Michael Schur on every moral question ever
The TED Interview
TED
4.4 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 18 August 2022
⏱️ 50 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Michael Scott, Leslie Knope, Detective Jake Peralta–television producer and writer Michael Schur has created some of TV’s most beloved sitcom characters on shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. Still, his shows and his philosophy are not just about laughs. Today on The TED Interview, Michael Schur talks about the craft of writing the TV comedy, why he is obsessed with philosophy and ethics, and what he’s learned from both the fictional and the real workplace about how humans behave, grow, and love. Michael’s New York Times-bestselling book “How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question” is out now.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Have you listened to Talk Radio recently? |
| 0:03.0 | Let's talk about this war on white people. |
| 0:05.0 | That's a pro-quiling, it's good for you. |
| 0:07.0 | Bill the Keystone pipeline, deport illegals, build the wall. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Katie Thornton, host of the divided dial, |
| 0:13.0 | a new five-part series from WNMC's On the Media, |
| 0:17.0 | about how the American right came to dominate Talk Radio |
| 0:21.0 | and how one company is launching a conservative media empire |
| 0:25.0 | from the airwaves. |
| 0:26.0 | Listen every Tuesday and on the media feed. |
| 0:35.0 | Welcome to the Ted interview. |
| 0:36.0 | I'm your host, Stephen Johnson. |
| 0:38.0 | Kant's categorical imperative, Aristotle's virtue ethics, |
| 0:44.0 | Jeremy Bentham's Principle of Utility. |
| 0:47.0 | If you took a college survey class on moral philosophy, |
| 0:51.0 | these ideas might ring a distant bell. |
| 0:54.0 | But you also might be familiar with them. |
| 0:56.0 | If you happen to be a fan of the network TV sitcom, |
| 0:59.0 | The Good Place. |
| 1:01.0 | Over the course of its four seasons, |
| 1:03.0 | the show somehow managed to explore a 2000-year history |
| 1:07.0 | of moral philosophy inside the standard package |
... |
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