51³ÉÈËÁÔÆæ

Course Description

Summary

For a long time we have disconnected the activity of thinking from that of doing. In addition to the impoverishment of both thought and action that results from this separation, we have lost touch with the emotional and intellectual intensities that the integration of thought and action generate. This course reconnects thought, action and passion by focusing on exploring the power of deliberation, understood as disciplined conversation about things that matter driven by the necessity for action. Our own conversation will address the challenges to deliberation that are especially acute in today’s world: a crisis of values; an avoidance of complexity; an intolerance for ambiguity; a confusion of certainty with understanding, information with knowledge; an increasing tendency to embrace technological fundamentalism; a trivializing of the conditions necessary for innovation and an inadequate appreciation of the importance of improvisation. The development and exercise of these resources, which is the pedagogy of CAPA, will be explored through the lens of four topics: the environment, the use of force, governance and public health.