Latest / Thinking Class / #011 - Esmé Partridge: Why King Charles Could Improve Social Cohesion In Modern Britain

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#011 - Esmé Partridge: Why King Charles Could Improve Social Cohesion In Modern Britain · Thinking Class

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everybody.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Today I'm speaking with Esme Partridge.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Esme is an MPhil student in the philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge and a writer for publications including Unheard, The Critic, and First Things.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Esme previously worked for a consultancy at the intersection of religion and politics, where she was involved in several projects relating to religious freedom and interfaith relations.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Today we talk about the shift in contemporary religiosity and spirituality, traditional religion versus a menu of options, the importance of elites and their attitudes, King Charles III's philosophical worldview, and why it could matter for social cohesion in an ethnically diverse and multi-faith United Kingdom, tradition, order and freedom, and the impact of AI on creativity, competence, and memory.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is a deeply accessible philosophical conversation, and while many of us in the modern West don't generally place much importance on monarchy or religion's influence on the public square, Esme shows why both are much more important than you think.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy the show, classmates.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: To keep up to date with all that I am doing, please subscribe to the Thinking Class YouTube channel at Thinking Class and follow me on X at Thinking Classes.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Thinking Class, Esme.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for joining me.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me on.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: You are most welcome.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Esme, I invited you on because I became aware of you as a writer for Unherds, probably uh as our latest monarch, King Charles III, uh uh ascended to the throne, as it were, and you were writing some really interesting stuff about his worldview.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And since then I've seen you write a lot about AI, the Pope, and your fascinating work cuts across religion, philosophy, and politics, which is not normal in the journalistic world.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks so much for joining me.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think we'll have a great conversation today.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, part of what I'd like to get into is the state of contemporary religion and spirituality.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd like to get your take on that because what seems to have happened in the last few years, you know, when I was going through my late teens and into my twenties in the noughties, the new atheist movement was absolutely in the cultural um uh it was the cultural hegemon, as it were, and that was what was percolating through everyone's um uh ideas uh and minds.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what I've noticed, and what what more distinguished people in this uh spirituality space than I have noticed, like Justin Brierly of Premier Radio's Unbelievable, he's he's he's released a podcast, The Surprising Rebirth of the Belief in God, and within that he has people like you know Tom Holland, Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, they're all making Christianity more respectable and taking seriously again.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Ion Hersey Arlee's coming out saying, I'm Christian, having been once aligned to the new atheist movement, there's a civilizational aspect to it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then you've got evangelizers like Bishop Barron and Paul Kingsnorth and and Martin Shaw, who are out there actually bringing the Christian message um in some way.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it feels like the world, despite being as secular as it's ever been, has uh is actually in some way dessecularizing and Christianity is ending it back on the menu.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: What's your take?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you think we are with contemporary religion spirituality?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's it's a really good question, and I think you're right to identify that we do seem to have moved beyond a disenchanted age.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it was very easy to kind of throw that word around uh back when the new atheist movement was happening, back when even the kind of tech industry seemed quite sort of utilitarian and scientistic, but now it's not really the case because as you say, on the one hand, we're seeing a revival of Christian ideas even among the new atheist crowd, and also even Silicon Valley, for example, seems more than ever motivated by some quite explicitly kind of spiritual, quite utopian, you know, ideas sort of in the realm of of Gnosticism and transhumanism, and you know, which which are, whether they're, you know, the right uh spiritual ideas, they are kind of in a sense a re-enchanting um vision, aren't they, in a way?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I think one way that perhaps all of these trends could be summed up, uh, if I could try and kind of put a slightly grand narrative on everything, is that I think spirituality and religion in all of their forms have really just become very, very democratized and very um kind of malleable and sort of customizable on a very, very small scale.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what I mean by that is I think there's this quite clear progression, um, which I think can be compared, can really be compared to the media, I think is actually quite a good analogy.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like traditionally, well, traditionally, but you know, at one point you have like the BBC.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody is tuning into the BBC.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's this kind of national um kind of institution that everybody knows and everybody gets their information and their news from there.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's a bit like the church.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you have this kind of centralized institution.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have the growth of different channels.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have like channel four, for music, vivo, not that that even exists anymore, but you know, like a paralysis of channels.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So cultures kind of splitting off and people are uh adjusting their culture to their own tastes.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So in in tandem with that, you have like kind of new the new age movement, you have these kind of alternative forms of spirituality which become subculturally um popular in the kind of you know 60s, 70s, 80s.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and now if you think about the state of media now, with the introduction of the personal like smartphone, personal computer, even, um you have this complete freedom to totally personalize uh manipulate the algorithm of what it is you consume in such a way that it's perfectly aligned to your own tastes and your aesthetics and your personal dispositions.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And similarly, I would say that spirituality and religion have also become hyper-personalized in that way.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't think it's a coincidence.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think these things are quite um co-constitutive.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially when you look at current forms of spirituality that are growing, I mean, small relatively, but growing among my generation, things like witch talk, um, various kind of syncretic, um, kind of like a bit often quite new age-y, but but at the same time not really like the new age because they're very, very personalized.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, people can choose any blend of like Wicca, uh, shamanism, um, you know, astrology, they can kind of people are very syncretic.