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- [00:07]
Scott Bertram
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.
- [00:26]
Gad Saad
Socialism can never die in a new generations of imbeciles will come along that will fall prey to that reflex. That infantile logic is perfectly justified when I'm 5 years old in kindergarten.
- [00:40]
Scott Bertram
This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was God Saad, author of the new book Suicidal Empathy, Dying to be Kind. We'll go in depth with him on today's program. Also later on, Dr. Stephen Smith from Hillsdale College. He's written a new book, the Last Advice on Living and Dying well, from the imprisoned St. Thomas More. First, very pleased to be joined now by God Saad. He is an evolutionary behavioral scientist, a professor, a noted author. His previous book, the Parasitic Mind. His brand new one is Suicidal Dying to be Kind, and it is available now. God, thanks so much for joining us.
- [01:29]
Gad Saad
Oh, thank you for having me, Scott. Great to be with you.
- [01:31]
Scott Bertram
Suicidal empathy, a good virtue gone bad, as the first chapter says. What's the problem with too much? And you're careful to say it's not empathy itself you have a problem with, but what is wrong with too much empathy?
- [01:47]
Gad Saad
So let me explain it using some evolutionary principles and I'll draw first an analogy and then it'll lead back to your question. So let's suppose that you and I, Scott, were to meet at a party, and prior to you coming up to introduce yourself and shake my hand, I noticed that you had been incessantly sneezing into your hand. And so I had scanned the environment for potential threats, which is an evolutionarily adaptive mechanism. And then I shook your hand politely, and then I quietly and discreetly headed off to the bathroom to wash my hands because I don't want to catch your cold. So what started off as an adaptive process can now become maladaptive in the following way. If you suffer from germ contamination fears, which is a form of obsessive compulsive disorder, you end up sticking in the bathroom for the next eight hours until your skin is falling off, scalding hot water because you can't extricate yourself from that action once it begins. So what started off as an adaptive, well modulated, well calibrated mechanism becomes maladaptive when it misfires. The exact same principle applies in the distinction between empathy and Suicidal empathy. Empathy, as you correctly pointed in the introduction to your question, is a perfectly laudable virtue. We are a social species. For you and I to have a meaningful conversation, need to put myself in your mind and vice versa. That's called cognitive empathy or theory of mind. But like Aristotle explained to us several thousand years ago via his golden mean, too little of something is not good. If I have no empathy, I'm a psychopath. Too much of something is not good and much of life is finding that sweet spot. So suicidal empathy is really a three part monster. Number one, it is hyperactive. It hyper fires in the wrong situations towards the wrong targets of your empathy. Once you put those three together, you're well on your way to ending Western civilization.
- [03:49]
Scott Bertram
And you say it is never a good idea to ignore the warning signs of reality. So what's the, what's the flashing light on the dashboard that's telling you that far too many of us are suffering from suicidal empathy?
- [04:03]
Gad Saad
Well, of course the book is about identifying endless manifestations of suicidal empathy, both in terms of domestic policies and foreign policies. Policies that speak to your question. But let's take maybe the most ominously flashing sign, although we can then drill down to other examples if you'd like. Sure, Immigration is a wonderful thing if it is well calibrated. Gad Saad is an immigrant who was granted status in Canada because I was escaping the Lebanese civil war. Elon Musk is an immigrant who then has gone on. He came to Canada first and then moved on to the United States. The fact that Gad Saad and Elon Musk are immigrants, as is Ahmed Mohammad Hussain who is a frequent guest in the summer camps of Al Qaeda in Waziristan. We're all called immigrants, but the likelihood of us equally contributing to society and equally likely in internalizing the ethos of American exceptionalism is not true. To be equal suicidal empathy says no, you're all immigrants, therefore you all are equally likely to share in the beautiful experiment called United States. If you argue that there is a difference in the likelihood of people coming in and contributing positively, then you are a bigot, you're an Islamophobe, you're a racist, you're a so on. And therefore let's have open border policies because everyone should have the chance to to contribute to the great American experience. So open border policies is the fastest way by which suicidal empathy is going to lead to the demise of the West.
- [05:43]
Scott Bertram
God Saad is with us. His new book Suicidal Dying to Be Kind. So many of these chapters are wonderful I enjoyed the second chapter on forbidden knowledge and the idea of calling things what they are. You just talked about immigration and are they illegal immigrants? Are they illegal aliens? Are they simply undocumented? We have Brett Kavadow's attempted assassin, who, for everyone is clearly a man, and the media insists on calling him a woman because he has asked them to. Why is it so important to call things and identify things for what they are?
