The Moral Imagination : Recent Episodes
Michael Matheson Miller - Poverty, Inc.
Michael welcomes to the show Joel Salatin, prolific writer, renowned public speaker, and self-described “Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer” to discuss his unique approach to agriculture, animal husbandry, work, and mankind’s relationship with nature.
Michael welcomes Dr. Patrick Lee, director of the Center for Bio-Ethics at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, to discuss his book, “Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics”, which examines the key questions surrounding the very complex topic of what it means to be a human being. In their discussion, Michael and Dr. Lee touch on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, gender, and sexuality.
Professor Jay Richards returns to discuss the second half his book, The Human Advantage: The Future of Work in an Age of Smart Machines. This half of the book focuses on philosophical materialism and its impact on human flourishing.
Dr. Gregory Thornbury, Vice President for Development at the New York Academy of Art and former President of King’s College in New York, joins Michael to discuss the thought of Rene Girard, specifically the concept of mimesis and the mimetic cycle, which can be traced throughout human history.
Professor Jay Richards of the Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business and the Discovery Institute joins Michael to discuss his book, The Human Advantage: The Future of Work in an Age of Smart Machines, which deals with the rise of artificial intelligence and it’s impact on economies, culture, and human life.
Professor Dan Mahoney of Assumption College joins Michael to discuss Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his seminal work, the Gulag Archipelago.
Professor James Otteson of Wake Forest University and the Eudaimonia Institute joins Michael to discuss Aristotle, Eudaimonia, human flourishing, and what it means to lead a good life.
My radio interview with Dr. Bill Maier Live on Faith Radio in Minneapolis on the film Poverty, Inc. I talk about the poverty industry, crony capitalism, foreign aid, NGO’s and Christian charity and how the underlying assumptions about how we think about poverty and economic development.
I also discuss the underlying problem of seeing the poor as objects of charity instead of the protagonists of their own story of development rooted in the creative capacity of the human person created in the image of God. We also cover subjects of microfinance, foreign aid, crony capitalism and the role of entrepreneurs.
Here is a link to a short radio interview I did about Poverty, Inc., on Radio Adelaide in Australia. Poverty, Inc., is playing at the Transitions Film Festival this week in Australia. In related news–we have now played in 50 film festivals and counting!
MMM lecture on the The Thought of Robert Nisbet, the American sociologist and author of over a dozen books including The Quest for Community and the Twilight of Authority.
This is a lecture I gave a while back on this important and thoughtful sociologist and social philosopher. I was having dinner the other night and Nisbet came up in conversation and so I thought I’d put this lecture up on the blog.
If you don’t know Nisbet’s work I highly recommend it and this lecture would be a good summary introduction. He is considered a type of communitarian thinker, but influenced by Burke and Tocqueville and not Rousseau like most communitarians–that is, he doesn’t reduce community to the political community. He thinks Rousseau’s statism and destruction of local communities has been a disaster for human flourishing
If you want to get a better picture on a lot of what is going on in the current political order and some ideas about how to think about it Nisbet is a reliable guide. Start with this lecture and then read the Quest for Community
You can see more of Nisbet’s books on the Books I Like page.
[audio:http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/5/b/5/5b5342452d49e7ac/The_Thought_of_Robert_Nisbet___LQ_2_-_51216_3.36_PM.mp3?c_id=11695020&expiration=1463162217&hwt=47f7ebf6d720da525625e99c46f509b9|titles=The Thought of Robert Nisbet] Outline and Summary Below is an outline and summary of my lecture. Download and print to make it easier to follow along.
Download and print (right click to open in new tab) (PDF)
Here is an interview I did: Is Your Charity Actually Hurting the Poor? with my good friend Matthew Leonard for his radio show and podcast, The Art of Catholic.
http://content.blubrry.com/theartofcatholic/004_Is_Your_Charity_Hurting_The_Poor_.mp3
I talk about issues related to humanitarianism, charity, the call to serve the poor, Catholic Social Teaching and the documentary Poverty, Inc.
Matt is the Executive Director of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology which is a fantastic resource for learning about scripture and doctrine, and author of 2 great books I highly recommend: Louder than Words: The Art of Living like a Catholic and Prayer Works: Getting a Grip on Catholic Spirituality.
He is also a great speaker and you can find his material at the St. Paul Center, Lighthouse Catholic Media and sign up for his newsletter at his website. Matt is also the host of the forthcoming video, Journey Through Scripture. I’ll post more about that when it comes out.
[audio:http://www.michaelmathesonmiller.com/wp-content/uploads/audio/Does%20Capitalism%20Destroy%20Culture.mp3]
Many thanks to Fr. Chad Hatfield, the Zarras family and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary for co-sponsoring and hosting the Conference on Poverty last weekend in New York. I was delighted to be a part of it and visit St. Vladimir’s…and the bookshop of course.
Ancient Faith Radio recorded the conference. You can listen to the whole conference at Ancient Faith. I’ve included some highlights below.
My lecture, labelled Poverty Conference Three, was on re-framing the discussion about poverty around the centrality of the human person created in the image of God. Too often our first response to poverty is to ask what we can do, but the better is question is “How can people in the developing world create prosperity for the families and communities?” I develop this theme throughout the talk. One warning: At about 3 minutes in I showed a trailer for the PovertyCure DVD Series and you will only be able to hear the audio, so I recommend skipping forward to around 7 min or so for the rest of the lecture.
Listen to Poverty Conference Three
[audio:http://audio.ancientfaith.com/svots/vsv_2013-06-05-3.mp3]
The whole conference was very interesting. There was also a good debate in Session 4 that my colleague John Couretas was involved in–and I also recommend the lecture by Jay Richard’s of the Institute for Faith Work and Economics on 10 things to Help the Poor. It is labelled Poverty Conference One. This is adapted from Jay’s excellent book Money, Greed and God and has a good story of Sir Edmund Hillary and Mount Everest as an analogy for economics.
Listen to Poverty Conference One
[audio:http://audio.ancientfaith.com/svots/vsv_2013-06-05-1.mp3]
Listen to the entire conference at the Ancient Faith website.
[audio:http://www.michaelmathesonmiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2.17.09_mjmiller-relevant.mp3]