Is humanity getting better or worse?
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Ellen Ruppel Shell talks with Anne Strainchamps about the effects of our obsession with low prices.
Frank Rich tells Jim Fleming that the Broadway musicals of his childhood were all about dysfunctional families and helped him cope with his own difficult family situation.
In her new memoir, "Ongoingness," Sarah Manguso talks about how keeping a diary—so often considered a virture—for her became a vice. But her obsessive diary keeping changed with the birth of her first child.
Dave Barry went on the campaign trail with some of the lesser known presidential candidates and describes some of the humiliation they encounter.
What does it mean to be free? And what does it mean to live a personally authentic, honest life with ourselves and with others? These are the questions that Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their existential friends wrestled with in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Sarah Bakewell makes the case that their late-night conversations are especially relevant today. She's the author of "At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails."
"Religion always starts with mysticism," says David Steindl-Rast. Now 89, he's been a Benedictine monk since 1953. Brother David was one of the first Roman Catholics to engage in dialogues between Christians and Buddhists. He tells Steve Paulson about the joys of life in the monastery.
A cancer patient took some psilocybin to help with the fear and panic about dying. A single dose created a life-changing experience in her final months.
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