For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

"Cooking is a declaration of love ... food is God’s love made delicious." Theologian Norman Wirzba reflects on the threats of our faulty logic of food and our disordered and disconnected relationship to eating and nourishment, and imagines a theology of food grounded in membership, gift, and hospitality. Interview with Matt Croasmun.Support For the Life of the World: Give to the Yale Center for Faith & CultureAbout Norman WirzbaNorman Wirzba is the Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Theology at Duke University. His teaching, research, and writing happens at the intersections of theology and philosophy, and agrarian and environmental studies. He is the author of several books, including Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating (2nd Edition), From Nature to Creation, and The Paradise of God: Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age, and his most recent book, This Sacred Life: The Place of Humanity in a Wounded World, will be published in 2021. In his spare time he likes to bake, play guitar, and make things with wood. For more information visit his website at normanwirzba.com.Show NotesIntroductionFood and Faith: A Theology of Eating—a picture of what eating can be, connecting us to the world, to each other, to God.When it comes to eating in America these days, how are we doing?Anonymity and ignorance. We are disconnected from food, we’re not encouraged to know where food comes from or how it came to be."Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables."Good eating is not solely a matter of personal virtue or vice. It’s part of a complicated system, agricultural strategy, and political process we’re involved in.Food is central to human flourishing, but if it’s only a market commodity, we end up with a faulty logic that drives a sinister food industry.You can only sell so much: therefore, preservativesIf food is primarily to be digested, we have foods that are, in principle, indigestible. It tastes good, and never makes you full. It’s the perfect food commodity. The food system is developed to take advantage of you as a unit of consumption. What is eating for?Membership as a eucharistic mode for changing the way we conceive of food and the good. Eating is a daily reminder of our need.Fruits of the spirit that ought to animate our relation to membership.Mutual belonging (Willie Jennings, The Christian Imagination)How disconnection from the land leads to alienation and loneliness.Attention to geography and sources of life; how do we cultivate awareness and proper attention?Robin Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass—the White American presence has always been “this is not home.” Therefore, “The land we live on and are blessed by does not love us.” Think about what kind of compensation must follow to this kind of alienation. Racial components of agriculture and food. "You cannot tell the story of agriculture apart from the story of slavery.” Agricultural labor and the objection to embodiment.Embodiment and food.Essential work, abstraction from bodies, and disembodied labor."We don’t want to know, because to have to know these things implicates us in how we shop for food."God creates a world in which creatures eat.What’s communicated through a meal prepared for you? You matter.God invites us into hospitality, and food and eating can teach us that nurturing welcoming presence.Food as gift. Submitting oneself to "the grace of the world.” "Food is God’s love made delicious.""Life has always proceeded by hospitality."“Eating and cooking … cause us to stop and say, ‘It’s not all vicious. Maybe our living together can also be a celebration.’""All eating involves death.” How do you square the gift of food with the death it entails?The first virtue of humility—because I don’t know, and because I understand vulnerability, I must live in a more humble, patient way.What does policy look like when it comes through the lens of humility, dependence, gift, and vulnerability?The story of a meal—its cultivating, growing, cooking, gathering, eating, enjoying, and nourishing.You can’t homogenize people’s experience of food.Sabbath, time, place: Slowing down to notice the goodness of the world God has given us. Thoughtfulness, intention, attention, presence, honoring each otherWho is invited to the table? Communal living, kinship, and community in a welcoming world. Abraham Heschel’s “an opening for eternity in time."How can we honor the life that feeds us? Start simple. Soup and bread to celebrate the goodness of the world.

