# Stanley Hauerwas | The Good Life: If liberalism failed to deliver, what can? | Plough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h0CKJ8Uq4M

[00:00] Looking back at the last 18 months,
[00:03] one thing the pandemic has done is cast a kind of harsh light on what our culture views is the good life.
[00:14] What is the life that we wish for ourselves, for our kids, for those around us?
[00:19] Particularly for those suffering, what does a good life look like?
[00:23] And so we want to start our conference with that.
[00:26] Stanley will make some remarks, and then there'll be responses from uh Xena Hits and from Potter Edmund Waldstein, whom I'll introduce at that point.
[00:38] But first, Stanley: he's a theologian and Christian ethicist, professor emeritus of theological ethics and of law at Duke University, and he's the author or editor of more than 50 books, which I will not all list now.
[00:51] Uh, including uh Stanley, probably your sort of ur plowish book, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony.
[01:00] Uh, which he co-authored with William H. Willeman, but many other books as well.
[01:07] So, uh, he's contributed to Plow on many occasions.
[01:12] And so join me in welcoming Stanley Howarwass as our first speaker.
[01:15] I have to say, I'm a bit nervous.
[01:17] It's been a year and a half since I've addressed people.
[01:25] And what you've done for a lifetime, you lose in a year and a half.
[01:30] So I hope this will be intelligible.
[01:34] And I look forward to the respondents.
[01:38] In this beautiful written memoir, The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape, James Rebanks helps those like myself who know nothing about sheep to have some sense of what it means to be a shepherd.
[01:54] Rebanks is well prepared to perform this task, as it comes from a lineage of shepherds.
[02:00] Rebanks knows sheep and he helps his reader know something of what he knows.
[02:06] For example, I had no idea how many different species of sheep existed.
[02:11] The diverse species means, moreover, that the breeding of sheep can be quite specialized.
[02:17] For example, there are breeds of sheep that have been and continue to be bred to negotiate different topographies, such as hills with rocks, and you let them go wild.
[02:30] Romantic conceptions of what it means to be a shepherd, however, cannot survive Rebanks' honest account of brutality that is often necessary to maintain the flock.
[02:43] The bargaining between shepherds can be a cutthroat business.
[02:47] To maintain the farm, moreover, is sheer hard work.
[02:52] And the result is often a barely sustainable living.
[02:57] If you are tempted to become a shepherd, you need to remember that you will spend.
[03:01] A good deal of your life looking into the mouths of sheep, because it seems you can tell much about the quality of the sheep by judging their teeth.
[03:12] Rebanks is a wonderful storyteller and writer.
[03:16] He knows how to write because, as one who hated formal schooling, he improbably ended up with a degree from Oxford.
[03:25] Although he left secondary school as soon as it was permissible, he discovered he loved to read; he did that every night he worked.
[03:34] He worked on his grandfather and father's farm, but he read at night.
[03:42] Taking continuing education courses, he was discovered and encouraged to take tests necessary for him to go to the university.
[03:51] He did take the test, and the rest is history.
[03:55] Having gone to Oxford, he could have pursued a very different form of life other than being a shepherd.
[04:02] But he chose to return to the farm.
[04:05] He did so because, as he observes, he had inherited from his grandfather the classic world view of the peasant.
[04:14] The word that world view he identified with the presumption that he was in the line of people who were always just there.
[04:23] A people who, though often battered, yet endured.
[04:26] And through such endurance came to believe they owned the earth.
[04:32] Such people, Rebanks observes, are built out of stories that are embedded in the everyday necessities of life.
[04:43] In the last paragraph of The Shepherd's Life, Rebanks, who has been a shepherd now many years, reports on the moment.
[04:51] Reports on a moment in his busy life.
[04:54] It is in late spring, and he is in the process of returning his flock to craggy hills.
[05:01] Those sheep had been bred to fend for.
[05:03] Themselves in such a rocky terrain.
[05:07] He enjoys watching the sheep find their way in the rough fields because they are evidently happy to be home.
[05:15] Rebanks imitates this flock as a sense that all is as it should be.
[05:22] By laying down in the grass and drinking the sweet and pure water by the nearby stream.
[05:29] He rolls on his back and watches the clouds racing by.
[05:35] His well-trained sheep dogs Floss and Tan, who never seen him so relaxed, come and lie next to him.
[05:44] He breathes in the cool mountain air.
[05:48] He listens to the ewes calling to their lambs to follow them through the rocky crags.
[05:53] And he thinks, "This is my life. I want no other."
[06:04] Is an extraordinary declaration that one rarely hears today.
[06:10] As odd as it may seem, I want to suggest that the loss of our ability to have such lives, the absence of the conditions that make such a declaration possible in contemporary life, is a clue for understanding our current cultural moment and corresponding politics.
[06:30] Stated differently, that many people feel they're forced to live lives they do not want or understand is now the subject of the fact that they lack narratives through which their lives might have coherence.
[06:52] All this is happening at the same time.
[06:59] The church, at least the mainstream church in America, is consumed by a culture of consumption.
[07:07] Americans increasingly discover they have no good reason for going to church.
[07:13] The ever and ever decreasing number of Christians have led some church leaders to think, our primary job today is to find a way to increase church membership.
[07:25] At a time when Christians need to have confidence we have something to say, in the interest of church growth many have to say is simplistic and superficial.
[07:37] You do not need to come to church to be told you need to be nice.
[07:42] I say now that I'm back among the Methodists, I have discovered that Methodists have a conviction.
[07:50] It's that God is nice.
[07:52] And since we're a sanctification as people, we think we ought to be nice too.
[07:59] We have perfected the passive aggressive form of behavior into an art form, I'm afraid.
[08:07] Of course that's not the only way the church has responded to our current political and social challenges.
[08:14] Drawing on the spirit of the civil rights struggle, black and white Christians have again joined with those who seem to represent the progressive forces of history to extend the equality that assumed is promised by our democratic convictions.
[08:31] Rightly embarrassed by complicity in past injustices, Christians now try to identify with anyone or group that claims they want to make America a more just society.
[08:43] Accordingly, Christians express their moral commitment by joining with those who think they're having their fundamental rights denied.
[08:51] That is called social ethics.
[08:55] The only problem with that attempt to recover moral authority of the church is that while it may be a very good thing for Christians to support attempts to make this social order more just, it...
[09:08] It is not theologically clear how the pursuit of justice so understood helps us know how to live.
[09:15] Indeed, I worry that many people now confuse being on the right side of history with having a life worth living.
[09:22] It's interesting for people of my generation.
[09:28] It's like you can't live without a cause.
[09:32] There were civil rights, and for whites and civil rights, we discovered that African-Americans deeply distrust whites.
[09:43] But then we had the war against Vietnam, the war in Vietnam, and to be against that.
[09:49] And then that ended.
[09:52] And then you had the support of the women's movement, and that also had ambiguities about it.
[09:59] Finally, then, lacking the knee or lacking a cause, discovered the.
[10:08] Freedom of sexuality.
[10:12] The problem with each of those raised different kinds of moral questions.
[10:18] But the problem with it is that people thought that identification with a cause would be equivalent to having a life worth living.
[10:34] But in fact, their lives could be a mess.
[10:37] They just had the feeling that they were okay because they were on the right side of history.
[10:43] The challenges of living well are deeper.
[10:47] The church has simply failed to help people live in a manner such that we would want no other life than the life we have lived.
[10:55] Such lives may be filled with suffering and failure.
[11:00] But suffering and failures are not blocks to have lived or not.
[11:05] Blocks to have lived a good life.
[11:08] To have lived a good life, to have lived.
[11:10] In a manner that we hope can be redeemed by those who have found our lives crucial for making it possible for them to want no other life than the life they have been given in America.
[11:28] The problem is freedom.
[11:33] Americans have the view that they should have no life other than the life they've chosen when they had no life.
[11:42] But differently, they should have no story except the story they chose when they had no story.
[11:49] That's called freedom.
[11:52] It's called the enactment of rights.
[11:57] The only problem with that, you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story, is you didn't choose that story.
[12:08] Then the fact that you didn't choose that...
[12:11] Story means that there's a desperate attempt to live in a manner that you don't have to acknowledge that you have been determined by stories you did not choose.
[12:29] I oftentimes when I make that point, uh, I point out if you don't believe that the power of that story, the story that you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story over our lives.
[12:47] Do you think you ought to be held responsible for decisions you made when you didn't know what you were doing?
[12:53] No, most of us think we shouldn't be held responsible for decisions we made when we didn't know what we were doing.
[13:02] That's the social expression of you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story.
