“Try to grasp the essence of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces, and you will again find God in them. One man has written or said it in a book, another in a painting.”
—Vincent van Gogh

In December of 1878, a young Vincent van Gogh arrived on the streets of the Borinage region of Belgium. He wasn’t there to paint or sketch, nor was he there to study.

He had come to preach the gospel to coal miners.

By the age of 25, Vincent had tried a few professions, including teacher, art dealer and bookseller; he thirsted for purpose and meaning, yet none of these paths had provided. While he enjoyed art, he seemed to view it merely as a pastime, not a serious vocation.

The son and grandson of Protestant ministers, Vincent was deeply religious, with a deep desire to serve humanity. But his attempt to become an ordained minister was also unsuccessful. He failed his entrance exams at the Flemish Training School in Brussels – a school for aspiring missionaries – and, in November of 1878, the administration informed him he would not receive funding.

In a letter to his brother Theo, dated November 15, 1878, Vincent wrote:

“I spoke with the Rev, de Jong and Master Bokma, they tell me that I cannot attend the school on the same conditions as they allow to the native Flemish pupils; I can follow the lessons free of charge if necessary – but this is the only privilege – so in order to stay here longer I ought to have more financial means than I have at my disposal, for they are nil.”

Bringing light to those in darkness

Reading Vincent’s many letters to Theo, a picture emerges of a young man adrift in the world, desperately searching for purpose and a way to help those in need.

His affinity for the working class and the downtrodden was clear. Vincent would often observe laborers as they went about their work, sympathizing with them but also feeling a deep sense of respect for the dignity with which they accepted their toil.

In a way, he seemed envious of their sense of duty and purpose. And as in everything, he saw God in their struggle. In his November letter to Theo, Vincent recalled observing the street cleaners and their carts one evening and, as was so often the case, how it called to mind some work of art:

“They seemed sunk and rooted still deeper in poverty than that long row, or rather group of paupers, that Master de Groux has drawn in his ‘Bench of the Poor.’ It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that when we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation – of loneliness, of poverty and misery, the end of all things, or their extreme, then rises in our mind the thought of God.”

His love of God is evidenced by his letters, as is his passion for art. The two were often interwoven in his mind. In one letter to Theo, he wrote: “I think that everything that is really good and beautiful, the inner, moral, spiritual and sublime beauty in men and their works, comes from God.”

But despite his obvious adoration for and inclination toward art, he continued to keep it at a distance.

That November, after being denied entry into missionary school – the latest in a long line of failures – and facing some undefined crossroad, Vincent took to the streets of Brussels. There among the working class, he was reminded of why and whom he wanted to serve.

“When we had taken leave I walked back, not along the shortest way but along the tow-path,” he wrote to Theo. “Here are workshops of all kinds that look picturesque, especially in the evening with the lights, and to us who are also labourers and workmen, each in his sphere and in the work to which he is called, they speak in their own way, if we only listen to them, for they say: Work while it is day, the night cometh when no man can work.”

Vincent couldn’t escape the feeling that there was greater work to which he was called. He decided that if he wasn’t suited for a conventional job or allowed to serve in an official religious capacity, he could contribute in another way — as a lay preacher to those whom he believed needed God the most.

“You know how one of the roots or foundations, not only of the Gospel, but of the whole Bible is, ‘Light that rises in the darkness,’ from darkness to light. Well, who will need this most, who will be open to it? Experience has taught that those who walk in the darkness, in the centre of the earth, like the miners in the black coal mines for instance, are very much impressed by the words of the Gospel, and believe it too.”

Thus in January of 1879, Vincent began preaching the gospel in the southern coal-mining region of Belgium called Borinage, having been granted a six-month position as a preacher for the Belgian Evangelization Committee.

He committed himself fully to his work, not only preaching about the life of Jesus but living it. Vincent regularly accompanied miners into the mines, visited and helped care for the sick and injured, and eventually gave up his clothes and possessions – even his bed – to live as the miners did.

Despite the desolate conditions in which he lived, he remained fascinated by and passionate about his work and the region and its people, who despite their struggles seemed content. In a letter to Theo, he wrote:

“The country and the inhabitants charm me more every day. One has a homelike feeling here, like on the heath or in the dunes; the people have something simple and good. Those who leave are homesick for their country; on the other hand, homesick foreigners lose their nostalgia for their own country and adapt easily.”

Vincent continued to see the beauty in the harsh reality of the world around him. His letters are full of passages about art, the “picturesque” landscape and the people who worked its depths, as well as his occasional attempts to capture through sketches the raw magnetism of the region and its inhabitants.

“The miners returning home in the evening towards dusk in the white snow were a singular sight. These people are quite black when they emerge into the daylight from the dark mines, looking just like chimney sweeps. Their dwellings are usually small and should really be called huts; they lie scattered along the sunken roads, in the woods and on the slopes of the hills. Here and there one can still see moss-covered roofs, and in the evening a friendly light shines through the small-paned windows.”

But Vincent’s contentment would not last.

At the end of the six months, the Belgian Evangelization Committee commended Vincent’s devotion to the sick and injured but criticized his extreme self-sacrifice for “undermining the dignity of the priesthood.” They would not be extending his service, they informed him, and gave him three months to move on.

By the next month, Vincent had left. For nearly a year he wandered, returning home to the Netherlands for some time, after which he traveled around staying with different people. During that time, he and Theo stopped writing.

A longing for action

Who has ever felt the pull to give something back to the world, both the desire and duty to contribute? The person who knows he has so much to give but doesn’t know how or what — the weight of this paradox rendering him paralyzed.

As it’s been for many others, this was Vincent’s condition.

In what was the first letter to his brother following his dismissal from his preaching position, Vincent wrote:

“For there is a great difference between one idler and another idler. There is someone who is an idler out of laziness and lack of character, owing to the baseness of his nature. If you like, you may take me for one of those. Then there is the other kind of idler, the idler despite himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action who does nothing because his hands are tied, because he is, so to speak, imprisoned somewhere, because he lacks what he needs to be productive, because disastrous circumstances have brought him forcibly to this end. Such a one does not always know what he can do, but he nevertheless instinctively feels, I am good for something! My existence is not without reason! I know that I could be quite a different person! How can I be of use, how can I be of service? There is something inside me, but what can it be? He is quite another idler. If you like, you may take me for one of those.”

Vincent made clear that he was the latter — that despite his defeats, he wasn’t giving up.

“Instead of giving in to despair I chose active melancholy, in so far as I was capable of activity. In other words I chose the kind of melancholy that hopes, that strives and that seeks, in preference to the melancholy that despairs numbly and in distress.”

Vincent’s letter conveys the sense that perhaps art was the last and only thing that could make his existence bearable and meaningful. And he alludes to his decision to finally commit himself to it.

His next letter, dated August 20, 1880, was filled almost entirely with talk of his art and accompanied by a sketch of some miners (see above).

Vincent continued to throw himself into his work, studying the great masters he spoke of and, over the next decade, producing over 2,000 works of art. But even his dedication and skill could not save him.

Vincent was focused on emotion and distortion in a world seeking technical precision. A post-impressionist in an era of realists. Also lacking the social and commercial savvy necessary to sell his art, Vincent continued to be plagued by self-doubt, which contributed to his mental struggles and, many believe, his death.

“Can you tell what goes on within by looking at what happens without? There may be a great fire in our soul, but no one ever comes to warm himself by it, all that passers-by can see is a little smoke coming out of the chimney, and they walk on,” Vincent wrote to Theo in July of 1880. “All right, then, what is to be done, should one tend that inward fire, turn to oneself for strength, wait patiently – yet with how much impatience! – wait, I say, for the moment when someone who wants to come and sits down beside one’s fire and perhaps stays on? Let him who believes in God await the moment that will sooner or later arrive.”

For Vincent, this moment arrived too late.

He didn’t live to see his own success. But today there is not a person who doesn’t know his name or who hasn’t seen his work. Yet not everyone knows his full story – one defined by passion and conflict, beauty and pain, a commitment to God and humanity.

Vincent’s life is proof that we can find meaning not in spite of but sometimes because of our suffering. He may have never overcame his own struggles, but what he did do was more impressive: He chose to act — to create — in the face of it.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe, comment and share with others. If you believe in the importance of thoughtful, nuanced writing and independent journalism, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber to help support the time and energy that goes into producing these stories.

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“Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.”
— Eric Hoffer

On July 14, 1918, William McCormick Blair addressed a crowd of moviegoers at one of Chicago’s many picture houses. He spoke passionately of the United States’ and France’s devotion to freedom and the reciprocity between the two “unconquered and unconquerable” nations.

A concerned citizen, Blair felt the weight of the moment.

Until the year prior, the United States had maintained its isolationist policy as Russia and France battled invading German troops. The 1915 sinking of British luxury ocean liner the Lusitania, which killed over 120 Americans, and the surfacing of the Zimmerman telegram, revealing an attempt by Germany to ally with Mexico, however, led President Woodrow Wilson to reconsider his position.

In April 1917, the U.S. joined the Allied Powers — which also included Great Britain, Italy and Japan — in their fight for sovereignty.

As Blair stood before the throngs of people, the war was still fresh on Americans’ minds, the date relevant.

“Liberty has two birthdays,” Blair declared, “one in the new world and one in the old. One is marked by the anniversary of our Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776; it is the birthday of a nation in the new western world, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created free and equal; its cradle was Independence Hall in Philadelphia. …”

“The second cradle of Liberty was amid the ruins of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789,” he continued. “The people of Paris destroyed this great Mediaeval prison, the emblem to them of tyranny and oppression and autocratic government. They lighted the torch of liberty at its smoldering ruins and sent their armies forth from the first great European republic …”

“These two great republics are children of the same spirit,” Blair added.

In the four minutes it took the projectionist to change the reels, Blair had delivered to a captive audience of Chicagoans an impassioned and impromptu speech.

Or, at least that’s how it appeared.

In 1916, President Wilson won re-election largely for his commitment to keeping the U.S. out of World War I — diverging from his opponents Roosevelt and Taft in a campaign characterized by the slogan “He kept us out of war.” Even as late as January 1917, Wilson continued to advocate for neutrality — despite pleas from France and its allies — delivering his now famous “Peace without Victory” speech to the U.S. Senate.

Thus when Wilson reversed course two months later, in April 1917, to declare war on Germany – most Americans opposed the move.

Anti-war sentiment remained pervasive, impeding Wilson’s ability to fund the U.S.’s war effort. Thus the administration needed a way to bring the public onboard. The way to do it, Wilson thought, was to create a unified public narrative as to why the war mattered.

