Throughout American history, prophetic “outsider” voices have been major drivers of our moral, social, and even technological progress. We’ve needed folks who are willing, or in some cases have been forced to see the world differently, and who can then communicate their insights back to the rest of society. In the coming generation, those voices will be essential if we’re going to shake ourselves out of our cultural malaise. But where will they come from? Deeply religious thinkers? Crazy-in-the-best-way technologists? Thinkers from minority communities, whether Jews, Catholics, Black thinkers, Hispanic thinkers, thinkers from India? Or maybe just people who care about knowledge for more than just instrumental reasons? To figure this all out, Rabbi Ari spoke with Professor Hollis Robbins, one of the country’s leading scholars of African American history and literature.

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