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Matthew Young and Paul Diduch: The Parable of the Good Samaritan and American Politics
110 Plays7 days ago
Matthew Young is assistant professor of political theory in the Department of Political Science & Public Policy at Elon University. Paul Diduch if faculty director of the Engineering Leadership Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. Matt and Paul join The Free Mind Podcast's new host Joseph Porter for a discussion on the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the Bible, and American politics in light of recent commends made by Vice President JD Vance.
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Transcript
Introduction to the New Host and Guests
00:00:02
Free Mind Podcast
Well, welcome to the Free Mind podcast, where we're seeking the true, the good, the beautiful, the timely, the eternal, the resplendent, the interesting. I'm your new host.
00:00:15
Free Mind Podcast
Joseph Porter, taking over from Matt Burgess, who's done a wonderful job. ah This is the podcast of the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado. And really excited for this opportunity. And with me today are two ah wonderful scholars.
00:00:35
Free Mind Podcast
and friends, ah Paul D'Douche, who is the faculty director of the engineering leadership program here at the University of Colorado and also a faculty fellow in the Benson Center, and Matthew Young. Matt is an assistant professor of political science and public policy at Elon University.
Parable of the Good Samaritan in Politics
00:00:57
Free Mind Podcast
And our topic today is the parable of the Good Samaritan and American politics. We'll be taking this parable as a jumping point and then see where the conversation takes us. And a little bit of background that might be helpful is that ah in an interview a few weeks ago, Vice President J.D. Vance said there's a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor and then you love your community. And then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.
00:01:35
Free Mind Podcast
And perhaps surprisingly, he got some pushback on this. And probably the main proof text cited in opposition to the point he was making is the parable of the Good Samaritan. i thought It's a short parable. I thought it'd be worth reading through the parable quickly, saying a couple things, and then we will get this show.
00:01:57
Free Mind Podcast
on the road. So the parable is in Luke 10 verses 25 through 37. I'll be reading out of the ESV. And behold, A lawyer stood up to put him, that is Jesus, to the test, saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it? And he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.
00:02:28
Free Mind Podcast
And he said to him, you've answered correctly, do this and you will live. But he desiring to justify himself said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? Jesus replied, a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, a priest was going down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him,
00:03:00
Free Mind Podcast
passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
00:03:22
Free Mind Podcast
And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, take care of him in whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise.
00:03:48
Free Mind Podcast
Now there's a lot we could say about this parable, and happy to talk about different angles. ah But one one possibly expected take is that while there's a challenging and and beautiful, I think, message here, I'm not sure there's anything that fundamentally contradicts the point that Vance is trying to
Applying Biblical Texts to Modern Politics
00:04:10
Free Mind Podcast
make. We can talk more about that, of course. And maybe a slightly hotter take,
00:04:15
Free Mind Podcast
i including this this parable. I think there's very, very little in the Bible that directly applies to contemporary politics. I think there's there's stuff that indirectly applies in lots of ways, but we have to think about what the steps are to kind of bridge the gap. Because when the New Testament in particular is being written, what Christianity is, it's a very tiny ah religious community with no hope or expectation of
00:04:50
Free Mind Podcast
immediate political power in the Roman Empire. ah So the question, you know, what what you what should we do with political power or or even the question, should we try to obtain political power? I'm not really sure those kinds of questions are on anyone's radar. And yet, of course,
00:05:12
Free Mind Podcast
ah from the very beginning of the American experiment, people have been using the Bible, talking about the Bible to to justify and expound on different political visions. So I'm curious, of course, to hear your thoughts.
Hierarchy of Obligations: Ordo Amoris
00:05:27
Free Mind Podcast
I'll shut up for the time being.
00:05:34
Matthew Young
Sure. um You know, just one thought that emerges to me, and this is Matt Young speaking here. um One thought that emerges immediately is Vance is referencing this idea of the Ordo Amoris, like and the properly ordered loves, and suggesting that there's a certain ranking or hierarchy of the loves in our lives. And um so you'd say, you know, um and I think most people would agree with this, like it would be wrong to neglect my children. I have young children. It would be wrong to neglect my children in order that I could go provide the things that I am neglecting to my children to someone else or that and
00:06:26
Matthew Young
or that it would be wrong to prioritize um those who are far more distant from me over and the people who I have closer sort of bonds of.
00:06:38
Matthew Young
obligation to in the family, in my local community, etc. But one thing that just ah struck me immediately when I heard Vance make this remark was that it sounded much more similar to um like what Edmund Burke says where he describes the little platoon and how he says it's a faction for our little platoon that's the proper germ or the of public affection and Burke, you know, sort of continues on. He says, it's the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love of our country and to mankind. And so um Burke has this maybe related idea, but I'm curious what you two think about this Paul and Joe. and ah Just when I first heard it, I thought that doesn't sound like St. Augustine, the way Vance said it, it sounds like Edmund Burke.
00:07:38
Free Mind Podcast
It's funny you say that and is because when i when I heard what Van said, I thought it sounded like Cicero. um And if you read On Duties or Deo Ficis, you'll see Cicero, I think, saying much more explicitly something along the lines of what Vance has in mind than than any any biblical text I'm aware of. Which, which again, doesn't doesn't mean that the the kind of fundamental principles that that that Vance has in mind that there aren't
00:08:14
Free Mind Podcast
resources within the Bible that can be marshaled to justify his point. I think that's probably true. ah But it's it's certainly not laid out as explicitly as it might be in Cicero or Burke, to your point, let alone Augustine or Aquinas.
00:08:35
Paul Diduch
Do either of you guys know why Vance was prompted to make these remarks? I i didn't didn't look at the at the issued text. What prompted him? why Why did he say this?
00:08:49
Free Mind Podcast
Well, the the the broader context that I think is you know um questions about immigration and and obviously the the cuts to USAID funding.
