- Moral geniuses
- Public broadcasting
- Catholics from Boston
- The moral side
- Teaching at Yale - raised by über moms, weigh less than their infants
- Flashing mandarin cards at their infants
- Cashiers on loan from Amnesty International
- Seaweed snacks
- I want a snack that will prevent colio rectal cancer
- Reading poetry to lepers
- Totally dominate classroom discussion even though they haven't read the books
- University of Chicago - atheistic students being taught by Jewish professors
- Teaching books that authors gave their lives for
- I feel drained and exhausted in delivering stories
- Students don't have time to read books that are transformative
- They read to learn but not internalize
- Lost opportunity cost
- Faith in science and not developed in the moral categories
- Giving people moral instruction
- Asked young people what moral dilemmas they faced
Saint Augustine
- Augustine - born to a very strong mother
- Wanted to get ahead, left to go to Carthage; the cauldron of love
- Lashed by the hot stripes of passion
- Married for 15 years with a commoner, dumped her for someone of the same class
- Painful process - lusty guy
- Confessions - 16 year old stole some pears, wasn't hungry, wanted to fit in, deep within wanted to do bad
- Bound by an iron of my own choice
- Habit for which there was no resistance
- Murphy's Law at stake
- Along comes Mom, but he can't give up lust - battle self against self
- The sound of a little girl's verse
- Make no provision for the flesh
- No conversion more famous
- You have to look outside yourself
- 5 days before her death, they have a conversation - forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to the things ahead - into the realm of pure spirit
- The word repeated - HUSH - the world, the self and the mind is hushed
- His mom dies at 57, Augustine is 33
- Had to connect with students
- Lonely man of faith - two accounts of creation - we are made of dust and ashes, the first more agenda driven and the second more built for silence
- Adam 1 and Adam 2
- Adam wants to conquer the world
- Adam 2 wants to rest
- These two sides in permanent confrontation - operating with different mindsets
- The first lives by an economic logic the 2nd lives by a sacrificial logic
- We live in a world which emphasizes Adam 1 and rebuts and denies Adam 2
- France's Perkins - born in Maine
- There my dear is my hat, get a hat which is wider than your cheek bones
- No way with getting away with BS
- Made her do chemistry and Latin
- Mount Holy Oak - 1902 - sent around the world
- Sent them everywhere alone
- Go where nobody else wants to go
- Went to a settlement house, the arithmetic of compassion, falls in love in New York City in Greenwich Village
- Sees a fire that is devastating
- Takes up a cause of workers rights
- What does history want me to do?
- 1920's - notes on the male mind
- Guys will only listen if she dresses like their mothers
- Mother Perkins - tremendously impact full - works for Franklin Roosevelt
- Her private life was a mess, but publicly was instrumental to social welfare legislation
- Her late life was happier - filled with purpose
- One other example - Dorothy Day - lived through the San Francisco earthquake
- That little event - very self critical
- The long lonliness
- I became pious and smug
- Moved to Greenwich Village
- Modeled the books she was reading
- Reading Dovstovetaky
- Had sex a lot, one of her protests she was arrested, one suicide attempt
- Suffragette arrest
- Like Augustine - hits the bottom with her 2nd imprisonment - thought it was an indictment of her lifestyle
- Lives with a guy, has a kid - with the kid came the ambition to worship and adore led to her becoming a Catholic - started soup kitchens, life of incredible service - their gratitude became my absorption
- Delicious moment in her life
- Robert Coles - interviewed her - my great love was I had theirs this long in my life
- Adam 1 bowed down to Adam 2
- There are 2 ways of doing goodness
- Some commonalities like
- We are divided creatures
- We are self-centred
- That pride is the central vice
- Humility is the chief virtue, seeing yourself accurately
- Sin is the central battle
- No person can survive on their own
- Defeating weakness only comes by becoming silent
- Living by a code
- Only save yourself by sacrificing yourself
- God is you as you truly are - e Gilbert - Dorothy Day would not agree
- For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment. If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. (James 2:13, 15-17 KJV)
- An ethos of self distrust
- The heart can not be taught to students who are there to advance
- Caring and digging in
- Never forget the message is the person
- Life is much bigger than we think
- Teacher finding an inner guiding presence
- Journalism - writing during the day and drink at night
- My responsibility - if someone committed suicide I had to get quotes from the family
- From there to work for William F Buckley
- 5 people of moral geniuses
- Jim Lehrer
- George Schultz
- The central challenge of our time is the widening gap between rich and poor
- Whole menu of things that need to be done
- The choice you are making is not just for today
- Every little decision moves your soul in one or another direction
- Try to be hard on yourself
- What gives me hope?
- Lack of moral direction
- Crime rates down, teenage pregnancies, abortions are down, socially we are in good shape
- Social movements work from the bottom up
- Disasters - light bulb memory and then the process of interpreting it
- How we interpret events is as much the shaper of action
- Unions - students have no collective conscience
- You remember the teacher more than the course
- Balance between Adam 1 and Adam 2 - two ways - habits, small acts of kindness , remember the name of people you meet; copying good people, we are wired to mimicking good people
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