Virtue requires action. Thinking about what is right and wrong is good, but it doesn’t lead to virtue until we take action. So, wee must be sure that we don’t stay in the world of debate. Instead, we should ensure that our ideas take shape in the form of actions, habits, and virtues.
I talked to Stephen and Brian about this and much more in my interview with them about building a virtuous society. In our discussion, we covered politics, virtue, friendship, and much more. It is a great discussion for young men looking to learn more about what it takes to be virtuous.
You can watch the full episode here or listen below.
Transcript:
Nick Jamell:
But if they never come to life because you never take action, then who cares? I mean, it’s you really didn’t do anything with that.
Brian Murphy:
Yeah, we need toe order our actions according to virtue, according to you know what’s good, What’s true, It’s beautiful. The problem today is that we’ve ordered our actions towards what we’re passionate about, what our passions are telling us, what what makes us feel good. You know what gives us pleasure and there’s not any. There’s nothing wrong with being passionate with, you know, feeling good, having pleasure. The problem is you have to direct those things towards what is good.
Direct Actions toward the Good
They have to be directed towards was virtuous and not the other way around. And I think that’s the real problem is that if we only focus on tweeting out things that they’re going to get lots of likes, well, does that really matter if they’re not true? If they’re not good, if they’re not gonna help people, um, so and I think that just applies to everything that we do today. I almost feel like the social media and the Internet has molded us so much that it everyone is just going out there and doing things to, like, impress other people. And instead of, you know, ultimately, um, doing things because it’s it’s good and because it’s pleasing to God.
There’s a Lot of Despair
Stephen Sloyer
And I think the real question is obviously well, what do you do? I think a lot of people are really down and out about the state of our society. On git could be for a lot of reasons, you know, could be because Biden’s president and the world’s ending or, you know, whatever it may be, there’s a lot of reasons for people. I’m really both sides of the aisle, politically or culturally, to to feel bad about the state of things. And I think if you look at polls however much you trust them, they kind of reflect the direction of the country is not going very well and it hasn’t whether Trump or by nor Obama’s in office.
Tragedy of the Commons
And I think this this gets back to the tragedy to comments which I brought up at the end of my last comment, where a lot of people can look out of society and see that a lot of these things that they may not like. Let’s say, if you’re you know much more traditional, you’re Catholic or Christian. You know you may not like the over sexualization of culture or you may not like, you know, let’s say, casual dating. That’s something you and I are talking about in our podcast right now. Brian on the issues with that.
Well, because it’s so far out there, it’s being pushed in every single aspect of society. You may just say, Okay, well, if everyone else is doing it, that I might do it as well and that’s, you know, that that’s a really argument A lot of people have to deal with, especially young people, and it’s not just about sex or relationships.
There’s a lot of a lot of, you know, realities that people struggle with that they have toe, you know, kind of contend with, and I would actually tie this into the whole game stop in shorting stock thing. One of the things that’s come out today, which I find hilarious, is that there all of the major news companies last week they tried to get people to sell Gamestop and they tried to make it seem like all of these companies, like Melvin Capital, were selling their shares, which they’re not, um, our I’m sorry.
