Pints With Aquinas - BONUS | Interview with Matt Walsh

Episode Date: September 20, 2018

Hey all, thanks for listening to this bonus episode. Be sure to check out Kiernan's website to help you with your social media stuff at www.creatushouse.com Here's that amazing video Matt Walsh recorded on the Internet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wGMyL02_Fg SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Hey everyone, welcome to this bonus episode of Pints with Aquinas where I sit down with Matt Walsh from The Daily Wire to discuss everything from social media to the internet to Pope Francis and the current scandal in the church to Russian literature and also Matt's new job at The Daily Wire. Now I'm not sure if you're familiar with Matt Walsh or not. He is quite the character, and people tend to have very strong opinions about him. I tend, generally speaking, to be a fan. I think he's doing a lot of good work, and he speaks honestly, and I think fairly. That doesn't mean I agree with him on everything. him on everything. There've been episodes in the past, for instance, that I've done on porn addiction, say, where I disagree with his take that porn can't be addictive and things like that. That said, I think he's a really interesting character. And this was a very interesting episode. I originally published it just for my patrons. And almost all of them said, please publish this because people need to hear this interview. So, I think it was a really great interview. Many of you know that I took August off the internet or at least most of August to the 24th and it was just such an incredible time. I'm really seeing the value in being less and less attached to the internet. Matt had an episode, which I'll put a link to in the show notes, on the internet,

which really motivated me to get off social media entirely. That is to say, I still have those accounts, but I have somebody running those accounts now for me. I don't run them myself. It was also his episode, I think, that led me to just choose to take that time away from the internet. So, I know when I told you that I was kind of taking a time off the internet, I think, that led me to just choose to take that time away from the internet. So, I know when I told you that I was kind of taking a time off the internet, I think a lot of people were like, well, that'd be great. I'd love to do that, but how can I do it? I want to suggest something to you. Maybe you can't get off the internet entirely, but maybe you need somebody to help you run your social media. I've said a thousand shout outs before to Kian and Doyle. social media. I've said a thousand shout outs before to Kianan Doyle. Awesome, solid Catholic dude. Very, very talented, right? He's the one who runs our Pints with Aquinas Instagram account.

Look it up. It's Matt Fradd. You'll see all those beautiful memes that get posted. He's really talented. And as I say, he's now taken over my Twitter and my Facebook. And, you know, I pay him monthly. And we sat down. I'm like, okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to post like twice a day on Twitter. And I want you to post on Facebook this many times. And I want you always to post about this when this comes out. And he just worked with me in a really cool way. And I'm super happy. Like my life has become so much less stressful now that I don't have to read, you know, Twitter trolls telling me why I suck all the time. And, you know, like I just, I've freed up a part of my life that I can actually do things like read books and hang

out with my kids without always worrying about how that tweet's doing or how many Facebook shares that's got and those sorts of things. So, I want to invite you to check out Kiernan's website because maybe you want to do something like I did and work with him so that he can take over some of your social media. Because I know some of you use your social media for work and you kind of need to keep doing it. You can't just quit it altogether. I think you're going to find like I found like the prices

were a lot more reasonable than I thought. I'm like, wow, this is really actually doable. His website is creatushouse.com. That's C-R-E-A-T-U-S. So, not create us, but C-R-E-A-T-U-S house.com. And I'll put a link in the show notes. Just click contact. You can see his beautiful website there, all the great stuff he's doing. Click contact. You can just get in touch with him directly and maybe come up with like a social media strategy for yourself so that you can start reclaiming your life from the internet. And when you think about how much time is wasted on social media, for me, it's totally worth the cost that I pay Kianan to have him run my accounts because

it means I can be more productive, even business-wise, financially-wise productive in making good decisions about how I spend my day to sort of grow pints of the quietness of these sorts of things. So again, it's creatushouse.com, C-R-E-A-T-U-S, house.com. I'll put a link in the show notes. Be sure to check that out. Give Kiernan a contact. He'll get back to you right away and maybe you guys can have a discussion and see if this is something for you. As I said, Matt Walsh did that fantastic episode that sort of was the impetus for all of this.

So I'll put a link to that episode also on the show notes so you can check it out. I hope you enjoy today's episode. If you're on Twitter, like I'm not, let Matt Walsh know that this episode came out. Would you be good to have him retweet this to his millions of fans? All right, here's the show. Enjoy. Matt Walsh, know that this episode came out. Would you be good to have him retweet this to his millions of fans?

