Crisis in Perception
Crisis in Perception is a long-form educational podcast that examines how we misunderstand the world around us. Each episode uses books as entry points to explore history, psychology, economics, science, and power structures. It reveals how systems actually work and why our perceptions often fail. The content is clear, evidence-based, and non-tribal.
Episodes
The Technological Society — When Efficiency Becomes the System
What happens when efficiency stops being a means and becomes the standard by which society organizes everything?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In The Technological Society, Jacques Ellul examines technique—not simply machines or technological devices, but the growing use of rationalized methods designed to achieve maximum efficiency across human act
Inventing the Enemy and Other Occasional Writings — Why Societies Need an Other
What if an enemy is sometimes not merely discovered, but socially constructed?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Inventing the Enemy and Other Occasional Writings by Umberto Eco as our lens, this Deep Dive centers on the title essay and examines how communities can define their own identity by constructing an opposing Other.Eco traces a recurring
Thinking in Systems: A Primer — Why Structure Keeps Recreating the Problem
What if recurring problems persist because we keep changing what is visible while leaving the structure that produces them intact?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates how interconnected structures generate their own characteristic patterns of behavior. Meado
Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy — Anatomy of a Coup
In 1898, a thriving Black community and a multiracial political coalition challenged the established power structure of Wilmington, North Carolina. Within months, organized white supremacists had destroyed the city's elected government through violence and intimidation.Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Drawing on David Zucchino's Wilmington'
The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape — The Cost of Sprawl
What if the places we regard as normal are quietly determining how we move, spend, interact, and live?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates the system behind America's automobile-centered landscape.K
Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits — How Litigation Becomes Power
A lawsuit is supposed to resolve a dispute. But what happens when the process of litigation becomes a strategic advantage in its own right?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits, James D. Zirin draws on decades of legal proceedings to examine how Donald Trump's litigation practices shap
Do We Have A Center? — The Systems Behind Political Polarization
America's elections increasingly resemble contests between opposing political camps. But does that visible division accurately reflect what citizens believe?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Do We Have A Center? 2016, 2020, and the Challenge of the Trump Presidency by Walter Frank, this Deep Dive investigates American political polarization t
Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation — Growth Meets Limits
What happens when a civilization becomes so confident in technological progress that it struggles to recognize the physical limits supporting its prosperity?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation, James Howard Kunstler challenges America's faith in technological rescue, arguing
Living in the Long Emergency — Can Growth Conceal Systemic Fragility?
What happens when an economy becomes increasingly dependent on the same financial and energy arrangements that may be making it more fragile?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Living in the Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler as our lens, this audio investigation explores the hidden dependencies connecting fossil fuels, economic growth, financ
Unequal Protection — How Corporations Gained Constitutional Rights
How did corporations come to possess constitutional protections, and what does that transformation reveal about the relationship between economic power and democratic government?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became “People”—and How You Can Fight Back, Thom Hartmann traces the historical expansion of corporate
Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth — The Media–Power Feedback Loop
What happens when the relationship between a president and a news network becomes so intertwined that each begins shaping the other's version of reality?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, journalist Brian Stelter investigates the relationship between Donald Trump, Fox News, and
Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency — When Loyalty Filters Reality
What happens when political power becomes increasingly insulated from the information needed to exercise it responsibly?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, journalist Michael Wolff reconstructs the turbulent final months of Donald Trump's first administration, from the struggling 2020 reelection c
How to Raise an Antiracist — How Children Learn Race Before We Talk About It
What if children begin learning about race long before adults deliberately teach them anything about it?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using How to Raise an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates racial socialization and the larger environments through which children develop ideas about race, identity, inequality, belo
The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control — The BITE Model
What happens when political allegiance becomes intertwined with identity, belonging, fear, and the information a person trusts?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control, Steven Hassan applies his experience studying destructive influence to Donald Trump and the political m
Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump — The Limits of Treason
What separates a political betrayal from the constitutional crime of treason? And can public officials escape one form of accountability while remaining subject to another?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump, author David Rothkopf examines American history through the recurri
The Audience Decides: Applause-Cheering, Laughter, and Booing during Debates in the Trump Era — How Attention Becomes Political Power
