Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…We’re talking about something that has happened over a brief period of time, basically during the governorship of this Kim Reynolds. I think that Trumpism is a fad that suddenly everybody’s doing the same thing, using the same language, and so on. I’m very grieved by the change in the political climate in Iowa because I admired its generosity and civility and so on, and I hope that this is some weird temporary fluctuation because the basic decency and enlightenment of Iowa was so well established over such a long time, it’s hard to believe that this is a permanent conversion. Some thinkers, I think especially on the conservative right, have argued that as America becomes more pluralistic — ethnically and religiously pluralistic — that that, on net, marginalizes the influence of religion. That it’s easier for society to be fairly religious when there’s mostly one or maybe two religions in question, but when you have people from all over the world with a variety of religions or just very different understandings of Christianity, there’s a least-common-denominator effect, where most of us become more secular. Do you think that’s true? No, I think that one of the things that has been a resource in this country for many years is religious cultures that are derived from the place of origin. In other words, the multiplicity of religious institutions sustained religion as a phenomenon. I think that you would say, without much fear of contradiction, that if you’re going to find religious people now, you would go to immigrant communities because they sustain many things for people who might otherwise feel that they are adrift.…

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