Within a week of Congress declaring war, Wilson signed an executive order creating the Committee on Public Information (CPI), a temporary independent federal agency focused on increasing public support for the war. To lead it, Wilson enlisted American investigative journalist George Creel.

But if the CPI’s efforts were to be effective, they had to appear organic.

Standing before the crowd of moviegoers on July 14, 1918 – France’s Fête Nationale, commemorating the storming of the Bastille – Blair wasn’t simply a patriotic American stirred by the occasion. The prominent Chicago banker and civic leader was also the National Director of the CPI-led initiative the Four-Minute Men (named for the length of time it took to change a film reel), and he was there to rally the cause.

On this day of remembrance for France — which, more than a century prior, had helped the U.S. secure its independence — Blair’s goal was simple: to convince people of the need to support our long-time ally. His ulterior motive was to increase the sale of Liberty bonds.

Blair was one of approximately 75,000 Americans who served as Four-Minute Men – considered one of the CPI’s greatest tools for swaying public sentiment about the war. These orators delivered speeches to audiences not just at movie theaters but at churches, union halls, parks, school assemblies and other public spaces and events across the country throughout WWI. These individuals were often business owners and clergy, lawyers and civic leaders, neighbors and friends, and were trusted in their communities.

Neither the CPI nor its Four-Minute Men were clandestine; the press often referred to the CPI as “the war information service.”

But while Americans were aware of the agency and its programs, they weren’t aware of its playbook.

Speeches were uniform and scripted, as well as nationally coordinated, and their timing strategic. The appearance of spontaneity was engineered and was central to the CPI’s effectiveness. From 1917 through the end of WWI, an estimated 400 million people heard speeches from the Four-Minute Men.

But the CPI’s efforts weren’t limited to impassioned sermons.

In its movement to “make the world safe for democracy,” the agency employed a small cadre of writers, advertisers, artists and filmmakers who all shared Wilson’s and Creel’s sense that democracy was under threat. Lending an air of legitimacy to the project were familiar national figures like journalists Ida Tarbell and S.S. McClure, and illustrators Charles Dana Gibson and James Montgomery Flagg (famous for the “I Want You” U.S. Army poster).

At a time when most Americans got their news from newspapers, the CPI engaged in a vast campaign to shape public perception by controlling coverage of the war. This included efforts to overwhelm, confuse, suppress and cajole journalists and the newspapers where they worked.

The CPI issued daily press releases (approximately 6,000 total during its two-year existence), provided ready-made stories (along with photos and cartoons) and offered “voluntary” guidelines on how to cover the war.

Reinforcing the CPI’s efforts was the Espionage Act, which made it a federal crime, during wartime, to interfere with military operations or the draft or to speak, publish or distribute material deemed disloyal, obstructive or harmful to the U.S. war effort. Effectively the propaganda arm of the Espionage Act, the CPI made the cost of dissent appear high.

With relentless amounts of information and doubt cast on non-CPI-approved articles, wartime editors often published the agency’s pre-packaged stories as is.

The CPI’s soft edge coupled with the hard edge of the Espionage Act led both citizens and journalists to self-censor, fearing prosecution. As Creel later admitted, the CPI’s task was to “create an atmosphere in which the law would rarely need to be invoked.”

The tactic was simple: persuasion through saturation.

And while the medium varied, the messaging was always the same — calculated and visceral.

Posters, pamphlets, films, ads and newspapers — including the CPI’s own daily, the Official Bulletin — framed the war as moral rather than political, depicting the Germans as barbaric and inhuman, and the Allies as righteous and heroic. WWI wasn’t simply a war between adversaries; according to the CPI, it was a battle between good and evil.

In this moral context, there was no need for enforcement. Peer pressure did the work — anyone who dissented was branded disloyal, or worse.

At a time when propaganda was not yet considered taboo and carried a neutral or even positive connotation, the CPI’s campaign worked. Americans didn’t just comply — they participated enthusiastically.

Not only did the CPI foster consensus around U.S. involvement in WWI, it’s also credited with helping bring in over $21 billion in Liberty Loans — an enormous sum at the time — as well as driving Red Cross enrollment, draft compliance and volunteerism. The CPI and its team of citizens, writers, filmmakers and artists had shown that public opinion can be engineered.

While many Americans later reported being shocked by how quickly support for the war grew, the CPI’s efforts show how easily a small, coordinated group can sway public opinion — for good or for bad. Influence, it was discovered, is most powerful when it’s visible enough to feel legitimate but subtle enough to feel natural.

The CPI proved that you don’t need to convince people of facts so long as you can shape the moral and emotional context in which they’re received.

This level of psychological sophistication is one we continue to see today.

As CPI volunteer Edward L. Bernays (nephew to Sigmund Freud) wrote in his book Propaganda in 1928, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”

The lessons of the CPI, however, aren’t confined to government or politics.

Following WWI, many of the agency’s tactics became commonplace in the advertising and public relations industries. Today they’re the weapons of activist movements, corporations, media companies and terrorists, as well as governments and political parties. The subtlety of their messaging as well as its placement and repetition — enforced by algorithms, tribalism and pressure to conform — make CPI tactics some of today’s most powerful weapons for exploiting the masses through emotional and social manipulation.

As Creel later wrote in his book How We Advertised America, “Public opinion is not based upon reasoning alone, but upon feeling and impulse.”

Sources:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-woodrow-wilsons-propaganda-machine-changed-american-journalism-180963082/

https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2011/04/04/the-wilsonian-path-to-war/

https://woodrowwilsonhouse.org/election-1916/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/when-wilson-asked-war/

https://online.norwich.edu/online/about/resource-library/isolationism-and-us-foreign-policy-after-world-war-i

https://doughboy.org/committee-on-public-information-when-the-u-s-used-fake-news-to-sell-americans-on-world-war-i/

https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/world-war-i-american-experiences/about-this-exhibition/over-here/surveillance-and-censorship/four-minute-men/

https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/the-4-minute-men/

https://historicmissourians.shsmo.org/george-creel/

https://www.jackmillercenter.org/our-work/resources/espionage-sedition-acts

“For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.”
— Margaret Heffernan

President John F. Kennedy once said, “Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.”

Kennedy should know afterall — his own ability to cope with conflict was informed by personal experience with volatile situations.

In October 1962, the U.S. completed its placement of intermediate ballistic missiles in Turkey as part of an agreement with the allied nation. Within a year, U.S. spy planes discovered nuclear missiles in Cuba — having been placed there by the Soviet Union in response to the U.S.’s own defensive military manuevering. Just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, these projectiles were capable of striking American cities within minutes.

The subsequent 13-day standoff between the U.S. and the USSR remains the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. Yet this disastrous outcome was avoided due to the willingness of both sides to engage in discussion.

Recognizing that addressing the problem militarily would risk igniting a larger war, Kennedy and Prime Minister of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev communicated via both public and private letters, as well as through secret backchannels — an approach that allowed them to save face publicly while compromising privately to avoid nuclear war.

By attempting to see the situation from Khrushchev’s perspective – understanding how the U.S. might respond if a foreign nation placed missiles in Mexico or Canada, for example – Kennedy was able to find common ground with Khrushchev.

The ability of two world powers to resolve their conflict via communication (at the height of the Cold War no less) is remarkable. To this day, the Cuban Missile Crisis is considered one of the most successful examples of crisis diplomacy and conflict avoidance.

It’s especially notable when considered in relation to the attitudes and inclinations of Americans today — many of whom, rather than engaging in dialogue in hopes of resolving conflict avoid it altogether, unable to sympathize or even converse with people with whom they disagree.

A 2025 YouGov study revealed that most Americans (65%) said they don’t engage in in-person or online political discussions with people who have different political opinions. Specifically, 33% said this happens to them not very often, while 32% said it happens not at all often.

It’s no wonder considering how people view these conversations.

In a 2023 Pew Research Center study, 61% of U.S. adults said that having political conversations with people they disagree with is “stressful and frustrating.” (Conversely, 36% said such conversations are “interesting and informative.”)

In that same survey, 81% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats (including those who simply lean one way or the other) said that too little attention is paid to important issues facing the country.

This seems to point to the fact that we may have more in common than we’d like to admit and that our unwillingness to communicate because of political differences may be stymieing the very progress we desire.

This is the premise of much of Michael Kardas’ work.

An assistant professor of management and human resources at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Kardas studies the differences between the expectations and realities of social interaction. In a study he conducted with colleagues Kristina A. Wald and Nicholas Epley — published in Psychological Science in 2024 — Kardas discovered that people often walk away from political conversations feeling more optimistic than they anticipated. He believes this is due, in part, to the realization that they have more in common with people they disagree with than they expected.

Titled “Misplaced Divides? Discussing Political Disagreement With Strangers Can Be Unexpectedly Positive,” the study included 198 people across the political spectrum, including those of different races and ethnicities. Kardas and his colleagues divided participants into groups of two and assigned each pair a topic to discuss — ranging from immigration to abortion — with some agreeing and some disagreeing about the issue.

Participants then filled out surveys predicting how they thought the conversation would go. After discussing their topics alone with their partner for 10 minutes, participants reflected on how their conversations went.

What Kardas found was that there was a significant discrepancy between the expectations of those engaging with people with whom they disagreed about an issue and how their conversations actually played out in real life. Even more informative were the videos of the conversations, in which participants tended to stay on topic and rarely showed hostility.

“Seeing the data reveals that the conversations are positive, but seeing the conversations reveals it all the more vividly,” Kardas said in a statement. “These are cooperative conversations between people that don’t know each other but, at least once the conversation has begun, are surprisingly interested in understanding each other’s perspectives, even when the issues themselves seem contentious.”

No sane person willingly seeks out conflict — in fact, many people avoid it at all costs — but what Kardas’ research seems to suggest is that facing conflict may be the path to overcoming it … and that doing so is usually not as bad as it seems. Engaging with people with whom we disagree can not only be a positive experience, but also the means for avoiding greater conflict, like nuclear war, in the future.

We recently spoke with Kardas to learn more about the study and its broader implications, why Americans often shy away from these conversations and the harm that does to us, and how social media is contributing. To read the full interview, become a Spirit & Sword paying subscriber today.

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“If you don’t depend on yourself, you will always be a slave.”
— Confucius

In the 2nd century BCE, as Rome expanded its empire through conquest, its population grew rapidly. Rural migrants and former farmers – whose land was lost to large estates worked by enslaved laborers – moved into the cities. No longer able to produce their own food, the masses in these urban centers had to rely solely on markets.

To ensure the continued availability of grain — one of the cheapest food staples at the time — and to keep the peace, the state stepped in. Grain distributions were used as a temporary means of alleviating hunger, as necessary, for impoverished citizens.

