Come See Me: St. Paul Lyceum

In two days (Thursday, February 26, 5:30-8:00 PM)

The new Lyceum Movement (which is now operating in Des Moines, Duluth, St. Paul, Kalamazoo, and Itasca County, MN) is an attempt to recapture some of the spirit of the nineteenth-century American lyceums. This old social movement brought together communities to hear great ideas from great figures like Mark Twain and Abe Lincoln—and then to discuss those ideas among themselves.

I’m no Mark Twain, but I have nevertheless been asked to participate in a panel discussion / conversation at the St. Paul Lyceum this Thursday (two days from now).¹

Our topic is Civility & Peace:

Recent episodes of political violence have left many wondering what kind of civic life we are entering. As distrust rises and Americans grow more distant from one another, what are the prospects for civility and peace? What holds a society together when disagreement deepens? And what happens when those bonds begin to fray?

I’m not sure when the Lyceum picked this topic, but, in the wake of local ICE operations and two killings, not to mention the assassination of House Speaker Melissa Hortman last year, these questions are very timely (perhaps even a little sensitive) here in the Twin Cities.

The Lyceum will meet at the Yoerg Brewing Company in Regular Saint Paul. I’ve been told to expect 15-30 people.

Doors open at 5:30 to get drinks and make friends, panel from 6:00-7:00, table discussion from 7:00-8:00. Tickets are $10, but, with every paid admission, you can bring one friend for free. (This is a not-so-subtle way of encouraging friendship and community.)

The discussion will be moderated by Evan Beacom, organizer of the St. Paul Lyceum (and—I learned as a result of this—a thorough reader of De Civ). I will be up alongside the estimable philosopher and writer Dr. Rachel Lu, associate editor at Law & Liberty. (She’s also appeared in Worthy Reads at least twice, and she is terrific.)

For more information and to purchase advance tickets, see the EventBrite page:

I am excited about this. I am also pretty nervous! I have never been invited to do anything like this before. It’s an honor to be thought of as any kind of respectable thinker. At the same time, I’ve always considered myself a poor extemporaneous speaker, and I have what they used to call “a real face for blogging”:

Remember this?

So, if you come, there’s a real chance you’ll be paying $10 to watch me humiliate myself!² However, Dr. Lu alone is worth the price of admission and will carry the night if I fall apart under the bright lights. I’m trying to find time tomorrow to re-read some things and put together a few notes on index cards, so I don’t just spend my whole time up there stammering.

If you, too, want to pregame, you might enjoy reading Lu’s excellent “The Terrible Smallness of Public Killers,” and my own “One Reason to Punch Nazis (and Two Reasons Not To).”

At some point, I’m very likely to find some excuse to pull out my old schtick about “the two causes of civil war are partisan hatred and legitimacy crisis,” a theme I explored at length in “Review of Ross Douthat’s Review(s) of Civil War” and, of course, that one time I wrote a novella that accidentally predicted January 6.

I hope one or two of you are able to make it! I will be staying for the post-panel conversations and perhaps even a few minutes beyond the end of the schedule, so it would be lovely to meet anyone out there in Readerland who’s in the area and able to make it into Saint Paul on a weeknight.

1. Sorry for the short notice!

2. Perhaps I should use this line to advertise it to my enemies! “Come to the Lyceum and watch James flail! Laugh when he does!”