[13:08] That you shouldn't be held responsible for decisions you made when you didn't.
[13:11] Know what you were doing.
[13:13] The only difficulty with that, of course, is it makes marriage unintelligible.
[13:18] How would you ever have known what you were doing when you promised lifelong monogamous fidelity with the same person?
[13:28] Or if it makes marriage unintelligible, and of course one of the things that's happening in our society is marriage has become unintelligible.
[13:39] So people aren't marrying; they're just living together.
[13:44] But if it makes marriage unintelligible, try having children.
[13:51] You never get the ones you want.
[13:55] So exactly how people are to negotiate the ethos of freedom in the world of America is one of the great challenges before us.
[14:10] This is my life; I want no other.
[14:13] is the expression of what in the past was called a good life.
[14:18] The language is still used, but now it references lives that have not been unduly burdened.
[14:24] To have a good life now means for many that the second that their second marriages turned out all right, their children did not become addicts, and they have some enough savings to retire.
[14:37] That understanding of the good life too often produces people who do not want the life they have lived.
[14:44] They do not want the life they have lived because it's a life without consequence.
[14:49] I suspect the reason so many men want mentioned in their obituary their service in the military if they believe that service was of consequence.
[15:01] The military has now represented the only place that people think they've made sacrifices that were legitimate.
[15:10] If any people should know what it means to have a good life, surely Christians.
[15:14] Ought to have something to say.
[15:16] Yet I do not think Christians have emphasized sufficiently why we think it's important to have a life well lived.
[15:27] And perhaps more significant than living what, what such a life would actually look like.
[15:31] I am of course not suggesting that what it means to have a good life will necessarily look the same for everyone.
[15:38] But I do believe I've lived well, but I do believe to have lived well makes it possible to want no other life than the life you have lived.
[15:52] A life often has moments of failures and betrayals.
[15:56] Is made possible for Christians because our lives can be located in a determinative narrative that makes it possible for us to make sense even of those aspects of our lives about which we're not sure we can or shouldn't make sense at the time.
[16:14] In an extraordinary book after virtue,
[16:17] which, which was published in 1981, Alastair MacIntyre observed that the conception of a whole human life is a concept that is no longer generally available in our culture.
[16:31] Such a conception, MacIntyre contends, is necessary to provide the content of non-arbitrary judgments about particular actions or projects that make up individual lives.
[16:44] The loss of such an understanding of our lives, MacIntyre argues, has gone unnoticed, partly because it is not seen as a loss but as a gain for human freedom.
[16:56] But the result is the loss of boundaries derived from our social identity in any sense that our lives are ordered to a given in is lost.
[17:09] I have no intention of trying to say how.
[17:14] Socially and politically, these kinds of challenges can be turned around.
[17:21] Appeals to democracy as somehow the answer, I've suggested, is contradictory.
[17:31] It may be that, as John Bolin has said, the understanding of democracy is resistance to domination through the process of mutual accountability.
[17:40] Is an ideal that is well worth trying to imagine.
[17:44] But what institutional form it should take is not clear at all.
[17:48] I fear we're not even close to having such an imagination in play.
[17:54] But we do have John, we do have James Rebanks.
[18:00] It is odd but also hopeful, I believe, for as long as we can produce people like Nick Rebanks with the narratives which he's given us of his life.
[18:12] We got some way to go on.
[18:16] McIntyre observes most work is tedious and arduous, such as raising of sheep, but nonetheless fulfilling if the work has a purpose and can be recognized to be a contribution for doing it and doing it well.
[18:34] And that we are rewarded for doing it in a way that enables the realization of goods and family and community.
[18:41] McIntyre even suggests that such a conception of work is a form of prayer.
[18:47] Such a view of work is why I think it is crucial, no matter what you call the systems in which we now find we exist as Christians, that we discover ways to sustain the truthfulness that is constituency of learning, for example of how to judge a sheep.
[19:06] Such a way of life is only made possible by people who have good work to do.
[19:13] And that can only be done if they have the skills to say.
[19:18] That's true.
[19:20] Hopefully Christians will be such a people.
[19:23] Because God in these times seems determined to make Christians of people who are leaner and meaner.
[19:31] Such a people might know how to tell one another the truth.
[19:35] Because we no longer have anything to lose.
[19:38] That people have nothing to lose.
[19:40] Moreover, might discover they want no other life than the life they've been given as a Christian.
[19:47] Thank you very much.
[19:50] Wow, thank you, Stanley, for that wonderful beginning to our time together.
[19:54] And at this time, I'll introduce our two respondents, Xena Hits and Potter Edmund Volstein.
[19:59] If you'd both come up here and have a seat, I'll just give your bios there also.
[20:07] And here Xena is a tutor at St. John's College and the author of Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life, which many of us...
[20:18] have found to be indeed a pleasure uh
[20:21] and she also teaches philosophy it has
[20:24] taught philosophy at mcgill university
[20:26] auburn university and umbc
[20:29] and she spent three years working and
[20:31] living in the madonna house apostolate
[20:34] and has taught in prison programs and to
[20:36] other non-traditional students
[20:39] and potter edmond walsh stein made his
[20:41] way over from austria thank you for
[20:43] coming
[20:44] he and uh is a monk of schiff heilig and
[20:48] freud's assisteurshin abbey and austria
[20:50] and actually a fairly close neighbor to
[20:52] our new brewer community in austria
[20:55] at close to armstein
[20:57] he's a lecturer in moral theology the
[20:59] editor of the josiah
[21:01] manual that attempts to articulate a
[21:03] truly catholic political stance
[21:05] promoting justice freedom virtue and the
[21:07] common good
[21:08] and he's written for plough
[21:10] his essay the lords of nature is in our
[21:12] most recent issue uh creatures which you
[21:14] can grab out there if you haven't seen
[21:16] it before so welcome to both of you and
[21:18] xena would you like to start they'll
[21:20] both give a short response and then
[21:22] we'll have a bit of a discussion
[21:25] thank you i want to say first of all
[21:26] that it's a joy to be here um
[21:29] at this wonderful conference that's not
[21:31] quite a conference but also summer camp
[21:34] and
[21:35] all kinds and a gathering of friends and
[21:38] all kinds of good things anyway it's a
[21:39] pleasure to
[21:40] see all of you and to meet those of you
[21:42] especially those of you who i know
[21:43] mostly
[21:44] through pixels and in two dimensions
[21:46] it's great to know that you have feet
[21:48] and three-dimensional noses and all
[21:50] these things
[21:51] now um i have to my remarks might be a
[21:54] little bit disjointed because in
[21:56] listening to professor harrowas i think
[21:58] i understood something
[22:01] about what he was trying to convey that
[22:02] i hadn't understood by reading in
[22:04] advance
[22:05] so i'd like to begin by
[22:09] distinguishing
[22:11] which i hadn't done in my set remarks
[22:13] i'll just talk for
[22:14] the seven minutes i've been allotted and
[22:16] we'll see what happens
[22:18] but i think when we talk about the good
[22:20] life uh
[22:21] there's a difference between
[22:24] thinking about a good life in terms of
[22:29] what might what i would say on the
[22:30] natural level be good that is uh
[22:33] there's a concern about meaningful work
[22:36] um work that serves a common good
[22:40] work that develops us as human beings
[22:43] and that certainly seems to me to be a
[22:45] part of a good life and i can say
[22:47] something about that
[22:49] but there's another sense and it came
[22:50] through in one of
[22:52] one of professors howard ross's
[22:55] formulations
