I have to confess that I first thought Radio Open Source was an attempt by public radio to seem trendy (open source, blogging, podcasts) while giving Christopher Lydon another shot at getting into the liberal talk radio game in Boston. The Connection was incredibly uneven after Lydon departed in 2001, and I’ve been a little disappointed with WBUR’s relatively new On Point.
(For the record I should say that I don’t really listen to talk radio much. It’s frequently excruciating to hear the sort of people who call into radio shows hold forth. A show usually has about two minutes to hook me before I switch over to the alt-rock stations. But sometimes a long drive down the Mass Pike can be improved by idle chatter.)
But last night’s Open Source show with evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson was amazing. In an unusual move for anyone in the evolution discussion—all right, smackdown—Wilson (among other things) acknowledged as legitimate the religious impulse to seek divinity in creation and explained this impulse as biological without passing judgement on the many people who hold these beliefs. It’s the kind of talk that our “god-shaped hole” rarely lets happen in this country but that we all benefit from.
Yes, I frequently wince when people call in to radio shows–even to mainstream shows on NPR. I’m embarrassed on the callers’ behalf. Isn’t that charmingly elitist of me?