Podcast appearances and mentions of benjamin storey

How did America's universities lose the trust of the public, and what will it take to restore faith in higher education? In this episode, we are joined by Benjamin and Jenna Storey, renowned scholars, co-authors, and directors at the American Enterprise Institute's Program on the Future of the American University. Together with host John Tomasi, they undertake a searching examination of the forces eroding confidence in universities and offer a roadmap for rebuilding their legitimacy and civic purpose.The conversation draws on the Storeys' personal journeys through academia, they explore how universities have shifted away from their civic mission, the implications of declining viewpoint diversity, and the urgent need to re-envision liberal education in a polarized era. Their discussion critically engages with recent initiatives, including the founding of university-level Schools of Civic Thought, and emphasizes both the perils and promise of institutional reform amidst increasing political and public scrutiny.Read the report: “Civic: A Proposal for University Level Civic Education” (AEI, December 2023) In This Episode:

“It is an atmosphere we breathe in, rather than an argument we consider.” Thus wrote T. S. Eliot about the very idea of happiness Americans have adopted for their own. When raising sons in modern America, we should understand what cultural air they—and we—are breathing. Is that “pursuit of happiness” keeping our hearts and minds restless? In their book, Why We Are Restless, Dr. Benjamin Storey and his wife Dr. Jenna Silber Storey explore the inheritance of American-style happiness: where did it come from? Who has wrestled with it before? And how should we really engage with it? Ben Storey sits down with us to discuss this week on HeightsCast. Chapters: 00:08:44 Montaigne's recipe for happiness 00:15:16 “Immanent contentment”: now is enough 00:17:19 Pascal's reach for God 00:20:11 Rousseau's earthly transcendence 00:29:09 The American Dream 00:33:45 Democracy and restlessness 00:39:38 The highs and lows of infinite possibility 00:45:02 Advice for high school seniors 00:49:30 Advice for parents Links: Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey Also on the Forum: ChatGPT Holds These Truths to Be Self-Evident by Mark Grannis The Importance of History, Part I featuring Dr. Matthew Spalding

Jenna Silber Storey was previously assistant professor in politics and international affairs and the executive director of the Tocqueville Program at Furman University. Dr. Storey is also an alumni-in-residence at the University of Chicago (2022-23). She has taught at the University of Chicago; the Buckley Program at Yale University; the Hertog Summer Studies Program in Washington, DC; and the Tikvah Fund in Princeton, New Jersey. Benjamin Storey previously served as Jane Gage Hipp Professor of Politics and International Affairs and director of the Tocqueville Program at Furman University. He was previously a visiting fellow at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, as well as the director of a National Endowment for the Humanities “Enduring Questions” course development project. He has also taught at the Hertog Political Studies Program, the Tikvah Fund, and the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale. "Why We Are Restless," investigates the challenges college students face around finding purpose and direction despite their outward signs of success. Inspired by our observations and teachings within the classroom, the book discusses the concept of modern restlessness, drawing parallels between our experiences with students and the ideas proposed by historical thinkers like Alexis de Tocqueville and Augustine. Visit CCCG: www.constudies.nd.edu *** The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the University of Notre Dame, the College of Arts and Letters, or the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government. Recorded March 30, 2023 at the University of Notre Dame

This month our topic is a recent essay by Jenna Silber Storey and Benjamin Storey called “Political Speech in Divided Times,” first published in National Affairs in Fall of 2022. The essay is a reflection on the particular character of political speech and its authors make use of the work of the contemporary French political […]

