Podcast Summary: Honestly with Bari Weiss – "Can Reading Fix Men?"

Date: October 30, 2025
Host: Bari Weiss
Guest: Shiloh Brooks (President & CEO, George W. Bush Presidential Center; Professor, Southern Methodist University)
Special Segment: Excerpt from Shiloh Brooks’ conversation with Dr. Cornel West

Overview of the Episode

This episode explores the spiritual, social, and psychological crisis facing young men in America—and proposes a surprising, traditional remedy: deep, meaningful reading. Host Bari Weiss speaks with Shiloh Brooks, who advocates that engaging with great literature can provide purpose, resilience, and authentic personal transformation, especially for men adrift in modern society. The discussion ranges from Brooks’s unconventional personal journey to the rise of anti-intellectual influencers and the cultural and educational forces that have alienated young men, culminating in an excerpt from his own podcast featuring Dr. Cornel West on "Plato’s Republic."

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Crisis Among Young Men (00:02 – 04:59)

• Statistical crisis:
  • Young men are four times more likely to commit suicide, three times more likely to struggle with addiction, and 12 times more likely to be incarcerated compared to women.
  • Record numbers are “not getting married, not even dating, not enrolling in school or working, and struggling as they never have before with serious mental health issues.”
• Loss of Meaning:
  • 58% of young adults experience “little or no sense of purpose” (00:02).
  • Weiss: “Reading great books can make you stronger and better and wiser.”
• Rise of ‘influencers’ and empty solutions:
  • A “cottage industry” of influencers claims to teach young men “how to become high value,” but cannot address deeper challenges of meaning and purpose.

Shiloh Brooks’ Mission and Background (05:01 – 10:22)

• Brooks’ new initiative: Launch of the podcast "Old School" to revive the art of reading among young people, especially men.
• Teaching at Princeton:
  • Found that Ivy League students could “read massive amounts very quickly and retain nothing,” likening them to “July 4th hot dog eating contests” (06:11).
  • He aimed to teach students to read “not for the sake of some end exterior to the reading…but because it’s good in itself…because it makes you wise” (06:53).
• Quote – Brooks (07:57):
  “One thing people don’t do today…is read with the heart. …Let it settle on the heart and let it weigh on your emotions and see whether you’re offended by this, whether you embrace it, whether it makes you want to cry, whether it makes you want to laugh, whether it makes you…”
• Critique of ‘scientification’ of the humanities:
  • Reading is too often approached like “the natural sciences,” dissecting texts as mere data rather than sources of wisdom (08:56).

Transformative Teaching at Princeton (10:22 – 14:23)

• Course design:
  • Brooks limited his “Art of Statesmanship and Political Life” course to five key writers: Xenophon, Machiavelli, Theodore Roosevelt, Sandra Day O’Connor, Frederick Douglass—chosen to represent diverse models of greatness and wisdom (10:01 – 12:27).
  • “I would rather you learn to read a few books well than many books poorly.” (10:23)
• Classroom impact:
  • “It was almost like a religious revival…they started to laugh…they would cry, they would be offended, they would make jokes…they would come to me on the last day of class…say thank you. I had never read a book until I got to your class.” (13:18)

Reading as Personal and Social Antidote (14:23 – 16:51)

• Resisting conformity:
  • Ivy League achievement often produces “carbon copies…a lot of conformity.” Brooks challenged students:

    “Y’all are boring as hell. And it’s not going to get any better unless you become interesting. And the only way you become interesting is to have ideas that are not your own boring, ignorant ideas.” (15:00)

    • The remedy: expose yourself to “the best that’s been thought and said” for genuine individuality.
    • “On your tombstone, it should not say that you went to Princeton. Nobody remembers great people who went to the Ivy League. …What they remember is what they did. So go do something. Become interesting.” (16:44)

Brooks’ Personal Story (16:51 – 19:08)

