Big Think

The Glow A Great Sound Makes

Big Think Editors

How do you know someone's just caught the jazz bug? According to Village Voice critic and "Jazz" author Gary Giddins, when Ken Burns started loving Louis Armstrong as a fan and not just a filmmaker, he got a "glow on his face" that "you can't fake." Read More

November 13, 2009

Ending the Tragedy of the Commons

Big Think Editors

It is becoming increasingly common knowledge that our world is on the brink of an unprecedented environmental crisis. However slow the reaction has been, it is beginning to take tangible form and, from petroleum to water, the need to preserve and reduce is becoming a mainstay of the global conservation. One of the essential—and painfully under-acknowledged—factors in this discussion is the question of just how collective societies deal with a scarcity of resources. As the work of Big Think’s recent guest Elinor Ostrom, the 2009 Nobel laureate for economics, demonstrates, our understanding of this question appears to have been woefully misguided. Read More

November 14, 2009

Cities Rise and Fall; Stories Are Forever

Big Think Editors

Paul Auster is associated with two things, both in constant flux: the novel and New York City. The author of "The New York Trilogy," "The Brooklyn Follies," and the new "Invisible" estimates in his Big Think interview that he's spent at least 55 total years in the Big Apple, during which he has witnessed countless changes to the "gracious place" of his childhood. Yet while he remains unsure as to whether the city is ascending or declining, he has no doubts about the future of his other passion: people, he says, will never stop telling stories. Read More

November 13, 2009

Controversy Brewing

Big Think Editors

Who are the "Tea Party" activists, and what do they hope to accomplish? Will their crusade purify American conservatism or factionalize it further? Former Republican House Minority leader Dick Armey, a key Tea Party supporter, offered his take at Big Think today. Read More

November 11, 2009

Beating Up Teachers With Cornel West

Big Think Editors

Shaking hands with Cornel West, it's difficult to imagine that this is a man filled with rage. As the prominent “bluesman” put it in his Big Think interview, the key to a more just society lies in a form of widespread and unconditional love of others—a worldview that comes across forcibly within moments of meeting him. Yet, as a schoolboy, the Princeton Professor’s incipient campaign against injustice took some wayward turns, and he became known for bullying bullies, eventually finding himself kicked out of school after punching his teacher and inciting a riot (fortunately, he later took an IQ test and scored so high that he was placed in a better school on the "other side of town"). Read More

November 9, 2009