Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Rebecca Newburger Goldstein, an

American philosopher, novelist, and public intellectual. She is the author of ten books, many of which crossed the divide between fiction and nonfiction. Her latest book is called Plato at the Google Plex, Why Philosophy Won't Go Away. The book is an exploration of contemporary relevance of philosophy. Goldstein is a MacArthur fellow, has won the National Jewish Book Award

and numerous other honors. In September of two thousand fifteen, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in a ceremony at the White House. To get a free download of Eric's favorite Rebecca Goldstein quotes, go to one you feed dot net slash Rebecca and here's the interview with Rebecca Newburger Goldstein. Hi, Rebecca, Welcome to the show.

I'm happy to have you on to talk about your latest book, Plato at the Google Plex, Why Philosophy Won't Go Away, and also to talk with you a little bit about the fact that you just won a National Humanities Medal, which was presented to you by the President at the White House. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like and then the ceremony itself.

You know, what it reminded me of was in the Iliot, when a warrior is in great danger and he's about about to be killed, and the god who favors that particular warrior just sort of smoops down and picks him up and put him some place on some beautiful Frank will Field, and he looks around. He was like, what has happened to me? That's what I felt like. It was just somebody swooped it down and picked me up, and I was back in my life and thinking what

just happened to me? I can't believe this happened to me? So, yeah, it's it was. It was a kind of transcendent experience. Yeah, I bet, well, congratulations, that's really a that's a big deal. It was, It was, It was great, and I have to say that it was. I don't want to get political, but the fact that it was that particular president meant a great deal to me. Yeah, yeah, that sounds amazing. Well.

Our podcast is called The One You Feed, and it's based on the parable of Two Wolves, where there is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed

and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather, and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Certainly, I'm a great believer that there are certain emotions in us that we ought to cultivate and and enlarge, and others that we should try to

shrink as much as possible. I was interested in the in the parable as you just told it, because they're both they're both called wolves, and wolves are usually thought of as um. I don't know what's kind of um, not particularly lovable beasts, very very clever beasts, but that particularly lovable not like dogs. UM. You know that they're

both called wolves, um, and and I do. I do think that actually those those negative emotions are more they are more wolves like, and they're more voracious, They're very strong, and that it's very easy to let things like you know, resentment and anger and hatred overtake you, and it's much harder to cultivate and to enlarge the the wolf emotions that um. Gratitude is is another one that I would put there on the list. I think that's in a

very very strong, a very important emotion to to cultivate gratitude. Um. And that's that's you know that that that can be more difficult, especially to make them grow so that they're not just directed to the people who are genetically connected with us, you know, our own our own family and tried can um, but you know, the world at large. That's very very hard. Um. But one of the things I said thinking about was that they're both wolf like in the sense that they can you know, they can

take you over. They can, they can. It's kind of eat you up. And what we want is for the loving, ennobling, grateful emotions to to take over one's personality as much as possible. But that's that's hard. I think one has a bigger appetite than the other certainly seems to be and that seems, uh, there's plenty of the bad wolf

food kind of laying around. It really is, you know, and it's probably an evolutionary you know, legacy that we are very devoted to ourselves, our own will to survive and for our own uh you know, kim to survive, and we have natural feelings of empathy towards you know, those who are very close to us. But it's it's much it's much harder to to uh, to feel it for the world at large, and that it takes real efforts. So one seems to just sort of naturally be there

and the other the other takes great effort. Yeah, we had a guest to said that the good Wolf is kind of the runt of the litter for him, which made sense to me that that one takes a little bit more effort to feed. So your latest book is called Plato at the Google Plex, and it's pretty clever in that what you do is you basically cast Plato into a bunch of modern settings. One of them is, you know, going to Google and the other is going to a book reading, like we were just talking about

before the show. And so if I were to be able to get Plato on the show, which would really be quite a guest, um, they'd have to feature us on iTunes if we had Plato. I'm pretty sure if we were able to get Plato on, what do you think he would have to say about the parable Plato would have a lot to say about this parablel I mean, in some sense this is exactly what he was most concerned with which was how do we nourish what's good in us? And how do we start what's not good

in us? And he believed that it was reason um, that it was the kind of philosophical reason and ethical moral thinking that he was trying to develop the various techniques for that we're seeing our way clear of our innate selfishness and self centered this scene, he knew it

as well as as well as wed. He didn't have the benefits of knowing about evolutionary psychology, but he knew he was a great observer of human nature, and he knew that there was a great tendency in human nature to be self centered, to be egotistical, to be greedy, uh, to be angry, to be resentful. UM. And in that he actually used oh you know what, it just he uses a parable that he that that features two animals, not wolves, but two horses and a and a charioteer.

So there's this chariot and it's being pulled by two horses, and one is good and noble and can be easily controlled by the chariot here and yeah, there is wild and and and lotful, and UM wants what it wants. It's only aware of its own desires, um, And there's that charioteer, which is, you know, one's controlling self, trying to trying to rein in the bad horse, and and

and and goad on the good horse. And so it's very it's very similar actually, So he's very concerned with this, and you could actually say that he was developing philosophy, and he really is in some sense the founder of the Western tradition of philosophy. He was trying to answered precisely this question, um, how do we reign in what's bad in us and cultivate what's what's good in us?

And he felt it was reason uh, And it was trying to gain perspective, trying to gain some sort of objectivity over one's own life, and understanding the nature of virtue, what it is, and why it's good for us, uh, and why it's good for all of us, you know, why it's good for society as a whole. So this is really the ruth of of Ustern philosophy lies in

trying to answer precise as a question that you're posing. Yeah, the subtitle of the show is Conversations about creating a life worth living, and that idea of a life worth living is you have it in the book many times that that's what Plato was concerned with exactly, so you know he he was very much under the influence of of of Socrates, and there's so much so that you know, Plato wrote in in dialogue forms, which is wonderful because it's art. It's not only great philosophy, but it's great art.

It's kind of philosophical drama, and there's really there are sort of real characters and almost real stories that run through through a lot of them. But he features Socrates, who was this eccentric character in in Ancient appens in almost all of the dialogues. We have twenty six of his dialogues, and in twenty five, Socrates is often the main character. Sometimes he takes a more marginal position, but

he's often the main character. Um And one of the earliest dialogues is Plato's presentation of socrates defense his apology because he was brought up on charges of capital, charges of having challenged the gods as been impious and corrupting the youth. And in the apology that that Plato gives us Socrates others what is probably the most famous found bite in you know years of Western velocity, which is that the unexamined life is not worth living. Let's work

our way back to how Socrates got himself into that position. Um, And it's going to be sort of a long journey, but I think we're gonna come right back to this point in a minute. One of the things that you talk about in this book and uh, in some of your other books is this idea that is humans we have this incredible will to matter. You talk less about meaning and about the fact that we are we are desperate to feel like our very short time on this

earth actually matters in some way. And Um, you sort of play off of a couple of different ways that we as humans go about that. And you talk about the Greek approach to mattering, which will will follow down the road here back to Socrates, and but you also talk about at the same time the Hebrews were coming up with a different approach to mattering, and you say that Western society has kind of bounced back and forth between those two ever since. Can you explain a little

bit about each of those approaches to mattering. Yeah. So it's really amazing because in this period that we're talking about, UM, when the Greeks are inventing philosophy. There are there are, there's a tremendous kind of normative ferment in a large part of the world. Um. So there's you know, the Hebrews across the Mediterranean, UM, who are quietly at this point working out their own view as to what it is to live a life worthly, living a life that matters,

that features. Eventually they come round to the idea of of one God. Takes a while, but of one God who created the physical universe without, in the moral universe within, and to live a life that matters is to live as He wants you to live. Of you know, the beginnings of a real supernat trall answer to this question of what it is to live a life that matters. And the Greeks, even before philosophy, even going back um I argue too to the Homeric times, um, to the

Iliad and the Odyssey. Although their society was filled with gods, it was a policyistic society when it came to acting this kind of question, what is it to you know, what is it to spend one short time here in a way that that matters? Um. They didn't look to their gods. They actually gave a very uh human answer to it. It was to do something out outstanding. Um.

