Wild with Sarah Wilson

Ruth Ben-Ghiat (historian of fascism +NYT bestselling author of Strongmen) is an internationally recognised expert in how psychologically unstable men come to power and use corruption, sexual predation, staged victimhood and violence to rule. She’s recently, however, turned her focus to how societies subjected to such tyranny have survived and fought back…using moral authority.

Ruth is an American history professor at New York University and a political commentator with an expertise in fascism and authoritarian leaders. Her 2020 book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present was a global bestseller. She publishes the hugely popular Substack Lucid, a newsletter on threats to democracy and will publish her next book, Resisting Autocracy: What History Teaches About Fighting Back, next year.

SHOW NOTES

Be sure to check out her Substack Lucid
Purchase Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present here
You can catch up on the Ece Temelkuran episode here
This episode with Lindsey Stonebridge on Hannah Arendt’s ideas on resistance might also interest you

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Watch on YouTube or Substack
If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page
For more such conversations, subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!
Let’s connect on Instagram
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Zak Stein (Harvard philosopher of education, AI + kids expert) is worried that we are not raising and educating our kids for the kind of wobbly, harsh future they will be inheriting. Zak is a Harvard philosopher of education and co-founder of the Centre for World Philosophy and Religion. He is also the co-founder of the Civilisation Research Institute and the Consilience Project, and the author of Education in a Time Between Worlds.

I asked Zak to join me to answer the kinds of questions parents and teachers everywhere are asking. What kind of education matters now? Is it about being keyed into AI or radically rejecting it? What should young people be studying at college/university if entry-level jobs are now being wiped? Should we be pushing success or adaptability onto kids? What should be done with the social media bans?

SHOW NOTES

Learn more about Zak's work here.
Get your copy of Education in a Time Between Worlds: Essays on the Future of Schools, Technology, and Society
If you want more ideas about raising kids amid…all of this…you might enjoy this chat with Anya Kamenetz: AMA: How do I parent in the face of so much existential crisis?

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Watch on YouTube or Substack
If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page
For more such conversations, subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!
Let’s connect on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Muthukrishna (behavioural scientist, cultural evolution researcher) has a unified “theory of everyone” that says we evolved as a species, surviving crises and collapses, through cooperative norms that made sure inequality did not blow out, in conditions of energy abundance.

Michael is Professor of Economic Psychology at New York University (NYU) and the London School of Economics, co-founder of London School of Artificial Intelligence (LSAI), technical director of The Database of Religious History and co-founder of the London School of Artificial Intelligence (LSAI). He’s also the author of A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We Are Going, and in this episode I ask how everyone – humanity – can survive this multi-crisis pile-up when energy is running out. The answer is…complex.

Show Notes
Get your copy of A Theory of Everyone: The New Science of Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We Are Going
Learn more about Michael’s work here and his video trailer here

You can catch up on my episode about Moloch I mentioned: LIV BOEREE: Explaining Moloch, the mysterious game theory force breaking the world (plus a fix!)

And these episodes on how we’re fundamentally more cooperative than we tend to get told might be of interest, too.
ADAM MASTROIANNI: Do we need to make the world great (and kinder) again?
RUTGER BREGMAN: Author of Humankind on how to trust each other

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Watch on YouTube or Substack
If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page
For more such conversations, subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!
Let’s connect on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ece Temelkuran (fascism expert, political exile, journalist) first began reporting on the global slide into fascism as a journalist witnessing it happen in her home country, Turkey. In 2016, she was forced into exile and went on to write the bestselling book How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps From Democracy to Authoritarianism that warned the rest of the world just how close it was to the same perilous descent.

In her new book, Nation of Strangers, Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century, Ece argues we are entering “an age of survival” and that we are all about to become exiles of sorts, “unhomed” from our sense of belonging to the world as authoritarianism rips us from our sense of collective meaning as humans. Pivoting her focus to how we can best move through this moment, she says we need to turn to those who’ve already been exiled (the immigrants, the refugees, the victims of fascism) to learn how to rebuild our “what comes next”.

This is a fascinating thesis and Ece, who lives nomadically between Berlin and Greece, gives us a very raw and vulnerable take on it.

About Ece
Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish novelist, political thinker, and public speaker. Her work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, El País, New Statesman, and Der Spiegel.

Show Notes
Get your copy of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps From Democracy to Authoritarianism and Nation of Strangers, Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century
You can connect with Ece on Instagram here and on X here.

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Watch on YouTube or Substack
If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page
For more such conversations, subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!
Let’s connect on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Sheldon Solomon (psychologist, founder of terror management theory) has spent 45 years proving that our fear of death is responsible for the structures of civilisation, such as religion, education, our moral laws, myths, consumerism, distraction technologies etc. Such structures keep us from being (fatally) overwhelmed by the uniquely human awareness that we will die one day. But what happens in a moment like this one, when so much death and annihilation looms? Well, our seductive death-denial efforts can drag us either way – into a tribal, fascist, self-destructive descent, or toward radical compassion and a life-affirming future.

In this episode, I ask Sheldon to tell me how we (all of us here) can use his terror management theory to urgently steer things to the latter. This chat goes into juicy, philosophical territory but emerges with beautifully tangible answers for everyone in the “collapse aware” space. It’s a fun one!

*Hint: yes, it would appear we can!

About Sheldon
Sheldon Solomon is a professor of psychology at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Solomon is best known for co-developing “terror management theory” and is the co-author of Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Sheldon is also an American Psychological Society Fellow.

Show notes
You can get hold of Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life here
You might also like to listen to this Wild episode with “death walker” Stephen Jenkinson, which also goes into some of the themes in this chat.

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Watch on YouTube or Substack
If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page
For more such conversations, subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!
Let’s connect on Instagram
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.