- [06:19]
Gad Saad
Right. Look, a foundational feature of being Homo sapiens is we have a prefrontal cortex that allows us to navigate through daily reality in a way that is meaningful, Right? So, for example, the most defining feature of our respective personhood is our biological sex. We are a sexually dimorphic, sexually reproducing species consisting of two phenotypes called male and female. That reality was known very clearly to the 117 billion people that had lived on Earth. That's an actual estimate since Homo sapiens became a distinct species. So until 15 minutes ago, when we took progressive biology courses at Oberlin College, we were able to fully adjudicate the very difficult conundrum of identifying who's male or female. That's why our ancestors were able to do, oh, what is that thing called? Oh, mating. But 15 minutes ago, we realized that we had been really succumbing to heteronormative reality in saying that. I know that if you look at Gad's ad, he's actually male based on his clear visual markers. That's why I need to put a pronoun thing in my bio so that you know that I'm really male, not female. Now, once we rape and murder truth for such a ridiculous context, then all possible truths are up for grab, and they become. And they become part of forbidden knowledge. Don't recognize something as truthful if it has any chance of hurting the feelings of some marginalized group. So what you're doing then, Scott, forgive me for the long winded answer, is you're applying what's called a consequentialist ethic to the deontological principle. Deontology are absolute statements. So if I say it is never okay to lie, that would be a deontological statement. If I say it is okay to lie to spare the feelings of someone I love, that would be a consequentialist statement. For most things in life, it makes perfect sense for us to be consequentialist. But for foundational principles such as freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry, presumption of innocence, those have to be deontological. Once I apply a consequentialist lens to that. We're off and running.
- [08:46]
Scott Bertram
God Saad is with us. His book Suicidal Empathy, Dying to Be Kind, a chapter on cultures. And you argue not all cultures are equal. Is it harmful for us not to acknowledge that perhaps the west is best?
- [09:06]
Gad Saad
Well, it's very harmful, right? I mean, if you were an individual going to see a therapist for a pathological lack of self esteem, no one would say that's a terrible thing that, that, that you actually are going to see a therapist. It's wonderfully health you to self flagellate all day long about how insignificant of a human being you are. It makes perfect sense for you to go see a therapist who hopefully will extricate you out of your personal self loathing. But if you apply that exact self loathing to the west, then you become someone who we all want to invite to the progressive cool kids parties in Manhattan. Because we are defined in our progressive ethos by the fact that we recognize that all cultures equal except the west is less equal than the other cultures. Now what is the parasitic idea that allows this kind of nonsense to flourish? I discussed this, as you kindly pointed out in the intro in one of my previous books, the Parasitic Mind, where I talk about cultural relativism as a parasitic idea. Cultural relativism renders me impotent to make value judgments about the practices and beliefs of another culture. Especially God forbid if that other culture is not a white culture. So if the other culture wishes to cut off the clitorises of five year old girls, shut up, racist. If the other culture wants to engage in child brides, shut up, racist. If the other culture wants to stone women to death, shut up, racist. Well, now you could see how if I internalize the parasitic idea of cultural relativism that creates the fertile ground for my open border immigration policy. Because I'm no longer able to say these folks from these cultures are more likely to assimilate than those folks from that culture.
- [11:02]
Scott Bertram
We have two interesting, I don't want to say experiments, but we have two interesting things happening when it comes to the world of criminal justice. In some of our urban areas, there is an increase in policing, an increase in arrests, and thus we see a decrease in crime, particularly in public transit situations in Washington D.C. where President Trump has had some activity. On the other hand, we have candidates and some who are winning primaries here in the United States, arguing for no prisons and no police, and making every excuse possible for those who are breaking the law. There's a chapter here where you say reflexively, mitigating the actions of violent criminals by proposing external root causes. It's not that person's problem, not the person's fault that he or she is doing what they are doing. I've seen stories recently where there are people who are attacked who are hesitant to press charges. They don't want to have the person who has harmed them to face consequences. And why is there such this tendency to want to overlook people who clearly want to do harm either to you personally or to society at large?
