#314 Reading is Vital for Democracy: Joseph Luzzi

July 30, 2021 Richard Davies

America is facing a reading crisis, and this has profound impacts on how we engage with the world. The number of adults who read books for pleasure fell by more than 30% in less than 15 years. Researchers found that Americans watch TV three hours a day, but spend less than 30 minutes reading.

"Reading is seeing the world through someone else's eyes," says our guest, Joseph Luzzi, Professor of Comparative Literature at Bard College. "I think of social media as a mirror. You look into it and your tastes and interests are reflected back on you. Literature is a prism. You look into it and you are engaged."

Recent neuroscience research suggests fiction literature helps people develop empathy and critical thinking. The decline in reading and the popularity of social media may have profound impacts on democracy, feeding into our deep partisan division, and reinforcing extreme opinions.

In this episode, we also discuss how reading Dante helped save Joseph after he became a widower and a father on the same day. We also learn about his 4-for-45 prescription for how reading literature can bring pleasure enlightenment to our daily lives.

#313 Fix More, Waste Less. Right to Repair. Sandra Goldmark

July 23, 2021 Richard Davies

Our relationship with our stuff is broken. What was once fixed is often tossed into landfills. Repairs today are more expensive than the prices of many new clothes, gadgets, and household appliances.

Large manufacturers restrict the repair of their goods by limiting the availability of parts and repair information. Their policies sparked a consumer backlash and a growing right-to-repair movement. This week, The Federal Trade Commission said it wants to give consumers new rights to fix devices and limit "unfair anti-competitive restrictions" by manufacturers.

Our guest, Sandra Goldmark, is a leader in the movement to demand better “stuff.” She doesn’t just want to help us clear away clutter—she aims to move us away from a throwaway culture, to teach us to reuse and repurpose more thoughtfully. We discuss her new book, "Fixation: How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet,” and the case for a circular economy.

#311 Delta Variant & Vaccine Hesitancy: Dr. Wrenetha Julion

July 9, 2021 Richard Davies

The spread of the Delta Variant is a rapidly growing threat to public health, especially in states with low vaccination rates. But cases of COVID-19 are still holding steady in regions where more than 60% of the adult population had at least one shot.
The disparity comes at a time of triumph with increasing evidence that the vaccines offer extremely high rates of protection.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that regional differences in coronavirus vaccination rates could create "two types of America."

Vaccine hesitancy is high in rural red states, in Black and Latino communities, and among many young people. In this episode, we hear again from Dr. Wrenetha Julion, professor and Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion at Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago. We also review the latest research on the Delta Variant and warnings of rising hospitalizations among unvaccinated Americans.

Vaccine hesitancy "is a significant problem," says Wrenetha. "It stems from a long history of mistrust and mistreatment of African-Americans and other groups in healthcare systems and research. Unfortunately, those things stick in people's minds."

#310 Heat, Drought, Fires : Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano

June 25, 2021 Richard Davies

Much of the West has just lived through one of the worst June heatwaves in decades. Many states could be in a drought all this summer. From California and Arizona to the mountain West, dangerous heatwaves are almost becoming the norm.

The threat of more devastating wildfires prompted calls for reforms of the nation's fire management policies, and are a clear sign that the impacts of climate change are now being felt.

Our guests are Guardian journalists Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano, authors of the book, “Fire In Paradise: An American Tragedy", a harrowing account of the most destructive wildfire in a century. Both Dani and Alastair reported extensively on the Camp Fire in 2018, and this year's megafires in California, Oregon, and Washington.

#309 Free The Children. Lenore Skenazy

June 18, 2021 Richard Davies

"Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone" was a 2008 newspaper column that turned into a national campaign to help parents raise their children with less anxiety while pushing back against our culture that has become obsessed with kids' fragility.

Our guest, Lenore Skenazy, founded free-range kids in the years after she first described making the decision to let her son, Izzy, take the New York City subway home alone. Her column resulted in a flood of media coverage and mixed reactions from parents— from accusations of child abuse to fond memories of childhood freedom. She hosted a TV series, "World's Worst Mom".

This week, the second edition of her best-selling book, "Free-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow", is published. In this episode, we discuss how parents and educators can step back so kids step up. We also look at the resilience of children and why the rest of the world is laughing at us scaredy-cat Americans.

#308 America Talks #ListenFirst. Kristin Hansen and Zoë Jenkins

June 9, 2021 Richard Davies

America's remarkable experiment in a pluralist democracy is under threat from toxic polarization. In this episode, we discuss two current nationwide campaigns to tackle this crisis head-on,

America Talks, on Saturday-Sunday, June 12-13, is a powerful conversation event that invites thousands of Americans to connect one-on-one on video across our political divides. By doing so, we remind ourselves that the “other” is – just like us – a person with family, friends, hopes, fears, values, beliefs, and intrinsic worth.