This month our topic is a recent essay by Jenna Silber Storey and Benjamin Storey called “Political Speech in Divided Times,” first published in National Affairs in Fall of 2022. The essay is a reflection on the particular character of political speech and its authors make use of the work of the contemporary French political philosopher named Pierre Manent. The books by Manent most relevant to this essay are The Metamorphosis of the City and Beyond Radical Secularism.We are pleased to have one of the authors join us for this conversation, Jenna Silber Storey. Jenna and I discuss what makes political speech distinctive and how and why our capacity for this kind of speech seems to have been lost. We discuss Manent's articulation of the character of political speech and also his attempt to actually engaged in this enterprise using the example of Muslim immigration in his home country of France. We end by trying to untangle the differences between political speech and ideological speech. Jenna Silber Storey is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she concentrates on political philosophy, civil society, classical schools, and higher education. Dr. Storey is concurrently a research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Tocqueville scholar at Furman University.Dr. Storey is the coauthor, with her husband, Benjamin Storey, of Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton University Press, 2021). Together, the Storeys are working on another book titled The Art of Choosing: How Liberal Education Should Prepare You for Life.Dr. Storey's work has been published in media outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Affairs, the Boston Globe, National Review, the New Atlantis, the Claremont Review of Books, and First Things.

Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, has been reading a profound book by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey, Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton University Press, 2021). In the midst of his reading, he received notification of an NBC News article titled “How Monkeypox Spoiled Gay Men's Plans for an Invincible Summer,” by Benjamin Ryan (https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-health-and-wellness/monkeypox-spoiled-gay-mens-plans-invincible-summer-rcna45326). More than a hundred gay, bisexual, or transgender people talked to NBC News about the “sex they never had” as a result of monkeypox. How monkeypox “upended a summer that was supposed to be a well-earned opportunity” to once again “revel with their gay brothers.” In the article we hear about “resurgent sexual liberation” through “hookup apps,” which “have made meeting sexual partners as convenient as procuring takeout.” That “post-Covid” everyone “went crazy, and there were sex parties all over town”—“free-spirited bacchanalia.” But, alas, the “long-awaited libertine summer” was “sharply curtailed” by monkeypox. The NBC News article is very sympathetic. What all these men have in common, as Storey and Storey make clear, is the acceptance of the notion that fleeting pleasure is a substitute for solid joy. These men have bought the lie that permissiveness will make them happy—that voyeuristic curiosities will make them whole. At the root of all this is a materialistic worldview—a worldview that denies transcendence. A failure to recognize that a thinking being is of necessity more than merely material. Why are we restless? So often we see the world as merely molecules in motion, and if we are mere molecules in motion, everything is permissible. The book, Why We Are Restless, includes a chapter in which the philosophy of Blaise Pascal is unveiled, showing why it is metaphysically and practically bankrupt to consider ourselves merely material beings, and why God veils His presence. God veils Himself because He does not want to force Himself upon those who do not seek Him. Once one seeks after Him, the veil is removed. For further study, see Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey, Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment https://www.equip.org/donate/

The unlimited choices we face in modernity make us restless, which is why Dr. Benjamin and Dr. Jenna Storey wrote Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment. The book explores ideas by those who have thought about and written on contentment and the application of those ideas today. Benjamin also shares about his own quest for knowledge and how it culminated in this book. Mentioned in the episode https://www.aei.org/profile/ben-storey/ (Benjamin Storey) https://www.unc.edu/discover/ (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) https://doctorgoldberg.wordpress.com/ (Dr. Larry Goldberg) https://socialthought.uchicago.edu/ (Committee on Social Thought - The University of Chicago) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michel-de-Montaigne (Michel de Montaigne) https://www.furman.edu/about/ (Furman University) https://www.furman.edu/academics/tocqueville-program/ (The Tocqueville Program) https://www.aei.org/policy-areas/society-and-culture/ (Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies) https://www.aei.org/profile/yuval-levin/ (Yuval Levin) https://www.nationalreview.com/author/joseph-epstein/ (Joseph Epstein) https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/11/majoring-in-fear (Majoring in Fear by Mark Shiffman) https://psychcentral.com/lib/machiavellianism-cognition-and-emotion-understanding-how-the-machiavellian-thinks-feels-and-thrives (Machiavellianism) https://hertogfoundation.org/ (Hertog Foundation) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ (Plato) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herman-Melville (Herman Melville) https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo81816415.html (Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age) https://www.aei.org/profile/ross-douthat/ (Ross Douthat) https://www.amazon.com/Decadent-Society-Became-Victims-Success/dp/1476785244/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=decadent+society&qid=1597939077&sr=8-1 (The Decadent Society) https://www.worldhistory.org/Renaissance_Humanism/ (Renaissance Humanism) https://www.manhattan-institute.org/classical-education-attractive-school-choice-parents (The Classical School Movement) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/ (William James and the Great Pragmatists) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/ (Radical Skepticism) https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211121/why-we-are-restless (Why We Are Restless) https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/aristotle/#:~:text=According%20to%20Aristotle%2C%20happiness%20consists,the%20enrichment%20of%20human%20life. (Aristotle on Happiness) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrHn3Z_6uYs (Queen Elizabeth: A Lifetime Of Service | Timeline) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Blaise-Pascal (Blaise Pascal) https://info.higheredfacilitiesforum.com/blog/how-universities-can-strengthen-town-gown-relations (Town and Gown Relations) https://scetl.asu.edu/about#:~:text=an%20inclusive%20environment-,The%20School%20of%20Civic%20and%20Economic%20Thought%20and%20Leadership%20is,to%20a%20healthy%20constitutional%20democracy. (The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership)

