PHILOSOPHERS' CORNER

The Staying Power of Poetry

I was delighted when Louise Glück, one of the great poets of our age, won the Nobel Prize in Literature. I wrote about one of my all-time favorite poems, "Ithaca," for this week's episode, "Why Poetry Matters," with Louise as guest!

Reasons to Hate

Why is there so much hate in the world? Is hatred ever morally justified? Or does hate just breed more hate? What exactly is hatred anyway? These are some of the big questions we’re tackling on this week’s show, Why We Hate.

Against Marriage

It might seem baffling that the state gets involved in our love life. Why does the government need to keep track of who's married to whom? Will they next start tracking who our friends are?

The Art of Non-Violence

This week we're asking about the Art of Non-violence. And it is an art -- the trick is knowing when and where it will actually work. After all, it looks like it’s worked just about everywhere it’s been seriously tried: non-violence brought down apartheid in South Africa, Jim Crow in America, and British Colonialism in India. But of course it took violence to defeat the Nazis, to end slavery and to free the colonies from British tyranny. Does that mean non-violence has its limits? Not if you believe that violence just begets more violence. Only non-violence can break the cycle.

Polyamory

What is it like to be in love with more than one person at a time? Is monogamy natural or an outmoded cultural artifact? Although lifelong fidelity to a single partner remains a cultural ideal, few people live up to it.