hi, everybody.

thanks for coming today on this beautiful friday and excited to introduce to you john burtka president and chief executive officer of isi. he graduated from hillsdale college with degrees in french and christian studies and earned a graduate degree in theology from la faculté. jean calvin, an ex in provence, france. johnny began his career at isi, where he served as a development officer. he returned to isi after four years at the american conservative magazine, where he served as executor of director and acting editor. johnny has appeared on fox news and fox business and has written for the washington post, the richmond times dispatch.

the first things the american mind and the intercollegiate review, among other publications. he has been a lincoln fellow at the claremont institute and has participated in academic fellowships at washington college and the trinity forum. johnny lives in pennsylvania with his wife amanda. good morning and welcome. thank you to the heritage foundation for as well as to my friends who'll be joining me on the panel in a moment. i want to begin with a question. how many of you have heard of the books? good to great by jim collins or 0 to 1 by peter thiel. most of you are familiar with these. these are all part of a popular self-help for entrepreneurs, helping them to become the next steve jobs or to found the next unicorn company. our culture is saturated with these business books. yet when we look to the political sphere, nothing comparable exists for statesmen or aspiring statesmen.

and this is a historic of epic proportions. and it's particularly ironic, given how much americans complain about their political leadership here in washington, d.c. so my book, gateway to statesmanship, exists to fill this void going back to 15, 16 in the renaissance humanist erasmus of rotterdam wrote, the main hope of getting a good prince hangs on his proper education. his audience was the young prince charles who would go on to become the holy roman emperor. charles, the fifth. and this. this quote was part of a letter that he had wrote to the young prince. and it was part of a tradition called the mirrors for princes. this tradition goes all the way back to antiquity. it exists in nearly every civilization, east and west. some of the text you are probably familiar with, like xenophon's the education of cyrus. julius caesar is said to have never left for a battle without carrying copies of xenophon's education, even on scrolls or

cicero's on duties. this book in particular shaped the thinking of many early church fathers and then all the way in the renaissance periods, see thomas moore never leaving the house without a copy of cicero's on duties with him in his breast pocket. but there are many other books from from hahn fe and china to kautilya in to a iapetus the deacon and byzantium that have largely been forgotten by history as a whole. this tradition contains the political wisdom of mankind. and. and despite shaping and having a profound impact, even on some of our american founders like washington, jefferson, hamilton and others, the tradition is largely extinct today. in fact, i think my my book is actually the first collection of these texts that's been published since the renaissance. so what's on here? well, there are at least three factors that contributed to the disappearance of this great genre. the first was the historic shift from monarchical forms of

government to representative governments in the modern era. it was a little bit easier when you knew who the young prince was to write a book or a letter and offer your services, either as an educator hoping to be a tutor to a young prince or princess, or if you were aiming to be a, you know, a court official, you could present it sort of as a, you know, a practical and policy manifesto for a new administration and hopes that you might get hired. now, many of the the authors in this tradition actually got killed in the service of the kings that they served. and so some of these texts actually didn't do much good. at the time that they were actually written, their impact was hundreds or even thousands of years later, when it was gifted and presented to others, when they came to power. but there's no reason that we couldn't have a revival of this tradition. mirrors for presidents or mirrors for senators. tradition in our own day. the two other reasons. first, there was a shift in beginning of the progressive era

away from classically understood towards management and expertise and bureaucracy. people were a little bit uneasy with the idea of a great souled leader with his or her hand on the rudder of the ship of state, navigating the boat through in tumult to us waters and unpredictable winds, relying on the virtue of prudence and other classical inspiration. and and and so there was a shift. it felt a little bit safer to have experts manage society and to focus more on bureaucratic management. and then finally, our higher education system in america just stopped teaching many of these classic texts. they are guilty of what lewis called presentism, which is basically if it if it wasn't written in the last 10 minutes, they're either ignorant of it or they believe that it's stained with the guilt of sins from previous eras, and they don't really want to touch it. so what's needed today is a process of rediscovery and redeployment. we must remind ourselves that previous generations gave careful thought to the quality

that they wanted to see in their political leaders. and they set very hard, very high bars for their own leaders. so we need to make the effort to actually do that in our own day. in my book is a first start at that in a collection of these classic texts from throughout history. but i eagerly anticipated many other mirrors being set forth in front of our leaders today. the second thing that we need to do is build institutions of higher learning that are capable of transmitting this knowledge to the next generation. i went to hillsdale college, had the privilege of going there, but there deserves to be a hillsdale and at least every state in it. i saw. our work is really educating college students in these classic texts, giving them the education they're not getting in the classroom, but the work could be multiplied a thousand fold. if we want to have the impact that we need and it's also important to remember that this tradition wasn't just taught in universities, this was really a one on one pupil mentor relationship. and that cost a little bit less