All right, here's the show. Enjoy. Matt Walsh, how's it going? Good, Matt. Good, good. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, thank you for being on. Are you sitting in your car? I am. Can you tell? No, but every time I see you online these days, you're in a car, so I figured that's where you are. Oh, yeah, well, that's where I live, in my car, obviously. So this is the first time you and I have touched base.

This is really great. I'm so happy that you're on the show, and I'm really just glad to be talking to you because I love everything that you're doing. I think it serves a really vital and important role, and I'm sure you get a lot of crap for it. So thank you. Well, I appreciate that.

I appreciate your ministry as well. And yeah, of course, you get the negative comments um, it's only ever just mean comments on the internet. So it's fortunately you can always just put your phone down and pretend it's not there. So do you find that actually easy? Because, uh, this, this last couple of weeks I've done some episodes that have made some people upset and I've got a lot of emails and, uh, pay, you know, supporters quitting and things like that. And I wish that I could be like, I don't even care, but I totally care. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I guess I wish I could have the attitude that I just described.

I guess it's more like you, you can put that down the phone and pretend it's not there, but it is, it's hard to get it out of your mind. I don't know. I haven't, people ask me all the time, like, well, how do you, how do you handle, what do you do with all the hate and all that kind of stuff? And part of me wants to say, well, you shouldn't care about it. But then another part of me thinks, I don't know, that seems sort of inhuman to not care that you've got all these people coming after you. As human beings, we do care what people think as much as we like to pretend that we don't. So I'm not sure what exactly the exact balance is but uh you know i what i found is as long as as long as i am confident in my convictions and i really feel whatever i'm

getting backlash for if i really feel that what i said was right and that i said it in the right way then i can i can cope with the backlash it's when it's when you start to question like well what's actually right about that once you start questioning it that's when that's said it in the right way, then I can cope with the backlash. It's when you start to question, like, well, was I actually right about that? Once you start questioning it, that's when it's hard. I've heard you say that we need more Jeremiahs. I don't know if you meant in the church or in our culture or both. What do you mean by that? Well, I think we need people who are, especially in the church, I mean in the culture as well, but especially in the church, people who, I think the one thing when you read Jeremiah is you see he's kind of pointing the finger at the person who's reading it and saying, you're the problem.

You have to shape up. And so we need that in the church. We need people to point at us, you know, not always deflecting to some other villain out there, you know, in the world, but where we look at ourselves and see the sin within ourselves. Because when it comes down to it, whether it's the culture or the church, that's where all the problems spring from. It springs from ourselves and our own hearts. And I don't think there are enough people who are forcing us to look within. The other thing Jeremiah did well, and I think you do it well too, is he didn't kind of conform to groupthink. And I think the internet does a great job at facilitating groupthink, whether that

has to do in politics or religion. We all just start saying the same acceptable stuff. And sometimes we say stuff that we know everyone will agree with, but we say it like we're brave and like people should think that we're brave. But it seems like a lot of the time what you do and maybe what you would wish other people to do is to actually have an original thought whether or not it's popular and to say it. Well, I certainly try to. I think you're right that a lot of people, and I say especially on the right among conservatives, I think you see this, so you see it on both sides, but there are a lot of people who get away with having this image of someone who tells it like it is and doesn't care what people think and isn't afraid to speak truth.

A lot of people have that image, have cultivated it, but in reality, it's very calculated what they're doing and what they're saying because they know that everything they say, they've got their particular audience that they know will be on their side. And as long as they have that audience, they don't care what the other side says, but they're very sure to never upset that audience in anything they say. And that, of course, just that takes no courage whatsoever. they say. And that, of course, just that takes no courage whatsoever. I think the, uh, you know, when, when the rubber really meets the road is when you're saying something where, you know, even the people on quote on your side won't necessarily like it. Right. And, um, and that's when the backlash can come from both sides. And that's when you really have to, you know, that, that's when it's easy to start questioning yourself and you start thinking, well, well,

everyone hates what I just said. Could it really still be true? Have you said something and then had criticism from both sides reflected upon it and went, yeah, I was wrong there and have said as much on Twitter or something? No, I've never been wrong. No, I'm kidding. I mean, it has happened. I'm trying to think of an example. It certainly has happened. I mean, I've certainly been wrong many times,