What if a presidential debate does not simply reveal political viability, but participates in creating it?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Audience Decides: Applause-Cheering, Laughter, and Booing during Debates in the Trump Era by Patrick A. Stewart as our lens, this investigation examines how debate structure, candidate performance, audien
The Securitarian Personality — How Threat Perception Shapes Political Loyalty
Why do people who resist authority sometimes become fiercely loyal to leaders who promise protection from outsiders?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In The Securitarian Personality, political scientist John R. Hibbing offers an evidence-based investigation into the psychological motivations of Donald Trump's most ardent supporters.Rather than expl
Liquid Modernity — How Flexibility Turns Security Into Individual Risk
What happens when constant change stops being a temporary disruption and becomes the normal condition of life?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Liquid Modernity, Zygmunt Bauman argues that modernity has shifted from seeking durable social arrangements toward valuing flexibility, mobility, reversibility, and continuous adaptation.This Deep Dive exami
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil — When Obedience Replaces Judgment
What happens when a system can transform mass killing into administrative duty?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates the relationship between bureaucracy, obedience, moral judgment, and individual responsibility.Arendt’s portrait of Adolf
Does the Richness of the Few Benefit Us All? — The Myth of Shared Prosperity
What happens when an economy grows richer, but prosperity becomes increasingly concentrated?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Does the Richness of the Few Benefit Us All?, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman challenges the widely accepted belief that the enrichment of a small economic elite necessarily benefits society as a whole.Drawing on research into ine
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism — When Prediction Becomes Power
What happens when predicting human behavior becomes a business—and greater certainty becomes a competitive advantage?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Shoshana Zuboff argues that a distinctive form of capitalism has emerged around the extraction of human e
Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber — When Ignorance Pays
What happens when not knowing stops carrying a political cost—and begins carrying a political reward?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber, Andy Borowitz traces what he describes as the evolution of political ignorance through three stages: Ridicule, Acceptance, and Celebration.Usi
Fragile Bully: Understanding Our Destructive Affair with Narcissism in the Age of Trump
Why do narcissistic relationships and public conflicts become so difficult to escape—even when everyone recognizes that something is wrong?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Fragile Bully: Understanding Our Destructive Affair with Narcissism in the Age of Trump by Laurie Helgoe, PhD, this investigation examines the interaction between grandiosity,
Left Is Not Woke — Can Universalism Survive Identity Politics?
What happens when exposing the failures of universal ideals begins to erode confidence in the ideals themselves?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Left Is Not Woke by Susan Neiman as our lens, this investigation examines her argument that parts of the contemporary “woke” left have moved away from three principles she regards as essential to left-w
The List: A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year — How Abnormal Becomes Normal
What happens when political events arrive so quickly that yesterday’s shock becomes today’s baseline?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The List: A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year by Amy Siskind as its lens, this episode investigates how information overload, shifting expectations, public memory, and institutional norms interact durin
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America — When Certainty Becomes Power
What turns religious conviction into a system of political obedience?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America by Chris Hedges as our lens, this Version 2 remaster examines Hedges’s argument that radical Christian dominionism can convert religious certainty into a broader system of authoritari
Gangsters of Capitalism — How Wall Street and the Military Built an American Empire (Remastered)
What happens when a democracy builds systems of coercion abroad—and then discovers that those systems can reshape politics at home?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.This remastered investigation revisits Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire by Jonathan M. Katz.Katz follows Major Gener
God's Chaos Candidate: Donald J. Trump and the American Unraveling — Cultural Power and Perception
What happens when political disagreement becomes evidence of a much larger struggle over who gets to shape culture?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using God's Chaos Candidate: Donald J. Trump and the American Unraveling by Lance Wallnau as our lens, this episode examines the larger institutional and religious framework through which Wallnau inter
Economic Inequality: The American Dream Under Siege — Who Gets the Gains?
Economic growth can create extraordinary prosperity without distributing its rewards evenly. What determines who actually receives the gains?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Economic Inequality: The American Dream Under Siege by Coral Celeste Frazer as our lens, this Deep Dive traces the historical forces that have repeatedly widened and narrowe
Against the Terror of Neoliberalism: Politics Beyond the Age of Greed — When Markets Shape Democracy
What happens when the market stops being an economic tool and becomes a model for citizenship itself?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Against the Terror of Neoliberalism: Politics Beyond the Age of Greed by Henry A. Giroux as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates Giroux’s argument that neoliberalism is more than an economic program. It also oper
Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President — Loyalty vs. Rule of Law
What happens when the safeguards around presidential power depend on whether individual officials are willing to enforce them?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President by Michael S. Schmidt as our lens, this Deep Dive examines the tension between presidential authority, personal l
The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America — Who Gets to Climb?
