Win a victory

It’s the birthday of Horace Mann, born in Franklin, Massachusetts (1796). He was the first great American advocate of public education. He believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free and universal. He was fiercely opposed to slavery, and toward the end of his life, he was the president of Antioch College, a new institution committed to coeducation and equal opportunity for all students, black and white. Two months before he died, he said in a speech to the graduating class: “I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/the-writers-almanac-for-monday-may-4-2026/

I Am An American Philosopher: Phil Oliver – Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy

Summer rerun season is already here, evidently. https://american-philosophy.org/i-am-an-american-philosopher-interview-series/i-am-an-american-philosopher-phil-oliver/

Rebecca Solnit, grateful meliorist

A more-than-perfunctory acknowledgments section: “I’m grateful to everyone who refused to surrender in advance. To those who persevered when the future seemed dark, who saw the night as the time in which we dream and grow, who became torches or North Stars when we needed illumination or direction. To all the visionary souls and heroes who made the changes this book tries to describe. To all those making the shifts toward a better world now, the ones just coming into focus or that we’ll see clearly in ten or fifty or a hundred years, the ones that make the news and the ones that happen in secret and touch one life or protect one place. To everyone who keeps looking, hoping, working. To those who know that while we can’t save everything, everything we can save matters.” — The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit https://a.co/05UCr0gN

Vitalism

"...The celebration of animal spirits can descend into triviality or worse — a fascist cult of violence. But it has more serious and valuable meanings as a reverence for life itself, as well as a broader connection with the recognition that the universe is alive. As a way of being in the world, vitalism has inspired thinkers from Walt Whitman to William James to Aldo Leopold. Not to mention Ludwig Wittgenstein, who sought to cultivate “the experience of seeing the world as a miracle.”
...
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/opinion/donald-trump-animal-spirits.html?smid=em-share

Stewart Brand, Maintenance: Of Everything - The Ezra Klein Show

At 87, Stewart says, self-maintenance is nearly a full-time job. 

Stewart Brand might be the most influential philosopher of the internet – at least in its more idealistic era. In the 1960s, Brand was the central bridge figure between the San Francisco counterculture and the emerging technology scene. He created the legendary Trips Festival with Ken Kesey in 1966, and was there at “the mother of all demos” in 1968. And he created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog, which Steve Jobs called “one of the bibles of my generation” and “Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along.” 

Brand has seen Silicon Valley evolve in the decades since. And along the way, he has written many brilliant books about our relationship to technology, the built environment and the natural world. His latest book is “Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One.” 

In this conversation, we discuss everything from dropping acid to the genesis of the Whole Earth Catalog, what he thinks A.I. will reveal about humanity, the 40 years he’s spent living on a tugboat and the importance of maintenance in a culture that prizes novelty and disposability.

Mentioned:

Ezra is moderating a forum on housing and affordability with some of the top California gubernatorial candidates. The event is on Friday, May 8, in Oakland, CA. You can buy tickets here. Use the code EKSHOWfor 20 percent off your order.

Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One by Stewart Brand

“We Didn’t Ask for This Internet” with Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu, The Ezra Klein Show

I And Thou by Martin Buber

Book Recommendations:

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester

The Scottish Enlightenment by Arthur Herman

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447

William James on selfhood

Dr. Dianda’s Lyceum address was excellent, effectively making the Jamesian point that a complex and multi-relational self is rarely “fractured” beyond repair. https://bsky.app/profile/wjsociety.bsky.social/post/3mjuygvzmjk2b

MTSU’s April 17 Applied Philosophy Lyceum speaker to explore the ‘fractured self’

Some fractured facts in this story: we did not begin as "two separate departments," the Dept of Philosophy added Religious Studies to its title and mission a few years ago. Previously, there was no Department of Religious Studies at MTSU. Their speaker series is called a Colloquium, not a Lyceum, a name which has its specific roots in the ancient Athenian school of Aristotle called the Lyceum.

But we're grateful for the publicity. All good. Looking forward to the event.

https://mtsunews.com/dianda-philosophy-lyceum-dianda-2026/

I Am An American Philosopher: Scott Pratt – Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy

https://american-philosophy.org/i-am-an-american-philosopher-scott-pratt/

The More You Study Consciousness, the Weirder It Gets

Weirder and more wondrous…

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/opinion/eza-klein-podcast-michael-pollan.html?context=audio&smid=nytcore-ios-share

HENRY DAVID THOREAU TO AIR ON PBS MARCH 2026

HENRY DAVID THOREAU TO AIR ON PBS MARCH 2026

Source: About PBS - Main
https://share.google/1hsIbj4ladm6L9CHF