Thanks for listening to For the Life of the World. To support the show, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture by clicking here.---This is that time of year when the little demon of self-criticism and self-denigration wakes up and starts nagging you for letting your new year’s resolutions slip a little. Or maybe you’re not there yet. You’re powering through, waking up early, working out hard, eating right, reading more, living your best life. Hey. Good on you. Go get it.But regardless, whether you find yourself nailing it or failing it, do you have the patience and the necessary courage to accept yourself at every moment you try to improve?This week, Ryan McAnnally-Linz and Miroslav Volf discuss an obscure but incredibly timely passage from an old lecture given by the great Karl Rahner, the German Jesuit priest and one of the most notable Catholic theologians of the 20th century—he was instrumental, for instance, in the theological developments of the Second Vatican Council.Miroslav once heard Rahner give a talk about patience, and has passed along the wisdom of that lecture, and now we’re passing it on to you. Miroslav even translated a passage from the German text, and reads it here (you can also find it in our show notes). In this episode, Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz reflect on Karl Rahner's admonition to be patient with oneself. The discussion begins by recognizing the gap between who you are now and who you aspire to be, and proceeds with the need to keep the tension alive, working and bearing with your limitations, and exploring the freedom of a serene patience with oneself. Serenity is not acquiescence to vice or bad habits. But it represents a courageous long-term peace with your imperfections—an effort to recognize oneself as rooted in divine love and grace and acceptance, even as you pursue a vision of a better self.Show NotesNew Year’s Resolutions and the need to be patientKarl Rahner’s “Intellectual Patience with Oneself” (translated from German to English by Miroslav Volf)Minding the gap between who you are and who you aspire to beNarcissism, complacency, and resignationMiroslav’s friend’s motto for graduate school: “Courage to Imperfection!"Patience is not merely a private interior thing—there is a public effect of bearing with oneself that leads to bearing with others.The courage to public imperfectionCultivating a secure sense of self grounded in God’s loveWe can live with imperfection knowing that we are accepted as we areRelease yourself from the grip of the performed, curated selfHow patience with oneself applies to the struggle to improve through New Year’s ResolutionsReflect on which self you want to nurture and don’t give up on the tension between who you are and who you aspire to be.Constant pressure to improve quickly, as opposed to acceptance of limitations and imperfectionsKeep the tension alive, work with your limitations, and explore the freedom of a serene patience with oneself.You cannot do whatever you want, and the lie that you can leaves you exposed to the deep pain of failure and limitation.“You are not at stake.” Limits are there. They are to be worked with rather than hated or abhorred."I’m not divine. I’m human."Karl Rahner, “On Intellectual Patience with Oneself”in Schriften zur Theologie, 15, 303ff.(Abridged version of the first few paragraphs that deal with patience with oneself in general, of which intellectual patience with oneself is one dimension)Translated by Miroslav VolfThat we need … patience with ourselves, seems to me a self-evident thing, in fact one of those self-evident things which in reality turn out to be difficult to achieve.  Perhaps there are people who don’t think they need patience with themselves because they are in full agreement with who they are and with what they do. But I hope that we will not envy the “good fortune” of such simple-minded people.  If we are honest with ourselves, we are [all] the kind of people who, rightly, are not fully finished with ourselves, and also the kind of people who cannot establish the state of their full agreement with ourselves on command or through some psychological trick.  Because a full agreement with ourselves is neither given nor within our power to achieve, we need to have patience with ourselves.  The person in us, who we actually are, greets with pain, the person in us who we want to become… We are now on the way, we live between a past and a future, and both, each in its own way, are out of our full control.  We never have all things together which we need to live; we are always historically conditioned, socially manipulated, biologically threatened—and we are aware of this. We can try to suppress the knowledge of this state of existence; we can try to let things that we cannot change just be there as surd elements of our lives; or we can misuse joyous experiences of life as analgesics against the uncanny tensions between who we are and who we should be; or we can interpret these dissatisfactions as depression which we either have simply to suffer or which we can medicalize ourselves against.But when we muster the courage to face these tensions [between who we are and who we aspire to become], when we acknowledge them and accept them … then we have come to have patience with ourselves, to accept that we are not in pure agreement with ourselves… Many believe that they have patience with themselves and that this patience is the most ordinary of things.  