money than founding a university. it would be more easy to revive that today. in ideally, this happens between individuals who are living, you know, at the same time. but if you're not lucky enough to have someone like that, you can pick up any of these classic authors and make them your own personal tutor. so america today finds itself in a moment of crisis. we have $36 trillion in debt. we have a crisis at our southern border. we have a cultural crisis at home. and all throughout the world. we're faced with multiple foreign policy crises. and so we're in search of a statesman and a point like this. it's important to remember, especially throughout the mirrors, for tradition, you don't often get to pick your leaders. that's not only true in monarchies, it's also true. and democracies, great leaders are emerge. and they come to the fore when virtue and fortune intersect. often at a moment of crisis, take for example, george washington. if he was born ten years earlier

or ten years later, we might not know his name today. and the united states of america might not exist as we know it. so here we are today against the backdrop of many profound challenges facing our nation. and there are a few fundamental lessons from the mirrors for princes that i think are of relevance as we seek to identify and educate a new generation who can who can save america first? realism. we must have leaders who take stock of the world as it actually is. i like to. i think kevin roberts, president heritage is absolutely right. when he asks the question, do you know what time it is in america, you have to understand the actual circum stances on the ground before you can even to imagine the world that you would like to build in this tradition. in particular, we could turn to machiavelli, who's included in this collection for advice. but today, i'd like to focus on saint thomas more. to me, thomas more is the quintessential christian realist.

and in his book, utopia, he's describing a conversation, a fictional character named thomas moore, and another character named rafael. rafael is a traveling intellectual. he's a man of the world. he claims to have a lot of experience. he read a lot of books. and so he's dialoging with thomas more. and thomas more says, you know, you're so wise, rafael, have you ever considered entering into the council of a king, getting your hands dirty in the business of politics? and rafael was was offended. he said, you know, no, absolutely. you know, i could not bear to see my beautiful ideas sullied and dirtied by a king or by a prince. you know, politics is far too messy business for me. i'd prefer to stay in the ivory tower and thomas more rebukes him. even you can sense the anger in the text and basically calls him a fool and says, you know, you simply the way that it works. and i'll actually share the quote here is you have to through the drama at hand as

best as you can and don't spoil it all simply because you happen to. think another one would be better. that's things go in the commonwealth and in the council princes. if you cannot pluck up bad ideas by the root, if you cannot long standing evils as completely as you would like, you must not therefore abandon the commonwealth. don't give up a ship in a storm because you cannot direct the winds. and he followed this own this advice and his own life. and eventually, in his famous last words, deeds died. the king's good servant. but gods first and lost his head in service to his king. but he had this realist understanding. that i think it's very important for us to recover today. second, we must reclaim. transform ascendance and the common good. so realism and interest, all important correctives from the the utopian globalism that had enthralled dc after the the end of the cold war is not an end in itself. it's not sufficient. there are higher than realism

and interests need to be taken into consideration for great leaders. so transcend its right great leaders throughout history have embodied the people they represent, but they've actually often risen above dueling of aristocrats or oligarchs to reorient the regime towards more permanent and transcendent ends than politics. right. like in aristotle's ethics, they're pointing the regime towards the good, even towards god himself. you see this in xenophon's portrait of cyrus when he was on his military campaigns, he said i always try to begin with the gods, not only in great matters, but even in small ones, because he thought that beginning with the gods would actually make his men more pious, make them more restrained and virtuous, which would be helpful on their military campaigns. you see this in al-farabi, the islamic thinker. i've included, he writes, interestingly, the one who cures bodies is the physician and the one who cures souls is the

statesman. so there's an element soul craft in political leadership. and then in our own american tradition, in our own distinct way, we see this in the tradition of thanksgiving day proclamations with washington and lincoln and teddy roosevelt. and you see them aside days of thanksgiving and to orient the regime god. you see teddy roosevelt, even saying, you know, the things of the body are important, but we can't be drowning in materialism, the things of the mind higher. but it's the things of the soul that are highest. and we need to recover that as a people. next we have the common good. one important point from cicero in the book is a great leader doesn't focus merely on partizan or class interest. now, obviously, i understand in washington, d.c., you have to play for one of the two teams, the red team, the blue team. and also candidates have to elections. but a mark a great leader is that they actually have a vision for the flourishing of the whole body politic and the common