[22:56] um that i think is a bit different which
[22:58] is something like
[23:01] not wanting
[23:02] any other life than the life you've been
[23:04] given
[23:06] that strikes me as being a
[23:09] supernatural
[23:10] stance to one's life
[23:12] that is
[23:14] anyone
[23:15] who has lived a life in christ or who
[23:18] has given their life to christ can look
[23:20] back on their life
[23:21] and say
[23:22] i accept this with gratitude as given
[23:24] from the hand of god
[23:26] uh so for and in in that sense i think
[23:30] it's it's it's i
[23:32] it's really i think not true that the
[23:35] good life is
[23:36] not available
[23:38] or even particularly difficult to
[23:41] achieve in a certain way
[23:42] of course the more wretched your
[23:43] circumstances
[23:45] the more one might find oneself in this
[23:48] kind of situation i'm thinking
[23:48] particularly about say 12-step programs
[23:51] which are full of people who are
[23:53] examining their wounds examining their
[23:55] sins examining their difficulties and
[23:57] saying to themselves
[23:59] i accept with gratitude the life that
[24:00] i've been given
[24:02] so i don't know quite how to put these
[24:04] two notions of the good life together
[24:07] um in terms of the issues that have been
[24:09] raised in the in the initial
[24:11] presentation i just wanted to signal
[24:13] that those seem to be two different
[24:14] things
[24:15] um
[24:16] i i wanted to
[24:19] express some discomfort with some of the
[24:22] language uh in professor howie's
[24:24] presentation
[24:25] about how the concept
[24:28] of a whole life might not be available
[24:30] or it might not be possible for us to
[24:33] say
[24:35] i have lived this life i desire no other
[24:38] that language of impossibility or lack
[24:41] of availability strikes me as being not
[24:43] right
[24:45] um it's not right because of the
[24:48] nature of human freedom
[24:50] and it's not right because of the
[24:52] sufficiency of the grace of god that is
[24:54] it can't be impossible
[24:56] for us to live good lives that is lives
[24:58] dedicated to christ that would be to
[25:00] deny the sufficiency of grace
[25:03] and it's also not impossible given
[25:06] the
[25:10] capacity of human beings to
[25:13] the capacity of human beings to
[25:13] reimagine their surroundings and to
[25:16] find and discover
[25:19] ways of working and being within them
[25:21] and that i think can be most clearly
[25:23] seen in
[25:25] the examples of of narratives or stories
[25:29] i think about the stories that were
[25:32] given to the
[25:35] slaves in
[25:37] the south in american slavery
[25:40] from the bible so the bible is given to
[25:42] them as slave owners stories to tell
[25:45] them about why they should be slaves
[25:47] and the the narratives that the that the
[25:49] enslaved people heard and
[25:51] re
[25:52] fashioned in their own image were very
[25:54] different they were stories of
[25:55] liberation
[25:57] and we seems to me we need to
[25:59] in our account of these things
[26:01] allow for these kinds of capacities the
[26:03] capacities to take a given narrative and
[26:06] shape it in accordance with
[26:09] our own good our own desires our own
[26:10] hopes
[26:12] and our capacity for for grace and for
[26:14] happiness
[26:16] so i wanted to express that discomfort
[26:20] i wanted to
[26:23] also express
[26:24] that i think the idea of a good life
[26:27] is alive and well and i agree very much
[26:29] with the
[26:31] of course the idea that somehow
[26:32] complacency
[26:34] whether it's being a nice person or
[26:36] um being on the right side of history is
[26:39] a danger to living a good life that is
[26:41] it's a distraction it's it's focusing
[26:43] away from from how not to live
[26:45] but i think we can see from
[26:48] uh people's sufferings
[26:50] that they long for a good life that they
[26:53] hope for a good life
[26:55] that they lack a good life that is
[26:57] there's a kind of opening that's built
[26:59] into our nature as human beings
[27:01] um our longings for
[27:03] happiness our longings to be good and
[27:06] these are in some ways
[27:08] uh present even when they're when
[27:10] they're frustrated uh and when there are
[27:13] obstacles in front of them
[27:16] so um okay
[27:20] i think i have two more minutes so i'll
[27:23] say some of these other
[27:24] things that i wrote down in advance
[27:29] uh it wasn't quite explicit i think in
[27:32] the spoken remarks but it was my
[27:33] understanding that
[27:37] liberalism
[27:38] is or the idea of
[27:41] that our lives are governed by a certain
[27:43] kind of liberal freedom
[27:46] is being treated in professor harold's
[27:49] remarks as a special danger
[27:51] to the idea of the good life
[27:53] and my last my last couple of minutes i
[27:55] just want to question that particular
[27:57] part
[27:59] and i say this from the background of my
[28:01] own personal experience that is as
[28:03] someone who
[28:05] grew up in an extremely liberal
[28:07] extremely secular environment uh with
[28:11] at least 200 years of urban
[28:12] professionals there was no
[28:14] uh an atheist there was no rural life to
[28:19] somehow receive and uh choose or to
[28:21] reject
[28:23] um i couldn't find such a thing if i
[28:24] wanted to
[28:26] but i do think that through
[28:28] um a certain
[28:31] uh liberal cultural
[28:34] uh feature
[28:36] um that was
[28:38] more characteristic say 30 or 40 years
[28:40] ago than it is now
[28:41] but of the search for meaning which is
[28:44] after all a piece of our liberal culture
[28:47] in the united states
[28:49] and i among many other people i know
[28:51] have were people who
[28:55] entered into that space of the search
[28:56] for meaning
[28:58] and
[28:59] found
[29:00] ways of life that were wholesome and
[29:02] good and fulfilling and
[29:04] pointed to true happiness
[29:07] so i think that
[29:08] liberalism and this this type of freedom
[29:11] however whatever its weaknesses whatever
[29:12] its flaws whatever its incoherences as a
[29:14] political theory all of that true
[29:17] it is
[29:18] an adequate tool
[29:20] um
[29:21] to
[29:22] open up space
[29:24] uh for the choice of a good life
[29:27] um and
[29:28] i i'm concerned a bit about the
[29:31] the very dominant habit of christian
[29:32] intellectuals to
[29:34] attack liberalism
[29:36] uh in part because i think
[29:38] in the past 20 years we've seen a move
[29:40] to a different type of regime something
[29:42] that's more oligarchical more tyrannical
[29:44] more totalitarian um and against which
[29:48] liberalism is a kind of bulwark and
[29:50] maybe our only bulwark or one of our
[29:52] best ones
[29:53] so it's um
[29:55] i see liberalism as a sort of
[29:57] life raft in a stormy sea you don't look
[30:00] at it too closely and worry about the
[30:01] leaks and how there might be a better
[30:02] one you think well this is an adequate
[30:05] tool
[30:07] to open up the possibility of a good
[30:09] life to people that good life may be
[30:11] presented to someone as
[30:13] an option on a menu
[30:15] okay so so maybe you go to a page called
[30:18] religious communities and there's
[30:19] bruderhof and there's madonna house and
[30:21] there's the cistercians and whatever
[30:23] uh you know in in a way that's
[30:24] completely diminishing in banal and in
[30:26] another way
[30:28] that's an opening uh the fact that there
[30:30] are there is such a thing as a religious
[30:32] community that there is such a way of
[30:34] uh it doesn't it does manifest itself uh
[30:37] in the world
[30:39] uh is a sign to me of of the hope that's
[30:42] offered uh even in the evening
[30:44] diminished and superficial menu of
[30:46] options so those are my remarks and
[30:48] thank you very much
[30:54] thank you
[31:02] well it's such a joy to be here in this
[31:05] beautiful place with all these
[31:07] wonderful people
[31:08] and uh
[31:10] it was great to hear your
[31:12] your thoughts it was i found myself
[31:14] nodding along a lot i think maybe a
[31:16] little bit more than xena um
[31:19] but i want to
[31:21] to talk a little bit more about one of
[31:23] the points that xena brought up
[31:25] um
[31:30] to start out with namely
[31:32] to what extent the the
[31:36] the problem
[31:37] that you pointed out
[31:40] in contemporary life that it's so
[31:42] surprising to hear someone say this is
[31:44] my life i want no other
[31:47] to what extent that's
[31:49] a perennial human problem that's always
[31:51] been with us
[31:53] and to what extent it is
[31:55] a problem that arises from
[31:58] the conditions of liberalism or the lack
[32:00] of the conditions for