But if we were to look at such people more carefully, we would see that they do not take on patiently the pain of their tensions, that they don’t face them without ether embellishing or hating them, but that they flee from them into the banality of everyday life … that what has triumphed in them [over these tensions] is an unrecognized despair or despairing resignation, that they, in the end, believe that life has no meaning. We would also see that they do not actually have patience as they behold the questionableness of their existence, but are seeking ways to look away and find surrogates for patience, which, they believe, make it possible for them to live.Those who are truly patient endure in reality their existential tensions, take them on, accept the pain they cause… Those who are patient are patient with their impatience; serenely, they let go of the final “agreement” between who they are and what they aspire to become.  They do not know where this serenity, in which they let themselves be, comes from… Those who are patient are serene and therefore free.We will not further explore the question about what it is that we ultimately fall upon when practicing such serene patience.  Some people will think that the stance rests on “Nothing”; resting on “Nothing,” they can be victorious over tense conflicts of finite realities in their own lives.  Others are persuaded, that “Nothing,” when one gives it its proper sense, is of no use, that it can have no power to give peace.  Instead, they believe that when we serenely accept our tensions [between who we are and what we aspire to become], then, whether we are aware or not, we have come to rest on what in everyday use of the word we call God.And when we really understand that word [God], the we see that the letting oneself “fall” into the silent incomprehensibility which is God “succeeds” because God receives in grace those who let themselves fall into serene patience with themselves. 

What is the state of Christianity and Democracy in America? We mined the past 6 months of episodes for the most timely, relevant, and even strangely prescient reflections on faith and politics in America. Past guests Willie Jennings, David French, Marilynne Robinson, Robert George, and Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead, and Arlie Hochschild each offer perspectives we need to understand the political moment through the eyes of faith and culture. Here’s the breakdown of our episode today—it’s really a “best of" for faith and politics in America today.Episode Contents / Show Notes3:33 - Theologian Willie Jennings on crowds, mobs, fear, and anger14:17 - Sociologists Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead on Christian Nationalism, identity, and violence 20:01 - Novelist Marilynne Robinson on Christianity and democracy23:17 - Political commentator David French on political exhaustion, culture war, and the role of faith in political division34:22 - Legal scholar Robert George on the breakdown of civic friendship44:32 - Sociologist Arlie Hochschild on building shelters from shame and crossing a bridge to empathySupport For the Life of the World by Giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/giveEpisode IntroductionHello friends and listeners. Thanks for tuning in to the show. This week, in light of the tension and need for perspective, we’re turning to some of the more significant points of relevance from some of our past episodes. We’ve got plenty more fresh conversations and reflections coming your way in 2021, but this week has seemed to just catch us all. And if you haven’t yet heard Miroslav Volf deliver our joint statement from the staff of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture on Sedition at the Capitol, then check out that 10-minute episode as well.As we’ve searched for words to understand, words to grieve the violence and death, words to evaluate, critique, and condemn, and words to forgive, to heal, to unite what seems unifiable—the words often come up empty, lacking, half-hearted. It’s reminiscent of the piercing words of the prophet Jeremiah, a hot take if ever there was one, as he condemns those who have “treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying “Peace, peace’, when there is no peace. They acted shamefully, they committed abomination; yet they were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush.” He goes on, “Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:14-16).As we walk together, seeking where the good way lies, these ancient paths, trod by so many before us, let’s not give up on a hope against hope, a hope for things that we most certainly now do not see. There is no peace, but we need to envision it. We must be the instruments of that peace. 

