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  America’s So-Called Decline

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Mark Stephen Jendrysik

  Today’s pundits and politicians love to tell us that America is in decline. Michael Moore, Bill O’Reilly, Patrick Buchanan, Bill Clinton, and even philosophers like Allan Bloom and Noam Chomsky work to persuade us that America has lost its way. But this message is nothing new. From the earliest moments of North American settlement people have been preaching American downfall, yet this “jeremiad” – the use of the theme of downfall named after the biblical Book of Jeremiah – “does not invite discussion. It is not designed to create debate. It preaches to the converted, or at best draws in those who have not considered the issues before and are ready to be converted.” So writes Mark Jendrysik, author of the book Modern Jeremiahs: Contemporary Visions of American Decline.”

  On this episode of WHY? we will talk about the political uses of jeremiad and ask whether it contributes to truth and citizen-participation, and we will investigate its role in manipulation and fear-mongering. Why is this negativity so popular and why does Jendrysik believe that civilizations need Jeremiahs, even if people rarely heed them? Is jeremiad anti-philosophical?

  Mark Stephen Jendrysik is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Dakota. He has published and presented papers on early modern political thought, public opinion methodology, ethnic politics in the United States, utopian political theory, and contemporary American political thought. He is also the author of Explaining the English Revolution: Hobbes and His Contemporaries.

  Why?’s host Jack Russell Weinstein says “this issue is tremendously important as North Dakota is itself awash in modern jeremiahs. Even our own Senator Byron Dorgan’s books Take This Job and Ship It and Reckless are variations on the theme of American decline. Mark’s astute and wry analyses of the American political system never fail to engage his audience, and his unique voice is both engrossing and entertaining.”

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  Competition, Society, and the Athlete

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Paul Gaffney

  What is the meaning of athletic competition and how should we understand its prominence in our society? Is victory the chief criterion of success or are other values significant? Does it play a moral role in our society? Can it teach us something? Is competition beautiful? Can we justify the enormous investments made in our professional and amateur sporting enterprises? What precisely is the satisfaction gained by athletic achievement?

  Paul Gaffney regards athletic competition as a basic but positive type of human relationship. It is neither a friendship nor an instance of enmity: competitors do not seek each other’s “good” as friends do, but they do not wish to destroy the other. They are not enemies. What they seek – what competitors need each other for – may not be available except through competition. Therefore, a certain paradox emerges: a competitor does everything he or she can, within the rules of the encounter, to frustrate the efforts of the other, yet he or she needs the other to respond to the challenge and give the competition its meaning and worth. This suggests that the athletic engagement, far from being just a preparation for, or a reflection of “real” world struggles, is actually an activity that we need to make sense of an increasingly human, honest, and meaningful society.

  Paul Gaffney is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at St. John’s University, NY, and Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy. In 1997 he was named St. John’s College of Liberal Arts Professor of the Year by Student Government. He has published many articles and reviews on topics such as Ethics, Law, Education, and Sport. A former college basketball player at Niagara University, he is currently working on a book entitled The Competition Ideal: The Structure and Meaning of Antagonistic Relationships.

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  On Forgiveness

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Charles L. Griswold

  What is forgiveness? Why and when should we forgive? Does forgiving run counter to justice? Is forgiveness purely a religious concept? How does it connect to philosophical conceptions of duty and community? These questions direct the Easter Sunday episode of Why? with a special emphasis on how a philosopher’s research leads him or her to new and related topics.

  Charles L. Griswold, Jr. is a historian of philosophy whose research has spanned the history of philosophy itself. Originally a scholar of ancient philosophy, Griswold made his reputation with an exploration of Plato’s account of self-knowledge. He continued this theme of self-examination through an investigation of the moral theories of enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith, a thinker who recognized that in order to know oneself, one has to understand and internalize the perspectives of others. Forgiveness is the next step of this journey. Join Griswold as he connects ancient accounts of what it means to forgive with the most modern accounts of political recognition and the place of apology in this most contemporary of issues.

  Charles L. Griswold, Jr. is Professor of Philosophy at Boston University and the former chair of his department. He has taught at Howard University, and held visiting appointments at the Université de Paris-Panthéon-Sorbonne, Yale University, and Georgetown University. In 1995, he won the Outstanding Teaching Award from the Boston University Honors Program of the College of Arts and Sciences. His most recent book Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration has attracted the attention of some of the most notable minds in moral debate today, including Ellie Wiesel who writes, “Rarely has a philosopher offered his fervent students and readers such depth, knowledge and sensitivity as Charles Griswold has done in this volume that deals with one of the most urgent topics facing humankind today.”

  Read Charles’s article from the New York Times by clicking here: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/on-forgiveness/

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  Philosophy of Hunting

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Lawrence E. Cahoone

  What happens when a philosopher raised outside of a culture that promotes hunting takes up the sport? What philosophical lessons can he learn from the experience and how can he describe them in existential terms? Lawrence Cahoone asks these questions and more. Growing up in the urban and suburban Northeast, he had no experience of hunting. But in middle-age, after moving to a rural area, he decided that if he was going to eat meat he ought to find some himself. It seemed only fair. So, he began to hunt. But as a philosophy professor, he was forced to reflect on the experience in a very particular way. Was it moral to shoot animals? What does it feel like to seek and to kill? What was involved in entering the “wild on wild” business? Philosophers have debated whether hunting is a violation of animal rights, a friend to the environment, or a sport. But what Larry ended up asking was something more basic. In the end, he wanted to know: what does hunting mean?

  To read Larry’s paper “Hunting as a Moral Good,” click here.

  Lawrence Cahoone is an Associate Professor at Holy Cross College. He received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is the author and editor of multiple books, most recently Cultural Revolutions: Reason versus Culture in Contemporary Philosophy, Politics, and Jihad (Penn State, 2005).

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  The Philosopher and the Humanist

  Jack Russell Weinstein and Clay Jenkinson

  What is the purpose of philosophy? What is the place of the humanities in day-to-day life? How can asking “why” contribute to the lives of North Dakotans, Americans, and people around the world? These questions direct the discussion of Why’s very first episode featuring renowned humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson.

  Jenkinson, who is most famous for portraying Thomas Jefferson in the long-running and always inspiring public radio show The Thomas Jefferson Hour, is one of the most sought-after humanities scholars in the United States.

  A cultural commentator who has devoted most of his professional career to public humanities programs, Clay Jenkinson has been honored by two presidents for his work. On November 6, 1989, he received from President George Bush one of the first five Charles Frankel Prizes, the National Endowment for the Humanities’ highest award (now called the National Humanities Medal), at the nomination of the NEH Chair, Lynne Cheney. On April 11, 1994, he was the first public humanities scholar to present a program at a White House-sponsored event, when he presented Thomas Jefferson for a gathering hosted by President and Mrs. Clinton. When award-winning humanities documentary producer Ken Burns turned his attention to Thomas Jefferson, he asked Clay Jenkinson to be the major humanities commentator. Since his first work with the North Dakota Humanities Council in the late 1970s, including a pioneering first-person interpretation of Meriwether Lewis, Clay Jenkinson has made thousands of presentations throughout the United States and its territories, including Guam and the Northern Marianas.