EP 156 James Poulos on Remaining Human

Jim talks with James Poulos about the ideas in his new book Human Forever: The Spiritual Politics of Digital War. They discuss his decision to publish the book on the blockchain, going beginner’s-mind on media & communications theory, the meaning of Gnosticism, responsibility as worship & its transfer to machines, returning worth to the human, a short introduction to Marshall McLuhan, raising the first fully digital generation, expert engineers vs ethereal ethicists, “peak woke” & the collapse of wokeness, religion as “the only permanent state of mankind,” resisting the temptation to call down apocalypse, the hubris of messiah-hood, Hebraic British Protestant theology & its incongruence with American civilization, how queerness & transgender identity became culturally dominant, the left’s abandonment of liberalism for a new post-human religion, differentiating transhumanism & human-maxing, and much more.

James Poulos creates and advises brands and ventures at the intersection of technology, media, and design. He is the Cofounder and Editor of The American Mind at the Claremont Institute and the Founder and Publisher of RETURN at New Founding. He is the author of Human, Forever and The Art of Being Free, and his writing has appeared in The Claremont Review of Books, Le Figaro, National Affairs, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among many other publications. He lives on the edge of Los Angeles.