How My View Grew

This is the final episode of season two. After taking a short break, we'll return in March with season three.In episode eight of this season, I introduced a way to depolarize politics and evoke more constructive moods: escaping the drama triangle. In this five-minute episode, I answer a related question: how do you escape the drama triangle? Here are four steps you can start using today.**Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Kim Stanley ("Stan") Robinson is one of the world's most acclaimed and popular science fiction novelists, first famous for his Mars Trilogy. For the past two decades, Stan has been telling vivid stories in which climate change is catastrophic yet people invent ways of reversing it. What he imagines is so bold it takes your breath away, then fills you with hope and resolve that you didn't know existed within you.In his Science in the Capital trilogy, a Washington DC thriller, National Zoo animals roam the capital after a massive flood. The Gulf Stream shuts down. Then a tiny U.S. government agency with bold leadership funds massive global climate projects. That plus the election of an inspiring everyman new President saves the day. Two decades later, Ministry for the Future tells a very different heroic tale. Here the protagonist is a new international agency based in Zurich led by an Irishwoman. After a massive heat wave in Indian kills millions, she gets kidnapped by one of its survivors and eventually answers her captor's challenge to do more. She persuades central bankers to back a "carbon coin" that changes the rules of the economic game. Companies now earn money by keeping oil in the ground, slowing Antarctica's melting, and investing in other projects on a scale commensurate with the climate catastrophe. What led Robinson to dramatically rethink his bold ideas for reversing climate change? What can we learn from this about climate economics and the financial rules in capitalism? How might this learning shift us into more constructive moods as we face seemingly insurmountable challenges?Join me in exploring these questions in this new episode of How My View Grew.**Key takeaways**4:00 A DC thriller: the Gulf Stream slows down. Washington floods. Science and government save the day12:00 Stan gets criticized about economics and responds by reading more deeply. The virtues and limits of nationalizing banks.18:00 A new view of money and lessons from the 2008 financial crisis23:00 Paying companies to green the planet, changing the economic game28:45 Stop asking "Is it to late?" Focus instead on better versus worse33:30 Telling good stories that our culture ignores35:00 Stan's message to the Left: get over it40:00 Amiel's reflections**Resources**A reference site for Kim Stanley RobinsonAmiel's essay, "Beyond the false choice between despair and hope"**Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

In this 10-minute episode of How My View Grew, discover a powerful method for depolarizing politics and improving relationships: the drama triangle. Invented to support families in high-conflict situations, the drama triangle opens a new window into understanding political polarization, emotional intelligence, and difficult conversations. Listen in as I describe the victim, the persecutor, and the rescuer and how they show up in MAGA and liberal/progressive politics.**Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

As Donald Trump returns to the White House, many American citizens are willing to tear everything down. Where did these destructive inclinations come from? Might they partly reflect the way that voters learned history back in school? How well are we teaching history through the eyes of people living then so we can learn from their experiences? To what extent are we introducing students to their culture's proud traditions so they feel inspired to defend them rather than throw everything away?In this episode of How My View Grew, we explore these questions by hearing from someone from outside the United States. Lene Rachel Andersen is a Danish author, futurist, and economist. As a student, she knew history was important. However, when challenged by a classmate, she couldn't explain why. Lene sensed the disjointed nature of the history curriculum but couldn't pinpoint what was missing. Years later, as the result of a TV series she created that went awry, she discovered answers to both questions. Then postmodernism entered the scene, and Lene wondered: should we be teaching deconstruction to third graders—or can this wait until later?Lene's story reveals deep lessons for avoiding authoritarianism and meeting other challenges of our time.**Key takeaways**8:00 A classmate's question about history stump Lene12:00 Put yourself in the shoes of people in history14:00 To avoid authoritarianism and stupid wars, understand history and humans18:00 Pitfalls of the postmodern approach to history24:00 An exciting pilot project in a Danish public school27:00 Third grade teachers shouldn't be teaching deconstruction32:00 Amiel's reflections**Resources**Lene's web site"The Surprising Lesson of History"—from season one of this podcast**Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

In this short episode of How My View Grew, I offer an alternative to the false choice between despair and hope. After the recent U.S presidential election, many people in my orbit are feeling despair. Their response: search for signs of hope. But what if this is a false choice? What if we could gain access to other moods that are more constructive and powerful? Say hello to resolve and curiosity, two moods for this moment.**Resources**A Cabinet of buffoons, bomb throwers, and bottom-feeders? Republican Senators get to decide. My recent Medium essay.**Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

