The Decline of Language and the Rise of Nothing: Hamza Yusuf and Thomas Hibbs

Hamza Yusuf interviews President Thomas Hibbs, former president of the University of Dallas, on the importance of rekindling a love of language so we might better articulate ourselves and possess the words to describe our experience of the world. Hamza Yusuf and Thomas Hibbs discuss, among other topics, how the silos created by our culture leave us unable to negotiate the inevitable friction that comes with living in a diverse society. For Yusuf and Hibbs, nihilism’s push toward meaninglessness and upheaval threatens our society because we lack a common transcendent standard to which we can appeal. As a result, our popular dialogue is more corrosive and less productive, and people are less sensitive to a sense of what’s missing. 

Hamza Yusuf is the president and cofounder of Zaytuna College.

Thomas Hibbs is former president of the University of Dallas and author of Shows about Nothing.