Village SquareCast

Dr. Kurt Gray of UNC Chapel Hill joins us for this timely and intriguing discussion about intellectual humility. Simply put, we'll be exploring the importance of knowing you might be  wrong (gasp! yes, even you), why this is so important, and what we can do about it to help build human connections and bridge our divides. At a time when complex technology of all sorts is exploding and voluminous in...

100 Coffees.   Coffee and people are two of the joys of Alex Workman's life. He has a long-standing goal of trying to have coffee with someone he's never met (or doesn't know very well) once a week. In 2021, Alex embarked on a challenge to meet 100 people for coffee – he reached his goal by May and kept right on going. 163 coffees later he tells us what he learned. We think it will change your lif...

Are you tired of us vs. them, good vs. evil, partisan politics? Join us on Village SquareCast , "the podcast your mother warned you about," for a fresh take on the topics you're not supposed to discuss in polite company—politics, religion and race—between people who don't look or think alike—with respect, friendship, even laughter. Over 15 years, The Village Square has hosted hundreds of gathering...

A conversation about how to really fix extremism. Given the dangerous rise of political extremism in America, it's well past time we stopped wagging our fingers and do a bit of soul searching of our own about why our society is producing so many citizens unmoored from the connections that support moderation.  Many experts point to the epidemic of loneliness or mass loneliness, what Hannah Arendt c...

Overcoming Racism and Renewing the Promise of America "We can be different and united—the value of the American experiment is contingent on the truth of this proposition." —Theodore Roosevelt Johnson III Dr. Theodore R. Johnson is the great-grandson of sharecroppers who, unfathomably, believed in what Johnson calls "the Promise," that we Americans are created equal and that "each of us will respec...

It's easy to lose touch with just how extraordinary it is that America's charting Declaration named "the pursuit of happiness" right up there with life and liberty as our opening argument to stick it in the king's eye. So  are  we happy? If you look at objective measures of late, the answer is "no." And our sense of it is that if "we the people" are miserable, this can't be good for the American e...

Prepared to explore "Empathy in the Age of Schadenfreude," the God Squad showed up to a room full of people disturbed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  It turns out our planned topic was just the opening we needed to explore how one addresses the moral complexities of the war in Ukraine. Join us for this timely conversation as we seek spiritual reinforcement from God Squad originals Pastor Betsy O...

It's hard to reconcile that the author of the most central and sacred words in the American experiment—that all men are created equal—enslaved people.  Always game for a challenge (or possibly lacking the good judgment our mothers raised us to have), we've invited Jefferson scholar and host of "The Thomas Jefferson Hour" and author of the recently released "Repairing Jefferson's America" Clay Jenk...

Think it's impossible to bridge today's divisions? We beg to differ. Join politically diverse Village Square moderators looking back on the "best of" fifteen years—and now 50 podcast episodes— of bringing people together who don't look or think alike to discuss the thorniest issues of our time, while actually having fun. You'll hear about what made them laugh and cry, what inspired them, and other...

A year-long project by  More in Common  came up with a description of most of America that a lot of us relate to: "the exhausted majority." Everything has become political, high conflict, and seemingly inescapable as the electromagnetic suck of angry politics forces us to be either "us" or "them," when most of us would rather do nothing of the sort. If we have ever needed one, now's the time to ch...

Online trolls and political disinformation. Cancel culture and Twitter pile-ons. We're living in a time when truth itself is under perpetual assault by growing numbers of our fellow citizens (and more than a few Russian bots) who simply don't want to believe anything that they — well — didn't already want to believe. This rising tide of illiberalism from across the political spectrum has many of u...

We're past due for a neighborly heart-to-heart about the tectonic shifts across the political landscape as powerful forces drive globalization inevitably onward and a certain number of citizens – near and far – are dragging their feet as they cumulatively scream stop ! This is ultimately a conversation about the roiling class, education and geographic divides here at home. Joining us for the conve...

