Dr. David A. Salomon - Why Sin Still Matters

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🎙️🎙️🎙️Dr. David A. Salomon holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Connecticut and an MA from the City University of New York. A specialist in the literature, religion and culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance England, he most recently spent thirteen years as a professor of English at the Sage Colleges in Troy and Albany, NY.

During his time there, he also served as chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages, director of general education, director of study abroad, chair of the Faculty Development Committee, faculty advisor for the student newspaper, and was the founding director of the Kathleen Donnelly Center for Undergraduate Research.

He joined CNU as the inaugural Director of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity in September 2017.
https://davidsalomonblog.wordpress.com/

https://cnu.edu/people/davidsalomon/

Check out his newest book:
“Why Sin Still Matters”
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Still-Matters-David-Salomon/dp/B0D5LDZLY5

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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life Podcast. I have a momentous event for you today. I have someone that most people have been asking me, George, when are we going to see, when are we going to get more David Sullivan? And ladies and gentlemen, here today, I have with me mentor, leader, author, Dr. David A. Solomon, PhD. He's been in higher education for 30 years, teaching English, religion, philosophy. Currently, he's the director of undergraduate research and the creative activity at Christopher Newport University. Incredible human being, a friend of mine. Welcome back to the show, Dr. David A. Solomon. How are you today? I'm doing great. It's good to see you again, George. It's been a while. It has been a while. And for those who may be tuning in right now, he's the author of multiple books. The most recent one is Why Sin Still Matters. And I feel like you've really knocked it out of the park with this book. This book is a thought-provoking thrill ride of emotions through what Paul Valery calls the seven pure colors of the good man's soul. And I feel each chapter provides historical perspective, modern implication. And for me, it invited me to highlight the role of art and imagination in managing the moral complexities of a technologically advanced world. I'm super stoked you're here and to talk about it today. But before we get started, I put up a really interesting graphic of you. I've gotten a lot of feedback from it and to a lot of my fans out there. I want to say this. I think that what you're writing about your last book, the seven deadly sins and today, why sin still matters. I think it appeals to a group of marginalized young men that are finding religion and spirituality for the first time. And so when we're looking at young men who may be gravitating towards spirituality or religion in a way, I wanted to introduce a little bit of mysticism plus sort of a new kind of a cutting edge look at, at, the way video games have entered mythology into the world and I'm trying to appeal to that market so yeah that's the reason for the imagery behind it gotcha gotcha yes I i I guess now I'm an avatar in a video game I i I can deal with that you know technological progress right yes Well, for those that are, it's, there's, the book is so well-researched. You got 43 pages of footnotes and there's just so much incredible information in there. And, you know, I guess a good place to start is, is at the beginning. And so, you know, from Gregory the Great to, you know, Paul Valerie, what was it that, you know, got you to write this book? Yeah. I mean, I'm really looking at, um, the history of sin as an idea in the West. But more than that, it's how the concept is still applicable today, even though we no longer live in a society where religion dominates the conversation. So as a concept, I think sin is still applicable both at the sacred level and at the secular level. And so a lot of the book does talk about not just the history of the ideas, but then how it still applies today. So using the contemporary world to show that these are still relevant topics, even though people may not think of them in that way. Yeah, I think that you did a great job of giving the historical background and then talking about the implications of today. You talk quite a bit about the way in which language moves and changes through the times that we live. And so too, does the ideas of sin change there and about how technology on some level is having an effect on that. Maybe you could expand on that a little bit. Well, I mean, just the whole idea that language itself is a living thing and is constantly changing and morphing and growing and And so that the meanings of words, the meanings of concepts, it's not something that's stagnant, that just is frozen in time, because our language, I mean, the English language and any modern language is a living thing that's constantly changing. And so if we look at concepts like, I mean, you say technological concepts, I mean, we talk about the kinds of things that we talk about technology, I mean, that's the easiest one to point to. I mean, the metaphors that we use to discuss things, you know, I mean, you still say to somebody when they get in the car, roll down the window, but nobody rolls down a window, right? I mean, you push a button and the window goes down. But we're kind of married still to those metaphors. And it's interesting because the next generation, who have no experience would say rolling down a window. It's curious to see whether or not they still refer to it that way, you know, and, and the ways that we, our ideas and our thing are thinking about these things changes. I mean, I can remember growing up as a kid, my grandmother who, you know, was born in the 19th century and lived through the great depression. When you walked into a room, she used to say, put up a light. And that was from the days when you lit a candle, put up a light. And that was the language she still used to refer to switching on a light, an electric light. But it was still using it in that same way. And I think that the way in which people have used the word sin say, transforming it or not transforming it, but sort of repositioning it from, let's say, the Middle Ages to now. Yes, it's being used in a different way, but at heart, it's really still the same thing. And that same thing is sin refers to, in many ways, the ways in which we violate some sort of moral code that we have. Now, that may