Miroslav Volf and the staff of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture respond to the lies, provocation, and violence at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.Show Notes"The most responsible thing to say about the President’s and the attackers’ actions is that they were without qualification wrong. To praise, to condone, to excuse, or to ignore them is to 'call evil good… put darkness for light… put bitter for sweet' (Isaiah 5:20)."At the heart of the current effort to deny and overturn the results of the presidential election is the wounded pride of a man who cannot handle the truth of his own imperfection and the fact that he lost a fair democratic contest.There is a sorrowful, pathetic smallness to this petty woundedness even as it produces momentous—and tragic—consequences. Faced with painful realities that conflict with his self-image but that he cannot control, President Trump has given himself over to wishful thinking, conspiracy theories, and falsehood. He has constructed a pseudo-truth to fit the needs of his immense but fragile and wounded pride.We must commit firmly to the truth, even and especially when it hurts our pride, when we lose, and when it calls for sacrifice.We must orient ourselves toward peace and bearing with one another, being ready to forgive, as we have been forgiven. Indeed, our commitment to the truth is never at odds with love of neighbor. Peace is in fact unintelligible and unimaginable apart from the truth of Christ.We must stand up for the downtrodden, marginalized, and afflicted, speaking and acting on their behalf, for their good, for their healing, and for their inclusion in flourishing.We must never compromise or distort Christian faith in service to the idol of political power.We must restore confidence in our democracy and trust in each other. Suspicion and conspiracy theories have distorted and disconnected us from reality.We must live constantly from the deep truth that our worth doesn’t come from victory, triumph, or any other kind of power or influence. Our worth is secured by the love of God for us.May we all become instruments of peace in this time of conflict.Make a gift to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: faith.yale.edu/give

Mike Cosper, host of Cultivated, a podcast about faith and work, interviews Miroslav Volf about his vocation as theologian. They discuss Miroslav's youth in Croatia and his family's influence on his spirituality and theology, as well as the urgent need for faithful witness in our turbulent times. Original air date: November 2, 2020. Show Notes“I had parents who were extraordinary spiritual human beings, not in a sense that they were total exemplars of holiness, but there was kind of an honesty about the spiritual life”His father “experienced God’s love in the midst of Hell” on a socialist death march“A vivid representation of what faith can do, what God can do”Volf’s early experience of the Church via his father’s ministry“Oh, what an incredible thing. To devote one’s life to helping people who are so much on the margins”Volf traveled as a translator: “I realized there that one could be cool and the believer as well”“To my shame and chagrin, it's the being possible to be cool and a believer that opened up space for me to enter. And then slowly I was getting deeper into faith”“How am I supposed to behave and how should I speak to these people? That made it a little theologian in me”“I haven't regretted a single time, single date, single hour, the choice that I've made”He studied with Moltmann in graduate school “We became friends and he proved very important in my life”“He said to me, Miroslav, take something that moves people and shine the light of the Gospel on it”While teaching at Fuller, he started to think about Exclusion and EmbraceMiroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, a Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and ReconciliationThe fall of the Berlin Wall, how to address a war about religious identity? Luke 15:11-32, The Prodigal Son, family, community, and belongingForgiveness, victimization, and communityThe importance of boundaries: “they define who we are”The political division underneath the racial division, are we able to build bridges? Can we enter into the position of the other? Hannah Arendt - “forgiveness is the only way to reverse the flow of history” How we deal with forgiveness – we must name the wrong as wrong “Trump is an embodiment of paganism” - Volf Alain de Benoist, On Being a PaganPagans don’t like to sacrifice for others, Trump thinks: ‘I do what benefits me ‘“Trump’s God is my Devil” –Volf Evangelical paganismIs this new or is this an unmasking?“The problem is not that people commit sin. It's the pretense of holiness when there's exactly otherwise happening”“Jesus has become a moral stranger to us, everything that mattered to him seems not to matter to us, and everything that matters to us as a culture seems not to have been important to him”Reclaiming morality ---Introduction from Cultivated, featured on Christianity Today(Click here to listen on ChristianityToday.com.)Miroslav Volf’s writing is considered some of the most significant theological work of the last century. He was born into a family of Pentecostal Christians in Croatia, under oppressive Communist rule, and a “minority of a minority” (as he would later describe it). For almost four decades, his writing has been a testament to the power of the gospel for reunification and healing in the aftermath of war and political turmoil, as well as a vision for human flourishing in an experience of Trinitarian love.On this episode, we talk about his emergence as a theologian, the development of his work, and his perspective on the turbulent times we’re experiencing today.Cultivated is a production of Christianity Today.This episode was produced by Mike CosperIt was edited by Mark Owens.Theme song is by Roman CandleMusic is by Dan Phelps and Roman Candle

Santa doesn't just want you to be happy. Santa needs you to be happy. Matt Croasmun explains how the contemporary Christmas myth—the Gospel of Christmas according to St. Nick—sets emotional norms that are vastly different from the Gospel of Christmas according to St. Paul. 