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is just one example.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think what essentially I'm trying to say is that we've gone from having, you know, a nation of people mostly adhering to one faith to then a kind of plurality of faiths and now a kind of totally uh individualized form of faith.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think that while what you're saying about the revival of Christianity potentially is true, it's kind of just one of many, many options.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I do think that that's that's an important um qualification, I guess, to make on this apparent revival.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're totally right about people wanting to select from a menu of options.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that that point you made about the once being we would derive our uh well, not just worldview, but our spiritual lives and the um the rituals and traditions that guided those from a central source here in England for the last 500 years, and and just generally this island, the Church of England being the leader of that prior to that, you know, a thousand years of the universal church.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and um and then it became incredibly stuffy and boring and out of date in the 60s with the cultural revolution that we uh that we we we underwent and um and almost became um well not almost, it absolutely became not an option.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh we then went through that new atheist movement, and anyone who had some spiritual yearning, everyone's souls seemed to yearn for something like that, as it started to latch on to other things and people would start looking east.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, anything to do with Buddhism would become incredibly um kind of hip.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And uh let's uh let's get into a kind of uh uh a South Asian um meditation spirituality.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Ether Witchtock thing blew my mind when I came across that on the internet.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I'd heard about it, I'm not on TikTok, uh, didn't really think it was a thing, and then I started seeing videos of uh you know groups of girls on the tube in London um getting involved in it, and people in New York, and I was like, whoa, dude, this is actually happening.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's quite it's quite something when you see it.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but whether whether people will revert back to um the the traditional forms of religion that underpin ultimately our society, uh our civilization, uh remains to be seen.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um do you do you get a sense within your generation?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, talked about that that menu that people are selecting from.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you just think that um that's that's effectively going to be the norm?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: It will be one option from many rather than there being some um overarching revival of the traditional form of religion in in this part of the world.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think probably more likely to be the latter.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there might be some national Tradcath revival or something, and I'll be proven wrong.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but it does, it does seem to be very subcultural.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the other thing, I think the politicization of religious identity, I think, also makes um it less likely that there will be one dominant trend.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I mentioned sort of sort of half-jokingly the kind of Tradcath movement, um, but it is it is real uh and it and it does tend to be um, you know, obviously not not solely um politically defined, um, but generally there is certainly an overlap between people who are, you know, seeking a more conservative kind of group and seeking a more conservative way of life and people who are turning to Roman Catholicism.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so so I think that that in an age which is so polarized, it does seem unlikely that people would all kind of revert to some shared um religious identity.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I th I I I I do I do agree with you.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this is a this is a tangent.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I was uh I follow Louise Perry's work, and obviously she writes quite a lot about um uh the consequences of the sexual revolution.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: She's talking increasingly about um childless Britain and childless people in the West and what have you.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then she's now started to look into groups of people who are particularly um uh proficient at um uh birthing children.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um she uh recently posted something about the the trans-Catholics and um, I mean the birth rates are like nothing else in Britain.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're basically the only um people that align to um like a white European ethnicity by and large, uh albeit we know it is very universal, has people from all ethnicities, but it's basically the only place that you'll find uh white British people or white European people uh producing well above the replacement rate.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's it's quite that's just quite an interesting thing that I stumbled across.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I read this article of um in the telegraph, and I yeah, it's it's a really interesting finding.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I think also does point to the fact, I mean, arguably, yes, if there's something in Catholicism that promotes the family and promotes having children, but I would suspect that it's it's possibly more that people come to Catholicism because they already believe in those quite pronatalist small C conservative values, anyway.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's I mean, I guess the sort of correlation and cause thing um yeah, I mean, I guess a sort of consideration uh in and of itself.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean it's a fascinating point and certainly shows that there clearly is an appeal for these things um among disenchanted and often just very isolated um young people.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's another huge draw.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's actually speaking to a lot of people who are part of these religious communities, um, kind of seemingly going against the trends of their generation and doing so, they are doing it because they they like the actual physical community they get.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not there are certain parts of, particularly in London, like there are there this is like a physical community, and there's that whole um dime square.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know how real that is, but you know there was this article about these kind of Chadcasts in New York.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, if if that is real, I think part of the appeal is that it's actually a physical community, uh, and people don't people really struggle to to get that um, you know, in a post-pandemic digitized age.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, when all of our relationships, I mean, it's quite hard to to call them relationships when you may never have met people in person or you just don't come to actually uh meet them ever in person.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: You got increasing numbers of people who, you know, they prefer uh, you know, in the younger generations to meet their friends on the Xbox, even if they might be living just across the street.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: They don't go out and and kick a ball around the street anymore.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, people don't have phone calls, even let alone uh go and actually meet up in a place and have an embodied relationship.