be dictated to us through religion and through theology. But in many in more than not today, it's for most people, it's not. It's a moral code that just sort of permeates society and the fact that we are human beings. And so I think that that still has a very strong application today, even though we're not talking about it the same way. Yeah, it's It's interesting to see the way in which perhaps different generations view the idea of sin and the way it's handed down from person to person. And it seems like there's been, at least in my life, it seems that there's been a lack of handing down of traditional values. And I use that sort of loosely, whatever family values may be. Do you feel that on some level, your book is an attempt to help people to pass down that information? In one way, yeah. I also look at it as a way to kind of reach back to a common cultural thread that really kind of runs through our history as human beings. It transcends time, space, and it certainly transcends thoughts about organized religion and any kind of church. And just comes down to, as George, you and I have talked about for a long time, the way that we treat each other as human beings. It's just that basic tenet. And that doesn't have anything to do with religion, believing that you're going to go to heaven or hell, believing that you're going to be punished. It's how do we treat each other? Are we thoughtful about the way that we talk to each other? Are we thoughtful about the way that we... you know, go about treating the world because a lot of it has to do with that too. You know, I mean, all of these, it's interesting because we live in a time when so much of this seems to have been to a bubble to the surface, right? I mean, the discussions about civility and the fact that, you know, civility is something which is just on life support these days in our country, especially it seems. The fact that after so long a time of just abusing our environment and abusing the world, that it's coming back now to bite us in the butt. And the sad thing about it is that the only thing that seems to be driving the reaction to a lot of this is, as you and I, again, have talked about often, is the almighty dollar and capitalism, right? I mean, people don't worry about the environment until somehow it's going to affect them financially. And the them can be anybody from big corporations to individuals down living on your street. And it's interesting because a lot of the discussion that I've been reading lately when it comes to the environment in particular is questioning the efficacy of recycling. Questioning the efficacy of solar power and whether or not these things are really making a difference. And I don't have the answer. I mean, we, you know, in my house, we try to drive vehicles that are environmentally sound. My wife drives an electric vehicle. We bought one for the first time. But there's a lot of controversy about those as well, about their effect on the environment. So it's interesting. We live in a time when there's so much information, but there's also just a frightening amount of disinformation and misunderstanding about things. And I think one of the great things about what you do, George, with this podcast is try to crystallize that understanding, try to make that a little bit clearer. Yeah, thank you for the kind words. It seems to me that building your relationship with living a meaningful life is the antidote to having a better community. And that's what I get when I read your books. There was one part, I was going to wait to drop this, but I can't stop thinking about it. And it's about midway through the book, and it talks about the... Evolution of inner self and sin. And I think it was, you'll know the actual individual, Peter Brock or something along those lines. Augustine's philosophy introduced the concept of the inner self as a discussion of the individual with the individual. And it wasn't until the 12th century Arthurian tales that characters began to display this inner self. My question is, how has the continued evolution of self-awareness influenced our understanding of sin in medieval times today, and how might it shape our conception of sin in the future? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I mean, I think that it has really molded our concept of the self and of sin well into the 20th century. The thing that I worry about is that we've turned the corner now in the 21st century, and the obsession... at the moment and I don't touch on a lot of this in the book for a variety of reasons that I can explain the obsession currently with ai and virtual reality I think is is really problematic to me when it comes to these questions of of our humanity um they just um encourage us to distance ourselves from each other more which is exactly what we what we don't need And as I say, I mean, the reason why I don't touch on those concepts in the book is quite honestly, because I don't understand it yet. I keep trying to read and read and read about AI. And the problem is that it is changing so quickly that as soon as you read something, there's already something new that's come out that is different from what you read. And I've spent a couple of weeks on the road at conferences and doing consulting. And all anybody wants to talk about in education right now is AI as a threat, as a benefit. I mean, there's a lot of debate, a lot of folks on both sides. And I was with a group of high school teachers last week talking about this. And I was saying to them that at the current moment, last year at least, last year, I did not allow my students in my classes to use AI. It was explicitly forbidden in the syllabus. I told them that if they violated that, it would be tantamount to committing plagiarism and I would submit disciplinary charges. And when I met with these teachers last week and showed them that statement from last year, which includes that this may change once we figure out what this is all about, They said, are you still using that same statement? I said, no. I said, I need to update it. And they said, to what? And I said, well, I haven't figured that out yet. But I mean, it's clear that it's a tool. It's here. And we need to navigate what that means and how we can best use it. As is so often the problem with science and technology, it moves much faster than the humanities. And the humanities is the place where we sit back and we think about these things. And so it's not a question of can you do it? The question is, should you do it? You know, we can use AI. I mean, AI can write your papers. Should you do that? You know. I mean, under a traditional ethical construct, no, that's plagiarism, it's cheating. Well, is there a way to use it that's not cheating? Maybe, but we need to figure out what that is. So I think, you know, just as the concept of sin has changed, these concepts are changing too. You know, if you go back to the earliest discussions about AI, and I'm I'm thinking about things like the Turing test and, you know, even going back to the 1920s and the play about the robot. It just, it isn't necessarily going to work today. We need to rethink things. An example of what wasn't a sin that is a sin now. That's a great question. Let me think about that. What wasn't a sin that is a sin now? I'm not sure that, well, I mean, here's one that, yeah, I mean, here's, speaking of plagiarism, I mean, plagiarism is something which the attitudes towards plagiarism have changed. Over time, they changed according to what country and what culture you're living in as well. Because particularly what the Western world thinks of as plagiarism, many in the East think is flattery. And so they don't look at it the same way. And even if you go back to the Middle Ages, I don't think that the idea of plagiarism was as tantamount as it is today. As you know, we always talk about it being the highest academic sin, the highest academic grievance could be is plagiarism and cheating. And I don't think that was always the case. And as I say, it isn't the case in a lot of other other cultures. I had a group of students that I taught years ago from Thailand. They were exchange students who were studying nursing here in the States. And I was chair of the English department at the time. And the nursing faculty came to me and said that we don't know what to do because they're plagiarizing all the papers. They're coming back when we put them through the plagiarism checkers as being plagiarized. And they just don't seem to understand. And I said, well, you know, I don't understand that either. I knew the students because I'd gotten to know them. They were Buddhists, and so I would take them to the local Buddhist temple. And I spent about a month looking into this, researching it, trying to understand the concept of plagiarism as it exists in a lot of Eastern cultures. And it doesn't. The reality is that if you plagiarize, if you copy over somebody's work, it's looked at as being a high compliment because you are flattering them. And so I went back finally to the nursing faculty and I said, well, the problem is that we're talking two different languages here. They don't understand what we're talking about when we talk about plagiarism and they don't understand what we're talking about when we talk about plagiarism. And so we had to sit down and sort of look at the different cultural values and talk about that. And that was kind of the entree into talking about it with both the faculty and the students from Thailand, talking about the values that the culture has when it comes to ideas. And that in the West, we value the original idea as something which is intellectual property, and that is not the way it works there. I'm not sure if that answers the question, Hank. I hope it does. Yeah. Shout out to Hank Foley. He's an incredible individual, and he has been instrumental in helping me out on this podcast. Thank you, Hank. An amazing individual. It does bring up, it has a lot of similarities to the idea of intellectual property, which gets us into, you talk quite a bit about the way individualism has changed in the book. Yeah. Well, I mean, the birth of individualism, the growth of individualism, is something which has been one of the greatest things that's happened to us as human beings. But it also has run us the danger of becoming very subjective and unable to look at anything objectively. I see this a lot with my students today. Um, for whom, you know, they, they are the center of the universe and, um, and the way that they see things is, is the only way they can see things. And I think one of the real benefits of, of education is teaching you to have the ability to look at things from a different viewpoint. Um, whether that is, you know, um, I mean, we talk about liberal education being the idea that you're freeing the mind. The liberal is freedom, right? You're freeing the mind of any kind of preconceived notions that you're coming in with. And that may be, you know, things you got from your parents, things you learned in the church, if you're a member of a church. And all of a sudden now we're saying, no, you can think any way you want to think. And for some people, that is frightening as all hell. because they have grown to be secure in the knowledge that they have. And if you challenge that, it can be very scary. I know I've told this story before to you, George, but when I used to teach philosophy early in my career, I always had students who would come in a couple of weeks into the semester and say, you know, this class is not what I expected. And I say, well, you know, what did you expect? And they thought, you know, it was going to be, you know, oh, philosophy, you know. They'd come in and I'd have plants and things in my office, beads and all sorts of goofy kinds of, like I had walked out of Woodstock. And they say, this class is really, really difficult for me. It's challenging me to question everything that I've always believed. And I always would say to them, that's a good thing. I mean, if your beliefs stand up to the challenge, they'll be all the more strong. And if they don't, then maybe you need to question those beliefs to begin with. But that's a frightening thing to do. Admittedly, that's a frightening thing to do. Whether you're 18 or 80, I think that's a frightening thing to do. Those shifts that we see. I mean, we had a huge one yesterday, didn't we? Big shift. Right. And I know that, you know, some folks, when they heard that that Joe Biden was withdrawing from the race, I mean, their reaction, quite honestly, you've heard them talk about it on the news was to weep. They cried because here you just you're changing an entire paradigm that they had gotten used to. And you're pulling it's pulling it out from under them. But, you know, as we were talking about before we went on there, George, change is good, right? Change is a growth experience. Yeah. I don't think change and growth – I don't think, you know, growth and comfort can coexist. I think you're right. I think that – that growth, yes, discomfort comes with growth. I think you're correct in every way, physical, spiritual, emotional. It is not comfortable, which is why some people will shun therapy and those kinds of avenues, the kinds of things that you often talk about on the podcast, right? Because that is going to encourage