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- [00:07]
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From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, nurtured and honored, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.
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And so you actually have to dig into these left wing terror networks, look at how they're funded, look at how they proliferate, eradicate them from public institutions. They shouldn't have control over public universities. You know, just do actual things that will help save the country.
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A
This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was Molly Hemingway, senior journalism fellow at Hillsdale College and editor in chief at the Federalist and Fox News contributor. She's also the author of the upcoming book Alito. More about that coming up in just a little bit. Molly Hemingway, we talk in depth with her today about a number of topics. Molly, thanks so much for joining us.
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B
Wonderful to be here with you, Scott.
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A
Always nice to have you here in studio on campus. And never a shortage of topics to discuss. I want to start with the Comey indictment, which came down just a few days ago, in fact, what do you think it says? What do you think it reveals? Confirms about the way that the FBI and intelligence agencies have been operating in recent years.
- [01:36]
B
So the Russia collusion hoax really got going in 2016. And we've known a lot about the FBI's role in perpetuating this lie that Donald Trump was colluding with Russia to steal the election. It turns into the Mueller probe, which I think a lot of people thought was about looking into collusion between Russia and Trump. Really what it was was a way to cover up what the FBI had done during the 2016 campaign season. And then more recently, we've learned about the role that Brennan and Clapper had in perpetuating this hoax, this lie. All of the top Obama spy chiefs were involved in this. But the problem is, as I said, it started in 2016. And you have statutes of limitation that prevent full accountability for things that were done. Usually it's five years for this type of situation. And that expired in 2021. And so that cover up that was run by the Mueller probe and other bureaucrats within the spy agencies really made it difficult to hold anyone accountable. And but these spy chiefs did engage in perpetuation of that lie within the last five years, although we're closing out on that as well. And so this indictment of Comey for some of the lies that he told in this particular case is about Some of the leaks and the lies he told about the leaks that he was participating in is a way to perhaps hold some of these people accountable for one of the most horrific periods of American history.
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A
People who are vaguely paying attention to the political scene are hearing things like partisan witch hunt and political retribution and all sorts of things. Let's entertain that briefly. Just meaning, how would you compare this indictment to what we saw happening to former Trump administration officials?
- [03:39]
B
So I've seen a lot of people in the media claim that this indictment of Comey for some of the lies that he told and put the. Some of what he put the country through is retribution or vengeance. And you will see people ask these corporate media types, retribution for what? Vengeance for what they don't want to deal with the answer, because there are multiple ways you could look at this, right? One is that all of Obama's spy chiefs and a lot of other top people in the deep state, as it's called, lied about a president in order to engage in a sort of coup of his first term in office and to really put the country through a lot of trauma. Just by way of example, because they did the Russia collusion hoax, it made a lot of good people fearful of working in the first Trump administration. Because they did the Russia collusion hoax, it made hostilities between Russia and the United States greater than they need to be. So it had a lot of consequences. But there was also, I think, what they're trying to say. It's vengeance for some of the lawfare that Democrats engaged in up and down the Eastern seaboard, including from the Department of Justice itself, to try to keep President Trump out of office. So this could be anything from changing the law in New York State so that someone could make a claim without substantiation and get a New York jury to agree to an absurd payment, or criminalizing the Trump business in New York over absolutely ridiculous understandings of mortgage law or campaign finance law, or what happened in with the Department of Justice, where they went after Trump for the January 6 riot in a very convoluted way that was really about attacking his speech or trying to find him guilty of holding classified documents which were about the Russia collusion hoax. It seems to be, you know, just all these different things. And so they're trying to say that. But I don't think that actually has anything to do with whether James Comey lied about these leaks or not. And people like to say no one is above the law. Well, that would include James Comey and lying to Congress while they're doing an investigation into the Department of Justice for this Russia collusion hoax is a horrific crime. If he is found guilty of it.
- [05:48]
A
Is this the beginning of real accountability for what happened? And how far must that go? Meaning, how far must we go to find that accountability?