00:09:01
Free Mind Podcast
that's I think the stuff that's in the background and and in Vance's point is we you know we have to, we have to, um we have a responsibility to take care of
00:09:03
Paul Diduch
I see.
00:09:14
Free Mind Podcast
know, our families first, our our country first, obviously, America first has been one of the slogans of the administration. And um one thing, looking at the the parable of the Good Samaritan, ah you can see a message for ah you know that that everyone is in some sense our neighbor and that we should be willing to be a neighbor to anyone who crosses our path. That doesn't need to contradict the point that ah you you might have special obligations to your young children, to to Matt's point, to your countrymen. ah One I would add, I think this is one that's most emphasized in the New Testament is to your
00:10:02
Free Mind Podcast
fellow believers. So I think, for instance, the parable of sheep and the goats is is referring to care that Christians ah show to other Christians specifically.
00:10:15
Paul Diduch
Sure.
Christian Obligations to Community
00:10:16
Free Mind Podcast
And the the emphasis on benevolence that you see in other passages we can talk about is there's a there's certainly ah a focus and a prioritization given to fellow Christians.
00:10:26
Free Mind Podcast
So there are resources, you know, 1 Timothy 5, Anyone who doesn't provide for his family members, I'm paraphrasing, is worse than an unbeliever. There are resources, I think, in different points of Scripture that can like can support a point like the one Gantz was making. but But of course, one one big question is, so we can take say we buy that there's something like an Ordo and Morris for us as private citizens and individuals.
00:10:57
Free Mind Podcast
that that we have special obligations to our our families and so on. What does that mean for the obligations and the priorities of the state?
00:11:07
Paul Diduch
Yeah, right that was going to be my my my question to you next was Do you take vance to be pushing against the idea?
00:11:08
Free Mind Podcast
That's it. Yeah.
00:11:16
Paul Diduch
that something like uh, the teaching of the good samaritan That that it would be a mistake to construe this as a political duty to um, you know illegal immigrants or something like this that that uh, there's a confusion of christian charity with extending the the resources of the state. some you know um are you Are you implying that Vance was pushing in that direction?
00:11:47
Matthew Young
I think I want to start at one step earlier and ask um why Vance is bringing up this ah idea of a hierarchy of obligations or an order of Morris in this context where, and like like Joe suggested, it might seem obvious that as an individual, I have obligations to my children first and foremost. But Vance is not speaking in this context as
00:12:19
Matthew Young
Another dad with young children. He's speaking as you know, the vice president of the United States of America and in an interview about immigration on Fox News where ah there's a conversation about various policies in the um you know in the Trump administration. and um And so he suggests that I think as a way of defending um the sort of America First policy, um that ah there's a hierarchy of obligations.
00:12:57
Matthew Young
And he gives this, he gives this explanation about, you know, prioritizing like your family first, e etc. in the, in the quotes, but there's even a parallel there that isn't I think obvious at first that the ah the way obligations work for us as individuals um and may not have a clear parallel to the way obligations work for ah political officials who are elected to represent the interests of a nation, et cetera.
00:13:15
Free Mind Podcast
Hi.
00:13:34
Matthew Young
And then that sort of leads into the question you just brought up, Paul, about and ah how Vance might respond to ah someone else bringing up a ah the story of the or the parable of the Good Samaritan, that kind of similarly there's maybe a disjunct between what seems to be the obvious teaching for individuals versus the teaching and ah or yeah the application as a matter of public policy.
00:14:10
Free Mind Podcast
And there's some interesting questions too, I think in in terms of how we conceptualize the the relationship among these different obligations, potential conflicts that might arise,
00:14:26
Free Mind Podcast
um and you know how how much weighting of a prioritization there should be. for you know Even if if we buy that there's something like the Ordo Amores, it should be applied to ah the the federal government in the United States. what does that Does that mean zero foreign aid,
00:14:48
Free Mind Podcast
Does it mean just 1% foreign aid? And as a lot of people like to point out, um a lot of people vastly overestimate the percentage, ah the percent of the federal budget that's devoted to foreign aid. um There's a question, well, what does it mean? you know We can talk about the the effectiveness of of foreign aid. i mean I think there's an interesting case to be made that if you're worried about the institutional integrity ah of the United States and some of the kind of social engineering and experimentation we've seen over the past few decades is not actually loving anyone in the long run because you're you're going to cook the goose that's laying the golden egg. So that's that's a whole nother
00:15:35
Free Mind Podcast
can of worms that we could get into. But there's this interesting question. There's nothing in the the Bible or in the first at least couple centuries of the history of Christianity in which someone is saying, here's how we translate this these these texts that are written for you know individuals and and and small religious groups, churches, and so on. Here's how we would extrapolate to the political context. No one is saying, so suppose the the Emperor of Rome becomes a Christian, what what should he do then? Those questions obviously do arise later on, but not not yet. And and that that strikes me as an interesting and important point.
00:16:30
Matthew Young
So I take it that Vance thinks it's sort of obvious, um maybe as a matter of common sense or of natural law that and you have to make decisions about what to prioritize and that ah you should prioritize your family over the over strangers, that you should prioritize, I think the implication and the when he invokes this is that if you're the president of the United States, you should prioritize ah the citizens of the United States over um sort of strangers in the geopolitical context.
Family and State Obligations in Christian Teachings
00:17:07
Matthew Young
and um So if we take that um as Vance's intention, um I think ah you know applying this concept,
00:17:22
Matthew Young
ah
00:17:25
Matthew Young
we have to ask um whether whether it's a matter of just positively doing good to others, or avoiding harming others, or and or and comparing amounts of good we do to others. And something you said earlier, Joe reminded me of in um the book of Galatians where it says that you should do good to all, especially to those who belong to the household of faith.
00:17:58
Matthew Young
and I think that's in chapter six. And so it's invoking this idea as a Christian. um You should especially do good to others who are and believers, others who belong to and the church. But um no, it doesn't say Do good only to those who are in the household of faith.
