures in film, once replacing the priest as moral authority, ultimately become sources of evil (as with Hannibal Lecter).

  “We thought the psychiatrist was healing us...but in fact, he was Hannibal Lecter. He turned us into meat. And that's what Hannibal Lecter does. He eats the people that he kills.” – Andrew Klavan [10:27]

• The arc of these films mirrors society’s loss of spiritual structure, shifting from maternal/familial societal anchors to isolated, self-defining individuals vulnerable to evil.

4. Exploring Evil in Silence of the Lambs

[12:46–14:10]

• Klavan examines whether one killer in Silence of the Lambs is “more evil” than the other:
  • Hannibal Lecter is "in charge," deeply self-aware, manipulative, and in control—making his evil greater than Buffalo Bill’s, whose violence is driven by confusion and envy.

    "Hannibal Lecter is in charge... He outsmarts everybody. And he is almost the character that we almost identify with in the story." – Andrew Klavan [13:27]

5. The Power and Purpose of True Crime Stories

[14:10–17:04]

• Society’s fascination with true crime (podcasts, TV) reflects a deep need to journey through and resolve darkness as a psychological experience.

• True stories about murder can be “revelatory,” guiding audiences through an internal reckoning with evil in a safe, transformative way.

  "A story is something you go through, and when you come out the other end, you are a little changed because something has been added to your soul..." – Andrew Klavan [15:54]

• Good stories about murder serve not to glorify evil, but to offer understanding and restore relationship to God.

6. The Brother Battle: Cain and Abel, Rock Bands, and Human Nature

[17:04–20:47]

• Klavan discusses the archetype of sibling rivalry, present in both myth and modern music bands (The Kinks, Oasis, Bee Gees).
• Cain and Abel: The primal “brother battle,” a pattern which repeats from biblical narratives into personal relationships and artistic collaboration.

  "A brother relationship is like nothing else on earth... there's a sort of otherness to your brother that is also yourself." – Andrew Klavan [18:54]

• The themes of envy, estrangement from God, and duality of self are encoded in these stories.
• John Steinbeck’s East of Eden is noted as a retelling of Cain and Abel, revealing the universality of this theme.

7. Beauty Amidst Darkness: Art, Faith, and Joy

[20:47–26:08]

• Klavan shares his experience with beauty, particularly through a virtual reality rendering of Michelangelo’s Pieta, and reflects on the problem of evil (theodicy).

  “Beauty is an essential. It is like good and like truth. It actually is there for and of and in itself.” – Andrew Klavan [24:25]

• Beauty is not just an evolutionary byproduct but a fundamental, absolute reality.
• Klavan credits beauty found in art, nature, and love as sustaining his joy and preventing cynicism, even as his moral sense and comprehension of evil deepens.
• The final third of his book explores rituals, art, and therapy—creative practices that sustain light in a dark world.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Evil:

  “We frequently act as if good were the add on. …I think love is actually the primary fact of life.” – Andrew Klavan [01:49]

• On the power of stories:

  “A story is something you go through, and when you come out the other end, you are a little changed because something has been added to your soul that wasn't there before.” – Andrew Klavan [15:54]

• On beauty and evil:

  “Michelangelo took this moment of absolute disaster and turned it into beauty... if people can take these horrible things and turn them into beauty, what can God not make of this world?” – Andrew Klavan [22:01]

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 01:27 | Klavan’s definition of evil | | 03:03 | Breakdown of major murders and their influence on art | | 08:01 | Moral themes in slasher films; decay of social/moral order | | 12:46 | The nature of evil in Silence of the Lambs | | 14:58 | Why people are drawn to true crime stories | | 17:53 | Sibling rivalry, Cain and Abel, and rock music | | 21:21 | Encountering beauty and the theodicy | | 24:25 | The absolute nature of beauty; sustaining joy |

Tone & Style

This conversation is philosophical, probing, and reflective, leavened with literary and cultural references. Klavan’s tone is both candid and warm, combining deep seriousness about suffering and evil with an enduring optimism grounded in faith and beauty.

Conclusion

Andrew Klavan’s reflections in The Kingdom of Cain and in this interview offer profound insight into humanity’s darkest impulses and our capacity to redeem them through love, faith, and artistry. Ultimately, he argues that by engaging deeply with evil in literature and art, we don’t lose hope—instead, we come to cherish beauty and joy all the more fiercely, grounding ourselves in both realism and hope.