November 14, 2025 • 58 mins
Is the drive to be better than others making us worse? We talk with theologian Miroslav Volf about his book The Cost of Ambition and explore why comparison-based striving saturates our schools, churches, workplaces, and politics. Volf separates healthy aspiration from superiority-seeking and makes a compelling case for excellence without domination, rooted in agape, i.e., unconditional love that affirms people beyond performance.
We dig into the Christ hymn of Philippians 2 and why self-emptying is not weakness but a different kind of strength. Volf shows how resurrection and ascension empower humility rather than feed triumphalism and why honoring everyone is both a spiritual discipline and a democratic necessity. From the academy’s “one-up” culture to the marketplace’s imitation traps, he argues that obsessing over competitors blinds us to our unique gifts and corrodes joy. Even stalwart capitalists like Warren Buffett warn against competitor-fixation. Volf adds a deeper moral and theological critique as well, drawing on Paul’s piercing question: What do you have that you did not receive?
We also test his claims against Nietzsche’s will to power, happiness research on social comparison, and the rise of Christian nationalism. Is Christ a moral stranger to our priorities? Volf challenges both sides of the aisle to recover mere humanity—Kierkegaard’s vision of belovedness before achievement—and to practice agape toward others and ourselves. The result is a bracing, hopeful vision: strive for truth, craft, and contribution, not for status; pursue excellence as stewardship, not self-exaltation.
If you’re weary of the status treadmill yet still hungry to do meaningful work, this conversation will give you categories, language, and practices to recalibrate your aims. Listen, reflect, and share with someone who needs a healthier way to win. If the episode resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and let us know your thoughts.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Randy (00:06):
I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my
friend Kyle's a philosopher.
This podcast hostsconversations at the
intersection of philosophy,theology, and spirituality.
Kyle (00:15):
We also invite experts to join us, making public a space
that we've often enjoyed off-airaround the proverbial table
with a good drink in the backcorner of a dark pub.
Randy (00:24):
Thanks for joining us, and welcome to a pastor and a
philosopher walk into a bar.
Miroslav Wolf is a name withinthe church and within theology
that um is is a name that needsno introduction.
(00:45):
His his book, Exclusion andEmbrace, is um one of the like
the great classic, modernclassics, I would say.
Would you agree withintheology?
Kyle (00:55):
Certainly, yeah, it certainly has that stature.
Randy (00:57):
Yeah, and um Miroslav wrote a book called The Cost of
Ambition (01:00):
How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us
Worse.
And um, to be honest with you,when I saw that on the list of
you know one of my favoritepublishers, Brazos Press, um, I
was shocked.
First of all, that MiroslavWolf is publishing a kind of a
pop culture, you know, Christianbook, but also that he's
talking about this.
And I get get to this in thebeginning of our interview, but
(01:21):
it was intriguing to me.
And then as soon as you readthe book, you realize he is
brilliant, and this stuff is um,this is kind of like written
into the fabric of our cultureand our way of being in ways
that many of us don't reallyeven understand or care to pay
attention to.
Kyle (01:39):
Yeah, that's right.
And of course, he brings a lotof uh material, a lot of
background knowledge, a lot ofdeep analysis of certain
thinkers into it as well.
It wouldn't be one of his booksif he didn't.
So um, yeah, it's it's it'sintriguing, it's relevant to all
of our lives, um, and it's alsovery informed and insightful as
you would expect from him.
Um, I'd only previously readone of his books, and so was not
(02:00):
familiar, super familiar withthe breadth of his work.
And so this was kind of, andthat was a long time ago.
So this is kind of like a um arefresher and also an
introduction uh for me.
And he's delightful to talk toand super insightful, and was
very happy to have me playdevil's advocate and get into
the weeds a little bit on somesome philosophical issues,
because this is one of thosebooks where this is a rare
(02:23):
experience for me.
I agree with 95% of it.
And the 5% is like stuff that Idon't know anything about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, if you're a Christian,as he says in the conversation,
this is kind of given, and yetwhy isn't it given?
Like for most of us, right?
I mean, his thesis is that weought not to be striving for
(02:46):
superiority over others.
As you state it kind of simply,that's a wrong thing to do.
Uh, and yet, you know, there'sa whole book about it, and
there's a reason that there's awhole book about it.
So fascinating conversation, atopic that I would not have
expected to talk to somebodyabout, much less a theologian of
his stature, but really fun.
Randy (03:04):
Absolutely.
Well, Dr.
Mirzlav Wolf, thank you so muchfor joining us on a pastor and
(03:25):
a philosopher walking to a bar.
Miroslav (03:27):
Uh excellent.
I I've never been to a bar witha pastor and a philosopher.
I've been with pastors and I'vebeen philosophers, but never
together.
Randy (03:36):
Well, here we are, in a theologian.
We we should change the name ofthe podcast.
Miroslav (03:39):
Right there.
Randy (03:41):
So, Miroslav, um, when I first came across this book, to
be honest with you, my firstquestion was of all the things
Miroslav Wolf could write, whyis he writing about ambition and
superiority?
I it it it was a bit of amystery to me.
And then I read the book and itall started making sense.
It's particularly of the ideaof laying down our our own
(04:02):
obsession with superiority andholding on to a sense of
humility.
It's all over the scriptures,especially when it's kind of one
of those things that when youactually see it in plain sight,
you realize that you've beenlooking at it all along, but
really never realized it.
So, what drove you to writethis book?
What was that process like?
Miroslav (04:20):
Well, I I think it was um a personal experience as
experiences uh teaching, um,observing um uh the culture uh
which made me uh kind of puzzleduh about this idea that we
(04:43):
strive for superiority and thatthere is uh implicit ideology
that this is how progress in theworld is uh actually uh
achieved in various domains oflife.
And there's very littlereflection about the attendant
problems of precisely thatstriving for superiority in all
(05:08):
domains of life, from educationand education from uh uh from
cradle almost all the way tothrough PhD and beyond uh in
sports, obviously, in arts, uhin economy, in politics, it is
just about uh everywhere.
And you can't find a domainwhere you don't find it, and
(05:29):
then in our private uhimagination, uh obviously.
And that got me then uh thengoing because I saw the negative
sides and haven't seen uh thoseactually addressed.
Whereas in previous centuries,these have been thematized and
reflected upon.
Kyle (05:47):
Can I ask real quick?
So I was gonna put thequestion, who is this book for?
Which you just kind of uhstarted into, so I'm gonna skip
right to it.
Um I I I hear all the thingsyou're saying about that being
pervasive in culture, and that'sundeniable.
But I I don't think I've everencountered anybody seriously
defending the idea that strivingfor superiority, superiority
(06:09):
over others is a good thingoutside of like niche you know
intellectual circles.
So I always interpret that.
I have this thing where maybesometimes I interpret too
charitably, but I alwaysinterpret, uh, unless you're
like, you know, a certain kindof politician or economist or
something, I generally interpretthat kind of thing as we all
know deep down that we're notactually trying to like win over
(06:31):
in some significant sense thatother person.
We just participate in thesekinds of structures and we do it
in some in some ways with likehigher ideals in mind or
something like that.
But you seem to think that thisthis is actually a more
pervasive foundational thingthat actually needs a serious
critique.
Where why am I wrong aboutpeople not really buying into
this?
Miroslav (06:52):
Um I I don't think we're sufficiently reflecting
about it.
Uh I think I would argue uhthat the practice is ubiquitous.
Right.
Uh in I have particular so theexample that I give, uh I'm I'm
in Chicago Airport and I'mwalking uh from terminal B to
(07:15):
terminal C.
I'm going underground uh therethrough this uh through this
passage uhway.
Uh and there are 60 stairs togo down, and there are 60 stairs
uh to go up, and I decide I'mgoing to climb those stairs uh
and carry my little whatever Ihave.
And then I start feelingsuperior to the folks who are
(07:38):
using uh escalators uh andthink, oh, I'm a better specimen
of humanity.
And that's just the ordinaryeveryday experience which is
there.
Uh but if you uh if you uhpractice it consistently in
domains like education, which uhwhich I experience, uh it is
(08:00):
extraordinarily conducive tocreating a self-loathing, uh and
self-loathing that then uh veryquickly morphs into depression.
Um, if one thinks thatdepression is the malady of uh
sense of inadequacy, uh and thekind of sense of I need to be
(08:24):
better, uh, of which the flipside is I'm not good enough.
Uh, and that flip side getsconsistently confirmed because
there's always somebody in thein my group, uh, and and uh
often often more than justsomebody who proves me to be
inferior, and therefore I'mconstantly climbing.
(08:48):
And for all the climbing, I'mstaying in one and the same
place.
Although this is precisely whatwas supposed to me uh to to
bring me uh uh up into thehigher realms.
Right.
Kyle (09:01):
Yeah, there we talked to Willie James Jennings about this
back in the day, about thisculture in education
specifically, of um it's almostlike in the production of
knowledge and expertise, thereis this battleground and there's
a kind of survival of thefittest kind of thing.
And I have to not just stake myclaim but stake it better than
you did and prove myself.
(09:22):
And when you add, you know,professional pressure to get a
job and publish, it just makesall that worse.
He had his own take about adifferent way it could be.
Why do you think do you thinkthere's anything intrinsic to
the educational process or theformation of expertise that
makes that kind of um posture,that aggressive posture
necessary?
Or is there a better way to dothat?
Miroslav (09:43):
Uh I I don't think it's necessary, and you can you
can run in varieties of uh ofdomains.
I think that um I want todistinguish what I'm trying to
argue um uh uh uh uh in terms ofstriving.
Uh striving as such, I don'thave problems, even ambition and
such, I mean maybe we can talka little bit about the character
(10:06):
of ambition.
Even that I don't have problemuh as such.
It's particular form uh ofstriving that I have a problem
with, and namely striving to be,have ambition to be better than
somebody else.
So where the somebody else isalways uh the measure of my own
uh achievement and measure notjust of my achievement, but
(10:29):
measure of my self-worth.
So indexing the idea of who Iam uh to the idea of uh
comparative uh performancestrikes me as uh as the most
problematic, and it strikes meas something that can be
avoided.
There are examples in uh thetop levels of sport where it's
(10:52):
uh avoided.
There are examples in alldomains of life where people
have actually uh made it theirspiritual practice uh not to
strive for superiority.
Indeed, there are domains ineconomics like Warren Buffett,
who is not just making it matterof spiritual practice, but who
is arguing that actually youdon't perform as well if you uh
(11:17):
index your performance tosomebody else and tries to
adjust, which you say youimitate others and therefore
might not be acting out of yourown uh your own strength.
So um I think it's it'spossible, but structures are
also built in such a way that itmakes that they make it
difficult.
So, my one of my goals is kindof push a little bit to ask that
(11:39):
question and then see what wemight do in order to release
much more fruitful ways ofexcelling in things uh and uh
being uh at one with myourselves.
Kyle (11:52):
Let me give a quick disclaimer.
I'm the philosophy half of thepodcast, and that means that
part of my role is to um beprovocative and ask hard
questions.
But it turns out that I agreealmost entirely with everything
in your book, and that almostnever happens on our show.
Um and so I feel a little bituh obligated to take up a sort
(12:14):
of devil's advocate position atcertain points.
So if you find me doing that,it's not necessarily something
I'm actually uh convicted aboutor committed to.
I just want to make sure thatthe the the strongest objections
are getting aired because Iknow that you have responses to
some of them.
So that may come up in thefuture.
Miroslav (12:31):
I I I know I I know philosophers, uh, and actually
I've been trained actually, uhtheology and philosophy.
