Reflections on nature, culture & the inner life
People see Pope Francis in different ways. For those concerned with climate change, the environment, poverty and justice, he is an astonishing moral force. For those concerned with gay marriage, abortion rights, making women priests, and child-abuse, he is a...
Dear New School Friends, Often I write to you about things that interest me -- like my last post on whether beauty will save the world. I rarely write to you about New School conversations. But let's look at seven recent TNS conversations: Actor and Zen teacher Peter...
I was writing you a despairing note about the state of the world when I decided to offset the gloom by quoting Dostoevsky’s beautiful line: “Beauty will save the world.” I Googled the quote to be sure I got it right and found this elegant post: Ravi Bhoraskar,...
I've been looking back on eight years of The New School. When we started in 2007, I thought we'd mostly tape phone conversations. Then it turned out that people liked to hear the conversations live. At first a dozen or so people would turn up. Over eight years, The...
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End By Atul Gawande, MD This is a book about the modern experience of mortality— about what it’s like to be creatures who age and die, how medicine has changed the experience and how it hasn’t. . . . Lacking a coherent...
"Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world," Joseph Campbell wrote. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. It is a hard saying, not an easy one. It reflects a great truth passed down for millennia. In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, it...
If you are in search of some summer reading (or New School podcasts for your walks and drives), here are some suggestions: Thomas Picketty, Capital in the 21st Century. Paul Krugman says "the most important economics book of the year—and maybe of the decade. ...
On a recent trip, I visited a friend and colleague, Michael Samuels, on the island of Tinos in the Greek Mediteranean. Michael's house is poised for flight—precipitously above a steep, terraced valley flowing down to the blue water. He built the house as a temple:...
Each year I come to Europe for the month of May. Work brings me here. Delight keeps me coming back, as well as curiosity about the human condition. Take personal and social risk tolerances in different cultures as an example. Everywhere in Europe I see young people...
Robert McDermott is president emeritus of the California Institute of Integral Studies. His interests include wisdom philosophy, Hindu and Buddhist spiritualities, inclusive and esoteric Christianity, higher education, and Anthroposophy. We had a wonderful day-long...