It wasn’t long, however, till those in power realized the utility of controlling this key resource.

Brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus saw how feeding the hungry garnered political loyalty, thus Rome’s formal grain dole, known as the Cura Annonae, was born. The state began regularly distributing subsidized grain to approximately 200,000 adult male citizens to address food shortages and maintain social order. Augustus became the first Roman emperor to establish a lasting bureaucratic system to facilitate the Annonae.

In 58 BCE, at the urging of Publius Clodius Pulcher, the program expanded to offer free grain distributions for eligible Romans, while those who didn’t qualify faced volatile and, often, high market prices.

Thus, the Cura Annonae was no longer a stopgap solution for sustaining those in need, but an effective tool for ensuring long-term political support. (And a contentious one at that.)

People began to flock to Roman cities to take advantage of the benefit. More citizens abandoned farming as a vocation — giving up the very mechanism that made the grain dole possible. And Rome became a city that elevated consumption at the expense of production.

As long as plates were full, the people were placated. What was lost was their ability for self-reliance.

This created a political bind: As citizens’ dependence on the Annonae grew, the will of emperors to abolish it weakened. Cut it and they’d risk revolt. Thus, later emperors chose to preserve or even expand the grain dole (eventually distributing bread and other staples). It also reduced citizens’ incentive to work and contribute to society, effectively weakening the state’s economic productivity.

But the future of the Annonae was anything but guaranteed.

Citizens’ dependence on the state fueled Rome’s own dependency, as wheat had to be imported from other Roman provinces, including North Africa and Egypt. By the second century AD, with a population estimated at 1 million people, Rome relied on a vast and complex network of shipping routes to maintain its grain supply. This left the empire vulnerable to disruption and rebellion.

And in the 5th century, that’s exactly what happened: The Vandals seized North Africa, cutting Rome off from its most critical food source.

The repercussions were swift. No longer able to wield the Annonae as a tool to pacify the masses, and facing food shortages, the state experienced political upheaval and social unrest.

The breakdown of the Cura Annonae system contributed to the Roman empire’s instability and helped pave the way for its eventual collapse — conveying lessons to future generations about the dangers of trading self-reliance for a bit of bread.

Sources:

https://www.ancient-history-sites.com/roman/daily-life/food/annona/

https://scholarworks.harding.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=tenor

https://taxproject.org/cura-annonae/

https://archive.johncabot.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/95b05c4d-d8e2-4124-a3ae-298733df5cc6/content

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
— Frederick Douglass

When I turned 16, something happened that transformed my small-town world: I got my drivers’ license.

It wasn’t that fact in itself, but where it allowed me to go.

When school would let out, I would often drive straight to my local library. For an hour or more, I would peruse the shelves, exploring the new and different ideas, people and worlds now at my fingertips. From UFO and paranormal investigations to historical nonfiction to poetry and classic literature, my interests evolved the deeper down the proverbial rabbit hole I went.

I was no longer limited by transportation or my English teacher’s required reading; I was now free to explore both past and present, real and fantasy worlds at my leisure — with time my only limitation.

It was during these long hours, discovering new writers – from Vonnegut and Fitzgerald to Sinclair and Hesse; diving into deep corners of history – from D-Day to the Dust Bowl; and discovering new ideas, religions and philosophies, that I began to comprehend the vastness of the world and the complexity of human experience. Through books, I was exposed to the best and worst of humanity, to the depths of despair and the kindness of strangers, to the greatest innovations and our greatest mistakes.

I could sense the defiant optimism of our founding fathers, I could see the bloodied beaches of Normandy, I could feel the quiet clash of anguish and hope among Jews in the concentration camps.

Sitting amongst those stacks of books, I felt privy to a new world – a world of language and stories and ideas that felt all my own.

Just as my drivers’ license had given me the freedom to explore the physical world, language gave me the freedom to explore the world through books — as well as through writing.

As Chicano poet and writer Jimmy Santiago Baca said, “Literacy is freedom, and everyone has something significant to say.”

Baca knew very well literacy’s ability to liberate a person from their real-world struggles. Illiterate into adulthood, Baca didn’t discover the power of language until a five-year prison sentence led him to pick up a book for the first time.

Growing up in the 1950’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico,

Baca’s childhood was characterized by hardship and instability. He was placed in an orphanage after his parents abandoned him at a young age, and by his mid-teens, he had run away and was living on the streets.

With little formal education, Baca became involved in crime and was eventually arrested. He was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison for possession of drugs with intent to sell.

It was then, with his freedom taken from him, that Baca found independence through reading and writing.

With a desire to understand the letters sent by family and friends, Baca began to teach himself how to read and write. He began by studying the dictionary, teaching himself one word at a time, until he was able to read not just his personal letters but full books.

Once he learned to read, he consumed everything he could get his hands on, including poetry anthologies and works by major literary figures — Pablo Neruda, Walt Whitman, Federico García Lorca, William Blake and others — who helped him see that language could be a tool for self-discovery and self-determination. It was then that Baca’s passion for reading blossomed into a love of writing.

He began writing poetry in secret, often on scraps of paper.

He eventually sent some of his poems to literary journals — a few of which published his work, validating his new-found passion.

In prison, where he felt stripped of his humanity, reading gave Baca a way to reclaim his mind, while writing gave him a voice.

“I realized that I could write and that I could create something that gave me a sense of freedom,” Baca said. “I could live in that world of words and imagination, and nobody could take that away from me.”

Upon his release in 1979, Baca devoted his life to writing. In 1983, he published his first collection of poetry, Immigrants in Our Own Land, which he had largely written during his time in prison. His work draws heavily on his experiences with poverty, incarceration and cultural identity.

Today, Baca is widely regarded as one of the most important Chicano poets of his generation. But perhaps more important than his literary work, he has dedicated much of his life to helping others — especially at-risk youth and prisoners — discover the transformative power of language.

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I first discovered Baca in a graduate creative writing class. My professor had assigned his essay “Coming into Language,” in which Baca describes his journey of self-discovery through writing. The following excerpt is one that has stuck with me ever since …

When at last I wrote my first words on the page, I felt an island rising beneath my feet like the back of a whale. As more and more words emerged, I could finally rest: I had a place to stand for the first time in my life. The island grew, with each page, into a continent inhabited by people I knew and mapped with the life I lived.

I wrote about it all—about people I had loved or hated, about the brutalities and ecstasies of my life. And, for the first time, the child in me who had witnessed and endured unspeakable terrors cried out not just in impotent despair, but with the power of language. Suddenly, through language, through writing, my grief and my joy could be shared with anyone who would listen. And I could do this all alone; I could do it anywhere. I was no longer a captive of demons eating away at me, no longer a victim of other people’s mockery and loathing, that had made me clench my fist white with rage and grit my teeth to silence. Words now pleaded back with the bleak lucidity of hurt. They were wrong, those others, and now I could say it.

Through language I was free. I could respond, escape, indulge; embrace or reject earth or the cosmos. I was launched on an endless journey without boundaries or rules, in which I could salvage the floating fragments of my past, or be born anew in the spontaneous ignition of understanding some heretofore concealed aspect of myself. Each word steamed with the hot lava juices of my primordial making, and I crawled out of stanzas dripping with birth-blood, reborn and freed from the chaos of my life. The child in the dark room of my heart, who had never been able to find or reach the light switch, flicked it on now; and I found in the room a stranger, myself, who had waited so many years to speak again. My words struck in me lightning crackles of elation and thunderhead storms of grief.

How has reading transformed your own life? What books have had the greatest impact on you, and why?

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“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
— Unknown

Around 427 BCE, a man named Gorgias arrived in Athens. A phenomenal improvisational thinker and speaker, Gorgias was known for being able to convince nearly anyone of anything — even on topics he knew little or nothing about. For him, knowledge of the topic at hand was not a prerequisite for persuasion; according to Gorgias, all a speaker had to know was how to talk about that particular subject.

One of his most impressive feats, Gorgias was able to convincingly argue that nothing exists: “If the nonexistent exists,” he postulated, “the existent will not exist, for these are opposites to each other, and if existence is an attribute of nonexistence, nonexistence will be an attribute of existence.”

While the semantics of this statement may seem convoluted and foreign to us, for the people of ancient Greece, among whom language was not yet thought of as something that represented the world, Gorgias’ arguments were difficult to reckon with. To them, truth was not absolute but relative and contextual. Thus, a skilled speaker could reshape reality by distorting how the audience perceived it — the strength of their convictions only making them more believable.

Gorgias was what Plato and others referred to as a Sophist, itinerant intellectuals in the fifth century BCE who taught the art of rhetoric (i.e., the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing). The ancient Sophists of Athens often used antilogic — which involves “the assignment to any argument of a counterargument that negates it” — to question the possibility of absolute truths.

“In the minds of many Athenians, the Sophists were the first to figure out how to create an alternate reality using only words, and so they were the reason that words had become detached from reality in the first place,” writes Robin Reames, author of The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times.

Thus is the power of rhetoric.

The advent of literacy in Athens had brought with it the unanticipated and unwelcome retreat of truth, as people could no longer distinguish reality from falsehood. And because language was not yet viewed as representing the world, truth was equivocal to simply winning an argument.

Gorgias was not trying to prove that nothing exists. He was simply trying to demonstrate what language – which was deemed separate from reality – is capable of. “Language is not the things themselves,” Gorgias said, “and it has no substance in the way that visible and audible things have.”

Many well-to-do Athenians, eager to acquire Gorgias’ skills of persuasion, paid him good money to learn his methods — a fact that afforded him access to and the ear of many of Athens’ most prominent citizens and leaders. Ultimately, Gorgias’ rise would correlate with Athens’ demise, as leaders, persuaded by his arguments, launched a military effort to liberate Sicily – Gorgias’ home city – from Sparta. A move that ultimately resulted in Sparta’s conquest of Athens.

The Sophists of ancient Greece may be long gone, but their influence still lingers — at a time when the search for truth is, well, complicated.

Today, we use the term sophist to refer to someone “who uses slippery language to twist truth for his or her own personal gain,” as Reames writes.

Sound familiar?

The mark of sophist thinking and rhetorical maneuvering can be witnessed in the mechanisms of social media and legacy media today, as well as among the political elite. Just like in ancient Greece, sophists of today wield rhetoric like a knife to carve out a definition of truth that aligns with their personal goals and ambitions.

We’ve all seen and heard this type of language — the kind that uses emotion or confusion over logic or clarity, with a focus on igniting passions and emotions and influencing our decision making. Rather than simply informing us about the world, rhetoric attempts to sway how we think, how we feel and how we respond.

But whether we recognize rhetoric’s deployment and its ability to manipulate us is another thing. Unlike ancient Athenians, we have the benefit of hindsight.