[32:03] that kind of good life that we have
[32:06] in liberalism
[32:08] and
[32:10] i think
[32:13] that
[32:14] both both things are true that is this
[32:17] problem is both a perennial human
[32:18] problem
[32:21] that uh human beings have always
[32:23] struggled with
[32:24] there's something about the human heart
[32:27] in this fallen world that is
[32:29] discontent or that tends towards
[32:31] discontent
[32:33] but also i think that
[32:35] that you are right that
[32:38] the conditions of liberalism
[32:41] uh are kind of an aggravating factor
[32:44] that is they make it particularly
[32:46] difficult to escape this kind of
[32:48] discontent
[32:51] so
[32:52] um
[32:54] one way of seeing this perennial
[32:56] problem
[33:00] is maybe from my
[33:02] monastic tradition
[33:05] you have in the monastic tradition a lot
[33:07] of reflection
[33:08] on what is called acedia or sloth
[33:13] and acedia
[33:15] means a kind of sadness
[33:18] about spiritual things
[33:21] and
[33:23] there's something perennial perennially
[33:25] human about this because
[33:28] we human beings
[33:31] are able
[33:32] to reach towards
[33:34] such superhuman
[33:36] good
[33:39] but there's something difficult about
[33:41] this and it's easy to be discouraged and
[33:43] to kind of despair about it
[33:46] and this
[33:47] engenders a kind of sadness
[33:50] and the the earliest monks the desert
[33:54] fathers in egypt and palestine
[33:56] they talk about the effect of this
[33:59] sadness
[34:01] so they talk about for example
[34:05] we often translate acidia sloth but
[34:09] the effects are not always sloth in the
[34:10] sense of doing nothing of being inactive
[34:14] often what this sadness causes in us
[34:17] is a kind of hyperactivity of the mind
[34:20] where we're
[34:21] we don't want to
[34:22] be silent and
[34:24] feel the wound of our sadness
[34:26] so
[34:27] we we're constantly moving our mind from
[34:30] one thought to another thought imagining
[34:32] this thing or that thing occupying
[34:34] ourselves
[34:35] with all kinds of irrelevant concerns
[34:40] and they also talk about an unquiet of
[34:42] the body
[34:44] the increatudo corporis that the monk
[34:48] who's suffering from acidia
[34:51] even his body can't sit still in his
[34:53] cell he has to get up and pace around
[34:55] and go out and see how high the sun is
[34:59] and if the clouds on the horizon or not
[35:01] and so on
[35:04] and then an
[35:05] instability
[35:07] an instability either of place he's not
[35:10] able to stay in the same place for long
[35:13] to stay and where he's built his cell
[35:16] he has to move somewhere else that
[35:18] seems better suited
[35:22] or an instability of his purpose so that
[35:26] he can't keep his resolutions
[35:30] and then
[35:31] another thing that comes from this is
[35:33] talkativeness
[35:35] as to chatter and gossip
[35:38] you sort of are able to forget your
[35:40] discontent
[35:42] and then of course curiosity through
[35:44] prying into other people's affairs
[35:46] you're not content to think about your
[35:48] own affairs because they make you sad
[35:50] so you think about someone else's
[35:51] affairs and you know
[35:54] what they did
[35:55] uh what they're going to do and so on
[35:58] did they really oh my goodness
[36:04] so
[36:06] i think there is something perennially
[36:08] human
[36:09] about this problem
[36:11] that
[36:12] we do find great examples of human
[36:15] beings who
[36:17] can say this is my life i want no other
[36:20] but often the human condition is marked
[36:23] by a discontent with life
[36:25] and a kind of fleeing from life and not
[36:28] being able to
[36:30] to stand still in one's life because
[36:32] when sad and someone tries to kind of
[36:34] escape
[36:36] in various ways
[36:39] but i also think that you're quite right
[36:40] that liberalism
[36:42] and here
[36:43] maybe disagree a little bit with xena
[36:46] but
[36:49] that liberalism does kind of aggravate
[36:51] this problem of discontent in human life
[36:57] and it aggravates this problem i think
[36:59] exactly
[37:01] by what
[37:02] stanley howard was saying
[37:06] um insofar as it
[37:10] it gives a kind of
[37:14] a primacy to freedom
[37:16] in human life
[37:18] that's incompatible with having a given
[37:21] aunt
[37:22] with having a kind of
[37:24] understanding of one's whole life as
[37:26] having
[37:27] an end
[37:29] that is not
[37:31] that doesn't come from you it's not
[37:33] something that you decided on but it's
[37:36] something that's
[37:38] determined for your life and that can be
[37:41] both on a natural level and on a
[37:42] supernatural level so on a supernatural
[37:45] level
[37:47] obviously we have
[37:49] god as
[37:50] has revealed himself as our end as the
[37:52] one
[37:54] who wants
[37:55] to give us a share of his
[37:58] eternally happy life
[38:01] but even on a natural level we can see
[38:05] something analogous to that that is that
[38:08] there is
[38:10] something given
[38:11] in
[38:13] human nature
[38:15] something some good that we can
[38:20] achieve in our lives
[38:24] that is fulfilling but
[38:27] that
[38:28] makes us happy gives us gives a meaning
[38:31] a direction
[38:33] to our lives
[38:35] and
[38:37] liberalism by putting so much emphasis
[38:39] on freedom
[38:42] does in a way undermine the the
[38:44] givenness
[38:45] of
[38:46] um
[38:48] of that end although i think you're
[38:50] right you can
[38:51] there's a great tradition of searching
[38:53] for meaning and liberalism
[38:55] um nevertheless
[38:58] the the kind of
[39:00] corporate uh recognition
[39:03] is so important to human beings
[39:06] that we recognize
[39:08] together
[39:09] as a community
[39:11] that our life has a given meaning
[39:15] that is
[39:17] very important for being able to live
[39:20] that meaning
[39:22] and i think
[39:23] what we see in
[39:26] in liberal culture maybe more than in
[39:28] any previous culture
[39:30] um
[39:31] though maybe there's
[39:34] you could make the exception of the
[39:36] the canaanite pagans with their idols
[39:39] but
[39:40] you have a kind of
[39:46] institutionalization
[39:48] of
[39:50] the flight all the things i mentioned at
[39:52] the beginning
[39:54] all these ways of fleeing from yourself
[39:57] are encouraged and they become kind of
[40:00] an engine for
[40:02] the market economy which you know the
[40:05] on which the the gross domestic product
[40:07] of our countries depends so these things
[40:10] instead of being seen as kind of a
[40:12] cowardly flight from life or being or
[40:14] seen as something in a way necessary to
[40:17] keep the system going
[40:18] you need to
[40:20] be constantly stimulating people's
[40:22] curiosity and
[40:24] verbosity and so on
[40:27] and addicting them to ways of escaping
[40:30] from their lives
[40:32] to keep the system going i think you
[40:34] talked about being consumed by
[40:36] consumerism i think this is
[40:38] there's something
[40:40] deeply true about that
[40:42] and it's very easy to become addicted
[40:45] to these ways of
[40:46] escaping our lives
[40:49] and these addictions i think they take
[40:52] on really a kind of idolatrous
[40:54] character
[40:55] where often
[40:56] uh
[40:58] these
[41:00] means of escape take on a kind of
[41:03] quasi-divine power
[41:05] in our lives so anyways that's what i
[41:07] wanted to say
[41:09] there was one thing that
[41:10] um jumped out of your talk stanley that
[41:13] i thought
[41:16] had a commonality with
[41:19] both things
[41:20] both of the respondents said and that
[41:22] was
[41:24] that there's something in our society
[41:25] that
[41:27] divorces work
[41:28] from a sense of meaning
[41:31] how we spend our time
[41:33] what shapes us what activities
[41:36] shape our minds and our beings and our
[41:38] bodies how do we spend our day
[41:41] is is it really possible for many people
[41:43] today to look at their work and see a
[41:45] form of prayer
[41:47] when you're answering
[41:49] emails from your boss at
[41:51] one in the morning and
[41:54] chasing around on slack chains
[41:56] or uh
[41:58] that's sort of the
[42:01] the middle-class educated precariat
[42:03] uh
[42:04] and it goes obviously it gets worse from
[42:07] there for for far too many people
[42:10] uh we think right now in the midst of
[42:12] this covered pandemic of the economic
[42:14] effects on many around the world
[42:17] uh who are absolutely desperate
[42:19] uh i think of
[42:21] you know
[42:22] friends in in brazil or nicaragua who
[42:25] are you know
[42:26] just barely making it and
[42:28] there is a kind of social and economic
[42:31] aspect
[42:33] uh that certainly