00:18:21
Matthew Young
It doesn't say do good, especially to those who belong to the household of faith and harm those who don't.
00:18:25
Free Mind Podcast
Okay.
00:18:28
Matthew Young
It says do good to all, especially those who are ah who belong to the household of faith.
00:18:29
Free Mind Podcast
Yeah.
00:18:35
Matthew Young
And kind of similarly, ah St. Augustine on Christian doctrine writes, and he says, it's clear that every man is to be considered our neighbor because we are to work no ill to any man.
00:18:50
Matthew Young
um And so Augustine's sort of reading or um ah gloss on the parable of the Good Samaritan is he's like, you know, like you should consider all human beings to be your neighbor. um ah But then his explanation there is youre to consider them all your neighbor because you're not to work ill to any of them. You're not supposed to positively sort of harm any of them. um But that doesn't necessarily imply and That doesn't necessarily imply, I think, that you have to give every human being the same, ah because they're all to be treated as your neighbors, that you have to give them all the same benefits that you give to your own children. And I think that might be core at the core of some of the disagreement about this concept and its application.
00:19:43
Matthew Young
and with regards to immigration or to foreign aid, um that some people ah interpret the um the Trump administration or the ah or these policies as either just positively withholding some sort of good you have been providing, and say you know you stop sending foreign aid, or
00:19:46
Free Mind Podcast
All right.
00:19:54
Free Mind Podcast
All right. All right. All right.
00:20:08
Matthew Young
ah They might view it as you know um ah curtailing the goods you're providing. Other people interpret those policies as directly harming the ah the people um in question. And how you interpret those policies seems to really matter for whether Vance's type of argument holds maybe as part of the, and or in the Christian tradition he's appealing to.
00:20:40
Free Mind Podcast
Well, and just to add, I think that's ah that's ah that's a great point to add to it, ah you know in the context of immigration,
00:20:49
Free Mind Podcast
I think you have people who are going to look at immigration and say, well, this is harming this is harming us. This is harming the natives who are supposed to be helped by the government. And and other other people, you know open borders libertarians, I know, are going to say, immigration is just a win-win.
00:21:11
Free Mind Podcast
So ah you're benefiting immigrants by letting them come, but you're benefiting the natives too. Look at the economic gains and so on. So whether we see conflicts, intentions among the the the more special duties and the more general duties is going to be something that's important too.
Parable's Influence on Government Policy
00:21:33
Free Mind Podcast
There's no hint in the parable of the Good Samaritan that the Samaritan is harming or depriving his own family members by acting as he does.
00:21:47
Free Mind Podcast
um and And of course, we don't have to concede that that
00:21:48
Paul Diduch
yeah
00:21:55
Free Mind Podcast
you're You're harming Americans by by helping others, but but these kinds of tensions are definitely there possible tensions, I should say, are one of the things that you know that are driving the different interpretations.
00:22:09
Paul Diduch
Yeah. Yeah, just a couple of things. I mean, in the in the parable, the Samaritan does you know, spend down some of his resources to help ah the the stranger or whoever. ah So there's some sort of sacrifice. It's meant to be noble in some sense. ah But I just want to go back to Vance quickly. So do you guys take it that Vance is saying that based on this, let's say, Christian, loosely speaking, Christian notion of ordered commitments or ordered attachments, ordered affection,
00:22:45
Paul Diduch
that the state doesn't have a binding, let's say, ah morally binding requirement to tend to immigrants. Like, is he using a Christian notion to ah sort of orient the state's priority because that's very different than doing what you suggested earlier, Joseph, which is saying it's not clear what the Bible requires of us, an agent of the government. That's different. Like it seems like he's making a Christian argument about how to orient the state as opposed to saying it's not clear what the Bible requires of the the office of immigration or the office of of the vice president or whatever.
00:23:35
Matthew Young
I think you're right, Paul. I think he's making an argument about how the priorities of the state should be ordered um based on this notion of ordered commitments or ordered affections.
00:23:38
Paul Diduch
but
00:23:44
Paul Diduch
Mm hmm.
00:23:50
Matthew Young
um i I don't think Vance is saying that ah The United States doesn't have any moral obligations to people who aren't citizens, but that yeah the the obligations to people who are US citizens or ah who are in the United States and legally ah are different and higher priority than obligations the United States has to people and sort of the next ring or the outer rings of ah relation in that sense. Does that sound right to you, Joe?
00:24:32
Free Mind Podcast
Yeah, and I mean, just to what what what he says, you know at the end there is after that, after loving your neighbor or your country and so on, you prioritize the rest of the world. So um we can we can talk about whether we we think he's sincere, but what he's saying is at the end, there is an obligation to the rest of the world of some kind.
00:25:00
Free Mind Podcast
um there's not zero obligation to you know anyone who's not in your family or community or so on. um So I took the point to be one of prioritization and and that the you know obligations to family and so on take precedent. um There's nothing explicit in the parable of the Good Samaritan that counts against such prioritization.
00:25:27
Free Mind Podcast
um The fact that we should you know be neighborly towards ah wounded strangers we come across doesn't mean that we have you know even higher obligations to our family members.
00:25:42
Free Mind Podcast
um So i that's what I took.
00:25:45
Paul Diduch
But i mean i mean i i I do want to speak up for maybe those critics of Vance ah who who might say, yeah, but isn't isn't part of the radicalness of Jesus' is teaching the fact that he does challenge ah the very family-oriented perspective of his Jewish peers.
00:25:47
Free Mind Podcast
Go ahead.
00:25:53
Free Mind Podcast
Good.
00:26:11
Paul Diduch
that ah you know, they they take the law in a and a in a very intuitive way, ah an intuitive way that would map very well onto what Vance is saying. and And Jesus goes out of his way to provoke that understanding, ah right, ah as part of his challenge to to be spiritually perfect. ah So, I mean, you know, the critics, you know, don't it's not like they have nothing to stand on here.