- [12:07]
Gad Saad
Because in their view, the suicidally empathetic folks, there is a competing hierarchy of a moral calculus. And the highest aspiration, as I stroke my luxuriant hair and looking at my reflection in the mirror of, of moral preening, is that I do not ever punish felons of color because I'm a good person. Now why is that? What's the reflex there? This is why I used a new term that I introduced, blank slate. Felons. Blank slate comes from another parasitic idea that I discuss in the Parasitic Mind called social constructivism. Social constructivism argues that all realities that you see before you are due to socialization. We are born tabula rasa, empty slate, blank slate. And it is only the vagaries of our idiosyncratic life trajectories that make us who we become. We're all born with equal potentiality, equal likelihood of criminality, and so on and so forth. So now imagine if you internalize that ethos, then you argue that someone who is born black in the terribly white supremacist society known as the United States has already been existentially punished. So now you're going to tell me that you're going to put this noble felon of color in prison? If only he committed 193 previous crimes. Don't you think you should be a good person and give him a second chance? And by second chance, I mean 194th opportunity to make good in his life. So because I'm a good person who bathes in the infinity pool of suicidal empathy, I don't think that it serves anybody any purpose to put a felon of color in prison.
- [13:58]
Scott Bertram
God Saad is with us. We'll continue in a moment with more on his new book, Suicidal Empathy. We are past July 4th, but we can still celebrate the Declaration of Independence and our founding. 250 years ago. You might remember me telling you about revolutionary America. Well, if you missed it in theaters now, you can find it online search for revolutionary America on YouTube. It is the first documentary about the American Revolution that you Can Trust from Hillsdale College. 250 years ago, a group of ordinary people did something very, very extraordinary. With America's anniversary now past us, we still have time to remember exactly what they did and why it still matters. Watch Revolutionary America from Hillsdale College. Now on YouTube, we continue with God Saad. His new book is Suicidal Dying to Be Kind God. As you explain, I think in the introduction, early in the book, there is narcissism, existential guilt that is driving suicidal empathy. And people like the ones you described see this as penance for their unearned advantage in that way. Is there any limit to that kind of suicidal empathy? No.
- [15:19]
Gad Saad
I mean. So. And let me describe another term that I use in the book that I think would be very apropos to what you just asked. I often will call someone bathing and just completely fatal suicidal empathy. I call them a wood cricket. Why do I do that? Because a wood cricket is an insect that wants nothing to do with water. It avoids water, but when it is parasitized by a neuroparasite called a hairworm, the hairworm needs the wood cricket to jump into water happily and merrily committing suicide in order to suit the reproductive interest of the hairworm, which could only complete its reproductive cycle in water. So it is literally taking it to the extreme. I'm willing to give up my life in this case if I'm a wood cricket, because I've been neuroparesitized. Okay, well, let's apply it to the human context. And there are endless examples that. But I'll give one that's very powerful. A woman is intercepted on the street by one of those street interviewers. I think it's in Manchester. She's at a Free, Free Palestine. You know, eradicate the Jews in Palestine and so on. And she's, she's clearly a British woman. And so the interviewer says, oh, you're, you're free, Free Palestine. Okay, well, do you know what they do to gay people and queer people in Palestine? And she goes, yes, I know. I'm queer myself. So then he's taken aback and he says, well, what do you mean? So you're, you're supporting the society that if you were there, they would kill you? She goes, yes. He goes, but how could that be possible? He's, he's really incredulous. He doesn't understand it. He hadn't read my book yet. And so, and so then he. And then she says, well, I don't care. Just the. Just because they're going to kill me doesn't mean that they're not worthy of my support. They have a right to exist. Well, that's what a human form wood cricket looks like. So there is no end to my suicidal empathy. I'm willing to die at that altar once I've been parasitized by that mindset.
- [17:29]
Scott Bertram
That leads me to a question about the chapter on meritocracy. Scientific knowledge. You say that it's tantamount to white supremacy in the minds of those who are suicidally empathetic. And yet if we look at the areas in which those things don't matter anymore. You point out aviation people flying our planes, medicine. UCLA has come under fire for their admission practices and how they gage who is going to be admitted to their doctoral programs. These are areas in which we all can bear the consequences. It's not some thing out in space that has no bearing on our life. The people who fly our planes, the people who diagnose our illnesses, the people who are practicing surgery on us, these are people who are going through this idea that meritocracy and scientific knowledge itself are white supremacy. Do people understand the potential consequences of that and not care? Like that woman you explained?
