Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In this episode, Asher, Rob, and Jason search for reasons why the movie theater is so obsessed with Armageddon and the political theater offers empty promises of infinite progress, when the reality is likely to be somewhere in the messy middle.
To me one of the most important things is mental sovereignty, is that you really think for yourself rather than be made small, be made constrained, by the narrowness of the dominant culture.
We have this remarkable ability as human beings to conjure things in our imaginations, and design them, when they’re not in evidence in front of us, but we can do that.
Let us do what we do best – write, swim, play tennis, sing, throw parties, mate, run businesses, teach, fight – for the benefit of all. Let us dedicate our actions not to assuring the best outcome but to assuring that whatever the outcome, we gave it our best.
In the case of ‘storytelling’, the central issue is an assumption that what is needed to solve our social problems and change the public’s mind is a ‘method’ – that we have all the materials that we need, and all that’s needed to present alternative ideas is a better way of conveying them.
A critical approach to utopian imaginaries is essential for any rethinking of political futures; without it, we risk being trapped in the same old stories even as we see ourselves as thinking outside the old story box.
Since its founding 50 years ago — when it became both the first Smithsonian museum located off the National Mall and the first federally-funded community museum in the country — the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum has served as an interactive space, engaging local residents in the power of neighborhood storytelling.
Poor old Malthus. He has had a bad reputation ever since he predicted, towards the end of the 18th century, that over-population would lead to famine and then to social collapse.
Although we may not think that we do, we all live with faiths – ideas that we take for granted that appear so obvious that we do not feel a need to re-examine them – ideas that we do not usually want to re-examine.
In today’s world of nonstop information, the risk of research remaining obscure is greater than ever. One of the ironies of the computer era is that each innovation for better communication has simply led to more buzz and more difficulty being heard.
You probably haven’t heard of the term acedia used, and it has several definitions, so I’ll start by defining it. It is a disillusioned detachment, disengagement or dissociation that stems from an incapacity to cope with the realities of the moment.
Our history would be simple if we could classify it neatly into dominating alpha-males versus cooperative hunter-gatherers, but the experience of agency gives us not one but two fundamental impulses. As well as the desire not to be dominated it gives us the impulse to explore our individuality
