Thanks, and welcome everyone.

I want to underscore Mateo's thanks to the folks who sponsored this lecture.

We really owe them a debt of gratitude for that.

And it's really great to be in this beautiful space.

This is recently renovated, and I think this is one of the first events

that Hillsdale, D.C. has hosted in this space, and we're really grateful for their hospitality

tonight. And finally, you know, before I introduce our speaker, I should just say that all

the smart people are reading first things, and that therefore everyone in this room should be a subscriber. And if you're not,

we have an easy way downstairs for you to do the QR code, sign up, get a subscription to

first things. It's really worth it. Mary Harrington is a mother. She is a writer for unheard and for First Things Magazine and many other outlets.

She's the author of feminism against progress. And as one friend of mine said to me, Mary is what she recommends to many young people.

She is a feral academic, unburdened by the limitations and debilitations of academia, the university setting.

This wonderful institution, of course, accepted.

And her lecture tonight is our crisis is metaphysical. So please join me in welcoming Mary Harrington.

Wow, so many of you. This is wonderful. Thank you so much to Rusty and Mateo for bringing me here and to Hillsdale for hosting us and the sponsors, obviously, for making it all possible. It's really wonderful to see so many of you here. It's an huge, a massive, massive honour. I'm amazing. So I want to talk tonight about, well,

I'll start with the banned books meme, the trope of banned books. Most of you will be

familiar with the band books list, which are where the books aren't actually banned.

Titles like The Handmaid's Tale or To Kill a Mockingbird, that actually they make everybody read, they're not banned at all.

Then there's the actually banned books, such as certain terrorism manuals that will get

you 10 years in a British prison for just owning it.

And then there's a third category of books that isn't exactly banned in that it's easy enough to get a copy,

but in the sense that if you quote the ideas, or imply that you think the author should be treated as a thinker of note,

...