In Dialogue with Seth Zuihō Segall about Virtue, Wisdom, and Pluralism

I had a wonderful time dialoguing with my cousin Seth Zuihō Segall about his new book The House We Live In: Virtue, Wisdom, and Plurailsm (2023).

We started with Frank Sinatra’s song “The House I Live In” recorded toward the end of WWII. The lyrics were written by Abel Meeropol, a blacklisted Jewish Communist who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Allan. Here are the first few lines:

“The house I live in

A plot of earth, a street

The grocer and the butcher

And the people that I meet

The children in the playground

The faces that I see

All races and religions

That’s America to me

A place I work in

A worker by my side

A little town or city

Where my people lived and died

The howdy and the handshake

The air of feeling free

And the right to speak my mind out

That’s America to me”

These are obviously aspirational lines, and in historical context, they served as propaganda in service of a continuing progressive battle against fascism in Europe. 

Here is my list of questions for Seth. I got to most of them!

1. Biographical question: How did a clinical psychologist at Yale Medical School find his way into the Zen Buddhist priesthood as a carrier and protector of the dharma?
2. Can you explain a bit about what is meant by the term Buddhist modernism? Alan Watts once referred to Buddhism as “Hinduism stripped for export,” which is a cheeky way of classing it among the world religions with transcultural reach. Is contemporary American Buddhism unique in any important respects? Or is it too diverse a movement to make any general statements? 
3. I assume you wrote this book in response to the rise of Trumpism. How are you hoping it will be received in the context of this ongoing crisis in American democracy? 
4. In your preface you identify yourself as a Deweyan, that is, a student of American Pragmatist and champion of democracy John Dewey. You reference Dewey’s work just before you sound a note of caution in response to leftist revolutionaries; you say: “I don’t believe in the possibility of radical change,” but rather in a gradual process of collective social inquiry. Can you unpack this? 
5. Describe what you mean by pluralism, not just as a de facto social reality but as an active value. I think here of Dewey’s statement, which you quote, that the democratic way of life means responding to difference not only as a right of other persons but as a means of enriching ourselves. 
6. What are the most important virtues? What advice can you give about how to best approach the inevitable conflicts that arise among the virtues in the course of our lives?
7. You draw lessons from Aristotle, Confucius, and Buddha, all of whom lived roughly two and a half millennia ago. Why do you think their ethical teachings are still relevant? How are they similar and what makes them different? What would you say to one of those leftist revolutionaries who might want to cancel Aristotle for arguing that some people are natural born slaves, or cancel Confucius for affirming Patriarchy by forbidding women participation in government, instead insisting they remain in the home? 
8. Can we have a widely accepted sense moral value without a metaphysics of value or what amounts to some kind ultimately spiritual affirmation? Do we need a theory of moral value to live a virtuous life? 
9. Is it typical for peoples’ values to change over the course of their life, or are values pretty much set once one enters adulthood? If values can change, what causes such transformation?
   1. If values can change, does this mean politics is more about transforming people’s values than just about mobilizing those who already share your values? 
10. Describe the problems leading contemporary American society to fail to flourish. 
    1. Can you speak in particular to the problem of individualism (what Charles Taylor calls the Great Disembedding) and the epidemic of alienation and narcissistic self-absorption? 
    1. Can you also speak to what the proper role of the economy and corporations would be in a society oriented around flourishing of human individuals, societies, and the broader community of life on Earth? 
    1. Can you speak to the issue of foreign policy and how America has failed to live up to its aspirational values on the global stage?
11. What led to and how can American society recover from the widespread distrust in and resentment of politicians, academics, and experts of all kinds?