Forum from the Archives: Life Goes On While Systems Fray — How Do We Make Sense of the Dissonance?

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Crises unfold around us daily: gun violence, devastating foreign wars and U.S. democratic norms shattering. And still, we cook dinner and go to work. For those directly affected, the harms are inescapable. But for others, the contrast between catastrophic headlines and ordinary routines creates a dizzying dissonance: life moving as normal, against a backdrop of unsettling change. We’ll talk about this strange tension and what it does to us, and we’ll hear how you are navigating it. Guests: Kate Woodsome, journalist and founder of Invisible Threads, a media and leadership lab exploring the link between mental health and democracy Adrienne Matei, writer, The Guardian US - her recent piece is “Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real” Gisela Salim-Peyer, associate editor, The Atlantic - her most recent article is "The U.S. Is Preparing for War in Venezuela" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sponsorship of this podcast comes from Stanford Summer Session,
0:04.2	allowing visiting students to study at Stanford for an academic term.
0:08.3	Learn more at summer.standford.edu.
0:12.0	If you had the smartest Wi-Fi, it'd be Xfinity.
0:16.5	It would boost speeds to the devices that needed them most
0:19.3	and to protect you from threats
0:21.1	at home and online.
0:23.1	Xfinity.
0:24.1	Imagine that.
0:25.1	Restrictions apply.
0:28.1	From KQED in San Francisco, this is Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
0:49.3	Crises unfold around us daily, gun violence, devastating foreign wars, U.S. democratic norms shattering, and still
0:55.8	we cook dinner and go to work. For those directly affected, the harms are inescapable,
1:00.7	but for others, the contrast between catastrophic headlines and ordinary routines
1:05.1	creates a dizzying dissonance, life moving as normal, against a backdrop of alarming change.
1:11.3	We listened back to my September conversation all about this strange tension and what it does to us.
1:17.4	Join us.
1:32.4	Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
1:37.3	Historian and journalist Garrett Graff recently described our democracy shattering, quote,
1:42.8	the president using armed military units to seize cities, using federal law enforcement to target opponents,
1:44.8	arresting and charging civilians who try lawfully to exercise their right to document the abuses of the regime.
1:50.7	Those are just a few examples of the many crises unfolding around us.
	...

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