How can the Magi of Matthew 2—the Three Wise Men "bearing gifts" and "traversing afar"—help us understand faith and reason, giving and receiving, the nature of God, and how to be human? Drew Collins offers some new perspective on a familiar Christmas story.Introduction and NotesMerry Christmas friends—for this week, we’re dropping a double dose of Christmas reflections from the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. We’ll be hearing from Matt Croasmun and Drew Collins, both of whom are Associate Research Scholars and lead our Life Worth Living and Christ & Flourishing initiatives, respectively.In this episode, I interview Drew Collins about the Magi of Matthew Chapter 2—these wise men from the east come to pay Jesus homage, but in so doing, they offer for us an outside perspective on the wonder and the weirdness of Christmas.  hey’ve been lauded through centuries of Christian theology for both their reason and their faith, but W.H. Auden’s treatment of their intentions in his beautiful Christmas Oratorio, For the Time Being, brings into clearest brightest view why they followed the star, and offers us something to aspire to. Auden gives them the lines:To discover how to be truthful now...To discover how to be living now….To discover how to be loving now...To discover how to be human now …. Is the reason we follow this star.And well, in that sense, we’re all magi. Trying to learn how to be human now."Matthew 2:1-12 asks us, in other words, to confront the possibility that those outside of our particular Christian communities might offer us new ways of understanding of who Jesus is, while at the same time revealing new insights into the identities of our non-Christian neighbors.”"The Christian faith affirms that God is a gift giver. We can say more. For God’s giving is so radical, so total, that even in God’s receiving the gifts we bring, however paltry and imperfect, God is also giving. In receiving the gifts of the Magi, or in affirming our receiving of them on God’s behalf, God is giving us hope that our own lives, scruffy and flawed though they might be, might be received by others as giving, like the Magi, greater insight into who Jesus is and might be received and redeemed by God in the coming of God’s Kingdom.”

Evan Mawarire is a Pentecostal minister and democratic activist in Zimbabwe. He is founder of #ThisFlag Citizen's Movement and has been instrumental in standing up to corruption, injustice, and poverty in Zimbabwe. Miroslav Volf interviews Pastor Evan about his story of faith that leads to activism; the transformation he experience while being unjustly arrested, detained, and tortured in maximum security prison; and what it means to live a life worthy of our humanity.Show NotesIntroduction and clip from #ThisFlag viral videoHow Evan Mawarire became a Pentecostal minister#ThisFlag movement - united around the symbolism of the Zimbabwe flag Compassion, mercy, and other biblical values that can be practiced across all levels“If we don’t stand up, our children will hold us to account one day, and say ‘Why did you do nothing?’""I was asking people to shut down the government in 48 hrs."The other side of fear is possibilityThe atrocities of Robert Mugabe: abduction, silencing, torture, murder, citizen fear-based self-policing#ThisFlag Campaign Slogan: “If we cannot cause the politician to change, then we must inspire the citizen to be bold."Pentecostalism and Political Activism: Apostolic Faith Movement, Reinhard BonnkePastor Evan’s detention and torture in maximum security prisonHow encounters with prison inmates transformed Pastor Evan“Look at the walls that are holding you back, and understand that there is a bigger prison that holds you back: the prison of your mind… Ignore these walls, behave as if they do not exist."What is a life worth living?About Evan MawarireEvan Mawarire