Elizabeth Corey On Oakeshott And Life
The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
4.6 • 836 Ratings
🗓️ 21 June 2024
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Elizabeth Corey is an academic and writer. She’s an associate professor of political science in the Honors Program at Baylor University and the author of the 2006 book, Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics. She also writes for First Things and serves on the board of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. After many of you asked me to do a podcast on my intellectual mentor, we delve into the thinking and life of Michael Oakeshott — the philosopher I wrote my dissertation on.
For two clips of our convo — on the genius who shirked fame, and my sole meeting with Oakeshott — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Elizabeth born and raised in Baton Rouge; growing up to be a musician with Bill Evans as her idol; her father was an econ professor at LSU and part of the conservative intellectual movement; Baylor is a Christian school with thought diversity; Eric Voegelin; Hannah Arendt; Friedrich Hayek; how Elizabeth first stumbled upon Oakeshott; his critical view of careerism; living in the now; a championof liberal education; opposing the Straussians and their view of virtue; individualism above all; how he would be horrified by the identity politics of today; calling Augustine “the most remarkable man who ever lived”; Montaigne not far behind; the virtue of changing one’s mind; how Oakeshott was very socially adept; conversation as a tennis match that no one wins; traveling without a destination; his bohemian nature; his sluttiness; Helen of Troy; early Christians; the Tower of Babel; civil association vs enterprise association; why Oakeshott was a Jesus Christian, not a Paul Christian; hating the Reformation and its iconoclasm; the difference between theology and religion; the joy of gambling being in the wager not the winning; the eternal undergraduate as a lost soul; politics as an uncertain sea that needs constant tacking; the mystery of craftsmanship; present laughter over utopian bliss; how following the news is a “nervous disorder”; why salvation is boring; how Oakeshott affected the lives of Elizabeth and myself; and the texts she recommends as an intro to his thought.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tim Shipman on the UK elections, Erick Erickson on the left’s spiritual crisis, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, Van Jones, and Stephen Fry! Send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Hello there. |
| 0:29.9 | Greetings from Provincetown, Massachusetts. |
| 0:33.1 | Yes, we're here. |
| 0:34.7 | It's beautiful. |
| 0:35.7 | It's sunny. |
| 0:36.5 | It's hot. |
| 0:41.7 | Good Lord, it's hot. And God knows, well, I do know what it's like in D.C. |
| 0:48.9 | It's an absolute furnace from what I can tell. But I just want to thank you again for subscribing to the podcast. |
| 0:57.3 | And if you haven't, this conversation is going to crap out about an hour in and you'll need to become a member to listen to the whole thing. |
| 1:01.2 | Please do. It really helps keep this whole show on the road. |
| 1:09.8 | We're now just a tiny bit short of 21,000 subscribers, incredibly paid subscribers, which is extraordinary high for us. It's the highest we've had and about |
| 1:12.0 | 170,000 people altogether who are following the weekly dish. This week, we have somebody |
| 1:20.3 | very special to me and a subject that you've asked about and which I've been reluctant to really |
| 1:26.1 | provide because I don't want to get too esoteric on this podcast. |
| 1:33.1 | But the writer who obviously has most affected my own political and actually more than political view of the world, |
| 1:40.4 | I refer to him from time to time, Michael Oakeshott, who is a philosopher of the 20th century, |
| 1:47.6 | English, died in 1990, who died actually without a huge reputation except among a few people, |
| 1:56.5 | and his reputation since his death has actually expanded and grown, along with a large number of works that he had not published formerly in his own lifetime. |
| 2:06.6 | And the person I've asked to come talk to me is a brilliant writer on Oakshot and others, and she's an academic and writer. |
| 2:13.7 | She's name is Elizabeth Corey. |
| 2:16.0 | She's a professor of political science in the honors |
| 2:18.2 | program at Baylor University and the author of the 2006 book, Michael Oakshart on Religion, |
... |
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