00:26:41
Matthew Young
right Yeah, and i think I think there's a couple of sort of serious responses ah that people might, you know, have to to Vance's position. One is to argue that he's empirically wrong about ah about um Uh, sort of this implication that you can't keep your obligations to everyone at the degree that they currently are. And this goes back to what Joe said earlier, you know, some people are going to say like, no, immigration's a unmitigated good across the board and, and and um. it seems like Vance has this sort of ah ah zero sum might not be quite the right word, um but Vance has a ah and speaking in this position or this view that and right now you can't keep all of your obligations or you can't do everything you would like to do for everyone in the entire world.
00:27:54
Matthew Young
And so saying like, here's the budgetary limit of what we can do and we have to make difficult decisions about priorities. And and so people could respond and say Vance is wrong about that. and you know He's wrong so ah to think that immigration is and is a negative or that um right now it's a negative or the like.
00:28:21
Matthew Young
Or like like you said, um that paul he could a critic could respond and say, you know the entire point of this parable is that Following Christ requires you to like sometimes act as if you hate your family and to do things that are sort of radically self-sacrificial and require you to bear incredible costs and um will appear to be folly to ah the world or to our sort of natural ways of um of living.
00:29:03
Matthew Young
And personally, I find that ah maybe a little bit of a harder um point to respond to because and yeah in the parable, it I don't think it's incidental that you have a Samaritan who is in this position of you not being a part of the
00:29:06
Free Mind Podcast
I'm going to go ahead and do that.
00:29:28
Matthew Young
ah people of Israel on a sort of outsider who is making these significant financial sacrifices and really going above and beyond in order to treat this injured person as a neighbor.
00:29:40
Paul Diduch
Thank you.
00:29:43
Matthew Young
And and that's just worth I think dwelling on again that it's not even that he stops and checks on the guy and calls 911 in ancient Israel ah or that he he takes them into the tavern and then asks the tavern keeper to and ah to look after him, but he pays for the person's care. And really, and ah it it's a pretty, if that's the standard, that's a pretty demanding standard to live up to either as a individual or as a institution or as a nation.
00:30:27
Paul Diduch
Right. And and isn't is his behavior being compared to the Levite who just walks by and, you know, sort of takes a look at, uh, and, and, you know, it doesn't do anything.
00:30:39
Paul Diduch
Uh, and, and yeah.
00:30:40
Matthew Young
Wow, that's bad. Sucks to be that guy.
00:30:43
Paul Diduch
Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.
00:30:47
Free Mind Podcast
Thoughts and prayers. No, um I think ah I mean to to to follow up on on on this is a good threat. I don't think that it's a very cogent criticism to say oh we shouldn't prioritize, you know, family members and so on.
00:31:02
Free Mind Podcast
i mean the the Galatians passage Matt mentioned and and other passages I think make that clear. There's still plenty of of potential radicalness. So so one one way we could push back is to say, okay, well, what what does it mean to prioritize your kids? Does that mean they say, well, I'm not going to give ah to anyone in need because my kids don't each have a yacht yet, you know, and I need to make sure that they're taken care of.
00:31:31
Free Mind Podcast
That's, that's probably not, uh, what that Galatians six or the first Timothy five passage I mentioned have in mind. So, so you might think, look, the bar is, yeah, make sure that your family and, and any, in the political context, your, your, your countrymen have their basic needs well met. But then after that,
00:31:57
Free Mind Podcast
you know that you don't need to prioritize your your your your children's luxuries, your countrymen's luxuries over the basic needs of of their you know of strangers, foreigners, and so on. So that's that's one way I could imagine ah pushing back on on on the point Vance is trying to make and just saying, look, so much of what the United States government is trying to do is not just provide for citizens' basic needs, but you know, make sure that their 401ks are doing well. And, and ah you know, we're going above and beyond. and And that's where we need to maybe think less about, you know, the things Americans would like that aren't needs and think more of the non-Americans who are oftentimes much less well off. Yeah, go ahead.
00:32:50
Paul Diduch
but But there you're assuming that the parable ought to inform government policy or or practice or not.
00:32:59
Free Mind Podcast
Well, I'm saying this is one way of I could imagine somebody pushing back on on Vance. um Because, well, I mean, one question is he says there's this Christian concept. He could have said there's this common sense concept.
00:33:19
Paul Diduch
True.
00:33:20
Free Mind Podcast
where there's this natural law concept that's found in, in you know, pagan writers like Cicero. And he says there's this Christian concept. And and one question is, well, so how how does this work? Do do we...
00:33:36
Free Mind Podcast
Do we pick and choose which Christian concepts are relevant to governance and in which aren't? Or do we say we've got to take them all into account? Or do we just say, well, let's just bracket the you know Christian or religion stuff entirely?
00:33:52
Free Mind Podcast
And I don't see out in the wild a lot of careful reflection on that, as much as I see you know different people saying, well, I like this verse and this idea.
00:34:03
Free Mind Podcast
It fits with my politics. So we should run with that. And yeah, that other thing, oh, you're ignoring the context. Oh, whatever. So there's this, I think, really deep, challenging question.
00:34:15
Paul Diduch
Yeah.
00:34:16
Free Mind Podcast
How do we, how, if at all, should we translate not just the parable to Good Samaritan, but All kinds of other parables and and teachings and in and passages from
Christian Concepts in Public Policy Arguments
00:34:28
Free Mind Podcast
the Bible. how How should we translate them to a contemporary American context?
00:34:34
Matthew Young
you know it's just sorry ah You know, I was just thinking, Joe, that one of the things that stood out to me about this particular um comment that Vance made and the sort of response to it was and that I saw lots and lots of articles, you know, probably an opinion piece in the New York Times or like in plenty of sub-stack articles.
00:34:37
Free Mind Podcast
No, go ahead.
