originally published 9/2/2013

Mark Mitchell’s book The Politics of Gratitude: Scale, Place and Community in a Global Age (Potomac Books, 2012) puts forward four concepts that are sadly missing from most political debates today: creatureliness, gratitude, human scale, and place. In this conversation, Mitchell explores the consequences of these four concepts throughout our lives. He urges the conservatives of today to read conservatives of generations past in order to understand the philosophical foundations for true conservatism. He argues that responsibility ties directly into politics, and that shouldering the responsibility to steward our inheritance is a test of our gratitude for what we have received. Mitchell claims that the greatest errors of today are rooted in an emphasis on human autonomy and a hatred of the notion of limits on that autonomy. He concludes that withstanding consumerism is one way to potentially recover a countercultural sense of gratitude for the “un-bought graces of life.”

18 minutes

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