← Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
Truth, Freedom, Virtue, and the American Experiment with Dr. Robert George
00:58:05
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- [00:00]
A
We mustn't get complacent because it has survived for 250 years. This is an ongoing experiment in order of liberty and Republican government. It could yet fail. It falls to each new generation of Americans to keep the experiment going. So it is up to us. And that's why we need to be hopeful, committed, prepared to do our parts to sustain the experiment.
- [00:24]
B
Welcome to the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and this is the place where we celebrate the bold moves and big ideas. Each week I sit down with inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs and change makers who are making a significant impact in their careers and in their communities. Whether you're looking to level up your leadership, pursue your passion, or just get inspired to take your next big leap, this is where those stories come to life. Now, if you're listening on iTunes, YouTube, or anywhere else you tune into podcasts, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. Now let's dive in to what it means to truly go big.
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C
Welcome back to another episode of the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry. As we approach the 250th celebration of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 2026, we can be asking some important questions. What is freedom for? Can a republic survive without virtue? How do we think about truth? Is it something that's discovered or is it something that's just determined? In an age of cynicism and tribalism and dispute, can we still get along and flourish? Well, few people have actually debated publicly this question more than our guest today on the Going Big Podcast, Professor Robbie George. Robbie is a longtime member of the faculty at Princeton University, leader of the James Madison program, defender of free speech, just advocate for the civil society, an amazing public intellectual and and he is also the author of this great book, Truth Matters, which together with Cornel west, he many multiple conversations demonstrates that people who disagree on virtually everything can still get along and have a productive conversation. So for all of these reasons, Robbie George, I am so delighted to have you as a guest on the Going Big Podcast.
- [02:44]
A
It's good to be back with you, Kevin. Thanks for inviting me on.
- [02:47]
C
In the lead up to the 250th birthday of this country, how hopeful are you for the future of this great nation?
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A
Hopeful is the right word. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic or pessimistic. Optimism is a matter of optics and who knows what the future holds. Hope, though, is a virtue. And it's a virtue that Christians in particular are Required to nurture in themselves and try to spread to others. Hope is an active thing. Hope involves the resolution to do your part to make sure that, well, for one thing, valuable things endure. And I believe that this great experiment in ordered liberty and self government, republican government bequeathed to us at great cost by our founders, is a very good thing and should be preserved and should endure. And so I want to make it my business to do everything I can in my professional life and in my personal life, and I hope everybody will adopt the same attitude. Everybody, do everything you can to make sure that we can pass this system, this wonderful doctrine, this wonderful reality of self government, ordered liberty onto our progeny, our successor generations.
- [04:10]
C
Well, let me follow up on that. First, you talk about the founders acting courageously at great risk and cost. What do you think that Americans today misunderstand most about the founders?
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A
Well, perhaps the first thing that we fail to attend to as much as we should is, is just what great risks they took and what great sacrifices they made. They decided to rebel to preserve their historic rights, not to create something new under the sun, but to preserve their historic rights. They decided that they would be required to rebel against the greatest military power on the face of the earth. When they made that decision, Kevin, to fight the revolutionary war, they knew they were in no doubt that they were basically putting their heads into nooses. The chances of victory against the greatest military power on earth with a little ragtag militia were very small. And yet, with faith in God, they decided to take that risk, to bear that burden, to make those sacrifices. And somehow, miraculously, in God's providence, they did prevail. And when they prevailed, they decided to take another risk. This was the risk of establishing the new government as a republic, that is a polity in which the people, we, the people, rule. Now, the reason that was a risk is that throughout all of history, going all the way back into antiquity and all the way forward through the middle ages and into the renaissance, attempts to establish republics had failed. And when they had failed, Kevin, they very often collapsed into the worst forms of tyranny. So a lot of people at the time believed that human beings are just not fit for republican governments. Every time they try to establish republics, they fail, and often they collapse into the worst forms of tyranny. The best we can hope for, therefore, is some kind of more or less benign despotism. But our founders said, you know what? We're going to give it one more try. We're going to think about why previous republics all failed, and we're going to try to identify the causes and then come to terms with them, deal with them, put protections into place that would enable this republic that we're going to establish to in fact enter. And now looking back 250 years, we can say they did it. They established a republic that did not collapse into a dictatorship. We've had our moments of danger, there's no question about that. Think about the Civil War. The republic almost didn't survive. And Lincoln prayed at the end of that Gettysburg Address while the war was still going on. This is 1863, right in the middle of the darn thing. Lincoln concludes his Gettysburg Address with the prayer that this nation under God will have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, republican government, and for the people shall not perish from. What are the words that follow? Not the North American landmass, shall not perish from the earth. Because Lincoln knew, as the founders knew, that if republican government failed here, after having failed throughout history in the ancient city states and the Renaissance period all the way through, if it failed here, the lesson that mankind would take going forward is that human beings can't govern themselves. We really can't have government by the people. We can have government of the people because all governments of the people. We can have government for the people, if we're lucky, and get a benign despot like a really good king, which occasionally you get, not that often, but sometimes. But what was at stake really was the question of could republican government survive? And had it failed here, that would have been the end. Humanity would have taken the lesson just human beings are just not the kinds of creatures that are capable of governing themselves. Every time they try, they fail. When they fail, things get really bad. Let's just do our best to get a benign despot. Now. They made that decision self consciously aware that they could establish a new king, they could establish a new monarchy. They had an ideal king, of course. George Washington, he was the perfect king. He didn't want to be king. There's no better king than a king who's made king against his will. But of course Washington didn't want. It would have been against his will. He, he wanted a republic and they opted for a republic and it endured. Now, I know I'm filibustering here, but I have one more thing to say in response to your last question, which is we mustn't get complacent because it has survived for 250 years. This is an ongoing experiment in order of liberty and republican government, it could yet fail it falls to each new generation of Americans to keep the experiment going, to keep what Lincoln called the ancient faith, our belief in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. So it is up to us. And that's why we need to be hopeful, committed, prepared to do our parts to sustain the experiment.