00:35:04
Matthew Young
that wanted to debate the nitty-gritties of the Ordo Amoris or that are talking about um that are talking about like, oh, well, if this is one Christian concept, um then what about the parable of the Good Samaritan? Or that we're saying, oh, Vance vance has got his theology wrong ah in some sense. And I feel like 10 years ago,
00:35:34
Matthew Young
um I would have expected the conversation to be very different. Maybe even six or seven years ago, that the conversation would have been like, um what is Vance doing invoking a Christian concept as a justification for public policy? And um and maybe that ah move this sort of could lead into a different thread, which is,
00:36:01
Matthew Young
It's like, what do we make of Vance's appeal here, like you said, to say this is a Christian concept?
00:36:10
Paul Diduch
ah
00:36:10
Matthew Young
and using it to justify a specific public policy. Not but like you said, saying, hey, look, I'm a dad. I take care of my kids first. As your vice president, I think I should take care of American citizens first. um There's a way he could have invoked a similar idea without making recourse to Christianity. And um like I said, my my Gut reaction was that I think the public conversation around these particular remarks would have looked very different just a few years ago.
00:36:48
Free Mind Podcast
Well, yeah and and if my if I you know put on my I don't know amateur sociologists hat and ask what's changed I'm not sure exactly but I
00:37:00
Free Mind Podcast
Although there are lots of people who express concerns about you know separation of church and state and so on, those concerns in practice normally amount to well you know separation of church you know with politics I don't like in the state or something along those lines, certainly not separation of all religious rhetoric or appeals to religious concepts.
00:37:26
Free Mind Podcast
and state. And of course, that's not what the founders had in mind. The the preamble of the Constitution invokes God, as does the Declaration. um And so I think you've seen lots of calls for certain treatment of immigrants and refugees and other groups that have been rooted in ah you know Christian rhetoric. And and maybe that's and you know you you You mentioned 10 years. Maybe those calls have become more pronounced over the past several years to the point that no one
00:38:05
Free Mind Podcast
can or very few people can can plausibly object to what Vance said by saying, oh, why are we talking about Christian concepts? Because lots of people across the political spectrum have been talking about Christian concepts and appealing to different Christian concepts in support of their you know various policy preferences and goals. And so this this this rhetoric is still, it's with us and so you can't You can't just dismiss it on on those grounds. Yeah, Paul.
00:38:38
Paul Diduch
I mean, wouldn't a more traditional American perspective be something like um there is no expectation for the state to behave philanthropically, which is precisely why privately as ah as a private individual, a private citizen, um I'm perfectly within my rights, even encouraged to to develop philanthropies or charities to pursue these aims that are perhaps more in keeping with the more, um let's say demanding or challenging interpretation of of the parable that that we're discussing. you know So if you're a private citizen, you can create a charity to help immigrants or or pursue these ends. And that would be perfectly compatible with what J.D. Vance is saying in some sense. What do you guys think about that?
00:39:36
Matthew Young
There are a couple of things that come to mind as possible responses. um One is, again, I think some people are going to say that these policies are not just ceasing or ending ah the state behaving philanthropically, but it's the it's actually the state actively harming people. um And so I think some people sort of reject that framing entirely.
00:40:07
Matthew Young
Um, another question, and particularly with regards to immigration, um, the other question that I actually find a little more interesting is to ask whether past say, if the state has been behaving philanthropically going above and beyond and the like, whether past displays of charity, her philanthropy.
00:40:36
Matthew Young
um can actually generate some sort of continued obligation or at least obligation to like end those programs or end that charity in a ah predictable fashion and or the like, you know, you know, I think back to I was in graduate school and my wife's grandmother very generously ah sent me a check for $50 a month to help buy books which on the grad students stipend with a young family like was a really it was a really nice thing to be able to purchase a book or two on Amazon every month and not Not be thinking like which part of the rent or food budget it was coming from um and ah You know, she had no obligation ah to do that and
00:41:30
Matthew Young
Um, but it would have been really, it would have been really sort of, um, frustrating on my part. I don't know if it would have been wrong for her, but it would have been really frustrating to just like be notified that, um, you know, two days before I was expecting the next check to arrive after she'd been sending checks for three or four years. Oh, by the way,
00:41:54
Matthew Young
there's no more text. This is a sort of a trivial example, but I do think there's many ways in which continued behavior or ongoing behavior, even if it's like maybe superrogatory, it's more than what we're sort of demanded of us on the basic level, um might carry with it some obligation to at least when we when we cease those things to do so in a way that doesn't ah leave people completely adrift.
00:42:29
Matthew Young
um ah I just keep thinking of the the phrase, because I'm teaching cod law right now, of reliance interests. And ah I think there there is an argument to be said that like if the United States has, say, been funding and Is it PEPFAR that um ah this PEPFAR program um that ah is combating HIV in Africa that if you're going to stop funding that, even if your take is the United States didn't have to do that, that was awful nice of them to do that.
00:43:09
Matthew Young
that we should try and like, if you're going to stop funding it, you should do so with some sort of, ah you know, sun setting period and so that people can make other arrangements.
00:43:24
Free Mind Podcast
Well, it's it's worth noting and in in response to that that you can can buy Vance's general point about the Ordo and and still disagree with a lots of details of of how ah you know the administration is implementing its its policy agenda at the moment. So there's the you know the general conceptual point, the theoretical point, and then there's you know, the the actual implementation of it. And you might they might like one and not like the other. But I mean, to to your point, earlier, Paul, um you know, this more traditional American argument, perhaps that, ah well, it's it's a private citizen's role to to to be charitable, not the government's. I mean, this is one one reason it's important to pay attention to this
00:44:15
Free Mind Podcast
this translation, as I've been calling it, from the individual context to the political, is that the the Samaritan is voluntarily giving his own resources to help out does the stranger in need. And what's been going on and what goes on in a political context is, well, I, you know,
00:44:40
Free Mind Podcast
I'm channeling my ah my Michael Humor here, my a colleague of of mine and Paul's here at CU. I don't get a say in what charitable causes the United... I mean, I sort of get i get a vote, but in practice, it's you pay your taxes. You hardly know where your tax money is going half the time outside of some you know bigger buckets. And if you don't like that, you gotta suck it up.
