Democracy & Solidarity with James Davison Hunter and David Brooks
One of the biggest questions in the Christian life is what it means to love one's neighbor, both in the personal and the public spheres. While these questions have always been challenging and contested, they seem to have grown increasingly divisive and demoralizing.
So how do we begin to restore and reweave solidarity and a love for neighbor into our civic fabric?
Today's episode features our recent evening conversation with sociologist and author James Davision Hunter and cultural critic and author David Brooks. Together they help us explore the cultural roots of America's crisis of solidarity, and what it may mean to move together towards a renewed commitment to the common good.
“Until we understand the depth that the enemy is in fact not the other side, but in fact the enemy is the nihilism that insinuates itself within almost all of our public institutions, and not least our political institutions, we're really not taking the full measure of the crisis in front of us.” - James Davison Hunter
We hope this conversation helps you consider how you’re engaging in relationships, and how the smallest acts of seeing another person and listening to their story can help begin to restore our social fabric and establish new cultural norms.
This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in September of 2024. Watch the full video of the conversation
here, and learn more about
James Davison Hunter and
David Brooks.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
George Marsden
Aristotle
Arthur Schlesinger
John Bowlby
Parker Palmer
David Hume
Edmund Burke
Eddie Hillison
Simone Weil
Mother Theresa
Clarence Thomas
Howard Usock
Nicholas Epley
The Communist Manifesto
Related Trinity Forum Readings: