In May, Claremont McKenna College reported on Arthur Brooks’s commencement address:
The revolution America needs, he said, “is to love your enemies”—also the message at the heart of Brooks’ recently released book, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt.
“I talk to the far left. I talk to the far right. I love ideas,” said Brooks, who will teach at Harvard University and Bowdoin College later this year. However, he also admitted to having judged others, only to treat them with the same contempt he decries in today’s polarized society. How did he work on himself? One profound lesson, Brooks said, can be found in CMC’s history and the guiding wisdom of its first president, George Benson.
“Look to 1957, when Benson wrote that the common purpose of the CMC community is ‘a commitment to a free society.’ We may go about achieving it in different ways, but we all want it, and we all recognize that it means listening respectfully to each other,” Brooks said.
Yesterday, he offered a similar message at the National Prayer Breakfast: