New Normal
Radiolab
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 43.5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 December 2022
⏱️ 68 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
This episode —first released in 2009 and then again in 2015, with an update — asks, what is “normal”? Maybe it exists, maybe not. We examine peace-loving baboons with Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, talk to Stu Rasmussen, whose preferred pronouns were he/him (https://zpr.io/nUdsZawNmhwt), and his neighbors in Silverton, Oregon about how a town chooses its community over outsider opinions. And lastly, we speak with an evolutionary anthropologist, Duke University’s own Brian Hare, and an evolutionary biologist Tecumseh Fitch, then at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, now at the University of Vienna, Austria, about foxes who love to snuggle.And what we find is that normal — maybe the only normal — is change.
EPISODE CREDITS Reported by - Aaron CohenProduced by - Soren Wheelerwith help from - Annie McEwenCITATIONSArticles -Stu Rasmussen’s NYT Obituary (https://zpr.io/nUdsZawNmhwt).
Theater - Andrew Russel’s “Stu for Silverton” (https://zpr.io/Jn5JP276pwhj) the play based on Stu Rasmussen’s life.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Alright, let's open the show today. |
| 0:25.1 | We're on a sunny street corner in New Jersey. |
| 0:32.1 | It's a nice day and people are out and about after work. |
| 0:39.1 | And we're here with a guy named John Horton. |
| 0:42.1 | He's also a teacher and John is out today with our producer Lulu Miller doing what he often does. |
| 0:50.1 | Which is to go up to someone he doesn't know. |
| 0:57.1 | And he asked them this one question. |
| 1:00.1 | Will humans ever stop fighting wars once and for all? |
| 1:08.1 | No, because of greed and one upsmanship. |
| 1:14.1 | To explain John has been asking this question, |
| 1:16.1 | will humans ever stop fighting wars for years? |
| 1:19.1 | Because for him, this question, it's not just about war, |
| 1:22.1 | it gets it something really basic. |
| 1:24.1 | Do we feel we can change who we are? |
| 1:29.1 | In any case, the first time I popped out of his mouth, it was 2003, |
| 1:33.1 | and a friend had asked him to give a talk at a church just a few days after the first invasion of Iraq. |
| 1:39.1 | And so here I was in this church, and I can remember that mood was very sombre. |
| 1:46.1 | I was determined to try to make people feel that, |
| 1:51.1 | okay, this is a setback, but still you've got to believe that peace is possible |
| 1:56.1 | and I tried to list all the reasons. |
| 2:00.1 | And as he was making his case and getting worked up, |
| 2:03.1 | he looked at the 60 or so people who were there in the audience. |
... |
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