You see this in in in the Homeric code. UM. I call it the ethos of the extraordinary, to do something so that, um, you don't really want to impress the gods in that if you if you attract too much of the attention and of the god, something bad usually happens, you know, a rape or murder, or it was something pretty bad usually. Uh, So you really don't

want to attract too much attention from the gods. What you want is to really well others so that your name will live on this idea of your doing something glorious. And the word for glory was was claioffs. To do something glorious so that you would win same and that also was the word claioffs. So the glory and the same. The measure of the glory is the same to have your name on other people's lips, of it is so

that it won't be as if you had never been. Um. This was this was how they saw it, living a life that matters and that kind of propped up you know, certainly the Athenian society and you're saying far more than that, in that it created a group of people who were very very focused on being exceptional, allow of competition, a lot of striving. That that made some of the civilization possible. But then Socrates comes in and he sort of turns

that on its head exactly. So, so yeah, I mean, you know, so the Greeks, I mean, they were amazing, right, they created a culture that that you know, still makes our jaws drop and uh. And they were quite impressed with themselves also. But they're you know, they're highly competitive. They was divided into many different city states, and they would compete with one another. I mean, the Peloponnesian War was thought between the two leading city states, Starta and Athens.

So you know, it was it was a highly competitive society. They would compete at theater, and they would compete in more. They were compete in rhetoric, and they competed in thinking too, So it was, uh, there are many parallels between their society and in our society. So when Socrates gets around to considering this question and of what is it till of a you know, a life worth living, um, a life that matters. He again, he's very Greek in the sense that he doesn't bring the gods into it. It's

nothing like the monotheistic answer. H that that that that the Hebrews working on. But you know, it is an answer in terms of achieving something great. So in that sense, he's also very Greek. But the greatness has nothing to do with uh, impressing others. It has to do with achieving real knowledge and achieving real virtue, you know, figuring out what is just and what is good and doing it. And you may not impress your fellow citizens and and Socrates.

And the proof is, of course, the Socrates didn't impress his fellow citizens. Well, he did many of them. He certainly impressed Plato and many other thinkers, but he didn't impress his fellow Athenians citizens. Uh. You know, they sentenced him to death, and then they they voted him guilty, and then they voted him uh uh that he deserved to die, and he died by hemlock. And so it is uh So it's it's in some sense a very Greek answer. You know, it's not in terms of the

gods or god. Uh. It's in terms of what we can achieve, and it takes all of our work. It's very very hard. But it's not measured in terms of the claim that we win. It's really more in our character, in our characters and our mind, you know. Uh, it's it is a good thing to know more. And it is a good thing too to be a good person. Um. Yes, and that you know, depending on the society you live in, that may not be valued, but it is of value. And that's where he Plato and Socrates to really diverged

from the rest of their society. You say that Critiz is presented as asserting something so radical that his hearers think it has to be a joke. He would, he says, rather be treated unjustly than treat others unjustly, which sounds um, at least for that time, right, a crazy thing to say.

Now absolutely, and um so this isn't well he says in various places, but he says it very very strongly in a dialogue called the Gorgeous and that you know, he would far more rather be the victim of a tyrant um, you know, imprisoned and and and tortured than be the tyrant who has ultimate power and can do anything he wants. Because that tyrant and his power what seems like power is simply destroying himself. He's destroying his soul. He is he is not living a life worth living.