- [09:49]
C
Well, you packed a lot into that answer, and I've got about 27 different follow up questions. I can't tackle them all, but I want to start with four. First, the providential nature of the founding. As you noted, I'm going to have John Irwin, the director of the film Young Washington, which premieres on July 3rd, on this podcast soon. And I saw recently an early screening and clearly the message that he's putting forth about George Washington serving and being humiliated during the French and Indian War.
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French and Indian War, yeah.
- [10:26]
C
Was that. I mean, you can't get away from it without thinking he was ordained by God. I mean, horses are shot out from under him, his uniform has bullet holes in it, his hat has bullet holes in it. All these things happen. And yet here we have this band of extraordinary virtue who does the ultimate and says no to becoming the king. Do you think, James, that Washington. Give me your sense of why he is first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.
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A
Because without him, we would not have prevailed in the war. And had we somehow prevailed in the war, we would not have built a sustainable, if I can use that term, a sustainable republic. Washington set the precedents as the first precedent that were crucial in enabling the experiment to succeed and to go forward in big things and little things. For example, he declined to be addressed as your Excellency. That's the way kings and dukes and aristocrats were addressed. He thought, that's unfit as a mode of address for the leader of a republic. Adams wanted Washington to be addressed as your Excellency, and Adams was no fool. But Washington said no. How do you want to be addressed, Mr. President? Just by that, Mr. President? That's why we address our presidents even to this day as Mr. President. That's a republican mode of address, not a monarchical mode of address. We don't say your excellency or Washington choosing not to run for a third term. It would have been his for the asking, and had he lived long enough, a fourth and a fifth. But Washington knew that if we were to have a genuine republic, not ruled by a strong man, that it was important for a president to give up power. And so Washington, with no constitutional requirement to do so, after his Second term, returned to his farm, returned to his plow, Gave up the power of the presidency. This was the second time he'd done something like that. When he won the war, he could have done what most great generals throughout history have done when they've won wars like that. Seized power, taken power, ruled. No, he returned power to the Continental Congress. Now he returned power to the Congress and required the nation to have a genuine election. A contested election happened to be between Adams and Jefferson. Very dangerous election, by the way. Very bitter, deeply polarized. Every bit is polarized or worse than we are today. It was a real question then of whether the nation would survive the election of 1800 with Washington now no longer in the picture. Fortunately we did. I give a lot of credit to John Adams who when he was defeated by his arch enemy, Thomas Jefferson, he rode away back to Massachusetts, gave up power, allowed there to be a peaceful transfer of power between political parties for the first time, actually. First time that happened. So yeah, these were very important things that Washington did. He deserves to be first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen because without him it wouldn't have worked. They were all, all those great a list. Founders were important, played critical roles. Jefferson, Adams, Madison, certainly Hamilton, Franklin. But Washington is first. He was the indispensable founder. You might have gotten along without a Madison. Madison made great contributions. The basic structure of our Constitution. Very important. You might have got along without a Jefferson. Author of the Declaration of Independence. Very important. You might have gotten along without a Franklin. Important in lots and lots of ways. The kind of elder statesman of the group. You wouldn't have gotten along without a Washington. It's hard not to see the hand of Providence in George Washington being on the scene at that moment.
- [14:51]
C
Indeed. Well, you touched on something else about that. You know, if, if it hadn't survived then would it ever come back? Would we ever see a republic on earth ever again? You know, you hear a lot now, especially the United States. I think today about like, you know, if I can't stand living in California anymore, I can move to Texas. If I can't stand living in the Northeast, I could move to Florida. We can do that in the United States. But many people actually bring this conversation to, well, if, and I know you're hopeful, but if this experiment in self government fails in the United States, is there anywhere for freedom loving people to go?
