Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Once at the center of the American conservative movement, best-selling author and radio host Charles Sykes is a fierce opponent of Donald Trump and the right-wing media that has enabled his rise. Sykes will present an impassioned, regretful and deeply thoughtful account of how the American conservative movement came to lose its values, asking: How did a movement that was defined by its belief in limited government, individual liberty, free markets, traditional values and civility find itself embracing bigotry, political intransigence, demagoguery and outright falsehood? In his new book, Sykes addresses: Why are so many voters so credulous and immune to factual information reported by responsible media? Why did conservatives decide to overlook, even embrace, so many of Trump’s outrages, gaffes, conspiracy theories, falsehoods and smears? Can conservatives govern? Or are they content merely to rage? How can the Right recover its traditional values and persuade a new generation of their worth? Come hear from a leading conservative voice about how the conservatives and the nation as a whole got to where it is today.

Monday Night Philosophy looks into the widespread concern that the same underlying patterns of western thought that gave us the benefits of science are also driving us to possible catastrophe. Are our cultural values the reason why our civilization is facing a climate change crisis and is driving species to mass extinction? Jeremy Lent argues that we need to understand the underlying mind-set that has brought us to this place, as only then can we consciously shape our values to create a sustainable, flourishing future of shared human dignity. With rigorous scholarship and deep insight, Lent investigates how different cultures have made sense of the universe and how their underlying values have changed the course of history. From the first farmers to Chinese sages to the trailblazers of the scientific revolution, Lent shows how humanity’s unique instinct to pattern meaning into the cosmos has constructed the world we live in today.

As the world’s wealth shifts into the hands of the few, a new system is emerging to address the inequality, unemployment and environmental destruction that Muhammad Yunus says goes hand in hand with capitalism. Yunus, the pioneer of microcredit, has seen the transformative results of his economic experiments help people escape poverty. He believes that today’s economic system is broken and must be reformed to provide opportunity for all. Yunus is a Bangladeshi economist who earned a Nobel Prize for his work in alleviating poverty. In his new book, A World of Three Zeros, Yunus discusses the experiments that have inspired thousands of individuals, companies and organizations to continue to provide microcredit to all.

We all have a duty to help and affect others―from the classroom to the boardroom to social media. But how skilled are we at this role, and can we become better? While many people rely on data and debate, neuroscientist Tali Sharot explains that our instincts can fail us. She argues that appealing to our emotion and curiosity are more compatible with how our minds work. In her new book, The Influential Mind, Sharot reveals how people influence and persuade each other—and how we can all get better at doing so. Join us for a discussion on the power of influence and behavior in our increasingly interwoven world—and how we can all make our minds work better.

Join Kelsey Crowe, Ph.D., and Lucy Kalanithi, M.D., in a humorous, poignant and practical conversation about the need for identity, gratitude and compassion when forging connections in life’s scary, awful and unfair moments. Sharing personal stories and research, Crowe and Kalanithi will unpack idiomatic expressions in the world of suffering and offer practical tips about being there for the people we care about when it matters most. Lucy Kalanithi is the widow of Paul Kalanithi, M.D., the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling memoir When Breath Becomes Air, a meditation on mortality and meaning. The book spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on The New York Times nonfiction best seller list and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Kalanithi is an internist on faculty at the Stanford School of Medicine. At the cross section of her personal and professional experiences, she has interests in patient-centered health care, health-care value, end-of-life care and clinician burnout. She was a 2016 speaker at TEDMED and a 2017 honoree of Mass General Cancer Center's the one hundred. Kalanithi lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter, Cady. Crowe is the co-author of There Is No Good Card for This: What to Do and Say When Life Is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love. She is the founder of Help Each Other Out, which offers programs that give people tools for building relationships when it really counts. She earned her Ph.D. in social work at UC Berkeley, where she is currently a visiting scholar studying empathy. Rebecca Soffer is the co-founder and CEO of Modern Loss, a publication and community providing candid conversation on grief. She is also co-author of the Modern Loss book, forthcoming from HarperCollins in January 2018. A former producer for the Peabody Award-winning “Colbert Report,” Soffer is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of loss and resilience. She graduated from Emory University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

In a rare display of bipartisanship, Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) and former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) sat side by side recently, praising the state’s efforts to move the economy away from fossil fuels. Schwarzenegger said Washington, D.C. should learn from California, where several Republicans joined with Brown and Democrats to extend the state’s landmark climate law. Some environmentalists said the law extending California’s cap-and-trade system to 2030 is a sellout to the oil industry and it shortchanges disadvantaged communities that breathe the dirtiest air. Silicon Valley companies supported the move as did many large environmental groups. How do California’s climate moves play into national politics and policy? Will climate and energy play a meaningful role in the upcoming midterm elections? Will companies finally make energy policy more of a priority?

During his tenure as chancellor at UC Berkeley, Nicholas Dirks navigated some of the most challenging free speech controversies in the contemporary United States. In one of the most telling episodes, a February 2017 speech by the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was shut down amid a riot by left-wing "antifa" protesters. In this talk, Dirks will reflect on challenges such as these as well as the ideological challenges to the liberal norm of free speech and the threat posed to universities by these contemporary disputes.

Are you stuck in a position where you need to handle demeaning and disrespectful people (i.e., jerks)? If so, you need to attend this talk by Stanford professor Robert Sutton. Besides being hilarious, Sutton’s talks are generally insightful, clear and useful. Sutton will teach us field-tested, evidence-based techniques for dealing with the jerks in our lives—especially bosses, co-workers and customers. He'll discuss how to escape, endure, outwit, battle and disempower people who leave us feeling demeaned, disrespected and de-energized. He’ll also address how to keep our own inner jerk from rearing its ugly head. He'll draw on his new book, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt, inspired by thousands of emails and conversations. The American Management Association and Businessweek named Sutton one of the ten top management leaders and professors. He is a co-founder of the d.school at Stanford, a fellow at IDEO and a guest on major TV networks. His previous book was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller and was selected as one of the best business books of the year by Amazon, the Financial Times and Inc. Sutton's talks frequently sell out, so don't hesitate to sign up. Join us, and let's have fun while learning how to make our lives less stressful and more effective.

Stephen Greenblatt returns to The Commonwealth Club to explore the value of the humanities by investigating the literary, artistic and cultural life of one of humankind’s greatest stories: Adam and Eve. With the insight, eloquence and erudition that have characterized his previous award-winning and best-selling books, Greenblatt looks at the origins of this biblical story, tracking its first written form back to the Hebrews’ exile in Babylon. He animates the sexual and moral conflicts that led Augustine to enshrine the story at the center of Christian faith. Greenblatt also limns the narrative’s diverse offspring: rich allegory, vicious misogyny and astonishing artistic representation. Greenblatt awakens us to the strangeness and wealth of a tale that generations have found profoundly meaningful; he reminds us that it has not been that long since it was mortally dangerous to question the story’s literal truth. Hear what Greenblatt thinks has been both gained and sacrificed as interpretations of the story of our first human ancestors have evolved throughout western culture.

According to serial social entrepreneur Leila Janah, giving work is the most effective means of reducing poverty, and she and her company, Samasource, are a big part of the solution. Janah and her team go into some of the world’s poorest communities—from right here in California all the way to Kenya—and train individuals in digital work for tech titans like Google and Microsoft. Samasource’s model—which addresses the causes, not just the symptoms, of poverty—gives work, not aid, helping individuals access dignified, steady, fair-wage work and ensuring they can gain the tools to change their own lives for the better. Janah’s new book, Give Work: Reversing Poverty One Job at a Time, shares the stories of those who have benefitted from Samasource’s groundbreaking business model and demonstrates how entrepreneurs and individuals can be a part of the movement to eradicate poverty across the globe. Join Janah and moderator Laura D. Tyson of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, an expert in the field of global economics, for an insightful and impactful conversation on innovative ways to reverse global poverty.