I uh I did in parallel mydoctoral dissertation, is is
also philosophical andtheological.
So I I know your tribe, I loveyour tribe.
Kyle (12:46):
Wonderful, wonderful.
Um, and I know you can handleit.
So Nietzsche's gonna come up alot in this conversation.
That's what I'm what I'msaying.
Sounds good.
Quickly about what you werejust saying, though.
What about in like specificallydialectical contexts?
And this is really related tomy philosophical context as
well.
Um, so where it's not zero sum,but like making progress as we
(13:10):
define progress is kind of atthe expense of at least another
point of view, and but usuallythe person making that point of
view, because the point of viewis defined by its strongest
proponent.
Um, so and I've seen this a lotin theology as well.
And for a long time, thoseweren't really separated fields.
So what about a situation likethat, which is a large part of
academia, where I don't I don'thave any feelings about you as a
(13:33):
person?
In fact, uh, for a long time,the tradition is if any of that
stuff comes into theconversation, we've stopped
doing the academic thing.
We're not doing somethingentirely different and we've
missed the point.
Let's put that aside and getback to this.
But of course, it's not reallypossible to separate that in
practice or in lived experience.
But there is this sense thatthere's this specific thing that
we're doing, and some kind ofone-upsmanship is a part of just
(13:55):
the process of dialecticitself.
What do you think about that?
Miroslav (13:59):
Well, I uh uh yes, uh I would I would agree with that
uh to a certain certain degree.
But the question is um the theone uh upmanship uh is one
upmanship in what in service ofwhat is one upmanship?
So so most sturdy my moststurdy opposition is making
superiority the chief of thevalues that we might have in any
(14:23):
given situation.
And of course, there are onlyextreme characters who do that,
but but there are such uh suchcharacters.
Um and I think they're also themost uh most uh difficult when
there are no other um values atstake, which is to say where the
(14:44):
the very performance uh as insports defines what excellence
means.
Uh in the context of uh debatesuh in philosophy or in
theology, I would hope thatisn't the case.
Uh something like um uhcommitment to truth uh uh is
(15:04):
essential, I think, for thosekinds of uh those kinds of
discussions.
So the fact that I've eitherwon or lost is kind of
irrelevant.
What matters is that we bothagree that uh that that the gain
in truthfulness is what we arewhat we are about.
And I think there are otherdomains in which that is the
(15:26):
case, meaning uh to say wepursue excellence, we we don't
pursue simply being better thanuh than others.
And there are also inphilosophical traditions, so
kind of uh just think of it, uhyou can you can have rhetorical
wins, right?
And uh the tradition all theway since Plato uh has pushed
(15:47):
against against that idea.
So so uh that seems to me, uhseems to me right.
It may not always be easy todraw the distinctions, uh, and
we need to be attuned to it, weneed to be sensitive to it.
And part of the reason forwriting is precisely to have
that into uh attunement.
Randy (16:08):
So, Miroslav, as as the as a pastoral half of the
podcast, I'm concerned with howthis stuff works out and is
lived in in the life of thechurch.
Um, and as you read your book,The Cost of Ambition, it becomes
really, really clear to me atleast that so much of the
American church, and I'm puttingthat very specifically in the
(16:30):
American church, um you see solittle of this.
So I would love to just uh gointo just a few of these huge uh
uh theological realities thatwe we believe in as the church.
And I just wanted to hear fromyou how should these things
shape our life as Christians, asChrist followers as the church?
Something like, I mean, you youspend so much time going into
(16:53):
the Karman Christie, right?
The Paul's Christ hymn inPhilippians 2, talking about how
Christ emptied himself and youknow didn't want to claim
equality with God, something tobe grasped, but let go of all of
that and be was humiliated andhumbled into this state of a
slave and even to death on thecross.
That famous Philippians 2passage.
(17:14):
How should the incarnationshape the life of individual
Christians and the church in atlarge?
What what part does theincarnation play?
Miroslav (17:25):
Well, it seems to me that um for Christians it should
be just given that Jesus Christis what Charles Taylor, to
invoke a philosopher, would callthe hyper good.
That is to say, that good whichuh is a criterion uh of all
(17:51):
other goods and which organizesall other subordinate goods that
we that we uh that we embrace.
And if that is the case, thenit seems to me that the life of
Christ and teaching uh of Christought to be the measure of what
we what we do.
Indeed, that Christ is in animportant sense a measure of our
(18:14):
humanity, and that it is infact, I would say not a moral
simply question, but a deeplyspiritual question, because I
think that the relationshipbetween human beings and Christ
in the Christian tradition isnot simply a moral one.
I see something and I emulateuh that, uh, and that has a
(18:35):
moral claim on me, but ratherthat there's something, uh, if
you want to put it mysticalabout it, that there is a there
is a and that's very clear inPaul, that there's kind of
indwelling of Christ, Christpresent in me, so that the life
of Christ as Christ lived itought to be the life that is
lived uh in me and through me uhin the world.
(18:57):
And in that sense, uh I reallydo take this uh this serious,
and to me, that's the maincriterion, and hence uh Carmen
Christie plays a role, not justuh foundational role in these
chapter two chapters on ApostlePaul.
Interestingly enough, uh, itstructures also the great poem,
(19:18):
two great uh poems of uh JohnMilton, Paradise Lost and
Paradise Regained.
And it was very significant fora philosopher for uh for
Kierkegaard.
At the same time, I would saythis is not the only uh
doctrine, this is not the onlyuh thing that we keep in mind.
And Apostle Paul is wonderfulwhen he talks about the nature
(19:40):
of creation, and almost like alike a spirituality is developed
out of the doctrine ofcreation, both uh out of the
doctrine of salvation and ofcreation.
And I find this extraordinaryso that all of Christian
doctrines actually uh inform thekinds of attitude, the kinds of
(20:00):
stance toward oneself, towardothers that I try to advocate
for in this book.
Randy (20:06):
Yeah, thank you.
It's easy, it's it's easier tounderstand the incarnation and
the crucifixion as informing thethe shape of the Christian life
and what that should look likein regards to this book in
particular, in regards to layingdown our our obsession for
superiority.
But the resurrection and theascension are almost feel like
the opposite, where it's thistriumphal, victorious.
(20:30):
We don't like Good Friday verymuch, you know, a Yale
philosopher.
Who did we talk to, Kyle?
Miroslav (20:36):
Oh, that was uh Keith DeRose.
Oh, my uh you you're you'renaming all my friends, you know.
Keith Keith is I I we we Keithand I have regular Saturday uh
afternoon uh or late afternoonuh dinner together.
Randy (20:50):
Well, tell him hi for us, please.
I will.
Miroslav (20:53):
I definitely will.
I love Keith.
Randy (20:55):
He calls himself a Good Friday Christian more than an
Easter Christian.
He identifies more with GoodFriday than Easter.
And I think in regards to yourbook, that makes sense.
So how would you how would youhold and frame the resurrection,
the ascension?
Two things that we Christiansfeel really good about
championing and worshiping andholding up, how might that fit
within this paradigm of layingdown our ideas of superiority?
(21:18):
Is it in the universality ofthe resurrection of the
ascension?
Help us up.
Miroslav (21:23):
Well, I mean, if you think of yourself as uh as a
good Friday Christian, then youhave also the foundation for
thinking yourself as aresurrection Christian.
If you don't have a GoodFriday, resurrection stuff ends
up being just a boosting of thepower that I have, right?
So I'm gonna fly.
Or ascension ends up being,right?
(21:44):
Oh, we're gonna fly up intothat uh sphere.
Or we we we we we we're filledwith this uh new liveliness,
right?
And and the victory is there.
But I think it's very importantin the in the Christian
tradition to combine uh uhexactly this.
It's uh ash and cross on ourforehead, uh uh, and we don't
(22:06):
say hallelujah until theresurrection comes, and then we
say the same people who had ashand cross on on their forehead,
they say hallelujah uh on theEaster, uh Easter Sunday.
And I think that's that's uhthat has that has not only it's
not a matter of church calendar,but but the cross is the cross
(22:26):
of unconditional love, and theresurrection is precisely
promised to the Christ-likelife, to the life that has been
uh that is bound uh with Christ.
And uh in the just maybe onething to add, uh so when I when
I speak about um uh not strivingfor superiority, but holding
(22:51):
others to be more important thanourselves, I'm speaking here of
our agapic love for others.
But I want to argue, and maybewe can talk about that too, and
I mentioned that in the in inthe book, but though it isn't
highly emphasized, I think thatwe can have, we ought to have
agapic kind of love towardourselves.
(23:13):
Indeed, I find that this agapiclove toward ourselves is really
the key to the whole uhprocess, that we don't love
ourselves only on the basis ofperformance that we have uh
achieved.
There's something worth loving,therefore I love myself.
I love myself just because Iam, right?
(23:36):
And this loving myself andloving the other because they
are, because I am, that seems tome fundamental in the Christian
uh Christian life and holdstogether this both this idea of
giving preference uh to othersoften, not striving to be better
than them, uh, and the thesense that I am too uh worthy of
(24:00):
just such love from others,worthy in a in a sense of uh in
a sense of uh my sheer being andto be loved in just such a way,
both by others and by myself.
Randy (24:13):
Yes, very good, thank you.
Let me this reminds me of whatI I really enjoyed your kind of
fleshing out Kierkegaard's ideaof mere humanity.
Um this idea that our humanityis just something that is
glorious, doesn't need to beadded to.
Could you flesh that out alittle bit?
It reminds me a little bit ofC.S.
Lewis, but I love this idea ofmere humanity and the glory of
it.
Miroslav (24:33):
So we always think that we need to kind of spruce
ourselves up, uh, get ourselvesready to face uh ourselves in
the mirror in the morning and uhall also the world, so that
there could be admiring looks,uh, my admiring looks of myself
in the mirror, others admiringlooks, they they they kind of
(24:54):
mirror the hope for uh admiringlooks of others upon me when I
face uh face the the the world.
And so we we seek to impressand we live uh uh because we
think that we have this life inthe imagination of uh of others,
and so uh that creates acertain kind of uh kind of kind
(25:17):
of tension uh in us.
And the beauty of this idea ofbeauty of the mere humanity is
that I am uh loved, I am uhaffirmed in that, and that has
greater value than anything Ican make out of myself at with
(25:39):
with myself.
For the for for you listenerswho are uh who are readers of
Newman's uh work, you have uhthis idea of Christ being
declared as beloved at thebaptism before he has done
anything yet, right?
So so these belovedness uhseems to me fundamental in the
(26:02):
Christian uh Christiantradition, and I think that's
what Kierkegaard wants toarticulate in this mere
humanity, unadorned um uhhumanity that simply is and it's
beautiful.
Kyle (26:17):
Is that how you understand what agape is?
If you had to give a quickdefinition, what would it be?
Miroslav (26:22):
Uh you're loved unconditionally.
Agape, I would say it'sunconditional love.
I try to differentiate, youknow, that there are these
different loves and there aremany typologies.
Uh they all have their ownpluses, and uh, some of them
they have have minuses.
Uh, this is not exhaustive, butI I think uh I think of love as
being on the one levelepitumic.
Love is simply desire.
(26:44):
I love um flowerless chocolatecake.
Uh and the goal uh of this loveand the entire purpose of this
love to devour this thing uh orsimply have it uh in in kind of
a Picurean way uh uh melt in mymouth and I uh I enjoy it.
There's also Eros, uh so one isepithumia, desire, eros.
(27:09):
Eros is uh love that that kindof recognizes certain kind of
worth in uh in the thing, sortof recognition of worth.