[42:35] certainly does influence whether one can
[42:37] look at one's work as
[42:39] i'm really just trying to survive and
[42:41] life is really really tough
[42:43] um or whether one can look at it and say
[42:45] this is truly
[42:46] um
[42:47] how god wanted human beings to live this
[42:49] is
[42:50] this is a life this is a good life this
[42:52] is a life i would wish for someone else
[42:54] so i wondered if any of you had any
[42:56] thoughts on that work is prayer and
[42:59] how can we build
[43:02] a culture or society communities maybe
[43:04] only
[43:05] where
[43:06] it can be prayer
[43:10] thanks that's a that's a great question
[43:12] um
[43:15] i suppose along the lines of the remarks
[43:17] i made earlier i
[43:19] um
[43:21] i think i think that virtually any work
[43:25] as long as it's not
[43:27] actively evil
[43:29] can be made a prayer
[43:31] on the other hand
[43:32] what seems to me more and maybe this is
[43:34] just
[43:35] my old analytic philosopher ways
[43:38] hair splitting um
[43:41] on the other hand there are forms of
[43:42] work that are more or less conducive to
[43:44] prayer and
[43:46] work that's conducive to prayer my point
[43:49] of view is
[43:50] work that serves work that
[43:53] is a part of a
[43:55] flourishing communal human life
[43:58] and to me there's
[44:00] um
[44:02] there's another distinction i'd like to
[44:04] make in that i see in our culture that
[44:06] is what i see is not so much
[44:10] precarity in the middle and then things
[44:11] getting worse on the way down but a kind
[44:13] of
[44:14] divide where
[44:17] the type of work which is
[44:19] service which is laden with meaning
[44:22] things like health home health care or
[44:26] food service
[44:28] or
[44:30] cleaning bathrooms this is laden with
[44:32] meaning
[44:33] it serves the common good it serves
[44:35] others it serves one's neighbor
[44:38] but it's
[44:39] it's treated with absolute contempt
[44:42] in our culture so it's very hard to live
[44:45] oneself as an individual a full whole
[44:47] human life
[44:48] uh when one isn't it depends on that
[44:51] type of work to make a living so you
[44:52] have that that on one end of the
[44:54] spectrum and on the other you have what
[44:56] um
[44:58] david graber calls jobs uh
[45:00] where
[45:01] uh which is where many middle class
[45:03] people find themselves
[45:05] high prestige high pay
[45:07] and work that is really
[45:09] uh
[45:10] really empty
[45:11] uh of of any connection with a human
[45:15] need
[45:17] and uh one of the things that comes out
[45:19] in his book about this is how soul
[45:21] destroying it is for the people who are
[45:23] in these jobs that is they have the
[45:25] money and the prestige and they're and
[45:27] they're just
[45:28] uh dying inside of misery
[45:31] so uh i i definitely
[45:35] i would like to see
[45:38] more
[45:40] community building of a kind that
[45:42] provides work
[45:44] that connects with human needs and i one
[45:46] of the things i like about being here is
[45:47] that so many of you i think share that
[45:49] commitment
[45:53] one thing that struck me about your talk
[45:55] stanley was this
[45:56] story of the shepherd and i was thinking
[46:00] um
[46:01] about three years ago i i got to go to
[46:03] jerusalem for the first time in my life
[46:06] um and it was very moving but
[46:09] one thing kind of disappointed me and
[46:11] this is you know shows how uh
[46:14] how foolish i am but
[46:16] i had kind of this naive image of the
[46:18] city of jerusalem in my mind
[46:22] and in this image of jerusalem there
[46:24] were so many animals there there were
[46:25] donkeys and all these things of course
[46:27] you know it's perfectly knife idea to
[46:30] think that jerusalem would still be like
[46:31] that it's just cars and motorcycles
[46:34] and people walking around but
[46:36] i think that
[46:41] there is something really good for human
[46:43] beings to work with animals
[46:46] and to kind of
[46:48] to kind of include animals in in human
[46:51] work
[46:52] um
[46:53] to have
[46:54] beasts of burden and so on
[47:00] and in many ways that's lost through
[47:03] through technological progress
[47:05] we have animals as pets
[47:07] who
[47:08] and and people tend for them and that's
[47:11] uh i think they find a lot of meaning in
[47:13] that
[47:14] but the pets are our pets they're not
[47:16] really included in human work they don't
[47:18] become a part of human life in that way
[47:21] and then we have animals that we keep in
[47:24] in kind of
[47:25] food
[47:26] factories
[47:27] and sort of
[47:29] really dismal
[47:30] conditions and i think there's something
[47:34] sort of destructive of the human soul on
[47:35] that i don't know i have no idea how you
[47:37] could begin to
[47:39] think about changing that given
[47:42] modern technological life but it makes
[47:44] me sad
[47:49] i was raised a bricklayer
[47:53] i was taken out on the job when i was
[47:55] seven
[47:56] and i was taught
[47:58] early on how to joint how to chop mud
[48:04] how to build a scaffold
[48:07] and then
[48:08] when i was around 15 my father let me
[48:11] learn to lay brick
[48:13] and the secret of lame brick which
[48:15] people are always fascinated watch
[48:17] bricklayers because i can't figure out
[48:19] how it's working
[48:21] um
[48:22] the secret lane brick is frog in the mud
[48:25] when when you spread the mud down the
[48:28] the course
[48:30] you take the trowel and you create a
[48:32] trench in it that's called frog in the
[48:34] mud
[48:35] and that puts the mud out to the edges
[48:39] where you can cut it
[48:41] and also it creates a vacuum where you
[48:43] lay the brick with your hand not the
[48:45] trowel
[48:47] um
[48:48] i give that example because
[48:51] i was just using words that you're
[48:53] unfamiliar with
[48:54] you call it martyr bricklayer calls it
[48:57] mud
[49:00] you call it spreading mud they call it
[49:03] frog in the mud
[49:05] and so on
[49:07] and it's a way of reminding us
[49:10] that
[49:10] vocabulary matters
[49:13] and how
[49:14] to
[49:16] see in our work
[49:19] the kind of demands for learning
[49:22] language well
[49:23] to describe what we do
[49:26] is analogous to
[49:27] having a life worth living it involves a
[49:31] vocabulary of learning how to talk
[49:35] and that is one of the great challenges
[49:37] before us today
[49:39] that we
[49:41] have not had the skills that come from
[49:45] truthful narratives
[49:47] that
[49:48] make it
[49:50] possible for us to make the kinds of
[49:53] discriminations
[49:54] that can
[49:56] uh
[49:58] discriminate between acedia
[50:01] and
[50:02] just
[50:04] someone
[50:05] in the doldrums
[50:08] these are challenges before us in terms
[50:13] of the kinds of good lives we need to
[50:15] have
[50:17] i i can't
[50:20] i want to make one other
[50:24] observation that
[50:25] is kind of different from what we're
[50:28] talking about
[50:29] and that's
[50:31] where we are
[50:33] today
[50:35] in america it seems to me
[50:39] is
[50:41] we lack a story
[50:43] to make coherent we're a slave nation
[50:50] and
[50:51] as a result
[50:54] we
[50:58] talk about everyone having freedom
[51:01] but freedom i mean
[51:03] turns out to mean
[51:06] you um african-americans have civil
[51:09] rights martin luther king is a hero
[51:12] now everyone african-americans can move
[51:15] to the suburbs
[51:17] and worry about jews moving in
[51:20] i mean how we
[51:23] good lives depend upon
[51:26] truthful narratives
[51:29] of
[51:32] the shaping of a community
[51:34] that produces people who can tell one
[51:37] another the truth
[51:39] and that it seems to me is one of the
[51:41] deep challenges
[51:43] before us today
[51:45] and in particular as christians
[51:47] who have been
[51:49] graced by god's grace
[51:52] to
[51:53] confess
[51:54] that
[51:57] we have been
[51:58] shaped by a sinful history
[52:02] that we need forgiveness to be able to
[52:05] tell the truth about it
[52:07] and that would make
[52:09] lives
[52:10] otherwise
[52:11] impossible possible
[52:22] i have my own mic now
[52:24] thank you stanley
[52:25] i have one other question i want to
[52:27] throw at our panelists and then i'd
[52:28] invite anyone in the audience who'd like
[52:30] to ask a question or
[52:33] um
[52:34] to our speakers uh to do so
[52:38] so
[52:39] there has been as everyone sort of in
[52:42] the wider plow space knows this kind of
[52:45] bubbling conversation about liberalism
[52:48] the end of liberalism post-liberalism
[52:51] uh non-liberalism and illiberalism
[52:54] um
[52:55] one of my fellow editors it drives them
[52:57] absolutely mad when any of these terms