What if the American ladder of opportunity still appears functional because its missing rungs are most visible to the people trying to climb from below?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America, Sarah Kendzior examines economic decline and shrinking opportunity from the perspective of work
The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family — Power & Profit
What happens when a reputation for extraordinary business success becomes political capital—and political power becomes entangled with private financial interests?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family by David Cay Johnston as our lens, this investigation examines the
Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us — How Attention Rewards Falsehoods
What happens when correcting a political falsehood can also help keep it alive?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us by Amanda Carpenter as our lens, this episode investigates Carpenter’s argument that Donald Trump’s 2016 political strategy repeatedly converted provocative claims into attentio
The Fourth Turning Is Here — Do Generations Drive History’s Crisis Cycles?
What if the crises that appear unique while we are living through them are partly shaped by social forces operating across generations?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End by Neil Howe as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates Howe’s theory that mo
They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent — The Trust Trap
What happens when justified distrust becomes the raw material for manipulation?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent by Sarah Kendzior as our lens, this episode investigates how institutional betrayal, elite impunity, information disorder, and conspiracy culture can reinforce one another
Rules for Resistance: Advice from Around the Globe for the Age of Trump — Who Defends Democracy?
Democracy is often imagined as a system whose laws and institutions automatically constrain political power. Rules for Resistance asks what happens when those safeguards depend on people and institutions actively maintaining them.Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Rules for Resistance: Advice from Around the Globe for the Age of Trump, edited by Melanie
Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America — Elite Impunity
What happens when misconduct remains visible, yet meaningful consequences repeatedly fail to arrive?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America by Sarah Kendzior as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates her argument that Trump’s rise was the culmination of decades of institutio
The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence — When Entertainment Teaches
What changes when entertainment becomes one of the most powerful classrooms in everyday life?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence, Henry A. Giroux examines Disney as more than an entertainment company. He asks what happens when a corporation with extraordinary cultural reach also functions as an ed
The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism — Access or Transformation?
What happens when representation changes, but the underlying structure of power does not?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism, Kyla Schuller reconstructs nearly two centuries of conflict over the meaning of feminist progress. She contrasts what she calls white feminism—a political framework foc
Take Back Higher Education: Race, Youth, and the Crisis of Democracy in the Post–Civil Rights Era
What happens when higher education is reorganized around market value rather than its wider civic purpose?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Take Back Higher Education: Race, Youth, and the Crisis of Democracy in the Post–Civil Rights Era by Henry A. Giroux and Susan Searls Giroux as our lens, this episode investigates the university as both an ed
Troll Nation — When Outrage Becomes Political Identity
What happens when political conflict begins rewarding people not for solving problems, but for making an opposing group angry?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself by Amanda Marcotte as our lens, this episode investigates her argument
Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison — When Prison Becomes Identity
What happens when punishment does more than restrict freedom—when it also teaches society, and eventually the prisoner, to see a human being as a permanent criminal identity?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison, Chris Hedges recounts his years teaching inside New Jersey prisons and the class th
The Historical Roots of Corruption — Why Corruption Survives for Generations
Why can corruption remain entrenched for generations even after leaders, laws, and political institutions change?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Historical Roots of Corruption: Mass Education, Economic Inequality, and State Capacity by Eric M. Uslaner as our lens, this investigation examines the historical conditions that allow corruption t
Doctors at War: Life and Death in a Field Hospital — When Success Feels Dysfunctional
What happens when an institution becomes extraordinarily good at repairing the damage produced by a system its own workers may struggle to make sense of?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Doctors at War: Life and Death in a Field Hospital by Mark de Rond takes us inside Camp Bastion’s trauma hospital in Afghanistan, where military doctors and nurses tre
The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan — When Obedience Breaks
What happens when the people expected to carry out a policy begin to believe that obedience itself is causing harm?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan by Dahr Jamail as our lens, this investigation examines dissent within the U.S. military during the wars in Iraq and Afghanist
Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America — How Power Hides in Plain Sight
What if democracy can retain its familiar institutions while meaningful political power becomes increasingly concentrated?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Gross as our lens, this investigation examines his warning about a possible form of modern corporatist authoritarianism that would
Loving This Planet: Leading Thinkers Talk About How to Make a Better World — Who Pays the Cost?