Finding contentment is difficult. So, instead, we replace that pursuit with temporal acts of distraction and pleasure. Joining me this week to discuss the search for meaning through the eyes of four french philosophers is AEI Fellow and author of "Why We Are Restless" — Benjamin Storey. Get his latest book here. Read his latest NY TIMES op-ed, with co-author Jenna Storey, here. RELATED CONTENT 1. How and How Not To Be Happy (#118). Episode produced by Josh Deng, with music from Vexento. A special thanks to Nick and Ashley Barnett for their contribution in making this podcast possible.

James Parton chats with Benjamin Storey of Barclays, discussing the announcement that Barclays Eagle Labs will open at The Bradfield Centre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Student Loan Debt: Will President Biden wipe away 10k? The pause on college student loan payments in place through the pandemic is set to end next Wednesday. We don't know if the President will extend it. We do know he's being nudged to wipe away -- cancel -- $10k in college loan debt. Dave and Debbie discuss the issue. Caitlyn Johnston, KSL Newsradio Producer shares her experience with student loans and the impact of $10k being wiped away  The new way to buy a home Checking in on the housing market as we've learned that the median price for a single family home in Salt Lake County is now $600,000 -- compared to last July at $550,000. It is reported there less competition with other families... but let's take it a step further.. what if you bought a home with another family.. is that a work around for the high price tag? Thomas Wright, Real Estate Agent joins the show to discuss alternative home buying options.  Back to school: DIY at home active shooter drills A deep dive into DIY at-home active shooter drills. A mom's video of her training her 5 year old son is catching our attention too.Her heart seems to be in the right place, but Deb worries she may be inadvertently given him bad advice. Wyatt Weber, UHP Department of Public Safety and active shooting trainer joins the show to discuss  It costs $300,000 to raise a child Haircuts, Housing and hobbies... along with a steady diet of Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner is breaking the bank for parents. The Brookings Institute figured out that it costs $300K to raise a child. Dave and Debbie go through the costs to raise a child and compare to this study items that may not have been considered.  Is College Worth it? What Students Aren't Getting From Schooling We've been talking a lot about student loan debt, but is college worth the cost at all? Dave says, no, and Boyd says yes, but we can do it better. The KSL Inside Sources host shared thoughts from Dr. Benjamin Storey of Furman University on what students AREN'T learning in college. Is student loan forgiveness supported? If you earn under $125k a year -- and you and the junk in your trunk is a college loan you're packing around -- President Biden may wipe away. $10,000 of it. Is it the financial relief you've been praying for or an eye ball roll? Deb and Dave take listener calls  Child in critical condition as a truck was submerged in Summit County Reservoir Tragic story reporting all morning about a truck that rolled under the water at Smith and Morehouse reservoir in summit county. We've been told a family was unloading kayaks when the truck rolled with 3 children inside. Captain Andrew Wright, with the Summit County Sheriff's Office, involved in the investigation calls the show with more information.  The Ups and Downs of Family Dinner Has family dinner become a thing of the past? In a poll of 2,000 U.S. adults, on average, they only get to spend three dinners a week with their loved ones. Dave and Deb discuss their own escapades in trying to share dinner with their families; both the highs and the lows. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've been talking a lot about student loan debt, but is college worth the cost at all? Dave says, no, and Boyd says yes, but we can do it better. The KSL Inside Sources host shared thoughts from Dr. Benjamin Storey of Furman University on what students AREN'T learning in college.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"What should I do with my life?" That's the big question young people are grappling with as they prepare to enter college. But many of them are struggling to find the answer. Why? Furman University Professor and American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Benjamin Storey co-wrote a new piece in the New York Times about the key to choosing a meaningful, purposeful life and why today's students are woefully underprepared to do that.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our country was founded on the premise that all of us have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But what is happiness and where do we find it? The world around us encourages us to look within, to find our passions and pursue them. But this doesn't always work. Why are we so restless? Because we’re pursuing happiness in the wrong direction. At the conclusion of John’s talk, co-hosts Center for Public Christianity Executive Director Josh Chatraw and New City Fellows alumnus Micah Vandegrift are joined by Seth Berman, also a New City Fellows alumnus, to reflect on John’s teaching and discuss how it applies to daily life. So, keep listening! Additional Resources From John’s Talks Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville Pensées by Blaise Pascal Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News by Jeffrey Bilbro The Power of Place: Choosing Stability in a Rootless Age by Daniel Grothe You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World by Alan Noble Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey Websites https://htcraleigh.org/ https://centerforpublicchristianity.org/

