Music, Culture, Arts and Entertainment 5-31-2021

On the next Digging in the Dirt, Kevin Gallagher will rebroadcast a speech originally presented by The Ecologist and Resurgence.com. The speaker is George Monbiot, a long-time British environmental activist, author and filmmaker. Films like Apocalypse Cow and The Age of Stupid, as well as the book Age of Consent. This recent talk is an important rumination on how our planet is “Dying from Consumption.”

I have to confess, when I first heard about Michaeleen Doucleff’s book Hunt, Gather, Parent, I thought to myself, “just another parenting book.” When my son was growing up, I consulted a lot of them, but only one or two told me anything useful.

So I was intrigued but skeptical when I sat down to read about what Doucleff had to say about What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans—the subtitle of her book.

I was quickly won over by Doucleff’s combination of her personal story — trying to parent her strong-willed young daughter — her research into parenting style of three indigenous cultures — Maya families in Mexico, Inuit families above the Arctic Circle, and Hadzabe families in Tanzania. And her eminently practical suggestions. And her ideas don’t just work for young children, but for relationships we have with family members of all ages.

Michaeleen Doucleff is a correspondent for NPR’s Science Desk, where she reports on disease outbreaks, cross-cultural parenting, and women and children’s health. Hunt, Gather, Parent is a NYT bestseller.

MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle is best known for her books, Reclaiming Conversation and Alone Together. They offer penetrating insights into the toll that digital technology has taken on our human connections.

Now, in her intimate memoir of love and work, The Empathy Diaries, Turkle ties together her own life’s story and her pathbreaking research on technology, empathy, and ethics. Growing up in postwar Brooklyn, she searched for clues to her identity in a house filled with mysteries. Empathy became her strategy of survival as she strove to master the codes that governed her family’s secrets.

In The Empathy Diaries, Turkle asks the big question that has motivated her research: how does one change minds? She discovers the clue to unlock that process of change through examining her owns story — it’s all about creating and preserving connections between people.

Sherry Turkle is Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT, and the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self.