• Humble origins:
  • “I grew up…Brownfield, Texas…My dad was a big drinker…my mom was married four times in my lifetime.” (17:09)
  • A local doctor paid his way through St. John’s College, with the condition: “You’ll use the gift that I’m giving you to help other people.” (17:41)
• Literary male role models:
  • Tribute to a “blue collar, red blooded rockabilly” stepfather who “could hunt and fish…[and] also loved books.” (18:31)
  • This challenged Brooks’ sense that “reading is not a manly thing,” illuminating that “some of the greatest writers ever to walk this earth are men of substance and toughness who were also men of literary merit.” (22:18)

Why Young Men Aren’t Reading (21:40 – 24:53)

• Cultural factors:
  • “They don’t see, as I didn’t see for some time, men who read…”
  • “School often is…bureaucratic, technological…learn things this way, take this test and do these sorts of things.” (22:18)
• Gendered imbalance:
  • Educational environments cater more to girls than boys; lack of encouragement for boys to read or engage with the humanities (23:37).

The Broader Problem: Who are Young Men Idolizing? (24:53 – 30:08)

• Toxic online influences:
  • Many young men are drawn to figures like Andrew Tate, who champion “false gods of the noble.”
  • Young men want “vision of greatness” but are turning to “a false version of it.”
  • Brooks (27:29):
    “Men in particular…are attracted to some vision of the noble…willing to sacrifice for something good…Those men hold up some false God…the appetites…whereas…sacrificing those things…will make you happy.”
• Reaction to “woke” messaging:
  • “Was the rise of people like Tate an inevitable reaction to a ‘woke’ ideology…that told men…they were toxic just for being men?” (29:00)
• Compounding effect of technology:
  • Outrageous voices are algorithmically amplified.

Education, Anti-Americanism, and the Power of the Canon (30:08 – 35:27)

• Decline in patriotism:

  • Only 42% of 18–24-year-olds say they're proud to be American; Brooks sees this as a “failure of civic education at all levels.” (31:02)

• Case study:

  • Brooks describes teaching Marx and Wiesel’s “Night” on October 7th at Princeton, noticing students deeply absorb and engage with difficult texts when given the chance (31:36).
  • “You can’t fix the world by reading a book. But…education that liberates the mind…that’s a good start.” (33:40)

• Essential books to disrupt boredom and foster individuality:

  • Plato’s “Republic”
  • Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil”
  • Great literature on love (Jane Austen, George Eliot, Plato’s "Symposium")
  • American writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Notable exchange:

  • “What's your favorite Taylor Swift song?” (35:27)
    Brooks: “‘Bad Blood’…But it gives an inaccurate—just like Romeo and Juliet…Although he wrote Taming of the Shrew, which sobers one up about what love should be.”

On Literacy and Democracy (37:48 – 41:17)

• Niall Ferguson’s “post-literate society”:
  • If literacy withers, we become “serfs of another time.” (38:01)
• Brooks:
  • “Thinking for yourself is the primary ingredient…for self-government. If we don’t think for ourselves…we’re not governing ourselves anymore.”
  • Good leadership “requires, by necessity, curiosity” and wide reading; historical leaders exemplified this.
    “Abraham Lincoln, whose favorite books were Shakespeare, the Bible and the Greek geometer Euclid…that those three things would make the best president in the history of the country is odd.” (38:37)
• Bari Weiss thanks Brooks for his vision and teaching.

Special Segment: Shiloh Brooks x Dr. Cornel West on Plato’s Republic (42:04 – 62:33)

Justice, Utopia, and Disillusionment

• Brooks:
  “Plato shows us what would be required for the kind of justice we hope for…but…the problem with those radical politics is…they themselves seem to produce injustices.”
• West:
  “Plato's desperation leads toward him being a control freak. Surveillance, eugenics, infanticide…he's wrong about that. …But he's not caving into…nihilism.” (43:19)

  "You live in a culture which is so many ways a joyless quest for insatiable pleasures… but your soul can still be empty, your heart can still be cold, your conscience can still be coarsened. See, that's what Plato's speaking to, even in 2025." (44:52)

Socratic Irony and Dialectic

• Brooks:
  Expresses skepticism that Plato straightforwardly supports authoritarian conclusions, suggesting a Socratic irony (46:05).
• West:
  Emphasizes distinction between Socratic questioning and Plato’s more positive vision; draws analogies to modern uncertainty about what artists or philosophers "really" believe (47:20).