- [05:58]
B
I remember reading in this inspector general report about the Russia collusion hoax. No, no, I'm sorry. It was the John Durham report. So there was a special counsel looking into what the FBI and Department of justice had done, and it was a lengthy report. It cataloged all sorts of errors. And there was a line in there that was something like, there's no cure for this. Like, they already violated all the laws and the norms associated with what the Department of Justice is supposed to be. The problem is with the hearts of the men who were engaged in it. And so the situation is dire. And by the way, this indictment of Comey is so small compared to what needs to be done. And maybe nothing can be done because the statute has expired. But one of the most frustrating things is that Trump comes into office and there are a lot of people who feel like the Russia collusion hoax is the original sin of this era, this delegitimization of Republicans and Trump, that you can draw a straight line from that into the actual violent attacks on them right now. And people thought that something was happening. And it sounds like maybe the people that were in charge of this investigation were not. Were actually doing what they'd been doing for a decade or more, or about a decade, which is covering up what the FBI and DOJ did instead of holding people accountable. And it may be too late. That's very depressing to think about.
- [07:19]
A
Molly Hemingway with us on the show. Let's talk about YouTube and what we now know about YouTube in this letter to Jim Jordan. Recently, you've been very close to this. Was there new information in what YouTube admitted to Jim Jordan, or is it acknowledging things that we already knew to be true?
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B
So we've known that YouTube was. And Google in general, Google owns YouTube, have been some of the worst people in the censorship industrial complex. They. They have used their position as the means by which a lot of people receive news and information to privilege left wing news and information and to suppress conservative news and information. They've been doing it for a very long time, particularly after the 2016 election. They're engaged in censorship of every single issue that affects elections. Like, what do you think on trans issues? Or what do you think about gun rights? Or what do you think about religion? I mean, they are anything you can censor they're censoring. And they've been doing it violently and they've been doing it also because they say they have to because other countries don't have freedom of speech. But they've done it in a very, very unfair fashion that has privileged the left and harmed the right. And now they say, oh, yes, well, part of the reason why we did this is that the Biden administration encouraged us to. They did not say we are going to make whole those publications such as mine, the Federalist, who have been victims of just unbelievable censorship or all the other individuals or publications or voices that they didn't say we're going to make right. We stole money from you and your kids and we made life very difficult for you and we interfered in elections. They just said Biden encouraged us to do it and they think that's some kind of get out of jail free card. But it is. It's ongoing. I just talked with them recently. It's ongoing. They do not let you speak the truth on trans issues and other very important issues. And so nobody should feel happy about this news from Jim Jordan's committee. It doesn't change anything. And they're still suppressing free speech and debate and doing it in a way that grievously harms people on the right side of the aisle.
- [09:30]
A
We will continue our conversation in just a moment with Molly Hemingway, senior journalism fellow here at Hillsdale College, editor in chief at the Federalist. We'll also preview her book, Alito. A little bit later on in the conversation, I want to tell you about something pretty darn neat that's happening right now with Hillsdale College. You know the Robertson family, of course, from Duck Dynasty, the hit TV show. Now Hillsdale is offering you the unique opportunity to learn alongside the Robertsons as they encounter Hillsdale's online course the Genesis Story. Every Friday on the Unashamed podcast, the Robertsons will share their insights and perspectives on learning from our great Hillsdale professor of English, Justin Jackson. Take a trip down south to Louisiana for this one of a kind learning experience that we call unaShamed Academy. Visit unashamed4hillsdale.com to enroll today. That's unashamed. F O R hillsdale.com to experience the Genesis story alongside the Robertsons. We continue our conversation now with Molly Hemingway, FOX News contributor, senior journalism fellow here at Hillsdale College and also editor in chief of the Federalist. Molly, I saw a CNBC headline about this and it said how Google shifted from bastion of accurate info to steward of free expression, which to me Indicates they don't understand either phrase because quite clearly they were not a bastard of accurate info by admitting that they were not allowing accurate information on their platforms and a steward of free expression while still maintaining some of the same activities they were doing for the past years.
