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Robert P. George is a famed professor, working at Princeton University. He began modestly, in the hills of West Virginia. He went on to Swarthmore, Harvard, and Oxford. With Jay, he talks about a slew of issues, including abortion, gay marriage, nationalism, refugees, and lawyers. He also talks about the fate of our civilization. If it dies, he says, it will not be from evil but from cowardice (itself a kind of evil, to be sure).
An hour with Robby George is an hour with a genuine teacher and thinker.
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Speaking as a straight single male I would like to offer an opinion on gay marriage. The zeitgeist has given married men an enormous advantage in the employment market over equal and even more qualified single men. Being able to check off the married box when applying for a job, an apartment or even a loan is a huge benefit for a man but irrelavent for a woman. Had marital status been as determinative as eye colour or hat size in the ethos I doubt “marriage equality” would have become a thing. Young men would be well advised to get married early, stay married or failing that get a union job with a major corporation, like a railway, where qualifications and seniority will get you ahead not whether you have a wife. No worries ladies this does not apply to you.
Thank you, Jay, for fantastic interview! I trust you might enjoy Professor George’s recent conversation with Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks on Princeton Campus.
Very good conversation! Jay, I don’t always agree with you, but you are generally very thoughtful.
As a native West Virginian hearing Dr. Robert George speak of my home brings me to tears.
Man I miss that place. Reminds one that place has spiritual as well as physical dimensions.
I’d love to listen to this. I don’t suppose there’s a link to this conversation? I tried searching Princeton’s lectures on the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions site but wasn’t able to find the conversation you mentioned.
Would they? By which measure? Anecdotal, the zeitgeist, rightly understood, is not kind to traditional marriage. I have a great deal of skepticism about the claims in your post — but this is all besides the point. As Robert George asks, what is the fundamental purpose of marriage? Nothing you identify relates to his measure, and I share Prof George’s measure.
Without searching through the podcast feed again, did Robert George say it was Plato’s Protagoras that fundamentally shifted his thinking?
I actually wrote it down! It was Dialogue of Gorgias.
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/gorgias.html
Thank goodness. The way the companion was crushing on Socrates’ love-boy was making me uncomfortable.