The Middle Way Society – Détails, épisodes et analyse

My guest today is Gavin Haynes, a freelance journalist, writer, presenter and former editor-at-large at Vice. He's here to talk to us about the Purity Spiral. How a process of moral outbidding is corroding communities from within.

In this week's podcast, the chair of the Middle Way Society, Robert M Ellis talks to us about his most recent book 'The Thought of Sangharakshita: A Critical Assessment'.

Our guest today is Katherine Weare who is Emeritus Professor at the University of Exeter where she is working to develop and evaluate mindfulness in schools programs. Katherine is a dedicated mindfulness practitioner herself as well as a qualified mindfulness teacher. Her overall field is social and emotional learning and mental health and wellbeing in schools. She is known as an international expert on evidence-based practice and has conducted several definitive reviews and led programmes which have informed policy and practice in many countries. She is the author of several books including Promoting Mental, Emotional and Social Health: A Whole School Approach, Developing the Emotionally Literate School and most recently Happy Teachers Change the World: A Guide for Cultivating Mindfulness in Education which she co-wrote with Tich Nath Hanh and will be the topic of our discussion today

Today’s guest is the British environmental writer and political activist George Monbiot. George writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain (2000) and Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding (2013). He will be discussing the topic of rewilding with the chair of the Middle Way Society, the philosopher Robert M Ellis.

Our guest today is Simon Bell. Simon is a retired mental health nurse who spent 37 years working in the National Health Service in the U.K. For 22 years he dealt solely with suspects, defendants and offenders from the time of their arrest until the point when criminal proceedings took place. He dealt with most types of offending behavior and over the course of his career was involved in assessing and caring for several thousand offenders and victims of crime. His passion for history goes back to childhood; his passion for the Holocaust has its origins in being involved with the care of survivors of Nazi brutality whom he met during his early days in mental health car. He’s the author of 'Auschwitz-Birkenau - From Hell to Hope' and 'Tribalism and Prejudice - The Far-Right and Lessons From History which will be the topic of our discussion today.

My guest today is Maryanne Wolf. Maryanne is the John Dibiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service and Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research. She is an expert on the neurological underpinnings of reading, language, and dyslexia. She is also the author of numerous scientific publications as well two books written for the general public ‘Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain’ which has been translated in 10 languages and her latest book ‘Reader Come Home: The reading brain in a digital world which will be the topic of our discussion today.

Our guest today is Jeremy Sherman. Jeremy is a decision theorist researching and writing about choice from the origin of life to everyday living. He teaches college courses across the social sciences and blogs for Psychology Today. He’s here to talk to us about his latest book Neither Ghost nor Manchine in which he distils for a general audience the theory developed by renowned neuroscientist Terrence Deacon that extends the breakthrough constraint-based insight that inspired evolutionary, information, and self-organization theory. He argues that emergent dynamics theory provides a testable hypothesis for how mattering arose from matter, function from physics, and means-to-ends behavior from cause-and-effect dynamics. In effect that what this offers, is a physics of purpose and can make science safe for value, We’ll also talk about how this all might relate to the Middle Way

We are joined today by the writer, sociologist, lecture and music critic, Keith Kahn-Harris. His books include Judaism: All That Matters, Uncivil War: The Israel Conflict in the Jewish Community, Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge and his latest book Denial: The Unspeakable Truth and this will be the topic of our discussion today.

We are joined today by the author and integrator Jeremy Lent and the chair of the Middle Way Society Robert M Ellis. Jeremy was a recent guest on the podcast when he spoke to us about his book “The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s search for Meaning”. Shortly afterwards Robert wrote a review of the book and some of the themes and issues raised in that review will form the basis for our discussion today.

Our guest today is Alex Beard. Alex is a former English teacher at a London comprehensive and is now a senior director at Teach For All, a growing network of independent organizations working to ensure that all children fulfil their potential. He is fortunate to spend his time travelling the world in search of the practices that will shape the future of learning and has written about his experiences for the Independent, Guardian, Financial Times and Wired. His book Natural Born Learners is a user's guide to transforming learning in the twenty-first century and this will be the topic of our discussion today.