- [18:27]
Gad Saad
Well, in academia, they don't care. The average person walking in the street understands how insane this is, but they feel as though they don't have the power to affect change, which is simply not true. If you speak out, the silent majority, the tests, all this stuff, but they are completely locked in. A tragedy in the comments. You know what? Let Gat Saad speak out. He's a big boy. He could handle it on our behalf. I simply have too many costs to bear if I actually speak out against this nonsense. Gad can handle it on our behalf, but the reality is, I mean, it's aviation, it's medicine. But let's discuss another one. How about firefighting? How about the deputy chief of the LA Fire Department, who is a obese woman of color, who is also queer, explaining to the rest of us simpletons that listen when. When you're going somewhere, you know, to save someone from a burning fire, you want to know that the person who's saving you looks like you. And then using my now legendary satire, I said, absolutely right. When you are an obese, queer woman who weighs as much as a California seal, you don't want some tall, muscular, heterosexual firefighter saving you because he can't understand your plight. You want an equally immobile, fat, queer lesbian to get you out of your predicament, because then she really understands your plight. That person who uttered those words, Scott was not being satirical. She has fully internalized the cancer known as diversity, inclusion and equity. So from her vantage point, what she said makes perfect sense.
- [20:15]
Scott Bertram
Gad Saad is with us. Suicidal Empathy is his new book Dying to be Kind. We have to talk a bit about socialism and the rise of some of these DSA candidates here in the United States, recently winning primaries in New York, but also winning mayoral elections across the country. You say in the book that socialism's rise is fueled by the allure of empathetic fairness. Would you point to that as the primary factor in what we've seen over the past few years, and perhaps this year in particular, with these DSA Democratic Socialist of America candidates winning and the allure of socialism among some of our younger college educated Americans, but also some of our wealthier white liberal Americans as well?
- [21:05]
Gad Saad
Exactly. Right now it's a one, two punch. So it's first, one of the seven deadly sins is envy. In the Ten Commandments, we have the allure of covetousness, right? Oh, look, that bastard neighbor of mine has that Porsche and I don't have it. Right. That's positional economy. I compare myself to the other. So take envy, which moral philosophers and theologians have known as a alluring trap, as part of the architecture of human beings, and then couple that with the supposed empathy of creating equality. It's simply unfair if I'm a suicidally empathetic person, that Elon Musk has so much money when someone else who works very hard doesn't have enough to necessarily put food on the table. That existential reality is grossly unfair. So why don't we have an empathetic overlord? Because they are seeking to maximize existential fairness, come and take all the money from those gluttonous wealthy people and give it to other people. Therefore we could all live in this wonderful unicornia where we're all equally miserable, right? And so it is absolutely rude, rooted in that reflex, that socialism can never die. That's why I call it akin to the phoenix that always arises from the ashes. Because as long as we'll be reproducing new members of Homo sapiens, a new generations of imbeciles will come along that will fall prey to that reflex. But now here's the issue, Scott. That infantile logic is, is perfectly justified. When I'm 5 years old at kindergarten, this is when I learned that sharing is caring. It's not right for Johnny to have four toys while Billy is sitting twiddling his thumbs with no toys. So we teach them to internalize the message of sharing is caring. But then once I become older and I'm slapped by this thing called reality, I understand that human beings are a hierarchical species. Now, why is that important? Because some of us are taller or shorter, harder working or less harder working. So we are not communistic in our inherent human nature. E. O. Wilson, the famous Harvard biologist who studied social ants. Social ants are communistic. There is a reproductive queen and then there is an indistinguishable class of worker ants and soldier ants. So it is literally the case that social ants are communistic. When he was asked, Professor Wilson, what are your thoughts on socialism, communism, he gave arguably the greatest answer of all time. He said, great idea, wrong species. So when you are constantly imposing a sociopolitical economic system that is incongruent with our philogenetic history, it shouldn't be a surprise that it will always fail wherever it strikes. But apparently Bernie Sanders and occasional Cortex AOC will usher the real socialism once they take power from the rest of us.
- [24:27]
Scott Bertram
God Saad is with us. Suicidal empathy is the new book. You say that Donald Trump's second election does not spell the end of a lunacy that has gripped the West. Is there any long term change that you see from the President's second term that can't be undercut by someone else coming to power, someone else becoming president from a different party?
- [24:53]
Gad Saad
The. You want me to lie or give you the honest truth?
- [24:56]
Scott Bertram
Give us the honest truth.
