In Arguing for Our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialog, published by City Lights, Third Coast co-founder and University of Texas professor Robert Jensen explores the anxiety and anguish so many feel in the face of economic and ecological crises on a global scale, when the stakes that seem higher than ever before. In his talk at BookPeople in Austin, (see the video online), Jensen offered suggestions on how to raise these issues in public, when so many want to avoid the topics.

Jensen was a guest on Thorne Dreyer’s “Rag Radio” show on Austin’s KOOP Radio. The audio of that interview is online. Also check out The Rag Blog.

In this excerpt from the book on rabble.ca, “The universe is an undifferentiated whole,” Jensen reminds readers of both the potential and limitations of modern science:

The knowledge we humans can acquire, while impressive in what it allows us to build, is not adequate to manage the complexity of the world. No matter how smart we are, our ignorance will always outstrip our knowledge, and so we routinely fail to anticipate or control the consequences of our science and technology.