good, you know, manifest differently in each particular community. but the fundamentals are, you know, the basic tempore conditions need to be met. so that individuals can live lives of virtue. there needs to be rule of law. there needs to be law of law and order. there needs to be from foreign invasion. and lastly, there needs to be broad based economic prosperity. and it's interesting looking at the economic advice found in this tradition, because there's product there's a productive tension between. the two warnings, on one hand, you see this sort of runs all the way from cicero to machiavelli to erasmus warnings about having taxes being too high. right. they generally say you want to keep taxes low. you don't want to crush the economy. you don't want to smother people. machiavelli, rather humorous, humorous lee says that a man will more easily forgive you if you kill his father than if you take his land. so there's a strong a strong

warning not to tax people too high. at the same time, there are repeated warnings against income. and the reason for this actually isn't necessarily it doesn't really necessarily have to do with justice, although you could explore the justice angle, it really has to do with the the stability of a regime because a highly unequal regime is one that is very unstable. and if you're a political leader, especially in the ancient world order and stability really was a precondition for justice. and so if things are highly unequal, this you know, these are the warning lights that are going off on your dashboard. if you're a leader. and it's something that you should concern yourself with. and finally, must take beauty seriously. we must have an esthetic vision that we lead with for all of our policies. most people are not persuaded by logic and reasoning, first and foremost, their imaginations are captivated through beauty. and then the ideas come along afterwards and help sort of rationally make sense of what is

persuading them. great leaders paint on a big canvas, a beautiful vision of the world that they want people to inhabit, and they give them the confidence that they are the person to bring that about. this is why you see great leaders are almost always great builders of beautiful things. one of my favorite historic figures is justinian the great in the eastern roman empire, and i actually have some advice offered to justinian included in the. but he built the hagia sophia, a church that stands hundred years later, one that was so beautiful that it converted entire nations to orthodox christianity because they believed that heaven descended upon earth and particular building. he was also a lawgiver and the code of justinian. to this very day, you know, it shaped roman law. and then it today, you know, impacts european law. and so he he sees in his law giving with building beautiful. i would even go so far as to say that the common refrain you know

ideas have consequences is a little bit. this is not a knock on richard weaver. i know there are a lot of weaver fans that i saw and in the audience, but i think it's it overstates the role of ideas in in shaping politics in the world. i, you know, looking at this tradition, i really see it as lead. right. they create and beautiful realities. and then the ideas come along and they make sense of afterwards. i even think this applies with our own u.s. constitution it was a document that aimed at union the goal was union while preserving liberty, but it was forged in the fire of debate and of compromise. and once they finally got a union that stuck, then the ideas people come along and they write the federalist papers and they do the work of actually persuading people and reasoning through what was just created. so realism, transcendence, common, good and these are the qualities that needs to be revived this day. so in conclusion, we can't

predict our future. i know if you talk to many people, they say, you know, 2024, this feels like an intense moment of crisis. we feel like something bad is about to happen we don't know that that's the case. but that doesn't give us an excuse. we must prepare for the future and no one prepared for the future better in his own day than charles de gaulle. and so one of the things that i did with this book, even though the mirrors for prince, is tradition largely ended at the end of the renaissance i've included some more modern texts in here to. help update the tradition to the present day. so i've included one from charles de gaulle called the edge of the sword. so this was something that he wrote in his early thirties. and what i love about this is at this point, his life, he hadn't really accomplished anything. he was a prisoner of war during war one, but that was largely a, you know, a post where he know he was locked up, but he basically drank, smoked cigarets all day, read a lot of old books. he felt guilty that he wasn't able to do something more great with his life.

and so he sat down and he basically wrote own mirrors for princes, describing the ideal qualities of a leader drawing from aristotle's magnanimous man. and then he set out the rest of his life to become the man that he described on those pages. later in life, he would defend france from the nazi invasion would found the fifth french republic. he serve as its first president and then usher in a whole new paradigm of economic growth and prosperity in france. so it will take de gaulle's extraordinary level of ambition directed towards the proper ends if we are going to do two things that will help to restore our country. first, articulate the qualities that we would like to see in our own american political leaders. and second, expand the institutions education required to pass on this tradition to the next generation. if we can do those two things, we will raise the odds that one or several heroes will emerge in politics, but also in and business and in education that can help to restore the

happiness, the safety and the independence the american people. thank you. okay, i'll take the form of. so i am daniel mccarthy, the editor of modern age, which is isis quarterly journal. and i'm also the vice president of the collegian network at the intercollegiate studies institute. so i have the privilege and honor of working gianni on a regular basis. i'm here to moderate now a discussion between gianni and elbridge colby and bridge. colby is himself an extremely distinguished philosophical statesman. i think you could honestly say, well, perhaps, you know, we this category a high bar after john is excellent talk. i'm a little sheepish here. we have we have this category of public intellectual in the united states today. and i think bridge is that role

better than almost anyone else of his generation, which is also my generation. he really is a remarkable. he's the author of strategy of denial, one of the most important books on foreign policy to be published in this young. he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for secretary and force development, and he is the principal of the marathon initiative. and he's an extraordinary individual, of course, is john burtka. so i thought we'd start out perhaps with a couple of biographical questions and maybe we'll begin with johnny. what inspire you to write this gateway? statesmanship. yeah, it's a great place to start. when i was in college at hillsdale, that's where i first encountered some of the mirrors for prince's. i took a course on erasmus and then thomas moore. so it's really that renaissance tradition of mirrors for princes that first captured my imagination. and and then i put it on the back burner and then, you know, just assessing the the american political landscape, sort of getting sick and tired of the

endless complaining about our political leaders. i mean, the polling numbers on congress are abysmal. it's just one thing that that americans seem to have a bond over. but there's really no one doing anything about it. and so, you know, the reason that i put the collection together is because no one you know, since the renaissance has done anything with these books and so i feel like i'm on a mission to bring back the mirrors. francis bridge you have a background at harvard university, which has been in the news even more than unusual recently. tell us a little bit about your own intellectual reformation and how i know that you've studied the great books with harvey mansfield, how selections such as those that you find in johnny's book help to the outlook of someone like yourself and how should they shape kind of the american elite in foreign policy and in other walks? well, first of all, it's really a pleasure to be here for this this event privilege. thank you. the invitation, johnny, for this really commendable and important work that i think just both in its concept and its delivery, is a real success and wonderful to

be here with my daniel as well, whose i register my objection to your favor to kind assessment, although i'm grateful for it, but i will just i will just leave that dissent here. but but thank you very much. you know, i, i actually my formation since you asked personally is very much in this kind of tradition. i mean, when i was at i mean, just i haven't really spoken about this too much publicly, but i didn't start really thinking and reading about what i would say, thinking, but really reading and focusing on a study of national security and as a sort of technocratic enterprise, if we're going to go into the kind of, you know, your progressivism element, i spent some extent in high school and then certainly in college really focused more on ancient medieval and early modern history and political theory and moral theory and i would i wouldn't presume to compare my my expertise to yours, johnny is demonstrated. but i you know, whether it's aristotle all the other classics, i mean, the story, you

know, plutarch and so forth and the histories themselves i, i mean, i do believe in a liberal education. if we go back to kind of newman's defense of liberal education. but i really liked what you said here. also, there's a tendency sometimes, especially in some of the more esoteric to it, to take that to a kind of a separated place, you know, as if this is sort a remote. i mean, you know, plato, in a sense. right and i think what you said about realism and the cicerone point that you that you emphasize that that this is actually designed to be practical as well. and of course, machiavelli is the great, you know, that, you know, critique that those can be reconcile. but i think also we have a generation now maybe i'm being optimistic if you look at a lot of the political leaders who are say, in their thirties and forties and so forth and younger, i think there are people who are receptive to this and who are rejecting the technocratic. i mean, look at senator hawley's piece in first things. for instance, people may not agree with every particular of

it, but the idea that there should be a broader conception of what what education is rather than just the pulling of levers in a managerial exercise where we're at the end of history and we're just trying to like, you know, administer the robots, i think i think there's a real plasticity to the time and people's minds. i hope. and so the book really comes out at a very opportune moment. well, thank you. and yeah, it's interesting because even in i hope there more more people like you that serving in government who have this appreciation for the classical approach and kind of the more complex religious and cultural factors when doing foreign policy. but even if you listen to i don't know if you podcast of, you know, former and recent national security advisers not nationalistic advisors, but people who've served in national security bureaucracy. and you're listening to how they're talking about doing foreign policy, like they really sound like mckinsey consultants. you know, they have sort of their portfolio and they have problem sets.

and i mean, it's just a very rational way approaching it, you know, just like purely a business person would and they're just nearly totally ignorant maybe they're not, you know, maybe they appreciate some of these old books. but when it comes to the day to day, how do they do their job? they're just approaching it like it's a math problem and ignoring this greater cultural context. one other thing that you touched on is that this tradition really isn't it's not a you know, the book is a philosophical treatise. it's it's practical advice. and the thing that i love about, you know, some of these these authors, they understood that people involved in politics are busy people. right? they have short spans. they've got a lot on their plate. and so they really set out to make this advice. you know, they even appealed to their own self-interest. you know, if you do these things and here's specific how you can implement these, here's what the road map to being a better leader. and i say just because i think it's you know, and maybe daniel, you and i were about something about this earlier, but just i think there's a we're at a point

where certainly on the foreign policy realm, i mean, we're looking out and, you know, things are falling apart in europe, in the middle east and god forbid, things could get even worse in asia. you know, i think on on the economic or certainly how people are feeling about the economy and so forth, there's a real that that that that, you know without getting too personal mean i thought fukuyama as he actually wrote in the actual end of history there was a lot more nuance where his kind of rhetoric is now is a little bit of a different story but but the sort of sort of bold rise version of end of history was ascendant, including among conservatives. you know, earlier in the and late at the end of the century, there's a sense, certainly, i think, on the right, but but also it seems across the political spectrum to some degree that overconfident kind of, you know, b-grade movie version of the end of history is unchallengeable. i mean, i remember i remember sitting in i interned in the white house in the summer of 2001. and the biggest issues at the time were this poor woman, chandra levy, who was murdered in rock creek park stem cells.

