The Founding Contradiction

As we move through the world, it's easy to imagine we're processing everything that happens around us and then deciding how to respond. But psychologist and neuroscientist Norman Farb says our brains actually navigate the world by coming up with mental maps. These maps act like a ...  Show more

Last week, we talked with psychologist Lisa Miller about the science of spirituality. Today, we explore what those ideas can look like in everyday life. Miller explains why moments of connection, spiritual practices, and even periods of suffering can sometimes open the door to de ...  Show more

Thomas Jefferson is one of the most complex figures in the whole American Revolution. A child of the enlightenment, it was he who wrote 'we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are born equal'. Yet, throughout his life he possessed over 600 enslaved people and had se ...  Show more

The Declaration of Independence establishes the ideals on which this break away nation founds itself on. But it’s full of contradictions. It complains of white colonists being enslaved by King George III, yet its signatories own enslaved Africans. It declares all men are created ...  Show more

How do you grapple with national history, legacy, and the stories you tell yourself? Clint Smith is the author of the narrative nonfiction, How the Word is Passed, and the poetry collection, Above Ground. Clint joins Chris to talk about the cognitive dissonances that shaped Ameri ...  Show more

November 5, 1998. Using DNA evidence, the scientific journal Nature publishes findings that put to rest a centuries-old mystery: Was Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman at Monticello, the mother of six of Thomas Jefferson’s children? Until then, the historical consensus had been thi ...  Show more