- [11:19]
B
Well, steward of free expression sounds like a very Orwellian term as it is, right? We're stewards of, like, you're either for free expression or you're not. But yeah, they were actually suppressing true and accurate information. So if you said a man is not a woman, even if he claims to be, they'll still suppress that information. And that was not. They were not, you know, bastions of accurate information when they were suppressing that. And that suppression is still ongoing and they are not supporting free speech and debate at all.
- [11:52]
A
There's a part of the Jim Jordan letter, letter to Jim Jordan that says YouTube has not and will not empower fact checkers to take action on or label content across the company's services. What do you know about that being true? How has YouTube and Google sort of leveraged fact checkers into doing the dirty work for them in the past?
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B
So Facebook is a great example of having used, quote, unquote, fact checkers. They're not checkers. They're not factual. But these are censorship tools sometimes. Like these censorship tools were provided by China. The Federalists experienced censorship from a fact checker, quote, unquote, fact checker, that was owned by ByteDance, which is that Chinese firm that owns TikTok. And they would outsource their censorship to these people. They were. Every single one of them was left wing or hostile to conservatives in some fashion. And you cannot, you know, the whole fact checking industry is actually a, a propaganda and censorship tool where they decide that they understand what the facts are. And if you disagree with them on a particular political issue, they claim it's factually incorrect. YouTube was also engaged in that, and YouTube continues to be engaged. I mean, they've actually just done much more brutal censorship. Like, if you use this term, we will censor you. YouTube was also known for saying, if you disagree with the cdc, a government entity that was really wrong on a lot of stuff during the COVID pandemic, they would just say, not only are you censored, nothing you ever do in the future, like, even if it's on an unrelated topic, will ever be allowed to see the light of day because you're dangerously disinforming people. If you say that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a place that you should look into as possibly being related to the release of the COVID virus. They would censor you and would continue and do continue to do it because the censorship tools are built in for the long haul. And so if even if they claim that they're not adding to it now, it doesn't change that you're still suppressed from previous things.
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A
Molly Hemingway with us, senior journalism fellow at Hillsdale College, editor in chief at the Federalist as well, and Fox News contributor. Talk a bit about Charlie Kirk and his assassination and what we've seen since then. You were at the memorial recently out in Arizona. What was that experience like?
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B
I'm just glad that I was able to attend that. It was unlike anything I've ever experienced. More people than I've ever been around at one point. And it was a really beautiful thing. No, no fighting, no scuffles. It was very difficult to get in and to be in the 100 degree heat. But it was a really interesting moment. Not just because of the religious aspects of the service, but even in the during the political part of the service, which was you had all these like cabinet secretaries, president, vice president and some of the cabinet secretaries were speaking so clearly about their Christianity. It was just very clear. I mean it was something I had never experienced before. But the assassination is a massive issue that will reverberate for some time today.
- [15:00]
A
Shoe that as I watch Democrats and the media deal with it, they seem to think that it's a political issue. There was a PBS headline on the day of the memorial that said MAGA says Goodbye to Kirk as if it was a small segment of one party that only cared about. I run into people, I still run into people I am shocked who were exposed to Charlie Kirk. I did not fully appreciate his reach across this country into, into people in places that, that don't care about politics on a, on a day to day basis. And so I've been this is a, this is a cultural thing, not not a political thing. And I guess for conservatives, the longer Democrats treat it as a political thing, it might be to our benefit.
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B
I don't know. I actually hate when people describe the entirety of the Republican Party as MAGA. Like when 99% of your party is voting for someone or for a particular direction, you don't need to separate it out anymore. It's a, it's a ploy used by people to make it seem like the new health of the Republican Party is not real or is not, it's not as big as it is. But that's other than that. Actually, I just want to say you have got it exactly right. I went to the first vigil for Charlie in Denver or in Washington D.C. at the Kennedy center, and I was struck by how apolitical everyone in the crowd was. They're wearing Christian shirts, they're talking about his witness, they're talking about how he was martyred for his faith. And I think that part of the confusion, though, is legitimate, which is the corporate media did not understand Charlie Kirk and they didn't understand what he was doing. And if they knew knew him, they only knew him from the beginning when he was more political and he wasn't on.