And it's a pro first love isappropriate love for many in
many domains.
Second uh kind is appropriate,I think, uh, as well.
But agapic love doesn't uh seekto satisfy uh primarily a
(27:31):
desire, doesn't simply recognizea worth, but in fact affirms
the other, uh in some sensebestow the worth on the other or
recognizes that other qua otheruh is appropriately object of
love.
And even that, as uhDostoevsky's Zosima says so so
(27:54):
so well, even deserves quoteunquote uh more love when their
life has been uh uh twisted incertain ways, when they become
captive to something thatdestroys, that doesn't uh that
makes them ugly.
It's a mode of releasingsomeone into their uh freedom of
(28:22):
uh delight in their merehumanity.
Randy (28:25):
Uh Miroslav, I'm gonna ask you one more question, kind
of a major one about the churchand what's happening now in the
church, and then I'm gonna letKyle do his devil advocate thing
for the rest of ourconversation.
So as as I read your book, umthe the tragedy, the irony of
whatever you want to say is thatthe reality is that about 80%,
(28:46):
give or take, of the Americanchurch, particularly American
evangelicals, voted, whetherit's 2016, 2020, or 2024, for a
person, our president, who seemsto value superiority in
competition higher than justabout anybody I can imagine,
right?
Like, I mean, make Americagreat again is what the whole
platform is is is founded on,and this idea of Christian
(29:10):
nationalism and America first.
Um it seems like we're beingbrainwashed and programmed to
swim in the waters ofsuperiority, whether it be for
us as a nation, us as a church,and the church has just gobbled
this up, and it seems like lovesthis message of superiority and
us over and against others,whether it be ethnicities and
(29:30):
nationalities, whatever.
Within that backdrop of what'shappening, I mean, first of all,
did you write it first in someways because of the as a
response to that?
And if whether or not you did,how do we begin to take apart
and disassemble this obsessionwith superiority that's coming
from the top of our culture ondown?
Miroslav (29:50):
Yes, I have written it with clear uh awareness of that
uh reality of uh the politicallife in uh United States, not
just in the United States.
States, many other places, butcertainly here it is pronounced,
and of the captivity of thechurch to that and uh inability
(30:10):
to recognize the problematicnature of um of such striving
for for superiority, how deeplydestructive uh it is.
And um you can see thepolitical dimensions uh
expressed there in spiritualway, but uh but they're they're
(30:30):
kind of political dimensionexpressed in uh in Milton's uh
Paradise Lost.
It's a politics of heaventhat's there are being discussed
there, uh if you want.
Uh somebody who is uh, in thiscase, uh Lucifer, who is under
God, uh, is uh seeking uh tomake an insurrection so that the
(30:52):
rule can be snatched from Godand taken uh over by Satan, who
is um in the grip ofself-loathing, uh simply for the
fact that he is not superior touh to God.
And I think you can draw thenthe lines from this uh both for
earthly politics uh as well asuh for other domains.
(31:16):
And that was uh certainly on onmy mind.
It was certainly on my mindwhen I wrote about uh church
life in the section two chaptersthat I have on the Apostle
Paul.
And actually, Apostle Paulspends most of the time talking
about politics of striving forsuperiority in church
(31:37):
communities.
That's his main concern.
And so you can take this uhchurch politics uh and transpose
it onto larger political life,and you see this is a politics
of relationships uh with othersthat can be either toxic uh in
striving for superiority uh orthat can be healing, that that
(32:00):
can be then uh robustlyother-oriented.
Sometimes we think and and whatI'm what I'm troubled also in
today's rhetoric is that uhsomehow masculinity and being a
man are associated with kind ofbrute uh exercise of brute uh
brute power.
And I was thinking about this,and uh and Jesus then ends up
(32:22):
being uh gentle and meek uhJesus uh because he's so uh
other regarding in some ways.
And then I was reading recentlyin the Gospel of Luke, uh 12,
Luke 12, 49, I think it is, andthe English translation says, I
have come to bring fire onearth.
(32:43):
Uh Greek says, fire I have cometo bring, right?
It's a foregrounded, and thenbaptism I've come to be
baptized, and that's thisbaptism of uh out of uh
unconditional love beingcrucified uh for the salvation
of uh of the world.
And I'm thinking this is not uhuh meek and gentle Jesus.
(33:07):
Uh this is uh this is thesturdiness uh and hard work,
arduous work of doing agapiclove uh in the world.
That's what we are called upon.
And when I see churches thenreplacing uh unconditional love
with kind of militaristicapproaches seeking to gain
superiority, it seems to me sucha betrayal.
Randy (33:30):
Yeah, just to be fair to both sides, right?
When we have we have 80% or orso of the churches supporting
the president and all themagistr stuff, but then we also
have a huge population of thechurch who really, really like
who don't support the presidentand feel quite superior to the
supporters of the president.
We feel completely morallysuperior and really superior in
(33:54):
in many, many ways.
Miroslav, tell us the answer.
What's the answer to this?
Do we American Christians needto check out of the American
political process in order tonot play the game?
Or can we do this in a way thatactually looks Christ-like?
Miroslav (34:11):
Well, I think we do have two hardened fronts, and
both, in a sense, have uh theirown inferiorities and
superiorities um that are beingplayed played out.
I'm not the one to simplyequalize that.
If you have two hardenedfronts, uh, doesn't mean to me
that they're equally uh bothequally equally bad, but that
(34:32):
there there are there areproblems uh also on the other
side uh as well.
What I don't see is what I haveargued for, namely
unconditional love.
I don't see honoring of themere humanity of the other
person.
I don't see when Apostle Peteruh says, uh I love this, uh
(34:54):
there's a two-word command.
One of them, I favorite in theBible, and doesn't count like uh
like a command in in nobody'smind, honor everyone.
That's a directly quote fromFirst Peter, 1 Peter 2.
Uh, where is honoring ofeveryone?
Everyone deserves to behonored, humanity of every
(35:18):
person.
And it seems to me that that'swhat we have to major on.
And if it turns out that Christuh is a moral stranger in
today's world, that uh neitherof the sides will embrace Christ
in this, both in agapic loveand in demanding for uh of us to
(35:38):
honor each other, um that so beit.
I think we should follow uhChrist.
I think it's a healing, uhhealing uh message for today.
Uh and it we certainly won't behealed through oppositional
politics.
Kyle (35:54):
Christ is a moral stranger.
I like that phrase.
Do you just mean his actualperspective is not part of the
conversation anybody's having?
Go deeper into that.
Miroslav (36:04):
Uh yeah, this this is a phrase that I've uh we we
started working on this at theuh at the center, and it comes
out of my sense that, well, I'lltell you, the history of it is
this.
Uh, we're teaching a classtogether with a uh colleague of
mine, um, teaching a class uh onChrist and flourishing.
And so we go through life ofChrist and kind of map the life
(36:27):
of Christ, story of life ofChrist to our life.
Uh, and obviously there's abirth, uh, and then of course,
raising of children, education.
And two colleagues, uh, onecolleague and I, we have a small
child, and we we're uh uhreading about Christ, embracing
children.
And then I don't know who cameup with this uh uh question.
(36:49):
Would we, would I allow Christto raise my daughter?
And and there's a kind of bothof us are kind of stunned by
this question immediately.
Would he know how to properlyeducate her?
Would he care to kind of gothrough all the different stages
that she needs to go through?
Would he teach her what he sheneeds to uh she needs to know?
(37:13):
Everything I and and I I'mstummering, I don't know how to
respond to what should beobvious question, yes.
But it's not it's not obvious,but it's not obvious.
So so so even for uh for formost of us, he is a moral
stranger.
I think that that's a problem,that's a deep problem, and
(37:37):
that's that's a very simple uhkind of domain.
Uh we can name all sorts ofother domains where he's
stranger.
So, what I do, I basically sayto people, well, make a list.
On one side, what really isimportant to you, what do you
spend time on?
Thinking, doing, and then makea list of what was important to
(38:00):
Christ.
What did he spend timethinking, doing?
And pretty soon you see we haveno idea how he looked.
Did he have a mirror?
I don't know how much time dowe spend in front of the mirror
in varieties of ways, just thevery small first thing in the
morning that we that that we do,right?
(38:21):
Uh, and that's again somethingvery uh simple, and yet the um
clothing industry is what it wasabout 20 years ago, three
trillion dollar industry.
Um and I want to ask, well,what's the implication of who
Christ is?
(38:41):
For how long do I wear thisthing?
Because now it's too narrow.
The fashion doesn't corresponduh anymore to to fashion, right?
So I I I can't quite and soforth, right?
So so uh and I think it's worthuh stepping back and asking the
question in what ways is theworld different and therefore we
(39:04):
will be different, but in whatways the difference uh between
crisis and our situations aredifference in profound values
that define who we truly are inour humanity?
Kyle (39:18):
Yeah, that's fascinating.
Please write a book about that,and we'll have you back on to
talk about it.
Miroslav (39:23):
We we we are working on that, yeah.
Kyle (39:25):
That's excellent.
Okay, I want to ask a couple ofquestions that it kind of
revolve around the idea of howdeep this critique of yours
really goes, um, not just at thesocietal level, but like into
human nature.
Uh, but let's start at thesocietal level.
What does this do tocapitalism?
Is capitalism possible uhwithout this?
And if if so, in what form?
And then even more basic thanthat, uh, we have this long
(39:48):
tradition in ethics andpolitical philosophy of the
social contract.
And a core part of thatperspective is that the only
thing you can really count onpeople to act on the basis of is
their self-interest.
And even when we'reconstructing kind of an idea for
what you know principles ofjustice might look like, for
example, one of the fundamentalthings we're assuming is that
people are acting on the basisof a few things, but one of our
(40:11):
foundational assumptions is thatthey're acting for their own
self-interest, or at least theself-interest of their small
group.
So how deep is your critique uhdriving into this idea that is
kind of at the basis of ourcivilization and also our
economic systems?
Miroslav (40:26):
Well, you can you can go uh to various depths, I
think.
Uh in some ways it's it's aprofound uh critique.
And I think it's a it's areally critique that's more
based on the character ofChristian love and implications
of that than specifically onthis idea of striving for
(40:47):
superiority.
If I take specifically the theidea of striving for
superiority, I thinkconsequences aren't as as deep
as if I take, say, agapic love,qua agopic love, and then ask,
what are the implications?
And the reason I say that is Ialready mentioned uh you you
(41:08):
have an arch capitalist, uh oneof the richest uh men in the
world who thinks that strivingfor superiority is detrimental
for the functioning of moderneconomies for capitalism.
He's a capitalist, right?
Kyle (41:21):
Warren Buffett, right?
That's who we're talking about.
Miroslav (41:23):
Yes, I'm talking about Warren Buffett.
You should not uh strive forsuperiority.
You should do the best uh uhwith the kinds of talents that
you have.
And so he's a big advocate ofbeing better today than you were
yesterday and forgetting abouthow you stack uh against
(41:44):
somebody else.
Uh, because he thinks, and Ithink he's right in that, that
that might uh under certainconditions uh make you uh
actually much better uh overall,uh, because you you can play to
your strengths rather thansimply to your general
equalizing than to uh what'scommon uh between the the two uh
(42:08):
competitors.
Is American uh is is democraticpolitics uh possible?
Well, it seems to me thatsomething like deliberative
politics, uh democracy would bepossible in this in this, unless
you simply say uh unless youdemour uh uh politics from from
(42:29):
substantive values.
Uh and I know that people aregoing that direction uh as well.