and there have been times when, or at least I approached the subject in a way that... Maybe said it in a way that you could have phrased it differently or commented differently, even if you didn't fundamentally reject the idea. Right. Yeah. That certainly has happened. I know that for me personally, I can be kind of a hothead and i react to things i'll admit i react to things emotionally at times and so um if i jump right into it and twitter is just it's horrible about this twitter infamously facilitates this kind of immediate reaction yeah so i've gotten myself into trouble there where i just i react to something i just jump in and say the first thing that's on my head right And even if the basic idea is true, I didn't phrase it in a way that I would have if

I had taken the time to think about it. When you said that we need more Jeremiahs, the first thing that I thought of is many of us are trying to speak very calmly, very kindly, very dispassionately, but we're not saying the full truth because we don't want to turn people off. But sometimes we never end up speaking the full truth, you know? So like, let's say a relative comes out and says, well, I've decided my daughter is now a son and she's decided that too. And so she's going to have a double mastectomy and so on and so on. And then we say things like, you know, well, we just need to respect them and pray for them. And we want to let you know, we love you. And all of that's true, except nobody's saying, this is insane that you're cutting your daughter's healthy breasts off.

How do you balance speaking truthfully and speaking charitably? There's certainly a balance. I can't say that I've perfectly worked out the balance there. I guess I tend to fall more on the side of just giving the truth. And sometimes the charity end of it suffers, which I know, you know, but I do think when I talk about we need more Jeremiah's, that we need both in the church. I mean, we need people who will just say the truth, like, this is it. Here you go. Lay it out there.

And you also need people who are a little bit more tactful and diplomatic about it. I think both approaches are good. The problem is when you have too much of one approach. And right now, and maybe I'm sure there have been times in the church where you had way too much of the Jeremiah approach. But now there's way too much of the other end where people are too worried about that. And especially when I come in, the example you use of some of this transgenderism stuff i just think we we can logically criticize it and that's fine but i also think we need to communicate just how egregious and crazy this stuff really is and so i think that requires us to be a little

bit more blunt about it especially with subjects like that and you notice that that's the left is very successful in this where they not only will make their point but they'll make you feel stupid for disagreeing with them you know they'll make you feel like crazy that you don't need that you, that you disagree on whatever subject. Um, now a lot of times they do that dishonestly, but I think when it comes to something like transgenderism or some of these other topics, it's not that we want to make the other side feel stupid, but we should make them feel like the position they're taking is really crazy. It's truly irrational. And so I think sometimes that requires a blunter approach. Yeah. Did you start out doing this, this blunter approach thing? Is this kind of what you did from

day one? Or did you sort of try it out and get more comfortable with the backlash and then just kind of go from there? Because the other thing along with that is some people will just accuse you of just being hyperbolic all the time. and that you're doing just what you claim the left is doing in making people feel crap and making them feel stupid if they disagree with you so so i guess yeah both of those things yeah well i've i mean this is how i've always been this is how i am this is just me so i this is how even before i was writing or had any had anything going on in the public i this is just how I approach things. So,

you know, I'm just kind of being myself, which isn't always just, it doesn't mean it's always right. Of course, when you're being yourself, but, um,

so I, I can confidently say that, uh, I know people have accused me of, well, this is an, you know, it's an act or you're just trying to get attention.

Um, but there are many things I've done wrong. And as I've said, I'm taking wrong positions, but that is why I don't do that. I really, I'm just, if I'm saying what I'm saying, it's as I've said, I've taken wrong positions. But that is why I don't do that. I really, I'm just, if I'm saying what I'm saying, it's because I really feel to be true. So I'm not going to do something just to get attention, just because I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

And they're also, there's no points. Like, if I'm doing that, then there's no point to any of this. I might as well just go do something else. Yep. You know, so this is just, I guess this is just me. I see myself, like, having fallen into groupthink in the past, you know, and I'm kind of ashamed about it. Like when the United States passed so-called same-sex marriage, I don't think I said anything for a couple of weeks. And it wasn't like, well, I better not say it because I'll get backlash. But it was more like I was just falling into the, well, just be respectful.

