9: Sohrab Ahmari, Ernest Becker, and the Meaning of Tradition

Pete and Susannah discuss Kelsey Osgood’s piece on Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death. How did Becker, as a Jew struggling through secularism, face the fact of our slavery to the fear of death - and how did his refusal of the cold comforts of distraction open the way for real meaning to emerge? Then, the hosts speak with friend of the pod Sohrab Ahmari, about his recent book The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos. The traditions we are raised to respect shape us. How did the birth of Ahmari’s son encourage him to write a book wrestling with the ways that traditions can help answer some of the basic questions of human life? What does it mean to be rooted in tradition, and why would one want to be? What happens when traditions are bad? And how can we understand “traditionalism” not as a good in itself, not as a bespoke lifestyle choice, but as the guiderails of a community in which we, and our children, can flourish?