Um I would say that that uhdoesn't serve uh our politics uh
really well.
I think in some ways um even uhmore fundamental question is
can we, can I live a day withoutum striving for superiority?
(42:56):
Um I'll make it confessional.
Uh I find it I find it hard.
So my in general, the thrust ofthis book is not extirpate from
your heart any thought ofstriving for superiority, but
(43:19):
watch above all things not tomake striving for superiority
your supreme value, and don'tlet it uh occlude, relativize,
push to the side other valuesthat should um drive or orient
your uh behavior.
(43:40):
And to me, that that means uhthat I have to, in truth to my
personal life, I have to beengaged in daily vigilance so
that I am uh when uh when thecompetitive and comparative uh
thought occurs, uh I want tomake sure that that comparison
(44:04):
is comparison.
Oh, I'm identifying thedifference.
Uh, and would I identify thedifference if I'm striving
simply to be better than theother person, uh to check myself
and ask what is my value?
And then stay with it.
So it seems to me that uhslightly going uh back, it seems
to me to be uh one of theconditions of being human, in
(44:28):
fact.
And one sees that in the storyof Cain and Abel.
This uh one of the earlystories, and they manifest
precisely the same uh tendency.
Kyle (44:39):
Okay, so that's interesting and a good segue, I
think.
Because as I was reading yourbook, I'm trying to think, all
right, who are his foils here?
Who's he dealing with?
And a couple came to mind.
The obvious one was like theGordon Gecko character, right?
And I'm gonna I'm gonna callthat just like dumb greed.
And then that's one vision ofcapitalism.
It's not Warren Buffett'svision, so I take that point.
But the other one wasNietzsche, and Nietzsche does
come up a few times sort of inpassing.
(45:01):
I would have liked to have seenmore of a sustained uh you know
dialectic there, but that'sfine.
Um, and I I like what you justsaid because it's something he
would also say.
It does go to the essence ofhuman nature, and there's a
reason it's so difficult to getthrough a day without doing
that, right?
That's his whole will-to-powerthing.
So, what do you think he getswrong?
So uh I could put this in adifferent way, which I may in a
(45:23):
moment, but let me just get yourgeneral take on that kind of
perspective, because thecapitalist greed thing is not a
direct confrontation withChristianity, but this is like
this is very intentionally adirect confrontation.
Miroslav (45:34):
Yes, yes.
Uh, I I fully agree with you.
Uh, in fact, that um originallywhen the book was conceived, uh
the plan was to have uh uh tohave Nietzsche as well and Max
Scheler, who is a critic.
Uh and uh then I decided itwould be just too too heavy of a
of a book.
(45:55):
And then as it turns out, I hadto do uh the Gifford lectures,
which I did in May.
Congratulations.
And I needed I I needed some ofthat material for my Gifford
lectures.
Kyle (46:05):
All right, I'm gonna go read that.
Miroslav (46:08):
So so when they're published, you're you're gonna
find there, or you can listen tothem, uh, to them uh online.
And in fact, I do devote quitea bit of time to just that uh
features of uh Nietzsche'sthought, uh kind of the will to
power.
And centrally Nietzsche, that'sobvious because the will to
power becomes the dominantvalue.
(46:30):
And that's where striving forsuperiority is uh is uh most
most insidious.
I think Nietzsche kind of alsoa little bit relativizes uh or
or help us see something or hasa way of mitigating some of
those consequences.
Because a good deal of strivingfor superiority comes because
(46:56):
our value of ourselves isindexed to uh the opinion of
others.
We're vain.
Uh that's a that's a vice ofvanity that's that's at place,
uh, not so much uh pride.
And Nietzsche pushes uh verystrongly uh against that, right?
That that's precisely what whathe thinks is is a problem uh
(47:19):
with society.
And that shows simply that youdon't have strength enough in
yourself and a value enough uhin yourself.
And he has a very, veryincisive, I think, critique of a
vanity while at the same timestriving for superiority uh is
uh paramount uh value.
Kyle (47:38):
Yeah.
And it's not even just a value,it's a fact, right?
It's a discovered fact aboutthe world.
So like we could come at thisfrom a different direction, not
the theoretical, but theempirical.
Like the economists tell me,for example, that uh when we
survey what makes people happy,one of the things that we find
is that comparison to theirneighbors is a large chunk, and
(47:59):
it plays a large role in whethersomeone perceives themselves to
be happy or stable orcomfortable.
Like if I live on a block whereeverybody has four bedroom
houses and I have a five-bedroomhouse, I'm gonna be pretty
happy.
But if I have a three-bedroomhouse or my fourth bedroom is
slightly smaller than Joe's, I'mgonna be less happy.
And it doesn't matter what thenumber of bedrooms is, right?
It could be one bedroom and twobedrooms or six bedrooms and
(48:20):
seven.
That's like a thing that seemsto hold true across the
populace.
And so, like, are we are wegiving a critique here?
This is my Nietzsche in that,that is just impossible for
humans.
Miroslav (48:31):
Well, uh, well, and uh except that that you have to
ask if you ask the question,what makes people unhappy?
Uh the the the answer would besimilar, just reversed, right?
Having uh having fewer, right?
That's right.
So uh so so it's a gain and aloss uh in terms of in terms of
happiness.
One reads this happiness study,oh yeah, yeah, we're that makes
(48:54):
us happy when we are, but it uhthe the fact that that exists,
those comparisons exist, make usin aggregate also unhappy,
equally unhappy uh as we are aswe are happy and we forget about
this other uh other side of it.
So um, yeah, it I think it is afact.
(49:15):
I would say uh as a Christian,this is a fact of our uh of our
fallenness.
And I reckon uh with it.
Uh and for us not to reckonwith it would be uh would be
really uh uh kind of uhshort-sighted.
But at the same time, I don'twant to celebrate it.
I don't want to close my eyesfor the negative side uh of it.
(49:39):
Uh and that's what I see in umin uh contemporary environment.
Uh I think uh in 19 in seven uh18th century, 19th century,
that very issue has been um hasexercised philosophers uh and
and theologians, and thensuddenly in the mid-uh 20th
(50:01):
century stops doing uh stopsdoing so, and uh, and I'm not
exactly sure why, but it seemsto me that we have kind of uh
acquiesced to this is this iswho we are, um this is what
evolution has made us to be, andtherefore we just live uh this
(50:22):
way and try to make the best uhof it.
I think we shortchangeourselves.
Absolutely.
Kyle (50:26):
And that's a uh yeah, that's not a great reading of
evolution either.
Yeah, as Friends Duwall used tosay, right?
It gave us all the other stufftoo, like the the empathy and
the reciprocity and all that.
Miroslav (50:36):
Yeah, because it concentrates on individuals but
doesn't concentrate on the on ongroup and what groups do in
internally, right?
Kyle (50:43):
So exactly.
Last Nietzschean question,okay?
Yeah.
Uh this isn't my devil'sadvocate thing again.
So, and this is based on aquote at the very end of your
book, which I reallyappreciated.
You put all the statements in arow and like summed up your
argument very nicely.
It's in that last conclusion.
Um, you say this superior andinferior worth or status are
social fictions, powerfullyattractive and highly
(51:06):
destructive fictions, butfictions nonetheless.
Immediately the littleNietzsche in my brain said, But
so is equality.
And it reminded me of uh whatone of my friends used to say
when we were talking aboutpolitics.
He said something like this wehold these truths to be
self-evident.
Uh, the phrasing of that kindof betrays it because if they
were self-evident, we wouldn'thave to hold them.
(51:26):
Right?
They're not self-evident.
That's why we wrote thedocument.
But uh the Greeks didn't thinkanything like that, for example.
Um, so if both of these ideasare constructs, equality,
striving for superiority, how dowe choose?
On what basis do we choose?
And is the insistence on theone itself a kind of striving
for superiority, in this case ofa superiority of values?
(51:47):
That's my last Nietzscheanquestion.
Miroslav (51:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's this is a great question.
I I think I think Nietzsche,Nietzsche um uh is a critic of i
equality, and uh um I if wethink that there is no such
thing as mere humanity that isin itself a fundamentally
(52:16):
valuable thing about us, then itseems to me that Nietzschean
position uh or uh a kind ofsheer meritocratic position,
maybe, depending on where youcome from, would be would be a
plausible, plausible one.
Uh, and that's why I think allby the way, also, why Paul's
(52:37):
argument isn't simply from theexample of Christ, but it's
actually from the nature of whowe are as creatures.
Uh, I devote a little bit oftime uh to this, what I consider
to be a really fascinating setof rhetorical questions that he
asked of the Corinthians who areall in uh in struggle for
(52:59):
superiority.
Uh, and he asked, he asked, uh,what do you have that you have
not received?
Uh every striving forsuperiority, that is to say,
making me being superior tosomebody on the basis of some
(53:19):
value redound to myself ispredicated on the idea that I
have, in fact, made myself to besuperior so that the fact of
superiority redounds to me, tomy benefit, and can be ascribed
to my person.
And Paul asks, What do you havethat you haven't received?
(53:41):
Uh, answer, expected answer,and answer that he seems to be
getting.
I don't have very much, I don'thave anything.
If you have received it, why doyou boast?
As if you have not received it.
And to me, that is really thefundamental question.
As a theologian, I speak uhthen of mere humanity, I speak
(54:01):
of creation in the image of God.
But let's step back from thatlanguage and let's look at me as
a human being, uh, simply fromuh uh look at me and my history.
And so I ask myself, so uh I'mteaching at Y L.
Some people think that that'ssome kind of distinction.
Okay, let's grant that there issome kind of distinction, and
(54:23):
then I ask myself, okay, so whatpercentage to the honor of
being a teacher at TL have Imyself contributed so that I can
boast off?
And what percentage I havenothing to do with?
And if you ask me honestly tothink about it, I mean I I I've
(54:46):
never done calculus and I don'tthink can be calculated, but it
seems to me plausible that if Isay maybe two percent I
contributed, that would beroughly true.
Um who am I as a person, giftsthat I have, uh parents that I
that I have, education that Ihave none of it is my to claim
(55:12):
any credit for.
And I think if we look atourselves in those in those
ways, then striving forsuperiority uh makes very little
sense.
Uh it elicits humility becausewe are then now theologically,
we are creatures.
(55:33):
We are giving to ourselves.
We should celebrate, uh, enjoy,love that which we are created,
but not elevate ourselves uhover against others, celebrate
them in their own way as well,without that making us
uncritical about what is true,what is not, what is good, what
(55:53):
isn't, what is beautiful, isn'tbeautiful, or is beautiful.
So striving for excellence,yes, but having my excellence
redound to me as a personsimply, I think it's a deeply
problematic.
So it's a book that is criticalof meritocracy uh as well in a
significant way.
Randy (56:11):
Yeah, what you're saying reminds me of your quoting of
Kierkegaard.
If you can hear our enjoymentof Kierkegaard, uh I'm sure it
rings through, but this joy ofbeing that he talked about in
contentment.
That that's what it sounds likeyou're describing to me.
That's what I want in my life.
Miroslav (56:31):
Yeah.
Uh and and not kind of uhNietzschean critique uh of the
last, quote unquote, last quoteunquote men, right?
Who kind of just sit uh halfdrugged uh on the couch
potatoes.
Now, this is my language, nothis, but uh he says it in a much
more poetic way than I'm rightnow, but it's closer to our
(56:54):
experience.
Half drugged, I I sit on my uhmy couch, uh eat whatever it is
I'm gobbling, uh uh, and blinkand think I have invented
happiness, right?
