Evening Conversation | Robert George & Cornel West

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening everyone [Applause] thank you and welcome my name is Brad Joya I teach English here and I also serve as the headmaster and it is delightful to have such a wonderful crowd this is the seventh year that we have had a collaboration with the Trinity forum in st. Paul Christian school and I love the diversity of people from Nashville they come to these events and of course the speakers who have been here it has been a privilege to be part of these good ideas and this great conversation in June of this year I traveled to Atlanta to hear Cornel West and Robert George because I wanted to make sure that both of them would be here tonight and I heard them speak and I thought well this would be a wonderful program for us and I hope it will be the same for you as a preamble to the program I learned that night that Cornel West's mother entered Fisk University in 1949 and so I called Kevin Rome the president Fisk and I said you should have some Jubilee singers here tonight well he said they're on vacation between Thanksgiving there they had often told January however we prevailed and dr. kwame who is the musical director of the Fisk Jubilee singers since 1994 I learned tonight that he and I have something in common I've been at MBA that long and he is also a former Fisk Jubilee singers em self he's originally from Ghana where he came to Fisk from and he has arranged for alan christian and andrea jones to sing who are alumni of the Fisk Jubilee singers so this is in Europe mother's honor please join me in welcoming them here on my left as they [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh Oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well many thanks to our friends from Fiske for that that what a gift that was just gorgeous and it's hard to imagine a more beautiful way to welcome all of you to tonight's evening conversation on faithful friendship across a deep difference I'm sure harder the president of the Trinity forum and on behalf of all of us at the Forum it is again our delight and our joy to be able to partner with Montgomery Bell Academy and Brad Joya their headmaster and st. Paul Academy and Jason Powell Vetter headmaster and hosting yet another one of these evening conversations as Brad mentioned we are now in our seventh year of holding these semiannual conversations I here at MBA during that time we've tackled all manner of topics we jump grappled with poetry and beauty to Just War Theory talked about whether freedom can last and how to care for our common culture discuss what agustin has to tell us about politics and what CS lewis and junior Tolkien can tell us about friendship and each time we have sold out at the Dead Poets Society here at MBA but as Brad alluded to tonight is a special night and a larger venue was needed and I think it's a testament both to the interest and the topic itself as well as the admiration for our speakers tonight that we have again sold out in this much larger auditorium so I'd like to thank all of the sponsors who have made tonight possible our individual sponsors Lee and Mary Barfield Gary and Susan Dean Reagan and Jessica far Matt and Paige kiss / Eden Molly Powell and gif and Anna Thornton the foundations that have helped to underwrite these cost including the Beasley Family Foundation the Charis foundation and the Creed and culture fund as well as our corporate sponsors including the Simms funk law firm Gao properties and polsinelli PC with John Peterson in addition to our sponsors I'd like to recognize a few of our trustees who have joined us this evening including our chairman of the board byron Smith damn funk and Doug Wilson who flew in from Indianapolis to join us this evening but of course we're also delighted that each and every one of you are here and because we've sold out we know that there are many people who wanted to come tonight but for one reason or the other could not make it and if that happens to describe someone you know fear not there are options we'll be live-streaming tonight on MBAs platform so you can tune in there your friends can tune in there we'll also have video up on our website at wowt.com and video clips will be up almost immediately on Facebook as well we also know there are a number of first-time attendees in the audience and want to send a special welcome to you and for those of you who may be here for the first time and are not familiar with eternity form we work to provide a space and resources for the discussion of life's greatest questions in the context of faith and we do this by providing readings and other publications which draw upon the classic works of the humanities that explore enduring questions and connect the wisdom of the humanities with timely issues of the day as well as sponsoring programs such as the one tonight which helps connect leading thinkers with thinking leaders and engaging the big questions of life and ultimately our hope is that they will come to better know the author of the answers and one of those great questions which seems particularly urgent and our increasingly polarized angry and alien at a time is how we both live out our deepest convictions and live together as neighbors friends and fellow citizens it's a challenge that has always been at the heart of the American experiment but it's not merely a political or civic challenge but for many of us it keenly felt personal ones as over the last few years perhaps in particular had been there many relationships that have been strained even severed as people's disagreements have bled into what was once a solid friendship indeed our identities have grown increasingly political while our politics has grown more angry and apocalyptic we see the fallout and their decline of support for freedom of speech and religious liberty the success of Twitter trolls and shaming and silencing the eagerness to distort and demonize and the substitution of denunciation for debate and as our inability to deal with difference is growing so is our diversity we are rapidly becoming a more religiously I D odd ideologically ethnically and politically diverse nation yet our technologies have enabled us to self sort along financial educational and political lines it grows ever easier to confine our socializing our conversations even our news feeds to those with whom we already agree who mirror our preferences and confirm our biases we are left unpracticed and increasingly unable to deal with difference wisely and well even as our need to do so grows ever greater and more acute so at a time when our public conversation is increasingly marked by animosity and anxiety and political differences seem so deep and the stakes so high how do we address difference with both courage and kindness how to pursue and preserve relationship with those with whom we disagree can we sustain a deep friendship across difference these are certainly difficult questions and there are no easy answers but it is hard to imagine two people who have wrestled more deeply or wisely with these questions or better embody and model a way forward than our speakers tonight often called an ideological Odd Couple professor Cornel West and professor Robert George may have little in common politically ideologically or even stylistically but they share a deep friendship a common faith and a long-standing commitment and collaboration to encourage in their own words the cultivation and practices of the virtues of intellectual humility openness of mind and above all love of truth dr. Cornel West is the inaugural laney professor of the practice of public philosophy at Harvard University and holds the title of professor emeritus at Princeton he graduated from Harvard in three years and obtained his MA and PhD in philosophy at Princeton he has written more than 20 books and another 13 including race matters democracy matters his memoir brother West living and loving outloud and his recent work black prophetic fire in addition to his incredible scholarly attainments he's also produced three spoken word albums and made his film debut in the matrix and has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films we'll also hear from Professor Robert George professor George is the mccormick and professor of jurisprudence and the director of the James Madison program at Princeton University he's also served as the chairman of the u.s. Commission on International Religious Freedom as well as on the President's Commission on bioethics the u.s. Commission on civil rights a u.s. member of UNESCO rural committee of Science and Technology has also like his good friend Cornel West written quite a number of books including making men moral in defense of natural law the clash of orthodoxies conscience and its enemies and many others he holds in MTS and JD degrees from Harvard a DPhil BCL and DC L degrees from Oxford and 19 honorary degree and has also received the u.s. presidential citizens medal past professors Cornel West and professors Robbie Georgia join me up here on stage we'll hear brief opening marks first from Robbie George followed by Cornel West and then we'll have a moderated conversation between the three of us before opening it up to audience questions dr. West and dr. George welcome [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] robbing Cornell we are so excited to have you here and in the process of just doing a little bit of research before we hosted you it seems like whenever one Google's both of your names the term ideological Odd Couple comes up so I wanted to ask you first just how you got to be friends in the first place and in addition to that how your friendship has changed the way you think and your work well sorry first thank you for having us here thanks to the Veritas forum that's a Montgomery Bell Academy in Saint Paul Christian Academy it's really an honor to be here in Nashville and I would say that even if I weren't a country music fan and a banjo picker which makes a special pleasure to have the great country music legend one of the people who felt the country music industry stand it's got his wife Denise with us tonight seated right next to them brother Cornell is our dear friend our sister Carol Swain care whole is here I also believe that we've got a group of people here from Union University or there's some students from Union University here in my Ramanathan yeah up there up there yeah good well I want to welcome them unions a very special place for me I'm an honorary alumnus and honored to be of union and I suppose some of the Union students who are here are guests of a wonderful brilliant friend of mine who wanted to host a group of Union students here today and so I'm really delighted to have the Union people and I know she is as well with us so three has helped me I got to be friends well in the in the 90s we were professors