Self

FROM VOL.10 Psychologist Paul Vitz argues that the modern focus on self-actualization makes the self the highest good in the cosmos. (7 minutes)

FROM VOL. 16Psychotherapist Philip Cushman explains how individual well-being becomes a goal, rather than a by-product of living in communities with a shared sense of purpose. (14 minutes)

FEATURED GUESTS: Felicia Wu Song, Michael Ward, Norman Wirzba, Carl Trueman, D. C. Schindler, and Kerry McCarthy

Sociologist Daniel Bell on the rise of “the idea that experience in and of itself was the supreme value”

Gil Bailie on symptoms and sources of the postmodern self adrift

Joseph E. Davis talks about the concept of identities and why some social theorists have questioned the very existence of selves. (14 minutes)

Thomas de Zengotita describes how communication media contribute to the widespread sense of entitlement and of identity as an autonomous chooser. The postmodern self is what Zengotita calls “the flattered self,” increasingly believing itself to be the center of the universe. (59 minutes)

FEATURED GUESTS: Gilbert Meilaender, Ron Highfield, Mark Mitchell, Daniel M. Bell, Jr., Helen Rhee, and Peter Brown

Lee Siegel analyzes how web-based pursuits of unique identity is so unbounded that personal definition becomes impossible.

Sociologist John Steadman Rice argues that the concept of codependency is rooted in the tenets of "liberation psychotherapy," a way of thinking that can result in an asocial existence. (48 minutes)