Yet we’ve continued to make the same mistakes over the years. Consider one Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin …

During the Cold War, Sen. Joseph McCarthy used fear, accusation and repetition to convince the American people that communists had infiltrated the U.S. government. His infamous claim that he had “a list of 205” communists in the State Department was never substantiated, yet because of its specificity and the fear it elicited, it dominated public imagination.

Like the Sophists, McCarthy understood that in a society where speech shapes policy, truth can be outmaneuvered by emotion. “McCarthyism” itself became synonymous with weaponized rhetoric — persuasion by insinuation.

Just as Athens under the Sophists grew vulnerable to internal division and poor judgment, McCarthy’s America witnessed civic distrust and fear-driven politics that chilled open discourse.

The Sophists taught that in a democracy, the one who controls language controls reality. McCarthy proved the same nearly two millennia later. Both flourished in moments of fear and flux, when citizens craved certainty more than truth.

But, thankfully, history is our greatest teacher. If we allow it.

We have the ability to learn from the mistakes of our past. To do so, we must go further than just considering whether or not the words we read or hear are true; we have to think critically about the language used and its goals.

How is the writer or speaker trying to make us feel?

Do they attempt to use neutral language?

Do they evoke emotions, or do they use straightforward descriptions?

What is their overall tone?

For ancient Athenians the vehicle was literacy. For us, it’s social media and, increasingly, AI.

But unlike in ancient Greece, it’s not literacy that poses the challenge today, but a prevailing illiteracy that threatens the very idea of truth itself.

In this time of pervasive, polarizing rhetoric, where do you go for truth, and how can we be more discerning in our pursuit of it?

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“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
— Mark Twain

As I sit here feeling uninspired, struggling with what to write about, thousands and even millions of people are out there hammering away on their laptops and iPhones, sharing their important and esteemed opinions on the latest political hullabaloo. (Yes, you read that right.)

Millions of what I’d like to assume are jobless Gen Zers and retired Boomers (and one president) sit enraptured by their platforms, pouring their outrage and contempt into 280 characters and 30-second monologues. Using their First Amendment rights to voice their opinions, inject their perspectives and spew their hatred, without stopping to question whether they should. They are informed, they are angry — and they have a lot of time on their hands.

In today’s social media stilted world, everyone feels as if their opinion is valid, desired and even revered. It’s considered a value to speak your mind freely and without restraint, whereas real values – things like discipline, kindness, respect and humility – are considered superfluous, cheap, meaningless.

Social media has taught us that attention and influence can be bought on the cheap. That, if we say the right things in the right way to the right group of people, we will find not only a thumbs up or a heart, but open arms and a home for ourselves — where our beliefs will be affirmed and our feelings validated. Where the desire to belong will continue to drive our tendency to speak out loudly and often.

We’ve all been there: angry, enraged, spiteful. Our instinct is to instantly criticize, insult, berate. And who can blame us; doing so can feel good, cathartic, powerful and, at the same time, harmless — especially when the other person or group exists to us only as an avatar(s).

But there is value in learning to hold back, to bite our tongue, shut our laptop or put down our phone. Because just because we have the right to speak our mind doesn’t mean we have a responsibility to.

There is more power and control in exercising restraint. In being kind and compassionate, in considering the person behind the avatar, in seeing the roles reversed. In those moments, a bit of discipline and self-control can go a long way — as some of the most seasoned and esteemed among us have learned.

By 1950, General Douglas MacArthur was more than a soldier

— he was an American icon. A World War II hero who became the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, MacArthur was selected by President Harry S. Truman to lead the U.S. troops to victory in South Korea, with the goal to stop the spread of communism. With Truman concerned about American casualties, MacArthur assured him the war would be short-lived.

After driving North Korean forces past the 38th parallel, however, MacArthur continued to advance, and when Truman urged caution against expanding the war into China, MacArthur chafed; he believed in total victory, not limited containment. So, he spoke out, embarking on a public relations campaign in which he questioned the president’s wartime policies.

In letters and press statements, MacArthur mocked Truman’s strategy as timid, warning that appeasement would only invite further aggression. In a letter to Congressman Joseph W. Martin Jr., the general criticized the president’s limited strategy and advocated for a response with “maximum counter force.” His words, read round the world, directly undermined the president’s authority and the will of civilians in the middle of a volatile conflict.

Truman faced a difficult choice: tolerate insubordination or defend civilian control of the military — a cornerstone of democracy — but face harsh criticism. After much consideration, he chose the latter and fired the nation’s most famous and beloved general. The public erupted in outrage; Congress demanded hearings. And while MacArthur returned home to parades and an invitation to speak before Congress, history would vindicate Truman, with Americans eventually coming to understand and appreciate his decision. His refusal to respond in kind to MacArthur or escalate the war likely prevented a third world conflict involving nuclear weapons.

Had MacArthur held his tongue or voiced his disagreement privately, the nation might have avoided months of dangerous brinkmanship. Instead, his actions had reverberating effects on the nation and world, deepening Cold War fears and fracturing national unity.

In an age when everyone feels compelled to speak their mind, how do you keep yourself in check?

“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.”
— Thomas Jefferson

The impulse to act or respond instantly in a moment is a strong one — especially in today’s rage bait–fueled culture. A social media post grabs our attention, makes us angry, affirms our preconceived beliefs and we click “reshare” before we’ve even finished reading it. Before we’ve even considered if the words are true or if the author’s intentions are good and just (or if the author is a real person, for that matter). And before we stop to consider our own intentions.

The pressure to act instantly – to self-reflect, to think critically and to make a decision – can feel overwhelming. Only that’s not what’s happening in those moments, is it?

Because our bodies are terrible at distinguishing perceived threats from real ones, we may respond to a social media post about Trump’s immigration policies or a trans athlete on a girls’ soccer team the same way we would a grizzly bear standing 15 feet in front of us in a forest. Increased heart rate and blood pressure, tightened muscles, quickened breath, tunnel vision — what we know as the fight-or-flight response. This serves us well when faced with a predator, but when it comes to social media, it can be detrimental.

The problem lies in the fact that our automatic physiological response can override our prefrontal cortex (responsible for rational thinking), effectively hijacking our emotions. This can lead us to make rash decisions out of fear, anger or anxiety. As an article from Harvard Health Publishing notes, the fight-or-flight response can cause the body to “overreact to stressors that are not life-threatening, such as traffic jams, work pressure and family difficulties.”

While it’s easy to tell ourselves that resharing divisive political or ideological posts has no ramifications, that’s not quite true. In resharing this type of content with no due diligence, we risk boosting false information, fueling animosity, perpetuating echo chambers, increasing polarization, incentivizing toxicity and alienating people in the name of satisfying our own impulse.

We are not, however, powerless against it.

History shows us, time and time again, that some of the wisest, most consequential decisions were not made under pressure, in a fight-or-flight moment, but after their makers stepped back, slowed down … and went out of doors. Literally.

From wooded walks to quiet fishing trips, these leaders sought solace and clarity in nature, allowing their minds the time and space to wander. And while we might not be world leaders or world-renowned scientists, our responsibility to society, to think before we act, is no less great.

Contemplating emancipation

By the summer of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln had drafted the Emancipation Proclamation but hesitated. He knew the stakes: Such a decree would redefine the Union’s purpose in the Civil War and the nation’s identity itself. While wrestling with the timing and potential consequences, Lincoln would leave the White House for long walks. Away from the cabinet room, with only the quiet of the grounds and his own thoughts, Lincoln contemplated the gravity of the situation and the task that lay before him.

When the Union won at Antietam that September, he returned to the decision with a clearer mind and resolute will, issuing a proclamation that altered the course of American history.

Strolling through Bern

Albert Einstein’s most transformative ideas were not scribbled feverishly at a desk, rather while he wandered the streets of Bern. Working at the Swiss Patent Office in 1905, he would take breaks to wander the town’s streets, allowing his imagination to also meander. On those strolls and tram rides, he envisioned himself racing alongside a light beam or standing in an elevator in space. Through these mental exercises, or gedankenexperimente, he developed his theory of relativity. Einstein later admitted that the best ideas came when he sought solitude and allowed himself to daydream, giving his mind freedom from immediate tasks.

Painting in the garden

During the darkest days of World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill carried with him the weight of Britain’s survival. Yet he often retreated to painting in the gardens of Chartwell, his estate in Kent. There, brush in hand, he could immerse himself in color and form rather than Britain’s existential future. Far from dereliction, these respites steadied him for the next day’s fight in Parliament or the War Cabinet. Churchill’s ability to inspire and lead during these dark times was fueled by these shining moments, where reflection replaced panic and perspective displaced despair. As Churchill himself said, “painting came to my rescue in a most trying time.”

Fishing to find perspective

President Franklin D. Roosevelt also understood the wisdom of stepping away. Throughout the Great Depression and WWII, he would disappear on fishing trips or retreats, even taking Churchill with him on occasion. These excursions, which some – who wanted their leader constantly at his desk – saw as scandalous, were in fact critical resets. It was often after returning from such trips that Roosevelt unveiled bold programs or decisive wartime strategies — decisions shaped not by frantic meetings in Washington but by moments alone in nature.

Following one fishing trip in Texas, Roosevelt said, “The chief objective is to get a perspective on the scene which I cannot get in Washington. ... You have to go a long ways off so as to see things in their true perspective.”

When slowing down becomes a radical act

Leaders, thinkers and visionaries often changed history for the better not because they acted instantly, but because they resisted this impulse. By walking, painting, fishing, daydreaming or simply being outdoors, they granted themselves the clarity that only distance provides.

In a culture that seems to value speed above all else, their stories remind us that slowing down is sometimes the most radical act. When the stakes are high – and even when they don’t seem to be – the wisdom to pause, to step outside, go for a stroll, perhaps pick up a fishing pole, has the ability to change not only one’s own course but the course of history.

What do you do, or where do you go, when you want to slow down and reset?

“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.”
— St. Augustine

The philosopher St. Augustine didn’t believe in the existence of evil, rather that evil is the absence, or privation, of good. For Augustine, evil and suffering in a world created by an all-good God could be attributed to humans’ free will — a theory known as privatio boni.

No matter the theory you subscribe to, however, good and evil – or the absence of it – are two sides of the same coin. Strange bedfellows bound together in an eternal relationship that ebbs and flows with the passage of time, good and evil cannot exist independently of one another. Despite this, our culture tends to flatten people into heroes and villains, good and bad, black and white — especially after they’re gone (a tendency that says more about us than the people we’re judging).

