A Show of Faith
Millennial, Priest, Minister, and Rabbi walk into a radio station...
A Show of Faith
Episode 173: Reclaiming Wonder In A Cynical Age
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What if our obsession with hot takes and deconstruction is costing us the simple joy of being impressed? We dive into the lost art of admiration—why it matters, how to practice it, and what it does to our souls—drawing on Aristotle’s magnanimity, the Beatitudes’ poverty of spirit, and the everyday heroism we often overlook. Along the way, we unpack the “hermeneutics of suspicion,” that default posture of skepticism that treats praise as naive and reduces goodness to hidden power plays. The result is cleverness without wonder and judgment without joy.
We argue that admiration is not weakness; it is moral vision tuned to recognize excellence. Humility gives us the freedom to celebrate others without envy, and connoisseurship teaches us to notice the quiet virtues of fidelity, patience, and generosity that rarely trend but quietly hold the world together. From the grace of a skilled server to the steadfast love of working parents, we map how repeated encounters with real goodness form our tastes and our character. Aquinas reminds us that virtue is a habit; by choosing to honor what is worthy, we become the kind of people who can both praise and critique with honesty.
We also reflect on civic admiration: how to honor a nation’s ideals without denying its flaws. Admiring principles like liberty of conscience and equality under law is not propaganda; it’s gratitude that fuels reform. Teach only grievances, and you beget despair; teach only triumphs, and you breed denial. The better path is to form a heart that can stand in awe of the vastness of creation, admit its limits, and still take up responsibility with courage. Join us for a candid, hopeful conversation about reclaiming wonder, training the moral eye, and finding the courage to say, “This is good.”
If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with one person or virtue you admire and why.
There's something happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a gun over there. Telling me I got to beware. I think it's time we stop. Children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down. But nobody's right if everything is wrong. Young people speak in their minds. I get so much resistance from behind. Hey, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to a show of faith on AM107 the answer. Minister, Priest, uh, Professor, Priest, Millennial, and Rabbi discussing philosophy, theology, morality, ethics, and anything else that interests us in religion. If you have any response to our topics or any comments regarding what we say, we would love to hear from you. And please email us at ashow of faith1070 at gmail.com, ashow of faith1070 at gmail.com. You can hear our shows again and again by listening pretty much anywhere podcasts are heard. Our priest is Father Mario Arroyo, retired pastor of St. Cyril of Alexandria, the 10,000 Block of Westheimer.
SPEAKER_12Hola, hola, Coca-Cola.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that too. David Capes is our professor, Protestant minister, and director of academic programming for the Lanier Theological Library. Is it David? David?
unknownDavid.
SPEAKER_03Oh. He'll be on in a minute. Rudy Kong is our millennial. He is a systems engineer and has his master's degree in theology from the University of St. Thomas.
SPEAKER_10Howdy, howdy.
SPEAKER_03Hello, hello. I am Stuart Federal, retired rabbi of Congregation Sha'ar Hashalon, the Clear Lake area of Houston, Texas. Crystal is our board operator, and she makes us sound fantastic. Thank you. And Jim, if you by any chance happen to be listening tonight, I apologize. I finally remember to hand out your pins, your lapel pins. So I've had them, what, three months ago, maybe? But I remember tonight. So they now have in their possession your pins. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Light Banter And Groan-Worthy Jokes
SPEAKER_12You're welcome. Hey, where do fish go on vacation?
SPEAKER_03Where do fish go on vacation? Yes, sir. School? No. Schools of fish? No. No. Finland.
SPEAKER_12People just remember, people, my job is uh just to bring a little bit of lightness and uh make you all at home groan. We did, I certainly did. I certainly do it. One more minute.
SPEAKER_03If we're if we groan at home, are we homegrown?
SPEAKER_12Oh, I like that. See it, you're getting it. Absolutely. Why did the turkey cross the road? Why did the turkey? Turkey cross the road? I give. So he to prove he wasn't chicken. To what? To prove he wasn't chicken.
SPEAKER_03To prove he wasn't chicken, he crossed the road. I'm just glad I asked.
SPEAKER_12Okay, folks, that's enough uh intellectual revelry.
SPEAKER_03Yes, now we get to the fun stuff.
Setting The Theme: The Pleasure Of Admiring
SPEAKER_12The fun stuff. Tonight it uh it is my job to uh direct uh this uh this thoughtful discussion. And uh Rudy, did you get the article?
