​'I could have been a left-wing guerrilla in Columbia. Whatever would have grabbed me at the right time, I was ready for.' What ended up grabbing Frank was neo-Nazism. What ended up grabbing Jesse was jihadi extremism. What happens when we look beyond ideology?

This episode was produced with generous support from the Gen Next Foundation, which leverages a venture philanthropy framework to build paradigm-shifting social ventures with a wide footprint of impact. Their partnership with ISD and Google Jigsaw created the Against Violent Extremism (AVE) network. It is the first and only network of former extremists and survivors of terrorism. Leveraging their powerful and authentic voices, this peer-to-peer solution disrupts radicalization and hate group recruitment.

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Transcript: Right here

Musicians + Tracks:

• Chris Peck: Matope 1
• Tannhauser: Rock Off, Ötzi, Fin de Año
• David Sestay: Ladybird's Theme, Mountains
• Rob Voigt: Outro

​'When I'm angry and I don't know how to get it out, I take it out on other people. I call people names, I say they're ugly, I talk about the way they dress. And when I get into fighting mode, I just start swinging.’ When she was in high school, Halley built a reputation for herself as a bully. So did Chris, who even bullied his teachers, going so far as to break one teacher's jaw. Why do we bully? And what moves us to stop?

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​Musicians + Tracks:

• Chris Peck: Matope 1
• Tannhauser: Rock Off, Ötzi
• Rob Voigt: Outro
• David Sestay: Ladybird's Theme

 
'You have all these plans, all these dreams, and then it hits you: my daughter's no longer a daughter, she's a son.' In struggling to accept her daughter as a transgender man, Rita DiNicola had to surrender dreams of wedding dress shopping and biological grandchildren. Similarly, in accepting her son as a trans woman, Catherine Hyde had to reckon with the fact that — as a tomboy from a young age — she'd always wanted, and believed she'd gotten, a son as her only child. Together, Rita's and Catherine's stories provide a hopeful window into what might help other parents, and other people more broadly, overcome transphobia and expand our understanding of gender.​

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​Musicians + Tracks:

• Chris Peck: Matope 
• Tannhauser: Rock Off, Ötzi
• Rob Voigt: Outro
• David Sestay: Ladybird's Theme
• Brak Okzu: Pozytywizm, Zmienność

​In the leadup to election day, Reckonings collaborates with Inquiring Minds on an episode about political worldview transformation in the 2016 election season. It features an interview with brilliant 'sociologist of emotion' Arlie Hochschild, along with the stories of two voters who transformed their views during this election — young voter Alex Mamach from episode #9, who's voting in his second presidential election, and longtime political insider and Republican lobbyist Bob Schneider, who's been voting for over 40 years. For more detail on the episode, an insightful writeup is on Mother Jones.

The 2016 election season has been unique in many ways — one being that it might be challenging Americans to reckon more deeply with our party affiliations, and with our political worldviews more broadly.

Musicians + Tracks:

• Chris Peck: Matope 
• Tannhauser: Rock Off, Ötzi
• Rob Voigt: Outro
• David Sestay: Ladybird's Theme

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​Remember the bombastic black intellectual Glenn Loury from episode #5, and his story of sex, drugs, politics, and religion? Voilà another round with him, in collaboration with the venerable podcast Love + Radio.

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​'I don't know if I can convey how comforting it is to believe that you possess the secret to how everything in the universe works. And as a consequence, we had this amazing bonus: we were going to heaven and everyone else was going to hell.' That's how Chris Ladd describes his upbringing in a fundamentalist Christian home in East Texas. But that sense that he possessed the secret to how everything in the universe worked? Well, it eventually cracked, shifting his views on women's rights, homosexuality, race, and everything else in the delicate mobile we call a "worldview." The cost of ideological transformation has been painfully high, but Chris concedes, it's been worth it.

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​"I called myself a Karma King, because I was distributing the shit that had been given to me." The finale of Season 1 features Daniel Gallant, a former violent extremist turned anti-violence activist, counselor, and scholar. Violence is what he experienced growing up, what he became a perpetrator of, and what it has been a phenomenal feat for him to overcome.

Today, Daniel is the founder of anti-violence organization Exit Canada, and a J.D. candidate at Thompson Rivers University. May we take this story — albeit difficult — as an opportunity to understand what motivates extremist violence, and draw hope from one person's ability to transcend it.

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​'What I regret is not being aware of the extent to which what I was pronouncing as right or wrong for the world was motivated by my own personal issues.' So admits Glenn Loury, prominent academic economist and one of the nation's foremost black intellectuals. Loury's story is expansive, involving drugs, sex, politics, and religion. Most distinctly of all, it's an odyssey of worldview transformation, swinging from the staunch neoconservative right to a more nuanced, progressive position on the left. As a public intellectual who influenced US economic policy, Loury is reckoning with the impact of his early views — not only because he now opposes them, but because he endorsed them for strikingly personal reasons.

Our conversation is split into two parts: Part 1 dives into Loury's early neoconservative views, cocaine addiction and recovery, adultery, and spiritual rebirth. This is part 2, which explores his worldview transformation and the impact of his former views.

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​'What I regret is not being aware of the extent to which what I was pronouncing as right or wrong for the world was motivated by my own personal issues.' So admits Glenn Loury, prominent academic economist and one of the nation's foremost black intellectuals. Loury's story is expansive, involving drugs, sex, politics, and religion. Most distinctly of all, it's an odyssey of worldview transformation, swinging from the staunch neoconservative right to a more nuanced, progressive position on the left. As a public intellectual who influenced US economic policy, Loury is reckoning with the impact of his early views — not only because he now opposes them, but because he endorsed them for strikingly personal reasons.

Our conversation is split into two parts: This is part 1, which dives into Loury's early neoconservative views, cocaine addiction and recovery, adultery, and spiritual rebirth. Part 2 explores his worldview transformation and the impact of his former views.

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