growth and growth is not necessarily going to be comfortable. You got to get, you know, it's cliche, but we talk about getting out of your comfort zone. Yeah, absolutely. Hank comes back and he says, it is a key answer. Thank you. As to discerning the providence of, especially among scripture, particularly New Testament, the epistle of Paul. Yeah. When we talk about change in language, you know, Part that I highlighted was that you wrote was a culture incapable of dealing with its own sexuality too often falls into patterns of lustful behavior that oftentimes escalate to violence and destruction. You can elaborate on that. Yeah. I mean, if we do nothing but try to repress, then, I mean, that almost always ends up negatively. You know, I think I tell the story in the book of my graduate school mentor. His uncle was a monk at a monastery in Minnesota. And when my mentor was in elementary school, they went on a school trip to go visit the monks, visit the monastery. It was a boys Catholic school. And they got to the monastery and they were meeting with this monk. And, um, somehow they got onto discussions about sin and in particular lust. And, um, he had the, the, the monks said to them, um, you don't, don't, don't look at yourself naked. And a bunch of eight year old boys, of course, you know, laughed at this and the, and he continued, he said, well, I, I, I don't look at myself naked. And they said, how do you not look at yourself naked? You take a shower, don't you? And he said, yes. He says, I just don't look down there. It's this sort of ignorance is bliss attitude. But I think actually what that drives us to, especially when it comes to sin, is a type of repression. that then ends up in so many of the high profile cases that we've seen in the news right of these folks who seem to be um the the the epitome of of of human beings and then you know what what's uncovered is that they really engage in this really nefarious behavior behind the behind doors behind closed doors um we have to acknowledge who we are as human beings Um, we have feelings of lust. Um, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing because as I talk about in the book, these issues that relate to sin become problematic when they are in the extreme. And so, you know, the, the idea that we have feelings of lust for another human being is not necessarily something that in itself is, is quote unquote evil. Um, if it were, then we would have died out as a, as a species a long time ago, because, you know, there goes the neighborhood. Um, but, um, it's balancing, it's a balance, right? It's finding a middle, a middle way as the mystics would say between in this case, love and lust, right. To find that balance. Um, and there can be one, but in our, contemporary world we're fighting against so much cultural influence and cultural pressure that I think that that's making it even more difficult I mean it takes social media for example yeah right um I'm increasingly frustrated with social media as so many of us are And I'm not even on all the platforms. I mean, I'm basically just on Facebook. I'm on some of the other ones, but I don't really post. I lurk, I guess. I'm so frustrated, though, because there's so much misinformation and disinformation. There's so much pettiness. And I don't know what the answer is. I don't think... as I don't think the answer to AI is just get off of it and don't use it. It's there. It can be a tool. We just need to learn how to use it as a proper tool and not let it get control over us. I've been reading Jenny O'Dell's book. I don't know if you know this, called How to Do Nothing. It's about what she calls the attention economy. And it's about the fact that in our world today, I mean, so much is fighting for our attention. And it wants to steal our attention away from, in many cases, the things that are really important and focus on things that it thinks are important. I mean, you know, Facebook, you know, is an example. I mean, last night, I forget what it was. I was looking up something online, searching for something that I was looking for, something I wanted to buy. I forget what it was. And, of course, when I got onto Facebook, I had a, you know, stream of ads from different companies for that same thing. It's just, it's frustrating. Sometimes... Sometimes you just want to withdraw. You want to do like the medieval monk like Richard Roll and run out into the woods and just become a hermit and live in a hermitage. I don't think that is a valid response to today's problems. I think that we have to figure out how to work together to negotiate a way through all of this just cacophony of crap that we've got going on right now, whether that's politics, technology, the environment. I mean, all of these problems that we've got, 99% of which we created, right? I mean, Facebook did not, you know, wasn't on the eighth day God created Facebook. Facebook came about. Social media came about. And when they were born, the idea was these were going to be great tools. And I think there is a place where they could still be great tools. We let the we let it get out of hand. We let it get out of hand. And it seems to me it's time somehow, I mean, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. But you can put the plunger back in the bottle occasionally and say, you know, wait a minute. Let's slow down. Let's think for a second. And I think that's what we're losing so much of in our culture is the thinking and the reflection. I find that really disturbing. And I try to work on that with my students to encourage them to slow down, to reflect, to think about what they're doing and what they're reading and what they're studying and to really be aware of what's going on in the world around them. And that really does take slowing down because it's just it's moving too fast. Yeah, it's, you know, there's so many good points there that sometimes I think that AI is, it's a mirror and it's showing us like we're the problem. In your book, you talk about the relationship between shame and pride and what happens when we put our shame on display and we're proud of it. Well, we get... you know, I won't name names, but... Name them! A certain former president. And I don't mean just to pick on him. I mean, there's plenty of other people who are, you know, but I mean, there's the poster child for it. I would think, you know, being proud of his shame or, I guess, being shameful in his pride. It's... It's something which is a phenomenon that I guess many of us just can't relate to and don't understand. Nor do we understand if we're going to get into politics, which I don't know if we want to go there, but the folks