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A
I forget who made this point. No one invited him on late night shows. He had a massive cultural footprint and he was not on Jimmy Fallon's show or anyone else's show. He was big because he did the work himself. No one else was leveraging their effort to help him. Charlie did Charlie's work.
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B
That's absolutely right. And in the last, I'd say since he got married and had kids, he'd always been a devout Christian and he'd always talked about it, but he had come to see that the problems that the country face are really not political, they are spiritual. And so he particularly worried about young people and their rejection of Christianity or even like their just lack of knowledge about it. And so when you watch the more recent videos of him engaging with students on campus, it's just not just first and foremost about Jesus, it's almost entirely about Jesus. And because the media are watching these poorly rated shows like Jimmy Kimmel and not in touch with the people they purport to cover the news for, they had no idea how important he was to particularly those young people who are either at college high schools or recently graduated who were finding him to be a better way to emulate how they talk to their left wing friends and.
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A
Family, talk briefly about rhetoric. In this way, I'm amazed that media members who can hear a dog whistle when a Republican says good morning can't draw a line between Democrats and liberals, calling everyone they oppose Nazis and fascists to a bullet casing that reads catch this fascist that doesn't exist. I actually read a piece over the weekend in which someone took pains to explain because. Because this particular word wasn't used, you can't actually draw this person close to this organization. Is punishment at the ballot box the only real solution to get Democrats to change their rhetoric?
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B
No, it needs to be more than that. I just want to first say, for the longest time, the left used this Phrase stochastic terrorism. They would say that if a person on the right said we gotta save this country or we've gotta make America great again, they would somehow interpret into that a call for violence. They would say, oh, you can't save the country. If you're saving the country, you're legitimizing any form of violence. Then you have actual elected Democrats and other high profile people on the left saying you gotta get in the street, you gotta punch em in the face. You bring a knife, if they bring a knife, you bring a gun, there's gotta be blood in the streets. Like the rhetoric is actually getting much, much worse. And so, and also that it got worse after the Kirk assassination reminds me a lot of how it got worse after October 7th where people were kind of celebrating that, defending it, justifying it. And you saw high profile people do it again. And so I think the ballot box is not sufficient because what happens is when the left is in power, they use their power to utterly crush their opponents. And when the right is in power, they sort of go, oh thank God that's brief period is over and they don't do anything. And so you actually have to dig into these left wing terror networks. Look at how they're funded, look at how they proliferate, eradicate them from public institutions, meaning like they shouldn't have control over public universities. It's ridiculous that taxpayers fund the destruction of the country through their public universities and you know, just do actual things that will help, say, help, help save the country. Now alert the stochastic terrorism watchers.
- [20:22]
A
Yeah, Molly Hemingway with, on the, on the show. I want to turn toward President Trump and his recent fight against crime in Washington D.C. and then now in Chicago, Portland and perhaps other places. It was very effective in Washington D.C. to the point where even the mayor was saying, hey, this is, this is good stuff happening out here. We see elected officials in Illinois, Chicago, Portland saying, don't come here, we don't want you. But I always try to simplify this because I think when things are simple, it's good for President Trump. President Trump says let's fight crime. And Democrats say, what if we don't? What if we just get used to it? I'm wondering if the success of, do you think the success of what we saw in Washington D.C. can be replicated in cities across the country like Chicago and Portland?