We live in a world where technology has vastly expanded human potential. We live longer, healthier lives and can do more in less time than ever before. But we are still human – finite, fallible creatures with limits given to us by our Creator. When we forget our limits or, worse, reject them, we rebel against our humanity. Why are we so restless? Because we've forgotten that we are creatures. At the conclusion of John’s talk, co-hosts Center for Public Christianity Executive Director Josh Chatraw and New City Fellows alumnus Micah Vandegrift are joined by special guest Catherine Doster, a New City Fellows alumnae, to briefly reflect on John’s teaching and discuss how it applies to daily life. So, keep listening! Additional Resources From John’s Talk Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson Pensées by Blaise Pascal Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News by Jeffrey Bilbro The Power of Place: Choosing Stability in a Rootless Age by Daniel Grothe You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World by Alan Noble Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey From the Discussion The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis The Redwall Series by Brian Jacques The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson Who Sang the First Song by Ellie Holcomb Websites https://htcraleigh.org/ https://centerforpublicchristianity.org/

The world says that who we are is up to us: look deep into your heart to find your greatest passions and there you will find yourself. As creatures made in the image of God, we know that there is more to who we are than this. But we still struggle to "find" ourselves and to justify our existence. Why are we so restless? Because we feel responsible for crafting our own identities. At the conclusion of John’s talk, co-hosts Center for Public Christianity Executive Director Josh Chatraw and New City Fellows alumnus Micah Vandegrift are joined by Program Coordinator for the Center for Public Christianity and Holy Trinity Local Outreach Coordinator Daniel Lee to reflect on John’s teaching and discuss how it applies to daily life. So, keep listening! Additional Resources From John’s Talks Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson Pensées by Blaise Pascal Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News by Jeffrey Bilbro The Power of Place: Choosing Stability in a Rootless Age by Daniel Grothe You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World by Alan Noble Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey From the Discussion Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues by Josh Chatraw and Karen Swallow Prior Telling a Better Story: How to Talk About God in a Skeptical Age by Josh Chatraw "Body Be" by Johnny Q. Public (a Christian rock song) Websites https://htcraleigh.org/ https://centerforpublicchristianity.org/