00:45:10
Free Mind Podcast
And so this is this is important for... ah One reason you might think it's important from a from Christian context is that there's actually no... The virtue of of love is not being exemplified by me if my resources are being coercively taken from me to help someone in need, even if they should be. um there's's It's a totally different kind of... ah interaction that's going on between me and the person in in need. And then there's, you know, empirical questions people have raised, whether higher taxes and more, you know, government entitlement and welfare and so on programs, whether those crowd out the private giving and decrease the amount of private giving that would otherwise occur. That's, that's an interesting question. But that's that's just one dimension of
00:46:05
Free Mind Podcast
One way in which you might think that the political and the individual contexts differ, and I'm sure we can think of others as well.
America's Identity and Global Responsibilities
00:46:15
Matthew Young
Can we come back to the question of like, and ah why are we talking about parables from the New Testament as a guide to public policy? and Again, because ah I think this is the, in some ways this is a equally strong ah traditional American response and ah to this whole conversation.
00:46:43
Matthew Young
and and You said something a minute ago, Joe, about and maybe reasons that the conversation might be different now than it's been at different times in the past. And I do think, um you know, its ah it's interesting that in the last several decades,
00:47:05
Matthew Young
um you know, I think George W. Bush and Joe Biden were probably two of the most regular church attending presidents in decades, if not over a century of the of U.S. history. And and um ah Biden and his inauguration speech actually talked about Augustine. There was a debate that ah debate then about whether august whether his use of Augustine was sort of on on track, but I remember he said you know that a nation is constituted by a people ordered a around its common loves and
00:47:49
Matthew Young
and and So for whatever reason, we're sort of in a moment where um ah public figures I think are feeling a little more justified and we're a little more free to cite religious concepts or religious beliefs to justify public policy. But um ah those in philosophy will be sort of familiar with this argument from John Rawls about public reason
00:48:22
Matthew Young
that suggests that like if you're trying to make public policy, you have a obligation to appeal to reasons that are publicly accessible. and That is reasons that people who don't share your religion, for instance, will find as compelling reasons. And again, that's something that yeah we ah maybe we could talk about that concept, but it is interesting again to me that um The point Vance is making, and it seems that he could have made it in a way that may be counted as a public reason sort of ah argument.
00:48:56
Free Mind Podcast
Thank you.
00:49:05
Matthew Young
Or at least he appealed to, and ah says, this is common sense. Look at how you make the decisions in your own life. But he explicitly says, there's this idea in Christianity.
00:49:17
Matthew Young
And um I imagine the ghost of John Rawls standing up and it's saying like, ah why are you talking about the Order of Amoris, JD? But I'm curious just what you think about maybe that idea of public reason. um is it it Is it a problem when someone like JD Vance appeals to specifically religious concepts uh, to just, uh, you know, as potential justifications for the public policies he supports. Um, is, uh, uh, you know, is that something we should be suspicious of or question or push him more on, or is it just okay?
00:50:07
Paul Diduch
I mean, one thing that John Locke would want to know is, did Vance make these remarks in his position as magistrate or as citizen? ah Because that would have that would bear on on you know how we should ah think about this appeal.
00:50:27
Paul Diduch
ah Go ahead.
00:50:31
Matthew Young
Well, as as a citizen, I haven't been invited to talk about immigration on Fox News much recently.
00:50:37
Paul Diduch
OK.
00:50:38
Matthew Young
And so I imagine it's in his position as magistrate.
00:50:42
Free Mind Podcast
like Check your spam folder. There might be an Email in there. Well, I mean I think there's a boring answer To your question Matt and then there's a a more um maybe more interesting. I mean the boring answer yeah When he followed up and you know replied some of his critics yeah he did appeal to common sense and I think what he had in mind is um i My guess is he would agree with this. This is a Christian concept, but it's also a common sense concept. It's something it's not a Christian concept that's exclusively Christian, like the concept of the the Trinity or something like that. and so and The fact that it's a Christian concept doesn't preclude its being
00:51:29
Free Mind Podcast
um something that a Rawlsian could get behind. but but But maybe the more interesting, I'm curious to hear your thoughts, both of you on this, is I wonder whether we're dealing with and continue to deal with what we've been dealing with in this country since its founding, ah just competing visions of what America is.
00:51:52
Free Mind Podcast
And there's this very common sense, ah pragmatic strand to what Vance is saying, which is, look, you have a government, it's there to take care of its citizens first and foremost. And you know the the point of the government of Sri Lanka is to take care of Sri Lankans. And the point of the government of you know Botswana is to take care of Botswanans and so on.
00:52:20
Free Mind Podcast
And that's that's one familiar way of thinking about politics that resonates with a lot of people. But here in the US of A, for a while now, people have been thinking of this American experiment as, well, this is the city on a hill.
00:52:39
Free Mind Podcast
And you know American exceptionalism exceptionalism and manifest destiny, these ideas that America has this special place in the world and in world history. And I think the city on a hill, you know that might be secularized, but the the religious, and and I'll add this for my my friend, Matt, the scatological dimension of that kind of vision of what the American experiment is, I think does remain with a lot of people. This sense that America should be special, that that America is not really just for
00:53:23
Free Mind Podcast
or even primarily for American citizens, but that it is for the world in some sense. I think that's that's a powerful strand in American political thought that's manifested in lots of ways.
00:53:41
Paul Diduch
i but First, I just want to push back on the idea that just because Vance was in invited to Fox News that they expect that he speak in a in a capacity that Locke would recognize as the capacity of the magistrate. I'm not sure that that follows. ah So let's just set that aside. ah The second thing is i it might be a powerful strand and no doubt it is, Joseph, which you're articulating.