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, I can see I can see how this is uh it's quite remarkable, really, that actually the counter a counter-cultural thing to do is to um effectively be religious, um, and all that comes with it.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um you we we talked at the beginning uh a bit about your work, and you've written a lot about um uh King Charles and his worldview.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I believe that elites matter and the ideas that they hold matter.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And in our country, the monarch is arguably the most important.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, it was commonly remarked uh uh uh about uh our loss, you know.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Emmanuel Macron over in France, he's talking about Queen Elizabeth II being our queen.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't just the British people, and the loss was seen as great because it represented a link to the past and a way of being that doesn't commonly show itself in the modern world.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um how does King Charles III view the world?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: What's his worldview?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's a yeah, a big a big question.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm always I'm always sort of uh feel a need to disclaim that these are kind of my interpretations based off of things he said in his speeches and and writings over the years.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um very interested in it.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I I'll just give this context because uh it might be kind of helpful.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so when I was an undergraduate, I became involved with uh an academic um organization called the Temenos Academy, um, which is one of the charities that, as the Prince of Wales, his majesty funded.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it was actually through the Temenos Academy that I was became well became very interested in the study of philosophy.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um I, you know, went to various reading groups there, and I remember thinking this is quite incredible that you know the person who is funding this charity is going to be the king of England.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is some serious intellectual um kind of gravitas that he must have to be sponsoring these these kinds of um things.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So so that's kind of the angle, I suppose, um also the means to which I became quite interested in in sort of you know what what why you know what interests him, why why is he um sponsoring these charities?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think I think it's important because I think he's very misunderstood, actually.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I I can kind of understand why, because on the one hand, he has got these very um kind of strong views about the environment.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think to a lot of people, unfortunately, there's this connotation between, oh, environmentalism, obviously very progressive, kind of, you know, going all into this very kind of um sort of World Economic Forum brand of uh environmentalism.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then on the other hand, he is supporting traditional architecture, he's building poundbury, you know, these things seem a lot more kind of you know traditionalist.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I suppose at first glance there's possibly a kind of confusion, sort of, well, is he, you know, is he more sort of on the progressive side of things or is he is he more traditionalist?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this apparent contradiction can be explained uh if you kind of look into his work and in particular a book he wrote, which is like I would say relatively not very well known, given that he is the king of England, like few people have heard of this book, um, called Harmony, a new way of looking at our world.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it was co-authored with uh Ian Skelly and Tony Juniper.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the book basically sets out, I would say, uh basically his kind of holistic worldview, um, which is essentially the concept of harmony.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that idea of harmony is a kind of metaphysical principle, um, it's an artistic principle, it's of course a mathematical principle, musical principle, um, which he he traces back to the ancient Greeks and kind of tries to illustrate in the book through lots of illustrations, examples of art and architecture of all civilizations, that there is this kind of geometry um which underlies um human civilization and is ultimately a reflection of a kind of metaphysical grammar.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says he uses this concept of grammar, like there is this kind of metaphysical blueprint uh underscoring the whole universe, which I think is already quite um curious that we have a monarch who's actually thinking in these grand metaphysical terms, and whether whether you share them or not.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think this idea of harmony that he talks about, um, I mean, he he actually is there's a really um great passage in the book where he kind of talks about where he's drawing his inspiration from.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he's quite aware of the fact that harmony sounds like a bit of a new age um idea.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds a bit kind of vague.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he he says there's this quote where he says, um, you know, harmony is not a wishy-washy invention of the 21st century, far from it.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, it's it's a precise principle indeed that's traced back to Plato, Pythagoras, uh, and is there within within Blake, within Handel, within Wordsworth.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and not quoting this for basin, but that that is that is basically what he says.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he he really sees this as a kind of um an idea that's central to Western and indeed Christian civilization.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and it is.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so what does harmony mean?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it really means keeping things in balance.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it means kind of seeing the world as a unified whole, um, the survival of which depends on the careful kind of maintenance of the balance and proportions between different um elements.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so when he talks about biodiversity, he actually is not only arguing that biodiversity is important because it's necessary for species to survive, but because biodiversity is a reflection of this far more universal idea of kind of concord and balance and sort of the interacting of different parts within the context of that whole.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think that that that worldview um is is, yeah, I think the book on harmony is one way to understand it.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um I suppose his views on on religion are also quite confusing, I suppose, uh first glance, because um he's clearly somebody that thinks very deeply about religion.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, I, you know, is clearly spent a lot of time um experiencing um Greek Orthodox communities.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you know, he's head of Church of England and does seem to take that very seriously.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the same time, he has this very generous approach to other religions.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so for example, at the coronation, there was the sequence where there were representatives of members from the House of Lords.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: There was a Jewish representative, a Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and of course a Catholic, um, who all presented the king with the various items of the royal regalia.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so clearly, you know, this is quite a radically inclusive gesture, which I think many have taken to be really a gesture of kind of modern diversity and inclusion.