together at Princeton we didn't know each other very well but we didn't know each other we were together in some faculty seminars Carol you were probably with us over in the center for human values in those days that's a wonderful faculty seminar it's usually about questions of philosophy and political theory history and although I didn't know each other very well and I was the only conservative and the yeah and in the crowd Carol hadn't yet outed herself I think I noticed something about this brother right here what you really got the answers wrong he was asking questions to realize we're gonna get the right answers you got to get the right questions first so Cornell was three quarters of the way they're asking exactly the right questions what other people were missing them so I learned to admire him for his intellect I later came to know him not only as a man of great into hood but a man of enormous integrity so I have great moral admiration for the brother as well but one day about 2006 I got a knock on my door during office hours from a student wonderful student of mine he had been in my constitutional interpretation class name - Andrew who said Professor George I'm here to talk with you about a new project that I'm involved with called the green light magazine it's gonna be a new magazine magazine of arts culture literature politics here on our campus at Princeton and I said that's great and he said well you know I've also studied with professor Cornel West I really enjoyed his courses and as part of our program for a magazine in each issue we're going to have a feature an interview of one professor by another professor and so he said we've reached out to Professor Wes to ask him if he would be the interviewer for the first issue and we asked him to tell us who you'd like to interview and he said he'd like to interview you would you be willing to be in and by professor West now andrew is a religion major is in your typography brilliant brilliant kid so I was very flattered and I said to Andrew well I said let me make sure I understand this so you said the professor west he could interview anybody he wanted and he said he'd like to interview me never said yes nice well I want you to send the message back to professor West I want you to tell professor was the professor George says but it is I who should be seeking baptism the absolute honor to do it so the appointed day came and Andrew came along and there was a photographer remember that listen he was snapping those scriptures must have taken 2,000 pictures it was up in my office and Collin hall at Princeton and he yeah he turned on that tape recorder we got an hour now Wordsworth the tape he turned on that tape recorder and Cornell and I just started going at that wasn't an interview my goodness it was a wrestling match like you've never seen and finally we ran out of tape but by that point it was too late then we were in it so what was supposed to be a one-hour interview went to two hours went to three hours went to four hours that photographers knows nothing in there he's out of tape but he's listening and so fine we must started in two o'clock finally I noticed on my watch it was about six o'clock and I said well for the Cornell this has been wonderful but you know look at out late it is I'm gonna have to go home to dinner I'm sure you are too but you know we got to get to know each other better this has really been a rich conversation let's get together for lunch let's get let's get closer waited any said I'll probably that'd be wonderful let's do that for sure and I said one just parked down in the parking lot here by the University Press and walked me down so we walked down together and then I stood there with my hand on the door latch for another 45 minutes well that same we just coincidentally we got a note the senior some of the senior members of the faculty got a note from the Dean of the college saying that you know we have this wonderful Freshman Seminar program a principle very proud of it and we advertise it especially to prospective students I think we have some perspective the students here nice we try to we try to get them to come to Princeton rather than Vanderbilt by telling them that if you come here you're gonna get this study right off the bat even as freshmen with some of our most famous distinguishing factors in trouble is we don't have enough senior faculty members were actually signing up so please will you sign up to teach these freshman senator as well the light bulb went off over my head and I thought wouldn't it be wonderful to do a seminar that's just a continuation of that conversation with Cornell we code teach it and and we have these 16 bright young Princeton freshmen with us and maybe we could do it on a great books basis so I got in touch with Cornell and he immediately said that would be a wonderful thing to do brother Robby let's tell the Dean we'll do it so we did and we designed the seminar we wanted to be a seminar based on great books Sophocles Antigone Plato score yes st. Augustine's Confessions you know all the way up to the to the 19th century John Stuart Mill or 20th century John Dewey CS Lewis Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham jail Leon Strom Leo Strauss with no secondary sources so that the students are not learning what other people say about these great texts but are actually wrestling with thee with the author's wrestling with the ideas in the texts and we just do one book a week so we can just keep focused very very tightly focused on the on the text and I thought that they should make books in Cornell agreed that we ourselves had wrestled with it and been important in our own Electrical journey so he picked six and I pick six turned out like the same books and that's probably the basis of our interest like sustainability certainly arrest them at the same ideas and it was just a fantastic experience we would get together have dinner before each seminar and we begin to realize that despite our rather flagrant political ideological differences we have an awful lot in common a love of ideas a commitment to truth seeking an understanding that truth seeking is not something you can do in a close-minded self-righteous way it requires intellectual humility willingness to engage another person willingness to consider that you're sometimes wrong that understand that you're fallible understand that true thinking is a mutual process a joint process and that when you're in an in a even even an intense debate with a fellow truth seeker whatever your differences are you've got something more fundamental than those differences that's driving you and that's a desire to get at the truth of the matter we both were formed by Plato reading Socrates reading reading about Socrates engagement learning that Socratic method that's a chronic attitude the Socratic virtues when it comes to truth seeking we also discovered that we share deep Christian faith the belief that each and every member of the human family irrespective of age race or anything else is a precious child of God made in the very image and likeness of the divine leader and creator of the universe much of a secret not everybody in academia believes that you know if you sort of start the bond now the other thing is you just so lovable happen to not love it right so MIT you know we we we formed a deep friendship as a result of that and pretty soon we adore families where we're getting another sigh I've got I've got corn Elsa daughter my honor a nice to say to who's at Princeton nerve with me now she could have gone to Harvard where that it was but she made the right decision we have a good time together we were with her just the other things we did we did a program at Princeton for the freshman in there and their and their families so that's how the magic happened and then at that point we just son really keep doing this not not always with freshmen teaching seminars on that great books basis wrestling with great texts for upper-class students we did that until Cornell abandoned me and went up to Harvard and I'm still trying to forgive him for that because forgiveness is a virtue and then we started doing things like doing some writing together we in 2017 we put out our statement on truth seeking democracy and and to freedom of thought and expression and they're sorry we were really trying to address the problem of ideological tribalism that that you put your finger on and that's such a danger to democracy today we tried to we tried to point out that whether you're talking about the health and well-being of the Academy and by the Academy I don't just mean I don't just mean universities I mean Montgomery dull Academy and I mean middle schools and I mean public schools 19 private schools you know throughout academic life we're seeing this unwillingness to engage competing points of view and unwillingness to listen to to people who disagree with you this is toxic to truth-seeking which is no mission of academic institutions whether we're talking about kindergarten or we're talking about rat schools so we're trying to address that but also to show that these same values of intellectual humility open-mindedness Willington stew listen understand that you could be wrong about things you're human your your your your fallible that you need to learn from people who disagree with you that that those same values are necessary to support a democracy and now in a democracy fellow citizens are going to disagree about things but they need to be bound together by principles including principles about how we go about disagreeing with each other respectfully civilly with an understanding of the humanity of the other person who is not an enemy to be defeated but who's a friend with you in the truth-seeking process looking for the common good even though you might reach different conclusions Cornell and I might reach different to reach different conclusions about whether the government oughta run the health care system or or how much should be the responsibility of civil society and how much should be the responsibility of the of the state how much mark and how much government you disagree about those things reasonable people of goodwill do disagree about those things but when they disagree about those things if we're going to do this and if we're going to sustain the democracy we have to understand that we have to respect each other we have to engage each other we have to be willing to listen to each other and we have to be willing to learn from each other end of sermon my brother that's drawn is told the story is told it what elephants in terms of how we came together first one begin by saluting you my discharge for your leadership I want to salute brother Brad 25 years of service to this grand institution always praying for your bounce back my body strong strong as ever and to bring what I wanted because for me you see