As our virtual engagement with the wider world has increased, our local connections have diminished. In some ways the internet has become more real than our neighborhoods, and virtual "friendships" have replaced the real thing. This leaves us longing for a sense of place in a rootless world. Why are we so restless? Because we no longer know where we live. At the conclusion of John’s talk, co-hosts Center for Public Christianity Executive Director Josh Chatraw and New City Fellows alumnus Micah Vandegrift are joined by Abby Vandegrift, Micah’s wife and a New City Fellows alumnae, to reflect on John’s teaching and discuss how it applies to daily life. So, keep listening! Additional Resources From John’s Talks A Time to Keep: Theology, Mortality, and the Shape of a Human Life by Ephraim Radner Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville Pensées by Blaise Pascal Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News by Jeffrey Bilbro The Givenness of Things: Essays by Marilynne Robinson The Power of Place: Choosing Stability in a Rootless Age by Daniel Grothe You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World by Alan Noble Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey blesseveryhome.com From the Discussion Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K. A. Smith Websites https://htcraleigh.org/ https://centerforpublicchristianity.org/

Everything about our lives these days is fast. We measure time in fractions of a second. We prize efficiency and good time management more than just about anything else. But this puts pressure on us that ultimately degrades our humanity. When so much of life and growth happens slowly, being in a hurry can wear you down. Why are we so restless? Because we've lost track of time. At the conclusion of John’s talk, co-hosts Center for Public Christianity Executive Director Josh Chatraw and New City Fellows alumnus Micah Vandegrift are joined by Jimmy Doster, also a New City Fellows alumnus, to reflect on John’s teaching and discuss how it applies to daily life. So, keep listening! Additional Resources From John’s Talks A Time to Keep: Theology, Mortality, and the Shape of a Human Life by Ephraim Radner Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville Pensées by Blaise Pascal Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News by Jeffrey Bilbro The Givenness of Things: Essays by Marilynne Robinson The Power of Place: Choosing Stability in a Rootless Age by Daniel Grothe You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World by Alan Noble Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey From the Discussion He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art by Christian Wiman How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now by James K. A. Smith The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Andrew Fellows Websites https://htcraleigh.org/ https://centerforpublicchristianity.org/

We live in an age of information. Not only are we generating more than ever before, we have unprecedented access to information of all kinds. Our phones have become portals to a world of infinite knowledge. And this brave new world of endless information is busy reshaping our humanity. Why are we so restless? Because we are obsessed with information in a world that is desperate for wisdom. At the conclusion of John’s talk, co-hosts Center for Public Christianity Executive Director Josh Chatraw and New City Fellows alumnus Micah Vandegrift are joined by Matt Benson, also a New City Fellows alumnus, to reflect on John’s teaching and discuss how it applies to daily life. So, keep listening! Additional Resources From John’s Talks A Time to Keep: Theology, Mortality, and the Shape of a Human Life by Ephraim Radner Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville Pensées by Blaise Pascal Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News by Jeffrey Bilbro The Givenness of Things: Essays by Marilynne Robinson The Power of Place: Choosing Stability in a Rootless Age by Daniel Grothe You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World by Alan Noble Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey From the Discussion How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds by Alan Jacobs To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davison Hunter https://grayscale.whiteboard.is/ Websites https://htcraleigh.org/ https://centerforpublicchristianity.org/

The pursuit of happiness is a foundational principle of the American democratic experiment, and yet true happiness seems elusive for many Americans. Where does our notion of happiness come from and how did we become a nation of busybodies? Benjamin Storey is the Jane Gage Hipp Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. He is also the Director of Furman's Tocqueville Program, an intellectual community dedicated to investigating the moral and philosophic questions at the heart of political life. With Jenna Silber Storey, he is author of "Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment."Greg and Benjamin take a deep dive into the thought of four foundational thinkers, touching on humanism, contentment, diversion, transcendence, religion and democracy in America and the mindfulness movement in this conversation. Episode Quotes:On commitmentIt's only by plunking down your chips, by settling on a way of life, that you actually start to become anything. That is, when you retain yourself in a position of pure potentiality, you're not really anything. You could be lots of stuff like a stem cell, but you're not anything in particular. And so to become something, it has to be something specific. On AmericansAmericans have a very hard time ranking the good. That is, figuring out what are the most important things that we should be pursuing.Americans are too busy to philosophizeIt's the case that everybody else around me is trying to get ahead. Which means that I don't just fail if I go backwards, I fail if I sit still. Because everybody else is advancing. And so we're constantly caught up in this dynamic of needing to advance simply in order to sit still. And that makes philosophizing incredibly hard.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Montaigne; or, the Skeptic - Ralph Waldo Emerson ArticleGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Furman UniversityProfessional Profile at American Enterprise InstituteBenjamin and Jenna Storey's WebsiteBenjamin Storey on LinkedInHis Work:Articles by Benjamin StoreyWhy We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment

Sarah and David address the very interesting announcement that Elon Musk won't be joining Twitter's board, including the clues about the reason that are not-so-hidden in Twitter's announcement. They also discuss the acquittals in the alleged kidnapping plot of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and they talk to Catholic University law professor Joel Alicea about his new law review article, “The Moral Authority of Original Meaning.” Sarah ends the podcast with an interesting question. Show Notes:-Joel Alicea: “The Moral Authority of Original Meaning”-“Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment” by Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey

Cheryl Sadowski reads her book reviews, "Finding Meaning in Modernity: Two Books about Quest." She reflects on the books Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment by Benjamin Storey & Jenna Silber Storey and God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning by Meghan O'Gieblyn. Cheryl Sadowski writes essays and reviews from Northern Virginia, where she works in nonprofit management. Her writing explores the plain weave of everyday life with philosophy, art, literature, and the natural world. Cheryl's work has appeared in The Broadkill Review, EcoTheo, After the Art, and the Bay to Ocean Anthology. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vita-poetica/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vita-poetica/support

You know that strange nagging restlessness that you feel in your core? That difficulty focusing on what's in front of you? That flittering from one path to another to another in the hopes of finally feeling your purpose? That deep dissatisfaction with the ignorance we have about the deepest existential questions of life? This episode is about that restlessness. Benjamin Storey (along with his wife and co-author Jenna Silber-Storey) wrote a fantastic book called Why We Are Restless which traces this conversation through four giants of French philosophy - Montaigne, Pascal, Rousseau, and Tocqueville. Professor Storey joins me for a walk through this topic and how it informs and foretells our modern situation. You can find out more about the book and what Professor Storey is up to at his website: https://www.jbstorey.com/

Two liberal arts professors were intrigued by a habit of mind they detected in their students, especially their high-achieving ones. Despite material abundance and the freedom to pursue a profession or passion of their choosing, their students were unsettled. Even after making a decision about what to pursue, they remain plagued by the thought that […]

Two liberal arts professors were intrigued by a habit of mind they detected in their students, especially their high-achieving ones. Despite material abundance and the freedom to pursue a profession or passion of their choosing, their students were unsettled. Even after making a decision about what to pursue, they remain plagued by the thought that perhaps they should have done something else. This habit of mind, not unique to democracy in America but perhaps especially common in democratic conditions, is what today's podcast guests call “restlessness.”  In their new book Why We Are Restless, Jenna and Benjamin Storey, both professors at Furman University, explain the cultural force that characterizes modern restlessness by looking back at an earlier tradition of French philosophy. In their interpretations of Michel de Montaigne, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Alexis de Tocqueville, the Storeys reveal how restlessness was variously aimed at and criticized by earlier thinkers. And in conversation with Jonathan Silver, they speculate about what modern Americans, and modern American Jews, can do to understand it. Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

A conversation with Benjamin Storey about his co-authored book, Why We are Restless: on the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton UP).

In a recent article in First Things, Professors Jenna & Benjamin Storey suggest that modern people have become "pixelated souls." Our Western political system was built to help people navigate two competing allegiances: church and state. But people today are formed by such a wide variety of allegiances that this political arrangement doesn't work anymore. In this episode, we discuss the article, consider its argument, and explore its implications.Article:https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/05/pixelated-souls

On this episode, Benjamin Storey joins contributing editor Mark Bauerlein to discuss his recent book “Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment.”

On this episode, Benjamin Storey joins contributing editor Mark Bauerlein to discuss his recent book “Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment.”

Dr. Benjamin Storey of Furman University outlines "The History of Happiness" from the perspective of three great French thinkers: Michel de Montaigne, Blaise Pascal, and Alexis de Tocqueville.