Navigating America's Moral Wasteland ｜ 2⧸15⧸24
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
142.50821
Summary
The Great Seal of the United States bears the Latin phrase E pluribus unum. Out of many one. But we can t become one if our fundamental ability to discuss moral truths has broken down. A crisis of moral discourse has seized our nation, and until it s resolved, the endless culture war that rages in every corner of public and private life will continue to tear us apart.
Transcript
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We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
00:00:10.720
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On the surface, Americans all value the same things.
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Life, liberty, equality, the rule of law, the pursuit of happiness.
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These terms form the basis of our shared moral language.
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If a nation is to forge a shared identity, it must share a moral vision,
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an understanding of what they will be as a people.
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To arrive at that moral vision, a people must speak the same language,
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not just in the literal sense of speaking English,
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but they must all mean the same thing when they use specific terms.
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Without a shared language with which to discuss basic truths,
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The Great Seal of the United States bears the Latin phrase
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But we can't become one if our fundamental ability to discuss moral truths has broken down.
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A crisis of moral discourse has seized our nation,
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and until it's resolved, the endless culture war that rages in every corner of public and private life
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Imagine, if you will, an advanced civilization that experiences a disaster so severe
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that its wealth of scientific knowledge is wiped out.
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Laboratories, universities, and scientific texts all vanish,
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leaving the people without the accumulated knowledge upon which they had previously relied.
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A group of politicians who blame science for the tragedy that devastated their civilization
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zealously crush what remains of the scientific community.
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After a few decades, these politicians are removed from power and society begins to rebuild.
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but those who are old enough to vaguely remember a world where science existed start a new movement.
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They attempt to resurrect science, but their understanding is seriously lacking.
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These men were only children when their civilization still possessed a mastery of science.
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The leaders of the new movement have no formal training or real knowledge of what science entails.
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They don't truly understand the theories involved.
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The concept of science that this post-apocalyptic society cobbles together
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is built on fragments, the faded memories of people who never truly understood
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This movement becomes vital to the culture of our imaginary civilization.
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Adults can be found arguing about scientific theories they don't really understand.
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Children learn to recite pieces of the periodic table as if they were sacred,
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but no one understands the context of this knowledge or how to apply it.
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The citizens refer to this knowledge as science.
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They treat their understanding of the subject as if it were very important,
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despite it being tragically disconnected from what science actually does.
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This broken and impoverished notion of science is treated as common cultural knowledge.
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Scientific terms like photon and chlorophyll enter common use,
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No one understands that they're using the words incorrectly.
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Eventually, rival factions develop with entirely different interpretations of scientific knowledge.
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Society divides along these lines as each faction argues for competing interpretations
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The factions don't realize that their civilization will never be able to resolve these competing claims
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because they lack the critical information involved in the original concept of science.
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By now, you can probably figure out where this is going.
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Alasdair MacIntyre is asserting that this is how our current civilization understands morality.
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We have a hard time perceiving that our own understanding of morality is broken
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so even if our own understanding of morality is broken and limited,
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we're required to treat it as if it's complete because we don't know how to function any other way.
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Even the radical who thinks the current system is completely broken
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must act as if our society has the fundamental language necessary to understand morality.
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For the modern radical is as confident in the moral expression of his stances
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and consequently in the assertive use of the rhetoric of morality as any conservative has ever been.
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he's certain that it still possesses the moral resources which he requires in order to denounce it.
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Everything else may be, in his eyes, in disorder,
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but the language of morality is in order, just as it is.
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That he too may be betrayed by the very language he uses is not a thought available to him.
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It should be clear why a civilization that can no longer collectively define the words man and woman
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would have a similarly difficult time defining shared concepts like justice or liberty.
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When progressives destroyed the shared Christian culture of America,
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they destroyed the foundational axioms of our language that allowed for moral discourse.
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That foundation is so shattered that Christians in the modern United States
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often have difficulty communicating these concepts to each other.
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Where there's no shared moral language, there's no shared moral vision.
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And where there's no vision, the people perish.
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