The Enduring Relevance of "The Republic"

• Why still read Plato?
  West: “No young person can come to terms with their lives…without wrestling with reality versus appearance.” (49:39)

  “If you want to play the violin and can’t say a word about Heifetz, I need to put the violin down…You got to deal with the best, you know what I mean?” (60:51)

Dialectic: What True Conversation Requires

• Brooks:

  “Dialectic requires listening. …You engage in correspondence and exchange of ideas in pursuit together of the truth. …It’s a collaborative effort, not a combative one. And I think we’ve sort of lost sight of that.” (52:47)

Classic Texts and Diverse Traditions

• Classics and the Black Intellectual Tradition:
  • West: “Anybody who engages in the fallible quest for truth and beauty and goodness and holy…is going to be headed towards the most fundamental efforts to make sense of meaning in the world.”
  • West draws on the Black experience—“deal with 400 years of being chronically hated and yet still teach the world so much about love.” (57:52)
  • Both agree the classical canon is alien to all modern readers—its value lies in that very disorientation and challenge. (61:26)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Shiloh Brooks (15:00):
  “Y’all are boring. Everybody in here is boring. Y’all are boring as hell. And it’s not going to get any better unless you become interesting. And the only way you become interesting is to have ideas that are not your own boring, ignorant ideas.”
• Bari Weiss (26:10):
  “The person that they wanted to talk to me about after I spoke was, have you met Andrew Tate? …I was like, holy. It was just such a aha moment for me…”
• Brooks on false nobility (27:29):
  “Young men are searching for some vision of greatness in the noble, finding a false version of it in people who are peddling these things. When, you know, the great books…can point you in the direction of a genuinely satisfying nobility…”
• Dr. Cornel West (44:52):
  “You live in a culture which is so many ways a joyless quest for insatiable pleasures. …Your soul can still be empty, your heart can still be cold, your conscience can still be coarsened. That’s what Plato’s speaking to, even in 2025.”
• West, on classical education and diversity (57:52):
  “I wouldn’t say [the classics] just fit in. I think that they are integral and constitutive in the same way that black life, black thinkers, black music is integral and constitutive of wrestling with what it means to be human.”
• Brooks (62:26):
  “I think in that way, [Plato and Homer] are great equalizers.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-------------------------------------------------|-----------------| | Introduction & framing the male crisis | 00:02 – 04:59 | | Shiloh Brooks on teaching at Princeton | 05:01 – 10:22 | | The Art of Statesmanship course | 10:23 – 14:23 | | Brooks’ personal journey | 16:51 – 19:08 | | Discussion: reading and masculinity | 21:40 – 24:53 | | Why young men idolize toxic influencers | 24:53 – 30:08 | | Canonicity, patriotism, and books on love | 30:08 – 37:48 | | Literacy, democracy, and curiosity in leaders | 37:48 – 41:17 | | Shiloh Brooks & Cornel West: What is justice? | 42:04 – 47:20 | | The enduring relevance of Plato | 47:20 – 52:47 | | Dialectic vs social media “debate” | 52:47 – 54:25 | | Classics, race, and universality | 57:00 – 62:33 |

Episode Tone and Style

The conversation is at once earnest, witty, and reflective—combining personal narrative, direct teaching, and candid questioning of cultural and educational trends. Both Weiss and Brooks use approachable, often self-deprecating language, while Dr. West brings philosophical gravity and poetic flourish.

Summary Takeaway

"Can Reading Fix Men?" argues that reading is not only a pastime but a radical source of soul-shaping wisdom and masculine renewal. By diving deeply into literature, men (and indeed all people) can confront life’s hardest questions, escape conformity, and find the substance needed to resist the empty promises of digital-age influencers. The episode makes a compelling case for reviving engagement with the classics—even, and especially, when their relevance feels alien or uncomfortable.

This summary aims to capture the nuances, memorable lines, and spirit of the conversation for listeners seeking the essence of the episode without missing its most important and thought-provoking moments.