And I look back, I'm like, oh, my gosh,, this is, this is wrong. Just say that it's wrong. It's so easy to fall into saying what everyone's going to agree with and pat you on the back for, you know, and not just people of the world, quote unquote, but like people like me who have a platform who I'm now ashamed that I didn't take stronger positions. And maybe I wasn't being called to say kind of inflammatory stuff. And not that strong and inflammatory is synonymous. But yeah, that's why I think more and more people really appreciate your work. And not just dudes, but like my wife and my speaking assistant, shout out Melanie Pritchard, they love everything that you do.

This isn't just like angry men. This is people who are like, would somebody please say what I'm thinking? Because either I'm insane or this so-called culture is insane. Yeah, I appreciate that. In fact, I've noticed just, I can't say across the board, but just on Facebook, at least the majority of my readers on Facebook, people that interact with me and engage with my stuff on Facebook are definitely women for sure, which is surprising to people when they hear it, but, um, so I, I know for sure it's, it's not just, it's not just men. It's not just angry people. I think, I think what it

is, I don't even know if, well, there's certainly anger to it, but, uh, I think people are also just, you know, there are a lot of conservative Christians who they feel like they're alone and, uh, they feel that they're made to feel like we're talking about. They're made to feel like they're crazy, um, for, for instance, not approving of same sex marriage. And so when they hear someone just saying, well, here's, here's the deal. They, they feel like, okay, well, finally, it's like, I'm not alone in the world. That's, that's the, that's the main thing I hear from people is I'm just glad to know I'm not alone. And we're definitely not. We're in the minority, but we're not alone.

Yeah, we live in a weird time where it's like, you can either fully support an idea or a person or fully condemn them, but you can't kind of pick and choose. You can't say, well, I liked some of Trump's policies, but he clearly seems like a very immoral dude. Or, you know, you can't say, well, I'm a faithful Catholic, but there are some things that Pope Francis has done, which I disagree with. It's almost like you have to be in one camp or the other. What do you think? Yeah, for sure. I think, especially in our internet culture and the outrage culture, it is not conducive to nuance at all. People do not. People struggle. Maybe it's something about the forum.

I don't know. But it seems like people these days really struggle to pick up on nuances. So that's exactly right, especially with Trump. It's either love him or you hate him. Anytime you try to find a take, even if it's just a really obvious, simple nuance, where you're like, yeah, I feel this way about this, but then there's also this thought as well, the moment you do that, then people will just pick up on just one of the aspects of your argument. They won't see the entire argument. And I'm not sure why that is, but that's one of the biggest frustrations I have right now,

doing what I do for a living. And I think something that's making Catholics insane right now, you know, doing what I do for a living. And I think something that's making Catholics insane right now is that like up until recently, for many of us, we've tried to say, okay, the world is against us. The world is crazy. But, you know, we're pretty confident in the fact that we have the truth and that, you know, that the Pope of Rome is on our side or whatever. And so when people come out now after this scandal and they say, I don't think it's really cool how Pope Francis is handling this. Like today, for example, I'm not sure if you saw that, Matt, did you? He said something in his homily yesterday morning

about how it takes humility to know when to speak. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, what did you think of that, first of all? I mean, this is one of the months where i don't want to speak too emotionally because i'll uh it it made me very upset because not only in my mind he is trying to spiritualize his cowardice in not in not speaking and not saying anything. And also, because I've heard this argument too,

not just from the Pope, but other people that have justified him not saying anything, where they say, well, it's like Jesus, where he didn't respond to his accusers. So you're comparing in that case, you're comparing faithful Catholics who are really distressed and really want to know what's happening and are asking this question sincerely,

what is happening? You're comparing question sincerely, what is happening? You're comparing them to what, Pilate? Yeah. Or Herod? Yes. I just, I really find that distasteful, to put it mildly. As I started out saying,

