Podcasts about why we are restless on

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:

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.

What kinds of tools do we need to make big decisions, and why aren't our universities training us to make them? Are universities doing students a disservice by occupying them with myriads of boxes to tick? Are students right to prefer money to meaning? Madison Program alumni Ben and Jenna Storey discuss the philosophy of making choices and of restlessness, and critique the way universities treat those topics. Ben and Jenna are senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department, where they focus on political philosophy, classical schools, and higher education. Previously, they directed the Toqueville Program at Furman University in South Carolina. They are the authors of Why We Are Restless:On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton UP, 2021). Prof. Barba-Kay's tribute to Leon Kass mentioned during the episode is here. Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes.

What kinds of tools do we need to make big decisions, and why aren't our universities training us to make them? Are universities doing students a disservice by occupying them with myriads of boxes to tick? Are students right to prefer money to meaning? Madison Program alumni Ben and Jenna Storey discuss the philosophy of making choices and of restlessness, and critique the way universities treat those topics. Ben and Jenna are senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department, where they focus on political philosophy, classical schools, and higher education. Previously, they directed the Toqueville Program at Furman University in South Carolina. They are the authors of Why We Are Restless:On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton UP, 2021). Prof. Barba-Kay's tribute to Leon Kass mentioned during the episode is here. Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

What kinds of tools do we need to make big decisions, and why aren't our universities training us to make them? Are universities doing students a disservice by occupying them with myriads of boxes to tick? Are students right to prefer money to meaning? Madison Program alumni Ben and Jenna Storey discuss the philosophy of making choices and of restlessness, and critique the way universities treat those topics. Ben and Jenna are senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department, where they focus on political philosophy, classical schools, and higher education. Previously, they directed the Toqueville Program at Furman University in South Carolina. They are the authors of Why We Are Restless:On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton UP, 2021). Prof. Barba-Kay's tribute to Leon Kass mentioned during the episode is here. Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

What kinds of tools do we need to make big decisions, and why aren't our universities training us to make them? Are universities doing students a disservice by occupying them with myriads of boxes to tick? Are students right to prefer money to meaning? Madison Program alumni Ben and Jenna Storey discuss the philosophy of making choices and of restlessness, and critique the way universities treat those topics. Ben and Jenna are senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department, where they focus on political philosophy, classical schools, and higher education. Previously, they directed the Toqueville Program at Furman University in South Carolina. They are the authors of Why We Are Restless:On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton UP, 2021). Prof. Barba-Kay's tribute to Leon Kass mentioned during the episode is here. Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program's podcast, Madison's Notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Neither free-speech absolutism nor censorship will solve the problems that surround political speech today. Instead, we need a renewed commitment to the citizen's task of finding common ground, even and especially between factions that seem irreconcilable. We need to relearn how to rule and be ruled in turn. Guests Jenna and Ben Storey join us to discuss how political speech can overcome social division and advance the common good. Jenna and Ben Storey are both senior fellows in Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and concurrently are research professors at Furman University, where they ran the Tocqueville Program. At AEI they focus on political philosophy, civil society, and higher education. The Storeys wrote a book together, titled Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment, and are working on a new one about liberal education and civic life.This podcast discusses themes from the Storeys' essay in the Fall 2022 issue of National Affairs, “Political Speech in Divided Times.”

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)

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Somewhere along the line, the pursuit became the point and happiness got lost say professors Benjamin and Jenna Storey. They see a deep sense of restlessness among many of their political science students at Furman University. Distraction, they say, has replaced self-reflection about what's important in our lives. The Storeys look to the past to explain the present and what we can do to replace busy with happy. Their book is called "Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment."

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

What our favourite companion animals can teach us about ourselves – and about God.  --- Are you a dog person or cat lover? You're one or the other, apparently.  Wth 69% of Australian households now owning a pet, according to a 2021 survey by Animal Medicines Australia, this week Life & Faith is pleased to get controversial: we reveal that Australia's “two-pet” system has a clear winner. Dogs. We speak to Barney Zwartz, long-time dog tragic, about the dogs in his life: the border collie-labrador cross Nessie, whom Barney dubs “Mary Poppins” because she is “practically perfect in every way”, and Lennie, a border collie-whippet who had a special connection with Barney's late son Sam.  What explains the human-dog bond? Is it dogs' “hypersociability”? Or “exaggerated gregariousness”? Professor Clive Wynne, the founder of the Canine Science Laboratory at Arizona State University, just calls it dogs' capacity for “love”.  Barney draws on Professor Wynne's Dog is Love: Why and how your dog loves you when discussing his own immensely popular columns in The Age reflecting on how heaven-sent dogs seem to be, given their loving, forgiving natures. But don't worry, cat people: Justine demands Barney account for his outrageous quip in one of those columns that “cats, of course, are despatched from below”.  Meanwhile, we borrow a snippet from Nick Spencer's interview with philosopher John Gray about his book Feline Philosophy: Cats and the meaning of life. In this extract from the podcast Reading Our Times, John Gray ponders what cats reveal about the problem of human consciousness: we worry endlessly, while they don't really seem bothered by anything. So if you, a human animal, are weighed down by many cares, we hope this lighthearted look at what our pets can teach us about God, or what it means to be human, is as fun as a dog with a bone, or a cat toying with a mouse. Enjoy. --- Explore: Barney's columns about Lennie and Sam and Nessie (pictures included!) Nick Spencer's interview with John Gray about Feline Philosophy from the podcast Reading Our Times Clive Wynne's book Dog is Love: Why and how your dog loves you John Gray's book Feline Philosophy: Cats and the meaning of life Benjamin and Jenna Silber Storey's book Why We Are Restless: On the modern quest for contentment 

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

Today, the AEI Podcast Channel presents the latest episode of https://www.aei.org/tag/aei-banter/ (Banter), hosted by AEI President, Robert Doar, and Director of Media Relations, Phoebe Keller. To find more episodes of Banter, subscribe directly on https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/banter-an-aei-podcast/id427915745 (Apple), https://open.spotify.com/show/7kOxlIuNsPbshewASi8tLI?si=64c618eed2054deb (Spotify) or wherever you get your podcasts. Professors Benjamin and Jenna Storey teach political philosophy at Furman University, where they also lead the Tocqueville Program. Their new book, Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment, explores the roots of modern unhappiness and offers guidance in the search for fulfillment. The Storeys – who are also joining AEI next year—appear on Banter to talk with Robert and Phoebe about what we can learn from French philosophers about how to find happiness in our modern lives.

Professors Benjamin and Jenna Storey teach political philosophy at Furman University, where they also lead the Tocqueville Program. Their new book, Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment, explores the roots of modern unhappiness and offers guidance in the search for fulfillment. The Storeys – who are also joining AEI next year—appear on Banter to talk with Robert and Phoebe about what we can learn from French philosophers about how to find happiness in our modern lives.

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.”

This week the crew is joined by Drs. Ben and Jenna Storey. The Storeys are professors of political philosophy at Furman, directors of the Tocqueville Fellows Program, and authors of the new book: Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment. We discuss how they came to write a book on restlessness, what Montaigne, Pascal, and Rousseau think about human happiness, and the way that Tocqueville might help us live vertically in a horizontal world.