Ask a Jew

Spirals of Silence w/ Jonathan Rauch

Episode Summary

**Dec 13 NYC Hannukah Party! Follow askajew.substack.com for details** As part of our ongoing therapy, we welcomed Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Jonathan is one of our favorite authors, and his books “Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought” and “The Constitution of Knowledge -  A Defense of Truth” are heavily earmarked in both our bookshelves. We ask Jonathan to help us hold on to our values and ideals in the face of October 7th, when everything we thought we knew was challenged. We talk about moral courage, what the roles of universities should be, how silence can be weaponized to make us feel like a minority, and we draw some optimism from Jonathan’s struggle for gay marriage – when it seemed like the whole world was against him.

Episode Notes

As part of our ongoing therapy, we welcomed Jonathan Rauch, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Jonathan is one of our favorite authors, and his books “Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought” and “The Constitution of Knowledge -  A Defense of Truth” are heavily earmarked in both our bookshelves. 

We ask Jonathan to help us hold on to our values and ideals in the face of October 7th, when everything we thought we knew was challenged. We talk about moral courage, what the roles of universities should be, how silence can be weaponized to make us feel like a minority, and we draw some optimism from Jonathan’s struggle for gay marriage – when it seemed like the whole world was against him.