Welcome back to Young Heretics Conversations.

This is my occasional interview series.

I don't regularly have guests on the show, but when someone is doing something really

interesting or something really interesting happens, I like to have a little conversation, and this is a good opportunity for us to kind of lift our heads up from the ancient literature that we typically talk about on the show, and look around at what's going on in the world here and now.

We've been having a blast. I've been having a blast. I hope you are,

too, reading through the Aeneid. And we're in book two right now. You can catch up on that

series if you haven't already just by hitting subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast

on Apple Podcasts or YouTube or whatever. hit subscribe, and we will be dropping new episodes

about the Aeneid periodically. But it's good also when we're spending so much time in one

work of literature to mix it up a little bit and think about what's going on here and now. And one

of the things that's going on right now

that's most interesting to me is the tidal shift that has happened in the wake of the American

election. And it's actually not so much about politics, although I know a lot of my listeners

are politically involved. You have

definite political opinions. Me too. I was very invested in the outcome of this election,

but I was not prepared, even when I contemplated what might happen if Trump won. I was not

prepared for how dramatic and wide-ranging the transformation would be,

and it feels like this mood shift that was totally bottled up and ready to happen, or it was

happening under the surface, but because of what was going on at the national scale politically, it was not

easy to really discern or see directly, experience the way the country was moving. Of course,

the word that everyone keeps using is vibes, the way that the vibes have shifted. And that is

actually in its distant etymological roots,

...