my in my life giving my fallible view of things and art isn't oil ornamental or decorative is constitutive of who I am it's integral to Who I am not just music the plays the novels the poems the sculpture in some way the artists on the vanguard of the species in terms of their willingness put forward vision courage and anytime an artist creates an art object they authorize a different world a different reality as utopian energy projecting possibility and so very much in our conversations is that sense of being committed to something bigger than ourselves I don't know whether my distances sentorria is here but this entire Brown long was one of the grand citizen for this place I was just with her oh yeah [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] my mother made it too yes indeed indeed indeed no she's just I've met at darkness she was just such a young brilliant and kind and loving human being wrote that powerful Texas becoming a best a best-selling and I was told there was a chance you'd be here I just wanted to it big knowledge doing magnificent work that you're doing force for good that's everything to doing what we're here because I begin with my brother who I have a deep love for and love is in no way reducible to politics I fight the tremendous tenacity for his right to be wrong not only that but we will will lap the significant ways not just in terms of our common humanity our common love of ideas the fact that we are trying to be true to the prophetic legacy of Jerusalem and the Socratic legacy of absence the latter self-criticism self scrutiny that intellectual humility intellectual integrity and yet at the same time we know Socrates never cries he never said it to you Jesus weeps something deeper is going on not just love of wisdom in the abstracts but love mama daddy grandmama granddaddy Jesus weeps because he loved soul not just love of wisdom he loves other human beings and all of their fleshy nests and fallenness and for brother Robby and I we believed in the fusion of this tradition the best of Socrates the best of Jesus now of course Jesus never laughs Robby and I laugh a lot but JK Chesterton when the grain is of Christian intellectuals and barbaric 20th century used to argue that Jesus hides his mirth because laughter has everything to do with the human connection of each and every one of us that cuts so much deeper than our skin pigmentation our class our sexual orientation our national identity we're internationalist in terms of every human being in every nation has that sanctity and that dignity made in the image and likeness of God now granted we think about Fisk University I do want to say a word about my mother and how this connects to who I am because my mother met my father in front of Jubilee Hall so I would not be without in order to keep that Hall going and then the towering figures the WD boys or the lucious outlaws and philosophy and Nikki Giovanni's importantly they come through a tradition whose anthem of black people that lift every voice does not lift every echo as crucial echo chambers extensions of echo chambers might make a lot of money my gay ass has the status it may help your career it is damaging to the soul but does it profit a man or woman to gain the whole world and lose your soul voice is something deeper keep your jazz woman our jazz man it can't be a Hank Williams without finding your voice you're not just imitating others you're not just emulating those who came before you're diggin in the dark corners of your own soul and trying to transfigure that suffering into an expression that is distinctly you just like your fingerprint only you that is an endless process so this prophetic legacy girls only goes to Amos and Esther born through Jesus and yet though to Mohammed to our Islamic brothers and sisters brothers and sisters are part of the legacy of Jerusalem just had theological differences those three world historic religions grounded in the genius of Hebrew Scripture and then the pre-modern pagans Socrates Plato Aristotle and any Christian has to acknowledge honestly to him or herself the ways in which that legacy is intertwined in a Christian understanding via the Koine Greek of the New Testament be it Paul's himself all the way through through the Enlightenment romanticism the American experiment in democracy and most importantly the spiritual dimension of saying to be human is to engage in sweet surrender to something greater than you wise dependence on something that was in place before you arrived and a joyful gratitude of gifts of grace over which you have no control those three crucial pillars that sit at the very center of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and we all fall short we try again fail again and fail better in the language of that lapse Protestant Samuel Beckett yes the Protestant in Ireland lapse why because even though he's a agnostic atheist depends on which day of the week his favorite word was perhaps so he just didn't know perhaps is right perhaps you just don't know that intellectual humility and work but what we need now at this particular moment in this social experience with this political experiment called the USA was all of his strength and all of its weaknesses is an attempt to recover the sources of the best of the past that allow us to revel in each other's humanity and a deeper level even given our disagreements and agreements recognizing that were concerned with something bigger than us and we can begin with the precious children the precious students of this institution and that's a paused as well the children on all sides and hands feel the chocolate side and the vanilla side the brown side the yellow side and I notice some indigenous peoples in Nashville - you see all of them human beings and how do we sustain a connection such that we can keep a very fragile experiment and democracy alive against the backdrop of unbelievable impending as the ecological catastrophe economic catastrophe for poor and working people too often the spiritual catastrophe of losing the ability to even want to live a life of integrity honesty decency and generosity the triumph of precipitous might makes right the triumph of the Grand Inquisitor those chefs gives great novel The Brothers Karamazov in which is all about manipulation and domination that's nihilism we're living in nihilistic times and the most powerful force on the globe these days is nihilism in various forms you see in Hungary is hidden in the neo-fascists movement hatred contempt unbelievable indifference great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel used to say indifference the evil is more insidious than evil itself it's powerful insight powerful insight and the sad thing is we're passing this on to our children they don't see enough exemplars of people who are trying to push back the hatred to contempt to Envy the resentment we don't they don't see enough examples of integrity honesty decency what I was coming along all I needed to do was look up and say Martin Luther King junior it seemed that a perfect man see a fallen human being but he was talking about we have been a people who have been hated for 400 years and talked the world so much about love we've been terrorized but we talked the world so much about Liberty we didn't terrorize back black folk could have had a verse and a black version of the Ku Klux Klan if so there would have been a civil war every generation instead it was Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and had to be Wells and Martin Luther King jr. in the face of so much trauma we don't teach a little healing listen till the riether French listen to John Coltrane's Love Supreme listen to little Stevie Wonder Ray Charles and he's gonna go country you know did he wake up you know did because he knew it was a human thing listen to this healing from the people who have been so traumatized 244 years of white supremacist slavery in 100 years of American terrorism and the lynching this took place every two-and-a-half days for 50 years what is it about the best of these people and not talk about the gangsters and the thug every group has gangsters and thugs black white red yellow whatever but we talk about the best and what we try to do with our young folk just say we are going we have the audacity to say if you could be in contact with the best come in this class when we tell you come to learn how to die and they say I thought was just trying to get agreed for sure but I don't I'm trying to get my curriculum vitae in place I've got to get a job just something now in this class that's Montaigne to philosophize to learn how to die of Seneca he or she who learns how to die unlearn slavery and that's Seneca Roman we don't expect too much profanity out of the Romans they run in an empire they're not thinking deep like the Greeks but even still you never know we've got to be open to all groups or whole civilizations in this way but it's a serious issue because we tell them we're learning how to die together even as we disagree [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I just have one thing to what Cornell said here because I want to wrap up the ending it's so important it's so critical to what we do and it's really at the foundation of our friendship because it's the work that we do together what we're trying to teach might not even be the right word inculcate in our students a desire to live an examined life better and that's what we as adults need to whether we are teachers or scholars are not parents grandpa we need to be the examples of living an examined life what is it examine one it is a life that asks what's important what really matters young people think and this this may not be just something that happened yesterday maybe this is a long-standing thing I don't know but a lot of young people think what matters is being a celebrity being a star what matters is wealth status power influence now what we try to tell our students is those aren't bad things in themselves because you can do good things with them wealthy people have undoubtedly built Montgomery Bell they built Princeton University I can tell you that for sure they built Harvard University the generosity of wealthy people was important that has been important especially in America I mean we really have benefited enormously from from that wealth disadvantage itself Nora's power power can be used for good can be used for ill which shows you that it's not good in itself it depends on what you do with it status status is good we don't tell our students don't try to achieve social standing influence influence us code depending on how you use it but none of those things are what ultimately matters because all means they're not ends they're not what there are things you do things with their instrumental goods not what's intrinsically valuable the examined life is about what's intrinsically valuable