is a Zimbabwean clergyman who founded #ThisFlag Citizen’s Movement to challenge corruption, injustice, and poverty in Zimbabwe. The movement empowers citizens to hold government to account. Through viral videos, the movement has organized multiple successful non-violent protests in response to unjust government policy. Evan was imprisoned in 2016, 2017, and 2019 for charges of treason, facing 80 years in prison. His message of inspiring positive social change and national pride has resonated with diverse groups of citizens and attracted international attention.Evan has addressed audiences around the world, and Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the 100 global thinkers of 2016. The Daily Maverick Newspaper of South Africa named him 2016 African person of the year. Evan is a 2018 Stanford University Fellow of the Centre for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law. He is a nominee of the 2017 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression awards and the 2018 Swedish government’s Per Anger Prize for democracy actors.Give to the Yale Center for Faith & CultureVisit faith.yale.edu/give to make a financial gift to support For the Life of the World and the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Thank you for partnering with us in our work.

Social ethicist Stacey Floyd-Thomas offers a womanist perspective on how humility can go terribly wrong, when it's hung over the heads of the humiliated, marginalized, and oppressed. This criticism of the traditional Christian virtue helps clarify the role of joy as the ultimate virtue of Black life, the centrality of black folk wisdom, and the beauty of black sisterhood. Interview by Ryan McAnnally-Linz.LinksThe Womanist Salon Podcast, featuring Stacey Floyd-ThomasThe Joy of Humility: The Beginning & End of the Virtues (edited by Drew Collins, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, and Evan Rosa)About Stacey Floyd-ThomasStacey Floyd-Thomas is the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Chair and Associate Professor of Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University, and is a nationally recognized scholar and leading voice in social ethics who provides leadership to several national and international organizations that educate, advocate, support and shape the strategic work of individuals, initiatives, and institutions in their organizing efforts of championing and cultivating equity, diversity, and inclusion via organizations such as Black Religious Scholars Group (BRSG), Society for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Religion (SRER), Strategic Effective Ethical Solutions (SEES), Society of Christian Ethics (SCE) and the American Academy of Religion (AAR). She holds a PhD in Ethics, a MBA in organizational behavior and two Masters in Comparative religion and Theological Studies with certification in women’s studies, cultural studies, and counseling. Not only has she published seven books and numerous articles, she is also as an expert in leadership development, an executive coach and ordained clergy equipped with business management. As a result, Floyd-Thomas has been a lead architect in helping corporations, colleges, universities, religious congregations, and community organizations with their audit, assessment, and action plans in accordance with evolving both the mission and strategic plans. Without question, she is one of the nation’s leading voices in ethical leadership  in the United States and is globally recognized for her scholarly specializations in liberation theology and ethics, critical race theory, critical pedagogy, and postcolonial studies.  Additionally, leaving podium and pulpit, she hosts her own podcast to popularize and make her profession and vocation intergenerationally and intracommunally accessible through The Womanist Salon Podcast.