and there were shark attacks. think on martha's vineyard or something like that. and i remember condoleezza rice gave a speech and i and i actually i had the option to ask her. there was like a hundred interns or whatever. and i said, you know, what are the big issues for foreign policy? and she said, it's like corruption in indonesia, you know, instability in pakistan. but it was it was kind of policing the outer boundaries at the end of history, basically. and think that has been undermined. and in some ways it's bad, but on the whole it's probably been it's natural, it's realism. so in some sense, you know, it has to be dealt with, but that opens it up to, you know, the danger in some sense as people, oh, this old model is dumb. and so nobody what they're doing. and so of any kind is the window. but this is saying, no, there's a deeper form. that's not the dewy kind of expertise but that is a product of reflection and a philosophical formation that, of course, you then have experience and expertise on top of that. but it's not a kind of cookie cutter, you know, machine approach to the to the problem.

one of the great things about this book is that it illustrates the way in which the generation of today, our panelists this morning can stand upon the shoulders of giants that there is, in fact, a great tradition and a tradition that can be drawn upon. and one of the things that i think is worth taking to heart from johnny's remarks of a few minutes ago is the importance of knowing why you're in politics the first place and knowing why you're conducting a foreign policy in the first place. and the common good, the transcendent and the beautiful should all be kept in mind as the conditions that one wants to reach at the end of one's activities. whereas you see oftentimes with this utilitarian technocrat mckinsey kind of spirit, that ridge just alluded to, this sense of a complete loss of any sense of what the object is of our activities, or if there is an object, it is, you know, cast in kind of utopian technocrat

terms, especially when recalls marxism. it was going to be an end of all forms of inequality. it was going to be universal material prosperity. one looks at various forms of progressivism, including, i think, neoconservatism today, and you see that the end goal is again envisioned in very worldly terms as simply a matter of universal liberal democracy, the end of history. and that's going to be, you know, the things towards which we are aiming and all of our policies. but in fact, there are deeper and more beautiful and more inspiring things to be found in the visions that are laid out in john's. so that, i think is an important element for people take from this wonderful gentlemen. i want to ask kind of a tough question, but you can interpret it as you wish. as john says, most of these mirrors for princes as a genre disappear around the time when princes are starting to lose power within the world. and you're seeing a gradual shift from the renaissance into the present, from monarchical

system, towards a democratic system. and it seems to. me that one of the interesting things that replaces is the mirror for princes genre is education itself. and you see philosophers like john locke, for example, starting to write more and more about education of the masses and what that should constitute and that becomes a substitute for what previously had been the mirror for princes genre, for the ruler. it's a in sovereign leads to this change also in the focus what kinds of texts philosophers are writing. so my hard question to both of you and we'll start with johnny is what do do with these texts that were written for a more kingly age in our own time of equality and commerce and democracy? so my assessment sort of reading the, you know, these historic texts is really that one. it's an obvious one, is that human nature doesn't change. so it's fixed and, you know, permanently. and i think we can perhaps

overstate how the change in regime type affects what people really want from political leaders. i would largely say that what people want from their political has been the same for most of time. and so, you know, reading through these texts, i just don't see, you know, obviously there's some contextual differences, but by and large, i think the advice true regardless of the regime type. yeah. and i would also say, i mean, i think you would know better than i, but you know, mirror for princes is a particular almost sub form of what you're actually gesturing really not a more kind of comprehensive term. but i mean if you look back at cicero and aristotle and ancients, they're talking in a republican or in the case of cicero, decaying republican. and i think that's why it's really great. i mean, not just for many reasons, but you included, like washington, of course, we mentioned the federalists. i mean, they were using assumed roman names. i mean, washington looked up to cato and other of the republican heroes.

so i think it's there is a republican small ah form of this, you know, and you can go back to obviously in the christian tradition, augustine and so forth. but i think that that's i think that's i think that's a consistent theme indeed. and it seems that several of our authors, even when they seem to be directing the remarks to a hereditary prince, often also thinking about the of the one, the few and the many. and that you find that in machiavelli, who, of course, you know, poses a problem for historians and philosophers with. the perceived difference between the prince. on the one hand, a small book directed towards a someone in a, you know, sort of royal setting, more or less. and the discourses which focus on republican. now, both of you are leaders of institutions right now, intellectual institutions, nonprofit institutions. i was curious about how might see these works and, these ideas

applying to leaders in roles similar to yourselves in america today and perhaps in other walks of life, too. so would corporate executives, example, benefit from learning more about statesmanship? i mean, of my favorite things about working at isi is that i get to interact. so many students attend student conferences. and one of the things that i've done is taken sort of an adaptation of this book and the talk and distilled it down basically like 30 principles, 30 pieces of life advice that any of our college students can implement. you know, tomorrow to become a better leader. those aren't mentioned in the book itself. but i think basically all of these lessons can apply. it applies just as well to the ceo as it does to the captain of the sports team or the student council president. you know what i would say? i think and i mean, to go back to the theme about know we're in a sort of a time of i mean, it's a cliche, but i think it's actually true in this case, a time of fundamental change, reassessment and there is a not

necessarily in the environment we're in right now, but in the broader culture. and kind of conformist pressure to stick with, you know, the mckinsey model or the end of history model or whatever you want to call it, and a, you know, well, career intellectual sort of moral incentives to be seen as a righteous person or whatever the term we would use today. and i think this shows is i look there, there are kind of very practical like in the prince or something or cicero about how do you behave that are valuable? but i think one of the things you take away from this is a sense of more timeless values or framework for looking at the world and, you know, your duties and, what we should be striving for that should give people confidence to stand the, you know, the sort of old paradigm, if you will, if it's failing and a failing paradigm and often can

be the most aggressive in trying to to insist that people conform. and what i would say is, you know, and what you know, if you're reading charles de gaulle, i mean, de gaulle's de gaulle was one man against the whole, you know, and as you rightly said about there's huge factors of contingency and you can't your future, you can't expect to be given the opportunities. god that george washington that and the challenges right as the chinese say the opposite is the challenges are kind of the same you know, you don't want to be stuck with that level of responsibility. but but you can gives you a sense and a conviction that beyond that particular time in moral framework that we're in, i mean, i'm just struck by i mean, you know, kind of going out a little bit on an excursion, but just, you know, particularly on the progressive side. but the incredible moral change that they go through, like over from like decade to decade. and yet the the the well, not

really necessarily conviction, but the fervency often intolerance that accompanies it. how do you have a fixed moral conviction if like the very individuals that we're talking about have a view on a fraught moral issue or political issue, 180 degrees from what he or she himself had ten years ago. and i think a lot of that is because many of them don't have a fixed view. they go along with the sort of the spirit of the age, which is they're, i guess what and i'm not sure a lot of them are aware of that. but i think for those of us who dissent from approach, maybe not every particular moral conclusion, but just the approach you really need to have, especially because this is this is not like you're going to go up like saint benedict, maybe into the mountains and hope things will turn out better. and there i mean, that's not fair to say, benedict, but you know what i mean? like, you're going off into a cave on the edge of the irish coast and you're hoping the vikings will go away?

no, somebody's ultimately is going to have to engage. and this is where i personally agree with thomas more that like whether or not it's morally before god, i don't know. but somebody has to push back. yeah, right. and so even the guy standing on a stylus is going to ultimately rely on somebody else to, to turn this around and having this kind of framework and this sense like that. we are not just confined in this imminent moral, political environment is, i think, very important yeah. and i think that environment, that bubble is in it, even though it's a moving bubble, the sense of it changes every ten years. it's really a highly ideological context in which people are operating. and in some ways i think a small minded way of thinking about politics. and so one of the things i appreciate about what you're doing, bridges, you sort of bringing that and it's a way of kind of popping that bubble. but then once that bubbles popped, then it's kind of like, where do we go? and so a lot of these texts in the book are, you know, it's a way of because there are

obviously consistent themes throughout of them, but there's also a lot of variety in each of the cultures and religious traditions. so it's also a way of saying, hey, you know, there's other of thinking about political problems and it's sort of offering a way of expanding people's imaginations on what might be possible once the bubble is is popped. yeah. yeah. so we're going to go to from the audience in just a moment or two. i want you all to be thinking about questions you'd like to pose to bridge, and to johnny. but before we do that, let me ask johnny right first. was there a particular in putting together this book that inspired you more than others, was there a favorite? or was there something that you found surprising and, sort of more engaging than you had perhaps? i think xenophon the education of cyrus was the most rewarding. you know, one of the themes throughout the book is really restrained. you know, in reading the book, it's kind of interesting because there are parts of it that are just so good. i mean, you're just eating it up page over page.

