26 March 2025
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Sep 3, 2019 —
Daniel Kaufman & E. John Winner
- A brief history of 20th-century literary criticism
- John’s battles against radical feminists as a grad student at SUNY Albany
- Post-structuralism and “how modernity failed itself”
- English department politics
- John: “Postmodernity is all around us”
- Postmodernity in the world vs. in the academy
- Post-postmodernism and cultural stagnancy
Jul 13, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Thomas Metzinger
TAGS Buddhism | cognitive science | democracy | human nature | meditation | philosophy | politics | psychology | science | self
Apr 23, 2018 —
Philip Menchaca & Kelly Baker
- The Ku Klux Klan’s appeal to Protestant America
- How the KKK rationalized a Jewish Jesus
- The Birth of a Nation and the symbology of the burning cross
- How to “love thy neighbor” as a Klansman (answer: very selectively)
- Kelly: The Klan declined, but its politics went mainstream
- Kelly’s search for apocalyptic rhetoric in Klan literature
Mar 9, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Josh Summers
- Bob and Josh recount their first meeting after a silent meditation retreat
- Does yoga always have a spiritual component?
- How Josh’s yoga practice prepares the body for meditation
- How yoga’s focus on breath can lead to the body
- Solutions to modern distraction
- Bob: Mindfulness practice can erode essentialist thinking
- What’s the point of Bob’s Mindful Resistance Project?
- The present and future of the Mindful Resistance Newsletter
Dec 19, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Cullen Murphy
- Cullen’s new book about the heyday of the funny pages, Cartoon County
- What it was like to grow up as the child of a cartoonist
- Artists who were politically liberal and culturally conservative
- An idyllic white world created for a quasi-idyllic time
- No belly-buttons, no male nipples
- How Cullen took over writing Prince Valiant—and how that shaped his subsequent writing
TAGS politics
Jan 23, 2017 —
Daniel Kaufman & David Ottlinger
TAGS cognitive science | democracy | free will | gender | human nature | language | philosophy | politics | psychology | violence
Jan 19, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Dale Wright
TAGS Buddhism | Christianity | compassion | consciousness | enlightenment | meditation | mindfulness | perception | philosophy | politics | religion | spirituality | war | Zen
Jan 17, 2017 —
Daniel Kaufman & David Ottlinger
- Dan’s definition of classical liberalism
- Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and Mill’s On Liberty
- Mill and Locke on the individual
- The social contract and political authority
- The group and the individual in the modern world
- How much of a liberal was Mill really?
- Social censorship and the PC debate
- Is Mill’s utilitarianism at odds with his liberalism?
- Classical liberalism in America
Jan 13, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Mark Juergensmeyer
- How Mark got his start studying under Reinhold Niebuhr
- Using religion to justify violence
- The appeal of ISIS’s apocalyptic vision
- What Obama got right—and wrong—in his response to terrorism
- Will Trump’s war on terrorism lead to another 9/11?
- What would Reinhold Niebuhr say about religion and violence today?
- Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism
TAGS Christianity | Donald Trump | foreign policy | fundamentalism | Islam | politics | psychology | religion | terrorism | violence | war
Dec 18, 2016 —
Nikita Petrov & George Young
- Does Russian thought have anything to contribute to the world?
- Nikolay Fedorov, an eccentric thinker who influenced Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky
- Fedorov’s plan: Immortality for everyone
- “Kinship” as a fundamental property of all matter
- A mass movement for the spiritual unity of humankind
- Vladimir Solovyov’s The Meaning of Love: Sexuality as a path to a Christian utopia
- Christ as the ultimate role model
TAGS Christianity | consciousness | death | evolution | history | human nature | literature | mysticism | occult | philosophy | politics | religion | science | spirituality | technology | the future | transhumanism
Dec 2, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Jay Michaelson
TAGS anger | Buddhism | Christianity | compassion | democracy | Donald Trump | empathy | ethics | happiness | human nature | identity | Islam | Judaism | love | meditation | mental health | mindfulness | moral imagination | politics | psychology | religion | sadness | spirituality | tribalism | Zen
Nov 27, 2016 —
Nikita Petrov & Robert Place
TAGS ancient philosophy | Buddhism | Christianity | consciousness | enlightenment | meditation | mysticism | mythology | occult | philosophy | politics | psychology | religion | self
Nov 6, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Arlie Hochschild
TAGS anger | climate change | democracy | Donald Trump | economics | empathy | human nature | identity | perception | politics | psychology
Oct 31, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Pamela Cooper-White
TAGS Christianity | Donald Trump | history | mental health | moral imagination | nationalism | politics | psychology | religion | tribalism
Sep 29, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Roger Petersen
TAGS Donald Trump | economics | empathy | fear | human nature | identity | Islam | moral imagination | nationalism | politics | psychology | tribalism | violence
Sep 21, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Erik Braun
- Erik’s book The Birth of Insight and its hero, Ledi Sayadaw
- Three marks of existence: impermanence, suffering, and not-self
- Origins and characteristics of American Buddhism
- How Burmese politics shaped Western Buddhism
- Ledi’s take on how meditation leads to enlightenment
- The ethical side of Buddhist practice
- Erik’s meditation practice
TAGS Buddhism | consciousness | enlightenment | history | human nature | meditation | mind | mindfulness | philosophy | politics | psychology | religion | science | self
Sep 17, 2016 —
Nikita Petrov & George Young
- What is Russian cosmism?
- The religious side of cosmism
- Cosmism as a response to the challenges of the 20th century
- Nature as a temporary enemy and eternal friend
- Pavel Florensky, the Russian da Vinci
- Plant life as a spiritual ideal
- The father of the Soviet space program, and his weird spirituality
- Cosmism and transhumanism: Compare and contrast
- Cosmism as a Russian propaganda project
TAGS Christianity | consciousness | death | evolution | history | human nature | mysticism | occult | philosophy | politics | religion | science | spirituality | technology | the future | transhumanism
Sep 12, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Robert George
- Why Robby refuses to support Trump
- Is history shaped more by social forces or human agency?
- Robby gives an insider’s view on why Appalachia is Trump country
- The declining influence of religion
- How a lack of humility poisons politics
- Contempt in current political rhetoric
- Robby: Politicians need to get out of the identity politics game
TAGS Christianity | ethics | free will | history | moral imagination | philosophy | politics | psychology | religion | tribalism
Jul 13, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Cristina Bicchieri
- What is a social norm?
- Why do norms like genital mutilation exist?
- Ways to change norms (and ways to fail)
- Change we have seen: smoking, gay marriage, bullying
- Fear disrupts norms and helps people like Trump
- The internet as a tool against “pluralistic ignorance”
- Why the political establishment is in trouble
TAGS crime | Donald Trump | economics | game theory | nationalism | politics | psychology | violence
Jul 5, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Steven Nadler
TAGS ancient philosophy | atheism | Buddhism | Christianity | Donald Trump | enlightenment | ethics | evolution | Judaism | meditation | mysticism | philosophy | politics | religion
Mar 25, 2016 —
Daniel Kaufman & Daniel Tippens
- Rationalism, its virtues and ideals
- Manifestations of rationalism in epistemology …
- … in ethics …
- … and in political philosophy
- Critique of rationalism: It can’t be reasons all the way down
- Dan K. claims rational ethicists don’t really exist …
- … and if they did, you wouldn’t like them
- How philosophy turned to rationalism, and Dan K. turned away from it
Feb 4, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Heather Hurlburt
TAGS Christianity | Donald Trump | family | Judaism | Paul Tillich | politics | religion | spirituality | tribalism
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