Arlie Hochschild discusses her book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, reflecting on how 2020 has made our mutual political alienation worse, and how we can implement deep listening, emotion management, hospitality, and create shelters from shame. Interview by Evan Rosa.How to Give to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: faith.yale.edu/give We’re passionate about making this work consistently accessible to a people who are genuinely concerned with he viability of faith in a world wracked with division, contested views about what it means to be human and what it means to live life well. If you’re in a position to support our show financially, and are looking for some year end opportunities, please consider partnering with us. We rely on the generosity  of individuals like you to make our work possible. And if you’re not, please continue listening and engaging the content and let us know what you’re interested in. But if you can give, if you’re truly passionate about supporting podcasting that’s all about pursuing—really living—lives that are worthy of our humanity, then consider a gift to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. Visit faith.yale.edu/give (or find the link in the show notes) to make a year end contribution. It’s our joy to bring these shows to you; and we’d invite you into that same joy of supporting this work. As always, thanks for listening, and we’ll be back with more, next week.Episode IntroductionHow do we understand each other’s political lives? It’s all too easy to depend on the consistent narratives of bafflement at the political stranger. How could you possibly have voted for [fill in the blank]. I have no idea how you could support [you know who]. Maybe to stay baffled is a defense mechanism. It keeps the stranger strange. If you rely consistently on your inability to fathom another’s behavior or reasons or motivations—or the fears that underlie them all—maybe that helps you cope a little better.Our guest on the show today turned off all her alarms, set aside the narrative of confusion, and set out to learn about the political other, when around 10 years ago, she began regular visits to Lake Charles, Louisiana, a working class Tea Party stronghold that followed suit with Trump support in 2016—suspicious of the government, struggling for their economic flourishing, feeling the whole time that they were being cut in line, that they were unseen, unrecognized, dishonored, alienated in a hidden social class war.Sociologist Arlie Hochschild is Professor Emerita in Sociology at the University of California Berkeley and author of Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. In this episode, I ask Arlie about her experience of intentionally identifying her own ideological bubble, forging out to scale a wall of division, bafflement and hostility to find empathy, turning off her political and moral alarms and attuning her mind to hear the desires that inform the deep story of her friends in Louisiana. We discuss political division, resentment, and alienation; how the Trump presidency and subsequent 2020 loss to Biden has continued to make strangers in their own land; she explains the emotional roots of political beliefs and tribalism—especially those held by her conservative friends, the blind spots of progressive views of conservatives, and finally curiosity, humility, emotion management, and putting oneself in perspective. Thanks for listening. —Evan Rosa, from the introductionShow NotesHow Arlie Hochschild decided to reach out to Tea Party Republicans from within her media bubble, befriend them, and then write a book about understanding how emotion informs political anger, resentment, and Trump supportThe paradox of biting the hand that feeds youMoving beyond political appearances and surface tensionsHow to create a shelter from shame in order to connect and disagree in fruitful waysWhat it was like to cross the empathy bridge, to meet people who live in a different bubble, who live with a different sense of what is trueMeeting Republican women in Lake Charles, LouisianaThe appeal of Rush Limbaugh: fighting against “feminazis,” “environmental wackos,” and “socialists.” And the deepest reason: protecting southern Republicans from the shame of coastal elites Turning off one’s alarm system for the sake of genuine encounter across division, deep listeningWhen to turn the alarm system back on“Things have grown worse”: One’s own government as a foreign occupying forceThe deep story: we can’t do politics without understanding the deep mythology that informs it.The right wing deep story: Waiting and being cut in line, Obama’s role, Trump’s role, and liberation from shameShaming the shamers: Trump’s appeal to those who have been "cut in line"Belong before you believe: How tribalism drives the political drama of AmericaThe religious overtones of Trumpism: Trump has connected with Hochschild's friends in Louisiana not only as their liberator, but their righteous sufferer, their shelter from shame.A giant, hostile shame machine: counter-shaming has a backfire effect: “Our shelter from shame is being attacked by the shamers."What is the greatest felt need for political combatants? What will discuss the vicious cycle?Recognition of the other across disagreement; finding an opportunity for common ground that we so dearly need right now; encountering the better angels of the political otherBlind spots: Social class, particular economic value, and the wonder inspired by the skill of the working classThe Virtues of Climbing the Empathy Wall and Encountering Others’ Deep Stories: Curiosity, Humility, Emotion Management as a Service to Society, Putting Oneself in PerspectiveRecalling the feeling of being a stranger in order to practice an emotional hospitality that makes space for the deep stories of the other