This is a past interview with cultural historian Riane Eisler, director of the Center for Partnership Studies. Along with the late psychology writer Alice Miller, Eisler is among the relatively few important modern scholars who reject the view that violence and social oppression are inherent to human nature. Here she is concerned not with violence per
JOURNALIST OF THE RANK AND FILE I heard the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Terkel speak three times. The first occasion was at the San Francisco Book Expo in the mid-1990s. Then a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, the famous “guerrilla journalist” took the stage at a local church
[Excerpt from a work in progress.] My earliest memories are California memories. But by 1967 California is a place I have lived away from for years. I was eight years old when our family left Los Angeles for the suburbs of Chicago. At age 14, it has been three years since our last family visit
Or shopping mall murderer? Or movie theater murderer? Or elementary school murderer? A few thoughts on the senseless violence we see around us. This commentary is from a Feb. 24, 2008 op-ed I wrote for The Pantagraph newspaper in Bloomington, Illinois. It has been lightly edited for this website. As I near the exit for
Why do people feel powerless in modern society? How do we change a socioeconomic system that concentrates power enormously in so few hands? Noam Chomsky shared his thoughts on these and other issues in an April 2001 interview with Chicago’s Conscious Choice magazine. MARK HARRIS: I think a lot of people would be interested to know your
MARK HARRIS 