SPEAKER_10Yes, I did. It's actually uh it's quite interesting.
Topic One: Costs Of Constant Critique
SPEAKER_12Yeah, I I thought it was I thought it was very interesting. That by the way, the the the name of the article um is um uh the the uh on the pleasure of admiring, on the pleasure of admiring, um, by uh a lady by the name of Elizabeth Corey. I got it from uh First Things, um, which usually is a magazine that is extremely does extremely great work in terms of theological uh and it's ecumenical. Um so anyway, um I've have I've d developed with the a with the aid of um Gemini, which is uh the uh the the AI for something. It's the AI for um Apple? No, for Google. For Google. For Google, yeah. Here's here's uh four the four parts that I would like to spend time talking about today. First of all, um the cost of of critical thinking, meaning does our society has it become so focused on debunking and deconstructing everything that comes our way that the ability to we've lost some of the ability to be moved by excellence and admiration. Point number two. The author of the article suggests that um admiration requires candid self-examination and the ability to admit your own limitations in order not to be jealous, otherwise you will experience the excellence of others as a threat to yourself. Number three, uh admiration as connoisseurship. In other words, can we actually train ourselves to recognize the subtle virtues like humility and piety in others? Or when you're when you're going to uh admire someone's talent, do you have to you have to a certain to a certain degree be educated in the art of that you are admiring in another. For example, if you're going to admire a singer, you can admire them, but uh another singer would be able to admire them even more profoundly.
SPEAKER_03Right, because they would recognize their quality.
SPEAKER_12That that is correct. And then number four, there was a quote um from um uh the uh the um our Aristotle that says that uh admiration that the great man should never admire anything because nothing is really of any any importance.
SPEAKER_03Oh nice.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. So the question is does our cultural focus on independence and self-sufficiency rob us of the pleasure found in being receptive to the talents of others?
SPEAKER_03I don't think it's just that. I think that's part of it. Oh, I agree. I agree. Because I think the main thing that prevents us from holding another in admiration is this creeping cynicism. Yeah, or maybe maybe negativity might be a better word.
Hermeneutics Of Suspicion Explained
SPEAKER_12Let's get let's start with with that. Let me this point number one, okay, and then we'll go in for the three of us to answer the question. Point number one. The the arch the article uh suggests that we are constantly inundated with and the academy is inundated is a culture of being critical. The critical race theory, everything we find, we find deconstruction, we find crit criticism of everything, to the point that it's hardly ever do you find public admiration. Most of the time you find public criticism. Right. Okay? And so the question that is it possible to be in a rigorous intellectual, to be a rigorous intellectual maintaining a disposition of appreciation. Now, let me let me just start but by this. When I was in graduate school, I remember uh the um the one professor uh talking about intellectuals of the late 19th century and the early 20th century, especially Nietzsche, a philosopher, uh, who was very critical of Christianity, uh Freud, Marx, other great, you know, the usual suspects. And even even to the point of uh our own culture today. And they the professor was talking about was what he called the hermeneutics of suspicion.
SPEAKER_03Of suspicion.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. In other words, that when you begin to to um uh uh how do I say uh to draw near? I was I was getting a Spanish word. Uh draw near. Instead of uh a uh a presumption of admiration and of of of goodness, you enter in with uh something I'm gonna look for something wrong here. In other words, right a hermeneutics, by the way, for those of you who don't know what the word hermeneutics is a lot of people probably don't, is a kind of an attitude, the attitude or the filter through which you approach something.
SPEAKER_03By a guy named Herman.
SPEAKER_12No. It's actually by named after the god Hermes. Right, yeah. Okay, which was the god of boundaries in in Greek. Anyway, um, but but that we approach everything, especially religion, that immediately especially s science today, um, approaches every religious insight with an attitude of skepticism. Skepticism and suspicion. You know. So um the now I think it's beginning to change a little bit, mainly because we are finding out that science in and of itself doesn't have its stuff together very well.
SPEAKER_03It doesn't solve every little problem we have, doesn't give us the answers of meaning in our lives.
SPEAKER_12But I don't know that we are yet at the point that Christianity has overcome, and Judaism has overcome the uh the constant attitude of suspicion that uh that religion is the the Marx thing, and the opiate of the people. Um are you noticing are we still in that? Are we still in that in the in the in the in the main thrust of culture? Or have you noticed any change or anything like that?
Religion Under Skepticism And Hypocrisy
SPEAKER_03No, I really haven't. Okay. I think that our culture or society is just as negative, critical of religion as a whole as as ever, as they've ever been. I think you see that look there when God s spoke at Sinai and said in the Ten Commandments which, as you heard me say, are the most mistranslated, misunderstood collections of verses in the five books of Moses. But when when the when it says that you will not lift up the name of God in vain, it doesn't say take the name of it, it says lift up the name of God. In other words, it's ba to make a long story short, it's a statement against hypocrisy. Pretending to be pious, pretending to be religious. My the the examples I give would be somebody uh wearing uh uh uh the yalmulk on top of the head and uh the beard while robbing a bank.
SPEAKER_12Okay.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Somebody with a crucifix around their neck while robbing a bank. It's showing themselves as if to be pious and religious and of God while doing something that makes a lie of religion. And but do you think that's the presumption that people are? I think that's created the presumption. I think that's why God was so strict when it comes to lifting up the name of God in vain.
SPEAKER_12But do you think that's operative in vain?
SPEAKER_03Because I think it's operative. So that every time you have any religion do something that is illegal, immoral, not in consonance with the values of of like the most of the world, like Islam. Yeah. Okay, it casts aspersions on all religions. Yeah. And that's why God was so careful to say what he did in the Ten Commandments. Yeah. Okay. So I I think that all religion gets dumped on first when people obey the religion by doing things that are not in constant with other religions' values, but I also think it gets dumped on when people go against the values of their own religion because they're pr they are showing off themselves as if they are part of that religion. Okay. You don't blame a religion when the people don't do what the religion says. You blame the religion when the religion says to do what they've done.
SPEAKER_12Rudy, you got any opinion on this?
SPEAKER_10It's it's um I think of Joseph Piper's uh, we've talked about this, he mentioned this. Um I got this actually from you, the this author from you, uh, Father Mario, on leisure, the basis of culture.
SPEAKER_12Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_10What a book. What a great thing. It's actually where where we get the the term school from, right? School day?
SPEAKER_12Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Which is uh which is this kind of openness and receptiveness, and uh you know, Chesterton uh Chesterton uh um he said this kind of famous quote, and I and I I remember this from one of his books, but he says the modern critic has mastered the thought that stopped thought. And his his point is basically that. Wait, say that again. Wait, Rudy, Rudy, say that again slowly. The modern criticism the modern critic has mastered the thought that stops thought. Right, right, got it. So what he's saying is is that deconstruction is easy. I mean, we it's easy for us to kind of think about, oh, especially when you when you take uh uh you know, Karl Marx and Nietzsche and all these kind of uh deconstructive uh ideological frameworks, and everything has a hidden motive, everything is like self-interest, everything just kind of masks power, right? And and so you you kind of uh you kind of she opened up that essay with it's like you kind of just learn to hate everything, and it's just terrible, but I will disagree with the rabbi a little bit, just a little bit. So yeah, well you're wrong because he's he's Jewish because he's partially right, so he can't always be, you know, I mean, but okay.
SPEAKER_13Yeah, thanks.
SPEAKER_10But we love you, rabbi. I guess I love you too, even when you're wrong. The only thing, and I know we have to go to breakfast is we do. I do, I do, I do think people, and it's beginning to happen that I think people are saturated with this meaningless, meaninglessness. Yes. And I think people are tired of it, and I think part of a large issue and tension that we see in society today is this kind of breaking away from that. But you know, uh, I'll just say this.
Break
SPEAKER_12I'll say this quickly. I think that the election, and now people may freak out on this, the election of Trump had something to do with people being sick of constantly critiquing the United States, constantly the the whole culture of the trans culture, the sexual culture. Yes, I think to some because look at look at my. Wow. So I don't know what's going on, but that's going up. But this is what's going on. We have to go to a break. It's 1070 KMTH and we'll be right back.
SPEAKER_11Scott Jennings is a simple solution.
SPEAKER_08If you want federal forces reduced in Minnesota, reduced in Minneapolis, it's very simple. Cooperation in the city and county jails is all that's required, and that's all that has ever been required. The federal government has been begging for months.
SPEAKER_11We get it said dude right before you and it too on AM 1070 and FM 1033. The answer.