In the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder, people were quick to lump him into one of two categories: a hatemonger, racist, misogynist and white supremacist, or a saint and martyr. And while we could refute the validity of all such claims, the one thing we know for certain is that he was human. Neither completely virtuous nor utterly villainous.

Yet, like our proclivity for both good and evil, our tendency to categorize people and things is a natural one. Traced back to our ancestors, this instinct was honed through years of natural selection.

Like all living things, it’s in our nature to seek the path of least resistance — a way of simplifying and navigating the world. Our brain, in an attempt to conserve energy, constantly takes mental shortcuts — rapidly interpreting available information, then classifying people, objects or ideas as “good” or “bad,” threatening or nonthreatening, in mere seconds. This cognitive process served us well when confronted by a sabre-toothed tiger in the forest or when distinguishing between Queen Anne’s Lace and Water Hemlock. But, in the modern world, the instinct to categorize based on broad generalizations often works against us (the collective “us” that is), fueling prejudice, stereotypes and tribalism — and instilling in those making the judgements a sense of moral superiority that gives defense to otherwise morally reprehensible acts.

This inclination leads us to idolize and raise up those with whom we most agree – forgetting or ignoring any wrongdoing – while vilifying and attempting to erase the contributions of those with whom we disagree. The problem with this us-versus-them mindset is that it limits our ability for empathy and genuine understanding, harming society more broadly.

Consider Thomas Jefferson, a man who authored the Declaration of Independence, commissioned the Lewis & Clark Expedition, doubled the size of the U.S. with the Louisiana Purchase and founded the University of Virginia — but who also owned slaves. Or Henry Ford, whose major contributions to innovation include the Model T, the moving assembly line and mass production; in addition, he doubled workers’ daily wage while reducing the workday to eight hours. But he was also an outspoken anti-Semite. Then there’s Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights pioneer whose nonviolent resistance efforts led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but who was known as a philanderer. And, of course, John F. Kennedy, an inspirational leader and champion of civil rights with a reputation for being a womanizer. And finally, Steve Jobs, a visionary tech leader known for his staggering cruelty to both his daughter and his employees.

These men prove that two things can be true at once — that a person can do extraordinary good but also do wrong. If we were to dismiss them entirely for their misdeeds, we would also diminish their unique and lasting contributions to society — contributions that we still benefit from today: freedom from a tyrannical government, the achievement of equal rights, manufacturing excellence, unmatched technological innovation. Instead, we should see them as they really are — not unlike ourselves — understanding that humans are not solely good or bad, villainous or angelic, black or white, but dynamic and complex individuals who are everything all at the same time.

In a world in which evil and good coalesce, we would be wise to consider the words of the person who understood this more than anyone. As Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Our role is not to cast stones, but to discern carefully, give credit where it’s due and hold people accountable where they’ve failed. Because when we fail to acknowledge the good, we allow evil to fill the void.

How do you strive to see the good in everyone in your daily life? Please share your thoughts below.

“The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.”
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
—Socrates

At the age of 16, I suddenly became overwhelmed by a desire to know all things and be all things. To be the ideal, perfectly well-rounded person.

My passions, interests and desire to be a good person pulled me in every direction. The realization that there were so many things I didn’t know, that would take me years to learn — things that I may never know — overpowered me, and for a time, I was depressed.

My desire for knowledge had pulled me in one direction, but it could have just as easily pushed me in another. To a place where knowledge is absolute, where it digs in its heels and says I’ve seen enough. That is the place where knowledge stops and arrogance and ignorance begin.

One night a few years ago, as my family sat down to dinner, my daughter — then 3 years old — turned to me and my husband and, in her small voice, said, “Mommy, Daddy, are there things I don't know?” Shaking off our astonishment, we told her the truth — that of course there were things she didn’t know, that there were many things that we still didn’t know, even as adults — and that that’s OK. Learning, we told her, is a lifelong process and realizing that you don’t know everything, or even most things, is the most important knowledge a person can have.

As William Shakespeare once wrote — in his play Henry VI (part 2):

“Ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”

For the curious, knowledge begets more knowledge. To the indifferent or dogmatic, it becomes hazardous — a weapon to be wielded as you please. As English novelist Samuel Butler once wrote: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.”

To assume that our current treasury of knowledge is complete — or perfect — is flawed (just consider the practice of bloodletting). Rather, we should always be seeking and questioning. As notable management consultant and author Peter Drucker said, “Knowledge has to be improved, challenged and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”

For the great thinkers Copernicus and Galileo, this meant facing off against the very orthodoxy that sought to limit the pursuit of knowledge.

Up until the 16th and 17th centuries, people believed in the geocentric model of the universe

— the idea that the Earth is at its center and that the sun and planets revolve around it. First put forth by Greek astronomer and mathematician Eudoxus around 380 BCE, the model was further refined by the Greek philosopher Aristotle and, later, the Roman mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy. Despite its complexity, the geocentric model remained the prevailing view of the universe for nearly 1,500 years.

And it’s easy to see why.

As Daisy Dobrijevic writes for Space.com, “When gazing up at the night sky from what feels like a fixed reference point and witnessing the stars and planets dance across the sky, we can understand why the ancient Greeks adopted the geocentric view of the universe. … Most of the time the model worked. It could explain why stars appear to rotate around Earth once per day and why planets move differently to stars.”

The model also aligned with religious beliefs of that time in which the gods created man and thus man must be at the center of the universe. But as people have continued to study the skies so, too, have we continued to advance technologically and scientifically.

By the time the astronomer and mathematician Copernicus entered the picture in the early 1500s, the geocentric model had long been the accepted version of the solar system, by the Catholic Church and others. Copernicus, however, challenged this model, proposing instead a simplified version of the solar system. One in which the sun – like a life source – sits at the center, while the Earth and all other planets revolve around it. Understanding the turmoil that his heliocentric model would cause among both the scientific and religious communities, Copernicus held off on publishing his theory until the year of his death, in 1543.

It wasn’t until decades later, when Galileo came along, that the idea that humans weren’t the center of the universe began to be more widely explored and considered. In 1610, Galileo made two discoveries that supported the heliocentric view of the solar system: moons orbiting Jupiter, which proved “objects could orbit objects other than Earth,” Dobrijevic writes. “Secondly, he discovered that — like the moon — Venus had phases, which further confirmed the theory that Venus (and the other planets in the solar system) orbit the sun.”

The concept of a heliocentric universe still highly controversial, Galileo’s theory was labeled heresy by the Catholic Church.

“Following his own observations and the findings by other astronomers, no one could really argue anymore that what one saw through the telescope was an optical illusion, and not a faithful reproduction of the world,” Mario Livio, author of the book Galileo and the Science Deniers, writes for History.com. “The only defense remaining to those refusing to accept the conclusions first proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus … and bolstered by accumulating facts and scientific reasoning, was to reject the interpretation of the results.”

The Church argued that the heliocentric model Galileo pushed conflicted with scripture as well as the geocentric model that was a central part of Catholic orthodoxy. Despite this, Galileo published his findings in his book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems — a move that led the Catholic Church to launch an inquisition into the man now considered “the father of modern science.”

Following a three-part trial, in 1633, the Church concluded that Galileo had violated the church’s prohibition on holding, teaching or defending the Copernican view of the universe. For this, Galileo was forced to renounce Copernicanism and to recant much of his life’s work.

It would be more than a century till the heliocentric model first proposed by Copernicus and later refined by Galileo would become widely accepted — mounting evidence eventually making it impossible for both scientists and the Church to reject. Today, it remains the prevailing view, contributing to our growing understanding of the universe and our place in it — but only because there were those who dared to question and look beyond current knowledge, who were committed to seeking truth.

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“Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals.”
— George Orwell

“Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.”
—Ronald Reagan

The other day, I happened upon a video of CNN’s Jake Tapper speaking with Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo.

“It’s really about ethics,” Ladapo said. “Is it appropriate for a government or any other entity to dictate to you what you should put in your body? No, it’s absolutely not appropriate. You have sovereignty over your body.”

What Ladapo’s referring to, of course, is Florida’s controversial decision to eliminate vaccine mandates, including those for school-age children. Following the news breaking on September 3, legacy media outlets published a flurry of articles with headlines such as “Florida Is About to Have a Lot More Sick Kids” and “Florida’s anti-vaccine push leads dangerous shift for US public health.”

But there’s another story there, one that, I argue, is more newsworthy.

While Florida’s rollback only applies to the hepatitis B, chickenpox, haemophilus influenza type b (Hib) and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines — the elimination of other vaccines would have to be voted on by lawmakers, which Ladapo also advocates for — the move represents a first. In removing the vaccine mandate, which will take effect 90 days following the day of the announcement, Florida will become the first state to adopt such a policy that gives autonomy back to parents, at a time when questions around vaccine safety are increasing.

Government restoring power to the people? Now that’s a story.

Body sovereignty — the idea that a person has autonomy over his or her own body — is not a new concept. It has its roots in ancient philosophy, with stoics like Epictetus teaching about self-mastery and laying the groundwork for the idea that the body and mind belong to the individual. Medieval Christian philosophers, particularly St. Thomas Aquinas, argued that humans are bestowed with dignity from God and have a right to preserve their own life, reinforcing the idea that each person has authority over their body. Then enter John Locke, who believed in the concept of self-ownership, the idea that every man has a property in his own person. The latter ultimately became the basis for contemporary notions of bodily autonomy and personal liberty.

This basic concept — the idea that one has the right to decide what’s best for him or herself and their body — is one that, though simple in theory, has been decidedly complicated in practice, as it’s often twisted and distorted to align with a given ideology. On the left, bodily autonomy means women being able to decide whether or not to abort a fetus, or people — even children — being able to have sex-change operations. It translates to policies like the banning of Big Gulps, the mandating of vaccines and the decriminalization of drugs. In direct contradiction to the left, bodily autonomy on the right translates to people being able to decide if and what medical interventions they and their children receive, including vaccines. It often takes the form of blocking access to birth control, abortion and sex changes for minors, as well as criminalizing recreational drugs.

Both sides value bodily autonomy — just in different ways. It’s where they draw the line that differs. For liberals, the line is often where individual choice threatens public welfare. For conservatives, the line is often where individual choice conflicts with moral or religious principles, or with responsibility to unborn or dependent life.

All of these factors are relevant and should be considered and weighed against each other. But, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, many of these oft-used, malleable and contradictory applications of bodily autonomy risk putting everyone’s autonomy, well, at risk. Because, when we allow government to dictate what we can or must do to our bodies in one instance, it becomes a little like boiling a frog.