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but again, if you look at his book on harmony, you find that actually it's it's something much deeper than that.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's really coming from this philosophy, which is quite close to the idea of perennialism.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not sure how familiar you are with perennialism, um, but it's essentially the idea that different, well, the major traditional world religions um are all ultimately sharing the same truth.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that doesn't justify syncretism necessarily.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like it means essentially that the way that truth is accessed through in these different world religions is really through tradition, um, and that it's through the stages of initiation um and kind of mastery.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it is quite a sort of hierarchical idea of wisdom, really, um, which is prevalent in all of the major world religions.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it ends up being quite sympathetic towards um, you know, quite a kind of traditional view of religion while at the same time embracing the potential for different religions to share in certain universal truths.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um like bringing into a lot of ideas here, um, and some, I suppose, quite um, you know, people maybe not familiar might just think this all sounds very new age.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: But as I've tried to argue, this the very basic premise that different religions should be um respected on the basis that they share the same fundamental truth as Christianity actually has precedent within the Christian tradition.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and actually, as early as the Middle Ages, you have Nicholas of Cousa who says um quite profoundly and surprisingly that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That since truth is singular, since truth is this kind of Platonic idea outside of the mind, anybody who is striving for truth is essentially striving towards the same object.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is like just a and this is this is the nature of Nicholas of Coza's Platonic um epistemology.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so Nicholas of Cousa actually says when talking about other religions and their claims to truth that all diversity of religions will be led ultimately to one Orthodox faith.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for Cousa, the the the true Orthodox faith is, of course, Christianity.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't preclude, particularly Jews and Muslims, from partaking in the wisdom and the virtue and the truth of Christianity.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that I would say, based off of the things the king has written, he takes a similar approach to that of these kind of late medieval and renaissance thinkers who are Christian.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they're certainly not, um, they're certainly not trying to water down Christian truth claims, but rather they accept and include uh the contributions of other religions because they are ultimately um pointing to that same truth, even if it's imperfect, even if it's not, even if it doesn't grasp the reality of the incarnation, um, they're still essentially.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because I am trying to summarize what's actually uh quite a multifaceted idea uh into a relatively short um summary.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I mean, try trying to uh trying to explain a transcendental truth like that in such a short period of time, you've done a sterling job.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: There are loads of threads you could pull on there.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh the the the those universal truths you've touched on, things like uh beauty, which isn't just about this um uh kind of um aesthetic, uh an aesthetic only view of the the world and for instance our architectural uh creations, but the idea that uh to experience beauty uh to to create something beautiful, it needs to conform to uh a universal order.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you mentioned one of his new towns, Poundbury, and Nansledan's another one.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's quite funny, is that people like to dis people can dismiss tradition, you know.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Modern architects love to dismiss tradition and they can just focus on utilitarian stuff and impress each other with their big jaggedy glass and steel buildings.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but the thing is when you go and poll people um as to where what kind of buildings they want to live in, they will point to Georgian and Victorian buildings.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh what people will want to go and live in Poundry and Nams Ladan rather than a new town that's built in accordance with you know one of the mass house builders, you know, utilitarian kind of pile em high, solemn cheap mentality.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a stark difference between how Charles views the world or King Charles views the world with regards to conforming to this universal transcendent order, conforming with uh the Christian tradition, um, but leaning on principles that have been discovered cross-culturally, but all conform to the same idea, is yeah, they're all quite high-minded, but they have real practical import for the kinds of places that we live and the way that obviously then people are treated, and the way that our our um societies are governed and laws are created, and all of those things.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so this conversation isn't even about abstract ideas, they're things that impact us day to day, and they speak to the very core of who we are.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if you wanted uh to live in a place that felt like a nice place to live, you know, following those principles is probably going to be a good idea.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's why people love Edinburgh and Bath and all of those beautiful cities because they accord to those principles.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what you're saying reminds me.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: What you were saying reminds me of um there's a bit in Roger Scruton's documentary on beauty where he's standing outside um a derelict multi-story brutalist car park, and he's just using this image to point out that actually when you build something purely because of its utility, like multi-story car park doesn't need to be beautiful, it's just a practical thing.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: When you actually do that, it actually ceases to be useful quite quickly because people don't want to use it.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it goes back to that classic kind of William Blake, isn't it?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Who's who says, you know, so keep nothing in your home that is neither beautiful nor useful.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's like actually that combination is kind of of perennial um importance.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't just have something useful, it's um it's got to be beautiful as well to some to some, you know, doesn't have we don't be we don't need Neo-Georgian multi-story car parks.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure there are some, you know, Trad West accounts on Twitter who might think we do, but uh but just you know, in general, these principles of kind of being in accordance with one's environment.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what it's all about.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it is about a kind of harmony with with the natural environment.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I think with the king particularly, the emphasis on the local and the particular um does seem to really come out in his thought.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that and that's that I think is actually the most um powerfully anti-modernist gesture.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually taking to account the particularities of the local and actually trying to kind of live in such a way, you know, both aesthetically, but also agriculturally, um, practically um in harmony with where, with where you're where you're living.