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Interlude LXXXIII: Obligation | Marcel Mauss, Alasdair MacIntyre, Inherited Debt, Family Loyalty, and the Responsibilities We Never Chose
What do we owe the people who came before us?
Can gratitude become captivity?
And how do we distinguish a genuine responsibility from a debt that was assigned before we were old enough to refuse it?
In Interlude LXXXIII of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey examines obligation as an inherited relational force. Drawing upon the work of Marcel Mauss and Alasdair MacIntyre, the episode explores gift exchange, reciprocity, moral responsibility, family loyalty, intergenerational debt, narrative identity, collective history, and the responsibilities that begin before personal choice…
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