I think the reason Catholics are losing their minds is it's like there's so much drama in our American political world that to have it in the church that you love as well, it's exhausting. I've had so many people, I've had like a Jesuit school almost cancel on me. They didn't want me to come and speak because some of the things I was saying, I've had, you know, mothers say their daughter wanted to meet me at a recent talk, but now they're kind of glad she didn't. And I don't think, I mean, there's been some things that I perhaps retweeted that I regret retweeting,

you know, but if people would listen to the podcasts, I don't think they've been terribly one-sided. But anyway, just this idea that we can't criticize the Pope, that seems to fall into the trap of clericalism, which he tells us not to fall into. I mean, this idea that, well, you cannot critique a priest or a bishop. Isn't this what got us into the sex abuse scandal in the first place, in a way? I think that's certainly factored into it. There's also been, there's been a very strange shift that's taken place where now you've got the more liberal-minded, liberals in the media, but also liberal-minded catholics who are suddenly saying the worst thing you could ever do is criticize someone in a

position of authority in the church and these are people that just said never have never had never had that position before they've never taken that position they certainly didn't take it with benedict um so i think there's a disingenuousness to it of course you can criticize it that's the whole point that this is one of our i mean it's just an ongoing frustration for catholics is that non-catholics you know they don't understand the doctrine of infallibility so often they they think that well infallibility means that everything the pope says is okay we're not allowed to criticize any of it and so as catholics we're constantly having to correct that and say no of course we can if we disagree of course we can disagree but then then to have other Catholics now essentially confirming that misunderstanding, that's a

frustrating thing. Yeah, that's interesting. So, do you have a lot of people writing to you telling you to leave the Catholic Church? Yes. Yes, I do. And do you think leaving the Catholic Church might be a good idea? No, no. That's probably too personal. I don't know you, you see, so I have to go in lightly. And if not, why not? Yes. No, I certainly am not going to leave the Catholic Church. And the reason is, well, there are many reasons.

But first of all, like other people have pointed out, we have to remember that Jesus Christ chose 12 apostles. One betrayed him. One denied him. Only one was there at the cross when he was crucified. pointed out. We have to remember that Jesus Christ, you know, chose 12 apostles, one betrayed him, one denied him, only one was there at the cross when he was crucified. So he, and then that's, so that's a pretty low batting average, even at the very beginning, where there was only really one, when it came down to it, there was really only one who had that moral courage to stand there. And so, in that sense, it shouldn't be surprising when we see moral cowardice, we see betrayal and all of that in the church today because it's always been there. It doesn't make it okay. It's still very upsetting.

has a historical claim to being the one true church, if we believe that there has been an unbroken line of succession from Francis all the way down to Peter, if we believe that, then it seems to me that if you're going to leave the church, leaving that, that means that you're going to become an atheist. Because I don't see, I just don't see how you, I don't see how you, if you ever believe that, I don't see how you, because you look at scandals and now you say, oh, well, actually the church, I still believe in God, I still believe in Jesus, but well, actually this, no, this church doesn't have a claim anymore to legitimacy. I just, I guess I just want to see how you arrived at that conclusion. I like reminding people too, that we've had like popes in the past who've sold the papacy,

who've had mistresses, who have done all sorts of wicked things. The only difference is, of course, we didn't have social media back then, and people didn't know about it. Yeah, and that is a huge—that's a huge part of this. I'm trying to—I want to remind people about it as well, is that that's a big thing that's changed here, is that you've had, you know, there's always been corruption in the church. But if you think about it, in the year 1565, if there was corruption in the church, the average guy sitting in a pew in France or Spain or whatever, he probably wouldn't have heard about it. Or if there was a controversy, if there were plenty of controversies, heresies that cropped up and then were settled. And then the guy in the pew, he would hear about it when some proclamation is read or something. And he thinks, oh, I didn't even know that was an issue. Like, of course. So that's how it was for so long. But now we're all exposed to it.

But also that does actually make the problems and the corruption worse because of the potential that there is now for people to be scandalized. And as we're seeing to leave the faith over it, because we're not shielded from it anymore. Have you had people say to you, Matt, these are just accusations, you're treating them like they're completely legitimate, maybe they're not legitimate, and you should give the Pope the benefit of the doubt or something like that, and how have you responded? Yeah, I've certainly heard that argument, Yeah, I've certainly heard that argument, but there are a few problems with that. First of all, the Pope himself has not denied the claims.