- [15:39]
A
No, no. We're the model. If it doesn't survive here, I don't see where it survives. We are truly an exceptional, I mean there's this concept of American exceptionalism, and for years it's taken a beating from the left. They don't like people to talk about American exceptionalism. They interpret it as, oh, we Americans, claiming we're so great, beating our chests, saying we're more wonderful than other people. When in fact, and this is of course true, we've got the same faults and failings and foibles as everybody else were made out of the same stuff. We're the same flesh and blood and same temptations, sinners, just like everybody else. But now that concept of American exceptionalism is getting a beating from the right as well. There are people on the right who say, no, no, no. America's a nation like other nations. We're not exceptional. But American exceptionalism, properly understood, is not beating our chests and saying how wonderful we are and we're better than everybody else. No, no, here's what it means. Most of the nations of the world have as their foundation and is their source of strength and unity common bonds of blood, for example, or soil. Blood and soil. You know, common race, common ethnicity, common cultural heritage on a piece of land or a common religion thrown an altar. But America's different. We're not like European nations, East Asian nations. We're not a blood and soil or thrown in alternation. Our sources of unity are not in a common race or ethnicity or religion or cultural heritage. It can't be, because we're many different races, many different religions, many different cultural heritage, ethnic backgrounds and so forth. So what binds us together? What are our sources of strength and unity? Well, they're in our shared commitment, despite our differences of race, ethnicity, religion and so forth, our shared commitment to again, what Lincoln called that ancient faith. To the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, to the proposition, as Lincoln put it, that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights to the principles of constitutional government as established in our literal, written constitution. Other nations obviously have constitutions. Until the American Constitution, most of them were not written constitutions. To this day, Britain doesn't have a. A written constitution. There's an informal, unwritten Constitution, but we have a written constitution and a constitution that establishes institutions and establishes ground rules for those institutions that enable those institutions to effectuate the high ideals, the principles of the Declaration of Independence. So that's what's exceptional about the United States of America. It's really what makes us different and has enabled, I believe, our phenomenal success as a republic. So if it were to fail here, I don't think it would have much time left anywhere else.
- [18:50]
C
All right, well, you touched on something else just now. And for a long time, I've known you as one of the leading public intellectuals in the country. Very important, very influential. But I didn't know until I was getting ready for this conversation much about your background, your upbringing, and it's fascinating with what you just touched on. So for the benefit of those listening who don't know, really, the story of Robbie George, take us back to how in the world you came in to be what you are today.
- [19:21]
A
It's a very improbable story, I'm afraid so. I didn't begin my life as McCormick, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton and director of the James Madison program, ideals and institutions. I was a hillbilly kid growing up in the heart of Appalachia in West Virginia. Both of my grandfathers were coal miners. Both were immigrants. My father's dad came to this country from Syria.
- [19:46]
C
From Syria.
- [19:47]
A
From Syria, Yeah. My mom's dad came from southern Italy, from Calabria. My paternal grandfather, the one from Syria, came fleeing Ottoman oppression. He was from a middle class kind of farm family, olive farmers. My mom's dad, my maternal granddad, he came fleeing just the grinding poverty of southern Italy. He wasn't here for political reasons. It was just that the situation economically in Calabria was very bad. They both became laborers, coal miners in Appalachia, where the mines were working in West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania, where I was born and brought up. My mom's dad was able, after about 20 or 25 years in the coal mines, to save up enough money to establish little grocery store. So he became a small businessman and had some success. My dad's dad remained a laborer, working in the coal mines and on the railroads for his entire life. So my boyhood was hunting and fishing and running around in the, in the woods, in the hills and playing bluegrass music.
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C
You're a banjo player, right?