The fourth annual National Week of Conversation, June 14-20, organized by #ListenFirst Coalition and over 300 organizations, invites Americans of all views and backgrounds to listen and discover common interests. Sign up for both events at AmericaTalks.us.

Our guests are Kristin Hansen, Executive Director of Civic Health Project, Director at AllSides, and 17-year-old Zoë Jenkins, a civic activist who founded DICCE — diversity, inclusion, cultural competency, and equity.

#307 Frontlines of Peace. Séverine Autesserre

June 4, 2021 Richard Davies

The word “peacebuilding” evokes a story we’ve all heard over and over: Violence breaks out, foreign nations react, peacekeepers and million-dollar donors come rushing in, warring parties sign a peace agreement, and, sadly, within months the situation is back to where it started—sometimes worse.

But peace can grow in the most unlikely circumstances. What are some strategies that work?

Our guest is an award-winning researcher and peacebuilder, Séverine Autesserre, author of the new book, "The Frontlines of Peace". She shares success stories — innovative grassroots initiatives led by local people, at times supported by foreigners, often employing methods shunned by the international elite.

In this episode, we look at examples of local initiatives that build lasting peace. We examine how they differ from the top-down "Peace Inc." approach that can waste billions of dollars in aid and involve massive international interventions.

#306 Tough Lessons From Economics. Veronique de Rugy

May 28, 2021 Richard Davies

"We should be humble all the time," says Veronique de Rugy of her study of economics. "There's always something I realize that I didn't understand."

In this episode, we discuss the rigorous questions economists need to ask themselves when analyzing the likely impacts of public policies: Questions rarely asked by politicians and others in the public square. We look at the perils of cronyism, the shortcomings of the Ex-Im Bank, growing federal budget deficits, and the unfairness of the highly complex U.S. tax system.

Veronique is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She writes a syndicated column looking at economics from a free market, libertarian perspective.

#305 Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times. Eric Weiner

May 21, 2021 Richard Davies

It's tempting to believe that our current moment is the most urgent of all. Yet despite the catastrophic pandemic, and threats from other urgent problems, humankind has faced worse calamities in the past— from global wars and plagues to economic collapse.

In this episode, we look at age-old lessons from philosophy and discover how ancient wisdom can be our guide in modern times.

Best-selling author, traveler, and former NPR foreign correspondent, Eric Weiner is our guide. He's the author of the recent book, "The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons From Dead Philosophers".

This episode is a fun ride, as we follow in the footsteps of history’s greatest thinkers—from Epicurus to Nietzsche, Thoreau to Gandhi— who show us practical and spiritual lessons for today’s unsettled times.

#304 Bridging the Rural-Urban Divide. Ashley Ahearn

May 14, 2021 Richard Davies

She lived in Seattle and covered science, climate change, and the environment for NPR for more than a decade. Most of her friends and colleagues were liberals or progressives. Then in 2018, journalist Ashley Ahearn made a big jump, moving with her husband to one of the most conservative counties in rural Washington State.

What did this public radio reporter learn from her dramatic change in lifestyle?

In this episode, we learn about the profound rural-urban divide in America, and what Ashley discovered about her new neighbors and herself when she switched from the city to the country, now living on a 20-acre property with a horse and a pickup truck. We also discuss how politics and views of the land and climate differ greatly according to where people live.

#303 Framing is Fundamental. Francis de Véricourt and Kenneth Cukier

May 7, 2021 Richard Davies

Too often in our fierce and narrow political debates, we suffer from a poverty of imagination. Seeing a crisis through a narrow lens of "us versus them" is a barrier to creative solutions and vital changes needed to save lives, protect the planet, and grow prosperity.

In this episode we discuss the enormous power and potential of framing: mental models that enable us to see patterns, predict how things will unfold, and understand new situations.

Our guests are Kenneth Cukier, a senior editor at The Economist in London, and Francis de Véricourt, professor of management science at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin. They are two of the co-authors of the new book, "Framers. Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil."

#302 Promoting Diversity, Defending Free Speech. Amna Khalid

April 30, 2021 Richard Davies

In the months after George Floyd’s murder, colleges, universities, non-profits, and large corporations across the country embraced anti-racism and diversity training as a way to promote inclusion and racial justice.

But do these programs actually work to change minds and achieve their goals? Our guest, associate professor of History at Carleton College, Amna Khalid, argues that while training can improve customer service and knowledge of CPR and Excel spreadsheets, it’s woefully inadequate when confronting complex social problems such as poverty, inequality, discrimination, and racism.

Amna grew up under several military dictatorships in Pakistan and came to the U.S. with a passionate commitment to free speech and belief in the power of education to promote curiosity, understanding, and imagination.

#301 Good Conflict vs. High Conflict. Amanda Ripley

April 23, 2021 Richard Davies

What’s the greatest crisis facing America today? — Racism and hate crimes, exploding government debt, climate change, or the mess at the border?

It may be none of these.