When new political leaders promote disruptive and even violent change, then people accustomed to pressing the gas pedal on change may choose instead to hit the breaks. Liberals become small "c" conservatives.In this episode of How My View Grew, I suggest that after November 5, 2024 every liberal in the United States became a small "c" conservative. Instead of pushing for change in society, liberals now have good reason to slow it down. That's because the changes coming with the new Trump Administration threaten to destroy or disrupt many things worth preserving, from liberal gains of the past 90 years to basic Constitutional protections we've had for two and a half centuries. Much that we Americans take for granted, everything from childhood immunizations to Constitutional freedoms to the rule of law, is now at risk. Someone needs to stand up and shout, "Stop." For decades, liberals associated this stance with Republicans, and for good reason. But today's Republican leader doesn't have a small "c" conservative bone in his body. His Administration will be about rapidly disrupting and destroying much that liberals—and all Americans—value. So, who will fill the void of slowing down change and preserving that which we hold most dear? Liberals.After making this case, I describe five steps liberals can take to embody such small "c" conservatism.**Key takeaways**2:00 The reactionary changes coming5:30 The two forms of conservatism: small "c" and big "C"8:30 Big "C" conservatism, the ideology, is whatever the Republican Party currently stands for13:30 Five steps liberals can take to conserve liberal gains and American traditions**Resources**My recent essay, "Nine tempting but unhelpful interpretations of Mr. Trump's victory"On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder**Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The human brain craves certainty. It convinces us we know how next week's U.S. presidential election will turn out. We don't. Things are uncertain. Yet, we can imagine different scenarios.In this nine-minute episode of How My View Grew, I describe five scenarios for the election and its aftermath.Then, I invite you to consider three "no-matter-what commitments." These are stands we can take no matter what happens. Making such commitments is an antidote to anxiety and despair. It reminds us of our strengths and resilience. **Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

In the upcoming U.S. presidential election, democracy, many say, is on the ballot. But is democracy versus autocracy the best description of the stakes?Not according to Stephen E. Hanson, co-author with Jeffrey Kopstein of the new book The Assault on the State. The democracy/autocracy distinction is about how people come to power. It doesn't address how leaders rule their staffs and administrations once they are in power. In the West, we've long managed states based on professional expertise and the rule of law. It's so common that we take it for granted. Yet, in recent years a different form of rule has taken root, first in Russia, then in Eastern Europe, and now in England, the U.S., and other parts of the West. Here the method of rule resembles the mafia. It's based on loyalty to a single leader, typically a man, and characterized by attacks on professional experts and power centralized in a ruling household.For many years, Hanson, an expert on Russia and Eastern Europe, didn't think that strong mafia-like states were possible in the 21st century. And he was far from alone in this. Then, when Putin defied the odds by building one in Russia, Hanson didn't think this model of rule would spread elsewhere. And yet it has.In this episode of How My View Grew, we explore why it made sense to bet against the rise of mafia-like states and why such bets turned out to be misguided.**Key takeaways**5:30 Steve's prediction that Russia wouldn't build a state after communism8:30 How Putin built a state with loyalists14:00 Why nobody thought Russia's mafia-like rule would spread17:00 An epiphany during the pandemic sparks an "aha"20:00 Three warning signs24:00 Democracies can be run like the mafia. Autocracies can be run by experts based on the rule of law28:00 The "unholy alliance" leading the assaults on the expert-run state33:00 How an assault on the state in Israel contributed to the country's lack of preparedness for Hamas's massacres on October 7, 202339:30 We only notice government when it fails41:00 Amiel's reflections**Resources**The Assault on the State by Stephen E. Hanson and Jeffrey S. Kopstein**Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

In this five-minute episode of How My View Grew, I offer five perspectives about being a man today:It's confusingMen and women are differentThere is no need to apologize for being a manLong live the healthy masculineIt's time for a new Bro Code**Resources**"Men are lost. Here's a map out of the wilderness" by Christine Emba in the Washington Post."How to Be a Good Guy" by Janet Crawford and Lisa Marshall—includes a section on breaking the bro code**Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Why might a liberal Democrat with progressive values hold a conservative disposition? Could it make sense to both advocate for positive change and honor traditions and the social cohesion they foster? Might this represent the twin challenges facing today's Democratic Party?In this 30-minute episode of How My View Grew, Boston College philosophy professor David Storey explores these questions through his own personal and professional experience. How did someone who dismissed the Republican Party as simplistic and repellent learn to recognize the virtues of the conservative disposition, even as Republicans themselves abandoned this disposition? What does this tell us about MAGA, Mr. Trump, January 6, and the the upcoming U.S. Presidential Election? Who are the "barstool conservatives," and why are they anything but conservative? If you believe in the gains brought by liberalism and progressivism, aren't you acknowledging that these are traditions you want to conserve?**Key takeaways**3:00 The thick culture and Fox News habits of a childhood friend's family5:30 Discovering positive patriotism on 9/119:00 Learning from Andrew Sullivan that traditions are complex, involve pruning, and were built by people12:00 Why the Iraq War violated conservative principles and climate activism can piggyback on them17:30 The primal ethnocentric energies of George Wallace and Patrick Buchanan—also not truly conservative20:00 How these primal energies broke through to the mainstream in the form of MAGA and Mr. Trump22:30 The "barstool conservatives" who are angry they can't watch cheerleaders or call things "gay"25:00 The January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is what happens when you abandon the conservative disposition27:00 The important contributions of the Never Trumpers 28:00 Amiel's reflections**Resources**David's web site, including his podcast, Wisdom@WorkThe Institute for Cultural Evolution, where David is a Senior Fellow**Subscribe to the podcast**To hear the origin stories of more big ideas, subscribe to How My View Grew on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.**Share the love**Leave me a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.