On Being with Krista Tippett

David Blankenhorn is founder and president of the Institute of American Values. He’s also co-director of The Marriage Opportunity Council. His books include “The Future of Marriage.” Jonathan Rauch is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-director of The Marriage Opportunity Council. He’s a contributing editor to The Atlantic and National Journal, and the author of “Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch — The Future of Marriage.” Find more at onbeing.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What would it take to make our national encounter with gay marriage redemptive rather than divisive? David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch came to the gay marriage debate from very different directions — but with a shared concern about the institution of marriage. Now, they’re pursuing a different way for all of us to grapple with the future of marriage, redefined. They model a fresh way forward as the subject of same-sex marriage is before the Supreme Court.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Bruce Kramer was the creator of “The Dis Ease Diary” a blog about his life with ALS and “We Know How This Ends: Living While Dying.” He was the Dean of the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling at the University of St. Thomas, where he served on the faculty for over 19 years. He was a passionate music lover and was a choir conductor for most of his adult life. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Bruce Kramer — Forgiving the Body: Life with ALS.” Find more at onbeing.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the moment of his diagnosis with ALS, Bruce Kramer began writing — openly, deeply, and spiritually — about his struggle, as he puts it, to live while dying. He died on March 23, 2015, while we were in production on this show. His words hold abiding joy and beauty, and reveal an unexpected view opened by this disease.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Alan Dienstag is a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City and Westchester County. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Alan Dienstag — Alzheimer’s and the Spiritual Terrain of Memory.” Find more at onbeing.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Alzheimer’s disease has been described as “the great unlearning.” But what does it reveal about the nature of human identity? What remains when memory unravels? Alan Dienstag is a psychologist who has led support groups with early Alzheimer’s patients, as well as a writing group he co-designed with the novelist Don DeLillo. He’s experienced the early stages of Alzheimer’s as a time for giving memories away rather than losing them.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For several hundred years, much of scientific advance has been about exploring human beings, including their actions and choices, in terms of mechanism — our bodies, our brains, physical processes. Research psychologist Michael McCullough believes that understanding our minds as mechanistic creates moral possibility. He’s led groundbreaking studies on the evolution and cultivation of moral behaviors such as forgiveness and gratitude. Arthur Zajonc is a physicist and contemplative, who believes that the farthest frontiers of science are bringing us back to a radical reorientation towards life and the foundations for our moral life.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Arthur Zajonc is president of the Mind and Life Institute. He is emeritus professor of physics at Amherst College, where he taught from 1978 to 2012. His books include “Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love” and “The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal.” Michael McCullough is professor of psychology at the University of Miami, where he directs the Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory. He’s the author of “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Arthur Zajonc + Michael McCullough — Mind and Morality: A Dialogue.” Find more at onbeing.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Eve Ensler has helped women all over the world tell the stories of their lives through the stories of their bodies. Her play, “The Vagina Monologues,” has become a global force in the face of violence against women and girls. But she herself also had a violent childhood. And it turns out that she, like so many Western women, was obsessed by her body and yet not inhabiting it without even knowing she wasn’t inhabiting her body — until she got cancer.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Eve Ensler is a Tony Award-winning playwright, performer, and activist. She is the author of “The Vagina Monologues” and “The Good Body.” Her memoir is “In the Body of the World.” This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Eve Ensler — The Body After Cancer.” Find more at onbeing.org.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.