Many cautionary tales exist throughout history, demonstrating what governments are capable of when given power over citizens’ bodies — and who is often the most harmed. Take the case of Carrie Buck …

In the early 20th century, as the eugenics movement began to take hold

— proponents viewing it as a solution to a host of social problems — some countries and U.S. states began passing laws enabling the forced sterilization of people deemed unfit to be parents. These people often included mentally ill individuals and criminals in state custody. Indiana became the first state to enact such a law in 1907, and by the 1920s, more than 20 states had them.

One such woman, Carrie Buck was committed to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded in 1924. Buck’s parents accused her of “immorality” after she’d been raped and impregnated by her foster father. Virginia was one such state that allowed for the sexual sterilization of institutionalized individuals — a law passed in 1924 designed to promote the “health of the patient and the welfare of society.” Buck, it was decided, would serve as a tool to demonstrate the new law’s constitutionality, with officials issuing an order for her sterilization. But first, she had to be granted a hearing.

Doctors claimed that Buck, her mother Emma and Buck’s baby daughter Vivian all showed signs of “feeblemindedness.” Buck’s guardian, however, argued the order violated her constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. The case, known as Buck v. Bell was taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld Virginia’s law — noting that sterilization could be justified for the welfare of society. Writing for the 8-1 majority, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote:

“Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

The decision not only led to Buck’s own sterilization, but also gave legal cover to forced sterilization programs across the U.S. Approximately 60,000–70,000 Americans were sterilized under these laws, which disproportionately targeted poor women, minorities and those in state care. The Court’s ruling was cited as justification for these policies by other states and, nearly two decades later, by Nazi lawyers at the Nuremberg trials.

The ruling itself has never officially been overturned, but subsequent SCOTUS cases have recognized procreation as a fundamental right and have severely limited sterilization practices. Most states eliminated or drastically reduced their programs by the 1970s, with some issuing apologies. As of 2022, however, 31 states and Washington, D.C., continue to have laws allowing the forced sterilization of disabled people.

Buck’s case is a stark reminder of how fear can be (and is) used to justify the erosion of civil liberties. It speaks to the corruptible nature of power and how “scientific consensus” can be used to strip individuals of their sovereignty, agency and dignity — all in the name of the “public good.”

"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. … The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
— Frederick Douglass

“We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.”
— George Orwell, “Nineteen Eighty-Four”

In 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, with data from the FBI, created a list of approximately 16 individuals who were considered too dangerous to travel by plane. This “No-Fly List,” as it was dubbed, was created as a security precaution to keep suspected terrorists from boarding commercial aircraft.

The list was designed to protect air passengers and provide Americans with a sense of security during a time of heightened anxiety around air travel in particular. Yet, this tool still exists today — but with a much wider scope.

Following the creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in 2001 and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003 — which are responsible for the application of the No-Fly List, using data from the FBI — the list was rapidly expanded. While the exact number of names on the current list is unknown — as DHS doesn’t release this information — leaked documents published by the Intercept showed 47,000 names as of August 2013, a number that included 800 Americans.

In his critique of the application of the No-Fly List, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute Jim Harper stated, “It’s just entirely unconstitutional to have a direct executive branch punishment without the intermediary of a judge.”

The move, though controversial, was hardly without precedent.

This plot has played out before, both here and in other countries, in which governments have eroded civil liberties in the name of the greater good. Examples include the British Defense of the Realm Act (1914), Germany’s Enabling Act (1933) and the U.S. Patriot Act (2001), to name a few.

Same approach, different story.

Whether driven by fear or anger or some other emotion in reaction to some event, our government has been wont to restrict our civil liberties, in the name of safety and security. One could view their cause as just – even admirable – but as history has shown us time and time again, these measures are often not applied in a just and transparent manner and have a tendency to expand far beyond their initial timeline and scope. Perhaps most importantly, they create a slippery slope on which, with the swipe of a pen or the creation of a new department, the government can further erode our rights … for the purpose of the greater good.

Take President Trump, who last Monday signed an executive order that directs the Attorney General to prosecute individuals who desecrate the flag. While the order may ultimately carry little weight, its signing can be seen as a workaround to the protections previously afforded to flag burning.

As Newsweek’s Khaleda Rahman writes, “Though the order acknowledged the Supreme Court’s 1989 ruling that flag burning is protected under the First Amendment, it said there is room to prosecute if it ‘is likely to incite imminent lawless action’ or amounts to ‘fighting words.’” This type of speech, however, is already not protected under the First Amendment, per past Supreme Court decisions.

The discomfort of free speech

The desire to ban certain types of speech, however, is as old as the desire of a people to be free. And it’s understandable.

Certain speech is repulsive. It can make us angry, fearful, uncomfortable. But in a free country, as in the U.S., the burden is not on the speaker to adapt, but on the listener.

I may not like it when people burn the flag or don’t stand for the national anthem, or express hateful ideologies. I might think it repulsive, hypocritical, arrogant or performative. But, because I value my own right to speak my mind, I also value that of individuals with whom I disagree.

It’s for the free marketplace of ideas to decide which ones have merit. Not me, not you — and certainly not the government.

Instead, we need a society that places more emphasis on sitting with discomfort — one that values individuals’ right to speak out without venerating their ideas.

Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has defended the First Amendment time and time again, affirming the rights of those with even the most deplorable beliefs to express themselves, as in the case of the National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie. For the Court understands that, as in the words of Harvey Silverglate, co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE):

“It’s important to know who the Nazis in the room are so that I know not to turn my back on them.”

In spring of 1977, the neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Party of America planned a march through the northern Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois. Known for its large Jewish population, including many survivors of the Holocaust, residents were naturally alarmed and opposed the demonstration.

Skokie officials attempted to stop the march from taking place, securing a court injunction and passing ordinances requiring costly insurance bonds. They also banned Nazi uniforms and the distribution of materials with hateful rhetoric.

With the help of the ACLU, the Nazis challenged Skokie’s actions, claiming they violated their First Amendment rights. The case ultimately made its way to the Supreme Court, and in 1977, SCOTUS said that the Illinois courts had improperly delayed the group’s ability to appeal, amounting to “an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech.” The Court emphasized that speech — even hateful speech — can’t be restrained without strict constitutional safeguards.

The case was remanded back to the Illinois Supreme Court, where Skokie attorneys argued that, for Holocaust survivors, seeing the swastika was akin to being physically attacked. The Court rejected this argument, stating in its ruling:

“We do not doubt that the sight of this symbol is abhorrent… Yet… this factor does not justify enjoining defendants’ speech. The display of the swastika… is a form of symbolic political speech protected by the First Amendment.”

Although SCOTUS didn’t decide outright whether Skokie could ban the march, its ruling set a precedent, establishing that even the most hateful, offensive speech cannot be censored simply because it’s abhorrent.

The ACLU, for its part, reportedly lost thousands of members for defending the rights of Nazis. The organization, however, understood the slippery slope that is the degradation of our civil liberties, acknowledging that if the First Amendment doesn’t apply to the worst speech, then it can be eroded for all speech.

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“If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
— George Washington

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Thus reads what is perhaps the most famous document in the history of the world, and one that sets the United States apart from all other nations: The Declaration of Independence. A document that’s purpose was to restore power to a people too long at the will of an aristocracy more than 3,000 miles away. A move that challenged that power and would result in death, heartbreak, destruction — and that would be clouded all the while by the threat of the consequences should they fail.

It was the necessary next step for a world that knew little of freedom and a soon-to-be nation that was both capable and desirous of self-governance. In this place where self-sufficiency was a determinant of survival, where your ability to provide and protect was a harbinger of your future – be it ruin or prosperity — independence was not a radical idea, but a way of life.

On paper and in practice, it was not perfect — some were initially denied the freedom that so defined the lives of many. But its foundation, “that all men are created equal,” was a promise, a goal to aspire to, a chance to be better. To be free.

Even as a slave owner, Thomas Jefferson expressed this belief, writing in a letter to his friend and clergyman Charles Clay:

“The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches ... we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time, and eternally press forward for what is yet to get.”

Beyond their bravery and guile, the thing that helped Americans affirm their unalienable rights – first in 1776 and subsequently in 1865 — and has continued to guarantee it, was not some tool handed down by God but rather a man-made device of wood, iron and steel. Common in all households at the time, this instrument was, of course, the rifle.

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”
—George Washington

“We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”
—Viktor E. Frankl

One doesn’t have to look too hard or too far nowadays to find discussions about healing and trauma — the topics now as common as the weather or our latest streaming watchlist.

Partly an outgrowth of the pandemic, mental health has enjoyed a tremendous decline in the stigma that once shrouded it — one of the only redeeming things to come out of the pandemic era. This heightened awareness of and focus on healing and health has led many to prioritize their mental and emotional well-being, seeking help and working to overcome painful past experiences.

That, in itself, is a good thing.

But the focus on dealing with and overcoming our struggles quickly became a preoccupation, followed by an obsession. It’s led to a tendency to lean into and exaggerate our trauma and suffering. Now, we don’t just look inward, we open up about negative and painful experiences with friends, family, neighbors, acquaintances, strangers on social media.

The result is a culture compulsively focused on preventing and eliminating any sources of conflict or suffering, while at the same time creating trauma where none previously existed.

So, with all this attention being paid to our mental and emotional health, the question then is, are we happier?

According to recent data, the answer is, not so much.

The most recent World Happiness Report — which ranks the happiest countries based on how a representative sample of residents from 140-plus nations rate their quality of life — the U.S. dropped to its lowest ranking in the list’s 13-year history to No. 24. Americans under 30 are some of the least happy among us. If the report assessed only the contentment of these young people, the U.S. wouldn’t even rank among the 60 happiest countries. A January 2024 Gallup survey reinforces this growing discontentment, with less than half of Americans of all ages saying they’re “very satisfied” with their lives.

It seems that, despite all of our examinations, all of our attempts at healing, all of our avoidance of conflict and all of our “traumatization” — if I can coin a phrase — of events, we still struggle to find satisfaction.

Or … is it that this fixation has in fact made us worse off.

As Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist Viktor E. Frankl wrote, “I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, ‘homeostasis,’ i.e., a tensionless state.”

Frankl believed that stress served a purpose on the path to mental well-being and fulfillment.

“It can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension,” he said, “the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become.”

Frankl knew all too well that suffering was often a conduit for finding deeper meaning and purpose.

By the time he arrived at Theresienstadt ghetto and concentration camp in 1942,

Frankl had been practicing psychology for more than a decade. With a focus on suicide prevention, he had developed his own school of psychology, known as logotherapy (Greek for “healing through meaning”), distinct from the likes of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. But, unlike his mentors, Frankl believed an individual’s primary motivation in life is the search for meaning.

His experience in four different concentration camps between 1942 and 1945 only deepened his belief in the importance of purpose.

