Stop Critiquing, Start Building: Walker Larson on Marxism, Localism, and Cultural Restoration

Walker Larson is a writer, former classical school teacher, and the voice behind The Hazelnut Substack, a journal dedicated to the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful in literature and culture. In this conversation, Jason and Walker reflect on what it means to build rather than merely critique, the dangers of internet narratives, Wendell Berry's "age of divorce," and why every father owes it to his soul to pick up a great novel.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Walker's fertility journey, devotion to Our Lady of La Leche, and the hidden cross of infertility for Catholic men and their wives
• The temptation to critique and "get clicks" — and the harder, more necessary work of building culture
• How the "hermeneutics of suspicion" is rooted in Marxist literary theory and has leaked into internet discourse and conservative media
• Localism, medieval guilds, and what Rerum Novarum says about protecting communities from consolidating power
• Walker's case for why busy fathers need great literature—and what it does that no self-help book or YouTube video can

Chapters:

00:00: Welcome

01:22: Walker's Fertility Journey: Our Lady of La Leche and the Gift of Daughters

07:39: Infertility as a Hidden Cross

12:38: "Beyond Apocalypse": The Case for Cultural Restoration Over Critique

16:41: The Hermeneutics of Suspicion

28:06: Conspiracy Thinking, Victimhood, and the Work Only You Can Do

35:26: Localism, Guilds, and Rerum Novarum

58:16: Why Busy Fathers Need to Read Great Literature

01:03:39: Literature as a Trial Run for Life

01:17:56: Two Planes of Knowing: Abstract Facts vs. Lived Truth

Resources Mentioned:

• "Beyond Apocalypse: Believing in Cultural Restoration" by Walker Larson — Crisis Magazine
• The Hazelnut Substack — Walker Larson's writing on literature, culture, and the permanent things
• walkerlarsonwriting.com

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Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios