Episodes
If having a gun really made you safer, then America would be one of the safest countries in the world. It's not. Gary Younge (Manchester University) explains that while Americans consistently favor more gun control, gun laws have generally become more lax. That is partly due to the material resources of the gun lobby. But it is also about the central role of the gun, what it represents in the American narrative, and the inability of gun control advocates to develop a counter-narrative. ...
Published 04/14/20
Twentieth-Century African American Freedom Struggles transformed both US and World History. These seminal liberation struggles include the important yet relatively unknown series of early twentieth-century southern African American streetcar boycotts as well as the iconic Civil Rights-Black Power Insurgency (1935-75). First, Waldo Martin examines why and how these foundational freedom struggles proved essential to the making of the modern African American Freedom Movement. Second, he examines...
Published 01/15/20
This lecture by South African writer, playwright and academic Jane Taylor considers Ludwig Wittgenstein’s paper, “On Certainty” in which the philosopher engages with the taken-for-granted in everyday thought. Taylor notes, “In our contemporary context of the precarious, on one hand, and the political vehemence of conviction, on the other, it seems timely to pay attention to the faltering and tentative mode of regard and thought of one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic thinkers.”...
Published 01/03/20
By virtually any measure, prisons have not worked. They are sites of cruelty, dehumanization, and violence, as well as subordination by race, class, and gender. Prisons traumatize virtually all who come into contact with them. Abolition of prison could be the ultimate reform. Georgetown Law Professor Paul Bulter explores what would replace prisons, how people who cause harm could be dealt with in the absence of incarceration, and why abolition would make everyone safer and our society more...
Published 12/04/19
It is widely held today on grounds of prudence if not realism that in designing public policy and legal systems, we should assume that people are entirely self-interested and amoral. But it is anything but prudent to let "Economic Man" be the behavioral assumption that underpins public policy. Samuel Bowles (Santa Fe Institute) supports his position using evidence from behavioral experiments mechanism design and other sources, and proposes an alternative paradigm for policy making. Series:...
Published 04/09/19
The view that the sciences make progress, while the arts do not, is extremely common. Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, challenges it. Scientific progress has social dimensions. A socially embedded notion of scientific progress then allows for a parallel concept of progress applicable to the arts. Kitcher specializes in the areas of pragmatism (especially Dewey), science and social issues, naturalistic ethics, and philosophy in literature. Series: "UC...
Published 03/25/19
Jennifer Granholm, former Governor of Michigan, identifies some of the most interesting policy ideas to address the problems of displaced workers, the skills gap and resulting inequality in an age of robots and artificial intelligence. Granholm teaches Public Policy at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School and is the chair of the American Jobs Project, a multi-state research initiative on creating industrial clusters in clean energy. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Show ID: 34013]
Published 01/02/19