During the Holocaust, Frankl, like other Nazi prisoners, endured hard labor, disease, torture, starvation, as well as separation from and the death of loved ones. Yet in spite of all of this, as Frankl observed, some of the prisoners retained their dignity and humanity.

Under such horrific circumstances, how could some find the strength to go on when others so willingly gave up, Frankl wondered?

The answer, he concluded, wasn’t just a matter of physical strength or luck, but depended on whether or not a person had a sense of meaning, or purpose. As he would later write, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”

Once liberated from Türkheim concentration camp, a subcamp of Dachau, in 1945, Frankl returned to his home in Vienna alone, having lost his father, mother, brother and pregnant wife in the concentration camps. But he had also lost his book manuscript, which the Nazis had taken from him at Theresienstadt.

Over the course of nine days, Frankl completed his second iteration of the manuscript, which we now know as the best-selling book “Man’s Search for Meaning.” In it, he shares his experience and that of other prisoners in the concentration camps, including the ability of some to find meaning despite their lack of control over their circumstances.

“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed,” Frankl wrote. “For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation … we are challenged to change ourselves.”

While Frankl believed that complete avoidance of suffering is impossible, he didn’t think it necessary in order to find meaning. Rather, he believed suffering could bring a kind of clarity to those who were lacking.

“I only insist that meaning is possible even in spite of suffering — provided, certainly, that the suffering is unavoidable,” he wrote. “To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”

To Frankl, how we respond to the situations life throws at us — how we endure, how we process and move past these experiences, and the meaning we derive from them — is the choice between adding value to the world, or detracting from it.

“The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life,” Frankl wrote. “It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation, he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.”

Recommended reading

If you haven’t yet, I recommend picking up a copy of “Man’s Search for Meaning.” And, if you’d like to learn more about Viktor Frankl, his life, experience or his school of psychology, check out the Viktor E. Frankl Institute of America.

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“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
—Victor E. Frankl

“No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.”
—John Steinbeck

In late June 1940, as Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels was printing articles describing the Nazi’s defeat of France as vindication of their racial and national superiority, across the ocean, John Steinbeck was penning a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt encouraging him to ramp up the U.S.’s own propaganda efforts.

That spring, while working on a film project in Mexico, Steinbeck became concerned with the pervasiveness of Axis propaganda in Latin America, specifically that it outweighed that of Allied powers.

“In the light of this experience and against a background of the international situation,” he wrote to Roosevelt, “I am forced to the conclusion that a crisis in the Western Hemisphere is imminent, and is to be met only by an immediate, controlled, considered and directed method and policy.”

His proposal was the creation of propaganda office and the “method” of which he spoke was “to make for understanding rather than friction.”

Shortly thereafter, Roosevelt met with Steinbeck, kicking off what would become the author’s ongoing involvement with the Allies’ war effort. Beyond working for two government organizations — the Office of Coordinator of Information and the Office of Strategic Services (both precursors to the CIA) — Steinbeck’s greatest contribution to the Allies’ cause was a book called “The Moon Is Down.”

Published just before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the book is informed by Steinbeck’s interactions with displaced citizens from countries occupied by Germany. The work of fiction describes the occupation of an unnamed European country by a foreign invader and their ultimate resistance — clearly resembling Germany’s occupation of the likes of Norway, Denmark and France.

Steinbeck’s approach, however, differed from many others of that time. He chose to depict the invaders not as stereotypical, one-dimensional villains (or demons, dragons or skeletons), but as dynamic human beings facing conflicting feelings about their mission and desirous of the comforts of home. Critics of the book cited this portrayal, claiming it imparted a fairy tale atmosphere and accusing Steinbeck of naiveté.

But Steinbeck stood resolute in his decision, writing:

Despite this denouncement, “The Moon Is Down” received its fair share of praise, but more important was the book’s reception in Nazi-occupied Western Europe, where citizens venerated it and Nazis banned it. It was translated, printed, distributed and passed from person to person — with some copies even dropped from planes — across Norway, Denmark, Holland and France. Hundreds of thousands of copies were ultimately disseminated across Europe, with many individuals taking great risk to distribute them. (It’s said that in Italy, the mere possession of the book was a death sentence.)

Sales of the book helped fund the resistance in France, Denmark and Holland. And beyond Axis countries, it’s said to have had an impact in other occupied nations across the world, including China, which at the time was occupied, in part, by the Japanese. Since its publication in 1942, “The Moon Is Down” has appeared in 92 editions across at least 28 countries.

As author Donald V. Coers wrote in the Introduction to the 1995 edition of the book, “Few literary works in our time have demonstrated so triumphantly the power of ideas in the face of cold steel and brute force, and few have spoken so reassuringly to so many people of different countries and cultures.”

It was not in spite of but specifically because of its method of not dehumanizing the enemy that “The Moon Is Down” was so effective, particularly among nations facing occupation. For all Steinbeck’s literary ability, it was his empathy that made the book so successful.

Following the war, when questioned by Norwegians about his perceptiveness — why he believed his approach would work — Steinbeck replied:

“I put myself in your place and thought what I would do.”

Recommended reading

If you haven’t yet, I recommend picking up a copy of “The Moon Is Down” or reading this free online version.

To learn more about Steinbeck’s involvement in the Allies’ propaganda effort, pick up a copy of Coer’s book “John Steinbeck Goes to War: The Moon Is Down As Propaganda.”

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"Humans are caught — in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity, too — in a net of good and evil."

— John Steinbeck, “East of Eden”

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

—Benjamin Franklin

On November 16, 1776, 25-year-old Margaret Corbin — dressed as a man — joined her husband John on the battlefield in the fight to defend Fort Washington on Manhattan Island. When John was struck and killed by British cannon fire, she took over his post at the cannon, continuing to load and fire upon the British until she, too, was hit in the left arm, chest and jaw, and eventually taken prisoner.

Although the British won the battle — with Corbin among the prisoners of war released back to Revolutionary hospitals — the Americans ultimately won the war. For her service, which left her unable to use her left arm ever again, Corbin was awarded a lifelong military pension (albeit only half that of male soldiers).

But, more importantly, Corbin had helped Americans gain their right to self-determination — to make decisions about their own lives and how they should be governed. Despite the fact that, as a woman, Corbin would not gain that right herself for another 140-plus years.

For Americans like Corbin, the path to freedom — like the American Revolution itself — has been a slow, steady climb. Achieved through incremental victories, beginning with the greatest of them all. And while its benefits were initially reserved solely for white men, freedom, like an object in motion, is difficult to stop.

By the early 1900s it was discussed at domestic gatherings and among womens’ clubs, whispered about on Indian reservations and dreamed about in black communities. And one by one, through many hard-fought battles, freedom notched another victory and another and another. Each bringing new understanding of what freedom meant and who was allowed to reap its rewards.

Albert Camus had it right when he said, “Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better” — not just from a moral standpoint. But because freedom brings with it the potential for progress.

On a basic level, the “chance” that Camus speaks of is little more than the opportunity to try. The ability to explore the world; to pursue new endeavors, fail or succeed; to build confidence; to try new ways of doing things; to choose your own path; to contribute your natural talents to the greater good; to find fulfillment.

Freedom affords us many things. What you choose to do with it is up to you.

For some, like Joni Mitchell, this has meant creating art or music: “Freedom to me is a luxury of being able to follow the path of the heart, to keep the magic in your life,” she said. “Freedom is necessary for me in order to create, and if I cannot create I don’t feel alive.”

Yet, this same freedom that allows us to conquer fears and build new things and know the power of discipline also allows us to choose idleness — a state that often inevitably gives way to sloth, apathy and insecurity. Thus the freedom that is so liberating for some is just as frightening to others. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said:

“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

And so, out of fear or laziness or apathy, some have sought out – even demanded – bigger government. Through government intervention and support, from programs and monies to laws and restrictions and bans, we’ve slowly given up the right to self-determination for which Margaret Corbin and others so bravely fought. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt aptly put it, “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

Consequently, it was our nation’s first leader, who, so aware of freedom’s frailty, willingly gave up his power once he had achieved it.

At the end of 1776, George Washington’s army, badly battered and nearly broken, found renewed vigor in a series of small victories against the British army and its hired Hessians. Seeing the opportunity to retake the momentum, the Continental Congress granted Washington unlimited power to do what he thought necessary to win the war. A responsibility not taken lightly by Washington, he wrote to Congress in response:

“Instead of thinking myself free’d from all civil Obligations, by this mark of their Confidence, I shall constantly bear in Mind, that as the Sword was the last Resort for the preservation of our Liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside, when those Liberties are firmly established.”

As Washington so well understood, freedom exists for those brave enough to claim it and those smart enough to never willingly give it up.

“It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
—Samuel Adams

A little bewildered (as this was a first for me), my husband assured me his insult was indeed directed at us. We both had a good laugh, joked about how it was more likely that my car was made in America than his and moved on to another topic.

But with the incident still lingering in my mind, I began to seethe. This man, who knew nothing about me other than the fact that I owned a Prius judged me based on that one fact alone. He knew nothing of the fact that I had to commute two hours every day to work and spent a fifth of my salary on gas — notwithstanding the fact that my salary was below the poverty line at that time.

How dare he … fucker.

But perhaps more than that, I was bothered by the fact that I was bothered. Why did I care so much what this man thought? Who was he anyways? He was no one to me; I likely would never see him again (or even recognize him if I did). His remark and insult had no bearing on my life, and yet I allowed his words to take hold of me, filling me with momentary rage.

Of course, it wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time something like this happened.

Afterall, the desire to be understood and judged for who we truly are is a powerful and natural one. And when someone makes no attempt to do so, anger, too, is a natural reaction.

But emotions, though natural and easy, aren’t known for being the best guide. They’re messy and fallible, often result in rash decision-making and rarely lead to progress.

The more difficult thing to do is to react with curiosity — something Daryl Davis knows a little about.

It was the music that brought us together.

As a young blues musician, Daryl Davis was accustomed to hopping from bar to bar, playing in various bands. But one night in 1983, after performing in a country band at the Silver Dollar Lounge in Frederick, Maryland, he experienced something entirely new.

An older man approached him to compliment his playing.

“I thanked him, shook his hand and he says, ‘You know this is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis,’” Davis later told NPR.

Surprised that the man had no knowledge of the black blues and “boogie woogie” origins of Lewis’ music, Davis enlightened him. And although the man didn’t believe him, he invited Davis to join him for a drink — admittedly a first for the man. “He says, ‘You know, this is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black man?’” Davis said.

The man, it turned out, was a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan (even showing Davis his card to prove it). Before they parted ways, the man gave Davis his number, telling him to call him any time he was playing that bar.