- [21:18]
B
Yes and no. So Washington is a unique situation because it's a federal city. So you could actually have National Guard coming in and helping with all sorts of aspects of the crime there. And by the way, I've lived in D.C. or the area long enough to know Trump was not the first person to do this. This has happened before because it's a federal city. You don't have that same wide ranging ability to help out in Chicago or Portland. And you also have the resistance means something there from the leadership. However, what you have in Portland in particular is a well funded, well coordinated terrorist action against federal agents. And by the way, that's been going on for a long time. It's, you know, during the first Trump administration, Antifa besieged the Marco Hatfield Federal courthouse for months, if not years. I mean, it's actually horrific that Trump didn't do what should have been done in the first term there. You cannot let your federal judiciary be attacked by mobs. And people understood that with the January 6th riot, like, oh, we don't want people at that seat of government. Well, the federal judiciary is also a seat of government and so is the White House, which also was attacked during that time. And they just didn't really do much about it. And so they need to protect their federal officers and they need to protect federal borders. And that's what these actions in Chicago and Portland are about. And so it's a more limited role, but it's an important one because of what's happening to federal law enforcement there.
- [22:45]
A
President Obama is among those who have said the past few weeks that it's a, it's, it's a frequent refrain that Republicans do what they do and Trump is acting like a dictator because they're losing on the issues. Democrats have the, the issues. Voters agree with us on the issues. Reuters Ipdos Ipsos poll from September 21st. Who has a better plan on the issues? Republicans, voters say, have a better plan on crime, immigration, foreign conflicts, economy, gun control, political extremism and corruption. Respect for democracy was pretty much split down the middle. And on the Democrats have a better plan. Health care, women's rights, environment. Now, it used to be on some of those issues, like in particular, gun control, even if voters wouldn't vote that way, they'd tell pollsters, oh, yeah, sure, yeah, gun control, gun, gun safety. And that's not happening anymore. Why do you think that that's changing?
- [23:41]
B
Well, I think we're not at a high point in the Democrat Party for effective policymaking or people have seen what happens with their policies and they're not elated. Now that's an opportunity for Democrats. They clearly need some kind of reinvigorating, probably coming from the outside or just from someone more effective or younger than their current political leadership. So Barack Obama has been so vocal recently, and it's weird because he never left Washington, D.C. during the first Trump term. And he'd always said, and so he was very active and I think active in some of the nefarious parts of the resistance at that time. He'd always said that he wanted to be president without being officially president. And I think you saw that during the Biden administration. It was very much a third term of the Obama administration. And as things keep getting worse, it's like he's getting more vocal. But I don't think people are eager to hear from him, in part because a lot of the bad road that Democrats are on he started them on or he really like supercharged them. And so partly he's frantic and understanding that his legacy right now could not be worse. But he's just wrong to say that the policies of Democrats are appealing to people. That's just, frankly, not true. We saw that in the last election. They'll probably do better in the midterms. That's if history is any guide. But when you most think of Democrats right now, you probably think of poor education policy, horrific crime policy in cities, and then just like a Trump hatred. And I think the Trump hatred motivates a lot of people, but that's not really a policy.
- [25:11]
A
Molly Hemingway A new book is on the way, and I've known about it for a while, so I'm excited that it is now on the schedule for release in April of 2026. It's not that far away. Be here before you know it. Alito, the justice who reshaped the court and restored the Constitution. Why were you interested in writing a book about Justice Samuel Alito?
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B
So the first book I did with Kerry Severino was on Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation and the future of the Supreme Court. And when I researched that book, I became utterly captivated by Samuel Alito. I thought he was like, so interesting and also kind of secretive. Like, nobody writes about him, nobody talks about him. And he's been on the court. He'll have been on the court 20 years in 2026. And by the way, Chief Justice John Roberts is just celebrating his 20th anniversary this week on the court. So in those 20 years, he's kind of built up this legacy. If you look at Justice Thomas as the person who sort of looks over in the distance and says, we should be over there, Justice Alito is the one who gets you there incrementally with decisions. And so he's a far more important figure than people have realized. And it's really coming to fruition now, I think. And you see it in the Dobbs decision that he authored. And it was just a masterpiece judicially and so many other decisions, too. So I loved being able to tell his story, get into his judicial approach, and I'm really excited for it to come out. And you can pre order now if you want.
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A
Yes, you may pre order now. Alito, the justice who reshaped the court and restored the Constitution. We'll talk far more when it's released. 60 seconds. How would you describe Alito on the court compared to his compatriots on the court?