00:54:11
Paul Diduch
But you know if you ask Jefferson, you know what what matters is is is the consent given by parties willing to compromise.
00:54:17
Free Mind Podcast
Okay. Okay.
00:54:23
Paul Diduch
And so whatever whatever these these competing visions are, the fact is that no one has has become salient or or supreme.
00:54:35
Paul Diduch
And it's the consent that matters. It's the consent that holds the structure together.
00:54:44
Matthew Young
When it comes to competing visions about of what America is, and this I think that's one possible really strong explanation for some of the disagreement here because um ah you do source sort of see this implication or this line you know that, yeah, ah like you said, Sri Lanka is for Sri Lankans and America is for Americans.
00:54:56
Free Mind Podcast
I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide.
00:55:13
Matthew Young
or Whatever that ah the United States is just another a nation that's supposed to be prioritizing the people that belong to the nation. But we and there's one critical perspective, which is say the United States is not just another nation.
00:55:29
Matthew Young
It's been for at least 80 years a an empire. And um as it's been ruling as an empire, it turns out the empires aren't just for the people who live in the imperial core. They kind of have a set of various legal and security obligations to all the various little constituent parts of that empire.
00:55:57
Matthew Young
And you know to that point um ah Sri Lanka doesn't have military bases all over the world. And Sri Lanka doesn't have the permanency on the UN Security Council. And Sri Lanka doesn't um ah doesn't throw its weight around in determining global affairs the same way that the United States does. And so um ah you could see that response um And perhaps, perhaps the ah the Trump administration is saying like, um yes, that's what we have been, but it's time to move into a multipolar world or, you know, to sort of ah slowly, ah slowly wind down the era of American empire.
00:56:50
Paul Diduch
but yeah But even if if you still conceive of America as an empire or, or let's say, the federated empire with with commitments to client states, that doesn't mean you have to ah you know shift gears into a more permissive immigration policy. ah right I would distinguish between those two.
00:57:16
Matthew Young
Yeah, no, that's a good point. and don't I don't know that particular example. I was ah i was thinking more of the like the foreign aid aspects and of this conversation, I guess, not the immigration aspects.
00:57:36
Paul Diduch
But I mean, i mean yeah you're your point about empire your point about empire pertains to the founding, too.
00:57:36
Free Mind Podcast
Well, go ahead.
00:57:41
Paul Diduch
I mean, America really is an empire of states. It's a federated empire of states. ah So you know there there is a sense in which already there's an acceptance of of heterogeneity.
00:57:54
Paul Diduch
um I would say that's only increased.
00:58:00
Free Mind Podcast
Well, in this, I mean, this touches, I think, on your earlier point about um Jefferson and and consent and compromise. There's, I think, a really important question, right? How how much ah how much heterogeneity can can there be before we're just past the point of compromising and consenting and and working together and
00:58:26
Free Mind Podcast
This is a, I mean, there's a certain amount of toleration that's going to be inevitable. We're not inevitably necessary. We're not all going to agree on literally everything. But I think one of the big questions in American politics now is, well, what's what's the glue holding this together? What's the glue holding these different, these hundreds of millions of people together? And it's not clear to me what the answer to that question is.
Vision of America: Global Ideals vs. National Interests
00:58:58
Free Mind Podcast
And just in terms of empire, I think there is a sense of a shift to a multipolar world, but but really what we're, I think we're also seeing competing visions of empire.
00:59:12
Free Mind Podcast
And on the one hand, a vision of empire ah that that thinks of the empire as for the sake, you know making the world safe for democracy. you know So what's the empire for? It's to bring about a certain kind of political vision across the world.
00:59:31
Free Mind Podcast
And perhaps the more America first vision is, well, no, the the point of the empire is better to secure the citizens interests. And so, yeah, we're we're looking into the Panama Canal and we're looking into Greenland.
00:59:48
Free Mind Podcast
and we're ah we're we're renaming the Gulf of Mexico, but we're doing all these things, you know, not not so that there can be democracy and in in gay rights and whatever else in Greenland or Panama, but to advance ah the American people's interests by advancing the American government's geopolitical interests. And obviously you can disagree with all sorts of that, but I think that is that's that's one kind of vision that is out there of the empire. I don't think there's a ah strong political contingent that's genuinely anti-imperialistic. Another hot take to bring it back to the the the Bible in this context, there's ah there's a big part of me that that that buys a thought
01:00:45
Free Mind Podcast
Given the radicalness of Jesus's vision in certain ways, and given the realities of wielding political power, not just in the 21st century, but across time, are followers of Jesus really supposed to be the ones who were running the hundreds of military bases and who are trying to implement some imperialistic vision or other. ah can Can they avoid lying? Can they avoid harming anyone? you know
01:01:27
Free Mind Podcast
through I think there's some interesting questions there.
01:01:27
Matthew Young
Yeah.
01:01:31
Free Mind Podcast
There, of course, you know That's a big can of worms, but I think that's another question is, you know, maybe you can't run a country well if you run it on a certain interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan or or some of, you know, the let alone the Sermon on the Mount. And so this is where you get this kind of, these are two two different domains, kind of a perspective.
01:01:56
Matthew Young
ah I just have to say you left out Canada, um which my students were deeply amused to learn for the first time when they read the Articles of Confederation that there's been a long American dream of welcoming Canada as a state.
01:02:14
Free Mind Podcast
And I apologize to to Paul, who is himself Canadian for for that oversight on my part.
01:02:18
Matthew Young
Y'all
01:02:20
Free Mind Podcast
yeah
01:02:23
Matthew Young
had your opportunity and 1781 when the Articles of Confederation were ratified and you had that nice pre-approval letter.
