Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
Churchill was on to something. While I’m sure the vast majority of people listening to this would support the idea of democracy in theory, how a democracy is implemented can be tricky.
Change the rules, and you can totally change the outcome, even if the voters vote exactly the same. This is especially true with geographical representation.
Learn more about gerrymandering, its history, how it works, and measures to get rid of it on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Well..... Yes and no. Political science expert Joe Magestro joins us for a fascinating conversation! We catch up on a little bit of Wisconsin politics. The news is actually pretty decent lately! And then we talk about the concept of polarization. There are many different ways to look at it, including one you might not have considered that is perhaps the most important going forward! Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please please pretty please support the show on patreon! You get ad free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content!
Honesty is an important virtue. Parents want to develop it in their children. Close relationships depend upon it. Employers value it in their employees. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have said very little about the virtue of honesty over the past fifty years. In Honesty: The Philosophy and Psychology of a Neglected Virtue (Oxford UP, 2021), Christian B. Miller aims to draw much greater attention to this neglected virtue.
The first part of the book looks at the concept of honesty. It takes up questions such as: What does honesty involve? What are the motives of an honest person? How does practical wisdom relate to honesty? Miller explores what connects the many sides of honesty, including not lying, not stealing, not breaking promises, not misleading others, and not cheating. He argues that the honest person reliably does not intentionally distort the facts as she takes them to be.
Miller then examines the empirical psychology of honesty. He takes up the question of whether most people are honest, dishonest, or somewhere in between. Drawing extensively on recent studies of cheating and lying, the model Miller articulates ultimately implies that most of us have a long way to go to reach an honest character.
Honesty: The Philosophy and Psychology of a Neglected Virtue provides both a richer understanding of what our character looks like, as well as what the goal of being an honest person actually involves. Miller then leaves it up to us to decide if we want to take steps to shrink the character gap between the two.
Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. He is currently the Director of the Honesty Project. He is the author of over 100 academic papers as well as four books, including Moral Character: An Empirical Theory (2013), Character and Moral Psychology (2014), The Character Gap: How Good Are We? (2017), and Moral Psychology (2021). He is a science contributor for Forbes, and his writings have also appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Slate, The Conversation, Newsweek, Aeon, and Christianity Today. Miller is the editor or co-editor of Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (OUP),Character: New Directions from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology (OUP),Moral Psychology, Volume V: Virtue and Character (MIT Press), Integrity, Honesty, and Truth Seeking (OUP), and The Continuum Companion to Ethics (Continuum Press)
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.
We're talking about what's expected at the biggest climate talks ever and another breakthrough in the Middle East.
Also, we're remembering one of the most powerful and polarizing figures in American politics.
Plus, what to know about the reliability of electric cars, a possible drug to help dogs live longer, and the trend that goes viral every year. It's one that makes us realize what kind of music fans we really are.
The UN’s 28th Conference of the Parties, also called COP28, kicks off today in Dubai. The annual climate change conference is set to take place through December 12th with an estimated 70,000 people in attendance. We’re joined by Naveena Sadasivam, senior staff writer from the climate outlet Grist, for what to watch at this year’s event.
And in headlines: Israel and Hamas agreed to extend their truce one more day to Friday, former U.S Secretary of State Henry Kissinger died at 100, and Taylor Swift took the top honor of being the most streamed-artist on Spotify this year.
Crooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffee
"Authentic" is Merriam-Webster’s word of the year. It’s also a good way to describe Fox News contributor and podcast host Lisa Boothe, whose own authenticity is evident whenever she’s on TV or interviewing guests for her show, “The Truth With Lisa Boothe.”
During her frequent Fox News appearances—or stints guest-hosting for Fox anchors such as Laura Ingraham—Boothe brings a straightforward, commonsense approach to viewers.
She spoke with The Daily Signal about the opportunity that led her from Capitol Hill to the media world—and why she believes so many outlets are falling out of favor today.
“I feel like we’ve just lost common sense, period,” Boothe says. “I think we’re a society, and it extends to the media as well, of cowardice, a lack of common sense, probably just intentional lying, and just no morality. There’s no wrong vs. right anymore.”
Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel—and the surge of antisemitism that followed—are just one example Boothe cites as a failure of the news media to distinguish wrong from right.
“Imagine how insanely frustrating it would be to be Israel. You have the most Jews slaughtered in a single day since the Holocaust, you have babies that were beheaded, you have women who are raped next to the bodies of their dead friends at a concert, completely unarmed,” Boothe said. “Just complete, utter atrocities, right? And then you have the media questioning what happened that day, questioning the beheading of babies.”
Israel, she said, was so compelled to counter pro-Palestinian propaganda that it invited journalists—including The Daily Signal—to view 43 minutes of video depicting Hamas terrorists' brutal atrocities.
“Israel has to confirm things that these Hamas terrorists videotaped themselves and put out to the public, but then the media’s just pushing out Hamas propaganda without question,” Boothe said. “I mean, it’s just disgusting.”
Boothe said she felt a similar frustration during the COVID-19 hysteria that consumed the country beginning in 2020. From the start, she thought the government reaction was overblown—from widespread lockdowns to vaccine mandates.
As a result, she started her own podcast to offer a countervailing narrative.
“I believe I was the first person at Fox to come out and say, ‘I’m not getting the vaccine,’” Boothe said. “I just got frustrated that I didn’t have my own outlet to have these conversations, and interview these types of people, and to have that space of exploring this other side. [It] ended up being the right side, but not at the time—it was very dangerous.”
Today, Boothe’s show features a mix of political and cultural warriors who offer a different perspective from what you’ll hear from legacy media outlets. She posts new episodes every few days.
“The Truth With Lisa Boothe” is syndicated by iHeartPodcasts and available on all major platforms.
Paris Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss her new novel dealing with the human labor behind self-driving cars and the challenges of being a good tech critic.
Joanne McNeil is the author of Wrong Way and has written for Dissent Magazine, New York Magazine, and The Nation.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.
In 2014, Ursula Le Guin was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and gave a speech that skewered capitalism.
Joanne’s fictional tech founder was in part inspired by Holacracy and Dan Price.
Today's episode is a true story that reads like a novel. In 2006, author and labor organizer Saket Soni received a call from an Indian migrant worker. He was one of hundreds of men hired by Signal International to fix hurricane-ravaged oil rigs in Mississippi and asked to pay $20,000 under the impression it would go towards green card expenses. But as Soni explains in his new book, The Great Escape, that was far from the truth. He tells Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about the harsh conditions workers were forced to live in, and how they eventually marched all the way to D.C. to demand justice.
