Departures With Robert Amsterdam

The tremendous velocity with which modernity and technology has encroached on our social lives is underappreciated, shaping our understanding not only of critical events but also ourselves, as the world is flattened. A teenager in France or Brazil may see violent footage of the Ukraine war fed to them on TikTok, only to be replaced a moment later with dancing, music, and comedy, whatever they want - to the point that nothing matters, there is a lack of reaction, and there are no clear system of signals of do's and don'ts, and our society becomes untethered from collective community and public live. These are some of the questions that the renowned French intellectual Olivier Roy wrestles with in his fascinating new book, "The Crisis of Culture: Identity Politics and the Empire of Norms." In this interview with Robert Amsterdam, Dr. Roy discusses how in modern culture people no longer seek meaning, no longer seek explanation, and how there is no longer any desire to think in terms of values. The perceived corr