- [24:57]
Gad Saad
No, the fact that Donald Trump has come in in the same way that he signed an executive order ending the translunacy in collegiate sports, the next person comes in and reverses it through the same mechanism. This is why I said exactly when you led with your question, that we can breathe a sigh of relief momentarily that it was Donald Trump that won and not the opponent. Because then that would have just doubled and tripled down on all the lunacy. But he only serves as a temporary temporal doorstop for in order for the problem to go away forever, the parasitic ideas that eventually lead to suicidal empathy have to be vanquished. Now that doesn't happen. By having one president serve one term and hopefully getting rid of the woke monster, you really. Now, let me just kind of give a timestamp on some of these parasitic ideas. Depending on which parasitic idea we're speaking of, these spawned and flourished on university campuses somewhere between 50 to 100 years ago. So, for example, cultural relativism was developed by a cultural anthropologist named Franz boas. That's about 100 years ago. The postmodernist monster as a parasitic idea was really developed by a bunch of French philosophers, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault. This is about 50, 60 years ago now. I'd like to think that it won't take 50 to 100 years to eradicate that which took that long to flourish. But it's not going to start and end with Donald Trump, I'm afraid to say.
- [26:36]
Scott Bertram
God Saad is the author of the new book Suicidal Dying to Be Kind. It's available now. And there's the COVID God. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [26:48]
Gad Saad
Great chatting with you. Thank you for having me, Scott.
- [26:50]
Scott Bertram
Up next, Dr. Stephen Smith from Hillsdale College will discuss his new book on the advice from the imprisoned St. Thomas More. I'm Scott Bertram. This is the Radio Free Hills Take a Hour.
- [27:19]
Jeremiah Regan
Hello, this is Jeremiah Regan, executive director of Online learning here at Hillsdale College, and I have some great news. We've brought Hillsdale's incredibly popular free online courses to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. And our next series is the American Left From Liberalism to Despotism, a course taught by Associate professor of Politics Kevin Slack and Hillsdale President Larry P. Arn. After listening to all 11 episodes, you'll have a deeper understanding of what has happened to America in the past 60 years and what we can do about it today. The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, hosted by Online Learning Marketing director Juan Davalos and me, expands Hillsdale's mission to provide all who wish to learn the education necessary to increase happiness and to preserve the civil and religious liberties of America. We want you to be a part of it at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu. Subscribe now to the Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast to hear new episodes every week with additional commentary and insights from our team. Go to Podcast Hillsdale Edu to learn more. That's Podcast Hillsdale Edu.
- [28:27]
Bill Gray
Hello, this is Bill Gray, Vice president of institutional advancement here at Hillsdale College. Before you skip ahead, I just wanted to give you two things, a message and a request. Here's the message. Thank you. Thanks to listeners like you, faithful, loyal listeners of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. We achieved our fiscal year end fundraising goal, which means that we'll be able to keep the offering amazing podcasts like these in Primus online courses and so much more. So that's the first thing, my message, thank you. The second is a request. And you might think, oh, here he goes, he's going to ask for money. But no, my request to you loyal listener is that you keep learning, that you keep sharing the word about the Hillsdale College Podcast network, imprimis online courses and all of Hillsdale's other educational content. The more people learn, the more equipped they are to defend liberty. Thank you again. And now back to the show.
- [29:29]
Scott Bertram
Welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertrand. Be sure to follow us on X Hillsdale Radio. For updated show and guest information, we're joined by Dr. Stephen Smith. He is Temple family Chair of English Literature at Hillsdale College, also dean of Humanities here. And his new book is the Last Advice on Living and Dying well from the imprisoned St. Thomas More. Dr. Smith, thanks so much for joining us.
- [29:58]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Thank you for having me, Scott. Pleasure to be here.
- [30:01]
Scott Bertram
Interesting conversation today about these letters from Thomas More that he wrote and your analysis of them. For our listeners who might not be so familiar, we always like to begin by cluing them in. So who was Thomas More and why was he even imprisoned?
- [30:17]
Dr. Stephen Smith
He was the famous English statesman, father and friend who lived from 1478 to 1535. And he was an author who was famous for writing Utopia. He was also speaker of the House, Lord Chancellor of England. And then in the events of the 1530s, he was imprisoned for refusing to take the oath of the act of Succession that had come his way through Henry and Henry's ministers. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1534. And then on July 1, 1535, he was put on trial, found guilty of malicious treason, and he was executed on tower Hill on July 6, 1535.