now the real danger with getting focused so much on the means that you treat them as their ends is that that's where the enslavement comes from and it's the worst the most abject form of slavery because you're it's not slavery under the influence of another it's being a slave to your own passions and desires your own wayward lust your own feelings and and needs the bastard that birthed the person who's a master of himself is the person who is able to transcend all that because there's no he knows there's something more important he's living for something greater than our influence status and so forth so that's what it's good from from our point of view what it's all about it's about the examined life but how often frankly to students see grown-ups whether it's in the media or just in their own personal lives who are leading examined what so often the examples being said as a bad example then what matters is celebrity what matters is power what matters is wealth what matters is influence what matters is status we've got to do better than that and the heritage of this civilization is fundamentally a Christian heritage and if Christianity stands for anything it's for that self mastery that's reject that rejection of slavery I'll use the old fashioned like slavery to sin slavery to pass wayward passion that has trapped so many of us today and is it any surprise that our young people get caught up in it with all the dreadful consequences especially for those who are the most vulnerable who gets hit the hardest the weakest the most vulnerable I'd like to ask you both about the concept of civility and that I think both of you are known for both incredible intellectual ferocity over the truth as you see it combined with great personal warmth and it seems like the very concept of civility is under attack on both left and right by people who believe in it it's a form of squishiness a dispensable secondary of virtue that can inhibit the full throat in pursuit of what is right or that civility itself has been weaponized to essentially be a protector of the status quo and a bulwark against necessary social justice so I'd like to ask both of you how you navigate that and what's your view of the cause of disability is there's a wonderful question because civilities never been one of my favorite words it really had she goes back to citizen I take that very no democracy without citizens in every era self definition of a democracy a citizen is capable of being rule or rule so there's always a rotation of rule that's what democracy is about and accountability of those who rule but the reason why I've always been a little suspicious of it because together as a revolutionary Christian I'm concerned about the moral and spiritual work that a word does and civility for me has always been to Finn he said I want citizens who try to be kind to one another gentle to one another sweet to one another and kind and gentle and sweet kind of a different register for me then civility and hence you get critiques of civility oh you're just hiding it's a charade you're just wearing a mask you're not really being yourself you're simply putting them on a certain kind of show where when you're really kind it's got to be for real or it's just not the real thing if you're really sweet people can make seeds see I'm gonna tell my polite polite there's more on the civil civility sign I'm talking real kindness sweetness tenderness you know I was right to say try a little that's not bility sweet gentle and his honest so when you're honest with somebody you get upset with them when you they think when you think they're wrong that's not wrong with that and I'll get upset with my mother but I think a bullet for and heart in a minute so it seems to me that Christians have to have a perspective that gets deeper than some of these secular constructs because so many of these secular constructs were themselves the residue of what came before it was like human benevolence because he lost his Presbyterian faith and gave up on love talk you say okay benevolence in a secular context we understand that but it'd be nice if everybody really tried to love each other on a deep level and failed and bounce back every day that's really what we're talking about let's just be honest about it and I prefer that kind of language rather than what would you think I think that word I think a little bit much what yeah language shifts in meaning over time that's true that's give you a very good example in Aristotle the term o diamanda used to be translated if you look at all the 19th century only 20th century translations it used to be translated as happiness fundamentally for Aristotle what ethics is about is the pursuit of who died ammonia formally translated as happiness well what Aristotle means isn't having a smile on your face that might be induced by dark darvon is that the pill or something some drug or by being hooked up to an experienced machiners he doesn't mean a pleasant psychological state he means rather fulfillment all-round well-being the best translation today would be flourishing so why did they say happiness it's because even as recently as a hundred years ago happiness had that morally inflected quality it didn't just mean a psychological state that might be induced by drugs are being put on some sort of a machine or something like that it meant what we mean today by fulfillment a kind of all right push you still get a sense of that when you realize that you know exactly what I'm talking about if I would use old-fashioned language by saying something like happy the man who walks in the way of justice when I say that you realize I'm not just saying if you walk in the way of justice it'll be you know just like you took drugs and have a smile on your face now you realize I'm saying something that's morally inflected blessed is the man flourishing is the man who walks the way of justice so terms shift and I think what's happened to the try civility is some of its core meaning has been washed out with time in the way the word happiness has lost some of its richness some of its core meaning over time is introduced just to a psychological state so today too often if we use the term civility people will interpret it in the way Cornell was explaining is a very thin kind of a concept in fact people might say being civil is when you sit there listening politely politeness again politely well another person expresses a view well you're being tolerant you're letting the person you're not interrupting you're not calling the person names you're not grabbing a lamp and smack him over the head with or anything like that so you're listening but you're being civil but you're not engaging that person it with a rich meaning of said that what civility should mean and what it feels to me it is not you're sitting there politely letting him talk it means you're listening seriously to what he has to say if considering maybe there might be some truth in it you know you're considering that maybe his critique of your view could have some merit you're trying to hear it in the most favorable light to give it the benefit of the doubt to see whether you could learn something from it whether or not the argument changes your mind you might nevertheless learn something from it so whether you use the term civility in love with Cornell entire after here is that deep rich listening not just being tolerant not just being polite that's like you have your say I'm gonna have my say then you have your say then I have my say it's actually trying to engage and listen to each other so that you can learn from each other now you only do that on the assumption that you have something to learn in the trouble today is people think that our Lord already know it all and so they're perfectly content to only listen to radio or only watch TV or only read newspapers that are going to reinforce what they say one of the problems with all the diversity we have now in our media culture one of the problems is if you're on the conservative side and you only want it as I am and you only want to be reinforced in your conservative views you can do that you watch Fox News you can listen to Rush Limbaugh in the radio station you can you can read The Wall Street Journal editorial page or read National Review you don't have to hear anybody else same thing on the progressive side if you just want to be reinforced because you have nothing to learn you just want to be told that you're right already all the time you watch MSNBC or CNN you read the New York Times you laughter what radio stations you're we're not that's a fear if you're doing that stop stop because you're making a false supposition you're assuming you don't have something to learn from people who have basic disagreements with you about policy matters and you do have something I do Cornell does we all have something to learn because here I'm telling you I tell you the falling truth about everybody in this room and everybody in this town ever in this country and everybody on this globe here's something interesting about all of us now you tell me if I'm wrong every single one of us currently has right there sitting in his or her head some false beliefs I do I have some he does sure he does you do so you say well then why don't you change them it's cuz you don't know which ones they are do you believe is true but if I ask you did you have no false will are you sure do you really think you have no fault split you'd say no of course I know I'm wrong about some things because I have the experience of changing my mind and I know that that won't be the last time I changed my mind about things now since we know some of the beliefs we have are false and probably not just the trivial and superficial ones but things about beliefs about important matters if we know some of what we believe this false how are we gonna get that changed how we gonna reduce the number of false beliefs and increase the number of true beliefs I can only think of one really good way by listening to arguments being made by people or evidence being presented by people who see it differently than you do and that's that's not that's not a matter of just sitting quietly and letting him talk I have to listen to him to listen to you I have to be willing to really seriously consider that maybe you're right about this and I'm wrong about this or I have something to learn at least so before we go to audience questions one quick follow-up to that which is you've been talking a lot about recapturing a share and who are all vocabulary but recently the Atlantic magazine said that America has largely responded to the challenges of diversity by pushing moral language out of public life and in fact one of the speakers that we had in this very auditorium David Brooks did a fascinating study using Google in words to show how public language had changed over the decades and what has gone