Think Again: Changing Your Mind, Political-Religious Conversion, and the Emotional Life / Nichole Flores & Matt Croasmun

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Is it possible for anyone to change their mind anymore?

Matt Croasmun welcomes theologian and ethicist Nichole Flores (University of Virginia) onto the show for a discussion of changing our minds in political and religious contexts. They discuss the meaning of intellectual, political, and religious conversion; how aesthetic and emotional experience of beauty is often the key ingredient in changing one's mind and behavior; the value of open-mindedness and intellectual humility as well as the value of a firm sturdiness and courageous conviction; and the role of changing one's mind in a life worth living.

About Nichole Flores

Nichole Flores is a social ethicist who is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. She studies the constructive contributions of Catholic and Latinx theologies to notions of justice and aesthetics to the life of democracy. Her research in practical ethics addresses issues of democracy, migration, family, gender, economics (labor and consumption), race and ethnicity, and ecology. Visit NicholeMFlores.com for more information.

Show Notes

• Recovery mode from 2020 general election
• 538 Podcast and Nate Silver as original demographic determinist
• Is it possible for us to change our minds?
• "I'm a Christian and I believe that conversion is possible."
• "I live in the world as if it were possible to change one's mind."
• Political conversion and mind-changing
• Changing one's mind can be the result of a conversion
• Political conversion focuses as much on a profound experience
• Anecdote: A Catholic student who voted for Donald Trump because of abortion
• Registering for a political party is a little like getting married...
• "Catholics like to think of ourselves as politically homeless... maybe political misfits is the better category."
• A political party should not be a place of comfort.
• Charles Taylor, hypergoods, and the impossibility of reasoning oneself into a "firmer grip"
• Changing your mind about American Football: "Young men shortening their lives for my entertainment."
• "I remember when I quit football ... I knew the shift happened when I turned on a game and I felt sick ... This shift was on the affective level."
• Treating students like "brains on a stick" or "free floating rationalities"
• How does the importance of affective emotional role in conversion shape an approach to teaching?
• "Learning is a version of changing your mind."
• Community of the beautiful: gathering around a shared aesthetic experience
• Social-political commitments that can change theological commitments
• Mutual encounter with the world and the other
• "The church is the light of the world. The church is bringing joy and hope to our society. But also the church is being chastened by what we encounter in society. And we are seeing where we can more fully image the body of Christ."
• The open-mindedness of an annoyingly sturdy Christian. "I want to get that knowing eye-roll."
• The value of intellectual humility
• What is the role of changing one's mind in seeking a life worthy of our humanity.
• Compromise: Negative or Positive
• "The unassailable value of human life created in the image of God: That's a value worth fighting for, worth holding onto."

Production Notes

• This podcast featured Matt Croasmun and Nichole Flores
• Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
• Hosted by Evan Rosa
• Production Assistance by Martin Chan
• A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
• Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give