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A
Yeah, I'm a banjo player. Banjo. I came by it honestly. Banjo banjos are issued to little boys at birth in West Virginia. So I got mine and I began playing the banjo. And I still do. I love to play the banjo. I, I, I play all the time. I, I occasionally perform most of the time these days because I'm so busy with everything else. I'm just playing for my own amusement and entertainment and to drive my wife crazy here in our house. But it was a wonderful boyhood. It really was a wonderful boyhood. No one in my family before I did it had been to college before. The reason my dad didn't end up in the coal mines. Kevin was World War II. He was drafted at age 18. He was still in high school, hadn't finished his senior year. He was drafted and taken right out of school, down to Georgia for his basic training and then over to England to cross the Channel to fight in Normandy and Brittany, which is exactly what he did. His troop carrier, the Leopoldville, he was with the 66th Division Black Panthers. His troop carrier, the Leopoldville, was hit by a German submarine by a German torpedo from a Yuba as it was crossing the channel. About 800 men, half the, half the men who were being sent over to Normandy died, half survived. Those who were uninjured, like my dad, who had been scooped up out of the English Channel by English patrol boats, those who were uninjured went on into Normandy and fought there and in, and in Brittany. So because he'd gotten some training in the military, when he got out and returned to Appalachia, he didn't have to work in the coal mines. He had other skills and he didn't get to go to college. But he at least wasn't in the coal mines, which I guess explains why I wasn't in the coal mines. So my mom and dad, neither of whom had been to college very much wanted their children, five of us, all boys, to go to college. And they saw it as the way to rise in the world. And so I was the oldest of the five boys, so I was the pioneer. So I went off to college, to Swarthmore College near Philadelphia, a small liberal arts college, very intellectually intense sort of place, and through a strange incident, ended up falling in love with philosophy after reading one of Plato's dialogues, the dialogue called Gorgias. And that got me interested, especially in philosophy of law and moral and political philosophy. So I went on from there to Harvard to law school and did a master's degree while I was there as well, so that I could study more philosophy. And then from there off to Oxford to do a doctorate in philosophy of law. And then from Oxford I got my first one and only job I've ever had, full time job I've ever had, which is here at Princeton, where I teach philosophy of law and civil liberties and moral and political philosophy. So I've had a blessed existence. I didn't because of World War II, I guess I didn't end up in the coal mines because my dad didn't end up in the, in, in the coal mines. And I love what I, I love what I do. Now, if you ask me where are you from? I'll still say West Virginia. I don't say New Jersey or I don't say Princeton. I, in my heart, still a mountaineer, still a hillbilly. It's my culture, it's my people. Those are my people. But I feel very blessed to have had the career I have. I get to teach the most wonderful students, and they've gone on to such magnificent achievements and making such important contributions in the academic sphere and in other domains. So I'm just a very blessed person, very fortunate. Like Lou Gehrig said he was, he was the luckiest man in the world. And that might have been true in his time, but I certainly consider myself the luckiest man in the world right now.
- [25:00]
C
Well, you are blessed indeed, and there are many reasons. Now we're getting into that. You are perfect for the objectives of the Going Big podcast. But before we go into the manner in which you have truly gone big, I want to touch on a little bit more about your journey. By the way, I grew up in Culpepper, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
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A
And I. I know Culpepper very well. I used to attend a bluegrass festival there every summer. The Culpepper Virginia Bluegrass Festival.
- [25:35]
C
You're kidding. Catholic in Madison County.
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A
I listened to great acts and I learned from great pickers, Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs. I saw all the greats there. I also, you know, up the Ridge, I guess, ways. I used to go to the festival in Berryville. I used to go to the festival in Galax, the Fiddlers convention. They called that one the Old Time Fiddlers Convention. So that area of Virginia, and Culpepper in particular, was a big part of my big part of my book.
- [26:03]
C
That's crazy.
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A
I'll tell you the great thing about being a banjo player growing up, when I did it was this. So most of my friends who were not musicians, to make a little money, had to get a paper route. You know, you end up getting up at five in the morning to throw newspapers onto people's doorsteps or cut lawns. And you're out there in the August sun, you know, sweating to death. I didn't have to do any of that because I could make $20 back when that was just an enormous amount of money. $20 in an evening by playing banjo at square dances with, with my fellow musicians, had a couple of wonderful coal miners. One a pair of brothers named Blackie and Carl Laemmle. And Blackie was fiddler and Carl was a wonderful rhythm guitarist. And I was the banjo player in the band. And a couple of my younger brothers also played. And we could each pick up $20 at a rod and gun club, at a fair, at a fire hall, wherever the band was playing a square dance.
- [27:04]
C
That's outstanding. Well, there are many times I wanted to take up banjo and I didn't. And so I. And I've greatly regret it. All right, but your upbringing, how did it shape your values when you just chose to study philosophy? Was this an academic decision, or did it have aspects of sort of some moral and cultural roots?
