Traditionalism - Russian Orthodox Converts

Thinking Allowed

BBC

Science, Society & Culture

4.4 • 973 Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Traditionalism and Russian Orthodox Converts – Laurie Taylor talks to Mark Sedgwick, Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, about the radical project for restoring sacred order. Traditionalism is founded on ancient teachings that, its followers argue, have been handed down from time immemorial and which must be defended from modernity. How has this mystical doctrine come to have contemporary sway on the political right, inspiring ex President Trump's former chief strategist, as well as the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, sometimes dubbed as “Putin’s brain”?

They’re joined by Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, Assistant Professor of Religion and Anthropology at Northeastern University, Boston, who has uncovered an extraordinary story of religious conversion in one corner of Appalachia. Here, a group of American citizens has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church and through it Putin’s New Russia. They look to Russian religion and politics for answers to Western secularism and the loss of traditional family values.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Transcript

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0:00.0	Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of
0:07.0	Happiness Podcast.
0:08.0	For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want
0:14.4	to share that science with you.
0:16.1	And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.
0:19.4	I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that
0:25.4	calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:36.4	This is a Thinking Loud Podcasts from the BBC and for more details and much, much more about
0:42.2	thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co. UK.
0:47.0	Hello last week I enjoyed an evening meal with a couple of old friends.
0:52.0	There was some cheerful chat as we took it in turn
0:54.5	to recall some of the happy and not so happy times that had been spent with relatives
0:59.1	over Christmas, but by the time coffee arrived, gloomier topics appeared on the menu.
1:05.0	Gaza, Ukraine, the rise of the German far right, the world we agreed was not in a good state. And that was my cue and the look from my fellow
1:15.8	diners suggested that they were half expecting such an intervention to quote
1:19.7	Gramski. To recall the phrase in which he simultaneously acknowledged the unkindness,
1:25.7	inequality and suffering in the world with an injunction not to despair but to
1:31.0	continue the good fight.
1:32.7	Pessim of the spirit friends, but optimism of the will.
1:37.4	Well, that little social interlude came back to me
1:39.8	with renewed force, as I was reading a new book entitled Traditionalism the Radical Project
	...

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