[52:59] come up
[53:02] but we're talking about something real
[53:04] and stanley
[53:07] i think with the story of the shepherd
[53:09] kind of put his finger on
[53:11] why it might be that
[53:13] simply a life having a maximum of
[53:15] freedom having a maximum of resources in
[53:18] a capitalist society and a maximum power
[53:21] to define
[53:22] yourself might not be a good life
[53:25] which i don't think any of us would
[53:28] disagree with
[53:30] uh
[53:32] xena of course you you highlighted
[53:35] you gave a sort of
[53:36] semi defense of liberalism
[53:39] and uh potter edmond
[53:41] um i don't think anyone would call the
[53:43] josiah
[53:44] pro liberal publication
[53:46] um
[53:48] so i did want to get into that just a
[53:49] little bit
[53:52] i'll i'll just kind of put
[53:55] maybe my card's slightly on the table uh
[53:59] we
[54:00] are here in foxhill we're a
[54:02] a community an anabaptist community uh
[54:04] so a community that
[54:06] is committed to non-violence that's
[54:08] committed to a life of a voluntary life
[54:10] of justice and also that looks back on
[54:15] uh
[54:16] a history of being
[54:21] encouraged to go from place to place
[54:23] because we weren't particularly wanted
[54:26] and
[54:27] we have our our martyrs over the years
[54:30] from people who thought they knew how a
[54:32] society ought to be structured and were
[54:34] very impatient with those uh who didn't
[54:37] comply
[54:39] uh
[54:41] my own grandparents my both of my
[54:43] grandfathers actually one was a
[54:45] conscious objector in nazi germany and
[54:48] the other was the conscientious objector
[54:49] here in the united states of america
[54:54] that kind of background gives you a
[54:55] great appreciation for things like
[54:57] freedom of religion freedom of speech
[54:59] freedom of association
[55:03] the right of anyone
[55:05] to be able to
[55:07] be honored as a part of the society even
[55:09] if they're not kind of going with the
[55:11] flow so i'd like to ask at least to the
[55:13] extent that
[55:14] um
[55:15] we are being a bit critical of
[55:18] liberalism here what would
[55:22] is there
[55:23] a post-liberalism
[55:25] that is respectful
[55:27] of
[55:29] really the right of human beings made in
[55:31] the image of god
[55:33] to use their god-given freedom
[55:41] well first of all i don't believe in
[55:42] rights
[55:44] um
[55:49] america is the only country that's had
[55:52] the disability being founded on a
[55:53] philosophical mistake
[55:56] it's inalienable rights
[56:01] i mean you could start going down that
[56:03] line and abortion is not far away
[56:07] um
[56:11] i
[56:12] the idea that you'd have no story except
[56:14] the story you chose when you had no
[56:15] story
[56:16] is my rendition of rawls's
[56:19] original position
[56:21] that's where i got the idea from
[56:24] and
[56:26] i think that
[56:28] rawls
[56:29] gave
[56:31] uh the most substantive account that you
[56:34] can have
[56:35] um
[56:39] liberal
[56:40] a liberal social order
[56:42] and of course
[56:45] part of what that entailed
[56:48] was
[56:49] you had to be very careful
[56:51] coming to the public
[56:54] speaking
[56:56] about god
[56:59] and um
[57:01] i think
[57:03] that
[57:04] the kind of procedural liberalism
[57:08] that we have
[57:10] is
[57:11] better than murder
[57:14] but um
[57:17] it's not it's not clear
[57:20] that it's going to give it's not it's
[57:23] not clear how it produces people that
[57:26] can sustain
[57:29] the
[57:30] commitments necessary
[57:34] to be liberals
[57:37] and that seems to me to be the great
[57:40] challenge
[57:41] i mean
[57:44] we've been able to rely on
[57:47] a receding christian set of
[57:50] presuppositions
[57:52] how much longer you're going to be able
[57:54] to lie rely on that i think is a real
[57:56] question
[57:57] i mean my when i talk with my secular
[58:00] friends
[58:01] and i have secular friends
[58:06] the question i always ask them
[58:09] is
[58:10] give me an account
[58:12] of why you should have children
[58:16] give me an account of why you should
[58:17] have children
[58:19] um
[58:21] i mean
[58:24] when i taught a marriage course at the
[58:26] university of notre dame
[58:28] i would um
[58:30] often
[58:32] begin the course with that kind of
[58:34] question
[58:36] and um
[58:38] the kids would say well kids are fun
[58:41] i say think about your brothers and
[58:43] sisters
[58:45] children are a hedge against loneliness
[58:48] oh really
[58:49] just think about what you're doing to
[58:50] your parents right now
[58:55] children
[58:58] are
[59:01] part of our enhancement for a better
[59:04] life
[59:06] so you're going to use them for yourself
[59:11] how
[59:12] we
[59:13] and the kind of social orders we're in
[59:16] give an account
[59:18] of
[59:20] the having of children
[59:22] in a way
[59:23] that is an enhancement
[59:26] of what it means to be
[59:30] a good society
[59:33] i think is still very much
[59:36] at the heart
[59:38] of the challenges before us
[59:45] yeah
[59:47] i guess um on this question i'm kind of
[59:50] the bad guy in the black cape because
[59:54] i'm the defender of the the inquisition
[59:56] and all the rest of it
[59:58] um
[01:00:04] well it's true
[01:00:05] but uh
[01:00:06] [Music]
[01:00:10] i guess
[01:00:11] i would go back to something that that
[01:00:13] stanley said before about um
[01:00:16] about what's necessary to
[01:00:21] to be truthful in a society and to to
[01:00:23] try to live in the truth
[01:00:25] and
[01:00:30] i think one thing that is really crucial
[01:00:32] to
[01:00:34] living in the truth is to
[01:00:40] live a kind of a life of of
[01:00:43] is to live a kind of a life of of
[01:00:43] penance and repentance
[01:00:45] and um
[01:00:47] saint augustine
[01:00:49] in his letters to the uh
[01:00:52] to the roman officials in north africa
[01:00:54] at his time
[01:00:56] he puts a lot of emphasis on this and he
[01:01:01] he was willing to
[01:01:02] to at times use
[01:01:05] force against heretics and so on
[01:01:09] to try to
[01:01:11] bring them back to the truth
[01:01:13] but um
[01:01:15] that only makes sense in a context where
[01:01:19] the people who as he put it think they
[01:01:21] know how society should be run um
[01:01:24] also
[01:01:26] recognize
[01:01:29] their own sinfulness and their need
[01:01:30] their own need of repentance and the
[01:01:32] need to kind of live
[01:01:35] to have a kind of a penitential society
[01:01:38] a society in which
[01:01:39] um
[01:01:41] that is recognized and i think that
[01:01:44] that's necessary for the kind of
[01:01:45] humility that's that you need to
[01:01:48] um
[01:01:52] to allow for
[01:01:55] prophetic movements within society that
[01:01:57] do
[01:01:58] challenge
[01:01:59] a lot of the way things are
[01:02:01] going
[01:02:02] although
[01:02:04] i would see more probably more narrow
[01:02:06] limits than you would to what can be
[01:02:09] allowed
[01:02:10] but yeah that's what i would say
[01:02:14] so i can i'm grateful for this question
[01:02:16] because i can i think clarify
[01:02:18] the sense in which i am a liberal and
[01:02:21] and proud um
[01:02:23] and that is that i think there's a
[01:02:26] difference
[01:02:28] between uh well i suppose first of all
[01:02:32] there's
[01:02:32] a
[01:02:34] uh
[01:02:35] political theory aims at something to be
[01:02:37] done
[01:02:39] uh it aims at action
[01:02:42] um and
[01:02:44] uh
[01:02:46] it's in this sense that i think that
[01:02:48] liberalism is
[01:02:49] adequate
[01:02:51] um
[01:02:52] here's another way of putting it
[01:02:54] um
[01:02:56] i can
[01:02:57] endorse a particular
[01:03:00] type of regime is the best
[01:03:02] because i've started with a robust
[01:03:04] notion of the human good say life at the
[01:03:07] bruderhof
[01:03:08] and then
[01:03:10] reason as to what's necessary to support
[01:03:12] that vision of the human good
[01:03:15] and i i think probably if the three of
[01:03:17] us sat down and and thought about this i
[01:03:19] don't think there'd be much disagreement
[01:03:20] to be honest uh maybe i'd be against the
[01:03:22] inquisition
[01:03:24] i avoid thinking about it because i'm a
[01:03:25] practical person and concrete uh and
[01:03:28] there's no prospect for a spanish
[01:03:30] inquisition so i don't have to worry
[01:03:32] um
[01:03:33] so
[01:03:34] you can start from the human vision of
[01:03:35] the human good and and through reasoning
[01:03:38] generate a political theory
[01:03:41] um but
[01:03:42] in ancient political theory where i've
[01:03:44] spent most of my my time as a scholar
[01:03:47] there's another endeavor where you