who are on board with that and then follow along with it. You can't tell me that we're not talking about cultish behavior when you turn on the convention and you've got people sitting in the audience with gauze pads on their ear. I mean, what the hell is that? That's a cult, folks. That's a cult. That's, you know, Manson's followers and their swastikas on their foreheads. That's a cult. It just, it's, it's really scary. It's really scary. And I'm, I mean, just as a father, as a, as a, as a member of our culture, as a, as an American, I'm, I'm worried about where we're headed. And a lot of this does kind of overlap with my discussions of sin, because a lot of this is about sin. I mean, we look at greed. I mean, look what's going on in the corporate world in America, right? It's greed. The fact that everybody complains that grocery prices are up. Yes, grocery prices are up. Take a look at how much profit the big grocery companies are making and how much those CEOs are getting in bonuses. That's why the prices are up. It's greed. It's uncontrolled greed. And I think that what some folks are asking is to put a stop on that for a moment and say, wait a minute, what the hell are we doing? What are we doing when CEOs are getting million-dollar bonuses and I can't drive to the grocery store here in my town without seeing at least one person sleeping on the street? What the hell are we doing? Something's wrong. And I think some of it comes down to that question that we mentioned earlier, looking at what are our values? And I've come back to that question a lot lately because I think that that can be an important question for any individual, quite honestly. What are my values? It can be an important question for any organization. whether we're talking about a department within a company, a corporation, a government, what are our values? And so, you know, again, I was meeting with these high school teachers last week and they were concerned about, we were talking about grading, about the problems with grading. And really what it came down to was what you have to start with with students is talking about what are our values here at this school? What do we value? And that will be a step forward to getting them away from being grade focused and grade hungry. So if you talk about the fact that we value integrity, that we value intellectual reflection if we talk about those things rather than talking about valuing high grades and valuing getting into an ivy league university or getting a you know million dollar job when you're I mean you know I can't tell you how many students I continue to meet with every day, and I've been now doing this for over 30 years. When you ask them, you know, what do you want to do when you're when you're finished with college? A lot of the response is get a good job and make money. And it's okay. So what does that mean? What is that actually going to do for you? What is that going to do for society? You know, there's a lot of lamentation, has been for at least a decade, about the decline of a civic education. And I'm not talking about the kind of thing where we go back to, you know, the 1950s. We're talking about producing people who are going to be active and contributing members of our society. And that used to be one of the values a lot of schools had and a lot of them still have it if you go to their websites whether it's a high school or a college or university they will say that we produce we aim to produce good citizens of the world and that sounds wonderful but I would encourage people to press administrators press teachers and say how do you do that how are you doing it What are you doing that's actually making that happen? Because in a lot of schools, it's not happening. Yeah. It's interesting that the answer to the question of what do you want to do is to get a good job and make lots of money. And then you said that that's, what does that mean? Well, it seems to me people that want to get a good job and make lots of money end up in middle age with a life that they feel is meaningless. If we can draw those things together, like, wow, wouldn't it be nice if you could on some level have some direction and some sort of mentorship or some guidance from, you know, be it a ritual or I know that that was a loaded term, but, you know, some sort of rituals or passing down of knowledge. And I think that that seems to be an issue with a lot of the younger men I talked to today is that Why do we have two men in their 80s as the leaders? Where is that next generation? Are they not allowed to be up there? Do they not want to be up there? That was the thing that frustrated me to no end for the last couple of years. We've spent the last couple of decades producing supposedly all these really talented, smart people who could work in government and work in our political world. Where the hell are they all? When this was the two best that we could come up with, was two guys who were both around 80 years old? What are we doing? What are we doing? And it's just, I don't know what it was that was preventing them from going forward. I mean, the interesting thing now, of course, will be, you know, as people were saying last night, jokingly, you know, if it does become Kamala Harris, who's the Democratic nominee, she's 59. It's like, okay, now let's talk about age, you know, with Donald Trump being 78. You know, I mean, all he wanted to talk about was Biden being 81. Now let's talk about a real divide here. If you think back to presidents in our lifetime or our parents lifetime, who were looked at as being revolutionary and most effective and, and most in tune with the culture. I mean, I keep going back to Kennedy. I mean, Kennedy, it was Camelot, it was going to be a new it was, you know, they were young, it was a big deal. I don't know what's happened since. I mean, look at the sequence of folks that we've had. I mean, you know, with the exception probably of Jimmy Carter when he was president and Barack Obama, I don't know that a lot of these people are really connected and understand what it is to live in our society today. I mean, who was it? Was it the older Bush or the younger? I forget. who was in the grocery store and marveled at the scanners that they were using to check out groceries. Because he hadn't been in a grocery store in 30 years. It's the same problem that I have with administrators in education who have been so long out of the classroom. Like, how the hell do you know what's going on in the classroom? You're making policies about the classroom? You haven't taught in 25 years. The students today are not the same that they were 25 years ago. The challenges are not the