out are the virtue words courage bravery kindness what has increased our words of Commerce words of celebrity and I oriented words so in your your United desire to reintroduce a shared moral vocabulary in the country across diverse lines and across difference what guidance would you give to educators to parents to others who would like to be part of recapturing a shared vocabulary I think we have to be a quite candid and robust about insisting that there be moral conversation in public space moral conversation again that cuts across the board not just one conception of morality and one moral viewer cold but a the internet public space without humiliation and engage in intense moral argument contestation of agreement and disagreement because if you push out the moral and the spiritual and all that takes over our commerce language under the language of market is it I'll never forget 1980 I was there we will be regulated television we said well what about the children I said what TV we'll take care of the children now what markets don't take care of children Marcus can do a lot of things bring it peanut butter jelly goods and services but Marcus cannot raise children I wrote a book called the war against parents and the argument was parenting is the ultimate non-market activity in a marketing culture so you don't make them find out your calculation of having kids you better get ready for them they sacrifice [Laughter] I'm not just talking about financial I'm from my time energy and so forth I mean that's one reason why the Christian discourse is not really tied to pleasure or happiness is joy joy is the fruit of the Christian life what is the difference between joy and happiness well that's another issue we don't have time to get into it that's it there is a sense that we've got to have a space but when we went to the Air Force Academy it was very interesting because one of the things we could presuppose was that the commercial mentality is not predominant among them they are trained to be engaged in martial activity so then we come in as Christians and say we're soldiers to way not be fight to say war all the time sometimes I'll just agree with the war that the government put forward but I'm still on the battlefield when William James wrote one of the last essays he wrote before he dropped dead in 1910 called the moral equivalent of war he was building on another genius named Jane Adams she had debated and debated and a year before this sense of being able to engage in combat spiritual combat moral combat life is the battlefield there's no doubt about that but it can't be conceived simply and Marshall terms tied to money as the affected consequence money as a reward but rather the virtues the value of the visions that allow us to leave some kind of witness in that battle do you know what I'm just to go to Vacation Bible School and I'll never forget Sarah told me brother brother Cornell if the kingdom of God is within unit everywhere you go you ought to leave a little Evan Bayh and that heaven that you're leaving is in a world that is shot through with so much greatness and weakness and hatred and domination and yet you're in that world but not of it and so you're on a battlefield you're contending all the time in that way and and and I think I don't know what the conclusion that brother books raised I've read both his books and I detect his own transformation you know he's kind of journey he he he's had a fascinating journey and that way from the transactional to the transformation was he would put it in some ways you know but I think it's it's inside of all of us these market sensibilities obsession with success we tell our students all the time this is about moral and spiritual greatness not just about financial success I just about pituitary success I would not draw a contrast between the market and morality where the military morality were the government and morality my plea would be for moral and spiritual concerns to suffuse our activities in all of those divisions Esther it's not good moral advice to say the business is an a moral enterprise therefore you shouldn't do that the really higher calling is academia oh don't tell them that for the cartel or something like that human beings and they 20 I think what we need to recover is the idea of vocation right there there's some lovely sisters here from there they are up there learning aren't Dominican sisters who are up there don't know what I'm talking about but vocation is not just about what those sisters in their beautiful white habits do or what clergy do vocations are something all of us have core Nell and I have the vocation of scholar and teacher the vocations in the academic life Stan had vocation in music and entertainment in entertaining people giving them some joy in their lives at the Grand Ole Opry in places like that these wonderful singers from Fisk the same they've got a little case or at least that's part of their vocation for business as a vocation - then we shouldn't be telling our young people that who aspire to business that whether inspiring to an inferior activity or an immoral activity or or one that's only concerned about values that are apart from the spiritual know what makes the difference what is a vocation what makes something of vocations it means you're doing it as a way of serving and business can be a wonderful location just as wealth can be used for wonderful things like supporting institutions like Montgomery Bell and st. Paul's in orbit and Vanderbilt and Princeton there are good things that you can do with money there are good things that you do in business in the way you treat your employees in the way you treat each other in producing high quality products and services now there dangers as well there's some things that shouldn't be for sale there's price gouging there's predatory lending they're bad things that are going to be regulated what markets need to be regulated all all that's all that's true but what we need is a return to the idea that these values these moral concerns really should suffuse and Cornell was right to say it's not just moral but spiritual as well when we were young scholars and Carroll will remember this as well she's much yeah that's true it's not a dominant school of political theory but far a leading figure of whom which was the great John Rawls from Harvard the dominant theory was in those days called liberalism and it was a theory that tried to push spiritual concerns religious concerns and to some extent world concerns as far to the edges of public life as possible it was a noble noble reason for that I was against it Cornell was against Tamera greed on this there wasn't but there was a noble concern the concern was spiritual values moral values are deeply contested they're divisive in a democracy if we if we debate those if we find about those if those become the object of democratic deliberation and judgment and choice will blow the whole thing up it'll blow apart for the sake of social peace we've got to marginalize the moral and spiritual concerns I know that was a mistake from the start I understand them and agreed with the concern but it's not the way to go now political theories there's really academic theories largely moved beyond that and I think rightfully rightfully so in those days a lot of people press the idea that that our own Constitution our American Constitution should be interpreted in a way that would privatize religion marginalize it push it to the entrance of public public life to the extent possible make it something for the home around the dinner table we serve praise or honor knees at bedtime or in the church or the temple to synagogue mosque but not in public life you you all familiar with this that's a mistake that's a mistake yes religious issues yes moral issues can be divisive but they are critical they can't be marginalized you're going to end up making crucial decisions about them one way or another the question is are you going to do it openly and with a with a true civil discourse or is it going to be done through the backdoor pretending it's not what you're doing we're actually imposing values on people claiming that you're doing something else claiming that you're being neutral or merely technocratic and the reason is that in no democracy really in no society can we create a situation where all we have are technical issues to solve technocratic issues to solve where all we need are well-trained managers from the Woodrow Wilson School for instance of the Kennedy School at Harvard or Stanford Business or Columbia Business School University of Chicago the issues of life including social life are moral issues that are unavoidably so they're not all reducible to technical not all non spiritual solutions so let's learn too soon as they can be with grace with civility with kindness with openness but aren't you about them that make them the substance of what we're debating in our remaining time we'd like to hear from you so I'd like to welcome to the podium Jason Powell the headmaster of st. Paul Academy and one of our partners in this effort to both kickoff and moderate the question time from the audience Jacob thank you thank you gentlemen wonderful wonderful things to consider and as someone who spends my days fighting and fighting hard for the importance of what we do at st. Paul Christian Academy academic excellence of passion for Christ and leadership development you're a commercial for that because that's that's what we do is is to help our students see the world from a perspective of depth and meaning and as I'm thinking here my colleague Brad and I 13 years from now students will pass during kindergarten today at st. Paul Pershing Academy some of our boys will pass here to Montgomery Bell Academy and they'll be at Princeton and they'll be at Harvard in 13 short years what's the one attribute you would like us to make sure when we talk about a mission of leadership development an attribute a thought pattern of behavior that we work with our families in our children yeah I want compassion and courage to gather them but I guess you can't really love unless you have courage to love that's true so let's just say a phrase courage to love okay someone once said the strength to love here's what I want you to send me at least I'm good sure Cornell thinks as I do on this send us independent thinkers think for themselves what we have too much up today and this is with our super overachievers you know nearly perfect SAT scores valedictory you know Princeton aren't we have these wonderful kids are unbelievably talented their achievements are extraordinary and yet conformist in their thinking caught up in the groupthink they come to us then we pair choose to worry that they'll come to college in them professors are indoctrinated we don't have to indoctrinate to become pre indoctrinate [Applause] independent thinkers jesters