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It’s A Question Of Balance ® radio show balances the intellectual with the creative, exploring whether we have more in common than divides us through thought-provoking conversations – out and about with people on the street on different topics, and in the studio with inspiring guests from the arts. Balance is not a compromise. Balance is truth distilled from many places creating cohesive understanding.
Topic: Out And About – Conversations with People on the Street about Questions That Matter: What Happens If We Characterize Ourselves By Our Political Party?
This week we consider ‘What happens if we characterize ourselves by our political party?’ If you are talking politics, are you likely to say ‘ I am a Democrat/ Republican/ Libertarian etc?’ In America it is common for people to characterizes themselves politically this way. By contrast, in the UK, for example, people will say ‘I support the Conservative party’ or ‘I vote for Labour’ or ‘the Liberals represent my views’. This may seem a small linguistic difference of expression but one mode of expression embodies our views, we are what we believe – ‘I am a Republican/Democrat’; the other maintains a distance between who we are and what we believe – ‘I support the Republicans/Democrats’. Could embodying our political beliefs be part of the reason the USA seems so divided? Does it make us feel more different from each other than we actually are? If we are what we believe then any dissent from our position feels very personal, which may affect how we receive and react to information. We may hold a range of views but if we need to self-identify in one political camp or another we may focus on and defend only the views that allow us to stay in that camp. What about Independents and ‘undecideds’? Are they as wishy-washy as they are sometimes portrayed or are they actually more accurately representing the complexity of political views on different topics by not identifying with one party?
What do you think? Ruth Copland gets the views of people on the street for our Out and About feature.
In Out And About we consider topics with local relevance and global significance. The idea is to get us thinking about the questions that affect us all – to stimulate new thinking, or clarify what we already feel. To hear how other people’s opinions may differ from or be similar to our own.
Arts Interview: In-Depth Conversation with Four Artists From Fire In The Heart
This week as her special guests from the arts Ruth Copland is pleased to be interviewing Deborah Allen, Brittney Buffo, Tom North, and Gina Rene from the inspiring show Fire In The Heart. Created and produced by director, producer, actress, writer, and screenwriter Deborah Allen, Fire In The Heart is a celebration of how the performing arts can be used to address trauma and recovery. Fire In The Heart features multiple artists showing how the arts can help us process, heal, and transcend traumatic events, whether they be in our own lives or the lives of others, while entertaining and enriching us at the same time. Fire In The Heart features professional performers from many music genres including hip-hop, gospel, classical, and opera, as well as film-makers, actors and poets, all of whom have used the arts in their own lives to address trauma and recovery from issues including substance abuse, violence, and major health issues. Artists include hip-hop artists The Luminaries, Carnegie Hall cellist Lisa Lancaster, recording artist Delores Burgess, and musical director and performing artist Stephan Terry. Fire In The Heart is designed as a way for the community to come together around what we are collectively experiencing and experience the arts as a powerful transformative lifeline, with the potential to be life-changing for some. Cabrillo College in California is presenting Fire In The Heart, as Cabrillo Theatre Arts’ 2016 Evening of World Theatre and Ruth Copland has four of the performers with her on the show – creator and producer of Fire In The Heart, Deborah Allen; film-maker Brittney Buffo; memoirist Tom North; and hip-hop artist, singer-songwriter, and story-teller Gina Rene.
For more info visit jane-themovie.com, houseof8media.com, truenorthbytomnorth.com and Ginarene.com
“It’s A Question of Balance ® so rare among radio talk shows, lets its subjects breathe. With her discursive style and pleasingly eccentric range of curiosity, host Ruth Copland each week treats her listeners to two hours of Whole Brain Radio.”
Hampton Sides – Internationally bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and historian