What if many environmental crises become difficult to solve because the people receiving the benefits are not the same people who eventually bear the costs?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Loving This Planet: Leading Thinkers Talk About How to Make a Better World by Helen Caldicott as our lens, this Deep Dive explores a recurring pattern across
Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy — How Authoritarianism Becomes Normal
How can a democracy recognize authoritarian danger if the cultural institutions that help citizens remember, question, and judge are being weakened at the same time?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy by Henry A. Giroux and Anthony R. DiMaggio as our lens, this episode investigates the au
On Critical Pedagogy — How Education Shapes Power and Democratic Agency
What if education shapes not only what we know, but what we learn to accept as normal, authoritative, and possible?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using On Critical Pedagogy by Henry A. Giroux as our lens, this episode investigates education as a formative system connecting knowledge, power, institutional authority, identity, and democratic agency.Gi
Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy — How Crisis Teaches Us What to See
A crisis can expose more than failing institutions. It can reveal the systems that teach people how to understand those failures.Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy by Henry A. Giroux as our lens, this episode investigates Giroux’s argument that Covid-19 was not simply a medical emergency. It also became a poli
The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism — How Democracy Hollows Out
A democracy can preserve many of its visible institutions while losing the civic culture that allows those institutions to function democratically.Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism by Henry A. Giroux as our lens, this investigation examines Giroux’s argument that Trumpism shou
America on the Edge: Henry Giroux on Politics, Culture, and Education — Public Pedagogy and Power
What if democracy can be weakened before its formal institutions disappear—because the systems that educate citizens have already changed what people expect from public life?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using America on the Edge: Henry Giroux on Politics, Culture, and Education by Henry A. Giroux as our lens, this episode investigates the relation
Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle — How Violence Becomes Normal
What happens when violence becomes less an exceptional event than a condition people are taught to accept?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle by Brad Evans and Henry A. Giroux as the lens, this episode investigates the authors’ argument that neoliberalism produces a politics of d
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior — What Animals See
What if behavior that looks irrational from the outside makes perfect sense from inside another creature’s perceptual world?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson as our lens, this episode investigates how human perceptual filters ca
Slouching Towards Bethlehem — What Happens When the Social Web Breaks?
What happens when inherited rules lose their authority before new forms of belonging are ready to replace them?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion as our lens, this episode investigates the social fragmentation running beneath her portraits of 1960s California.Didion moves through Haight-Ashbury, suburban
The White Album — When the Stories That Organize Reality Stop Working
We rely on stories to turn scattered events into something coherent. But what happens when the story itself stops explaining what we see?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The White Album by Joan Didion as our lens, this episode investigates narrative as a system for organizing perception. Across essays about personal disorientation, political mov
The Story of Western Science: From the Writings of Aristotle to the Big Bang Theory — How We Know
Scientific knowledge changes. Entire models once treated as reliable have been replaced. So what makes science more than a sequence of confident mistakes?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Story of Western Science: From the Writings of Aristotle to the Big Bang Theory by Susan Wise Bauer as our lens, this episode investigates how scientific kn
Gravity's Rainbow — When Systems Produce Patterns Without a Mastermind
What happens when patterns are unmistakable, but no single controller can be found?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow places that problem inside the technological and bureaucratic machinery of World War II. Tyrone Slothrop's map of sexual encounters appears to anticipate the locations of V-2 rocket strikes,
The Let Them Theory — Why Giving Up Control Can Increase Your Agency
What if much of the stress we experience around other people comes from trying to control something that was never ours to control?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins as our lens, this episode investigates the relationship between control, emotional reactivity, personal responsibility, and agency.Robbins’s framewo
The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism — Capitalism Against the Market
What if capitalism and the market are not the same system—and concentrated economic power can undermine the very mechanisms markets are supposed to provide?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism by David C. Korten as our lens, this episode investigates Korten’s argument that global corporate capitalism o
Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth — When Money Defines Wealth
What if the economic system begins not with markets or money, but with a story about what society should value?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth by David C. Korten as our lens, this investigation explores how cultural narratives can become embedded in economic measurement, c
When Corporations Rule the World — When Market Power Becomes Governing Power
What happens when institutions meant to compete within markets become powerful enough to influence the rules those markets—and governments—operate under?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using When Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates the relationship between concentrated corporate power, global financ
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? — When Legal Rights Aren’t Enough
Passing a law can remove a barrier. But what happens when the inequality behind it survives?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King, Jr. as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates King’s argument that the major civil-rights victories of the 1960s marked a transition rather than an endpoi
Nothing Personal — The Myths We Use to Avoid Ourselves
What happens when protecting a national identity becomes more important than examining the history and fears beneath it?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Nothing Personal by James Baldwin as our lens, this episode investigates the relationship between American mythology, consumer culture, racial hierarchy, fear, and collective identity.Baldwin be
Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century — Who Decides Federal Limits?