“It was the music that brought us together,” Davis said. “That was a seed planted. So what do you do when you plant a seed? You nourish it.”

Davis called the man every time he played that bar, eventually asking him if he would introduce him to other Klan members. Soon Davis began traveling the country, meeting with KKK leaders and members seeking an answer to the question: “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”

Armed with vast knowledge about the KKK, he met with hundreds of Klansmen to have an honest conversation and to try to understand them.

“That began to chip away at their ideology because when two enemies are talking, they’re not fighting,” Davis said. “It’s when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence.”

Taking place over the span of 40-plus years, these meetings ultimately led over 200 Klansmen to leave the KKK, many of them giving their robes and hoods to Davis to keep.

“If you spend five minutes with your worst enemy … you will find that you both have something in common,” Davis said. “As you build upon those commonalities, you’re forming a relationship and as you build that relationship, you’re forming a friendship. That’s what would happen. I didn’t convert anybody. They saw the light and converted themselves.”

Read more about Daryl Davis’ experience here.

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“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”
—Albert Einstein

To give you some context, we live on the outskirts of St. Louis, in an area where subdivisions and shopping centers bleed into dramatic hills and valleys dotted with agricultural and horse farms, in a subdivision comprised of homes constructed in the 1980s and 90s. Where we own just over 4 acres and my two young children play in our large front yard for hours on end, largely unaccompanied.

That is to say that mountain lions are not a common occurrence around here. So, my neighbor’s news was both laughable and nerve racking.

This wouldn’t be the first time I’d heard of these wild cats being spotted in Missouri. In January 2023, a mountain lion was struck by a car on a main highway — in a town 30 miles southwest of us. In December 2024, a hunter was charged for killing a mountain lion in a town 55 miles south of us. And numerous other claims across social media and local news outlets have been made in areas surrounding us and even closer to the city. This is to say nothing of the increasing number of sightings confirmed by the state’s conservation department since the 90s.

Following my initial but brief disbelief, my reaction to my neighbor’s tip, like any concerned person and mother, was fear and concern. Could I no longer let my kids play freely outside? Should I start taking a knife on my walks? Was this why we haven’t been seeing as many deer?

But, taking all the information we had into account — the fact that this was a one-time, second-hand sighting, but among a growing number in the state, and the many positives of letting my children run wild outside (not to mention my daily walks) — we continued living our lives the way we had. Our kids still roam free, and I still enjoy my daily walks. (As for the deer, well, they’ll have to fend for themselves.)

But we did become more vigilant and told our kids to as well. And while I don’t love the thought of a mountain lion running wild in my subdivision, I’m not about to completely change my life based on one, yet unproven, passing comment or even the possibility of its truth. (I have a similar mindset when it comes to news and politics, my children’s stories and my husband’s weightlifting claims.)

There’s value in having information, considering it, being skeptical of it, doing your own research and being aware of all possibilities.

That’s the thing about awareness, it empowers — whereas fear controls.

Awareness coupled with a healthy dose of skepticism — about what could happen, what has happened and of individuals’ motives — can help us make better decisions in the present.

He who pays the piper
calls the tune

In 1967, Harvard researchers and prominent figures in nutrition science Drs. Mark Hegsted and Frederick Stare, along with their colleague Robert McGandy, published an eye-opening study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Questions and rumors over the causes of congenital heart disease were circulating and the study seemed to definitively put those to rest.

The culprit? Saturated fats. Due to their correlation to high cholesterol, saturated fats, the researchers concluded, were the largest risk factor for heart disease.

As for sugar, the study’s authors said any evidence as to its correlation was weak and inconsistent, with previous studies noting otherwise attributed to “confounding variables.”

“The major evidence today suggests that control of saturated fat and total fat intake is the most promising dietary approach to the prevention of coronary heart disease,” they wrote.

The public health reaction was swift. Consumers swapped fatty foods for sugary cereals, fruit juices and the new, specially designed low-fat products flooding the market. And sugar was accepted as a harmless, if not essential, part of the American diet.

The only problem was … it wasn’t true.

In response to a surge in media attention around sucrose’s potential links to heart disease, the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) secretly funded the study, titled “Dietary Fats, Carbohydrates and Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease.”

In 2016, nearly 50 years after the study’s publication, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, led by Dr. Cristin Kearns, discovered more than 340 documents showing that SRF had paid the study’s authors the equivalent of $50,000 in 2016 dollars to downplay the role of sugar in heart disease risk and point the finger at fat.

“As the saying goes, he who pays the piper calls the tune,” said senior author Dr. Stanton Glantz. “There are all kinds of ways that you can subtly manipulate the outcome of a study, which industry is very well practiced at.”

Read more about Kearns and her team’s findings here.

Georgia Tann had a special place in her heart for children. Having seen at a young age the damaging effects poverty could have on them, she made it her life’s work to do something about it.

As a young woman, she took a job working at the Tennessee Children’s Home in Memphis, helping oversee child welfare and adoption placements for orphaned or abandoned children. Though the children were not always neglected or abused, Tann found the conditions in which many of the children were living appalling. So, on a welfare visit in 1924, Tann abducted a child, using candy to lure him to her vehicle. Claiming he was neglected by his mother, she had him placed with new adoptive parents.

This launched what would become a 25-year enterprise in which she ultimately prioritized profit and power over the welfare of the children she was charged with protecting. Tann ultimately abducted and placed an estimated 5,000 children with adoptive, and at times abusive, parents. With the help of many others, including nurses, judges and politicians, she took young children from their family homes and infants from their single mothers’ hospital bedsides, often claiming they were stillborn.

At the height of the Great Depression, at a time when many Americans were struggling to afford basic necessities, Tann was quietly amassing her fortune. Selling children for upwards of $700 a piece (the equivalent of $10,000 today), largely to out-of-state families, Tann made over $1 million.

In 1950, just as Tann’s crimes were coming to light, she died of uterine cancer at the age of 59.

Listen to the full story of Georgia Tann on Wondery’s 63rd season of “American Scandal,” here.

“The greatest evil … is conceived and ordered … in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”

—C.S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters”

In our modern times, it can seem as if the act of taking a stand is something relegated to history books, folklore, myths, the Bible. Afterall, I doubt most of us find ourselves facing down a genocidal authoritarian regime, a mocking giant or a power-hungry sociopath.

Yet we face invisible giants every day … perhaps especially in the now times.

One person, feeling emboldened by their “platform,” disparaging another because of what they believe (or are purported to believe), where they are from, who they voted for or the causes they support. People refusing to publicly live by their values or stand for ideas for fear of being fired, ridiculed or simply disliked. Defaulting to compliance even when the situation demands moral action. Knowingly or blinding following rather than questioning and examining.

Far worse are those who are physically targeted because of their religion, race or some other characteristic.

But to ignore the fact that we have a choice is to deny one’s humanity — and that of others. Too often, throughout history, evil actors have gotten away with their deeds only because bystanders, either through willful ignorance or something as basic as a lack of curiosity, stood idly by.

But that is both the benefit and responsibility that come with having free will. It constantly asks of us, will we do what is easy or what is right?

Standing up requires movement, action, bucking the status quo — a conscious decision to act based on values as opposed to social cues, regardless of the personal costs.

It means acknowledging the human condition, instead of repressing it.

Like a muscle, the courage to take a stand, too, must be worked and stretched and fed. Standing up to my sister’s bullies in after-school care, standing up for a friend on the playground, standing up to a demeaning boss — it’s a muscle I’ve continued to develop over time, so that flexing it becomes easier and more natural.

As Greek philosopher Aristotle said: “We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit.”

Remember then that heroes aren’t just the stuff of myths; they’re not confined to the page or screen. They too live and breathe and hope and bleed. They’re everyday folk … just like you and me.

And their actions, like our own, can have reverberating effects …

Such a fine, sunny
day, and I have to go …

It was a crisp February day, and Sophie Scholl stood bound by the gray stone walls of Munich’s Stadelheim Prison — a stark contrast to the bright blue sky stretching out above her. In front of her stood her interrogator, her older brother Hans, Chaplain Alt and a prison guard. Beside her, her executioner.

Perhaps she thought of her father in this moment … and how proud he might be if he could see her now.

For she was far from her days as a member of the National Socialist Party’s League of German Girls, which she’d joined to his chagrin, feeling a deep sense of pride in her country — before it, like all Nazi youth groups, was ultimately banned. Far from raised voices around the dinner table and her father’s chide remarks. From her time in the National Labor Service, waiting for her beloved Fritz’s return from the Eastern front, dreaming of a life without war.

It was a life she would never get to experience herself — but she hoped others soon would. Her time as a member of Die Weiße Rose, though brief, had quenched her thirst for meaning — and the resistance was only growing.

Although her story was coming to an end, she knew The White Rose would live on. And as she turned to face her executioner, she felt only contentment, stating:

“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go ... but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

Sophie Scholl was executed by guillotine on February 22, 1943, at the age of 21 for her role in the The White Rose resistance movement, which distributed anti-Nazi publications. Despite her death and the deaths of her brother, Hans, and friend Christoph Probst, The White Rose’s influence persisted. Copies of their final leaflet were smuggled out of Germany, reprinted by the Allies and dropped over German cities in July 1943.

Read more about Sophie Scholl’s bravery here.

It was 1902, and President Theodore Roosevelt was accompanying Mississippi Gov. Andrew Longino on a bear hunting trip in the Magnolia State. With the hunt proving unsuccessful for Roosevelt, Longino and the other men — hoping to showcase the area’s abundant wildlife — proceeded to capture and tie a black bear to a tree for him to shoot. Roosevelt, for his part, believing this to be unsportsmanlike, refused, reportedly saying:

“I’ve hunted game all over America and I’m proud to be a hunter, but I couldn’t be proud of myself if I shot an old, tired, worn-out bear that was tied to a tree.”

Word of the incident spread quickly, with a cartoon appearing in The Washington Post two days later. And in Brooklyn, candy shop owner Morris Michtom decided to create and dedicate a stuffed bear to the president, calling it “Teddy’s bear.”

Read more about Roosevelt’s refusal here.

“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism: the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought.”

At the height of the Cold War, Republican Sen. Margaret Chase Smith delivered her “Declaration of Conscience” speech to the Senate on June 1, 1950. Her words, however, weren’t directed at communism; they were a pointed rebuke of fellow Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist tirade, known as McCarthyism, when he led baseless investigations into communist infiltration of the U.S. government, Hollywood and other industries, and sparked widespread fear of political persecution. Smith was the first prominent member of Congress to publicly challenge McCarthy and condemn his witch hunt.

Read all of Smith’s speech here.

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“Man is not fully conditioned and determined, but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.”

—Victor E. Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning”