Thinking Aloud

Paul Tough’s influential first book argued that character traits like grit, curiosity, optimism, and self-control are more important for a student’s success than intelligence.  His new book Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why clarifies that these crucial character traits might not necessarily be directly teachable in school.  Rather, they are primarily developed in a child’s home environment.  On tonight’s Thinking Aloud, Tough shares some ideas on how we can begin to help children inside their homes where they need it most.

Belarus is a unique country in that its people decided not to jump into capitalism and open democracy after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, its lack of natural resources forces it into trade relationships with many other nations.  Today on Thinking Aloud, the Charge D'Affair of Belarus is with us to discuss the current and future state of this fascinating, singular nation.

ChristopherAchen, co-author of the new Princeton UP book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce ResponsiveGovernment argues that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steeringthe ship of state from the voting booth is wrong: even well-informed and politically-engaged voters (the vast minority) mostlychoose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisanloyalties, not political issues.  Aswell, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such aseconomic spurts or downturns—thus makingelection outcomes essentially random.  Sothe fickle, whacky, and largely injudicious nature of voting in America is the subject ofdiscussion on tonight’s Thinking Aloud.

Tonight's show is about a new book by Eric Cline, a distinguished historian of the ancient world. He talks about the absolutely amazing network of cultural contact and trade that spread all over the Middle East and to lands beyond up to 3300 years ago (In opener to the show, we reference a famous shipwreck off the coast of Turkey that was carrying goods from as far away as the Sahara and the Baltic region), and then discusses the scary yet very real collapse of a dozen or so linked civilizations all at once in the century or so around 1177 BCE. It all sounds a bit like the dissolution of the Soviet Union in our own day and it could, history and Cline both imply, happen to us.

Though they mean well, 21st century parents are often a little too involved in their kids' lives: they hover over homework, manage their child's friendships, and even assume the right to lobby their kids' sports coaches. Jessica Lahey's new book addresses some of the problems with this style of modern parenting.  It's called "The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed."

When it comesto the risk of pandemics, we also often assume we’re much better situated than ourpredecessors to detect and combat them, but this may not be true. Yes, ourmedical practices are more sophisticated than ever, but the ease ofinternational travel puts humans in greater contact with each other than at anyprevious time in history.  Some looming “supervirus” may even now be waiting in the wings for just the right moment to hitchan opportunistic ride.  And for offeringthat ride, we’ll probably have no one to blame but ourselves.

Bryan Robinson is a specialist in workaholism, an addiction beginning to be taken more seriously as a serious psychological malady. He talks tonight with Marcus Smith about the perils and potential healing of this modern disease.

Author and naturalist David Gessner's new book "All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West" is a meditation on the meaning of America's vast western landscape--using two of America's greatest environmental writers as touchstones.  On today's show, he shares his ideas on those two writers' works and his own ideas on our relationship to the planet.  David Gessner's visit was sponsored by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies.  

Psychiatrist Joel Dimsdale ventures into the study of some of the most notorious figures of World War II. In his new book “The Anatomy of Malice,” Dimsdale re-explores the psychology of imprisoned Nazi leaders, through historical lenses and documentation provided by Gilbert and Kelley, the two prison clinicians assigned to examine the war criminals. What Dimsdale finds is far from comforting, that mentally, the Nazi leaders were far more normal than we'd like to think.

Everyone knows that they should save money for retirement and other future needs, but few people do.  Why are we so bad at doing what we know is the best, most rational way to use our money?  The field of behavioral economics gives us some beginning answers to that question, and guest Brigitte Madrian will discuss today how she has used this economic theory to help design pension plans that help people to save.