who not to speak for themselves connected is because the courage to love the courage to love truth love that's a beauty love God love neighbor anyone has a Christian can I love your enemy you can't do that all by yourself independent thinkers with the courage so I thank you gentlemen for that well I'm gonna give instructions to our audience we have three microphones positioned and three rules I listen tonight so instead of be civil I'm gonna say be kind be brief and ask the question in the form of a question [Music] [Applause] and I think to the audience's right we'll begin with gentlemen to microphone there thank you all for being here I want to raise an issue and it may be something that you can demonstrate how to talk through this civilly together one of the issues in society right now is the whole transgender movement going on we're seeing that break out in our schools and our athletics and our colleges and our high schools and Professor George you in fact wrote an article that was released yesterday about how it's even got into our courtrooms in custody battles so can you tell us one why is that jumped to this big issue in our society where did that come from and how do we civilly discuss that whole issue which includes sexual liberty and religious liberty in those those issues well it's a very important issue today and the the article to which you Connolly referred is one that I work with my former student Ryan Anderson it appears in the online journal public discourse so you could easily find it if you're interested in it for those of us and here I count myself who are critical of transgender ideology usually because we're critical of sexual revolutionary general general ideology more generally it's very important to make very clear from the start that persons who experience gender dysphoria including those who self-identify as the opposite sex and including those who undergo treatments hormonal treatments or surgical treatments to create the appearance of being the other sex those persons are precious human being made in the image and likeness of God like anybody else and deserve to be treated with love and compassion we must be in the forefront of ensuring that such people are protected from teasing bullying being called names being labeled things like freak we should be utterly intolerant of any of that kind of dehumanizing stuff and then we make order [Music] but the second thing is those of us again on on my side of this issue need to understand that we cannot be and must not prevent ourselves to be intimidated into silence if as we believe a great deal for precious human beings depends on avoiding buying into that ideology then it is up to us to muster the courage to get the kind of pushback and hatred and animosity and name-calling and professional risk that comes when you say I'm not on board with this I think there are problems with this so we need to have that kind of courage as well and again we need to listen because guess what I may feel very strongly about this matter of fact I do I mean putting pretty firmly convinced I've done a lot research on this subject and pretty firmly convinced that I've got the right position here but I'm fallible I could be wrong and if I'm wrong the only way I'm gonna learn that I'm wrong is to listen to people who are making the argument on the other side and again not just politely letting them speak but hearing what they have to say including the testimony of people who themselves have had this experience with dysphoria and who have embraced it just as we should listen to people who've had the experience of dysphoria who've embraced transgenderism and then regretted it and turned around when Cornell says left every voice there's no more important subject on which every voice needs to be heard today than first what brother Robert said at the very beginning to me is crucial did my basic Christian Sensibility is always being solidarity with the least of these at twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew I don't fully grasp or understand what what's going on or what the cause I just know that these trans folk oppresses priceless and are to be protected in their precious and priceless honest no at the same time I then have to have some sense of what it is to be able to be in close connection I give you an example with my dear brother Larry wachowski who made the matrix we were done Australia did then next time I met him he was Laura and I said this is fascinating transformation what's going on and we said we talked about it I just teach me I want to know what's going on but this is he and his his case and the polls are all some other cases so it builds on what Robbie first singing and even though I would have a response to Robbie in terms of even using the word ideology I'm not sure ideology fully captures that kind of transformation Eddie under wind it could mean he was influenced by maybe an idea but just all these other elements that I don't really grasp but that was true for me as a straight brother giving my precious gay brothers and lesbian sisters my first interaction but gay brothers was you got help me understand will go read some war Vidale ok updates ball reach them there's just experiences out there that I'm fully grasp even as we take our various stands based on our understandings of our traditions and so forth and so on and come out in different places but it's that first section that I want to stress that the first portion of what brother Robbie had to say in this regard because what happens is we've got so much hatred and demonizing already out there and it just escalates and it's so easy to hate the most weak and vulnerable invincible and it's true that trans folk these days are something you know to be killed if they trash that being violated and so forth or so on and based on my brother Rodney said in the very beginning all of us must intervene when we have that common theme thank you both we're gonna go all the way to the microphone in the front on the audience's left and we have time for a question there and I think that's gonna be our final question unfortunately we have wish we had four more hours like the one-hour interview that became we can go along every lie is that all right I think we'll take a couple more tend to be much shorter and be brief applies to the Oscars and I'll be brief real quick what's the most significant issue that you've changed your mind about and what's the most significant issue that you're still undecided about with the emphasis on being a significant issue not a trivial one just really significant he's a good question but we've had some very intense fights over abortion certainly there's been some long some learning I think both sides of it moral passion behind it and how you go about determining when that precious priceless a little one interview that's person early on at what point and so on and so forth and it's also true in terms of text I think I read Hayek in a very different way after teaching with with my brother texts are very important because they include how we understand somebody's crucial crucial issues so just very briefly how just trying to hopefully like that I've had two important transformations in my life first was the movement from the more liberal side of the spectrum over to the conservative side so as I say I grew up in the hills of West Virginia both my grandfather's were coal miners we were strong Democrats in West Virginia not only did we not like Republicans we didn't know any we were Union P we're at Franklin Delano Roosevelt people he was he you know there was there was Jesus Christ and he was ahead of Franklin Delano it was right up there John John a lot you know the Mine Workers of America took the coal miners out on strike during during the war so I came from a strong Democratic family I regarded myself when I headed off to college as a as a pretty Orthodox liberal I attended the Democratic National Convention that one that nominated President Carter I guess 76 as an alternate delegate I was twice elected chairman of the West Virginia Democratic Youth Conference that was the younger Democrats than the young Democrat and then when I got off to college instead of doing what I'm told most kids do or I guess what most kids are pulled - good - which has moved left I I said when they said said right so I I ended up in a in a different place I became a lot more skeptical of large-scale government programs in part because of my experience in Appalachia I also learned a good deal more about things that went on in the Union in the Democratic Party and I became more more critical the second was an intellectual conversion these are not completely unrelated it was during my sophomore year in college when I read Plato's war Geass the the dialogue oreos and that that fundamentally changed the direction of my life and and set me on the path of my vocation as a scholar and teacher up until that point I now say I wouldn't have been able to perceive this at the time I wasn't leading anything even remotely like an examined life I stood for what I stood for because it was what our tribe our group our party our family our tradition stood for i what i aspired to was social standing being important having influenced things like that just didn't know any better but that encounter I had with that patient of Greek yeah just fundamentally transformed me when it came to that and my work with Cornell I was just reporting this to a couple of the youngsters here her with a newspaper the podcast where Cornell's thought has had a big impact on me is on questions of race I had until a few years ago been inclined to think that racial division has been such a catastrophe for this country has been so awful especially given the fact that race actually doesn't exist there's no such thing as race right we're EFI these things but it's been such a terrible disaster for the country and we still can't get rid of it we still can my inclination was to think that the problem is race consciousness and our awareness of racial identities is what keeps us from overcoming race so let's just have a completely colorblind society and let's get rid of racial consciousness of racial identity all together that seemed to me like a reasonable solution but of course what I've learned from engaging with Cornell about these sorts of issues is that whatever is to be said about race as an ontological category and Here I am skeptical that there's anything that really answers to the word there is a sense in which the history of race especially in our country and embrace ISM in our country end of racial oppression in our country going all the way back to slavery and then Jim Crow the terror that was involved in there and what that's done is give rise to a sort of what could be called a culture there is a an african-american culture an african-american tradition that doesn't mean that