DO 296: Building Community in Fragmented Times

Ashley Fitzgerald sits down with Elizabeth Oldfield to explore how we can foster genuine connection across ideological and cultural divides and why it matters more than ever.

Drawing on Elizabeth’s experience leading the Theos think tank, hosting the acclaimed podcast The Sacred, and living in an intentional community, they discuss the power of combining rigorous research with compelling storytelling to actually shift culture and change minds. They dig into why demanding ideological purity fractures movements and how to build real coalitions across genuine disagreement instead. Elizabeth shares her hard-won insights into the neurobiology of listening, understanding our fight-or-flight responses and the human tendency toward homophily, and how this knowledge can help us create spaces where people can actually hear each other.

The conversation takes a deeper turn as they wrestle with the surprising case for institutions. Even imperfect ones like churches, schools, and intentional communities are essential scaffolding for human flourishing. Elizabeth shares her own journey from childhood cultural Christianity through atheism and back to a grounded, mysterious faith, and reflects on the spiritual hunger she’s been witnessing emerge over the past several years, even among those who thought they’d moved beyond religion.

Throughout, they keep returning to the unglamorous, essential work of showing up locally: sitting on school boards, knowing your neighbors, breaking bread together. In a time of fragmentation and uncertainty, they suggest this might be the most radical and necessary act of all.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(312)

DO 313 - Stephen Adubato from Cracks in Postmodernity

I met Stephen this summer at the Woodcrest Bruderhof + DO + Savage Collective event in NY. Alan from Plough suggested Stephen for a panel and he instantly agreed! He gave a fantastic talk about the wo...

6 Okt 1h 10min

DO 312 - Wendell Berry Retrospective with Jason, Ashley, Nate and Donald

Jason initiated this get together of some of the original DO crew to discuss the life, work and legacy of Wendell Berry. It is no secret that Berry’s work has been an animating force for nearly everyo...

25 Sep 1h 14min

DO 311 - Mike Healy Manufacturing Community

Every once in a while someone comes into the DO world and it is so clear how well they fit in it’s amazing you hadn’t found them yet! This is true of Mike, Chicagoan, Northsider (boo!), who has a visi...

17 Sep 1h 26min

DO 310 - Chapter House with Josh and Hannah Centers

This episode explores how Josh and Hannah Centers built Chapter House, a publishing project designed to restore beautiful, culturally literate children’s books to homeschool families. From Homer and S...

3 Sep 1h 28min

DO 309 - Bill Kauffman

"But at Least They're Human: Face-to-Face Living -- With Joy and Without Illusions"From the conference: Another Life is Possible co-organized by the Woodcrest Bruderhof community, Doomer Optimism and ...

29 Aug 41min

DO 308 - Growing Pecans with Lenny Wells

Tom and Jason talk to Lenny Wells - pecan farmer and extension agent - about growing pecans in Georgia, the cultural and ecological factors.Along the way we also discuss:-how he got into pecans -his b...

14 Aug 1h 7min

DO 307 - Microcolleges with Jacob Hundt

In this episode Ashley and Jacob discuss the concept of microcolleges, and examples of alternative educational models writ large. Timestamps:00:00 - Intro: Exploring education, community, and sustaina...

3 Aug 1h 31min

DO 306 - Building New Athens with Jackson Solway

Movetonewathens.comTIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Introducing the idea of building a city from scratch to address societal doom02:08 - Jackson’s background in tech and recruitment influencing city planning03:03 ...

15 Jul 1h 29min