Struggle to Understand

In this episode, I speak with Scott Johnson, a high school science teacher who lives in Plainfield, Indiana. Scott has been a science educator for nearly 20 years with nearly a decade of that educating advanced and ambitious students in his anatomy and physiology courses. We speak about how he came to the teaching profession, what lessons he has learned from his experience as a classroom teacher – both positive and negative, and then turn to a conversation about how our educational systems often too often do not provide the kinds of outcomes we desire from them. In tandem with this, we discuss his experience of teaching through COVID, the constraints and opportunities the pandemic forced upon him, and how he believes the experience has made him a better teacher – and his students into better students. Given the centrality of public education in our lives today, we often become mired in discussions on how to fix teaching, fix teachers, fix schools, etc. but rarely spend enough time speaking to those who have dedicated their lives to seriously helping others improve their lives through education. As we discuss toward the end of this discussion, public educators have to teach the public and, In this way, they are civil servants engaging with a serious civic duty. Perhaps if we spent more time trying to understand what kinds of citizens we want to live with, and less time with what kind of workers we want to hire or what kind of consumers we want to fill our marketplace, we might be able to better tackle the challenges that come with teaching an increasingly diverse student population. Maybe this will better help us understand the public facet of public education a bit better and may, by extension, improve our collective lives as well.

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

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I speak with Angel Eduardo, a staff writer for idealist.org and a columnist for the Center for Inquiry, who is also a musician, photographer, and designer who lives in New York City. Angel has a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts and Creative Writing so we spend time discussing the role of arts in how we communicate and also the art of communicating, specifically using a term he coined, star-manning. As Angel will explain more fully, star-manning is an extension of the intellectual exercise of steel-manning someone else’s argument; that is to say, to present an argument in its strongest form to deal with it in the most serious way. The conversation then turns to something that is far closer to my heart: superheroes. Angel has a particular affinity for the DC character Superman, so we speak at some lengths about the importance of such characters for kids and then how those same characters continue to have meaning well into adulthood. Both facets of this conversation, the art of communication and then communicating through the arts, are vital pieces for engaging in a shared life together. This conversation exemplifies both facets well and I hope you find it to be meaningful.

Angel's work can be found here. 

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!

In this episode, I speak with Alex Priou, who teaches at the Herbst Center at the University of Colorado - Boulder. Alex has a PhD from Tulane University and his research focuses on Plato and the Pre-Socratics. This is the first conversation on my podcast that is dedicated to political philosophy and some of the questions inherent to the study of political philosophy. To that end, we spend quite a bit of time exploring questions like: what is political philosophy? Why study the liberal arts? Why take up questions of Platonic political philosophy? We also spend quite a bit of time exploring Leo Strauss and his impact on the way that we think about political philosophy and perhaps how this tradition can help us address the pressing questions of our time. Alex is a fantastic interlocutor and this conversation was a joy. 

Alex, along with two of his friends and colleagues, has a podcast that can be found here.

Alex's writings can be found here. 

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!

In this episode, I speak with Iona Italia. Iona has a PhD in literature from Cambridge University and is an editor at Areo Magazine and currently lives in London. We speak about her background, both personally and academically, including her experience living in multiple countries and how that has shaped her worldview, how to be a good writer and issues that emerge from academic training, the humanities and the Enlightenment, and the importance of literature in our lives. Iona is a charming and humorous interlocutor and it was a joy to spend this time with her. 

Her podcast, Two for Tea, can be found here.

Her writings at Areo, here and her book here. 

You can find her on Twitter @ionaitalia.

Her website is here. 

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!

Today, I speak with Xavier Bonilla, who has a doctorate in psychology and is a professor of psychology in Maryland. We speak about a wide range of topics including reacting to the seditious mob invading the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, then transitioning to conversations about political centrism, how to find meaning in a world that seems so often to be meaningless, and questions of how to explore themes and narratives in films or other elements in popular culture. Xavier is an excellent interlocutor and this conversation was a joy. 

Xavier is also the host of a podcast called "Converging Dialogues" which can be found here. His piece on Centrism can be found  

Xavier can be found on on Twitter @xaverbonilla87. 

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Alex Natale, who is a professor of physics. We talk about fundamental elements in physics, including dark matter, dark energy, and neutrinos, and the role they play in giving an account of nature, the relationship between physics and political philosophy, and the nature of the university and how we educate students. I decided not to break this conversation into multiple episodes because so much of the conversation is self-referential and integrated that there did not seem to be a natural break in the conversation. Having conversations like this one, where people who have interests in different facets of human knowledge discuss their experiences with trying to understand but such conversations push against the trend in the university. We need to invest in more conversations like this one. 

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!

Today, in the second of two episodes, I continue my conversation with Roc, a data and systems analyst who currently lives in New York City. In this discussion, we discuss how talking to academics can be a struggle and perhaps why that is the case, what it means to be part of a community and the weight that may or may not come along with it, how we structure moral codes without religious belief, and we end with a way of viewing the value of currency in how we prioritize the values in our lives. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of this conversation for me was our discussion of mercy and the importance that mercy has to play in our relationships with others but also in our relationship with ourselves. 

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!

In the first of two episodes, I speak with Roc, a data and systems analyst who currently lives in New York City. In this episode, we discuss Roc's life living in various places in the United States and the unique perspective this generates as well as having a fairly long exploration of our relationship with social media. 

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!

Today, in the third of three episodes, I continue my conversation with Dr. Damir Kovačević who is a professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and with Dr. Martin Claar who is a lecturer of Political Science at Loyola University – Chicago. We take up two primary questions in this final episode: How stable is a multi-polar system in international relations? Is the instantiation of norms the “end of history”? Meaning, is a world defined by compliance to the liberal world order the ultimate state of human political development. It is fitting that we end this conversation on these two questions because they ask us if the current global system of norms is worth preserving and if it is, does it represent the best system we can create to manage the capriciousness of political dynamics.

I should make one final note: we recorded this conversation before the United States presidential election so there is some speculation about the future of the American presidency that has now been settled by that election.

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!

Today, in the second of three episodes, I continue my conversation with Dr. Damir Kovačević who is a professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and with Dr. Martin Claar who is a lecturer of Political Science at Loyola University – Chicago. We build on our prior conversation and then move on to explore why norms fail, is compliance to these norms a result of domestic or international pressure, and the use of chemical agents in regulating domestic disturbances. Specifically, the issue raised by the use of tear gas asks us how should domestic governments handle civil unrest without succumbing to treating such unrest as acts of war. These topics are salient currently given the domestic state of politics in America but they are perennial topics for living within a liberal world order.

Introductory music was written by Alex Yoder. Find him here

Please consider supporting the podcast here and following it on Twitter. Thank you for your support!