This Week in the News: Recent Episodes
Jeff Salzman
Jeff Salzman gives his unique developmental perspective on the news and opinion of the day. This Week in the News is a production of The Developmentalist, the online political magazine of the Institute for Cultural Evolution. Visit www.developmentalist.org to find out more about the developmental perspective on culture and politics.
Episode 23 (3/11/22) Listeners weigh in on how developmental thinking helps us relate and respond to the Russian war on Ukraine
Episode 20 (2.18.22) On Yuval Harari’s “Direction of History” and David Brooks’ “Century of the Strongman?” What’s missing?
Episode 19 (1/7/22) Capitol riot, one year later. Democracy in peril, fears on the left and right.
Episode 18 (12/17/21) Worlds collide and integrate in Steven Spielberg’s new telling of “West Side Story”
Episode 16 (12/3/21) Not “The New York Times” anymore * Horizontal evolution * Integral media
Episode 15 (11/19/21) “Morning Joe” Scarborough decries political tribalism as he stokes it * Steve Bannon, grifter or holy warrior?
Episode 14 (11/12/21) Jeff takes a look at the coverage and reactions to a major new book, “The Dawn of Everything, A New History of Humanity” by archeologist David Wengrow and the late anthropologist David Graeber
Episode 13 (10/29/21) Looking at two new books that argue about progress: Our Country Friends, by Gary Shteyngart, and Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce and Why It Matters, by Steven Pinker
Episode 12 (10/22/21) A “hard but real compromise is possible” on abortion * The role of women devolves, and evolves, in the Muslim world
Episode 11 (10/15/21) The global minimum tax * Facebook and Instagram on the block * Farhad Manjoo cautions against moral panic
Episode 10 (10/1/21) The Infrastructure and Reconciliation bills, David Brooks on “Why We Need to Spend $4 Trillion”
Episode 9 (9/24/21) John McWhorter says celebrate new gender pronouns * France’s submarine snub * Vaccines in Uganda
Episode 8 (9/17/21) - A pro-life Christian column: “Texas’s Abortion Law Should Force America to Change Its Ways”
Episode 7 (9/10/21) Critiquing David Brooks’ “When Dictators Find God” * Why premodern sensibilities must be integrated, not converted or paved over
Episode 6 (9/3/21) - Ross Douthet rebuts Brett Stephens on Afghanistan (I believe both of them) * Harvard Divinity School chooses an atheist Head Chaplain
Episode 5 (8/27/21) - Afghanistan through the developmental lens * The march of the Karens and three definitions of racism
Episode 4 (8/20/21) - Brett Stephens denounces Biden on Afghanistan * How to think your way to God
Episode 3 (8/13/21) - The IPCC climate story: religious in a bad way and religious in a good way
Episode 2 (8/6/21) - Was I too green last week? * Mondo Duplantis pole vaults into integral territory * Heather Cox Richardson and Roxanne Gay on why is everybody so mad * Come In, a poem by Robert Frost
Episode 1 (7/30/21) - Simone Biles Olympic withdrawal * Seeing the unseen worker, and the unseen aspects of every worker