In fact, as far as I know, of all the people, there were several high-ranking officials in the church who were implicated in Vigano's testimony, and none of them have come out and just said flatly, this is not true. All of this is untrue. I don't think anyone said that. There have been a few people that have come out and said, well, he's politically motivated. They've impugned his motives and his character. But as far as a, no, this is not true, it did not happen, he's lying, I don't think anyone has said that. Who knows? So that to me is very, it doesn't mean that it's true, but that gives us plenty of reason to believe that there could be some credibility to these accusations. So that's my response. I have this idea, right? It's media obviously feeds on hype. It's not like if the media doesn't get a news story, they're going to stop reporting the news for a week or two weeks. They have to put provocative headlines and stories that make us want to read their whatever. So I have this idea that if the Pope just doesn't say anything at all,

that eventually this is all going to blow over because even those Catholic news agencies that we might trust, they have to cover something. And so if the Pope won't say anything, well, then we'll move on to other things. Do you think that's likely to happen? I'm very worried about that happening. I think if the Pope actually does maintain this silence and says not a single word about it, then I think, unfortunately, sadly, tragically, I think eventually people will move on because you're right that the media I mean the media has already basically moved on they never even covered this story I mean they covered it but they didn't cover it with the same gusto that they would have if it had been Benedict implicated in the same fashion while he was pope and even Catholic even the ones that are on top of this like LifeSite

News and you know they've been great about it but like you said they got to cover something and if the pope says nothing then eventually just, you start to move on. So I am worried about that. I just, but that, I mean, when this all first began, I just, I couldn't believe that the pope would actually do that. For at least a few days, I really felt, maybe I'm naive, but I thought, he's got to say something. There's no way he could really just completely ignore this. But here we are a week out, and with not a word said, maybe that is the tact he's taking. Do you ever, like, have you been lumped in with certain Catholic groups or websites who are saying similar things to you, and in a way that might be said to

be hyperbolic? I'm not saying you are, but these other groups. Do you ever get kind of lumped in with groups that you wish you weren't lumped in with? I'm trying to figure out, like, how does one speak the truth and speak it plainly, frankly, even forcefully without being written off? Like, there are some groups and websites in the church, I'm thinking church militant, who, whether or not they're saying the right thing, are often kind of pushed to the fringes. or not they're saying the right thing are often kind of pushed to the fringes. Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't, maybe I should worry more about it, but I don't often worry what groups I'm lumped in with or whatnot. I mean, I'd be worried if I got lumped in with, you know, the Catholics who don't think we even have a legitimate Pope right now, which as far as I know, I haven't been lumped in with those. But I don't worry about that as much.

And, you know, like I said, LifeSite News and Church Militant, I mean, they've been two of the websites that have been on top of this. And it also just, I guess because of how I am, I don't, hyperbole doesn't quite bother me as much. hyperbole doesn't quite bother me as much. And I also think that with this particular story, I mean, it really is, this is really an unprecedented, historic, crazy, huge story. And so I appreciate anyone who is communicating that fact and treating it with the intensity that it deserves

because there just aren't enough media outlets doing that. All right. Well, beginning to wrap up here, you spend a lot of time online. You spend a lot of time dealing with people who are upset with you. And I know more and more people who listen to my podcast, they might be trying to be more courageous on social media and these sorts of things. I just got a practical question for you. How do you regulate your time online? How do you, how do you take leisure time downtime so that you actually don't go crazy from all this crazy stuff happening online? Yeah, that is, that's the big challenge. And I wish I had figured out the exact secret to that. I mean, I have taken a few measures that might seem extreme. I don't think they're very extreme. But things like I've had, I took Twitter off my phone and actually had, I had my wife parentally block Twitter on my phone just so that I couldn't access it.

And I can still get it on my, because I have to be on Twitter for my job, but I can still get it on my laptop. But to not have it on my phone, to not be able to access it on my phone has been a big help to regulate the amount of time I spend there. And I do think just because, especially with my job, but with anybody, when you've just got this thing in your pocket that you're carrying around with you all the time, and you can always just pick it up and lose yourself in this world of stupidity and outrage and everything, it takes a lot of discipline to stop yourself from doing that. And so I think we all have to think about what measures can we take to sort of put blocks in the way, you know, obstacles in the way. So there's that. It's just kind of a moment by moment effort to remember. It's like before I pick up my phone, if all my work is done for the day, before I pick up the phone, I think like, what else could I be doing in this moment that would be more fruitful?

