In the episode, I speak with Professor Margarita Mooney about her time in Nicaragua and how these experiences shaped her scholarly work and teaching at the intersection of sociology and philosophy.   Margarita tells a story of her time in Nicaragua and how a weekend trip to a political rally in a small community where she almost was kidnapped challenged her assumptions about elite education in the United States.  Margarita explains how her engagement with poor women farmers and micro-entrepreneurs helped her realize the power of small acts of love and solidarity to help alleviate the problems of violence from the bottom up – and how these things are neither taught nor accounted for at elite universities where a technocratic approach reigns.  Margarita discusses how sociology does not address the problem of evil but rather sees it as a social or structural problem, but this does not align with ethnographic studies and the real work of talking to people about their experiences of war and violence.   Margarita talks about her founding of the Scala Foundation to address questions of meaning, beauty, and wisdom because she was worried that many Ivy League and other universities are creating a culture of resentment and anger for people who are genuinely concerned about justice but don’t have a framework to understand justice, subsidiarity, solidarity, truth, and law outside of power and politics.   As she explains in her essay “Why Choose Mystery over Ideology”   “The void left by the denigration of beauty and a classical liberal arts education is directing more and more people to “woke” social justice activism or alt-right movements because those movements offer them meaning, purpose, and hope, as well as community and a sense of belonging. Others burn out psychologically or resort to social isolation because trust and intimacy are hard to experience. Yet others resort to drugs, pornography, or another temporary pleasure to fill the void. Still, others pursue ambitious and demanding careers without reflecting on how they should live or why they exist to begin with. The result is skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide. Educational institutions have not succeeded in addressing these problems, leading many people to seek alternatives to feed their minds and souls.” Any conversation with Margarita Mooney is interesting and wide-ranging and we discuss a number of broad themes and thinkers including: Subsidiarity and Solidarity Fascination with Violence Rene Girard Jacques Maritain Participation as a remedy to alienation The Nicaraguan Civil War -- Contras and Sandinista Haiti St. Thomas Aquinas on just war, violence, and pacifism Solidarity as a means to inclusion Solidarity Structures, institutions, property rights, law, exchange, are required to serve families Family as a place of moral formation The proper role of government     The Bruderhof Communities and Plough Magazine Edmund Burke’s ideas about society as a “partnership” among the living, dead, and yet to be born Commutative Justice — exchange John Paul II on participation The documentary, Poverty, Inc. Rwandan Genocide and Rwandan reconciliation Integration of the Virtues Moral Formation Sin and Redemption Law and Justice Beauty Ideology and the closed systems that close of access to the transcendent Hopelessness Critique of utilitarianism that reduces the value to the economic value The dangers of cultural imperialism Virtues –Cardinal Virtues, Daughters of Virtues and Vices     Augusto Del Noce Luigi Giussani on Education Karl Stern –poetic knowledge in The Flight from Woman Biography Margarita Mooney is an Associate Professor in the Department of Practical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. She teaches courses on the philosophy of social science, Christianity and the liberal arts tradition, aesthetics, research methods for congregational leaders, and sociology of religion. Margarita founded Scala Foundation in 2016 and continues to serve as Scala