There are few areas of the culture war with deeper and more consequential divisions than the ongoing clash between faith and science. And just like with our other divisions, we're having difficulty navigating the complexities of both faith and science without falling into our angry tribes (tribes that diminish either faith or science). Rather than having an ongoing conversation of substance about...

One enduring reality makes every challenge of democratic self-governance more difficult: human beings. The founders integrated their deep understanding of our flawed nature into the form of government they designed — the checks and balances, the rights of the minority to control the power and excess of majority factions. Now that those dudes are no longer around and it's our job to steer the ship...

Founder of Braver Angels and the Institute for American Values, David Blankenhorn has spent his career thinking creatively and provoking constructive discourse about some of the most important and controversial cultural issues of our time. As we find ourselves increasingly locked down inside ideological camps, David defies categories, crosses boundaries, and offers fresh and compelling thinking wh...

Join us for a conversation with very special guest Dr. Danielle Allen — Harvard Professor, classicist, and political scientist, and the author of " Our Declaration ," a book about this critical moment in the future of building a multiracial democracy. At a time when the future of American democracy is under threat from across the political spectrum — when a disturbingly high number of citizens see...

At a time when too often bad manners and ill-tempers replace conversations of substance, sometimes free speech seems to have simply gone to seed – and we find ourselves wishing someone would control the din. At the same time, our society's reaction to legitimately held and asserted opinion that differs from our own has at times become toxic and damaging in its own right. While charges of "hate spe...

BYU is the nation's most consistently "stone-cold sober" school with a focus on upholding traditional values. UC Berkeley has become the country's quintessential progressive bastion with a reputation for challenging the status quo whenever possible. It would be hard to find two campuses that better capture the political divisions roiling college campuses across America, divisions also striking dee...

When we are baffled by the insanity of the "other side"—in our politics, at work, or at home—it's because we aren't seeing how the conflict itself has taken over. New York Times bestselling author and award-winning investigative journalist Amanda Ripley joins us to offer up a brilliant and frame-shifting understanding of conflict — from the most distant political conflict to the most intimately pe...

"All Men are Created Equal," but not everyone feels they are. Have we gone too far with insuring equality or not far enough? In "Created Equal + Breathing Free," we'll examine the straining of the central – and sometimes competing – principles of equality and freedom. Does your freedom threaten my equality? And does my equality limit your freedom? We'll dive into topics of religious freedom, gay r...

As current events batter the institutions of democratic self-governance designed by our founders, an imperfect though once seemingly stable foundation seems deeply shaken. Never mind our inability to solve real problems together, it's increasingly more difficult to even navigate how we gather together under the banner of " e pluribus unum. " We'll be joined by presidential scholar Clay Jenkinson o...

Join us as we discuss the impact of Jackie Robinson breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947 – why it was such a momentous breakthrough, how it laid the groundwork for the subsequent success of the civil rights movement, and what we can still learn from Robinson's example today. We're delighted to be joined by Jackie Robinson's cousin, Dr. Linda Walden, who lives in southwest Georgia...

In a live audience taping of The Thomas Jefferson Hour, we looked through the eyes of the author of the Declaration of Independence and marked our progress toward a more perfect union. We considered what both Mr. Jefferson and those of us charged with perfecting America today might think is yet to achieve. Thomas Jefferson is portrayed by Presidential Scholar Clay Jenkinson, who has spoken as Jeff...

From the hearts of the enslaved, to the dreams of freedmen, to the urgent pleas of today's black American citizens, the journey toward the full franchise of freedom lives on. We'll celebrate what's come before — and consider what's yet to be done. This year's Created Equal program commemorates Emancipation Day in Florida, which is recognized on May 20. More than two years after President Lincoln s...

Meet The Reverend Dr. Gary Mason, a Methodist minister who has spent a career in inner city Belfast building peace across the "ghosts of religious division which have dogged this island for hundreds and hundreds of years." He brings wisdom from the Irish legacy of sectarianism to America's current divisions. Gary's organization, Rethinking Conflict , is a UK based non-profit social enterprise work...