A written constitution can define limits on power—but who enforces those limits when the institutions being restrained also interpret the rules?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates Woods’s case for state nullification as
Living in the End Times — Why Knowing a Crisis Isn't Enough
What happens when people understand that a system is producing serious risks but continue living as though its basic structure can remain unchanged?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Living in the End Times, Slavoj Žižek argues that ecological disruption, biogenetic change, economic instability, resource pressures, and widening social exclusion shoul
First as Tragedy, Then as Farce — How Systems Absorb Their Critics
What if the ability to survive criticism is itself one of a system's most important forms of power?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using First as Tragedy, Then as Farce by Slavoj Žižek as our lens, this episode investigates ideology not simply as propaganda or false belief, but as a mechanism through which political and economic structures can re
The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story — How Silicon Valley Rewards Disruption
What if technological progress depends partly on people who are unusually unwilling to leave successful systems alone?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story, Michael Lewis follows entrepreneur Jim Clark through Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Healtheon, and Hyperion, his radically computerized sailing yacht.Rather th
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt — How Speed Became a Market Advantage
What happens when the difference between seeing a market and acting on it is measured in millionths of a second?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis as our lens, this episode investigates how automation transformed the U.S. stock market into a fragmented network of exchanges, dark pools, algorithms,
Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul — Democracy and the Value Gap
What does racial progress mean if the structures producing unequal outcomes remain intact?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. as our lens, this episode investigates Glaude’s argument that persistent racial inequality reflects something deeper than a simple gap betw
The People's Advocate: The Life and Legal History of America's Most Fearless Public Interest Lawyer
What makes constitutional accountability work when the institution being challenged has powerful reasons to resist scrutiny?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The People's Advocate: The Life and Legal History of America's Most Fearless Public Interest Lawyer by Daniel Sheehan as our lens, this Deep Dive examines the difference between form
Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own — The Lie Beneath Progress
What happens when a society changes politically but continues telling itself the same stories about who it is?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. as our lens, this episode explores how national memory, racial identity, political storytelling, and historic
The Triple Package — How Culture Can Create—and Erode—Success
What if the forces that help a community rise can eventually weaken because that community succeeds?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using The Triple Package by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld as our lens, this episode investigates the authors’ theory that three cultural forces—superiority or exceptionalism, insecurity, and impulse control—can interact to
Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945–60 — Making Common Sense
How does a contested political idea become familiar enough to feel like common sense?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945–60, Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf examines the postwar struggle between American business and organized labor over the meaning of economic freedom, political auth
Raw Deal: How the “Uber Economy” and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers — Who Pays?
What happens when technological flexibility makes work easier to buy, but harder to live on?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Raw Deal: How the “Uber Economy” and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers by Steven Hill as our lens, this Deep Dive investigates a structural change in the relationship between workers, employers, technology,
Envisioning a future without food waste and food poverty — When Abundance Fails
How can a food system create enormous abundance while simultaneously producing waste, hunger, and unhealthy diets?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Envisioning a future without food waste and food poverty: Societal challenges, edited by Leire Escajedo San-Epifanio and Mertxe De Renobales Scheifler, this episode investigates the systems connecting
Labor’s Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working-Class Family in America — Jobs, Marriage, Class
What happens to family stability when the economic foundation supporting a particular family model begins to disappear?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.In Labor’s Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working-Class Family in America, sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin traces the development of the American working-class family from industrialization through
Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States — Who Controls the System?
Who decides what an economy is ultimately organized to accomplish—and what changes when ownership itself becomes the variable under investigation?Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States by the Party for Socialism and Liberation as our lens, this Deep Dive examines the authors’ proposal for
Che: A Graphic Biography — How Revolutionary Movements Transform People and Power
Che Guevara is often remembered as an icon. This episode asks what becomes visible when we reconstruct the systems behind the image.Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using Che: A Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón as our lens, this Deep Dive follows Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s transformation from traveler and physician to revolutionary, gove
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