In an episode of Philosiphize This, the views of Martha Nussbaum are shared. This was a follow-up to her previous podcast episode in which the topic of shame versus guilt was shared in the previous podcast. It was highlighted that guilt focused on how a wrong impacts the rights of others while shame was the result of a broken image of perfection within yourself. More succinctly, guilt is others focused while shame is self-focused.
In the new episode, the speaker turns to the topic of fear in modern America. Quoting Martha, he points towards the idea that fear in fact is poison to democracy and instead points towards neo-monarchism. The thesis for this statement is that any emotion when added to fear becomes distorted. For example, disgust plus fear breeds persecution; anger plus fear lends to retaliation. Likewise, democracy in the presence of fear becomes tainted
In modern America, we see that fear is a common tactic for political gain. Martha contends that this only occurs because of extreme segregation within America and points to the solution being hope and civil service. For example, she contends that young adults should be mandated to 3 years of civil service in institutions like elder care or infrastructure.
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