- [31:07]
Scott Bertram
Also mention that there's a series of videos at thomasmorestudies.org, a video series that Dr. Smith's involved in. You can check out. We will find out a bit more about that later. These writings in the Last Riddle, you describe them as meditations on life's ultimate questions, which likely become very clear when you're in his position. Why do you think these final months of his life still fascinate readers some 500 years later?
- [31:34]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Well, the idea of the book is that you can begin on the morning of More's first interrogation and follow his footsteps, his mind, his heart through these letters and prayers right to the trial and to his death. And I think that the reason the Tower is so fascinating to readers and to history is that it really shows us a great man at the testing point of his life. I mean, Moore was in his 50s at this point. He had held many offices. He was famous. But this really is the testing point of his whole life. Of his integrity and questions of principle and compromise and virtue come up. But also it's a family drama, a drama of friendship and a drama about the rule of law as well. So the story of the Tower of London and the plight of this great man for those 15 months is powerful, fascinating, unforgettable.
- [32:37]
Scott Bertram
Before he became a martyr. You mentioned all these things More had done, had accomplished, lawyer, statesman, diplomat, husband, father. Do we see a particular side of Thomas More emerge clearly in these writings inside the Last Riddle?
- [32:52]
Dr. Stephen Smith
I think that More is among the most versatile authors I have studied personally. So yes, he has many sides, kind of many minded, many sided, versatile man. And I think that in the Tower Letters, the lawyer certainly comes out in regard to the rule of law. On the more personal side, the fatherhood of Thomas More comes out and his lifelong commitment to friendship. Finally, one of the great Yale scholars of Thomas More, Louis Martz, has called the letters, in particular some of More's greatest literary masterpieces. So there's an art and a beauty to the writing that I think makes them just unforgettable.
- [33:45]
Scott Bertram
Talking with Dr. Stephen Smith, his new book, the Last Advice on Living and Dying well from the imprisoned St. Thomas More. When you read these letters inside the Last Riddle, you do notice that there's warmth and there's humor, even for a man in More's position. How does he remain cheerful while facing his ultimate end?
- [34:07]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Well, the title refers. The Last Riddle refers to the riddle he told his daughter he was living in the Tower of London, which is how a man may lose his head and have no harm. So I'm joking with the production team at Word on Fire. This is a bit of a guide to decapitation, personal kind of merry guide to how to Lose youe Head. But it's a good question. You know, I don't think the family thought the riddle was all that funny. Sure, sure, they wanted their, their father, husband, they wanted him back, they wanted him out of the Tower. But he was famous for his humor, Scott. He's described like a laughing philosopher early in his life. The marry Moore. This is the man who jested on the way to decapitation, famously. But I think the important thing to see here is that the humor is not frivolous. It's not just like, you know, we're just not reaching that guy. Like, you know, he's just out of place. Humor. It was a deep sense of humor at human things, at earthly things, a mirthfulness, a merriment. What you find if you study the especially the Tower writings is that his good humor was an expression of his hope, his hope in God, his perspective on eternity and on human life. And yes, he did love laughing at the ridiculous, as so many of us do. He had a keen eye for it. But his last wish at trial, even to those who condemned him, was that they would all make merry together in heaven. So he sees eternity as a place of laughter and good humor as well.
- [35:48]
Scott Bertram
Is there a particular letter inside the Last riddle where we might encounter, or you think we encounter, the real Thomas More most vividly?
- [35:59]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Yeah, I think that there are about three different answers to that question. The interrogation letters, you really see Moore's poise and command and peace of soul under tremendous pressure. That's very hard to do in real time. And those interrogation letters show us the high stakes life and death interrogation of Thomas More. But obviously the letters to his daughter, I think, are where that fatherhood comes out and the friendship very beautifully. His relationship with his daughter was famous. Erasmus, you know, was. Was very familiar with it, for example. And More took great pains educating his daughters. So the More Meg relationship is at the heart of the book. And maybe the last one I would single out is the letter to Anthony Bonivisi, which he wrote a month before his trial and death. And it is a tribute to friendship across an entire lifetime, I will confess, is probably my favorite letter, along with his last letter to Meg, which was written the day before his death. So the interrogation letters, the letters to Meg, and then the letter to this man of mystery, Anthony Bonvisi, his lifelong friend, celebrating the goodness, the Beauty of
- [37:26]
Scott Bertram
Friendship, Dr. Stephen Smith with us. He is the Dean of Humanities, Temple family Chair of English lit here at Hillsdale College. His new book is the Last Riddle on the letters from St. Thomas More. The letters include these ones to his daughter you mentioned earlier. It's a family story too. They're very famous. In one of these letters, he cautions his daughter not to let natural affection override conscience. How does More himself balance love for his family with loyalty to what he believes is right? He could avoid all this by taking the oath, right?