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B
So I think one thing that people really love about the conservative judicial movement is originalism, this idea that we don't make the Constitution be whatever we want it to be. We just understand the original meaning of the terms and we apply them. And it's like a very rigorous intellectual approach. It's also true that originalism has yielded quite a few wins, whether it's on our understanding of gun rights or affirmative action or whether abortion is in the Constitution or not. Alito is distinguished among his peers because he's very practical. He does describe himself as an originalist, but he's also very practical. He was a lower court judge. He was a prosecutor. He thinks about how decisions affect real people. And that practicality has given his decisions an endurance and also a way forward as people balance principle and pragmatism, two things you should have, and too many people err on one side or the other. He is a guide not just for the courts, but for all of, I think, conservatism about how to balance those two things.
- [27:55]
A
The book is in April of 26, available for pre order now. We'll talk more in depth near release date. Alito, the justice who Reshaped the Court and Restored the Constitution, by Molly Hemingway was also senior journalism fellow here at Hillsdale College, editor in chief at the Federalist and FOX News contributor. Molly, thank you so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [28:18]
B
Thank you, Scott.
- [28:19]
A
Up next, Dr. Benedict Whelan from Hillsdale's English department returns. We dig into the Great Gatsby once again in this its 100th anniversary year of its release. I'm Scott Bertram. This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Power.
- [28:41]
C
Hillsdale College is a small Christian classical liberal arts college that operates independently of government funding and we want you or your son or daughter to apply. At Hillsdale, students grow in heart and mind by studying timeless truths in a supportive community dedicated to the highest things. Hillsdale College costs significantly less than other nationally ranked private liberal arts colleges and receives regular recognition as a best value. And nearly all students receive financial aid. Our robust core curriculum, vibrant student life, and 8 to 1 student to faculty ratio make for an education like no other. For more information or to fill out an application, visit Hillsdale. Edu Info. That's Hillsdale Edu Info.
- [29:36]
B
Great books, great people, great ideas. Learning about these things is critical to being a well educated human being. And we can help with the Hillsdale Dialogues. Each week, Hillsdale College President Larry Arne joins radio veteran Hugh Hewitt to discuss topics of enduring relevance. And from time to time, they also talk about current events, but always with an eye toward more fundamental truths. And they want you to tune in to a conversation like no other. The Hillsdale Dialogues are posted every Monday on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at podcast hillsdale.edu. that's podcast hillsdale edu or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you find your audio.
- [30:26]
A
Welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertrand. Be sure to find us on Xillsdale Radio and the Hillsdale College podcast network. At HC Podcasts, we're joined by Dr. Benedict Whelan. He's Associate professor of English here at Hillsdale College. Dr. Whalen, thanks for joining us.
- [30:45]
C
Thanks for having me, Scott.
- [30:45]
A
Continuing our conversation today on the Great Gatsby on its 100th anniversary in 2025, a great American novel. Maybe not the great American novel as we talked about last time, but today we talk about the character of Gatsby as perhaps a modern tragic hero. So we have a base to work from. Give our audience a little bit of a narrative arc of Gatsby in this story.
- [31:09]
C
Yeah, just as a reminder, he grew up as the child of some relatively unsuccessful farmers in the Midwest. He ended up drifting around with a millionaire for a while. Then he ends up in this love affair with this girl from a relatively upper class family and he's too impoverished to marry her. He joins the army. He goes and fights in World War I. Then he comes back to the United States. He makes a fortune through somewhat suspicious circumstances. It looks like he's probably involved in bootlegging to some degree during this is Prohibition era, of course. And then he finally comes to pursue the woman. His love for her has been this driving force for him, but she is now married to very old money and his efforts finally rise to a crisis where another woman is killed and her husband thinks that it was Gatsby. So he comes and shoots Gatsby after Gatsby has also lost Daisy, the woman who he was pursuing. So he essentially loses her and then gets shot by another husband. And that's the end.
- [32:30]
A
So would you consider Gatsby a tragic hero in the classical sense of the term?