So usually that involves, well, let me talk to my kids and my wife or read a book or just really anything, go outside. I mean, anything besides looking at the phone. You did a fantastic episode on the internet a few months back. I got in touch with you about it. I'll put a link in the show notes so people can listen to it. But it was that show of yours that led me to hire somebody to take over my social media and to give up the internet for all of August. I made it 24 days, I'm ashamed to say. I didn't make it the full 30. I came back, the world was on fire. That was great. But you know what was incredible? I often tend to think that I have ADD,

but sometimes I think maybe that's not true. Maybe I just spend time immersing myself in a myriad of distractions to distract myself from whatever's going on inside, you know? And so I was able to read like the Brothers Karamazov in like less than 20 days or something. And it was absolutely easy to do. Whereas I can't imagine doing that now that I'm back on the internet. Um, so yeah, I really appreciate that episode. That was fantastic. Did you get a lot of feedback from that? Yeah, I got a Brothers Karamazov. It was fantastic. Did you get a lot of feedback from that? Yeah, I got it. Brothers Karamazov was great. My favorite book, by the way.

Really? Cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, I got a fair amount of feedback. In fact, maybe surprising, maybe not. A fair amount of it was pretty negative, actually. I think people, when it comes down to it, what I've discovered is that these these are the things that really upset people the most like forget about politics forget about religion

everything what really upsets people is when you start kind of making them question their entertainment choices like just the things they like to do when you start getting into that um that's what really the few times that i've talked about video games i mean that's what that's when the biggest fact for me the biggest backlash comes from that because it's when you when you're questioning what people like to do with their time that's when they get very defensive although you know the interesting thing with that when you know i was talking about that i was lumping myself into it i fully admit i have this problem as well so i'm part of the problem and i love that you said like i know it's ironic that I make my money on the internet. So I get it, I get it, I get it. I make my money on the internet and it's to my benefit.

The more time people spend on the internet, it's to my benefit. The more time people spend on Facebook, it's to my benefit. But I honestly still believe that if everyone just cut back their Facebook time, their internet time, even if that hurts me a little bit, it's worth it because of the overall benefit to society and to live in a society where people are just, I don't know, where we're all just a little bit more thoughtful and deeper and more interesting people. I'm willing to make that trade.

And speaking of being more thoughtful and interesting, and we just talked about the Brothers Karamazov, you might know this. This was originally released in serial form in a newspaper over the course of about two years in Russia. That's how it was first released. So people were interested and interesting enough to find the Brothers Karamazov on a newspaper. Interesting. Whereas I wonder if you tried running that today, how many people would care? Yeah. And how many, and how many crew would follow along for that, for that amount of time? I mean, if I write something that is over, you know, 500, 600 words, people will be saying, Oh, it was so long, you know, 700 words is so long. Um, it really has reduced our, it's like everyone says, our ability to really dive into something and explore something that has a little bit more depth to it. It's really affected our ability to do that.

And I think that's a terrible thing. So a lot of people are listening to you and they love listening to your podcast on Daily Wire and watching your videos. But maybe they want to know, what do you read? What do you listen to? Who are your mentors? Who are your gurus? Who do you, what books would you recommend that my listeners pick up?

Well, I'll give you one book that I'm actually reading now for the second time in a row because I liked it so much. It's a book called The Lord by Romano Guardini. And it was a book that had a huge influence on Pope Benedict, actually, who wrote the foreword for this book. It was written about, I don't know, 70 or 80 years ago. So any Christians listening, it's just a really wonderful reflection on Christ and Christ's life and what that means for us today. So that, I mean, I love Dostoevsky.

I went through a phase of the big Russian authors, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but Dostoevsky, I've gone back and read some of his books again, so I really love him. Did you read War and Peace from Tolstoy? I think I heard you say it looks at you judgmentally from the bookshelf. Was that you? It does. I've tried. I made a few attempts, couldn't get into it. I did read Anna Karenina, which was an interesting book. By the end of it. I did read Anna Karenina, which, you know, was an interesting book. By the end of it, I was kind of relieved when she jumped in front of a train,

not to give any spoilers. But there is a whole story that wrote a short story. The Cafe? I'm trying to remember the name of it. He wrote a short story about a guy at the end of his life who's dying. It's called The Death of Ivan Ilyich, I believe. Anyway, I've read that a couple of times. I think it's the best short story I've ever read.