- [38:03]
Dr. Stephen Smith
He sure could.
- [38:03]
Scott Bertram
He sure could. So how does he balance that?
- [38:06]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Yeah, I mean, that door, he could have unlocked it from the inside. He walked right out that door. I think he sees his stand of conscience and his stand of truth as being the best way he can love his family, even though it may be a tough form of love. His wife really wanted him to come out of the tower to come to his senses. His daughter wanted him not to get himself executed. So it's really urgent, painful in a part story. And yet at the heart of it is this great kind of man with great peace of soul, fidelity to conscience and truth. What I would say is his consistency and his stand was the best way he could actually love them, as difficult as it was for some of them to understand at the time.
- [39:08]
Scott Bertram
One of the recurring themes through letters is that suffering can actually become spiritually meaningful. How does More try to teach that lesson to his daughter Meg?
- [39:20]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Well, More had a lifelong devotion to the Passion of the Christ, and so he understood his own suffering in the light of the Cross. And he tried to share that not only with Meg, but also with all of his friends outside of the Tower. And he had many. If readers are interested in the full view of Thomas More on suffering, the two other works he wrote in the Tower are the Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation and the Sadness of Christ. And both of these, among other things, are a profound meditation on human suffering on the cross and on the goodness of it, ultimately. So, yes, More suffered, but he put his suffering to good service, to the service of his family, of his friends, of his God, of his country.
- [40:17]
Scott Bertram
Dr. Stephen Smith, with us, his book, the Last Advice on Living and Dying well from the imprisoned St. Thomas More. These letters in the last Riddle reveal any moments of doubt, fear or uncertainty. Or was More the real deal? Is he as steadfast as perhaps we. We imagine he was?
- [40:39]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Well, he had spent his entire life practicing the virtues that are exhibited in these letters, cultivating them, struggling, an ordinary human being sharing human nature with all of us. But his was a lifelong project. He didn't just appear in the Tower of London in April 1534, ready to roll. He had been living a particular way, deliberately, courageously, day by day, for an entire lifetime when he came to the Tower of Onden. So part of the story of Mord, it's important to really understand, is that is that lifelong preparation. And even over the oath, he didn't just sort of say, you know, one day, I don't, I don't, I'm not going to take the oath. It was the fruit of much study, much deliberation, making himself sure and then, you know, taking that stand of conscience and not budging from it. I mean, his peace of soul and his consistency are quite striking in these letters.
- [41:53]
Scott Bertram
Throughout the letters, friendship, friendship seems almost as important as politics or theology. Why was friendship so central to Moore's understanding of living a good life?
- [42:05]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Well, More was famous for being a friend, and he enjoyed the largest number of friendships of, well, among many of the great folks I've studied, it's an incredibly rich life of friendship, right down to that last letter I mentioned. Second to last letter in the Tower of London. Erasmus Moore's lifelong friend said that if you're looking for a great example of true friendship, you can find it to no better purpose than in Thomas More. He loved friendship, Scott. He wrote poems on friendship. Friendship unites his writings from beginning to end of his life. And so I think that he joins Cicero and Aristotle and Aquinas and Scripture in seeing the greatness of friendship and the need that we have for it. Also ultimately understanding his relationship with God in terms of friendship as well.
- [43:04]
Scott Bertram
Moore spends a good deal of time thinking and writing about the thing you might think he'd be thinking and writing about, which is his death. What does he believe through these writings a person should focus on when confronting mortality.