- [32:35]
C
Yeah, it's an interesting question. If we look back at the ancient Greek tragedies, the heroes all tend to be great men. This is something that Aristotle describes in his Poetics, that what we witness in the tragedy is the downfall of a great man. So these are kings and princes, people from the great mythic households in ancient Greece. So in that technical sense, Gatsby would not be because he's the child of some unsuccessful farmers. The interesting thing, though, is to see this maybe as one of the things that America really adds to this tradition. When we think about tragic heroes. Of course, I think by the end of the 40s, we get Arthur Miller's the Death of a Salesman, which is quite a powerful tragedy. And there Miller very intentionally names his tragic hero Willie Low Man. And part of Miller's point is that we can have, and this is very American and democratic, that in this. In this government of the people, by the people, we don't have great houses, we don't have kings, but we do suffer tragedies. And so Miller tries to capture that with the common man. The common man can suffer a tragedy, and the tragedy can have a grandeur and significance that rises to something approximating what we see in the ancient Greeks. And I think, in that sense, in conversation with the Death of a Salesman. Yeah, I think the. The great Gatsby has this sort of tragic greatness with the sort of democratic flair, that it's a common man who we're witnessing struggle and finally suffer defeat and destruction.
- [34:25]
A
What would you identify as Gatsby's fatal flaw? Does it make him more admirable or just more deluded?
- [34:33]
C
Yeah, this is another point, I think, where Fitzgerald is very fine as an artist here, because I teach a lot of Shakespeare here. And one of. One of the wonderful things about Shakespeare's tragedies is that his tragic characters, they tend to be undone by something that is very true to their character. It's not an accident. Right. It's not just some random occurrence, but it springs out of really who they are. And so their very greatness is part of what undoes them. And I think that's true for Jay Gatsby. And so I think that it's both his Hamartia in the Greek Sense, his tragic flaw is. Is also that which made him great. And it is his capacity to. To dream and to be moved and driven by this one dream. It's. It's a delicate thing in Fitzgerald's novel to, To. To show both the greatness of this thing, like it is good for mankind to have dreams and to be driven by them to, To. To aspire very high. And then also that. That can be the, The. The cause of your tragic undoing, your catastrophe. If the word a tragic hero suffers a catastrophe, and that literally means a downward turning, a strophe, a kata. Strophe, it's a downward turning. And the catastrophe that Jay Gatsby suffers comes out of exactly that which makes him great, his great aspirations and dreams. And so it's very fine in that sense as a tragedy.
- [36:10]
A
Talking with Dr. Ben Whalen from the English Department here at Hillsdale College about the Great Gatsby and Gatsby as a modern tragic hero, the idea of this, this dream that we talk with students all the time and perhaps they get advice that says, hey, follow your dream. Do what you love. All right, so this is like, this is like Gatsby, right? But is that idealism? Is that, Is that just self deception? Where is that line?
- [36:36]
C
Yeah, for Gatsby, the. One of the interesting things is that he. He does want to make something of himself. And, and by the events that occur within the, the narrative, he has. He's made a. He's splendidly wealthy. But. But that ultimately isn't. That's not the end of the dream. He wants to make money in order to win Daisy, this woman that, that he had this affair with. And the problem there, of course, I mean, is manifold, is she's already married to somebody else, you can't compel people to love you, etc.
- [37:09]
A
Etc.
- [37:09]
C
So the. Yeah, the funny thing about the novel is that, yeah, you should follow your dreams, but they better be rightly ordered. And so, yeah, it's not just do whatever you want. I think the novel works as a sort of sobering reflection on the danger of following your dreams, especially if they're disordered in certain ways.
- [37:34]
A
We talked in our last conversation about the power of nostalgia and how it plays in the Great Gatsby. How does Gatsby's inability to let go of the past also fit into this idea of being a tragic hero?