SPEAKER_12You are threatened by that. But here's an interesting perspective. I think that that is partly uh an issue, uh a religious issue, but a religious issue concerning uh our own personality. If you know that you are loved and created by God and you have your own talents, your own thing that you are good at, right, then the more you are sure of yourself there, right, you don't have to be everything you can admire other people.
SPEAKER_03You're free to admire.
SPEAKER_12You're free to admire.
SPEAKER_03Right. But I think it also what you said earlier tonight is still true. You also have to know something about the person, the task, whatever it is they've succeeded at, to be able to recognize in them their abilities. Yes. And my example of that, okay, that I admire, just as a group, waiters and waitresses.
SPEAKER_12Tell them why.
Connoisseurship: Training The Eye For Virtue
SPEAKER_03Mario, Springfield, Missouri had this steak restaurant. For Springfield, Missouri, I would call it a five-star. For everywhere else, probably they'd call it a four-star. But for Springfield, my parents never knew this. But I got a job there hoping to work there instead of for my father every summer. And they have a training system, and they tell you point blank, if we don't feel you're gonna work out as a good waiter, you will last three days and you will be fired. Guess what? You were fired? I was could not do it. Could not keep it straight, could not balance the when the food comes out to be able to time it to oh I was horrible. So as a result of that, just just a random person coming up to my table and saying, Hello, I'm Joe Schmoe, and I'm you're gonna be your waiter tonight, they're admired by me. Because I I couldn't do it. I I was like almost 18.
SPEAKER_12But do you have a sense of your own um your own value, your own in other areas?
SPEAKER_03In other areas that's not one of them. No. So who do you admire? As a group? As a group? Yeah. Is there a group, like I said, waiters and waitresses? Yeah, but let me think about it for a minute.
SPEAKER_12Okay. All right. Rudy, what about you? Any question? I mean, anything anything having to do with your self-love, your self-admi, your your self- or a group that you admire because you have experienced it somehow?
Saints, Habit, And Learned Excellence
SPEAKER_10I I think yeah, I think it's to your question. It's can we train ourselves to recognize excellence, or must we be educated in this art? And I think Aquinas teaches this, and he says, virtue is a habit, okay, which means it's a habit. It's something that is acquired through repetition. Now, within the Catholic Church, this is what, at least within the Catholic Church, we consider one of the big reasons why we make such a big deal, and of course not as big a deal as Jesus, but of faints and of saintly people, and these images and these uh figures, if you will, because we need examples of this in our lives. And and I think as a group, I would I would probably say um working mothers, rabbi. I think mothers that that are able to take care of their families, and of course fathers too. And I'm not trying to put one on the other, but um I guess just kind of being raised mostly by a single mom, I just kind of have this. admiration for for uh this these women that that just work and care about their family just above all else and and it's just this tireless dedication right but that tireless dedication comes from somewhere right it's this kind of recognition recognition of virtue that you see in others somehow somehow you know whether you received it as a child whether you were uh taught you know by by a good parent but somewhere along the line your judgment was trained right you you grasped this truth um and and you saw this as having an extreme value and so you emulate it right and and and I think that's kind of um to answer your question I think it's both you're right we can train ourselves by repetition but the education it's if I want to learn how to do anything in life right if I want to uh learn a new formula or or learn to cut something like for me I have to see somebody do it first right and and that way I'm able to repeat it I don't know if I answered no you did you did did I get it right coates yes yes you made the basket you got two points it's interesting because to me my admiration the first thing that went into my mind um i is that I I admire the uh the the the philosophers I really do you mean the the ones we know about yeah philosophers what I mean by philosophers is I really admire people who take life seriously you know uh people who the I learned a category some time ago many years ago called naive realism.
What We Admire: Philosophers And Parents
SPEAKER_12Say it again naive realism okay naive realism is the quality in a per in a person and I I don't admire this is the quality of a person that does not a ask any more any deeper questions about life and about reality.
SPEAKER_03Yeah uh and whenever I the most the most in-depth question they ask is what am I having for dinner Yeah yeah and so when I see a person that that questions what's this all about?
SPEAKER_12Where are we going? What what's the point here?
SPEAKER_03Uh that's the kind of person that really just ex excites me and and I want to talk to and get to know and converse with and challenge and be challenged.
SPEAKER_12But the other one but the other people and this is you Rudy just said this. When I am giving out communion and I see um people coming up to receive communion and moms come up with several children and you see them trying to teach them, trying to love them, trying to God I admire that. Yeah I really admire that. So for me because I I don't think they have the time to philosophize.