- [43:20]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Well, certainly it should be taken seriously and human life should be seen with a reliable, true perspective in its entirety. And human beings, we tend to see things differently. We tend to put things out and push things out of view. So we need that full, real perspective. But I think in the, in the here and now, it's that focus on living well now, for the right reasons, with good conscience, with peace of soul, with real desire, with love, with faith, that is the best preparation. There's. There's a prayer, Scott, that he wrote right toward the end, and it's within days of his death. And he. And he concludes, the things that I pray for in this prayer, lord, give me the grace to labor for. So even at the very end, with just hours to live, days to live, he still had this present business, this present work to perform with God's grace, with God's help, and he put himself into that. And I think that was the. That living well the best preparation. And one thing, one of the reasons for the subtitle of the book, Advice on Living and Dying well, is that when you read more, you discover in these letters and the prayers that they are just as much about living as they are about dying. You know, we often tend to think go right to the death part or to the dramatic decapitation. But more returns our focus regularly, consistently to living well.
- [45:02]
Scott Bertram
Now, I have to ask one other question about the death. I think it's in your introduction that you explain after his decapitation, his daughter Meg retrieves his head after decapitation. I gotta ask about was that normal practice? Was that unusual? What was the meaning? Why did she do it?
- [45:20]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Well, the heads of traitors were not exactly treated gently. They were displayed as a warning. And then St. John Fisher's head was just tossed into the river unceremoniously after this. So Meg courageously found a way to retrieve the head. And that's why to this day, you may visit Thomas More's head. It was. It eventually arrived in Canterbury at St Dunstan's and is buried there deep in the floor. So it was Meg Roper, his daughter Margaret, who retrieved the head and also played a vital role in these letters surviving and in Moore's writings eventually coming to print afterwards as well. I think that the Meg Roper story, the other detail from her life that's worth remembering, you may have seen it in pictures or in art, is that after her father was condemned at trial, she pushed her way through the guards and embraced him. It's a very famous scene. And then she did it again. And with one day to live, when Moore writes his very last letter to her, he singles that out. He tells her, I never liked your manner better than when we parted last. He ends with this beautiful, like he said that that was virtue. And then he thanks her for everything she did for him while in the tower. So the Moore Meg relationship is really at the heart of the book as well.
- [46:55]
Scott Bertram
Dr. Stephen Smith with us, his book, the Last Riddle, on the writings of St. Thomas More from prison. At the very end, there's this section of prayers. And you say that this can be read as another kind of correspondence, a correspondence with God. What do we learn about more from the way he speaks to God?
- [47:13]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Yeah, I do think that, you know, we have letters to family and friends. We have letters also in his lifetime to really just about everyone. But these last prayers are the same man's, you know, if you will, letters to God. And I think what we see there is the vitality of his relationship to God. We see his habit of prayer and his habit of approaching God as what he called a tender, loving father early in his life. That's another thing he never really moved from as a man and as a writer. Early on, he describes God as a tender, loving father. And these prayers at the end really bespeak that, you know, filial sense of humanity and how we stand before God. One last thing, I might add, is one of the coolest things that I've ever experienced in my life involved going to Yale's Beinecke Library and holding the prayer Book of St. Thomas More in my own hands. We had Jerry Wegemer and I put out the essential works of Thomas More with Yale in 2020 and I was able to visit Beinecke and see a bunch of their great Moore holdings as part of that project. And the prayer book is famous because it has not only a bunch of prayers in it, but it has Moore's handwritten, one of his great handwritten prayers in the margins and top of the page, bottom of the page, top of the page, bottom of the page. And even though I have stood in the tower south of St. Thomas More in London, I never felt closer to him than when I held that prayer book in my hands. So the prayers are beautiful and eloquent and unforgettable.
- [49:13]
Scott Bertram
Dr. Stephen Smith, we mentioned earlier that there is this eight part free video series over at thomasmorestudies. That you were involved with creating. What can people find there?
- [49:24]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Well, if you want to find out how much more there is to know about Thomas More, the video class begins at the beginning of his life and follows his footsteps from there all the way to the tower. And it focuses on his major writings and the major turning points of his life. It's meant to be an introduction to this great author, this great man, this great saint, and to show how much more there really is to Thomas More than most of us realize.
- [49:58]
Scott Bertram
Thomasmorestudies.org for the video series, the book is available, the Last Advice on Living and Dying well from the imprisoned St. Thomas More. Dr. Stephen Smith, your author, Temple Family Chair of English Literature here at Hillsdale College and also Dean of Humanities. Dr. Smith, thank you. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [50:19]
Dr. Stephen Smith
Thank you for the invitation, Scott.
- [50:21]
Scott Bertram
That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to God, Saad and Dr. Stephen Smith from 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. Find it at Podcast Hillsdale or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertram and this has been the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.