46: Spiritual Realism; Jesus and John Wayne

Peter and Susannah speak with Tara Isabella Burton and Tim Shriver about their manifesto calling for a new “spiritual realism.” Should questions of the Good and of human purpose be off the table in serious political discussion, either because they’re subjective and not real, or because they’re too divisive and dangerous? No, argue Burton and Shriver – and the current state of the polity in fact demands that we take these questions seriously. They argue that Enlightenment liberalism has proven insufficient to provide either a metaphysical or a political framework for human life, and call for citizens and leaders to build institutions that will support a more robustly moral realist vision of politics and community. Then, Peter and Susannah talk with Boze Herrington and Hannah Long about Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s book Jesus and John Wayne. Hannah, Boze and Susannah make the case that the genre of the traditional Western is not something which must only be deconstructed and criticized, but which in fact offers occasions to reflect on the deepest questions of human moral and political life: what is the role of force in an unjust world, what is the good of civilization, and what is the code that one ought to live by? Du Mez’s recent book, they argue, does not understand or do justice to the genre.