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A
Well, it certainly had its moral dimension. As I said, my parents very much wanted the five boys to go to colleges, and we all did, and to graduate schools and so forth. And we went to. Ended up going to very fancy places. We were very lucky, actually. My four brothers all ended up. They went out of state and out of the country, in some cases to college and graduate school. But they all returned to West Virginia. I'm the only one living in exile. I'm still in exile, but I became interested in philosophy quite accidentally. My parents wanted us to go to college, but they spoke of college as the way you would rise in the world, so you'd make more money and have greater professional status, and you'd have more opportunities and live a better life in the material sense and all that kind of thing. And so that's what I thought a college education was all about until accidentally, just as a result of taking a course to fulfill a general education or distribution requirement, I was assigned in a survey course on political theory that I was taking, Plato's dialogue Gorgias, which is a dialogue that asks the question, what's the purpose of. What's the point of what's to be gained from dialogue, discussion, debate, argument? Is it winning victories and showing how brilliant you are? Is it rising in the world and becoming a more important person because you're good at making arguments and impressing people, what's it for? What's the whole purpose? And eventually, Plato, the great philosopher, the great Greek philosopher, brings us round to seeing that, no, the point and purpose of discussion, dialogue, argument, most fundamentally, is not getting ahead, winning, becoming a big shot. It's getting at the truth of things, where truth is understood as something valuable, not simply as a means to other ends, but as an end in itself. Now, it's not that I had thought about that possibility and rejected it. It's that I had never thought about that. And the minute I read that dialogue, I can tell you exactly where I was. Second floor, McCabe Libraries, Worthmore College, back in the left hand corner, sitting on these L shaped sofas, the minute I read that dialogue, I could see the truth. I could see that Plato was right and that I had to reorient myself to think of my college education and eventually my vocation, not just as getting ahead and making more money and having higher professional status or social standing or anything like that, that the most important thing was to get at the truth as best we can. Knowing that we're fallible, knowing we're never going to get perfectly knowing that nobody's going to have a monopoly on the truth, but to dedicate myself to getting at the truth of the most important issues. And that became my vocation. So that's how I turned to philosophy and became a scholar and a teacher in this field. And after that experience, that's all I wanted to do. I wasn't interested in getting rich or becoming a politician or getting power or fame or anything like that. I wanted to get at the truth of things. And that's what I've spent my career doing and trying to impart to my own students, that same love of truth, to try to help them to form themselves, to be determined truth seekers and courageous truth speakers.
- [31:14]
C
Well, thank you for doing that. But most people. See, if you agree with this, most people who would pursue this kind of an intellectual journey would ultimately, I think, sort of have their moral life on one track and their intellectual journey on a different one. But you clearly have brought the two together. Is that because of the pursuit for truth? I mean, because where you are is a very unique, it's very what makes you truly special. But how did that come together? How do you see that?
- [31:45]
A
Well, my faith, which was really nurtured significantly by my interests in philosophy, my faith taught me that all of us, whether we're professors or plumbers or business people or car mechanic, whatever we are, all of us are called to serve, serve others. We serve in different ways, but we're called to serve. That kind of a calling in my tradition of faith is called a vocation. A vocation is not a job. A vocation is not a profession. A vocation is a way of serving. And if you discern your vocation in those terms as a vocation, you will see your job not just as a job or your profession, not just as a profession, but in those vocational terms. So I discerned that my calling, my vocation, the way I am called to serve is through my scholarship, trying to help people think through important questions, questions of meaning and value, law, justice, Morality. And then as a teacher, trying to impart to my students a love of truth and a determination to seek the truth even when you have lots of temptations to veer away from the truth. Truth might be unpopular. It might get you into trouble if you find to discern certain truths, it may be unpleasant. Still, I want my students to dedicate themselves to seeking the truth and as best they can, speaking the truth.
- [33:35]
C
Yeah, you know, I had David Bonson recently on the Going Big podcast and he speaks a lot also of, you know, sort of the biblical basis for your vocation and it is an extension of the gifts that you've been given. But you, you just hit on something that the truth can be unpopular. You are clearly committed to free expression, free speech, and that quite mind boggling. It boggles my mind that that is an unpopular view, but it is in academia to some degree today. Speak a little bit to that. That has gotten you in the, to that you've received criticism in academic circles for your commitment to free expression. Tell us about that. And, and, and how has it been to, to step forward, encourage when you, you know, it's right?