Kyle (57:09):
Yeah.
Uh what a wonderful place toend the conversation about a
really intriguing andinteresting book.
So the book again is The Costof Ambition, How Striving to Be
Better Than Others Makes UsWorse.
Miroslav Wolf, thanks so muchfor your time.
Miroslav (57:22):
Oh, it was great.
Uh fun to be with you and talkto you and with you about these
matters.
Thank you so much.
Randy (57:45):
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Cheers
I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my
friend Kyle's a philosopher.
This podcast hostsconversations at the
intersection of philosophy,theology, and spirituality.
Kyle (00:15):
We also invite experts to join us, making public a space
that we've often enjoyed off-airaround the proverbial table
with a good drink in the backcorner of a dark pub.
Randy (00:24):
Thanks for joining us, and welcome to a pastor and a
philosopher walk into a bar.
Miroslav Wolf is a name withinthe church and within theology
that um is is a name that needsno introduction.
(00:45):
His his book, Exclusion andEmbrace, is um one of the like
the great classic, modernclassics, I would say.
Would you agree withintheology?
Kyle (00:55):
Certainly, yeah, it certainly has that stature.
Randy (00:57):
Yeah, and um Miroslav wrote a book called The Cost of
Ambition (01:00):
How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us
Worse.
And um, to be honest with you,when I saw that on the list of
you know one of my favoritepublishers, Brazos Press, um, I
was shocked.
First of all, that MiroslavWolf is publishing a kind of a
pop culture, you know, Christianbook, but also that he's
talking about this.
And I get get to this in thebeginning of our interview, but
(01:21):
it was intriguing to me.
And then as soon as you readthe book, you realize he is
brilliant, and this stuff is um,this is kind of like written
into the fabric of our cultureand our way of being in ways
that many of us don't reallyeven understand or care to pay
attention to.
Kyle (01:39):
Yeah, that's right.
And of course, he brings a lotof uh material, a lot of
background knowledge, a lot ofdeep analysis of certain
thinkers into it as well.
It wouldn't be one of his booksif he didn't.
So um, yeah, it's it's it'sintriguing, it's relevant to all
of our lives, um, and it's alsovery informed and insightful as
you would expect from him.
Um, I'd only previously readone of his books, and so was not
(02:00):
familiar, super familiar withthe breadth of his work.
And so this was kind of, andthat was a long time ago.
So this is kind of like a um arefresher and also an
introduction uh for me.
And he's delightful to talk toand super insightful, and was
very happy to have me playdevil's advocate and get into
the weeds a little bit on somesome philosophical issues,
because this is one of thosebooks where this is a rare
(02:23):
experience for me.
I agree with 95% of it.
And the 5% is like stuff that Idon't know anything about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, if you're a Christian,as he says in the conversation,
this is kind of given, and yetwhy isn't it given?
Like for most of us, right?
I mean, his thesis is that weought not to be striving for
(02:46):
superiority over others.
As you state it kind of simply,that's a wrong thing to do.
Uh, and yet, you know, there'sa whole book about it, and
there's a reason that there's awhole book about it.
So fascinating conversation, atopic that I would not have
expected to talk to somebodyabout, much less a theologian of
his stature, but really fun.
Randy (03:04):
Absolutely.
Well, Dr.
Mirzlav Wolf, thank you so muchfor joining us on a pastor and
(03:25):
a philosopher walking to a bar.
Miroslav (03:27):
Uh excellent.
I I've never been to a bar witha pastor and a philosopher.
I've been with pastors and I'vebeen philosophers, but never
together.
Randy (03:36):
Well, here we are, in a theologian.
We we should change the name ofthe podcast.
Miroslav (03:39):
Right there.
Randy (03:41):
So, Miroslav, um, when I first came across this book, to
be honest with you, my firstquestion was of all the things
Miroslav Wolf could write, whyis he writing about ambition and
superiority?
I it it it was a bit of amystery to me.
And then I read the book and itall started making sense.
It's particularly of the ideaof laying down our our own
(04:02):
obsession with superiority andholding on to a sense of
humility.
It's all over the scriptures,especially when it's kind of one
of those things that when youactually see it in plain sight,
you realize that you've beenlooking at it all along, but
really never realized it.
So, what drove you to writethis book?
What was that process like?
Miroslav (04:20):
Well, I I think it was um a personal experience as
experiences uh teaching, um,observing um uh the culture uh
which made me uh kind of puzzleduh about this idea that we
(04:43):
strive for superiority and thatthere is uh implicit ideology
that this is how progress in theworld is uh actually uh
achieved in various domains oflife.
And there's very littlereflection about the attendant
problems of precisely thatstriving for superiority in all
(05:08):
domains of life, from educationand education from uh uh from
cradle almost all the way tothrough PhD and beyond uh in
sports, obviously, in arts, uhin economy, in politics, it is
just about uh everywhere.
And you can't find a domainwhere you don't find it, and
(05:29):
then in our private uhimagination, uh obviously.
And that got me then uh thengoing because I saw the negative
sides and haven't seen uh thoseactually addressed.
Whereas in previous centuries,these have been thematized and
reflected upon.
Kyle (05:47):
Can I ask real quick?
So I was gonna put thequestion, who is this book for?
Which you just kind of uhstarted into, so I'm gonna skip
right to it.
Um I I I hear all the thingsyou're saying about that being
pervasive in culture, and that'sundeniable.
But I I don't think I've everencountered anybody seriously
defending the idea that strivingfor superiority, superiority
(06:09):
over others is a good thingoutside of like niche you know
intellectual circles.
So I always interpret that.
I have this thing where maybesometimes I interpret too
charitably, but I alwaysinterpret, uh, unless you're
like, you know, a certain kindof politician or economist or
something, I generally interpretthat kind of thing as we all
know deep down that we're notactually trying to like win over
(06:31):
in some significant sense thatother person.
We just participate in thesekinds of structures and we do it
in some in some ways with likehigher ideals in mind or
something like that.
But you seem to think that thisthis is actually a more
pervasive foundational thingthat actually needs a serious
critique.
Where why am I wrong aboutpeople not really buying into
this?
Miroslav (06:52):
Um I I don't think we're sufficiently reflecting
about it.
Uh I think I would argue uhthat the practice is ubiquitous.
Right.
Uh in I have particular so theexample that I give, uh I'm I'm
in Chicago Airport and I'mwalking uh from terminal B to
(07:15):
terminal C.
I'm going underground uh therethrough this uh through this
passage uhway.
Uh and there are 60 stairs togo down, and there are 60 stairs
uh to go up, and I decide I'mgoing to climb those stairs uh
and carry my little whatever Ihave.
And then I start feelingsuperior to the folks who are
(07:38):
using uh escalators uh andthink, oh, I'm a better specimen
of humanity.
And that's just the ordinaryeveryday experience which is
there.
Uh but if you uh if you uhpractice it consistently in
domains like education, which uhwhich I experience, uh it is
(08:00):
extraordinarily conducive tocreating a self-loathing, uh and
self-loathing that then uh veryquickly morphs into depression.
Um, if one thinks thatdepression is the malady of uh
sense of inadequacy, uh and thekind of sense of I need to be
(08:24):
better, uh, of which the flipside is I'm not good enough.
Uh, and that flip side getsconsistently confirmed because
there's always somebody in thein my group, uh, and and uh
often often more than justsomebody who proves me to be
inferior, and therefore I'mconstantly climbing.
(08:48):
And for all the climbing, I'mstaying in one and the same
place.
Although this is precisely whatwas supposed to me uh to to
bring me uh uh up into thehigher realms.
Right.
Kyle (09:01):
Yeah, there we talked to Willie James Jennings about this
back in the day, about thisculture in education
specifically, of um it's almostlike in the production of
knowledge and expertise, thereis this battleground and there's
a kind of survival of thefittest kind of thing.
And I have to not just stake myclaim but stake it better than
you did and prove myself.
(09:22):
And when you add, you know,professional pressure to get a
job and publish, it just makesall that worse.
He had his own take about adifferent way it could be.
Why do you think do you thinkthere's anything intrinsic to
the educational process or theformation of expertise that
makes that kind of um posture,that aggressive posture
necessary?
Or is there a better way to dothat?
Miroslav (09:43):
Uh I I don't think it's necessary, and you can you
can run in varieties of uh ofdomains.
I think that um I want todistinguish what I'm trying to
argue um uh uh uh uh in terms ofstriving.
Uh striving as such, I don'thave problems, even ambition and
such, I mean maybe we can talka little bit about the character
(10:06):
of ambition.
Even that I don't have problemuh as such.
It's particular form uh ofstriving that I have a problem
with, and namely striving to be,have ambition to be better than
somebody else.
So where the somebody else isalways uh the measure of my own
uh achievement and measure notjust of my achievement, but
(10:29):
measure of my self-worth.
So indexing the idea of who Iam uh to the idea of uh
comparative uh performancestrikes me as uh as the most
problematic, and it strikes meas something that can be
avoided.
There are examples in uh thetop levels of sport where it's
(10:52):
uh avoided.
There are examples in alldomains of life where people
have actually uh made it theirspiritual practice uh not to
strive for superiority.
Indeed, there are domains ineconomics like Warren Buffett,
who is not just making it matterof spiritual practice, but who
is arguing that actually youdon't perform as well if you uh
(11:17):
index your performance tosomebody else and tries to
adjust, which you say youimitate others and therefore
might not be acting out of yourown uh your own strength.
So um I think it's it'spossible, but structures are
also built in such a way that itmakes that they make it
difficult.
So, my one of my goals is kindof push a little bit to ask that
(11:39):
question and then see what wemight do in order to release
much more fruitful ways ofexcelling in things uh and uh
being uh at one with myourselves.
Kyle (11:52):
Let me give a quick disclaimer.
I'm the philosophy half of thepodcast, and that means that
part of my role is to um beprovocative and ask hard
questions.
But it turns out that I agreealmost entirely with everything
in your book, and that almostnever happens on our show.
Um and so I feel a little bituh obligated to take up a sort
(12:14):
of devil's advocate position atcertain points.
So if you find me doing that,it's not necessarily something
I'm actually uh convicted aboutor committed to.
I just want to make sure thatthe the the strongest objections
are getting aired because Iknow that you have responses to
some of them.
So that may come up in thefuture.
Miroslav (12:31):
I I I know I I know philosophers, uh, and actually
I've been trained actually, uhtheology and philosophy.
I uh I did in parallel mydoctoral dissertation, is is
also philosophical andtheological.
So I I know your tribe, I loveyour tribe.
Kyle (12:46):
Wonderful, wonderful.
Um, and I know you can handleit.
So Nietzsche's gonna come up alot in this conversation.
That's what I'm what I'msaying.
Sounds good.
Quickly about what you werejust saying, though.
What about in like specificallydialectical contexts?
And this is really related tomy philosophical context as
well.
Um, so where it's not zero sum,but like making progress as we
(13:10):
define progress is kind of atthe expense of at least another
point of view, and but usuallythe person making that point of
view, because the point of viewis defined by its strongest
proponent.
Um, so and I've seen this a lotin theology as well.
And for a long time, thoseweren't really separated fields.
So what about a situation likethat, which is a large part of
academia, where I don't I don'thave any feelings about you as a
(13:33):
person?
In fact, uh, for a long time,the tradition is if any of that
stuff comes into theconversation, we've stopped
doing the academic thing.
We're not doing somethingentirely different and we've
missed the point.
Let's put that aside and getback to this.
But of course, it's not reallypossible to separate that in
practice or in lived experience.