[01:03:49] figure out what's what's most possible
[01:03:51] under the circumstances what gets you
[01:03:52] the best thing under the circumstances
[01:03:54] and in this sense that i think
[01:03:56] that liberalism is
[01:03:58] is not only adequate
[01:04:01] in that in the sense that i meant in my
[01:04:02] earlier remarks that is it
[01:04:04] it gives you an array of options now an
[01:04:07] array of options
[01:04:08] is in the ways that both of these
[01:04:11] wise
[01:04:12] people have explained
[01:04:14] not a really accurate picture of the way
[01:04:16] a human life really is
[01:04:19] but it does nonetheless contain openings
[01:04:23] and i consider i say that because i
[01:04:25] consider my own life to have been
[01:04:27] a journey through one of those openings
[01:04:29] that was on a sort of menu of options
[01:04:31] whether that's inadequate
[01:04:33] or
[01:04:34] has all kinds of difficulties relative
[01:04:36] to someone who've been brought up in a
[01:04:37] more robust community i have no doubt
[01:04:40] but it's better than nothing
[01:04:42] and uh what alarms me is that i see
[01:04:48] in
[01:04:49] and among the great virtues of
[01:04:51] liberalism is just what peter said that
[01:04:54] it permits especially american
[01:04:56] liberalism
[01:04:57] it permits the formation of
[01:05:00] communities with
[01:05:02] rich conceptions of the good
[01:05:04] uh it permits them it allows them to
[01:05:06] flourish
[01:05:08] and that's a significant
[01:05:11] good for a political community to permit
[01:05:14] small communities within it to to create
[01:05:17] homes
[01:05:19] for human beings refuges so to speak
[01:05:23] field hospitals
[01:05:25] where people can come
[01:05:27] from as refugees in one way or another
[01:05:29] from the rest of the culture which is
[01:05:32] poisonous in all the ways i think that
[01:05:33] we all agree
[01:05:34] so i i think that that's really a not
[01:05:37] negligible good and i i think i want to
[01:05:39] be particularly emphatic that i think
[01:05:41] that at this moment
[01:05:43] uh it it seems to me something worth
[01:05:46] going to bat for and that's why
[01:05:49] in the current moment i will go to bat
[01:05:50] for liberalism because what i see on the
[01:05:52] horizon is something much worse not even
[01:05:55] on the horizon i see it sort of overhead
[01:05:58] my um
[01:05:59] you know in my very small very secular
[01:06:02] very atheistic family
[01:06:05] my parents and i
[01:06:07] have been shaped by this liberal search
[01:06:09] for meaning
[01:06:10] but my young nephew and even my little
[01:06:12] brother who's who's in his 20s
[01:06:15] they're less shaped by it my nephew in
[01:06:17] fact i think has
[01:06:18] has not much of a sense of it
[01:06:20] um and i think that's because not
[01:06:22] because he's been brought up under
[01:06:23] liberalism but because
[01:06:24] he's been brought up under
[01:06:26] uh this sort of oligarchic tyranny that
[01:06:29] i think we're under now um just one more
[01:06:32] appeal to ancient philosophy ancient
[01:06:34] thinking ancient political theory
[01:06:36] um
[01:06:37] there was a revolution in athens at the
[01:06:39] turn of the fourth century called uh the
[01:06:41] rule of the thirty tyrants and one of
[01:06:43] the ideas i had when preparing for this
[01:06:45] talk is that we should we should count
[01:06:46] our tyrants and then um
[01:06:49] name the regime that way you know i
[01:06:51] don't know how many of them there are
[01:06:52] but someone knows they can count them uh
[01:06:54] as i i think that um
[01:06:57] there's a real danger in underestimating
[01:07:00] the threats to liberalism there are now
[01:07:01] and how it's coming maybe maybe
[01:07:04] an even worse diminishment of of
[01:07:08] human capacities human happiness
[01:07:10] and and and hope for the future
[01:07:15] are there any questions from the
[01:07:16] audience
[01:07:20] alexis
[01:07:52] yeah that's that's a great question
[01:07:55] i want to kind of turn it over to you
[01:07:57] now because you've written a whole book
[01:07:58] about
[01:07:59] um
[01:08:01] contemplation in a way which i think is
[01:08:04] i think a contemplation is is sort of
[01:08:06] the
[01:08:08] um the habit that's most opposed to a
[01:08:11] cds so maybe you can say something about
[01:08:13] that
[01:08:14] now that is really passing the book if i
[01:08:16] ever saw it uh
[01:08:18] um
[01:08:19] i think it's a wonderful question
[01:08:21] um
[01:08:22] and
[01:08:24] i don't
[01:08:26] what i suspect
[01:08:28] is that
[01:08:31] the monastery
[01:08:33] is the institution
[01:08:35] which is most set against accedia which
[01:08:37] is ironic because that's where acidia
[01:08:39] was so to speak discovered
[01:08:42] but or named as
[01:08:44] stanley's reminding us that giving names
[01:08:46] to things is important
[01:08:49] that is that it's in
[01:08:52] simplicity
[01:08:54] and silence
[01:08:57] and
[01:08:58] solitude
[01:08:59] that one sees that that's what it is
[01:09:02] and it's
[01:09:05] i think in our uh
[01:09:07] american
[01:09:08] can do attitudes we sometimes think uh
[01:09:11] we've got to find an institution that
[01:09:12] will eradicate
[01:09:14] that will make it impossible to
[01:09:16] and that's actually not what we need
[01:09:17] right what we need is the capacity to
[01:09:20] recognize
[01:09:21] to open up the channel to repentance and
[01:09:23] to mercy
[01:09:25] um so
[01:09:26] that's my
[01:09:28] that's um my version of what i think
[01:09:30] patter edmund should say
[01:09:32] and what i and which i would agree with
[01:09:34] him about that
[01:09:35] um
[01:09:37] that it's it's um
[01:09:39] simplicity silence
[01:09:41] the the uh
[01:09:44] the features which are characteristic of
[01:09:46] monasticism but not limited by any means
[01:09:48] to monasticism
[01:09:51] yeah and
[01:09:52] i i totally agree with that
[01:09:56] and i would i would say that in
[01:10:01] you see a kind of wider
[01:10:03] institutionalization of this in
[01:10:06] um
[01:10:09] at least an intention
[01:10:11] in in medieval christendom
[01:10:14] where
[01:10:16] um
[01:10:17] so many
[01:10:18] non-monastic areas of life were in a way
[01:10:21] modeled on
[01:10:22] monastic
[01:10:23] uh discipline so for example the whole
[01:10:26] um
[01:10:28] coming to be of a night in the middle
[01:10:30] ages which when i was a little boy this
[01:10:32] was my ideal my bow ideal of a human
[01:10:34] life good human life just to be a knight
[01:10:36] but um
[01:10:38] the
[01:10:40] the whole system of preparation for it
[01:10:43] with the various asceticisms
[01:10:45] that the knights had to take on
[01:10:47] themselves before
[01:10:48] becoming a knight is is explicitly
[01:10:50] modeled on the monastic life in fact
[01:10:53] it's
[01:10:54] it's saint bernard of clairvaux the
[01:10:55] greatest saint of my order who with his
[01:10:58] sermon on the new knighthood
[01:11:00] sort of uh
[01:11:04] holds up the ideal that that was to
[01:11:06] become the ideal of of of knighthood and
[01:11:08] there's similar things in other areas of
[01:11:10] life in the guilds for example in the
[01:11:12] medieval towns
[01:11:14] you have
[01:11:18] practices that are very much
[01:11:20] you have practices that are very much
[01:11:20] modeled on monastic practices
[01:11:25] for the sake of
[01:11:27] yeah
[01:11:28] being able to say of your life this is
[01:11:31] my life i i
[01:11:32] will know other
[01:11:34] um
[01:11:35] just very quickly
[01:11:37] i think the role of beauty and elegance
[01:11:41] and
[01:11:42] political life
[01:11:44] is absolutely crucial
[01:11:46] to
[01:11:47] having an alternative to a stadia
[01:11:50] and
[01:11:54] i i think of american highways
[01:11:57] they're ugly
[01:12:00] i think that that's a political
[01:12:03] issue
[01:12:04] that
[01:12:05] we need to work
[01:12:07] hard
[01:12:08] to live in a world in which our
[01:12:13] seeing is shaped by beauty
[01:12:16] and that's a training
[01:12:18] one of the things we haven't talked
[01:12:20] about is the relationship between the
[01:12:23] virtues and a good life
[01:12:26] it's a
[01:12:27] it's at the heart of the nicomian ethics
[01:12:30] but
[01:12:32] goodness
[01:12:35] is
[01:12:36] present
[01:12:38] before
[01:12:39] the good
[01:12:41] you you only know as you become
[01:12:46] shaped by
[01:12:48] the
[01:12:48] virtues and
[01:12:52] that's just a note i wanted to sound
[01:12:55] before we finished
[01:13:01] thank you i think we have time for one
[01:13:02] more question if there is one
[01:13:06] okay well
[01:13:08] there is yes there is
[01:13:15] professor you said that our current