SPEAKER_03I think they're cleaning butts you know and uh they they're I think it's because they philosophize that they make the time to come and teach their kids for f a philosophy of of Catholicism.
Break
SPEAKER_12Yeah yeah something that they have they they they know what's valuable. I think that that's the point. People I admire people who know what's valuable right what's worth it in life and are not left in the in the constant you know superficialities of life. Okay. Okay this is 1070 K N T H and we will be right back.
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SPEAKER_03Maniac I'm a maniac maniac I can't remember the name of the group or anything else but oh well.
SPEAKER_12Okay. The next part this is an the interesting one interesting point the loneliness of the great soul of the great S-O-U-L-E-D the great people's group great souls souls yeah okay listen to this referencing Aristotle the author of the article notes that a magnanimous man is often too great to admire anything outside of himself that's for Aristotle she argues this is a lonely exalted position so the point is this is there a danger in achieving such high levels of success or independence that we lose the capacity for wonder do we get too stuck on ourselves and because I think to be able to admire you have to have the humility of knowing that you don't know everything. And having an arrogant attitude is keeps you from admiration.
SPEAKER_03So you're not hindered by the light of the city and you can see the vastness of space. And it's only if you think of yourself as if you're able to think of yourself as small can you wonder at the vastness of the universe. Because if you only see yourself as great and big and huge and you know what and the center of the world and center of your world and whatever else you'll never understand the the the vastness of space.
Poverty Of Spirit And True Humility
SPEAKER_12Now I'm gonna bring in something and then Rudy I'd like you to comment on this if you we I presume you went to mass today Rudy right of course I did confession and I think the Eucharist there's certain things you're required to do on this show if you're Catholic so you know okay today today we had the reading of the Beatitudes uh you know what that is of course and uh Matthew five yeah Matthew's yeah something like I don't remember I'm not a Baptist he's not here to defend this I know by the way he just sent a text saying he wasn't gonna make it but anyway Miss you David yeah but anyway the be the first Beatitude I I had a very a very great insight given to me by uh bishop Robert Barron when I listened to his his description the first one is to be poor in spirit and I thought I I I I I kind of understood it but what Barron said is that you are poor in spirit means that you're not full of your own self-aggrandized opinion of your knowledge. You're not full of yourself in other words self-aggrandized opinion of your own knowledge. Right that's what I meant when looking at the stars right so that you that's what made me think of it. You're poor in spirit means you know how little you know because the more and how little you are yes and and that this is one of the things that happened but Thomas Aquinas at the very end of his life the greatest I would say the greatest theologian we have had in Catholic theology in the history of Catholic theology Thomas Aquinas said at the very end he was a very he turned very in much into mysticism and he said at the very end of his life he stopped writing and he had had an experience that God revealed himself to him and he said all that I have written seems to me like straw okay and here is one of the great theologians recognizing the poverty of his own spirit okay there's there's a story in the Talmud that a person should carry two like rocks one in each pocket a left pocket right pocket.
Vastness, Smallness, And Awe
SPEAKER_03One pocket the rock should be imprinted with I am but dust and ashes and the other pocket it should be written on the rock that you keep with you at all times. The universe was made for me and when you feel great and wonderful and like the you you're top of the world and you're the king of your domain or whatever the word is you look at I am you're reminded I am but dust and ashes. But on the other time when you're feeling low yeah then you you then you take out and get reminded that the universe is yours.
SPEAKER_12Yeah but that poverty the poor in spirit right that I think that that the the whole idea of having a balanced opinion of yourself you're not that's that's what it's for.
SPEAKER_10That's the stones are for best Rudy anything from you yeah I think what we have today is is um something that St. Augustine thought uh Pelagianism which is this kind of notion that we can save ourselves right that there's kind of nothing external to us that that created us or that can um at least within the Catholic tradition right save us from from our own sin if you will so um I guess the beauty of of Catholicism the way I see it is so we can't baptize baptize ourselves we can't absolve ourselves we can't um you know only a priest can can make the um can make the ritual at at mass uh for the transubstantiation um so everything is sort of dependent on on one another you know so this this kind of notion where there's this kind of like hyper individualism doesn't it doesn't really drive right and and so when when we you know when you when you're talking about St. Thomas Aquinas I'm reminded also of St. John of the Cross he was he was a renowned poet and and um at the end of his life too he he burned all his poetry it's why we only have like two works from him because he just at the end would say how can how can anything I write compare to the greatness of God and so it's just this these individuals that that have have um a transformative experience and they realize that that I mean as much as of course we are created in the image and likeness of Jesus was the rather wife saying it's important to understand that we are also in that image and likeness and we have worth and we have dignity but at the same time man we are just like a speck of space dust in the middle of nowhere and we are just so tiny.
SPEAKER_03So this this dichotomy of of existence is just you know I could really have you seen the most recent pictures of space no and how oh my God Mario it's like they they they'll say that the measurement from this point to this point is five hundred light years. And it's like you know tiny tiny and and the vastest is just yeah you know you know when people when people say my my current interpretation of the cosmos and it's a fanciful one but I think it may be true. Okay.
Wonder Vs. Deconstruction
SPEAKER_12You know when people say how can this universe be so big and us be alone in it?
SPEAKER_03Well and that has a little bit of sense to it.
Break
SPEAKER_12It does but here's another one part an explanation that I'm I'm currently fascinated with what if the creator wanted to say uh you are the height of creation and I because look at well from the a Christian point of view. Okay. Obviously he put Jesus born in a place that had absolutely nothing it's possibly compared to the earth in terms of its relationship to the cosmos. It's a little outpost of nothingness of Bethlehem where Jesus was born okay and I was like here's my point what if the creator said I I'm I am discoverable but I know that you're going to get to the point of thinking that you're great. Okay but the moment that you discover more I'm gonna blow your screw your your mind by the infiniteness of the universe you want to see you you think you you think you can handle it and then he creates this just literally to blow our minds.
SPEAKER_03Right and and if the closest thing to us is even one light year away, the distance is how far light can go in a year. Yeah. With you know how many generations it would take at present speeds to be a is it not going to happen. Rudy?
SPEAKER_10So they may exist but we'll never meet we'll never meet Rudy I I I just kind of to follow the rap life thought there it's not just outward in greatness but it's also inward in tininess. Oh yeah in tininess so it it tiny in tininess yeah so it works not just in the scale of magnitude up but it also works in the scale of magnitude down because the more we keep digging the more we keep looking into microscopes and looking and observing and observing and observing the more we find holy moly we have just we have to come up with some crazy theories to explain everything. I mean I don't want to say crazy but just super complex things to kind of explain how all this thing ties together and and it's easy.
SPEAKER_03But but it it doesn't have to tie together and there may not be an explanation and so what we have to deal with what we have and we have to make sense of it and find meaning in it. So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna try to understand biology on a distant planet. I want to understand biology on our planet.
SPEAKER_10Yeah but that's when we when we when we look through the lens of transcendence great but when we look at through a Marxist angle for example kind of what we were saying in the beginning you find or you look for deconstructing power principles in everything. So it's it's it's this kind of contrast right it's can you live can you live with the unknown and just admire or do I have to pull everything apart and just rip it open and destroy the beauty and see what's beneath it.
SPEAKER_03You know and that's kind of what we're stuck in in this kind of society today is is can we just sit and admire God's creation and re reverence right we need to ad uh we have to go to break yes admire and and and and understand or whatever but we have to have a sense of our own I'm not sure how to what to call it we have to have a we have to have a an a sense of our own ability but also our own inability there has to be a balance which you said a few minutes ago.
SPEAKER_12Yep we got to go to a break okay this is 1070 KNTH and we'll be right back.
Why Quiet Virtues Go Uncelebrated
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Cynicism As Cultural Currency
SPEAKER_01Alex Marlo wants the country to stay productive the algorithm is what we need to fear because it's what controls our minds controls our brains and controls our time. How much time left left I don't know how much I'll tell you one thing I don't want to spend so I hope President Trump comes up with some way to make the algorithm a little bit more productive is keep an eye on this and we can do better as a country that is civilization.
SPEAKER_03Alex Marlowe's job we did spend 11 right before Scott Jennings on AM 1070 and FM 1033 the answer welcome back to a show of faith on AM107 the answer and Karen thank you that was Maniac by Michael Cimbelo for the movie Flashdance and Sharon is a past port operator of ours yeah yes many years ago she lives in Dallas now yeah you know went north to the cold country to the cold country the ice and the snow yeah come on back down to our cockroaches and our great thank you that's enticing thank you but but do you admire the cockroach no I do not that's the one thing you know there are there are things that sometimes you say why did God create this you know a cockroach is one of them well I would my first thing would be a mosquito but okay okay well right now yes no or why did God create allergies that's true. It's the season it's cold but it's still the season.
SPEAKER_12Okay last discussion point Yes Why does our culture struggle to celebrate character traits that don't garner widespread praise because they don't garner widespread praise therefore what do you mean I'm I'm I'm well how can be why does our culture struggle to celebrate character traits if it's not celebrated why would it be celebrated if it's not
SPEAKER_03Admired.
SPEAKER_12But for example, um uh faithfulness, um generosity.
Admiring The American Ideal
SPEAKER_03Um the No actually our generosity is looked at as foolishness.
SPEAKER_12Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, it's always put downs.
SPEAKER_12It's always but you know, the the thing uh the thing I I was thinking about is that in the in in our culture, the culture, the Western culture, as much let me tell you, I I think our culture is awful. It's disgusting, except for all the others.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yes. Democracy is the worst form of government except when compared to all others.
SPEAKER_12Well, others because we're all in a situation, the human condition.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_12But but we are in a culture that celebrates the rugged individualism that I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Mario, I I don't think it's necessarily the rugged individualism that leads to the lack of the ability to admire. I think it's the admiration that people have of the cynicism. It's the elevation of the critical. Like like uh like I'm not doing my job unless I can be critical of everybody else's work or something. It's like it's expected that well, you're just not cool if you think everything is cool. You're only cool if you think everything is bad. And I think that's I uh I don't find it.
SPEAKER_12But do you do you find that our culture sort of uh elevates the rebel, the person who is constantly against society, the the it for example, the detective that breaks all the rules to get the bad guy. The the the for even now we the the the whole thing that's going on with immigration, that no, let's not get the law, the uh let's make sure that uh we rebel, we protest.
SPEAKER_03There's a certain amount of celebration that instead of being Right, you go against the law and you go against the people who fight for the law because you're not cool unless you do so. Yeah, because we're I pat myself on the back for who I am and what I believe in and my morals if I if I don't hate the people that you're supposed to hate.
SPEAKER_12Trevor Burrus, Jr. You know, i i i i I think all of us here are pretty kind of leaning on the right side of politics. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03Yes, the right side of the politics. The right side of politics.
Teaching Admiration Across Generations
SPEAKER_12But especially I find immigrants, and I think Rudy would back me up on this. I wonder why immigrants, whenever I hear the United States brought down, people don't know. I admire that that's one thing I do admire. I admire when I see the flag of the United States, I I I see the story of uh mixed, it's not it's not all good, but it's the struggle to the ideal. See, this is something that that was told to me some time ago. You can live in France, but you're never going to be a Frenchman.
SPEAKER_03Right, right.
SPEAKER_12You can live in Spain, but you're never going to be a man. Never going to be a Spaniard. You can live in anywhere, and you're never going to be that, except in the United States. Exactly. Why? And the reason why is because this is the only country that is based not on blood, but on the principles. Right. On principles. Yes. Even the whole idea of uh that w you know, because these days academic academia is focused on how bad the United States is, how horrible it is, and it isn't compared to everything else. Right. It isn't, because it it it is based on the ideal, and even though we fail the ideal, we still reform ourselves. Okay. Right, right. And and I admire that, speaking of that admiration, I admire the United States of America. I really admire it.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Absolutely. I you know, two operative operative sayings that have been lost in our society. First one is your rights stop where mine start. And I forgot the other one, but ah. Your rights start where your rights stop where mine start. It's okay.
SPEAKER_12It's a it's an issue, it's a issue of being elderly.
SPEAKER_10Do what? And your and your stop where my starts.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's what I just said.
SPEAKER_10That's what I tried to say.
SPEAKER_12Rudy, wait, do you feel the same thing about about about let me let me give you let me tell you a story?
