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As a scholar of the history of ideas, I’m interested in the debates pitting cosmopolitanism against nationalism. Roughly speaking, cosmopolitans believe that we can create spaces where people of different backgrounds and religions and nations can mingle and respect one another as individuals. Nationalists believe that a person’s identity is bound to and by the society, culture, political system, values and crucially language to which …

Philosophy has a reputation for being abstract and analytical, somewhat apart from the world. So we asked Charles Taylor if philosophers have an obligation to the world we live in. After this segment he continued talking about the idea of how our modern selves cope with change and can adapt to new and previously unthinkable concepts. “In the world we’re living in you re-gestalt the …

Charles Taylor has been widely recognized for his contributions to philosophy, sociology, history, political science, and linguistics. But to Canadians he has given something more: A way to communicate and live together while negotiating our ethical relationships as citizens of a federation. This is important in Canada, because we are not only Anglophone or Francophone Canadians but also more deeply and differently diverse citizens of …

When I announced in 2011 that my senior undergraduate seminar would be devoted to wading through Charles Taylor’s mammoth 900-page tome, A Secular Age, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Taylor is one of the world’s most celebrated thinkers, but I had my doubts that my students at Calvin College, a Christian liberal arts college of about 4,000 students, would want to wrestle with the …

Luz Gallegos is the Community Program Director at TODEC Legal Center, one of the Inland Empire area’s leading immigrant-assistance organizations. A community organizer and advocate since childhood, she focuses on immigrant rights and civic engagement issues. Before joining the panel at a Zócalo/The California Wellness Foundation event, “Will the Inland Empire’s Sprawl Create the Community of the Future?” Gallegos talked about why she appreciates Coachella, …

Greer Sullivan is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine and the founding Director of the Center for Healthy Communities, where she is developing the medical school’s health services research program. Her research focuses on vulnerable populations with serious mental illness, such as those who are homeless or incarcerated. Before joining the panel at a Zócalo/The California Wellness Foundation …

Flat on
my back
staring
up at
a map of
my own
mind the
elm tree’s
black
branches—
nothing
left to
catch
the wind.
 
John Brehm is the author of Sea of Faith and Help Is on the Way, and the editor of The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy, forthcoming in 2017.
 
*Photo courtesy The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

It’s 4 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon, and my brother, sister and I have gathered around the table to discuss serious business: this year’s Thanksgiving menu.
Last year our older sister thought it would be a good idea for her to take on the mashed potatoes. She brought home none of the proper ingredients and the results didn’t sit too well with anyone. She’s off that …

Although more than half the country may be unhappy with the results, America dodged a bullet on Election Day. That is, our voting machines generally held up. The tabulations they produced were not so close as to throw the election results in doubt, and there’s no legitimate indication that any were hacked.
In the next presidential election, we may not be so lucky. With antiquated voting …