african-americans are anything other than full regular Americans any more than the fact that there's a Jewish culture and a Jewish tradition would mean that our Jewish neighbors are not really full Americans but that tradition is a tradition of art its vision of musics tradition of literature it's a tradition of political thought it's a tradition of family relationships it's it's Duke Ellington and it's James Baldwin and it's WB Dubois and it is frederick douglass which is not to say that any of those figures only belong to african americans they belong to America and therefore to all Americans it's a white to Asian Americans Americans without hearing yesterday as much as to African Americans who've been here voted on slave ships and yet there's a special sense in which that's the culture when Cornell says something like I belong to a people who have suffered oppression for 400 years I know what he's talking about that particular people that particular culture and the pride that he takes in that the relationship that he feels to that which doesn't take away from his relationship with people who are from a different sort of American culture is but that that pride he takes that understanding he has of himself as identified with that that is not something we should rid of it would not solve hard problems just to say let's just stop thinking of ourselves in racial categories now when it comes to matters of Public Policy when we should be taken into account or shouldn't be taken into account my opinions on that have changed very little if if at all I mean I think when it comes to policy matters we should be as colorblind as we possibly can we should treat people as individuals to the extent that we can not as members as a group so that's not that there's some big political difference there but it's a difference in something that's very important that I failed to see I think until we really started talking about these issues just out of ignorance I thought there was a there was a kind of quick solution to the thing just stop thinking in terms of race just stop having racial consciousness and racial categories I now see that is really wouldn't even be good we can't do it it's not gonna happen but we shouldn't thank you and we're gonna have a question on the left side gentleman yes sir thank you I want to thank you for tonight I want to thank you for using the word vocation I don't think you used identity I don't think you use career and it also made me think of al Fiske and Howard Thurman who in a previous generation white and black founded church of all peoples in San Francisco in 1954 in a racial history he defined vocation Thurman has don't ask what the what the world can do what the world needs ask what makes you come alive because what the world needs is people who come alive I wonder how you define vocation that would be very helpful maybe to this discourse it's a wonderful question I'm glad you invoke the great Howard Thurman the genius of Howard Thurman course the mentor and teacher of Martin Luther King jr. the close friend of Benjamin Mays serious reflection on vocation on it begins with the two essays by Max Weber politics is Valen vocation science is vocation going back to Martin Luther's talked a bit about the roof the roof just just Germans sense of being called the sense of being touched in such a way that there's something inside you that won't allow you to hold your peace on the inside that fire whatever that location is and the Emerson's American scholar he democratizes it he says vocation is not just a religious one is not just for relation of human beings of God as in Martin Luther in America it is every person the centrality of ordinary people each one having their certain calling following their moral passions not just their feelings pastors that have been cultivated whether connection to a tradition that makes you wrestle with what it means to be human and how the best of you can be brought out so again it's very different a career is very different than than livelihood it's your sense of purpose and mission on this globe in your short trek from your mother's womb to do and that's something that's hard because again career profession of an invocation what are you going to do with your life I'm going to it somebody talks about what job they have no I don't what area with your job I wonder what kind of person is gonna be what you gonna do with the job together don't tell me about how you're gonna be successful what are you gonna do with your success don't tell me about your fall inch tell me about your fruits vocation is fundamentally about service that's why you if you're in treating a job just as a job well then it's not a vocation it's just a way of earning money if you're treating your job as a vocation or if you're if you understand your job as part of your vocation the way you understand being a husband or being wife being a father being a mother it's part of the vocation you realize you were there serving it's a way of serving I'll illustrate that in us with a story that that stand Hitchcock told to me some years ago Stan was what Stan was a young person got his chance to go on to the Grand Ole Opry and he sang his first song and the audience loved it and were stamping their feet and clapping their hands and wanting more and Stan's just a young kid out there with his guitar and feeling like he was on top of the world and wake have said they want more Stan give him an encore man that he feel like he was gonna be a big star which he ended up becoming but on that evening something happened those of you know the operated no Acuff know that Acuff had a a dobro player bashful brother Osbourne and well it turned out that that bashful brother had been over the tootsies think you know what Tutsis and he had these were these big old fake clown shoes and he'd come back to the operating justice stand was about to give him the encore bashful brother came running across the stage a sort of clown constant the big shoes and and hit a skin and slid and off the stage and right into the lap of a 300-pound lady from Ohio was there in the Fertile and of course the audience just ward with with laughter but it ate up stands it hit up stands encore and he was forgotten about as there as the crowd just enjoyed what they thought was a deliberate what they thought was a deliberate benefi comedy which was nothing of the kind so Stan was bit brokenhearted over the whole thing now Acuff gave him some is by after the show ain't cuff game and he said he said son the when brother bashful and brass bashful brother Sobers up here he's he's gonna be very sorry about what he did and and they stepped on your own poor in that in that way but I want you to think about this you know there are a whole lot of people in this audience tonight who came on this Saturday night and had worked hard all week hard-working people and they paid their fifty cents to come and enjoy an evening of musical entertainment the music they loved and you were part of that you were being you helped to make that a big evening for those people who were here you just just take pride in that what a cuff was telling him and it effectively was you got to understand your role here not as just a job and the aim is not just celebrity you're serving people the hard-working people who came for a Saturday paid their 50 sets and and we're there in the audience that's what we do we're serving and that's true not just a musician's obviously and not just of sisters and priests and clergymen around it's true of all of us and what we do as teachers is what we do is business people is what we do in the medical field as nurses or doctors health professionals and so forth we're serving people sometimes it's a way of making women sometimes a very good living but it's a way of serving and that's the most fundamental thing about it so we need to encourage young people to see their roles in life in vocational terms the real question they should be asked is how not how can I make the most money how can I have the biggest influence how can I have the most status those things aren't bad but still those aren't what's ultimate not what's really important how can I serve thank you we're gonna go with one one final question Thanks is it possible to have a conversation about civility or civil discourse that claims honesty or integrity without talking about power dynamics that might govern that discourse or govern any interactions that we have and you feel like the conversation tonight properly interrogated those sorts of power dynamics Thanks so I think it's so kind of commitment to Russia I understand integrity means you have to be able to interrogate any set of forces including the power dynamics that are in everyone now power of course comes in a lot of different forms its economic power political power discursive power we were talking very much about moral and spiritual powers and we were still talking about power but the question becomes how then do you begin with the primacy of the moral and spiritual and connected to systemic analyses of economic political imperial white supremacist male supremacist homophobic flows of power that historically have demonized folk in this way so that I appreciate your question I think the important thing is to acknowledge the ways in which any commitment intellectual integrity forces us to do precisely with the things that are hidden and concealed usually unsettling and unnerving to people but done in such a way that the dialogue goes on because if there is force immigrants as you remember Plato's Republic right he says what he has to say and he's randomly and pucon and the others are saying well but wait wait wait wait Socrates you respond to him and try something because ready to go we're saying you can't shut the dialogue that Pacifica's wanted to leave and of course usually for course shutting the dialogue our focal at that moment don't have more political economic power I mean and in the u.s. congressman Andy the what was the name of that the gag gagg rule where you couldn't he raised issue of slavery the slaveholder didn't want to dialogue on the diamond dynamics of economic political power as related to white supremacist slavery it's over and you can go from one context to the next no you've got to be Socratic across the board you've got to lift the voices and so I'm glad you raised that question and it may have been the case that we didn't get a chance to spend as much time on talking just about the economic and political powers but to a crucial I would say imperial powers terms of empires and so forth you see but at the same time if there's no concern with the moral and spiritual quality of the persons and the issues then you're gonna end up with a lot of sounding brass and decreasing because it's gonna end up with just the victors take off the powerful win and we're walking down the Metreon road to