Village SquareCast

On the eve of America's 250th birthday, The Village Square and Florida Humanities proudly present: Dr. Yuval Levin: American Covenant As we near July 4th in our 250th year, we turn our attention to the document that charted a path for a new country—the Constitution. Far from being the source of our problems as has become fashionable to believe, Dr. Yuval Levin argues that the Constitution holds th...

Lately it's pretty hard to zero in on what we have in common as a people. It often feels like we're living in alternate realities with completely different sets of values and priorities. What would it take for us to more widely agree on a national narrative, and what are the dangers of failing to do so? God Squad will make a valiant attempt to wrestle some transcendent principles out of the partis...

In this 250th year since the Declaration of Independence was signed, the American idea—an idea that has changed a whole world around it—finds itself under extraordinary pressure. As the Declaration's author, Thomas Jefferson has gifted us with both breathtaking credal words and a life lived so firmly in contradiction to their meaning that we cannot possibly look away. Our very special UNUM guest,...

The hallmarks of high conflict include a narrowing middle ground, the growing sense of a binary "us vs. them" narrative—and absolute clarity that "we" are the good guys in the story, and "they" are the black hats. Some of this might feel a little new to us, but this accelerating vicious cycle of conflict is how most of human history has unfolded. Before there was a Magna Carta and Constitution, li...

As we now find ourselves officially in America's 250th anniversary year, we are truly honored to be joined by the legendary scholar Jeffrey Rosen. As the CEO Emeritus of the National Constitution Center and the author of numerous books, Rosen's iconic body of work gives us a richer understanding of the tensions, rivalries, and principles that have shaped the American experiment. His most recent bo...

For 15 years now, God Squad has quietly defied the fashion to avoid talking with people who don't look and think like us. From "Ten Paces at High Noon" to "Shut Up and Sing," from abortion to race, The Squad hasn't shied away from much. As we celebrate 15 years of programming, we thought it was high time to get a little meta and talk about what holds us together—year after year after year—when so...

Navy veteran Dr. Theodore Roosevelt Johnson, his family name a legacy first chosen to honor the new possibilities for Black Americans many presidents ago,  writes  about a football game when he stood during the National Anthem and his son—on the field as a player—chose to kneel. Both, he argues, are acts of love of country. Ted's life, service and scholarship are a love letter to America—both when...

"The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults." —Alexis de Tocqueville When Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to a freshly-minted America, he found a people gathering and talking and deciding on things—they were building, and they were repairing. That's a 250-year-old spirit we're going to need to rediscover, so we'r...

Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it's finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.  The Flying Pig Academy is kind of an insider's how to. Spending two decades trying to build tru...

Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it's finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.  The Flying Pig Academy is kind of an insider's how to. This Flying Pig Episode: We live in a hi...

Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it's finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.  The Flying Pig Academy is kind of an insider's how to. This Flying Pig Episode: Politics are a...

As we begin our reflections of the 250th year of our shared experiment—in the 5th season of our UNUM series—we are truly honored to bring you the current president of The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Dr. Laurie L. Patton. Fresh from the founding of a brand new country with a Big Idea (but still in the throes of the Revolution), John Adams was among the founders of the storied American Acad...

Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it's finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.  This Flying Pig Episode: So how in the world do you build a community of people who look and th...

Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it's finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.  This Flying Pig Episode: If you're trying to build community in this fractured time (for anythi...

We're making our way through a time of extreme disruption, led by rapid transformation in technology, especially in how we communicate information. According to our special guest Renée DiResta, the way power and influence have been profoundly transformed reveals how a virtual rumor mill of niche propagandists increasingly shapes public opinion. By revealing the machinery and dynamics of the interp...

We're wondering if the secret to a healthy America is to… wait for it… put "America Fourth!" Perhaps too much of our lives are now wrapped up in this life or death, us v. them struggle for us to be happy people. According to political scientist Eitan Hersh, this is making us  insufferable "political hobbyists"  who need to  get a life ? What if we can rediscover other higher loves — faith, family,...

  Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it's finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.  The bigger, gnarlier and more all-encompassing a conflict grows, the more we naturally rush r...

Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it's finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.  The second in the series, after "Location, Location, Location" is an homage to our intellectual...

Why does it feel like those on the "other side" are not just different but dangerous? According to our special guest UNC psychologist  Kurt Gray  in his new book  OUTRAGED: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground the conflict lies in our human instinct to protect ourselves and the ones we love from harm. Find the program  online here . This program is part of the ser...

We have become a most tediously offended people. We're not talking about the big stuff — it's the "little" things we wonder about. "Sticks and stones may break my bones" and "water off a duck's back" seem quaint and anachronistic in today's culture of maximal aggrievement. Provoked by even the slightest offense — that, mind you, we seem to be on constant vigilance to find — we're on a hair trigger...

Introducing the newest thing in higher (and we really mean higher — like look UP) education: The Flying Pig Academy. A dream of The Village Square (with support from Florida Humanities) for many years, it's finally aloft. The division in American society is big and seems impossible at times to address.  The first, second and third rule? Like buying a house: location, location, location OR local lo...

We claim to be a nation founded on an idea. But, especially in these times of civic rupture, are we even all talking about the same idea? Contributing Washington Post opinion writer Dr. Ted Johnson joins us again to discuss his beautiful, powerful new book "If We are Brave: Essays of Black Americana." The program is faciliated by Dr. Nashid Madyun, Executive Director of Florida Humanities. Find ht...

As we contemplated who we might invite for this post-election UNUM gathering, we were (temporarily) flummoxed. A week after the election would we be in need of an expert in election law, a therapist  or an exorcist ? Could we just place all three on speed dial? Then we realized that no matter what happens during – and after – the 2024 election, there will undoubtedly be some BIG feelings about it,...

America's young adults are telling us they're not OK — in ways large and small. It's high time to take a good, close listen and have a frank conversation about the spiking anxiety & depression among adults coming of age in this time of disruption and disconnection. We're losing more young adults than we can bear. As successive generations move away from organized religion, perhaps there's a longin...

What, exactly, is our problem? Author Tim Urban, known for his extended riff on procrastination in his endlessly wise, sidesplittingly funny, stick-figure illustrated  Wait But Why blog, emerged from a 6-year deep think with an answer that has the power to save humanity (from itself).  In Urban's analysis, the primitive mind is a furry orange monster holding a burning torch, big dumb looking genie...