01:02:31
Paul Diduch
i
01:02:35
Paul Diduch
That's funny Yeah, why I think there's 30% at least of Canadians who whose ears perked up And became very interested in and the idea um but maybe that's for a different podcast I
01:02:56
Free Mind Podcast
And on the other hand, there are maybe 20 or 30% of Americans who would love to see their vision for America is basically to become more like Trudeau's Canada.
01:03:06
Paul Diduch
Sure, yeah. Yeah.
01:03:08
Free Mind Podcast
Yeah.
01:03:09
Paul Diduch
I think your your question about what's holding the American states, regime, people, the substrate together is a very, very interesting question.
01:03:22
Paul Diduch
um I think you know i i I'd be curious to hear you guys you know offer some some thought on this, like maybe just starting with with the minimum.
01:03:34
Paul Diduch
ah It seems like it has to be some kind of commitment to the principles of ah citizenship or the the some vision of of consent as articulated in in the declaration.
01:03:37
Free Mind Podcast
So, uh, this is what we're looking for.
01:03:50
Paul Diduch
um But I wouldn't want to stop there. I'm just curious like how you how you picture this minimally and then maximally. um you know What are you guys thinking about this question? Because I think it is a very pressing one.
What Unites American Identity?
01:04:08
Matthew Young
It's sort of like, what's the apostles creed of Americanism, right?
01:04:12
Free Mind Podcast
but
01:04:13
Matthew Young
like what What is the ah the minimal the minimal commitment? um I think you're right. There's ah some yeah some affirmation, I think, of the idea of ah government by and for the people.
01:04:29
Matthew Young
self-government as worked out through a Principle of consent maybe not a purely locky in one and as many threads in the American founding but in an American history, but um some ah some combination that ah government buying for the people and self-government and ah commitment to the natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. and To me that seems like it pretty close to the minimalistic American creed.
01:05:10
Free Mind Podcast
Well, I guess my question is, should we think of the glue as is credal, primarily or even exclusively? So, and this is one of the, I think one of the other big things that's coming out of the this current political moment, right, is some pushback on the idea that, well, America is just an idea. And you know We can all come here and and just as long. And I think part of the pushback is let's be realistic about why people are coming here. They're not coming here because they love John Locke and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. That's not why they're coming here. And that's not a criticism of them. That's that's just a fact. there By and large coming for economic opportunity.
01:06:01
Free Mind Podcast
my ah maternal ancestors who came here from Sicily and Apulia didn't come here because they read Montesquieu and then read the, you know, Articles of Confederation and then read the Constitution and thought, you know, these guys are onto something. That's not why they came. And so that's, I think, an important point for us to keep in mind. And and and I think another thought is, well,
01:06:29
Free Mind Podcast
Is it enough for people to buy government, buy the people, for the people, some of this these you know basic ideas that are central to American political thought? Or does there need to be some kind of a richer love of this country and its history and its culture and you know the Super Bowl and whatever else you want to throw in there? Do you have people in this country who, you know yeah if there's a major war that breaks out, will lie about being underaged so that they can enlist in the army and and and fight and defend this country. Because that's what you had in many cases.
01:07:20
Free Mind Podcast
two or three generations ago with with World War II. I think there's a fair question as well. Do you have people who love the country enough that if push comes to shove, they will be willing to do that kind of thing in defense of it? and If you don't, then I think that's fine until the next crisis.
01:07:40
Free Mind Podcast
so so i think that That's not super well articulated maybe, but there's some important questions here. I think about what what kind of glue do do you need on a practical level to keep a ah polity unified and and thriving in and and able to overcome the serious obstacles that come its way.
01:07:55
Matthew Young
Mm hmm.
01:08:05
Free Mind Podcast
And we haven't faced the kinds of serious obstacles and challenges that that other countries have had to face in recent decades in terms of outright war on our soil, those kinds of problems. But that doesn't mean we'll never face them again or that other serious challenges won't arise.
01:08:29
Matthew Young
Well, and maybe some of those affections you're talking about or the like, maybe this brings us full circle back to Burke. Maybe many of those affections were ah historically more closely rooted in local culture, in your state, ah rather than in the United States, as Paul said, as a federated empire of states in various forms of um civic association, um you know, your ah religious communities, et cetera. And as um
01:09:13
Matthew Young
many of those other things have declined in importance and declined in influence in the American life. and oh You know, we're increasingly sort of ruthless and increasingly untethered. and And maybe the United States as ah maybe the United States has always been a fairly loose set of associations that bound together an awful lot of very thick associations. And um And as those thicker ah associations decline, it might be difficult to muster up that same um sense of belonging at the national level.
01:10:01
Free Mind Podcast
Well, on that cheerful note, there's a lot we could keep saying, but ah for the sake of time, that's ah I think a good wrapping up
Conclusion and Book Recommendations
01:10:14
Free Mind Podcast
point. I want to thank ah Paul and Matt. It was a privilege and a pleasure to have you both on. Hope we can do this or something like this again soon. For our ah listeners and viewers, do you have an x account or anything similar like that that you would like to share with them anything along those lines a great book you've been reading just before we close out
01:10:45
Paul Diduch
Oh, a great book. Matt, you want to go? i
01:10:51
Matthew Young
Sure. um You know, i ah I'm teaching my intro to political theory students and we just finished reading ah Sophocles' play Antigone and I teach it every semester. Oftentimes multiple multiple class sections every semester and every semester I come away even more deeply fond of that play. and I've read it dozens of times now and I really can't recommend it highly enough, ah especially if you're thinking about questions of love and obligation and affection and ah public policy.
01:11:32
Paul Diduch
I, um you know, those same themes feature in Plato's Laws and I just finished teaching parts of Plato's Laws. It takes them up in ah in a different way, but I had a similar experience going back back to the Laws. It's such an impressive text and I can't recommend it highly enough, especially if you if you know something about Plato's Republic.
01:12:01
Free Mind Podcast
Well, those are some excellent recommendations. Thank you both again. I'm Joseph Porter, and this is the Free Mind podcast.