chaos and I'll see you in the certain County immorality I have a great respect for Frederick Nietzsche he's just wrong almost thank you did the brook a fire through with your pass you don't get stuck there but you got to come to terms with it but it's will the power will to power across the week across the week the exact opposite of what we learned from Esther Amos and Jesus and Muhammad on to those who are concerned about the weak in whatever form it is and I'm sure that you do you you you identify with that solidarity with folk who are suffering part of that same legacy that we're talking about but that's the beginning but has to tell you a question you want to say work yeah begin by agreed with what Cornell said at the beginning about the importance of having the question of power dynamics and power relationships on the table in discussions including discussions about civil discourse and in our discourse that's true it has to be there but I want to issue a warning the greatest crimes of human history the greatest monstrosity the greatest in humanities have been perpetrated in the name of standing up for the weak for the downtrodden for the poor who in the system are victimized by procedural concerns like concerns with freedom of speech with dialog with open discussion the arguments that the Mao tse-tung's and the Stalin's always make is that those so-called liberal values are just mechanisms by which the powerful continue to oppress the weak and therefore we can get rid of them we can cast them aside in the name of actually substantively protecting the weak and the next thing you know we have terror famines and the liquidation of the kulaks and the murders of so many people in places like China and Russia that even Hitler looks like a piper do you feel like that applies to you and identifies the left right now in the United States no what I'm saying is I'm issuing a warning do not think that the way forward that the way of humanity eliminates civil discourse freedom of speech the inclusion of all voices I want the left to be Cornell's will left it's the left that says lift every voice include every voice have every topic on the table including the topic of power dynamics Cornell was interviewed but al-jazeera I saw you know just the other day just the other day I forgot and the Al Jazeera interviewer was raising a question interestingly like yours the interviewer knew that professor West is a harsh critic of former President Obama and so he put it to print to to point out that Barack Obama recently criticized the woke left for its canceled culture and for its violations of free speech and its willingness to but ride roughshod over those old-fashioned liberal values in order to reach egalitarian goals that the walk left once now the Al Jazeera interviewer clearly wanted Cornell to criticize President Obama but Cornell's answer was a very clear and ringing I'm against cancel culture I don't think anybody should be cancelled if the left is going to be about canceling people no matter who they are then I'm not part of that I want dialogue not Council now that can be a very tough position because Cornell's say what he says I don't want to cancel anybody that means not even canceling the neo-nazi who Cornell stood no stand-up literally nose-to-nose this club students in trouble this close will have the clothes it was good it was both oh yeah we were saying a duet together but but here's what Cornell had to say about it I'll find him with everything I've got I'll fight against what he stands for with everything I've got I've got but he's a human being right there there's something there to work with we need a duck he's not ready to dialogue but I'm ready to dialogue with him we need to move him to a position where he is prepared to dialogue I'm not even cancelling him out I'm not even even writing him off as somebody who is utterly irredeemable who can never be brought round but if we're going to bring back bring around we're going to have to obey some rules we're gonna have to have some standards we can't just treat this as a shear matter of cancellation we're killing people that's true and in fact to make sure that that's you my dear brother make sure you never cancel make sure your voice is never just dismissed as if it doesn't have moral content intellectual quality and so forth and so on you see and so that's one of the commitments to a sense of morality and spirituality that cuts across the grain before you even get into the nitty-gritty and the nitty gritty er some of the very concrete disagreements you have because we've got some issues out there that are very very intense and there's gonna be you know it's gonna it's gonna be very difficult if not impossible to reach some kind of agreement what that's that's how life is there's always gonna be liberals conservatives left ring white ring that's right wing and so forth that's who we are as a species so we decide either to be a jazz orchestra and lift lift your voice and hope that somehow they can be brought together in such a way no we don't kill each other yes or just authoritarian despotic and that's the escalating force week we begin with that's nihilistic that's just power in his economic military and political forms across the board and that would mean we couldn't have these data like this between here now no hold or not in the neo-fascist America you couldn't have these kind of data we would have been drawn off the stage long time ago this brothers critique of Donald Trump would have sent him to jail he's conservative yeah but he's conservative who has a disagreement with a president in the White House and if there was a full-blown neo-fascism he's going to jail I'm going with it as a revolutionary Christian with my progressive politics I'm wrong with the brother too we sing in there we bring must and with it we bring by the Stanley's with a second guy dancing dr. George Woolf profiting are just terribly important lessons we have to learn from the history of the greatest catastrophes in human history we have to learn from the realities of especially European fascism we have to learn from the realities of communism in places like Russia and in China today in North Korea in Vietnam these these tragedies happen when people think to get to places we need to reach economically or in terms of social justice to get where we need to be we're going to have to dismiss that transition what these warring old traditional procedural concerns like rule of law like freedom of speech free exercise of religion freedom of the press rights of Association due process but those are those are so critical than what stand between us and the gulag what stand between us and independent thinkers with the strength of love yeah very that's a good point thank you gentlemen very much Sheree has some final words dr. George thank you so much all that mic drop a moment as we wrap up we want to leave you with some recommendations and invitation and of course some Thanksgiving some recommendations we have right outside this room we'll have the copies of both dr. West and dr. George's books for sale we'd recommend race matters the 25th anniversary edition is out there and dr. George's book mind heart and soul is available for sale as well we highly come in both to you you'll notice that both dr. West and dr. George talked about the importance of texts throughout this evening and on the back of your program we have three recommendations that shed light on some of the themes that we discussed today we have a Trinity forum reading on friendship by Cicero George Orwell's politics in the English language which explores the importance of words as well as selections from Alexis de Tocqueville is democracy in America we've essentially exerted some of the richest part of these larger texts we hope it will whet your appetite for more we are confident that you will find it well worth your while to read we also want to leave you with an invitation in addition to your programs you should each have a small invitation to join the Trinity forum Society we'd love you to be part of the community that helps make events like this possible and pushes back in a modest but potent way against a culture a wash and triviality sensationalism trolling the language of dominance we try to provide a place and resources for leaders to grapple with what matters most and to better know the author of all of the question of the answers to the questions that we grapple with in a way that is both intellectually rigorous and warmly hospitable we believe it may be small but it is a powerful way to embody and to spread a more thoughtful gender a gentler and kinder culture and we hope that you'll be part of that society which makes it possible there's also of course several benefits to doing that including the fact that you'll receive our quarterly readings which include many of the authors that dr. West and dr. George talked about including Agustin Aquinas Dostoyevsky Martin Luther King jr. Mandela and others and I'm sure you'll find those of great interest that's in addition to our daily what we're reading list of reading recommendations and our monthly upcoming podcast and in addition to that as a special benefit if you join tonight we will give you all three of the reading recommendations that we mentioned for free just to jump-start you if you are interested in being a sponsor of an event like tonight we would love to talk with you please feel free to talk with me talk to Byron Smith Brad Joya or Jason Powell or my able colleague Alissa Abraham who is around here somewhere maybe you can wave that's fantastic we also hope that you'll enjoy dual join us for future evening conversations which will start again in the spring finally as we wrap up and as we head into the holidays it is always appropriate to end with thanks and an evening like this there are many people whose hard work behind the scenes helped make it possible I'd love to think again our partners Brad Joya and his able team at the Montgomery Villa Kadim II Jason Powell and his crackerjack staff at st. Paul Academy and my own colleagues here Alisa Abraham and Hannah Smith would also like to thank our volunteers Alan Amy Luke and Jill spires we had a whole family help us out Lauren Hester Ashley Larmour Beth West Susan Cobb and Jeannette Leggett our videographers Barry McAllister and Mark Addison and our photographer Allison Adkins I want to I had particular thanks to our extraordinary chairman of the board byron Smith whose fingerprints have been all over not only tonight but the entire series we are indebted to him finally thank you again to dr. George and dr. West for an extraordinary conversation so enjoy [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: The Trinity Forum

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Length: 121min 41sec (7301 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 11 2019