Hi Friend,

I'm delighted to share our new podcast with an old friend, Dougald Hine. The conversation was spurred by questions around education, which (of course) led to a wide range of other things. It's a tremendously rich conversation between two friends who both sink into deep, multi-faceted, and spacious conversations on a regular basis, and are delighting in one another's experiences, strengths, and hopes.... which I think makes for a great listen! 

Here's a bit of the back story to this particular conversation. And about the title of the episode.

A few months ago, I noticed that quite a number of my clients were talking around the question, "How do we support adult education in a way that can change (a specific section of) society?" - sometimes explicitly framed as, "How do I start a school and what should it look like?"

In some ways, that impetus towards creating new forms of education is not too surprising: people who work with me tend to be well aware that current institutional systems (governance, education, health care, technology, agriculture, etc.) are flailing, and that different approaches are needed to support the growth of regenerative cultures and economies. Education is frequently recognized as a critical aspect to create any kind of change. From social justice movements to environmental movements to shifting investors' choices and market dynamics, education (and research) is recognized as a critical component to enable shifts in consciousness. Which is part of why it is now (and perhaps always has been) so contentious.

I thought my friend Dougald Hine might be a good conversation partner for this topic. We've known each other for a while across multiple parts of our lives - we met when we were both living in England and before we were in the kind of committed relationships with people or places as we are now. These days, he lives in Sweden, where his wife is from, and I live in New York, where my partner's family is based. He encouraged me to write (and helped to edit) what might be one of my favorite creative non-fiction articles, "From the Darkness" for Dark Mountain. At the beginning of the pandemic, he hosted a conversation with me, "When your ancestors are the problem," which was, I dare say, quite extraordinary. And Dougald is also one of those friends with whom I don't, actually, talk with very much - so I get pretty excited when we do connect! 

When he and I did eventually check in, he had come out of a multi-month book tour, mostly in Europe, for his recently published book "At Work in the Ruins: finding our place in the time of science, climate change, pandemics, and other emergencies." On his tour, he noticed a renewed grappling with religion as part of the larger question of 'how do we now live'.  As we were making connections between education and religion (two deeply connected subjects), Dougald pointed towards a question that I've often considered, but don't talk about as much as he does: in a context where people are disillusioned with prevailing institutions (which themselves are running towards the end of the stories that shaped them), where do they turn?  

 Towards charismatic individuals and ideas. The very things that so many institutions were structured to help not dominate the conversation!   Thinking about charisma as it mixes with both education and religion thus are key threads in this conversation.

Towards charismatic individuals and ideas. The very things that so many institutions were structured to help not dominate the conversation!   Thinking about charisma as it mixes with both education and religion thus are key threads in this conversation.

And then, because Dougald and I are lucky enough to work with and teach some of the same brilliant people, I reached out to a few of them and asked for suggestions for questions for us. One question seemed to both reflect the others and eloquently express a powerful inquiry:

"In a world where the operating system and prevailing structures are making it fall apart, where knowledge itself and the way of knowing is contributing to disaster, what does it make sense to teach and learn? If what you know is wrong, and you know that it is, and you know that the tentacles of modernity are so deeply entwined with your wishes and values and feelings of right and wrong, how can you even start to disengage? What has the legitimacy to teach you anything? Who do you trust? What is there to hold on to?"

I decided this was such a good question - so we started there, and let ourselves just go as the conversation guided us.

And, to be honest, I don't think we really answer this question, or at least, not as well as I would like to. I'm going to try to come back to it in various ways.  It keeps showing up in other spaces, as well.

And I'm always curious about how you are finding responses to those kinds of big questions!