same. Yeah, there seems to be, you're at the forefront of this. When you look at education and you look at kids that can't come out, in some ways they're being trained to be obedient workers, it seems like. When we look at some of the textbooks in medicine that are written by the pharmaceutical companies and there's kids in debt, at what point in time is there a red revolution here? What's going on? You see it in so many dimensions. Yeah. And here's another issue that I think adds to that, and I'd love to get your opinion, is that be it blue or red or left or right, it seems that what we're watching is a privatization of all things that belong to the government. And I wish people could understand that It seems to me to be a divide, a wedge being placed in between all of us. Look at this thing you hate. Look at that thing you hate. We're all on the same side. We want more for our communities. But you have these cult-like structures. And let's not forget that cult is the first four letters of culture with millions of dollars behind them. You have Silicon Valley. You have all these major players that are feeding this cult of personality. And that seems to encompass all the sins. Is there a way out of that or a way to get people to come together and see that we want the same thing? Yeah, I mean, the line from our Constitution is to create a more perfect union, right? We are always working on it. It's not perfect. We want it to be better. And it seems like there are too many folks who think that making it better means going back, going backwards. I mean, you know, I don't know how much you've got delved into it, but if you look at that Project 2025 document, it is frightening. I mean, it's 900 pages long, and it is scary about what they are suggesting happen. I mean, amongst the things, just to pull them out of context, okay? They want to get rid of Social Security. They want to get rid of academic tenure. at all levels. They want to fire all the civil servants and hire people who are loyal to the president. They want to disband NOAA, the weather service. I mean, these are just crazy, crazy things that we have spent more than 200 years working on to make us more perfect. And I mean, it has been said often and, you know, I'm not saying something. I mean, they basically want to shred the Constitution. Is the Constitution flawed? Sure it is. But that's why the amending process was built into it. The guys who wrote that document knew that it wasn't perfect. But you go back and, and I mean, I, I read a couple of biographies with some of the founding fathers, cuz I've been curious about what they thought. Um, Jefferson in particular, cuz he was just so well read and eloquent. Um, and to go back and just look at what they thought they were doing when this country was founded and where we are now in many ways, It's incredible what we have grown, what we have shaped and developed as a nation. On the other hand, it's also frightening because just as we have the ability to build, we have the same ability to destroy. And we can easily do that. And I'm worried that that's part of where we're headed. The taking away of rights from people, it's a frightening change. And I hope it'll swing back the other way. Again, I don't wanna be on a political soapbox, that's not what we're talking about. So much of it is connected with what I talk about in the book because I am talking about culture. Yeah, of course. You know, I mean, when I describe myself, I talk about myself as a scholar of medieval literature, religion and culture. I mean, I look at culture, whether it's in the Middle Ages or today. And the culture that we have is it's it's it's it's pretty sick. It needs some help. And we three good men. We're the ones who need to do it. It's relevant. I think that whenever a society gets sick to a point, then there becomes a revolution. And if you look at the way in which there's been a surge in different religions, it seems that people are beginning to see the light for the first time, whether that's in Christianity or in different forms of religion. And that light can be blinding. That light can be powerful. That light can be inspiring. And I think that there's a real sort of struggle for who is going to control the narrative of the new mystic and the new religious experience. That's why I think your book is so important. I think a lot of young men that I have been talking to and coaching on some level have this absence of spirituality. They have Andrew Tate as a role model. And I got to have a Lamborghini for a woman to find me attractive. And like, none of that's true. None of that's true. And we need to reevaluate our relationship with ideas of avarice and greed and pride and selfishness. And I think that this is a big part of it. Yeah, I mean, I think they've been sold. a bad bill of goods to believe that that's what success is. And, you know, something else which came up at a conference that I was at a few weeks ago, which I thought was so striking. I mean, I wrote it down in my notes because it was such a striking statement was how do you define success? What is that? How do you define success? What does that look like? And I think that that is a great question when it comes to organizations, but it's also a great question when it comes to individuals. And if you talk to young people today and you say, well, how do you define success? I mean, if they come back with a Lamborghini and a lot of money and blah, blah, blah, you need to give them a couple of books to read because that is not success. And if it is, it's a hollow success. And what you end up feeling is that sense of emptiness where you're eventually then searching for something else later in life, right? Looking for the, as you say, looking for that light, right? Is this what Paul Valerie would call the machinery of life? Yeah, yeah. Valerie was such a great writer. You know, he's one of my heroes. I know he is. I mean, and most people are only familiar with him as a poet because that's the way he was most popular. And his poetry is good. I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, I like his poetry. But once I started reading his nonfiction essays, and he wrote quite a lot of nonfiction essays, they are just absolutely brilliant and insightful in looking at what was going on in the culture at the time. And so much of what he's talking about, I think, is still applicable today. The kinds of questions about spiritual emptiness that people were experiencing after World War I, after World War II. I think we're experiencing that today. It's just the catalyst for it today is isn't necessarily war, but it's capitalism, right? Where we're sitting back in our houses where we've got everything that we want and everything that we thought we needed. And you say, you know what? This doesn't feel like I thought it would. I thought I'd be happy. And I'm not. You know, it's cliche to say that, you know, money doesn't bring happiness. But there are certainly enough tales of people who became very wealthy who were pretty miserable. We need to look for wealth in places other than our wallet. It brings up the... To me, your book speaks a lot about awareness and especially when you begin talking in multiple points about the subject object relationship. And, you know, I think that there's a lot to unpack there as far as the individual seeing themselves as a subject or an object, or maybe we're evolving to see ourselves as both, but maybe you can talk about how that's changed and maybe what that's done to us. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's our increasing inability to, to look outside ourselves. which is ironic because a lot of what I talk about and a lot of the writers that I read talk about the importance of looking within. I mean, we do need to look within. We need to understand who we are. We need to understand ourselves. But we also need to understand how ourselves work in congruence with everybody else and everything else that's on the planet. And... this this the danger of diving too deep into the self I mean young talks about this even freud talks about this is is narcissism um you know it if if people do nothing but feed your ego you're gonna think well crap I must be I must be great um and so you know that we always have to be sort of mindful of the fact that Humility is one of the virtues, right? That it's okay to be proud, right? I mean, being proud is not a sin. Being prideful is excess. And that's where the problem comes in. When thinking, I mean, you know, look at the first sin in the Garden of Eden, right? I mean, the sin that Adam and Eve commit is committed because they want to be like God. They've been told that if they eat the fruit, they'll be like God. Okay, we want to be like God, we'll eat the fruit. And we need to understand who we are and where we are and where we should be in the grand scheme. I mean, I don't have delusions of grandeur. My book's not going to be number one on the New York Times bestseller list. I'd love for that to happen. I really don't care, to be honest. I mean, my goal is to get readers. I don't really care about sales, per se. In fact, I had a publicist hounding me for two months about wanting me to spend all this money on a new website that he was going to make for me. And I kept saying, I said, I don't care about that. Because he said, well, you're not selling enough books. I'm like, I don't care about that. Yeah. And so, you know, if we again, it's the values, right? What do we value? What do we value? I mean, I value readers. I value conversation. I value hearing from people who say, you know, my work had an effect on them. That's what I value. I don't necessarily value, you know, that I'm making lots of money off of my books, which I'm not and I never will. And that's fine. That's not why I do it. Yeah, it's... It takes a lot of courage to live in the world today. It takes a lot of courage to do the things that we do. I mean, in many ways, it takes a lot of courage to get up in the morning and get your ass out of bed and leave the house. You know, let's face it. The world could be a really nasty place. And, you know, when you leave, you don't know what the hell you're going to encounter today. I mean, I woke up this morning and we were having a wonderful rainstorm here. And I thought, oh, my God, this is perfect. I'll stay in bed. I just I I just love to lay there and listen to the storm and, you know. perfect day not to go out. But I know I've got commitments and I've got things that I have to do and I have people relying on me and I have things that I want to do, that I want to accomplish, that are not going to be accomplished unless I have the courage of getting out of bed. And I think if we think about it, in those ways, sometimes that could be really helpful for people. I mean, I deal with, you know, because I, I teach at the university, I deal with a lot of young people who are experiencing a lot of anxiety about everything. And, you know, to reframe it as in, as if, you know, getting out of bed in the morning is a courageous act that you should be, you should, kind of congratulate yourself for doing that because sometimes it's really hard. It's the little things. I've heard some similar points taken, and it brings to mind something that I've been seeing in a lot of people that I've been speaking with. What do you think is the relationship between entitlement and self-worth? In the generation of kids that I have been dealing with, those two things seem to be antithetical to each other. The level of entitlement, oh, I'm in Virginia too. Where are you, Hank? The level of entitlement amongst this generation is just astonishing. Um, it really is. And as a result, I think they're, they're the degree of self worth that they have. It's pretty low actually. Um, because they measure their self worth in, in, in terms that are just are, are, are at a whack, you know, it's just, you know, I'm a straight a student, um, that, that, that gives me self worth. I don't know that it does because there are a lot of other people who are straight-A students. You know, there's a great commencement talk that you can look up on YouTube. I'm right down the road from you, Hank. I'm in Newport News. And it was – it's – oh, my God, what's his name? Douglas – His father is a presidential scholar. Don't worry. No. Hang on. I'm going to look. Yeah, please do. I've got to remember this. His father has the same name because he's a junior. And he gave a high school commencement speech a couple of years ago. You can look at it on And it is called You Are Not Special. And it is really, and he wrote a, David McCullough, David McCullough, not Douglas, sorry. David McCullough Jr. David McCullough is the father who's the presidential scholar. He gave a high school graduation speech. It's over a decade ago, I think, called You Are Not Special. And it's, it's really quite brilliant. I mean, he ended up writing it up as a book and, um, he says, you know, that, that, uh, one of the, my favorite parts of it, he says that, you know, physicists have told us that you are not the center of the universe. Right. You know, I mean, it, it, it, it's, it's a really a kind of a slap in the face of this whole entitlement thing about what you value. I mean, um, you know, if you value grades and money. There's a level