and there's other parts just seem to really stall and you just have to slog through. but i actually think that's kind of designed, you know, i think reading the book is also teaching you the virtues that he's describing. so i found that to be just sort of a book that i think the rest of my life come back to. and i also want to read it with people that are far wiser than me and have studied xenophon. but if you're just looking for something to kind of inspire you, i think charles de gaulle's the edge of the sword mean it's just shocking that this book i mean, i published a selection from the chapter on character. so there's a chapter on character and on prestige that are just so powerful. and it's a short book. it's probably 100 pages. and i don't think in english it's not in print. in english really at all. you can only buy one from, i think, criterion publishers that was published in 1960, and it's a used copy. that's one where i think it's just that an inspiring portrait of a leader that everyone should just immediately open the book and flip to. it's my favorite.

excellent. so i see we have a question from luke nathan phillips from braver angels over there. johnny i'm curious what you think about relationship between amul asian and introspection in marriage for princes. somebody on the internet told me recently that young men in the 21st century who larp as teddy roosevelt explicitly tend strangely enough to appear more like the historical woodrow wilson, which would appear to be a significant gap in perception at best. so i'm wondering, what do you think about that? how do we like, be who we are trying to be, not something that we don't see? that's a that's a funny question, but it's actually it's a very important one. so in mirrors for princes tradition, there is a lot of emulation and there's not as much introspection. there's an attempt to get leaders to try to be more introspective. but, you know, cicero talks

about the shortest way. he even calls it a shortcut to greatness is to imitate other great men into enter into the company of them. because, you know, the more that start acting like the person you want to become first, other people will start you as the person you want to become. and then you'll start actually becoming that person. and so obviously, you know, internet, larping, it's you know, it's gotten out of control. but i would actually say it's the mirrors for prince tradition, you know, maybe as opposed to other more philosophical or related spiritual traditions is really, you know, emulation is kind of where you start. i'll translate some of our older members of audience and viewing public larping is live action. so it's when you pretend you're a knight going out and fighting a dragon will also. excellent question i mean a teddy roosevelt himself started out as being a little bit more of woodrow wilson. and, i mean, i to your point, i

mean, like aristotle is that the you know, if you want to form habits, you know, one of the key things is i mean, i think this is a kind of modern thing that everything has to be genuine, whereas the more approach is, well, you know, we are a bundle of different factors and if you start out acting, that will create that will sort of build on itself. and of course you want be conscious of hypocrisy and so forth, but but i think that that's you that's yeah, that's is subtle stuff. yes. i mean, you don't start out wanting the right things. yeah. force yourself to do them and then in time you get that all order. right. exactly. question there. thanks so much, gianni. looking forward to reading the book. the question for both you and bridge, but it's something that bridge mentioned earlier and it's what do you do if you are the leader and you actually do have a really fixed end state that you're reaching for well-ordered it's it's trends and and it's just and in the political context you have to make compromise to get there and

i'm thinking of lincoln who had a clear goal and who was you know breaking promises frequently in order to achieve that goal and also incurring not just the hatred of his foes in the south, but also within his own party. so i'm curious as to what you're johnny from the book and bridge in your, you know, your studies and your experiences. what's your advice to them when they're in that situation? i'll let bridge take that one. take that one first. well, that's a great i mean, it's a great question. and and a big one. and, i mean, it gets at the issue that machiavelli, of course, put his finger on, which is can individuals and leaders be judged by the same criteria? i mean, i think it's pretty unremarkable to say that they can't be judged by exactly the same criteria. but i you know, i believe that it is not that that that statesmen have no sort criterion other than results. i mean, even in the gospels,

jesus has the parable of the steward, right? that there's some those who are entrusted with the care of others have a duty of care and stewardship. right i mean, i think one of the things about this book and why it's much better to have just this than just a technocrat, you need expertise, need to know what you're doing. you need experience, all these things. but is that those questions? and i don't think the kind of people in here would say that there is a fixed rule to evaluate that. you know, i was i noticed that you had the beautiful passage from city of god, from saint augustine, which i think gives a sense more of. in a way, i guess let me let me answer. it's a little bit off topic, but i think it's analogous which is i often argue we now at whether a war is just by its conduct. and my is that you can't only judge use in battle you have to judge also you said bellum and you said bellum makes a difference to the severity that

is permitted in the conduct of the war. but i think it's analogous to the kind of question you talk about now, which is inherently there is no there is no answer. and you can you go adrift if you say, well, i'm permitted to do whatever is necessary. i mean, we have established institutions in our country that lie and kill people and so i think those are defensible, even if difficult. so i'm not giving you a very good answer, but i or a very complete answer. but, yeah, i think it's it. well, it's hard because i think in sense there is a slightly different category of that leaders are judged than individuals, you know in one sense, you know if someone individual like slaps you on the face right you're called in the gospels to to forgive them. right. if you're if you're governing a nation, you're there. they're sort of more the safety, the happiness, the well-being of thousands of people, of the whole regime. the whole civilization might be hinging on that.