SPEAKER_10Let me tell you what happened this past weekend. I was it was my sister's wedding, and she is married to well, and funny enough, Rabbit, she's she's married to a Jewish uh man. So um it it was it was interesting. We did uh um there's a lot of things that that were pretty cool. We did celebrate the uh uh the Catholic Mass and there was a lot of Jewish stuff going on, and you know, we broke the glass at the end, and it was uh it was it was really cool. But after after, um some of the family of the uh of the groom is a little, let's say, left leaning. And they came down and and so uh what what I think was was curious is that they they from a few of them I hear I heard some very negative comments. Oh, the United States is so bad, and I can't believe what it's doing to immigrants and and you know, we're gonna be able to do that. Do they know who they married into? Well, what's funny is that I didn't say anything. It was a wedding, it was my fifth, I'm not trying to start a whole family feud, but I almost said, you know, I'm an immigrant, I was naturalized, and I voted for Trump. So how does how do I fit it into your whole uh schema of understanding there, right? And you know, I I just there's really nothing that bothers me more when people talk, and I and I think part of the problem, Father Mary, is that I think a lot of Americans are, whether they choose to or not, quite ignorant of how just crappy the rest of the world is. I agree.
Closing Thanks And Listener Invite
SPEAKER_12Oh totally.
SPEAKER_10They have no idea.
SPEAKER_12We have no idea about it. We have no idea of the the the wonderful how great we have.
SPEAKER_10And I'm not saying the US doesn't have issues, it has crime, it has murder, it has Of course, of course. But the fact that you can sit and on live TV emulate the president and cut off his head like this red has got her name. Yeah from years ago, comedian lady.
SPEAKER_03I can't think of her name.
SPEAKER_10You know, I I can't even begin to name you the amount of countries that that would get you killed immediately, right? And so it it's just absolutely ridiculous. The amount of free speech, of of liberty, of potential for economic upbringing.
SPEAKER_12Rudy, even in England immeasurable in England uh these days, though you say something critical about somebody in a public forum, you could get arrested. Yeah, you can be arrested.
SPEAKER_03So to me, and what's beautiful about Canada, you can be arrested for giving the wrong sermon. Yeah. For being a clergyman.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Well, do you realize it was in Finland?
SPEAKER_12Yeah, do you realize I'm glad we're ending on this because we're talking about admiration. And let me tell you, there's to me, the greatest, of course, God for me is the first. But to me, always the United States, I every time I hear the national anthem, I get goosebumps.
SPEAKER_03I hope there are still people as little as twenty years from now who can still say the same thing. Because I worry about it. For my grandkids, for my kids, I worry about it.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. Any closing thoughts? I think a lot of Go ahead.
SPEAKER_10I think a lot of it, Rabbi, is what we teach. So this thing, this admiration for the U.S. Father Martin, it didn't come just from you, right? I mean, this is a family thing. I mean, your your mother probably had something to do with this too, right? And and so the same thing with Munch. So, Rabbi, we have to teach our generations the same admiration that that we feel, and we have to pass that down because the reality is it's a scary word.
SPEAKER_03We are coming up pretty fantastic. Rudy, on that idea, we are coming up with the 20 and 50th anniversary of the founding of the United States. What how are they gonna celebrate it? Oh, yeah. What are you gonna do about it? Are they just gonna have parties? It should be Freedom Day. It should be celebrating the freedoms we have here guaranteed to us by our Constitution.
SPEAKER_12It's not only that, it's it's the whole idea of what it's based on. The United States, this is one of the things that I'm at the very end. When the Declaration of Independence says we hold these truths, truths to be self-evident, self-evident, this nation is based on the revelation of the Jewish Christian tradition. Absolutely. It's based on you take away that, and you're not going to have a country. And that's what worries me. Well, but you know what gives me hope, and I know that not everybody agrees with this, but the fact that we had two parties, left and right, and this country, as much as some people held their nose while they voted for Trump, they voted for Trump.
SPEAKER_03Because he's Mario, uh but only if both sides can admire, to use our topic tonight, the other side of the aisle. I agree. If they can't admire the other side, and they would vilify them.
SPEAKER_12Yep. Well, we will not vilify the fact that we are running out of time.
SPEAKER_13Right.
SPEAKER_12Yeah. Okay. But uh it has been an uplifting discussion, my friend. Who's next? Who's next? I am. I am Okay, so Father Father. Yes, Rabbi Stewart Rabbi Stewart show to director next week. Is next show show director. So we give you we thank you for joining us tonight. And please remember that you are always in our prayers. So you make sure to pray for us.
SPEAKER_11Find us at AM ten seventy theanswer.com. Download our apps, stream us twenty four seven, K N T H and K two seventy seven D E F M, Houston.