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May 6, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show
09:16
The Religious/Secular Divide in Viewing Quarantine⎜The Dennis Prager Radio Show
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Ultimate Issues Hour.
It's every Tuesday, the third hour of the show.
And it's more important than ever.
Because isn't it clear to you that based on how one views life, everything else follows that?
Think about it.
Even if you haven't thought it through, you will have imbibed.
Nobody...
It's devoid of a view of life.
You may not even be aware of it because you haven't thought about it.
Most people don't think about ultimate issues.
Very rarely.
Unless some great crisis happens and then they think, well, gee, what is life about?
What is the meaning?
But it's the way of life that if you will still imbibe a view of life, Even if you don't think it through.
For example, people will think life is supposed to be safe.
That's a worldview.
That's an ultimate issue.
People think safe is the most important thing.
That's an ultimate issue.
I don't think safe is the most important thing.
And so I have a different reaction to things that happen.
Obviously, I'm thinking about what's happening right now than others.
So, it's a very interesting question about the way in which people have reacted to the virus and to the quarantine.
And it seems to be divided.
Obviously, there are exceptions, but it's irrelevant that there are exceptions.
If exceptions nullify generalities, then you don't understand anything about life.
The inability to generalize is a big problem.
So there seems to be a divide.
A left-right divide and a religious-secular divide.
So I have a guest on for the Ultimate Issues Hour, which is pretty rare.
It's usually just you and I. And R.R. Reno is the editor of a terrific journal.
I remember when it started.
I used to be published in it regularly.
It's a Christian magazine, actually run by Catholics.
But it's a Christian magazine, and I was a Jew who was writing for it.
They have people of all faiths right for it.
The editor of First Things is R.R. Reno.
And listen to what he wrote in the April 27th issue of First Things.
The coronavirus pandemic is not and never was a threat to society.
COVID-19 poses a danger to the elderly and the medically compromised.
Otherwise, for most who present symptoms, it can be nasty and persistent, but not life-threatening.
A majority of those infected do not notice that they have the disease.
Coronavirus presents us with a medical challenge, not a crisis.
The crisis has been of our own making.
My own column today, my Tuesday column, is exactly on that, why I think it's probably the biggest mistake humanity has ever made, the lockdown.
down.
By the end of March, most of the United States had been locked down.
And tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, more than six trillion.
Anyway, you know the rest.
Now, why does he hold this view as a religious man?
Why do I hold it as a religious man?
That's part of the question on the Ultimate Issues Hour.
Our Reno, welcome back to my show.
It's great to be with you, and it's a great question about this divide.
It's quite extreme, isn't it?
I have friends who share our view, and they say it's just impossible to talk to people about what's going on.
I didn't know you lived in New York City.
I am talking to you from my office.
I'm media, so I'm essential services, so I can actually go to my office at 40th and 5th Avenue.
You're at 40th and 5th.
I'm curious.
I know New York well.
I grew up there.
Are the streets deserted?
The Midtown is very deserted, but the residential neighborhoods, not so much, because that's where the people are.
Right, so where you are is Midtown.
I just can't imagine the area deserted.
This is unique in history.
It's never happened.
The last time it was deserted, Peter Stuyvesant was the mayor.
Yes, indeed.
I also, I bike around the city a lot, and I've been out to the outer boroughs and really explored a lot of the city.
This is a, it is a once-in-a-lifetime, hopefully once-in-a-lifetime experience.
You feel your heart goes out to all of these working people, small business owners, being shattered by the shutdown.
Yes.
So, okay.
So I want to discuss with you, it is the Ultimate Issues Hour.
By the way, I assume you're Catholic, correct?
I am, yes.
Right.
And I want to tell people, I want you to know, I'm telling this to my audience.
I have a paid subscription.
I didn't even ask Rusty Reno for a free subscription.
I have a paid subscription.
I love you all the more for your paid subscription.
May your number multiply.
Well, if people don't support good endeavors, it's over.
Indeed, yes.
What does it cost to have a year subscription to First Things?
$45 a year.
$45 a year.
Okay.
Ten issues.
Yes, it's a well-spent $45 for me.
I love your name.
Your listeners are ideal candidates because it's people who want to continue their education.
Yeah.
They're the ideal First Things reader.
And of course, that's part of your mission is to...
Help people develop intellectually as well as spiritually.
So what is your theory?
I'm a religious Jew.
You're a religious Catholic.
Why do we see eye to eye on something having nothing to do theoretically with religion, the lockdown?
That's the issue.
Right.
Everybody sees eye to eye about the coronavirus, but we don't see eye to eye about the lockdown.
Why do we agree?
Well, I think there's a superficial answer and there's a deeper answer.
I mean, the superficial one is that we've trained ourselves to ignore the propaganda machine.
And I think that this is something that conservatives have an advantage over their liberal friends, which is that they have a learned distrust of whatever the elite consensus is.
And that gives us some critical freedom to actually weigh the evidence and think about this more dispassionately.
I think that's one answer.
Wait, wait, wait.
I love it.
I love it.
I don't want to go to the second yet.
Just don't forget the second.
This, you see, I agree with you.
It's so interesting, your answer, and I agree with you.
Let me tell you my language of putting it is we are trained not to worship false gods.
Is that what you're saying in your language?
Yes.
You know that there is...
One of the things about religious belief is that it forces you to distinguish between what is ultimate and what is not ultimate.
And this allowed this so that a religious person has to be more reflective about the messaging he's getting from society.
If I get this car, I'll be happy.
If I get this job, I'll be happy.
If I make this salary, I'll be happy.
Well, a religious person has to reckon with the fact that those are false promises.
And so here we come.
We've got this, you know, it's a nasty virus.
You know, we should definitely be taking...
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