Oh, that's wicked. So I love that one. I'm going to check that out. I think he wrote that one about the coffee shop. Was that Tolstoy? But I didn't like it because it just came down to religious indifferentism. Basically, all these people were in a coffee shop from different religion, worldviews, and the whole there's an elephant and we all think it's different things thing that was the basic

message yeah i'm not sure about that one but this one's really interesting because it's a it's a it's a guy who's just out of this kind of it's a really normal life but a shallow superficial life you know not worrying about any spiritual matters or anything like that not thinking about his own mortality and then one day he just has this really freak accident where he's hanging drapes and he falls and he hurts his side and ends up causing internal damage. And so for the rest of the story, he's, he's dying. He's laying there dying, thinking about his life. And so it's really bleak, but at the same time, number one, he finds that he minds a lot of humor out of this bleak situation,

but it's also really insightful. And I think it leads to kind of a beautiful ending of this guy, you know, right at the end, having this awakening moment. And I think it leads to kind of a beautiful ending of this guy right at the end having this awakening moment. So I'd recommend anyone go read that. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm definitely going to read it and I'll try and put that up in the show notes

for our listeners. Do you read Anthony Esselin? You have to read Anthony Esselin. Out of the Ashes, yeah. I read that a few months ago. It was excellent. Wasn't that sensational? There's a guy who's just speaking as it is, you know?

Yeah, you know, there's some moments in that book where, I mean, I know how I am, how blunt I am, but there are moments in that book where I read what he said and I said, wow, I don't even know if I would have put it that way. That line where he says, we raise our daughters to emulate well-paid whores, but who don't actually make the money the whores make. And yet we pretend as if only in our day and age can a woman have half a chance to lead a decent life. Is that what you're thinking about? Well, and he goes, he uses the word whores quite a bit in the book, actually. But I think it didn't offend me at all. I think it's a word that's warranted. And so he uses strong language, I guess, is off-putting to some people.

But I think we have to, especially as adults, we have to get to a point where we can, yeah, okay, strong language, you don't like it, but can you look past that and just get to the message? Because that's what matters. Yeah. And of course, strong language is sometimes needed to wake us up from our slumber, you know, like, my gosh, like we, and of course, it's not just women. He says, you know, we raise our sons to be louts who live at home and we disparage all those institutions that used to turn boys into men and things like that. Okay. okay. So finally, um, you're with the daily wire now and the daily wire is just exploding. How, how did you get on board and will you ever have a studio in California or just be out of your car forever? Well, I like it in my car. I feel so it's my safe space. Um, I, I'm on the East coast or in the West coast. Uh,

how I got involved was, you know, I was writing for the blaze for a while, Glenn Beck's site. Um, my, my contract was up with there and, um, yeah, I reached out to Ben, Ben Shapiro runs daily wire and, you know, we had been in contact over the years and I knew he was, I was a fan of his, I know he read my stuff. So it's kind of a, just felt like a natural, a natural fit. Um, and I'm, it's been it's been great it's been great working for them um i feel very kind of supported i guess but i am out on the east coast and uh and they're on the west coast so you know i'm i'm a little bit of a on a little bit of an island which i which uh which i kind of like as well in a way i'm sort of a natural loner in a way so well i don't mind it i like that there's some flexibility there and I like that the shows are very different,

and it doesn't sound like they're trying to kind of impose a sort of structure upon your podcasts, and that you can be free to be a Christian and all these sorts of things. Oh, yeah. No structure at all. I mean, you could tell just from, I mean, I just talk about anything I want, and there's no structure whatsoever, which I appreciate. I don't know. Some people, the fact that I'm in my car and some people are very find that uh very startling and upsetting I'm not sure why but I get a fair amount of real you'd be surprised actual real upset complaints from people like I don't want you get out of the car I don't want you in the car I'm not sure maybe there's some kind of deep trauma that they're suffering has

to do with cars I don't know but um it's not like you're driving the car right it's like nobody's i'm on this it's i'm not putting anyone in danger and uh it's just uh you know just the way i do it i don't know well matt i appreciate everything that you do and i appreciate you being on the show today thanks so much hey i appreciate it thank you all right guys thanks very much for listening to pints with aquinas this special bonus episode with matt Walsh. We'll be back on Tuesday. So if you haven't subscribed, subscribe so you can stay tuned to our upcoming episodes. And, hey, if you want to become a patron of Pines with Aquinas

and get a bunch of cool stuff in return, go to pineswithaquinas.com and click Donate. We really appreciate it. Have a great one. Bye.