Summary
The end of one year and the beginning of another can be an obvious moment for people to set goals and reset priorities. The pandemic, from which we are yet to emerge, has put much into perspective and has doubtless prompted many to ask the question: where am I going with my life? What’s it all about? While none of us can truly know the meaning of life, most of us are meaning-seeking creatures who have our own ideas about what gives life meaning – God, nature, the arts, human relationships, good food, scientific progress. Is meaning essential to a life well lived or do we put too much pressure on ourselves in trying to create it? For some, the stories we tell about ourselves are the most powerful way of addressing existential questions like the climate crisis. Yet meaning is subjective, and is often separated by national, cultural, religious and ideological borders. Can our disparate human stories be harnessed as a motivator for collective action on the climate? Or is it hubris to suggest human beings can find a solution, and the story we should be telling instead is one in which the cavalry isn’t coming?
Michael Buerk chairs this special end-of-year debate with guest panellists: Rowan Williams, Alice Roberts, Will Self and Bonnie Greer. With witnesses: Emily Esfahani-Smith, James Tartaglia, Martin Palmer and Charlotte Du Cann.
Producer: Dan Tierney.
#moralmaze
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:03.5 | Good evening. The end of a year of pandemic, a year of restrictions, upheaval and loss, |
| 0:08.8 | is more than ever a time to take stock, a time to ask big questions like, what's it for? |
| 0:14.2 | What gives my life meaning? |
| 0:15.8 | Not cosmic meaning in the religious sense. |
| 0:18.2 | The curious inability of any of our gods to provide us with |
| 0:21.3 | incontrovertible evidence of their existence makes that a matter of faith, not reason. |
| 0:25.6 | But what makes life meaningful? The arguments tend to be circular, something bigger than |
| 0:30.7 | ourselves, some say. Yes, but what? And for good or ill? Happiness, say others, but it |
| 0:36.6 | sounds a bit selfish. Is it the same as |
| 0:38.6 | fulfilment? Is it a goal or a burden? Perhaps there is no meaning to life, and accepting that |
| 0:44.1 | is liberating. But for most of us, it's the stories our societies tell about ourselves that |
| 0:49.4 | keep us going. They are typically narratives of existential challenges overcome, of human progress and triumph. |
| 0:56.6 | Do they help? Or would we do better to acknowledge our universal insignificance? |
| 1:01.2 | Admit we are powerless and accept things might well not turn out all right. |
| 1:06.1 | The moral maze and the meaning of life, a special year-end programme and a special panel tonight. |
| 1:10.9 | Rowan Williams, Lord Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and poet, and the meaning of life, a special year-end programme and a special panel tonight. Rowan Williams, Lord Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and poet, |
| 1:15.0 | Professor Alice Roberts, the biological anthropologist and president of humanists UK. |
| 1:20.3 | The playwright Bonnie Greer and the author and lugubrious iconoclast will self. |
| 1:25.7 | Rowan Williams, are you happy with this distinction between the meaning of life and meaning in life? |
| 1:32.5 | As a Christian, I would have thought you would think the two were indissolubly linked. |
| 1:37.3 | As a Christian, I find the phrase the meaning of life, a bit abstract, actually. |
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