of self-worth that's lacking there because those are superficial things. I mean, we have students who come in and, you know, granted, a lot of the entitlement is hereditary, if you will. They're getting it from the parents. You know, and McCullough talks about this in his speech, too. He says, you know, you've been nudged and cajoled and fetid, you know, and fawned over, you know, and but you're not special is the upshot of it. I was at an admissions event a couple of years ago. Maybe it might have been the last summer of the summer before where I heard a mother question at a at a at a group meeting of incoming parents. There might have been 200 people there. Wanting to know if there was a place on campus where her son could get ice during the day for his drink. I was standing in the back of the room. At first, quite honestly, I thought it was kind of a joke. She was dead serious. Are there ice machines around? Is there somewhere where he can put ice in his drink? He needs ice in his drink. And the thing that really shocked me, of course, although it shouldn't have, was that the folks who were on the panel, who were folks who work in the housing office, entertained this for about 10 minutes, in all seriousness, because they have to. But, I mean, that's just, that's insane. That's an insane level of entitlement. That's what you're worried about? your son isn't going to be able to get ice for his drink during the day? Are you crazy? And I mean, because I almost burst out laughing, I ended up having to walk out of the room because I thought this was just the nuttiest thing I'd ever heard. And I couldn't believe that there was a serious discussion going on about whether he could get ice. That's the level of entitlement that we're looking at. I mean, we talk about it on a larger level, you know, of bigger problems, but that is an example of the problem. It's that, it's that, you know, so it's the kid who, who interviews for a job. And when they say, do you have any other questions for us? He says, yeah. He says, what's your retirement plan? Like, like you haven't even hired yet. That's entitlement. And to me, that reflects a lack of self-worth and, And it reflects a lack of self-exploration. And as an educator, the kid who graduates and still feels that way and has that attitude, we failed him. We didn't do what we were supposed to do by giving him a liberal education. Now, granted, some of the fault is probably his education. I mean, we can only do so much. But, you know, I would say that if overwhelmingly we're running into kids who have that attitude, something's wrong. And something's wrong. Something is wrong at the moment because a lot of people do have that sense of entitlement. You know, they are getting, you know, going for the job interview and asking what's their time plan. You know, they are. you know, going to, uh, a new job and asking, you know, is there a place where I can get ice? Can you imagine asking that on a job interview? Um, yeah, it just, it seems to me that maybe we, you know, maybe the fall is necessary in order to rebuild Yeah, I mean, it seems because we don't seem to pay attention well to the signs so that we can fix things along the way, that it's not until something collapses that we discover, oh, I guess we need to do that differently. I mean, I've been talking for years about the fact that Higher education in this country is not going to explode. It's imploding. It's imploding under its own weight. And it isn't until that finally happens that we're going to finally step back and say, oh, I guess we need to do something different. Because, I mean, admittedly, some of these behemoths are difficult to dismantle. I mean, we've got, you know, I mean, the three big ones that I can think about in this country are education, healthcare, and just our political system in general. I mean, they have grown, the goiter has grown to such a degree that, you know, what the hell are you going to do to it now? Other than wait for it to just collapse. And then we'll look at it and look differently. And I think part of that, don't get me wrong, part of that I think is human nature. We tend not to look at really rebuilding something until it's too late. We're experts at putting Band-Aids on things. When what really needs to be done is you need to amputate a limb. I mean, it's troubling. I think about what happened in Baltimore with the bridge collapse and looking forward to, well, they're going to build a new bridge. I mean, they have to. It's going to take a couple of years. Did they learn anything from what happened? Now, granted, it was an accident, but did they learn anything from what happened that means we're going to do things differently. I don't know. I don't know. Because if we don't learn from our mistakes, then what the hell's the point of anything for that matter? You know, I mean, if, if, if I didn't learn from my mistakes every day, then, then, you know, not to, not to sound like a, a Taylor Swift lyric, what's the point of living? Don't get me wrong. I love Taylor. Who doesn't? But... It's amazing to me. And I know we're coming up on an hour here. I really enjoy the conversation and I would recommend to anybody listening, whether you're watching live or you're listening to the podcast in the future, go down to the show notes and check out this book, why sin still matters. It's a really great contemplative work that helps you understand a historical perspective of modern implications. And it invites you to think about your future with it and your relationship with it. And, um, But before I let you go, Dave, where can people find you? What do you have coming up? What are you excited about? Yeah, so my website is davidasolomon.com, Solomon's S-A-L-O-M-O-N. And the book is called Why Sin Still Matters, and it's available on Amazon. And it is intentionally priced low. What have I got coming up? A few signings coming up. My summer program on campus here is winding down this week. So I've got 45 students who've been doing research and creative work since the beginning of June, and they're ending their projects by the end of this week. And then gearing up for the fall semester, which is always fun, and classes that I'm teaching in the fall. Excited and nervous about the fact that my daughter's going to graduate school and moving out of the house in a couple of weeks. And we'll see how that goes. She's got good parents. I'm sure she'll be fine. Looking forward to seeing the future progress of the books and talking to you soon. Hang on briefly afterwards. Everybody else, I hope you have a beautiful day. Thank you for spending some time with us. And that's all we got. Aloha.