Matthew Pegas and Constantin von Hoffmeister talk about Pegas’ book The Black Album, freedom of speech in America, respecting ethnic particularisms, cultural relativism, the horror of normalizing mass shootings, the gnostic notion of spirit over matter, the glory of the Middle Ages, the lost sense of community in shopping malls, cathedrals as an expression of the Faustian spirit, self-mummification, and other topics.