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think in that sense, you know, I think the king's own environmentalism I find particularly compelling because it's he's not just speaking in this utilitarian language of like, oh, you know, sustainability, we need to do this by this year, or X will run out, and that's going to be bad for us because, oh, we won't be able to make X product.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's really not speaking in these kinds of crude utilitarian terms.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: He really does see the overall harmony of the natural world as being completely um necessary for our kind of spiritual and emotional um welfare.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I think I would I would agree um quite strongly on that.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I think he represents uh why you know I I know leaders can be very historical in some ways and it can go down a dark path like the Mussolinis and Hitlers of this world, they're very historically literate and used it for very bad reasons.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: But Charles, uh King King Charles III represents, and I suppose Queen Elizabeth II does too.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: The reason why uh we're very lucky to have a monarchy that, and I didn't always hold these views for sure.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: When I was younger, I went down the classic Republican route pointless.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um don't need those, they're just a drain on the economy, that kind of rubbish.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but to to to to have this unbroken thread back to uh the beginning of your country and uh its history, and uh have someone who is highly literate in what it means to be human and the spiritual traditions we've been bathed in, I think is hugely important.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um clearly things have gotten lost a little bit in terms of that um influence, the way that the the monarch perhaps would have been able to um influence a lot more of the way we uh think and see the world in in a world now that we live in where there's you know, including me and you, right this second, hoping that people are gonna we're gonna grab some attention with this podcast.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: But there are so many voices out there, and there's so many things that can take people away and become the way that they see things, that unfortunately, uh the likes of King Charles III's views won't necessarily end up hitting the mainstream.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think there's a yearning for that local and particular with and whether you look at the political landscape and how it's shifting toward populists who are ultimately saying, let's move away from globalization.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: People want to care more about what's going on here, now, in their neighborhoods, in their country, but within their own borders.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, if you're going to then create something compelling, uh compelling vision at home, you're going to need to know your past and you're going to need people like the king's views.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if the social imaginary that, you know, that the that is driven by elites, you know, the ideas and the theories that are prominent that kind of uh cultivate the soil in which we live, um uh how how much do we think King Charles III's views might matter for that social imaginary now and in the future?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's it's hard to say because I think unfortunately a lot of these ideas are, you know, maybe not taken very seriously or kind of not seen as being some you know, some people would even argue that, you know, a monarch shouldn't even have such such um kind of philosophical kind of grand narratives of the way of viewing the world.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I I recently gave a talk um on the king's philosophy, kind of talking a lot about these things, and someone just asked the question, like going way back to basics, should a monarch even hold such views in the first place?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think absolutely should.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think that's because the king has this, when you think about it, the monarch has this kind of metaphysical role in a sense, if you think about the kind of Britain as being, you know, a very diverse um population, you know, kind of it's the many.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have kind of overarching in theory all of those differences and and sort of be it being kind of above it in a way, um, the one, you know, it's like this kind of schema of sort of the one and the one and the many, um, I think is actually quite a helpful way of thinking about it.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that given that the monarch is having to, you know, represent and reside over such a diverse, um, such a diverse range of different people, you know, especially now, why it's like Britain is more diverse ethnically, culturally, religiously than ever, um, you kind of need someone who's able to do it.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that a philosopher, I mean, you know, not to sound exactly like Plato, um, although I often do, um, is is kind of essential.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the whole idea of a philosopher, as per the Platonic definition, is somebody who can perceive unity, who can perceive the unity in a diversity.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, that's essentially what, you know, in in Plato's kind of political pedagogical program, the role of the philosopher king is.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's someone who is closest to that kind of knowledge that can that can accommodate for all diversity of things, because it's it's truly universal.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that what the king, his his approach to religious diversity, I think is actually quite quite promising in the sense that I think it maybe, and maybe this is me being very idealistic, paves the way towards a kind of alternative way of looking at at diversity and and multiplicity.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think in a in the modern age, um, there's a very close relationship between pluralism and relativism.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you know, it's very easy to go from being confronted with a difference of religions, difference of cultures, uh, and then coming to the conclusion, oh, well, clearly none of them are true.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like clearly truth is relative, and we just have to let cultures do their own thing.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: There is no absolute standard.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's this brilliant aphorism by Nietzsche.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I say brilliant because it's it's so conveniently sums up this kind of logic where he says, um, in in the will to power, there are many kinds of eyes, and subsequently there are many kinds of truth, and subsequently there is no truth.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess what I'm saying is that for a lot of people in the kind of modern age, they're confronted with all these differences and they go, okay, well, clearly like true, absolute truth doesn't exist.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's relative.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have this kind of dominant, secular, relativist, liberal paradigm.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think the king's approach, while on the surface, I think people see him as just being kind of, you know, as I say, sort of buying into diversity and inclusion and kind of ticking those boxes, I think he actually views it in a much more nuanced way.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the king is by no means a relativist.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this really comes through in his book on harmony.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: He absolutely does believe that there is a universal truth, there is a universal grammar that that encompasses um all of all of humanity and all of nature.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think he I think he is very platonic in that sense.