But there is this sense thatthere's this specific thing that
we're doing, and some kind ofone-upsmanship is a part of just
(13:55):
the process of dialecticitself.
What do you think about that?
Miroslav (13:59):
Well, I uh uh yes, uh I would I would agree with that
uh to a certain certain degree.
But the question is um the theone uh upmanship uh is one
upmanship in what in service ofwhat is one upmanship?
So so most sturdy my moststurdy opposition is making
superiority the chief of thevalues that we might have in any
(14:23):
given situation.
And of course, there are onlyextreme characters who do that,
but but there are such uh suchcharacters.
Um and I think they're also themost uh most uh difficult when
there are no other um values atstake, which is to say where the
(14:44):
the very performance uh as insports defines what excellence
means.
Uh in the context of uh debatesuh in philosophy or in
theology, I would hope thatisn't the case.
Uh something like um uhcommitment to truth uh uh is
(15:04):
essential, I think, for thosekinds of uh those kinds of
discussions.
So the fact that I've eitherwon or lost is kind of
irrelevant.
What matters is that we bothagree that uh that that the gain
in truthfulness is what we arewhat we are about.
And I think there are otherdomains in which that is the
(15:26):
case, meaning uh to say wepursue excellence, we we don't
pursue simply being better thanuh than others.
And there are also inphilosophical traditions, so
kind of uh just think of it, uhyou can you can have rhetorical
wins, right?
And uh the tradition all theway since Plato uh has pushed
(15:47):
against against that idea.
So so uh that seems to me, uhseems to me right.
It may not always be easy todraw the distinctions, uh, and
we need to be attuned to it, weneed to be sensitive to it.
And part of the reason forwriting is precisely to have
that into uh attunement.
Randy (16:08):
So, Miroslav, as as the as a pastoral half of the
podcast, I'm concerned with howthis stuff works out and is
lived in in the life of thechurch.
Um, and as you read your book,The Cost of Ambition, it becomes
really, really clear to me atleast that so much of the
American church, and I'm puttingthat very specifically in the
(16:30):
American church, um you see solittle of this.
So I would love to just uh gointo just a few of these huge uh
uh theological realities thatwe we believe in as the church.
And I just wanted to hear fromyou how should these things
shape our life as Christians, asChrist followers as the church?
Something like, I mean, you youspend so much time going into
(16:53):
the Karman Christie, right?
The Paul's Christ hymn inPhilippians 2, talking about how
Christ emptied himself and youknow didn't want to claim
equality with God, something tobe grasped, but let go of all of
that and be was humiliated andhumbled into this state of a
slave and even to death on thecross.
That famous Philippians 2passage.
(17:14):
How should the incarnationshape the life of individual
Christians and the church in atlarge?
What what part does theincarnation play?
Miroslav (17:25):
Well, it seems to me that um for Christians it should
be just given that Jesus Christis what Charles Taylor, to
invoke a philosopher, would callthe hyper good.
That is to say, that good whichuh is a criterion uh of all
(17:51):
other goods and which organizesall other subordinate goods that
we that we uh that we embrace.
And if that is the case, thenit seems to me that the life of
Christ and teaching uh of Christought to be the measure of what
we what we do.
Indeed, that Christ is in animportant sense a measure of our
(18:14):
humanity, and that it is infact, I would say not a moral
simply question, but a deeplyspiritual question, because I
think that the relationshipbetween human beings and Christ
in the Christian tradition isnot simply a moral one.
I see something and I emulateuh that, uh, and that has a
(18:35):
moral claim on me, but ratherthat there's something, uh, if
you want to put it mysticalabout it, that there is a there
is a and that's very clear inPaul, that there's kind of
indwelling of Christ, Christpresent in me, so that the life
of Christ as Christ lived itought to be the life that is
lived uh in me and through me uhin the world.
(18:57):
And in that sense, uh I reallydo take this uh this serious,
and to me, that's the maincriterion, and hence uh Carmen
Christie plays a role, not justuh foundational role in these
chapter two chapters on ApostlePaul.
Interestingly enough, uh, itstructures also the great poem,
(19:18):
two great uh poems of uh JohnMilton, Paradise Lost and
Paradise Regained.
And it was very significant fora philosopher for uh for
Kierkegaard.
At the same time, I would saythis is not the only uh
doctrine, this is not the onlyuh thing that we keep in mind.
And Apostle Paul is wonderfulwhen he talks about the nature
(19:40):
of creation, and almost like alike a spirituality is developed
out of the doctrine ofcreation, both uh out of the
doctrine of salvation and ofcreation.
And I find this extraordinaryso that all of Christian
doctrines actually uh inform thekinds of attitude, the kinds of
(20:00):
stance toward oneself, towardothers that I try to advocate
for in this book.
Randy (20:06):
Yeah, thank you.
It's easy, it's it's easier tounderstand the incarnation and
the crucifixion as informing thethe shape of the Christian life
and what that should look likein regards to this book in
particular, in regards to layingdown our our obsession for
superiority.
But the resurrection and theascension are almost feel like
the opposite, where it's thistriumphal, victorious.
(20:30):
We don't like Good Friday verymuch, you know, a Yale
philosopher.
Who did we talk to, Kyle?
Miroslav (20:36):
Oh, that was uh Keith DeRose.
Oh, my uh you you're you'renaming all my friends, you know.
Keith Keith is I I we we Keithand I have regular Saturday uh
afternoon uh or late afternoonuh dinner together.
Randy (20:50):
Well, tell him hi for us, please.
I will.
Miroslav (20:53):
I definitely will.
I love Keith.
Randy (20:55):
He calls himself a Good Friday Christian more than an
Easter Christian.
He identifies more with GoodFriday than Easter.
And I think in regards to yourbook, that makes sense.
So how would you how would youhold and frame the resurrection,
the ascension?
Two things that we Christiansfeel really good about
championing and worshiping andholding up, how might that fit
within this paradigm of layingdown our ideas of superiority?
(21:18):
Is it in the universality ofthe resurrection of the
ascension?
Help us up.
Miroslav (21:23):
Well, I mean, if you think of yourself as uh as a
good Friday Christian, then youhave also the foundation for
thinking yourself as aresurrection Christian.
If you don't have a GoodFriday, resurrection stuff ends
up being just a boosting of thepower that I have, right?
So I'm gonna fly.
Or ascension ends up being,right?
(21:44):
Oh, we're gonna fly up intothat uh sphere.
Or we we we we we we're filledwith this uh new liveliness,
right?
And and the victory is there.
But I think it's very importantin the in the Christian
tradition to combine uh uhexactly this.
It's uh ash and cross on ourforehead, uh uh, and we don't
(22:06):
say hallelujah until theresurrection comes, and then we
say the same people who had ashand cross on on their forehead,
they say hallelujah uh on theEaster, uh Easter Sunday.
And I think that's that's uhthat has that has not only it's
not a matter of church calendar,but but the cross is the cross
(22:26):
of unconditional love, and theresurrection is precisely
promised to the Christ-likelife, to the life that has been
uh that is bound uh with Christ.
And uh in the just maybe onething to add, uh so when I when
I speak about um uh not strivingfor superiority, but holding
(22:51):
others to be more important thanourselves, I'm speaking here of
our agapic love for others.
But I want to argue, and maybewe can talk about that too, and
I mentioned that in the in inthe book, but though it isn't
highly emphasized, I think thatwe can have, we ought to have
agapic kind of love towardourselves.
(23:13):
Indeed, I find that this agapiclove toward ourselves is really
the key to the whole uhprocess, that we don't love
ourselves only on the basis ofperformance that we have uh
achieved.
There's something worth loving,therefore I love myself.
I love myself just because Iam, right?
(23:36):
And this loving myself andloving the other because they
are, because I am, that seems tome fundamental in the Christian
uh Christian life and holdstogether this both this idea of
giving preference uh to othersoften, not striving to be better
than them, uh, and the thesense that I am too uh worthy of
(24:00):
just such love from others,worthy in a in a sense of uh in
a sense of uh my sheer being andto be loved in just such a way,
both by others and by myself.
Randy (24:13):
Yes, very good, thank you.
Let me this reminds me of whatI I really enjoyed your kind of
fleshing out Kierkegaard's ideaof mere humanity.
Um this idea that our humanityis just something that is
glorious, doesn't need to beadded to.
Could you flesh that out alittle bit?
It reminds me a little bit ofC.S.
Lewis, but I love this idea ofmere humanity and the glory of
it.
Miroslav (24:33):
So we always think that we need to kind of spruce
ourselves up, uh, get ourselvesready to face uh ourselves in
the mirror in the morning and uhall also the world, so that
there could be admiring looks,uh, my admiring looks of myself
in the mirror, others admiringlooks, they they they kind of
(24:54):
mirror the hope for uh admiringlooks of others upon me when I
face uh face the the the world.
And so we we seek to impressand we live uh uh because we
think that we have this life inthe imagination of uh of others,
and so uh that creates acertain kind of uh kind of kind
(25:17):
of tension uh in us.
And the beauty of this idea ofbeauty of the mere humanity is
that I am uh loved, I am uhaffirmed in that, and that has
greater value than anything Ican make out of myself at with
(25:39):
with myself.
For the for for you listenerswho are uh who are readers of
Newman's uh work, you have uhthis idea of Christ being
declared as beloved at thebaptism before he has done
anything yet, right?
So so these belovedness uhseems to me fundamental in the
(26:02):
Christian uh Christiantradition, and I think that's
what Kierkegaard wants toarticulate in this mere
humanity, unadorned um uhhumanity that simply is and it's
beautiful.
Kyle (26:17):
Is that how you understand what agape is?
If you had to give a quickdefinition, what would it be?
Miroslav (26:22):
Uh you're loved unconditionally.
Agape, I would say it'sunconditional love.
I try to differentiate, youknow, that there are these
different loves and there aremany typologies.
Uh they all have their ownpluses, and uh, some of them
they have have minuses.
Uh, this is not exhaustive, butI I think uh I think of love as
being on the one levelepitumic.
Love is simply desire.
(26:44):
I love um flowerless chocolatecake.
Uh and the goal uh of this loveand the entire purpose of this
love to devour this thing uh orsimply have it uh in in kind of
a Picurean way uh uh melt in mymouth and I uh I enjoy it.
There's also Eros, uh so one isepithumia, desire, eros.
(27:09):
Eros is uh love that that kindof recognizes certain kind of
worth in uh in the thing, sortof recognition of worth.
And it's a pro first love isappropriate love for many in
many domains.
Second uh kind is appropriate,I think, uh, as well.
But agapic love doesn't uh seekto satisfy uh primarily a
(27:31):
desire, doesn't simply recognizea worth, but in fact affirms
the other, uh in some sensebestow the worth on the other or
recognizes that other qua otheruh is appropriately object of
love.
And even that, as uhDostoevsky's Zosima says so so
(27:54):
so well, even deserves quoteunquote uh more love when their
life has been uh uh twisted incertain ways, when they become
captive to something thatdestroys, that doesn't uh that
makes them ugly.
It's a mode of releasingsomeone into their uh freedom of
(28:22):
uh delight in their merehumanity.
Randy (28:25):
Uh Miroslav, I'm gonna ask you one more question, kind
of a major one about the churchand what's happening now in the
church, and then I'm gonna letKyle do his devil advocate thing
for the rest of ourconversation.
So as as I read your book, umthe the tragedy, the irony of
whatever you want to say is thatthe reality is that about 80%,
(28:46):
give or take, of the Americanchurch, particularly American
evangelicals, voted, whetherit's 2016, 2020, or 2024, for a
person, our president, who seemsto value superiority in
competition higher than justabout anybody I can imagine,
right?