[01:13:18] political liberal order is not producing
[01:13:20] many people who live a good life and can
[01:13:22] look back on their life and
[01:13:24] be grateful for it and i agree with you
[01:13:27] but my question to you is should we seek
[01:13:29] that from politics and the political
[01:13:31] order
[01:13:33] as potter edmund would should we
[01:13:35] take over that order with christian
[01:13:37] thinkers and restore
[01:13:39] some form of christendom
[01:13:41] or should we just ask as i think xena
[01:13:44] would that politics leaves that space
[01:13:46] that we can individually and as
[01:13:48] communities
[01:13:49] find ways to live the good life
[01:13:54] well of course i i've been accused of
[01:13:56] being a sectarian feedistic tribalist
[01:14:01] and
[01:14:02] trying to
[01:14:04] get christians to withdraw from the
[01:14:05] world
[01:14:06] i wouldn't mind withdrawing but there's
[01:14:08] no place to withdraw to we're surrounded
[01:14:12] um
[01:14:14] so you so you've got to
[01:14:17] be
[01:14:19] in christian communities that can
[01:14:22] help us discern
[01:14:24] our responsibilities
[01:14:26] and our ability to escape
[01:14:29] in the worlds in which we find ourselves
[01:14:34] i i mean this is bringing coals to
[01:14:37] newcastle at the bruderhof
[01:14:41] but um it's a
[01:14:44] um
[01:14:47] it's a constant
[01:14:49] negotiation
[01:14:52] what
[01:14:54] i just i mean look
[01:14:58] my problem isn't with liberalism my
[01:15:00] problem is with the church
[01:15:02] which isn't any longer strong enough to
[01:15:06] scare anyone
[01:15:09] so um
[01:15:11] i'm i'm much more
[01:15:14] interested in asking
[01:15:16] what do we need to do
[01:15:19] in the churches
[01:15:22] that we still have left
[01:15:24] to turn people
[01:15:26] to help people discover
[01:15:29] that they're christians before they're
[01:15:30] americans
[01:15:32] just a small thing
[01:15:34] before i die and it won't be too long
[01:15:37] i say i want to have
[01:15:39] every christian in america understanding
[01:15:43] that they've got a problem with war
[01:15:46] it's not a lot
[01:15:47] i mean it's not just war but just the
[01:15:50] acknowledgement that christians have a
[01:15:52] problem with war
[01:15:54] just think where what would christian
[01:15:56] communities look like
[01:15:59] if that was generally understood
[01:16:02] we got a problem with war
[01:16:05] then then
[01:16:06] then we can ask how we're going to
[01:16:08] negotiate with the rest of the world
[01:16:14] [Applause]
[01:16:23] i think i would
[01:16:25] i would say two things about your
[01:16:27] question which i think is really a very
[01:16:29] important question
[01:16:32] and the first thing goes back in a way
[01:16:35] to to what zeno was saying about
[01:16:36] politics being about action
[01:16:39] about what can be done
[01:16:41] in the here and now and in this in these
[01:16:45] circumstances um
[01:16:50] whenever you do anything
[01:16:54] you have to see what you're doing as
[01:16:56] being
[01:16:58] in some way good or as in some way
[01:17:00] leading to something good so politicians
[01:17:04] they're always either trying to make
[01:17:06] things better or at least prevent things
[01:17:08] from getting worse right
[01:17:10] and
[01:17:11] to make things better you have to have
[01:17:13] some
[01:17:14] idea of what the good is
[01:17:18] um and to prevent things from being from
[01:17:20] getting worse you also need to know what
[01:17:22] the good is
[01:17:24] so that you can judge that
[01:17:26] the way things are now is better than
[01:17:29] they will be if things go in the
[01:17:31] direction i fear that i'm trying to
[01:17:33] prevent
[01:17:34] so i think that the political action
[01:17:36] always does
[01:17:38] um
[01:17:39] come down to
[01:17:42] a deliberation about what the good is
[01:17:44] and so it's
[01:17:46] it is really necessary
[01:17:50] for a political community
[01:17:53] to
[01:17:55] have
[01:17:56] um some notion of the good
[01:18:00] even if maybe it's it's a kind of vague
[01:18:02] notion but that's a true notion
[01:18:06] um
[01:18:07] so that that's the first thing i would
[01:18:09] say i mean in a way
[01:18:10] plato's
[01:18:12] dialogues are always circling around
[01:18:13] this question you need to have finally
[01:18:16] what what is going to
[01:18:19] what's necessary for a just city
[01:18:22] is to have knowledge of the good
[01:18:24] and the other thing the second thing i
[01:18:26] would say is that
[01:18:32] human beings
[01:18:34] as human beings we are
[01:18:39] we're deeply formed by
[01:18:43] what the societies that we're part of
[01:18:47] see as the good
[01:18:50] and
[01:18:54] this is true not only of of
[01:18:57] of small communities i think that if
[01:18:59] you're in a small community like the
[01:19:01] bruderhof with a very
[01:19:03] uh
[01:19:04] a very full conception of the good life
[01:19:06] that that obviously is going to form you
[01:19:09] and we can see the results of the
[01:19:11] formation it's wonderful
[01:19:14] but also
[01:19:16] the the larger
[01:19:18] society that you are part of you
[01:19:22] we human beings are naturally
[01:19:24] formed by what and that doesn't mean
[01:19:26] that we always that we just
[01:19:27] automatically agree with what society
[01:19:29] thinks is good obviously lots of people
[01:19:31] disagree with it but still it has an
[01:19:33] effect on us and that's why that's
[01:19:35] another reason why i think it's so
[01:19:37] important
[01:19:38] for society as a whole
[01:19:41] to
[01:19:43] not remain neutral about
[01:19:46] what the good life is but to actually
[01:19:48] take up a position and not any position
[01:19:50] but a true position
[01:19:52] on what's good
[01:19:56] so i'll just um thank you for that
[01:19:58] question um it said it i think what i
[01:20:01] was trying to say a bit better than i
[01:20:02] did uh
[01:20:05] um just in response to
[01:20:08] these two remarks what
[01:20:11] uh
[01:20:11] i
[01:20:12] i didn't intend to suggest that uh
[01:20:16] the regime we live under is just
[01:20:19] it's not it's it's wildly unjust
[01:20:23] the question is
[01:20:25] to me is
[01:20:28] is justice possible
[01:20:29] on the large scale
[01:20:32] it might be might not be
[01:20:35] but the prospects i would say were poor
[01:20:39] so
[01:20:40] um
[01:20:41] and
[01:20:43] this
[01:20:44] what potter's saying is absolutely true
[01:20:45] that for a just society you need to have
[01:20:47] a shared conception of a good that's
[01:20:49] correct
[01:20:50] um but we have the situation that we
[01:20:53] have because for some hundreds of years
[01:20:56] we've been unable to attain that
[01:20:58] consensus this is the
[01:21:01] soil in which liberalism comes from
[01:21:04] and i i think what's
[01:21:06] what's important uh from my point of
[01:21:08] view is
[01:21:10] just continually
[01:21:12] um affirm that liberalism is a
[01:21:17] pragmatic accommodation to circumstances
[01:21:20] it's a way of living with people with
[01:21:21] different conceptions of the good it's
[01:21:23] not itself a conception of the good it
[01:21:26] it does form one in a conception of the
[01:21:28] good there's no i'm not denying that
[01:21:30] sort of basic fact that's shared among
[01:21:32] critics of liberalism
[01:21:34] um but it um
[01:21:38] we have to fight that so to speak one by
[01:21:40] one community by community it seems to
[01:21:42] me
[01:21:48] locality locality locality
[01:21:51] you just can't be concrete enough
[01:21:55] so when you ask
[01:21:57] what kind of
[01:22:00] action
[01:22:02] do you take
[01:22:04] well it depends on where you are
[01:22:06] and the bruderhof has responsibility
[01:22:11] to
[01:22:11] be
[01:22:12] neighbors
[01:22:14] and you work it out
[01:22:17] one one
[01:22:18] problem at a time
[01:22:21] and that's
[01:22:22] that's not withdrawing
[01:22:24] that's just
[01:22:25] serving community at a local level
[01:22:28] in a way that
[01:22:30] helps for the discovery of the goods
[01:22:34] that otherwise i mean
[01:22:38] in catholicism
[01:22:40] the language is the common good
[01:22:44] and the good that
[01:22:46] is god
[01:22:48] creates commonality
[01:22:51] that otherwise wouldn't be possible
[01:22:55] and
[01:22:56] that's
[01:22:58] what i think
[01:23:00] we all are obligated to do
[01:23:03] no matter where we find ourselves
[01:23:06] as christians within the world
[01:23:09] that currently exist
[01:23:14] well thank you that is a wonderful
[01:23:16] summation please join me in thanking
[01:23:18] stanley howars potter edmund walshein
[01:23:21] xena hits
[01:23:23] [Applause]