Podcast Summary: The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour – “Andrew Klavan Finds Light in Humanity's Darkness”
Date: May 9, 2025
Host: Scott Bertram
Main Guest: Andrew Klavan (Author, Commentator, Podcaster)

Episode Overview

This episode centers on a deep, engaging conversation between host Scott Bertram and acclaimed writer Andrew Klavan about Klavan’s latest book, The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness. Klavan explores how darkness, evil, and murder have sparked works of art that ultimately reveal hope, redemption, and the search for beauty and God in a broken world. The episode also briefly features Dr. Colin Brown discussing his research into Benjamin Franklin, but this summary focuses on the comprehensive, compelling dialogue with Klavan.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Defining Evil and the Book’s Core Theme

• Absence of Love as Evil:
  • Klavan sees evil as “the absence of love” and asserts that humans are fundamentally made for love, connection, compassion, and society. Without love, evil results; its ultimate form is murder, which extinguishes an entire "inner world."
    • Quote: “I call evil the absence of love...the absence of that is actually an add on. We frequently act as if good were the add on...I think love is actually the primary fact of life.” (01:43 – 02:44)

How Murders Inspire Art & Literary Cycles of Darkness and Redemption

• Three (and a Half) Key Murders and Their Artistic Impact:
  • Pierre Lasonaire (1830s France): Dandyish thug whose high-profile crime and persona inspired Dostoevsky, eventually leading to “Crime and Punishment.”
  • Leopold & Loeb (1920s America): Young lovers who killed to demonstrate their “Nietzschean superiority” inspired myriad plays, films (e.g., Hitchcock’s “Rope”), and solidified the archetype of murderers driven by ideological amorality.
  • Ed Gein (1950s Wisconsin): A killer obsessed with transforming himself inspired “Psycho,” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and “Silence of the Lambs,” birthing the American slasher genre.
  • Cain and Abel: The original, archetypal murder serves as the template for countless cultural works, recurring throughout the Bible and into the themes of Christian resurrection.
  • Quote: “In each of these stories... artists take darkness and evil and turn it into beauty. And through beauty, revelation...a way of sort of maintaining joy.” (07:06 – 08:01)

Horror Films, Morality & The Loss of the Sacred

• Slasher Films as Moral Commentary:
  • Films like “Halloween” reflect society’s grappling with evil and morality after “God had sort of gone out of the Western world,” as per Nietzsche.
  • Classic slasher tropes, like rule-breaking teens dying first, hint at a latent moral code, even as the movies seem nihilistic.
  • Quote: “You see people losing the essentials of human life. Gender, family, motherhood... And the other thing you see developing...is the role of the psychiatrist...He’s going to define everything for you...Then you get to ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ the psychiatrist is the source of the evil.” (08:01 – 11:01)
  • The psychiatrist replaces the priest; by the time of “Silence of the Lambs,” he is Hannibal Lecter—evil itself, reducing people to “meat.”

Evil without Conscience – The Case of “Silence of the Lambs”

• Comparing Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill:
  • Both lack conscience, but Lecter is more “in charge” and manipulative.
  • Quote: “Buffalo Bill, who is the Ed Gein character... is kind of an idiot. He’s kind of carried away... But Hannibal Lecter is in charge...He has more control over himself.” (12:46 – 14:10)

The Allure of True Crime and Stories of Evil

• Why We’re Drawn to True Crime:
  • Stories help us process reality, evil, and ultimately our own souls safely.
  • Quote: “A story is something you go through, and when you come out the other end, you are a little changed...A really great story about murder is as revelatory as anything else...” (14:58 – 17:04)

Sibling Rivalry, Creativity, and the Pattern of History

• Cain and Abel as the Universal Brother Battle:
  • Brotherly conflict drives myth, history, and even the rock bands Bertram references (The Kinks, CCR, Oasis).
  • Many Biblical stories (e.g., Jacob/Esau) replay this theme, culminating in Christ as the “second Adam.”
  • Quote: “In every myth...one of those challenges is the brother battle...obviously Cain and Abel are the ultimate brother battle...there’s a sort of otherness to your brother that is also yourself. And that is kind of the ultimate story of any hero...” (17:53 – 20:47)

Beauty, Suffering, and the Divine

• Finding Beauty Amid Darkness:
  • In the book’s closing section, Klavan describes how virtual reality experiences of art (e.g., Michelangelo’s “Pieta”) illuminate suffering and hope.
  • Beauty, he contends, is “an absolute,” not a utilitarian evolutionary accident.
  • This connection helps prevent him from “growing dark myself as I observe the world” and informs his attempt to strike realism without losing joy:
    • Quote: “I believe that beauty is an absolute...it is like good and like truth. It actually is there for and of and in itself.” (21:21 – 26:08)
    • Quote: “My view of the world has gotten darker because my moral sense has gotten finer. But my heart has gotten more joyful.” (21:21 – 26:08)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Defining Evil:

  • “I call evil the absence of love...If there were no evil, those people [firemen, doctors, soldiers] wouldn’t be necessary.” (01:43)

• On Art & Murder:

  • “Artists take darkness and evil and turn it into beauty. And through beauty, revelation…” (07:06)

• On Slasher Films and Social Decay:

  • “If all we are is meat, then all you have to do is change the shape of that meat, and you've essentially changed your inner nature. And that is what Ed Gein was trying to do.” (08:01)

• On Student’s Warning Against Christian Art as Escapism:

  • “I was afraid that I would become that kind of artist. And instead...my view of the world has gotten darker…But my heart has gotten more joyful.” (21:21)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Andrew Klavan Introduction & Defining Evil: 01:25 – 02:44
• Three (and a Half) Murders and Artistic Impact: 03:03 – 07:06
• Slasher Films, Psychology, and Morality: 08:01 – 11:01
• Comparing Lecter and Buffalo Bill: 12:46 – 14:10
• The Power of True Crime/Storytelling: 14:45 – 17:04
• The Mythic "Brother Battle": 17:53 – 20:47
• Virtual Reality, Beauty, and the Divine: 21:21 – 26:08

Tone & Language

• Intellectual but accessible: Klavan delivers profound insights with clarity, using vivid examples from literature, art, film, and everyday experience.
• Reflective: The conversation dwells on suffering, meaning, and redemption without shying away from darkness.
• Engaged: Both Bertram and Klavan express fascination and curiosity, maintaining a lively and thoughtful exchange.

For Listeners Who Haven’t Heard the Episode

This episode is a thoughtful, sophisticated exploration of how art wrestles with evil, and how even the darkest human acts—murder, betrayal, horror—can spark stories, music, and films that ultimately point toward meaning, redemption, and the divine. Whether you’re interested in film, literature, philosophy, or theology, Andrew Klavan’s reflections will challenge and inspire you to look for the light that artists (and perhaps God) continuously draw from humanity’s deepest darkness.