Russ Roberts: belief

Transcript context

…Slaves of someone or other. Yeah — people, defunct ideas. And you think, “That’s something an academic would say to justify, feel good about himself because his ideas would be defunct down the road.” I am struck by how the hand of Plato and Aristotle reaches across so many things, certainly modern religion, certainly our love of mathematics as a perfect source. Mention Yoram Hazony again. I think he makes the point that there’s no circle in the real world. Circle’s a concept. And yet the idea that it’s out there, this human creation, a mathematical definition, is a very powerful, I think, influence on our thinking still. Maybe we’re hardwired to think that way. I don’t know. To come back to your question, I think it’s a really interesting question in modern America. There are parts of America that have a respect for, say, military culture that’s very scarce, right? There aren’t a lot of places that have respect for military culture. It’s the South mainly, right?…

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