Maybe two non-Catholics are not the best people to discuss the legacy Pope Francis is leaving behind, although Catholics like Ross Douthat and JD Vance are doing worse. Jessa cries about the death of the pope, and Nico manages to put his Catholic school trauma to the side to assess Pope Francis as a world leader and not just a religious one.

Shownotes and references:

http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

Welcome to episode one of The Culture We Deserve's Book Club, Revolution and Ruin: Reading the European 19th Century.

In this inaugural episode, Joseph and Jessa discuss Mary Shelley's The Last Man, a prophetic novel about disease, war, and the end of mankind. Unlike the apocalyptic spectacles of your standard end of the world movies and television shows, Shelley's slow burn gets into the grief and despair of humanity's end. Shelley was born at the tail end of the French Revolution and just before the revolutions of 1848, and she is invested in the questions of her era: how should a nation organize itself? how should resources be distributed? how is a person to live amid disruption and unpredictability? And what is the point of making art during tumult?

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Looking back at the first round of the Culture Wars, with Jesse Helms discussing a crucifix submerged in urine on the floor of the senate, one figure remains misunderstood: Thomas Kinkade. The "Painter of Light." The guy your alcoholic grandmother who would never admit she terrorized you really loved. Kinkade's career combines the worst of American culture -- multi-level marketing schemes, Jesus Christ kitsch, and televangelism -- into one product. Jessa and Nico discuss Art for Everybody, the new documentary seeking to rehabilitate Kinkade's image, and whether if Kinkade were alive today he would be appointed the new head of the NEA or Kennedy Center (yes).

Shownotes and references:

http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com