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even the way that he talks about the environment as being this kind of harmonious um ensemble of of many different parts or playing into a whole.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it you know, it sounds very similar to to Plato's Timaeus.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, forgive the slightly grand comparison, but I do think he's got this vision which accommodates for at the same time a diversity of different people and a multitude who, on the surface, might seem to contradict each other, and then ultimately a unity and a kind of set of values and a positive set of beliefs, you know, truth, beauty, goodness, as reflected in his in his views on architecture, um, clearly does believe there is a universal standard, even if it is, you know, manifesting in different culturally particular ways.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in that sense, I think the king is kind of confronting um modern pluralism in a way which I think is very rare.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, most people would just go for the kind of lowest common denominator, as I say, sort of pluralists, relativists, um, sort of secular relativist view.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: But the king is simultaneously, you know, accepting that diversity, but also having very strong positive views about the sacred, about about beauty, about the divine.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that's kind of the only way that we are going to get through what's obviously going to be an even more, you know, like in terms of like immigration, Britain is obviously only going to become more heterogeneo heterogeneous.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we are no longer going to be able to have a kind of um homogeneity of culture or religion.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's just, you know, that that that's that's that's just not possible.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I think the question is how can you deal with that situation while still maintaining ideas of the good?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: How can you, you know, maintain an idea of truth when faced with that?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that what the king, what he's I think what he's trying to do and what he's trying to express and how he's written things he said, seems to be getting at this possible alternative approach, possibly.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: But this is just my, as I say, maybe quite ideal idealistic um speculation.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I'll I'll I'll hang on to that speculation uh in in fervent optimism that it rubs off on on some people.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, I uh it is uh it's it's it's actually remarkable seeing the difference um between his mother's Christmas speeches and his, and I know you've written about them as well, where he really openly talks about the Christian faith, but in the way that you've outlined today, which is the commonalities that we have as different people, as different faith adherents.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um the only shame is that for uh a great many of our thinking classes, monarchy and any of the aristocratic uh the aristocratic classes are objects of derision in some way, and so they wouldn't necessarily take those things on board or take them seriously, or can or convert their that that pluralist relativist uh ideals into something like Charles's or the king's uh perennialist ideals.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they wouldn't look to that for uh um inspiration, which is a which is a shame because actually, as you pointed out, it may well be the the thread that can tie us all together as a bunch of peoples with uh different religions, because you know, religion um um and non-religions, but they they clearly are the heart of cultures, you know, up until post-second world war United States, Europe, United Kingdom in particular, is as Paul Kings North is as so um eloquently described before, is every other culture before ours had something sacred in its heart.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that a culture does uh flower from that.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um unless you're able to understand the different religions, similarities, differences, and able to tell a story that knits us together, is as you've mentioned, with a future that means more heterogeneity rather than homogeneity, is without that unifying story, then you you head into conflict, which is obviously no good for anyone.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think that there is a particular danger as well of if you don't have that kind of overarching narrative, religious identities becoming very tribalistic and you know, divided along often like ethnic class, other dividing lines.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think I think there is a real danger of religious difference becoming, you know, dangerous in that in that way.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um precisely because we're not able to see the unity uh and we're not able to think about these things kind of more um conceptually.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that's um a danger.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I think particularly given the last 10, 15 years in particular, um, we have seen uh the rise of stratifying people by ethnicity uh in the name of uh you know good intentions um for for many.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: But because we've spent so long talking about our differences, um, is that has now shifted the Overton window and as uh as as to what you can talk about and um and and how it is that you veer people.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: So whereas before, it was, you know, as I was growing up and going to school, there was lots of watching speeches of Martin Luther King, content of our character, not colour of our skin, and all of those things, and talking about the brotherhood of man and uh regardless of the ethnicity or religion.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's changed.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I I would say in this world which has become certainly more fractious and you're less likely to be able to have a robust exchange of views without falling out and brandishing each other, um, you know, an ideological enemy, um it it it's it's it's it's a potentially worrying future to come if we're not able to find that unifying story.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because if if we've suddenly found it acceptable to divide one another across ethnic lines again, having made so much progress to look past those things, uh I think there's much that can be learned from King Charles III.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, whilst you know, we're we're well past the we're many centuries past absolute monarchies, um, not calling for one to come back, but it would be great if he was a bit more influential on our court classes.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and with that, with that in mind, what what do you think the elites uh of today, you know, the thinking classes, um whose utilitarian worldview, the pluralistic worldview is I would say only at odds from from this way of seeing.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: What could they learn?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean I think I think honing in um on that question of kind of utilitarianism and and where does the king offer perhaps an alternative to that?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a there's an idea that he um he actually talks about in a in a it was in a speech he gave in uh in 2006 to a actually a perennialist, um a perennialist conference um run by an organization called Sacred Web.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um he he cited this idea um that comes from René Genon, who is a perennialist, um really the kind of the founder of the kind of 20th century school of perennialism um that the king has shown an interest in over the years.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that that idea of Genon's is the reign of quantity.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's it's basically this idea that that since the Enlightenment Um there's been a gradual uh shift away from the idea of kind of transcendent knowledge um and the qualitative, um, the idea that society um civilization is ultimately about aspiring towards the realization of higher truths and towards um this purely quantitative, materialistic and utilitarian view of reality.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and for Genon, the only real antidote to that reign of quantity um is to return to the wisdom basically of traditional religions, um, which are you know by their very nature um anti-materialistic.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: They see material as being only one of several planes, um, you know, us our kind of ascending above, which um is is you know essential really for our kind of flourishing.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's interesting that the king uh has actually drawn on this on this idea.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm just I I have a quote from this speech of his, which I think is um is really is really great.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's it's quite fascinating that you know the king of England is saying this.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that is that is this.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, modernism, by its unrelenting emphasis on the quantitative view of reality, limits and distorts the true nature of the real and our perception of it.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think what you've got here is this really quite powerful just kind of critique of the modern materialist worldview um as essentially impairing our vision um of things that matter more.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, things, things which are not purely quantitative.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think, you know, one example um of this, which I think is is probably relevant um, you know, in terms of where things are heading with with AI, especially, um, is the idea of like work um and labor.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that that Genon spoke about was how the nature of labor has become kind of automated and there's no um craft anymore.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything is kind of these mass systems, mass production.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, most workers are just a very, very small part, and they are not themselves um seeing the finished product.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: And usually the finished product is like you know, a microwave or something.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not something that has any any sort of spiritual significance.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I think this idea of of the reign and of quantity and how that's impacted.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: um you know modern industrial life, which is obviously so focused on on capitalist production, rather than on, you know, work as something which could potentially create something inspiring or something which improves quality of life in in other ways than than purely material.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think the the kind of need to rediscover those other forms of work um is is you know obviously essential.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: So so yeah I think I think this idea that um I I think also the recognition that this you know supposed reign of quantity uh is really so historically unique.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean arguably the modern West is the only society that's ever taken such a reductive approach um who's really kind of flattened the dimensions of human life in the way that we have um and so I think I think the king's um critique of that as as voiced in that that quote that I just read uh is is quite powerful in combating it potentially.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah it's remarkable that that flattening of human life you've talked about and you can we've we could you can feel it in the uh built environment as we've talked about today I was walking through Edinburgh the other day and from the building I was in I could see over to the St.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Mary's Episcopal Cathedral where there was lots of the beautiful Georgian architecture um that that um led up to the building and um anyway reach reaching for the skies lots of beautiful ornamentation a great portal with you know the biblical stories chiseled into the stone the people who were doing those the laborers of that day would have not been given an exact plan and blueprint of which to follow it's like they they actually have some freedom in their work they're able to add a flourish to it and they also knew what it is that they were building and it was a coming together of all sorts of different um uh disciplines uh that were all towards that I suppose that a universal truth that we've talked about with with with the king but on my walk past St.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: Mary's Episcopal for Cathedral then I started walking further into the south of the city which remains beautiful in lots of different ways you know even the tenement buildings are are built in this this style it nods to Gothic architecture in some way albeit in a in a kind of cleaner way but on the way there were lots of modern buildings being built and I saw the builders out and they were you know typical box buildings insulation getting shoved in um and I couldn't help but notice the difference in the kind of working environment um and that obviously the finished product and when you're in those places you know if you go down to London you walk through the city of London you you can you can be walking for almost you know half a mile without even knowing where you are you could be anywhere else because the way things have been built don't have any reference to people place culture history nothing it's just it could be it could be modern day Shanghai it could be the downtown of Dubai just without the weather you know um and that's a that's a real shame there's a there's there's obviously so much about this this world which is having a dead deadening effect on us.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're coming up to hard stop soon so I want to touch briefly on AI to close.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know generative AI is is becoming the norm in the workplace proponents will say this is great for productivity it's going to free us up to do more creative things.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Personally I think it deadens our soul and our creativity uh because of outsourcing the tasks.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you've written some really interesting pieces um uh both on your observations of ancient Greek philosophy but also on the Pope's view um talk us through those yeah sure um so yeah I would I would agree um I think the main problem with AI or at least my main fear is that it encourages intellectual laziness.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you know given that we're already in a situation where you know millennials and Gen Zs report their attention spans being you know visibly shrunk, there was a really shocking study done by King's College London recently about attention spans, which kind of unsurprisingly but still nonetheless shockingly revealed the extent to which technology has really already inhibited a lot of that deep thinking.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Actually one of the terms that was used in the study, I can send you a link to it later was I think deep deep thinking or something to that effect.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea that because of the kind of constant mediation of technology and the constant presence of it, there is just less opportunity for kind of deep internalizing, reflecting, contemplating all modes of thinking which were you know not only universal but just like necessary like once we just had more free time to kind of process things.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that there is a really important function of you know long and manual if you like thought.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess that goes back to this ancient Greek idea that knowledge actually has to be kind of internalized like the most um the most in terms of like sort of converting mere information to wisdom you know it's about it's about knowledge actually being absorbed in your in your soul.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: Plato gives this analogy of of wax you know when you um when you memorize something um your essentially the external sense object is leaving a kind of impression in your in your sort of waxen memory um and and from that waxen imprint you're internalizing uh and you're then able to kind of go from one experience to an abstract idea and then you know ultimately work your way up this kind of uh divided line of epistemology until you get to the highest um truths and nature of things.