Like, I mean, make Americagreat again is what the whole
platform is is is founded on,and this idea of Christian
(29:10):
nationalism and America first.
Um it seems like we're beingbrainwashed and programmed to
swim in the waters ofsuperiority, whether it be for
us as a nation, us as a church,and the church has just gobbled
this up, and it seems like lovesthis message of superiority and
us over and against others,whether it be ethnicities and
(29:30):
nationalities, whatever.
Within that backdrop of what'shappening, I mean, first of all,
did you write it first in someways because of the as a
response to that?
And if whether or not you did,how do we begin to take apart
and disassemble this obsessionwith superiority that's coming
from the top of our culture ondown?
Miroslav (29:50):
Yes, I have written it with clear uh awareness of that
uh reality of uh the politicallife in uh United States, not
just in the United States.
States, many other places, butcertainly here it is pronounced,
and of the captivity of thechurch to that and uh inability
(30:10):
to recognize the problematicnature of um of such striving
for for superiority, how deeplydestructive uh it is.
And um you can see thepolitical dimensions uh
expressed there in spiritualway, but uh but they're they're
(30:30):
kind of political dimensionexpressed in uh in Milton's uh
Paradise Lost.
It's a politics of heaventhat's there are being discussed
there, uh if you want.
Uh somebody who is uh, in thiscase, uh Lucifer, who is under
God, uh, is uh seeking uh tomake an insurrection so that the
(30:52):
rule can be snatched from Godand taken uh over by Satan, who
is um in the grip ofself-loathing, uh simply for the
fact that he is not superior touh to God.
And I think you can draw thenthe lines from this uh both for
earthly politics uh as well asuh for other domains.
(31:16):
And that was uh certainly on onmy mind.
It was certainly on my mindwhen I wrote about uh church
life in the section two chaptersthat I have on the Apostle
Paul.
And actually, Apostle Paulspends most of the time talking
about politics of striving forsuperiority in church
(31:37):
communities.
That's his main concern.
And so you can take this uhchurch politics uh and transpose
it onto larger political life,and you see this is a politics
of relationships uh with othersthat can be either toxic uh in
striving for superiority uh orthat can be healing, that that
(32:00):
can be then uh robustlyother-oriented.
Sometimes we think and and whatI'm what I'm troubled also in
today's rhetoric is that uhsomehow masculinity and being a
man are associated with kind ofbrute uh exercise of brute uh
brute power.
And I was thinking about this,and uh and Jesus then ends up
(32:22):
being uh gentle and meek uhJesus uh because he's so uh
other regarding in some ways.
And then I was reading recentlyin the Gospel of Luke, uh 12,
Luke 12, 49, I think it is, andthe English translation says, I
have come to bring fire onearth.
(32:43):
Uh Greek says, fire I have cometo bring, right?
It's a foregrounded, and thenbaptism I've come to be
baptized, and that's thisbaptism of uh out of uh
unconditional love beingcrucified uh for the salvation
of uh of the world.
And I'm thinking this is not uhuh meek and gentle Jesus.
(33:07):
Uh this is uh this is thesturdiness uh and hard work,
arduous work of doing agapiclove uh in the world.
That's what we are called upon.
And when I see churches thenreplacing uh unconditional love
with kind of militaristicapproaches seeking to gain
superiority, it seems to me sucha betrayal.
Randy (33:30):
Yeah, just to be fair to both sides, right?
When we have we have 80% or orso of the churches supporting
the president and all themagistr stuff, but then we also
have a huge population of thechurch who really, really like
who don't support the presidentand feel quite superior to the
supporters of the president.
We feel completely morallysuperior and really superior in
(33:54):
in many, many ways.
Miroslav, tell us the answer.
What's the answer to this?
Do we American Christians needto check out of the American
political process in order tonot play the game?
Or can we do this in a way thatactually looks Christ-like?
Miroslav (34:11):
Well, I think we do have two hardened fronts, and
both, in a sense, have uh theirown inferiorities and
superiorities um that are beingplayed played out.
I'm not the one to simplyequalize that.
If you have two hardenedfronts, uh, doesn't mean to me
that they're equally uh bothequally equally bad, but that
(34:32):
there there are there areproblems uh also on the other
side uh as well.
What I don't see is what I haveargued for, namely
unconditional love.
I don't see honoring of themere humanity of the other
person.
I don't see when Apostle Peteruh says, uh I love this, uh
(34:54):
there's a two-word command.
One of them, I favorite in theBible, and doesn't count like uh
like a command in in nobody'smind, honor everyone.
That's a directly quote fromFirst Peter, 1 Peter 2.
Uh, where is honoring ofeveryone?
Everyone deserves to behonored, humanity of every
(35:18):
person.
And it seems to me that that'swhat we have to major on.
And if it turns out that Christuh is a moral stranger in
today's world, that uh neitherof the sides will embrace Christ
in this, both in agapic loveand in demanding for uh of us to
(35:38):
honor each other, um that so beit.
I think we should follow uhChrist.
I think it's a healing, uhhealing uh message for today.
Uh and it we certainly won't behealed through oppositional
politics.
Kyle (35:54):
Christ is a moral stranger.
I like that phrase.
Do you just mean his actualperspective is not part of the
conversation anybody's having?
Go deeper into that.
Miroslav (36:04):
Uh yeah, this this is a phrase that I've uh we we
started working on this at theuh at the center, and it comes
out of my sense that, well, I'lltell you, the history of it is
this.
Uh, we're teaching a classtogether with a uh colleague of
mine, um, teaching a class uh onChrist and flourishing.
And so we go through life ofChrist and kind of map the life
(36:27):
of Christ, story of life ofChrist to our life.
Uh, and obviously there's abirth, uh, and then of course,
raising of children, education.
And two colleagues, uh, onecolleague and I, we have a small
child, and we we're uh uhreading about Christ, embracing
children.
And then I don't know who cameup with this uh uh question.
(36:49):
Would we, would I allow Christto raise my daughter?
And and there's a kind of bothof us are kind of stunned by
this question immediately.
Would he know how to properlyeducate her?
Would he care to kind of gothrough all the different stages
that she needs to go through?
Would he teach her what he sheneeds to uh she needs to know?
(37:13):
Everything I and and I I'mstummering, I don't know how to
respond to what should beobvious question, yes.
But it's not it's not obvious,but it's not obvious.
So so so even for uh for formost of us, he is a moral
stranger.
I think that that's a problem,that's a deep problem, and
(37:37):
that's that's a very simple uhkind of domain.
Uh we can name all sorts ofother domains where he's
stranger.
So, what I do, I basically sayto people, well, make a list.
On one side, what really isimportant to you, what do you
spend time on?
Thinking, doing, and then makea list of what was important to
(38:00):
Christ.
What did he spend timethinking, doing?
And pretty soon you see we haveno idea how he looked.
Did he have a mirror?
I don't know how much time dowe spend in front of the mirror
in varieties of ways, just thevery small first thing in the
morning that we that that we do,right?
(38:21):
Uh, and that's again somethingvery uh simple, and yet the um
clothing industry is what it wasabout 20 years ago, three
trillion dollar industry.
Um and I want to ask, well,what's the implication of who
Christ is?
(38:41):
For how long do I wear thisthing?
Because now it's too narrow.
The fashion doesn't corresponduh anymore to to fashion, right?
So I I I can't quite and soforth, right?
So so uh and I think it's worthuh stepping back and asking the
question in what ways is theworld different and therefore we
(39:04):
will be different, but in whatways the difference uh between
crisis and our situations aredifference in profound values
that define who we truly are inour humanity?
Kyle (39:18):
Yeah, that's fascinating.
Please write a book about that,and we'll have you back on to
talk about it.
Miroslav (39:23):
We we we are working on that, yeah.
Kyle (39:25):
That's excellent.
Okay, I want to ask a couple ofquestions that it kind of
revolve around the idea of howdeep this critique of yours
really goes, um, not just at thesocietal level, but like into
human nature.
Uh, but let's start at thesocietal level.
What does this do tocapitalism?
Is capitalism possible uhwithout this?
And if if so, in what form?
And then even more basic thanthat, uh, we have this long
(39:48):
tradition in ethics andpolitical philosophy of the
social contract.
And a core part of thatperspective is that the only
thing you can really count onpeople to act on the basis of is
their self-interest.
And even when we'reconstructing kind of an idea for
what you know principles ofjustice might look like, for
example, one of the fundamentalthings we're assuming is that
people are acting on the basisof a few things, but one of our
(40:11):
foundational assumptions is thatthey're acting for their own
self-interest, or at least theself-interest of their small
group.
So how deep is your critique uhdriving into this idea that is
kind of at the basis of ourcivilization and also our
economic systems?
Miroslav (40:26):
Well, you can you can go uh to various depths, I
think.
Uh in some ways it's it's aprofound uh critique.
And I think it's a it's areally critique that's more
based on the character ofChristian love and implications
of that than specifically onthis idea of striving for
(40:47):
superiority.
If I take specifically the theidea of striving for
superiority, I thinkconsequences aren't as as deep
as if I take, say, agapic love,qua agopic love, and then ask,
what are the implications?
And the reason I say that is Ialready mentioned uh you you
(41:08):
have an arch capitalist, uh oneof the richest uh men in the
world who thinks that strivingfor superiority is detrimental
for the functioning of moderneconomies for capitalism.
He's a capitalist, right?
Kyle (41:21):
Warren Buffett, right?
That's who we're talking about.
Miroslav (41:23):
Yes, I'm talking about Warren Buffett.
You should not uh strive forsuperiority.
You should do the best uh uhwith the kinds of talents that
you have.
And so he's a big advocate ofbeing better today than you were
yesterday and forgetting abouthow you stack uh against
(41:44):
somebody else.
Uh, because he thinks, and Ithink he's right in that, that
that might uh under certainconditions uh make you uh
actually much better uh overall,uh, because you you can play to
your strengths rather thansimply to your general
equalizing than to uh what'scommon uh between the the two uh
(42:08):
competitors.
Is American uh is is democraticpolitics uh possible?
Well, it seems to me thatsomething like deliberative
politics, uh democracy would bepossible in this in this, unless
you simply say uh unless youdemour uh uh politics from from
(42:29):
substantive values.
Uh and I know that people aregoing that direction uh as well.
Um I would say that that uhdoesn't serve uh our politics uh
really well.
I think in some ways um even uhmore fundamental question is
can we, can I live a day withoutum striving for superiority?
(42:56):
Um I'll make it confessional.
Uh I find it I find it hard.
So my in general, the thrust ofthis book is not extirpate from
your heart any thought ofstriving for superiority, but
(43:19):
watch above all things not tomake striving for superiority
your supreme value, and don'tlet it uh occlude, relativize,
push to the side other valuesthat should um drive or orient
your uh behavior.
(43:40):
And to me, that that means uhthat I have to, in truth to my
personal life, I have to beengaged in daily vigilance so
that I am uh when uh when thecompetitive and comparative uh
thought occurs, uh I want tomake sure that that comparison
(44:04):
is comparison.
Oh, I'm identifying thedifference.
Uh, and would I identify thedifference if I'm striving
simply to be better than theother person, uh to check myself
and ask what is my value?
And then stay with it.
So it seems to me that uhslightly going uh back, it seems
to me to be uh one of theconditions of being human, in
(44:28):
fact.
And one sees that in the storyof Cain and Abel.
This uh one of the earlystories, and they manifest
precisely the same uh tendency.