- [37:48]
C
Yeah, his inability to let go of the past is part of what makes him great, in that he aspires so greatly towards this happy moment, this good thing, this thing that sits in his memory, his imagination as this moment of happiness. But the fact that he can't take that into the future, that he can't adapt it to what's actually occurred to the real world as he finds it now that he's made his fortune, is his undoing. So it is part of his tragic past. By the way, it's interesting to think about nostalgia and memory and desire as some of these sort of fundamental aspects to tragedy. So if you go back to the ancient Greeks, if you think of Oedipus the king, that tragedy begins to unfold because Oedipus is determined to find out who murdered the previous king and looks back into his past. And then if you fast forward to say, Shakespeare, if you recall the ghost that appears to Hamlet and invokes him to get revenge, ends his speech saying, remember me. And Hamlet says, remember you? Yeah, I'll wipe everything else from my memory. And so you think of memory and nostalgia and desire. They're driving Oedipus, driving Hamlet, and here driving Jay Gatsby. These are very, very powerful, fundamental human things that can be very destructive if not cultivated and shaped in the right way.
- [39:20]
A
At the end of the book, Gatsby succeeded in winning Daisy. Would he still be considered tragic?
- [39:27]
C
I think the novel would take a different. It would be more of like a social tragedy, actually, I think, and Gatsby might go off and be happy. You have this sense though, that what Gatsby and Fitzgerald throws several different paragraphs in the novel where you actually get the sense that Gatsby has so idealized and romanticized this vision that the woman herself can't actually live up to it. It's become unreal. And so you do have the sense that even if she had decided to run off with Gatsby, would they be. Would it be happily ever after? Probably not. The sort of human reality would assert itself and she would be less than everything he had dreamed. And that might. Might shape its own tragedy.
- [40:16]
A
Yeah. Even at the end, our narrator, Nick, admires Gatsby. Is he, is he right to do so? Is he. Is he blinded by his relationship and Gatsby's charisma?
- [40:30]
C
Yeah, one of the things that he says, in fact, it's Nick's last words to Gatsby, but he doesn't know it at the time, but he says, you're better than the whole wretched lot of them. And the comparison is really directly against these sort of aristocratic old money people. And I do think that Nick is right to admire Gatsby in this way. The sort of person that Gatsby is in tension with Tom and Daisy, they're not very admirable. And we get this line that they they retreat into the security of their wealth after destroying other people's lives. And you do have this sense of that. And Gatsby, of course, has his own problems, but he's an admirable character in the earnestness of his love and in the sort of great desire for this woman he loves.
- [41:30]
A
Talking with Dr. Ben Whalen about the Great Gatsby and Gatsby as a modern tragic hero, what do you think that Gatsby's story is again, as narrative arc as we've described it, maybe can teach us, the reader, about the cost of ambition, the limits of reinvention.
- [41:47]
C
Yeah. So if we think of how important it is for humans to aspire to great things, right, to be driven by dreams, I think one of the flip sides that is it's a cautionary part of the sort of moral of this fable is that dreams can escape reality or even the possible that it's good for man to be a dreamer. But those have to be carefully shaped and cultivated because if the dream becomes immoral, say you're pursuing a married woman, or if the dream becomes unaccomplishable, unreal in some way, it's so idealized that in fact, no earthly woman could possibly be as wonderful or the way that you're thinking here, that sort of thing is very dangerous. And so I do think the novel presents, it does have a sort of cautionary aspect, even while it affirms, yeah, Gatsby, you're better than the wretched lot of them, but you also were destroyed by this dream. So surely there's sort of a via media where you can be better than Tom Buchanan, but not so destructive or amoral as Jay Gatsby.
- [43:05]
A
Dr. Benedict Whelan, Associate professor of English here at Hillsdale College, talking about the Great Gatsby on its 100th anniversary year. Dr. Whelan, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [43:17]
C
Thanks for having me, Scott.
- [43:18]
A
That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Molly Hemingway. Her book Alito, available for pre order now. It's out April of next year. And also Dr. Ben Whalen from our English department here at Hillsdale College. Remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this station. You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews or listen anytime to the podcast at podcast hillsdale.edu or wherever you get your audio. Until next week I'm Scott Bertram, and this has been the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [43:55]
B
Sam.