America and many other countries are trapped in high conflict. Both sides are paralyzed by fear and anger as they demonize the other. The national narrative of "us versus them" is a threat to democracy and stops us from working together to build a better world.

Best-selling author and investigative journalist, Amanda Ripley, is our guest. She is well-known for her writing in The Atlantic, Time, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Her latest book is “High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out."

#300 Six years. Six guests. 300 episodes

April 16, 2021 Richard Davies

We’ve made it to our 300th weekly episode! While it’s easy to congratulate ourselves for being among the few podcasts to produce this many shows, Jim and Richard are most proud of our extraordinary range of guests.

During our first six years together, we've often highlighted out-of-the-box thinkers, who share ideas that are too rarely discussed: People who speak about solutions through an independent lens— neither firmly left nor right.

For this episode, we revisit interviews with six guests— or roughly 2% of all the people we've spoken with for "How Do We Fix It?" We begin with the public intellectual and problem solver Philip K. Howard, who was our very first guest. Others featured here are Claire Cain Miller of The Upshot at The New York Times, Mike Rowe, who became famous with the TV show "Dirty Jobs", science evangelist, Ainissa Ramirez, Jerry Taylor, President and Founder of The Niskanen Center, and R&B musician Daryl Davis, who has personally persuaded more than 200 men and women to quit white supremacist groups.

#299 Fighting Hate and Self-Loathing With Love: Chloé Valdary

April 9, 2021 Richard Davies

Recent mass shootings and the explosion of rage outside the U.S. Capitol on January 6 are reminders of threats posed to us all by anger, fear, and loathing. On social media and in the hyper-partisan ways political issues are debated, many of us objectify others. Those who belong to the wrong tribe are often targets of personal scorn.

In a Twitter post, our guest, writer, and entrepreneur, Chloé Valdary, says: "if you do not possess the power to love, and especially love your enemies, then you don't really have the power."

In this episode, first released in 2020, Chloé talks about her antiracism program, Theory of Enchantment, which uses the music and messaging of Beyoncé, Disney movies and pop culture as educational tools, teaching social and emotional learning in schools, and diversity and inclusion in companies and government agencies.

#298 Infrastructure. How To Pay For It: Maya MacGuineas

April 2, 2021 Richard Davies

Stifle that yawn. Infrastructure just got exciting again.

President Biden announced a $2 trillion plan to rebuild roads and rails, repair bridges, modernize airports and seaports, create hundreds of thousands of union jobs in the solar and wind power industries, boost housing, expand broadband access to regions that are poorly served, and speed-up the transition to a climate-friendly economy. Total spending on his proposals could be as much as $4 trillion over the next decade.

We explain the President's ambitious plan, which amounts to the biggest spending initiatives in decades, and look at how to pay for it with one of the nation's top experts on the budget and taxes — Maya MacGuineas, President of the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

#297 Fixing The Grid: Our Relationship With Electricity. Gretchen Bakke

March 26, 2021 Richard Davies

Our lives depend on it and most of us don't give it a moment's thought. But when the electricity goes off we feel frustrated— powerless.

America's grid was an engineering triumph of the twentieth century, but as the recent sudden freeze and severe power outages in Texas have shown, our electricity infrastructure is fragile and in need of basic repair, especially as the world faces the growing reality of extreme weather events and climate change. On their own solar and wind power are not enough to meet rapidly growing electricity demand. What are other viable, carbon-free alternatives?

We discuss strengthening the grid, re-imaging it according to modern values, and our relationship with electricity with cultural anthropologist, Gretchen Bakke, author of "The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future."

#296 Nobody's Normal. Rethinking Mental Illness: Richard Grinker

March 19, 2021 Richard Davies

Our obsession with what is normal and acceptable is at the heart of how we view mental health. It is also the source of stigma around many forms of mental illness.

In this podcast with anthropology professor, Richard Grinker, we ask how do we fix it? What are successful ways to challenge stigmas, as we help millions of people reach their full potential? Richard discusses the findings in his uplifting new book, "Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness."

Social distancing, remote learning, and disruption of social supports during the COVID pandemic are likely to lead to an even greater crisis of mental illness. But Richard sees hope at this moment. "The pandemic provides us with an opportunity to make progress in destigmatizing mental illness," he tells us.

#295 Social Media. Revolution and Reform. Sinan Aral

March 12, 2021 Richard Davies

When social media burst on the scene, many of us were in awe of its great potential. For the first ten years of Facebook, public reaction to this new form of communication was overwhelmingly positive, but now that we have a better understanding of how social media is shaping our world, there are growing calls for fundamental reform.

Should tech monopolies be cut down to size and broken apart? Or is a much more careful, nuanced approach needed from Congress?

MIT Management Professor Sinan Aral has spent two decades studying how social media changed American politics, the economy, and even our personal health. He is the author of the recent book, "The Hype Machine". As an entrepreneur and investor, he has a deep understanding of the perils and promise of social media. We publish extracts from his interview with the podcast, "Democracy Works".