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I I mentioned that is because so central to this Platonic theory of knowledge is really the internalization of knowledge.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know I'm sure you know like running this podcast and having your own thoughts about you know all these kind of philosophical ideas that the best ideas really do come from being kind of you know leaving impressions, like thinking about them for a long period of time.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think my fear with I mean all technology um but particularly with AI is that it's kind of circumventing that whole process like instead of really mulling over ideas, you can very quickly get ChatGPT, for example, to just kind of conjure up a quickfire explanation.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm actually very shocked as well the number of times in Cambridge even I'm kind of seeing students in cafes just like quickly generating the odd paragraph or even sentences on ChatGPT and then like copying and pasting them into their essays.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh this is you know this this these things are because they're so tempting right like they really are tempting.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's cutting corners that's what it is.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I get why people think that it's um you know it's kind of potentially freeing them up for other things.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I just think that there's really something to be said for actually studying and internalizing information rather than just quickly kind of grabbing it um you know from from these generative systems.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: Arguably that's a problem that's existed really since the invention of the internet um which I won't go into today because it would kind of involve a very long genealogy.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah I suppose the other the other thing just to say about uh about AI uh and again just technology in general that I think is is a particular concern is is going back to this nature of the dignity of work and labour and what what you were describing earlier, you know, the difference between a traditional kind of manual process of working and creating that uses what Zygmunt Baumann called human wetware, like the human faculties, the kind of fleshy nature of our own our own embodied condition versus these kind of digitally mediated, very standardized, very automated modes of work.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think the former you know obviously like doing manual tasks is is kind of boring and draining and can be exploitative in its own in its own way so I'm not kind of saying that manual work is is is you know always great but there is certainly a dignity in it.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this idea in like dignity in actually working with your hands working like on I sorry it's very ironically saying this like talking to you on a laptop I'm highly aware although you'll be pleased I did make my notes for this in in pen.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: So but I guess yes I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I think I mean the Pope he did a speech on AI recently and um this was actually really major point which is that technology while it has potential to make work to improve our quality of lives and to improve work in certain ways as soon as you make work dependent on technology and you kind of take away the organic human element people actually just don't find fulfillment in it in the same way.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't this organic process of creation which I would argue is and Pope Francis has argued is so necessary to the fulfillment of our human purpose or teleology.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I think automation while it's tempting in the short term I think encourages human inactivity and laziness in ways which I think are only going to prove dangerous in terms of our intellectual and spiritual development but also in the sense of it being exploited by these kind of like Silicon Valley monopolies who have basically all of the access to the technology that the world is increasingly becoming dependent on.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: Those systems all become centralized and then at the level of just you know the average person just trying to make a living work is is increasingly detached from their immediate reality and it's all in this you know abstract system um serving you know this this this this kind of unnavigable and abstract um entity for for want of sounding less vague.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: It does make sense and that's that's a that's my big my big worry with with AI and generative AI and chat GPT is that it effectively outsources everything uh to this black box that you can't see behind you only know how it got there.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: So even if you could see it's working you probably wouldn't bother doing it anyway because why would you do that?
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because you've already got the amateur not going to do anymore.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah we're not going to see the effects of this until far down the line.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a bit like the lag that we saw once the the the um the launch of the smartphones which we then saw showing up in the mental health crises of of kids and then how the way kids relate to one another and all of those things that people are shining a light on.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose the only glimmer of hope is I was walking past the school the other day and saw um big banners outside delay smartphones for your kids.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was aimed at parents and when you listen to psychologists they're like oh you know it's quite hard to not give kids phones at the moment because of the social zeitgeist but now parents who are having children now or in the future they just think no there's no way they're gonna follow the Silicon Valley you know CEO approach and not give their phone give them phones until they're 18.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: So perhaps there might be some kind of social uh awakening in the next kind of 10 years when people go, oh do you know what I feel like I've not really learned anything.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just I'm just parroting what I've been told by this machine and maybe I better get back into the books.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we can live we can live in hope esme uh I know you've got to get off to to to something more important than this.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for your time today.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: I've really enjoyed it.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: For the listeners and viewers where can people follow you and find your stuff?
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have a website which is just EsmeLKPartridge.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: I post most of my articles there um but I also have Twitter uh and my handle is also Esme LKPartridge excellent well thanks so much Esme I'm looking forward to more conversations in the future uh and keep up the good work it's uh it's definitely enlightened me and uh made my uh journeying through the online magazines a much more enjoyable time someone across your your work.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect thank you thank you it's been lovely chatting.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: Likewise take good care see you later Esme thank you for joining me in Thinking Class today.
• 56:05
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• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thinking Class seeks to understand the civilizational issues we face and why what our leaders do in response matters.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: Here I seek to explore the ideas, values and culture that made our civilization, those that are unmaking it and how leaders at our public and private institutions should respond.
• 56:31
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• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: I look forward to seeing you there and joining me on this journey