- [34:31]
A
Yeah, well, I've been, how shall we say this, in the minority on the great moral questions of our day in academia from the moment I stepped in the door of academia. So I've been a member of a small minority of people who think, for example, that every human life, irrespective of age, size, stage of development, condition of dependency, bears profound inherent and equal dignity. So I've been a fervent advocate of the pro life cause since I arrived. I believe in marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife. I believe in the family, mom and dad and the kids and then grandma and grandpa and the more extended family. I believe in religious liberty and the rights of conscience. And all of these have of course been very unpopular opinions in academia. Yet they are my opinions. They are where, by my best lights, I think the truth lies. And so it has fallen to me to advocate those positions, make the argument in rather hostile circumstances of the academic culture and the broader elite intellectual culture. And I know that can be daunting. I don't, I don't demand that. I can understand, I'll put it this way. I can understand when some people prefer to keep their mouths shut if they share beliefs like mine, living in circumstances like those in which I live. But I've never been able to bring myself to do that. I've always felt the impulse and the obligation to speak up and to make the argument on behalf of the precious child in the womb, on behalf of the institution of marriage, the conjugal union of husband and wife and, and so forth. And yeah, I mean, these are unpopular positions where I am, but nevertheless, it's my duty, it's my vocation, to speak them. Now. My fundamental commitment is to getting at the truth of things. And that means I need to recognize that I might be wrong. I am not infallible. All of us are frail, fallen, fallible human beings. We can be wrong not only about the relatively minor, trivial, superficial things in life. We'd be wrong about the big things, the big questions of meaning and value, human nature, the human good, human dignity, human destiny. And knowing that we can be wrong seems to me requires us to recognize that we need to open ourselves to challenge. We mustn't fall so deeply in love with our opinions that we refuse to allow other people to criticize them or to challenge them. So I will defend the right of my colleagues who believe in abortion or believe in same sex marriage to state their arguments. In fact, I want them to. If they don't share my convictions, if they think there are reasons that I'm wrong about these things, I want to know what those reasons are just in case I am wrong. If they've got a better argument, okay, I'm wrong. I want them to do the same for me. I want them to respect my right to make my argument. But I think anybody, whether on the right or the left, regardless of what your view is on abortion or euthanasia or same sex marriage or sexuality or whatever it is, I think people across the spectrum, when they recognize their fallibility, should understand that if we're to be serious about truth seeking, we always have to be open to letting other people challenge even our most cherished beliefs, even our most fundamental beliefs. I'll give a hearing to anybody as long as they do business in the proper currency of intellectual discourse. That's a currency consisting of reasons and evidence and arguments. Just like there's an economic currency, pounds and pence in Britain, dollars and cents in the United States. There's a currency of intellectual discourse and it does consist of reasons and evidence and arguments. So if somebody wants to challenge me on pro life, or wants to challenge me on marriage or on sexuality or anything else, all I ask is that they give me their reasons, present their arguments, show me their evidence, and allow me to present my reasons and arguments and evidence and let's see where the truth is. Let's see where the best arguments are. Let's see once all the evidence and arguments are on the table. What seems to be the truth of the matter. So that's why I'm for free speech and I'm fanatical about it. It's not because I don't think there is a truth or that all truth is relative or some nonsense like that. No, I'm for free speech because I think free speech is a condition of the enterprise of truth seeking that we should all be about.
- [39:28]
C
Well, I think it's tough for a lot of people to understand that it does come with humility. I mean, how can you not seek the truth without humility? And, well, I commend you, but you hit on something that I think that today when we speak our minds and can easily become marginalized where we work in polite society in so many ways, and they're those. My own opinion is that those who tend to want to shut down free speech tend to have one particular point of view. I won't go into that. But you've been under a lot of pressure. I mean, Princeton, in the Northeast, in academia. I don't want to put you on the spot, but what is that like for someone listening who probably would choose to shut up or unfortunately withdraw into their tribe? Maybe it's your Appalachian grit, I don't know. But tell us a little bit about that. Bring it to life.
- [40:28]
A
Maybe it is. Maybe it's my Appalachian grit. Just, you know, stubborn hillbilly, you know, I'm. I. Anyway, I guess I have something of a warrior spirit. Not, not that I like to defeat people or crush people or destroy people, but I do like to engage in the giving and exchanges of reasons. I do like to debate and I do want to know what the considerations are that have led another person who's as smart as I am and well informed as I am and well intentioned as I am, to reach a different conclusion. So I'm determined to get at the truth of things, which really does mean that I have to open myself to hearing their point of view and seriously considering it. Not just listening politely while the other guy speaks and waiting my turn to speak. No, no, no, actually listen to his argument, thinking that maybe I can learn something, listen to his argument in a truth seeking spirit. But I do demand the same thing of my interlocutors. They should be willing to listen to my arguments. I mean, I have reasons for what I believe, I have evidence, I have arguments and I want to be able to make them. So I demand free speech for myself, but also for everybody else. And that's not Just a matter of fairness, not just a matter of being fair to other people. Even more fundamentally than that, it's a matter of truth seeking. If you love the truth, then you're going to want to get at it. If you love the truth, then you know that you could be wrong about it. If you love the truth, you're going to be open to being challenged. And I do enjoy, I have to say, I mean, I do enjoy the give and take of argument. One of the greatest blessings of my entire academic career has been teaching with Cornell west and Cornell on the opposite sides of all the big issues. Yeah, I see you got the book there, but I love that.
- [42:22]
C
Speak to that a little bit. Okay. What can we learn from that? I mean, that's amazing that you and Cornell west do this, but what does that teach us about how we can disagree and how friendship can exist, coexist with disagreement?
- [42:37]
A
Well, it can, and Cornell and I are the evidence for that is, you know, the two of us are deeper than friends, as Cornell often says. You know, the concept of friendship is too Aristotelian to try to describe what the two of us have together. It's more like a brotherhood. I feel about him the way I feel like about my blood brothers in West Virginia. Now, you do have to have some sharing. It can't be all differences all the way down. So what do we share? Well, number one, we share a deep commitment to getting at the truth of things. And because we both have this deep commitment to getting at the truth of things, we share the belief that it's important to listen to our critics. We share that 100%. We also, of course, share a deep Christian faith. He comes out of the black Baptist tradition. I'm from the Catholic tradition, but it's a deep Christian faith. So we resonate with Genesis 1, that each and every member of the human family made in the very image and likeness of the divine creator and ruler of all. That is the very image and likeness of God. We believe in the teachings of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the or, blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what is right. That's quite a bit of sharing, even though we disagree about politics.
- [44:07]
C
All right, I'm going to have to start to bring this to a close. And I do want to come back to America's 250th and the founders. We talk a lot about freedom and that's so key to our principles, our rights, our God given rights. But what do you think people misunderstand about the responsibility of freedom and also how virtue is the foundational or are the foundational elements of those freedoms. Would you speak a little bit to your view of sort of the responsibility of a free people?
- [44:49]
A
There is a certain understanding of freedom abroad today, widely held, that identifies freedom or defines freedom as doing what you want to do, whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, with whomever you want to do it, so long as you don't violate somebody else's rights or cause harm to others. Kevin this could not be further from our founder's understanding of liberty and our Founders understanding of liberty is a far deeper and more accurate understanding of freedom. Freedom is not doing what you want, whatever you want, with whomever you want, no matter what. That's not freedom, that's license. And our founding fathers sharply distinguished, carefully distinguished liberty from license. License is just trying to gratify your desires, whatever they happen to be. Freedom is using your intellectual free will, using the powers, God given powers that you enjoy as a creature made in his image and likeness. That is a free and rational creature to try to figure out what's right and to do what's right. Freedom is freedom for flourishing, not just freedom from constraint. Freedom for flourishing means that virtue is essential to freedom. Freedom detached from virtue is license. License in the sense of licentiousness. And our Founders couldn't have been more opposed to that. They knew that with far from being freedom, it's the very enemy of freedom, the antithesis of freedom. We need freedom in order to flourish. We need virtue because it's at the heart of our flourishing. So let's be clear. Freedom is not having your desires gratified. Freedom is not doing what you want, whatever you want. That's not freedom. That's a form of slavery. It's the worst, most abject form of slavery. Slavery to your own wayward passions and desires. True freedom is self mastery. Now it does require freedom from constraint in very many areas. But freedom to constraint so that one can do what one can for the sake of one's own flourishing, one's family's flourishing, one's communities flourishing, one's nation's flourishing. That's what freedom is really all about. And our founding fathers understood this absolutely perfectly. There's no debate amongst our founding fathers about whether, whether freedom is doing whatever you want to do. None of them held that. All of them understood that. That's just licentiousness. Freedom is freedom for flourishing. Freedom that requires, that includes centrally, virtue.
- [47:53]
C
Well, you and I are both old enough to Remember the celebration of America's bicentennial 50 years ago. And one of the takeaways from it was that it seemed to bring people together in the United States. So it was this sort of sense of kind of, I don't know, kind of a little bit of national unity or something. What would you hope would come from the commemoration of America's 250th? I know you're actively engaged in a lot of things, National Constitution Center, a lot of different roles, but what would you hope that would come from this special year celebration?
- [48:33]
A
Well, let's think back, Kevin, to that year of 1976, 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the founding of the nation. That was a tough time for America. We had just come through the Watergate crisis and all the scandal surrounding the collapse of the Nixon presidency. We were divided as a nation in the wake of the Vietnam War. There had been a huge countercultural movement in the 1960s. We were beginning to have the depredations and problems that come out of the sexual revolution and the drug culture and a lot of bad stuff. Now there was some good stuff as well. I mean, the triumph, really, of the civil rights movement, long overdue, comes in the 60s. But it was a tough time for the nation, and it was beautiful to see the nation poor, pull together, inspired by the memory of the founding 200 years ago. So I think the 1776 bicentennial celebrations were successful. Now the question is, will the 250th be successful now? Similarly, we're facing a tough time, a time of deep polarization. The polarization today is worse than it was in 1976, and that was pretty polarized time. I think the polarization today is much more like 1800. Fortunately, it's not quite like 1861, and I hope it never comes to that. But it's pretty bad. And it remains to be seen whether Americans noting this 250th anniversary, recalling the founding, recalling the sacrifices and risks and witness of the founders, will be a rallying cry that will bring us together the way it it happened with the bicentennial celebrations in 1976. I hope so, but we have no guarantee of that. And I do think that the