Videos

“We don’t need no education”, Pink Floyd announced (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Brick_in_the_Wall) in 1979. “Teachers leave those kids alone”: We don't need no educationWe don’t need no thought controlNo dark sarcasm in the classroomTeachers leave them kids aloneHey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone! But today, almost half a century later, That Was The…

William Deresiewicz is a leading American writer best known as the author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (https://billderesiewicz.com/books/excellent-sheep/) . And so, when Bill and I sat down in Portland for a KEEN ON America conversation, we discussed the crisis…

I have to admit that I’m always a little uncomfortable with non-Jews fetishizing the supposedly unique gifts & accomplishments of the Jewish people. A century ago, Winston Churchill did it. And now George Gilder (https://www.encounterbooks.com/authors/george-gilder/) , the influential tech futurist, picks up that Churchillian mantle in a new edition of…

How to fix American democracy? It’s a question that, over the last couple of years, we’ve been addressing in my Bertelsmann Foundation supported How To Fix Democracy (https://www.howtofixdemocracy.org/) show, now its fifth year. And it is, of course, also a subject much addressed over the years on KEEN ON. My…

Andrew C.M. Cooper (https://www.linkedin.com/in/accooper/) is the author of the new book, The Ethical Imperative: Leading with Conscience to Shape the Future of Business (https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Imperative-Leading-Conscience-Business/dp/1394274831) . He is also an Associate General Counsel and Head of Patent Acquisitions at Meta. While he didn’t write The Ethical Imperative as a Meta person,…

It’s ironic that Keith Teare, editor of That Was The Week (https://www.thatwastheweek.com/) newsletter, just spent two idyllic weeks in Europe, enjoying the Paris Olympics and London theater. Because his first newsletter on his return to the United States asks if “Is Europe Dying (https://www.thatwastheweek.com/p/is-europe-dying) ?” and suggests that innovation on…

We are living in interesting political times. A month ago, the Presidential election appeared over. Today, however, it appears as if it’s barely begun. So in my conversation today with the prolific columnist David Masciotra (https://davidmasciotra.com/) , I asked him if he glimpsed the outlines of a “Harrisist” ideology behind…

What do Hum (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Hum/Helen-Phillips/9781668008836) , Hitler’s People (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653631/hitlers-people-by-richard-j-evans/) (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653631/hitlers-people-by-richard-j-evans/) and The Hypocrite (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/737088/the-hypocrite-by-jo-hamya/) have in common? They are all recommended new books from KEEN ON’s best read regular guest, Los Angeles Times book critic Bethanne Patrick (https://www.bethannepatrick.com/about) . As usual, she recommends six books, but - whether you are looking…

Last month, we were in western Virginia talking to the pioneering regenerative farmer Joel Salatin about how American can fix itself one bite at a time (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/episode-2139-joel-salatin-explains-how-to-fix-america/id1448694012?i=1000663257514) . Today we are on the other coast, in western Oregon, talking to another regenerative farmer, Mimi Casteel (https://www.hopewellwine.com/people/) . In contrast with…

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, which he wrote in 1948,George Orwell imagined the “Ministry of Truth” to be the central institution that Big Brother used to reinvent reality and make war on the recent past. Three quarters of a century later, Steve Benen, the Emmy award winning producer of the Rachel Maddow…

As author of the authoritative three volume Third Reich Trilogy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Reich_Trilogy) , Richard J. Evans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Evans) is probably the most respected scholar of Hitler’s Third Reich in the world today. And his latest book, Hitler’s People, (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653631/hitlers-people-by-richard-j-evans/) is an attempt to make all-too-human sense of Nazi lieutenants like Goebbels, Himmler,…

In her new book, Freeman’s Challenge (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo213968137.html) , the Harvard historian Robin Bernstein (https://scholar.harvard.edu/robinbernstein/home) reveals the early 19th century origins of America’s for profit prisons. Telling the tragic story of William Freeman, an Afro-Native teenager guilty of what she calls the “terrorist” act of killing a white family, Bernstein simultaneously…

In an America riven with both civic discord and ignorance, how can we nurture a next generation of responsibly informed citizens? That’s the all important question Lindsey Cormack addresses in her new book, How to Raise a Citizen (https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Citizen-Why-Its/dp/1394278705/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PHvF1NVrhF2T-r3WWzS7YsMwLSENCbU5kNSuWqV3VzOZF6Gid48gQH_tLM4QCxyhi9DCqsVC_I_h9gChXGhIRzAjU9zh_Xa6d8fFcGq01hoPw2cf3guNQq5JCs9jJ5ot.OHU_ihUsDz1TTSroLBkINO46vbPLPVsoM6Z6F9vV514&dib_tag=se&gad_source=1&hvadid=695496058693&hvdev=c&hvexpln=67&hvlocphy=9031951&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=12779447133008902799--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=12779447133008902799&hvtargid=kwd-2296548852715&hydadcr=8922_13572525&keywords=how+to+raise+a+citizen&qid=1723421759&sr=8-1) . There are no magical tricks to learning how to be…