Kyle (44:39):
Okay, so that's interesting and a good segue, I
think.
Because as I was reading yourbook, I'm trying to think, all
right, who are his foils here?
Who's he dealing with?
And a couple came to mind.
The obvious one was like theGordon Gecko character, right?
And I'm gonna I'm gonna callthat just like dumb greed.
And then that's one vision ofcapitalism.
It's not Warren Buffett'svision, so I take that point.
But the other one wasNietzsche, and Nietzsche does
come up a few times sort of inpassing.
(45:01):
I would have liked to have seenmore of a sustained uh you know
dialectic there, but that'sfine.
Um, and I I like what you justsaid because it's something he
would also say.
It does go to the essence ofhuman nature, and there's a
reason it's so difficult to getthrough a day without doing
that, right?
That's his whole will-to-powerthing.
So, what do you think he getswrong?
So uh I could put this in adifferent way, which I may in a
(45:23):
moment, but let me just get yourgeneral take on that kind of
perspective, because thecapitalist greed thing is not a
direct confrontation withChristianity, but this is like
this is very intentionally adirect confrontation.
Miroslav (45:34):
Yes, yes.
Uh, I I fully agree with you.
Uh, in fact, that um originallywhen the book was conceived, uh
the plan was to have uh uh tohave Nietzsche as well and Max
Scheler, who is a critic.
Uh and uh then I decided itwould be just too too heavy of a
of a book.
(45:55):
And then as it turns out, I hadto do uh the Gifford lectures,
which I did in May.
Congratulations.
And I needed I I needed some ofthat material for my Gifford
lectures.
Kyle (46:05):
All right, I'm gonna go read that.
Miroslav (46:08):
So so when they're published, you're you're gonna
find there, or you can listen tothem, uh, to them uh online.
And in fact, I do devote quitea bit of time to just that uh
features of uh Nietzsche'sthought, uh kind of the will to
power.
And centrally Nietzsche, that'sobvious because the will to
power becomes the dominantvalue.
(46:30):
And that's where striving forsuperiority is uh is uh most
most insidious.
I think Nietzsche kind of alsoa little bit relativizes uh or
or help us see something or hasa way of mitigating some of
those consequences.
Because a good deal of strivingfor superiority comes because
(46:56):
our value of ourselves isindexed to uh the opinion of
others.
We're vain.
Uh that's a that's a vice ofvanity that's that's at place,
uh, not so much uh pride.
And Nietzsche pushes uh verystrongly uh against that, right?
That that's precisely what whathe thinks is is a problem uh
(47:19):
with society.
And that shows simply that youdon't have strength enough in
yourself and a value enough uhin yourself.
And he has a very, veryincisive, I think, critique of a
vanity while at the same timestriving for superiority uh is
uh paramount uh value.
Kyle (47:38):
Yeah.
And it's not even just a value,it's a fact, right?
It's a discovered fact aboutthe world.
So like we could come at thisfrom a different direction, not
the theoretical, but theempirical.
Like the economists tell me,for example, that uh when we
survey what makes people happy,one of the things that we find
is that comparison to theirneighbors is a large chunk, and
(47:59):
it plays a large role in whethersomeone perceives themselves to
be happy or stable orcomfortable.
Like if I live on a block whereeverybody has four bedroom
houses and I have a five-bedroomhouse, I'm gonna be pretty
happy.
But if I have a three-bedroomhouse or my fourth bedroom is
slightly smaller than Joe's, I'mgonna be less happy.
And it doesn't matter what thenumber of bedrooms is, right?
It could be one bedroom and twobedrooms or six bedrooms and
(48:20):
seven.
That's like a thing that seemsto hold true across the
populace.
And so, like, are we are wegiving a critique here?
This is my Nietzsche in that,that is just impossible for
humans.
Miroslav (48:31):
Well, uh, well, and uh except that that you have to
ask if you ask the question,what makes people unhappy?
Uh the the the answer would besimilar, just reversed, right?
Having uh having fewer, right?
That's right.
So uh so so it's a gain and aloss uh in terms of in terms of
happiness.
One reads this happiness study,oh yeah, yeah, we're that makes
(48:54):
us happy when we are, but it uhthe the fact that that exists,
those comparisons exist, make usin aggregate also unhappy,
equally unhappy uh as we are aswe are happy and we forget about
this other uh other side of it.
So um, yeah, it I think it is afact.
(49:15):
I would say uh as a Christian,this is a fact of our uh of our
fallenness.
And I reckon uh with it.
Uh and for us not to reckonwith it would be uh would be
really uh uh kind of uhshort-sighted.
But at the same time, I don'twant to celebrate it.
I don't want to close my eyesfor the negative side uh of it.
(49:39):
Uh and that's what I see in umin uh contemporary environment.
Uh I think uh in 19 in seven uh18th century, 19th century,
that very issue has been um hasexercised philosophers uh and
and theologians, and thensuddenly in the mid-uh 20th
(50:01):
century stops doing uh stopsdoing so, and uh, and I'm not
exactly sure why, but it seemsto me that we have kind of uh
acquiesced to this is this iswho we are, um this is what
evolution has made us to be, andtherefore we just live uh this
(50:22):
way and try to make the best uhof it.
I think we shortchangeourselves.
Absolutely.
Kyle (50:26):
And that's a uh yeah, that's not a great reading of
evolution either.
Yeah, as Friends Duwall used tosay, right?
It gave us all the other stufftoo, like the the empathy and
the reciprocity and all that.
Miroslav (50:36):
Yeah, because it concentrates on individuals but
doesn't concentrate on the on ongroup and what groups do in
internally, right?
Kyle (50:43):
So exactly.
Last Nietzschean question,okay?
Yeah.
Uh this isn't my devil'sadvocate thing again.
So, and this is based on aquote at the very end of your
book, which I reallyappreciated.
You put all the statements in arow and like summed up your
argument very nicely.
It's in that last conclusion.
Um, you say this superior andinferior worth or status are
social fictions, powerfullyattractive and highly
(51:06):
destructive fictions, butfictions nonetheless.
Immediately the littleNietzsche in my brain said, But
so is equality.
And it reminded me of uh whatone of my friends used to say
when we were talking aboutpolitics.
He said something like this wehold these truths to be
self-evident.
Uh, the phrasing of that kindof betrays it because if they
were self-evident, we wouldn'thave to hold them.
(51:26):
Right?
They're not self-evident.
That's why we wrote thedocument.
But uh the Greeks didn't thinkanything like that, for example.
Um, so if both of these ideasare constructs, equality,
striving for superiority, how dowe choose?
On what basis do we choose?
And is the insistence on theone itself a kind of striving
for superiority, in this case ofa superiority of values?
(51:47):
That's my last Nietzscheanquestion.
Miroslav (51:49):
Yeah, yeah, that's this is a great question.
I I think I think Nietzsche,Nietzsche um uh is a critic of i
equality, and uh um I if wethink that there is no such
thing as mere humanity that isin itself a fundamentally
(52:16):
valuable thing about us, then itseems to me that Nietzschean
position uh or uh a kind ofsheer meritocratic position,
maybe, depending on where youcome from, would be would be a
plausible, plausible one.
Uh, and that's why I think allby the way, also, why Paul's
(52:37):
argument isn't simply from theexample of Christ, but it's
actually from the nature of whowe are as creatures.
Uh, I devote a little bit oftime uh to this, what I consider
to be a really fascinating setof rhetorical questions that he
asked of the Corinthians who areall in uh in struggle for
(52:59):
superiority.
Uh, and he asked, he asked, uh,what do you have that you have
not received?
Uh every striving forsuperiority, that is to say,
making me being superior tosomebody on the basis of some
(53:19):
value redound to myself ispredicated on the idea that I
have, in fact, made myself to besuperior so that the fact of
superiority redounds to me, tomy benefit, and can be ascribed
to my person.
And Paul asks, What do you havethat you haven't received?
(53:41):
Uh, answer, expected answer,and answer that he seems to be
getting.
I don't have very much, I don'thave anything.
If you have received it, why doyou boast?
As if you have not received it.
And to me, that is really thefundamental question.
As a theologian, I speak uhthen of mere humanity, I speak
(54:01):
of creation in the image of God.
But let's step back from thatlanguage and let's look at me as
a human being, uh, simply fromuh uh look at me and my history.
And so I ask myself, so uh I'mteaching at Y L.
Some people think that that'ssome kind of distinction.
Okay, let's grant that there issome kind of distinction, and
(54:23):
then I ask myself, okay, so whatpercentage to the honor of
being a teacher at TL have Imyself contributed so that I can
boast off?
And what percentage I havenothing to do with?
And if you ask me honestly tothink about it, I mean I I I've
(54:46):
never done calculus and I don'tthink can be calculated, but it
seems to me plausible that if Isay maybe two percent I
contributed, that would beroughly true.
Um who am I as a person, giftsthat I have, uh parents that I
that I have, education that Ihave none of it is my to claim
(55:12):
any credit for.
And I think if we look atourselves in those in those
ways, then striving forsuperiority uh makes very little
sense.
Uh it elicits humility becausewe are then now theologically,
we are creatures.
(55:33):
We are giving to ourselves.
We should celebrate, uh, enjoy,love that which we are created,
but not elevate ourselves uhover against others, celebrate
them in their own way as well,without that making us
uncritical about what is true,what is not, what is good, what
(55:53):
isn't, what is beautiful, isn'tbeautiful, or is beautiful.
So striving for excellence,yes, but having my excellence
redound to me as a personsimply, I think it's a deeply
problematic.
So it's a book that is criticalof meritocracy uh as well in a
significant way.
Randy (56:11):
Yeah, what you're saying reminds me of your quoting of
Kierkegaard.
If you can hear our enjoymentof Kierkegaard, uh I'm sure it
rings through, but this joy ofbeing that he talked about in
contentment.
That that's what it sounds likeyou're describing to me.
That's what I want in my life.
Miroslav (56:31):
Yeah.
Uh and and not kind of uhNietzschean critique uh of the
last, quote unquote, last quoteunquote men, right?
Who kind of just sit uh halfdrugged uh on the couch
potatoes.
Now, this is my language, nothis, but uh he says it in a much
more poetic way than I'm rightnow, but it's closer to our
(56:54):
experience.
Half drugged, I I sit on my uhmy couch, uh eat whatever it is
I'm gobbling, uh uh, and blinkand think I have invented
happiness, right?
Kyle (57:09):
Yeah.
Uh what a wonderful place toend the conversation about a
really intriguing andinteresting book.
So the book again is The Costof Ambition, How Striving to Be
Better Than Others Makes UsWorse.
Miroslav Wolf, thanks so muchfor your time.
Miroslav (57:22):
Oh, it was great.
Uh fun to be with you and talkto you and with you about these
matters.
Thank you so much.
Randy (57:45):
We hope you're enjoying these conversations.
Help us continue to createcompelling content and reach a
wider audience by supporting usat patreon.com slash a pastor
and a philosopher, where you canget bonus content, extra perks,
and a general feeling of beinga good person.
Kyle (57:59):
Also, please rate and review the show in Apple,
Spotify, or wherever you listen.
These help new people discoverthe show, and we may even read
your review in a future episode.
Randy (58:07):
If anything we said pissed you off, or if you just
have a question you'd like us toanswer, send us an email at
pastor and philosopher atgmail.com.
Kyle (58:15):
Find us on social media at at PPWB Podcast and find
transcripts and links to all ofour episodes at pastor and
philosopher.buzzsprout.com.
See you next time.
Cheers
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