He is wasting his brief time here on earth um by by committing on justice. And uh, I think that's an extraordinary uh message, it's it's fun. I believe in very pretty strong like and and it's fun. I think that's still sounds shocking, you know, then when you say, look, you know, I know I wouldn't want to have all this power if if what I did with this power was pursues, you know, silly things or or even unjust

things inflicting justice on others. Than that, I'd rather be powerless, right, And that is certainly a statement very out of vogue in most of today's world. You came up with this idea that you called the will to matter, and you you came up with a concept, actually in a fictional book, but of something called the mattering map. What is a mattering map? This idea of the mattering map UM, which is which is caught on? I hadn't realized that it's been used in UM and all sorts of contexts UM,

even behavioral economics. I had first proposed it in my very first book, um and, which was a novel. It was called A Mind Body Problem and it was published in three so very long time ago. And uh, I came up with both these ideas of the will to manner in the in the mattering map, because I've written this novel about this young woman. And my editor at that time said to me, you know, I don't understand

Renee Foyer. This is this character, she's she's she's so beautiful in then you know, she's sosorrible and she's so right, and she's so miserable. She's always on the verge of despare Why And I thought about this, you know, what was it about this character? And I realized she didn't feel like she mattered, that she wanted to matter in a particular way. And that's the idea of the mattering map,

that we all, we all want to matter. We don't want it to be the case that you know, it makes no difference that we lived, h you know, that we hadn't shown up for our existence, it would have made the whole difference at all. Sometimes it's terrible thought to us, maybe even more to terrible terrible than the

thought of death itself. Um but but we all find different ways of of trying trying to feel like we matter, you know, for some For some people it's you know, I know people from you know, just being the best dress person in the room is the way that they really feel, you know, that they matter. If somebody else is more flashily dressed, they they they take a hard hit or um through some sort of art through music or um poetry or her novel writing, or for being

very very smart enough for U Renee Lawyer. Um, she wants, that's what manager she wanted. She was, she was in philosophy. That was the field she had gone into this as I had. And um, it's a field in which your judge very um, they really on how smart are you? It's it's it's such about people in there, you know, graduate school. How good is she? How good is she meaning you know, how how smart are they at at at this this kind of very subtle and difficult reasoning.

And she worried that she didn't matter in the region of the mattering map that mattered to her, and therefore she didn't matter. And so if she was the one who really came up with this whole idea of the mattering map, and and she comes, you know, at the end of the book to the realization that you know, we all of us matter to be human, it's to matter. And yes, there are things that each of us feel, you know, are worth pursuing, and it differs among us.

But our our sense of you know, our right to live, you know, whether in that really fundamental sense we matter shouldn't depend on that on whether we matter in this particular region of the mattering map. That there's complete relativism there. You know, you want to matter, you know, as a flashy dresser, I want to matter as a good philosopher. Um, there's complete relativism and subjectivity there, but on the level in which it really matters. Um, we all matter exactly

the same amount to be humans. If to matter, you know, I think we're actually realizing that, realizing that about ourselves and about others. It's another way of understanding what human dignity is. Is a way of of feeding um the good wolf. I think it's one of the most important ways we have a feeding or good wolf to realize to the extent you know that any of us truly matters.

We all matter in exactly not the same way m M. In the book you have a dialogue between Plato and his book publicist about an idea that Plato holds that

she finds pretty difficult to stomach at first. And the basic idea is that in the same way that a dentist, for example, is better able to, you know, fix our bite and adjust our bite in our mouth, then say Chris sitting over here, that there are also people who are better able and trained to determine what a life worth living means, what living well means, That that decision is not necessarily made best by the person themselves, that there's a class of people that might be better able

to make that decision. Yeah. So Plato does truly believe this, and in fact, he things this is what philosophy is is all about, and that these are the most difficult questions that we could ask, we all naturally ask them. To be human is to ask these questions and and and and to have opinions about it um. But that there there are subtle questions and difficult questions um as difficult as in a math or or physics or or

or any of these questions that require experts. And he calls these people who devote their lives to trying to answer this question philosophers. That's really what he means by philosopher. Um, and he understands very very well. Um, how odious this sounds. And and the natural resempment of philosophers, I mean, if they are at the very ton of philosophy as it's being created by Plato. Uh, he understands the kind of resent meant that that it will cause. And it's true

it still does even in our day. It's like, you know, to be human is to have a point of view on these questions about you know, what it is to little life worth living? Um, how dare somebody claimed to

be an expert about this? It seems somehow to diminish a person's humanity to be told no, no, there are experts on this field, in this field, this this is you know, Plato understood the um he was saying something very radical and it and it is something radical and it I think it, you know, justifiably understandably causes resentment. And yet the philosophers have helped us to inch along and making progress and seeing our way clear to to

these difficult questions. They really have. That's one of the things I try to argue in the book that you know, they have helped to enlarge our points of view and to feed our better holds. A lot of the theme of the book is why philosophy matters today, And you say that progress in philosophy consists, at least in part and constantly bring into light the covert presumptions that burrow their way deep down into our thinking, too deep down for us to even be aware of them. Yes, exactly. So,

you know, we are very complicated creatures. We are reasoning creatures. We have beliefs, and we and we have challenged, will give the reasons for our beliefs. And we act. We don't just behave we act. We have reasons for our actions. You know, have challenged, we will give our reasons. We're just siftory creatures. We try to give justifications for things and reasons for actions, and reasons for beliefs can be evaluated. Some are not so good, some are better than others.

And so that there are actual you know, there are there are ways these can be evaluated. But we're also very compartmentalized creatures, and we're self deceiving creatures. But you know, interestingly enough, I mean, he's a great expert on the ways in which we deceive ourselves, and we deceive ourselves you know, often with um, with high falutin founding reasons that aren't the real reasons. We're hiding the real reasons from from ourselves, and so there is a kind of

excavation that that ought to take place, Lado says. You know, and the way you do this if you dialogue, UM, the philosophy is a very much a community effort. You know, you should be many people coming together, challenging each other, you know, really budding heads. It tends to be a quite aggressive sport philosophy, but you know, and and and sometimes that's dumb stuff, that's ego stuff, right, people showing off. But sometimes at its best, it's sincere, it's us antick,

it's um. It's trying to examine, to get down to what is really our reasons for uh, for our actions, for our beliefs, and and evaluating them. And and you know, sometimes they're so pore to us uh that um, you know, it's it's hard to see that they even require a a gentification. And that's why philosophy has done better when many different people from different backgrounds, different points of view,

different genders, gender orientations um are brought together. And so in this sense, philosophy has made great progress, just in my own life because when I entered into it UM, I was always the only woman, always the only woman at the table, at the semin our table. And there are more women now and that has made a big difference, because we often find ourselves challenging presumptions that are all legs. Aren't even aware of our presumptions, they just went unseen.

So it's very very important to dialogue and to dialogue with as many different cultures and points of view and orientations as possible. Excellent, Well, we are nearing the end of the show. I'd like to end with asking you a question something that you bring up in the book. Chris and I, as listeners will know, are both huge dog fans. Um we love dogs, and you say in the book that the dogs are the most philosophical of all animals. Can you tell me why you say that? Yeah,

you know that. That's another thing. Plato actually say that dogs have a kind of love of truth and they'll they'll follow it, They follow the scent. You can't you know, a dog following as sense cannot be turned away. The dog knows what he knows, and he's going to go there and um and not be uh not be turned away. And that is that's the way we ought to be, Plato says. You know, when it comes to truth and virtue, you know that even if others are are polling us away,

we know dissent, we're going to go after it. Excellent. Well, thank you so much Rebecca for coming on the show. Congratulations again on your recent award and all your success. Thank you so much. It really was a pleasure x I enjoyed it also, you too. Take care. You can learn more about Rebecca Newburger Goldstein and get a free download of Eric's favorite quotes of hers at one you feed dot net slash Rebecca