and so you, i think, have to respond differently as a public leader. it doesn't say there aren't that say there aren't any constraints. but also, if you think of like portrait of the magnanimous man, you know, he comes across as someone who's like, you know, really, you know, overly self confident looks down at others, doesn't care what his enemies it doesn't even talk about his enemies unless it's to insult them. you know, there's all these amusing lines and you might think like, how is this guy sort of the perfection of the moral virtues? but i think if you were to think of him more as a statesman, right. and he's acting in a public context, considering honor and considering other things there a different dimension to that leadership. and i think you get this i'm also not a theologian, but there are some more, i think gray areas. know one thing that i found interesting, i'm eastern orthodox, and at least from what i've been told, you know, if if an orthodox soldier is fighting in a war, if it's a just war and they kill someone in that war, they're actually not allowed to

receive communion for, i think, a year after that. and so it's it's this interesting thing where it's. well, did do something that was sinful. it's like, well, it was a just war, you know? but at the same time, fundamentally like hell, humans ought not to shed the blood of other human beings. and so there's some penance that needs to be done, even if that action was ultimately for something that was just so there is sort of a i don't want to say it's just the realm of like machiavellian necess ity, but there is some some gray areas where leaders are judged by different standards. and prudence is the virtue that allows the integration of necessity and the correct balance of the other virtues, and to figure out the ways in which virtuous conduct may involve some recognition, the difficulties of circumstances and. it may also it always does require, in fact, choosing the right balance between a deficiency and an extreme with respect to the virtue itself. so, you know, prudence, which has always been one of the emphasis of conservative statesmanship, going back to edmund burke is perhaps all the

more today. and it certainly is something that one will find powerful lessons communicated through in gateway to statesmanship. we have time for one more question. we'll take this gentleman in the back here up. can we get the microphone curious there any figure? thank you for this thought provoking discussion. are there any figures today that you would point to as exemplifying some of these of statement statesmanship, despite saying there's a need for a refocusing on some of these original texts? yeah. i mean, one person who who i look up to and admire is robert. you know, i think he you know, he's someone who, let's say, had a very clear sense of where america was going wrong vis a vis china going to the you know, to the 1990s, you know, penned an op ed in the new york times warning against entry into the world trade organization. but that was at a time when no. one, we were still kind of in the highly ideological, utopian

mindset. no one was really willing to listen to him. and then i think this is someone who has the kind of the virtue component down, but waves of fortune just aren't there. right. but it wasn't until like 2016 that those were there and i think, you know, he found himself in a where he wasn't he wasn't there were many people even within the trump administration, that strongly with his position. and so we had to do this counseling of a of a king to. there is a real art to how he did it, both internally, but also how he message externally. and i think largely, as we kind of get further and further from that, you know, his his tenure, you know, we'll look back and say that there was actually a paradigm shift in the approach to us-china relations that was, you know, not entirely him. obviously, the president had a lot to do with that, but he played a pretty key role. and fundamentally changing the way we approach major geopolitical issue. i'm just thinking in the foreign foreign policy realm, if there's some i think that's an excellent

point. and i have a lot of share your high regard for for bob lighthizer. well, i'll say this and i mean i don't want speak ill of the dead but i think i think kissinger maybe was a lost opportunity in this respect. i mean, i was we were talking earlier that i think in some kissinger would have been an heir to this type thinking. but i think he maybe in sort of went along with this this kind of technocratic ascendancy, maybe he thought that it was it's victory was inevitable rather than leaving a i mean, it's interesting. you're talking about de gaulle and kissinger, his character sketch of de gaulle. his book is absolutely beautiful. i mean, my is that kissinger and probably many years will be remembered more as a writer and a beautiful writer and insightful writer rather than as a structured thinker about foreign foreign policy, or even his state. i'm not sure how well his his statecraft will will will age

compared to some of his some of the others in his in his time. but but i think that, you know, foreign policy is is has become very technocratic and and including on the right is certainly in many previous administrations before the trump administration and even some elements within the trump administration continue to be under the ascendency of that technocratic and a bit of history model. and i you know, i think there maybe haven't been as many you the figure like a like a bob to kind really hold the hold the torch even in the darkness. so so i will keep looking but this is the hopefully this will inspire some quite so. so thank you gianni bridge book is the gateway to statesmanship. it is out later this month and a please visit isi dot org the intercollegiate studies institute to learn more about the work that gianni and i do there and also about statesmanship and the kind of education that is appropriate for liberty for a republic such

as america's. thank you very much.