important thing is for people at various places on the political or ideological spectrum to use this as an opportunity, not to score points against the other side, but to affirm that despite their disagreements, there's still a deep unity, something binding us together as Americans. I hope they'll enter it with the spirit that animates my relationship with brother Cornel West. I'd like to see our politicians exemplify some of that, our celebrities exemplify some of that. Our public intellectuals, our TV icons, whether they're the Five over at Fox or the View over at whatever the View was, MSNBC or whatever it is. I'd like to see some grace shown to their fellow Americans with whom they disagree. This did happen. Not 100%, obviously. Nothing's ever perfect. But that helped in 1976, and I think it would do a lot of good today if we could just get some people to model that attitude, to demonstrate it, to set an example for people. And certainly the President of the United States could do something of that. The Democratic Party leadership could do something like that. What if they showed some grace toward Donald Trump? What if Donald Trump showed some grace toward them? Doesn't mean you have to agree. Obviously not. You disagree. And let's be honest, we're not asking for people to give up their convictions. No, we want people to be people of convictions. And people are in circumstances of freedom. People are going to have different convictions, sometimes radically different convictions. But how about a little grace? Can't we acknowledge that even though we disagree, the people with whom we disagree are not our enemies, they are our fellow citizens. They need to be civic friends with us, and we need to be civic friends with them. Now, I mean, this is coming. You're hearing a guy talk who has very firm convictions about things. Right. I, I work very hard for the causes I believe in, the pro life cause, the pro marriage cause, lots of other causes I believe in. So I'm not asking you to moderate your views in that sense, you can have very, very strong views. But let's recognize our fellow human beings, especially those who are fellow citizens who disagree with us as people who disagree with us, friends who disagree with us, but not enemies. Let's sure seek to persuade them if we can, but not to destroy them. We shouldn't villainize them. It's too much of that on both sides. I mean, you know, I don't want to get accused of both sides as my will, I guess, but yeah, I mean, honestly, it's just the truth of the matter. I see a lot of misbehavior, a lot of vitriol, unnecessary vitriol coming from both sides.
- [53:29]
C
Well, this has been an awesome, fascinating, thought provoking conversation. I'm not surprised at all. Close us out, if you would, back to your hopefulness about the future. Encouragement. What encouragement would you offer to those listening, wherever they may be in the world, but also in the United States about how we might live that meaningful, purposeful life. Finding our vocation, finding our contribution, doing. Doing that thing which would be right for our fellow man.
- [54:04]
A
Well, let me share with all our listeners and viewers what inspires hope in my heart. Let me tell you what encourages me. I've been in academic life as a professor now for 41 years. I'm an old guy and teaching at Princeton, I get to teach some of the most brilliant young men and women in the country. I mean, the admissions requirements to get into this place are. I don't know how anybody can get in.
- [54:33]
C
You require perfect everything.
- [54:37]
A
And these kids are ambitious, there's no question about that. And they're eager to get ahead and they want to have successful lives financially and professionally and so forth. And some of them do end up so focused on that that they neglect, I think, the more important issues that should be thought about in the course of a college education. But the hopeful thing is that so many of these brilliant young men and women I teach are morally serious people who want more than just material success, who want to make a positive difference in the world, culturally, politically, morally, religiously. These are young men and women who are brave. We've just been through this really bad woke period where the oppression, the suffocating atmosphere on campus has really caused a lot of people, including professors, to censor themselves. But so many of my students refuse to do that. They boldly, courageously spoke up for unpopular causes on campus and they're winning. They're going on to great success. One of my most brilliant former students, lead co author with me of my book what Is Marriage? Man and Woman of defense, profound pro life witness, has just been offered an endowed chair at Harvard Law School. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. You're about to fall off your chair, aren't you? That's what I'm seeing happening out there. Sometimes people call it the vibe shift. But even when the times were tough, before the vibe shifted, these young men and women I teach showed so much courage, so much grit. I love that word you used earlier. So much determination to. To be people of integrity who mean what they say and say what they mean, and are willing to stand up even when it's unpopular for what they regard as right, what they judge to be true. It's fantastic. I mean, how can I be pessimistic, really? I say I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic.
- [56:51]
C
I'm hopeful.
- [56:51]
A
I certainly can't be pessimistic when I see my students and again, telling you, I'm the luckiest man in the world. I get to teach them. It doesn't get better than that because I get to be around them and they really are inspiring.
- [57:06]
C
Well, Professor Robbie George, what a real treat to have you on the Going Big Podcast. Thank you for all that you do. Thanks for inspiring US and Happy 4th of July.
- [57:16]
A
Happy 4th of July. Wonderful. 250th indeed.
- [57:19]
C
Thanks a lot for joining us.
- [57:20]
A
Pleasure, Kevin thank you.
- [57:22]
B
Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big Podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more content, resources and updates at our website, goingbigpodcast.com Remember, the only limits are the ones you don't challenge, the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep Going Big. See you next time on the Going Big Podcast.