Library
Filter
View
1,301-1,400 of 1,615
Undergraduates ask me how to keep from getting cynical and demoralized, and my first question is how much mainstream news media they consume each day.
The Difference Between Empathy and Sympathy 3 min
What is the best way to ease someone's pain and suffering? In this beautifully animated RSA Short, Dr Brené Brown reminds us that we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities.
Sometimes I feel nostalgic for the cultural mythology of my youth, a world in which there was nothing wrong with soda pop, in which the super Bowl was important, in which America was bringing democracy to the world, in which the doctor could fix you, in which science was...
Saving Face 50 min
Every year in Pakistan, many people - the majority of them women - are known to be victimized by brutal acid attacks, while numerous other cases go unreported. With little or no access to reconstructive surgery, survivors are physically and emotionally scarred.
What Ads With Half-Naked Women Look Like When They’re Turned Into Men 4 min
The first part of this clip gets into the sexism and rape culture around advertising, but what really illustrates the point clearly is the last half.
Art Activism: Check Out The Beehive Collective's Latest Extraordinary Illustration 8 min
The Beehive Design Collective's most ambitious storytelling illustration to date, Mesoamerica Resiste, is complete after nine years of production!
Middle Sexes: Redefining He And She 75 min
Examines the diversity of human sexual and gender variance around the globe, with commentary by scientific experts and first-hand accounts of people who do not conform to a simple male/female binary.
iDiots - Are We Being Turned Into Automatons 4 min
Like. Share. Buy. LOL. Look around a bar, bus, train, park, coffee shop, cafeteria or just about anywhere these days and you will probably see people staring intently at a phone, tablet or laptop. What is this doing to our collective psyche and society? Although this short...
Many countries in the world see the U.S. as the single greatest external threat to their societies. During the latest episode of the Washington farce that has astonished a bemused world, a Chinese commentator wrote that if the United States cannot be a responsible member of...
Generation M: Misogyny in Media & Culture 5 min
Despite the achievements of the women's movement over the past four decades, misogyny remains a persistent force in American culture. In this important documentary, Thomas Keith, professor of philosophy at California State University-Long Beach, looks specifically at misogyny...
Bloom: An Exploration of Visionary Art 10 min
What role does art play in the transition to a new kind of world? This video explores this question with beautiful sounds, images and ideas that will likely leave your imagination stimulated with evocative dreams and visions of your own.
Yukon Kings 7 min
Set in the remote Alaskan Yukon Delta, Yukon Kings follows Yup'ik fisherman Ray Waska as he teaches his grandkids how to fish during the summer salmon run. With environmental and cultural forces threatening their subsistence way of life, Ray holds onto the hope that his...
“Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that government and capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world?” the anarchist
Well I’m in the working world again. I’ve found myself a well-paying gig in the engineering industry, and life finally feels like it’s returning to normal after my nine months of traveling.
To this day, a philosophical debate rages on as to the true nature of humanity. Is humanity at its core good or evil? Does the human species amount to no more than a parasite on the planet as Agent Smith says in The Matrix, “a cancer”, intent on devouring every last resource...
“The rich are different from us,” F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway allegedly replied, “Yes, they have more money.”
Israel's New Racism: The Persecution of African Migrants in the Holy Land 10 min
About 60,000 African migrants have arrived in Israel since 2006, fleeing unrest in their home countries. But upon arrival in the ostensibly democratic country, the migrants have faced intense persecution and have been branded as "infiltrators" by right-wing politicians and...
The Black Fatherhood Project (2013) (trailer) 2 min
In The Black Fatherhood Project, Jordan Thierry leads viewers through an honest and essential exploration of fatherhood in Black America, providing historical context and conversation for an issue at the core of the Black experience today.
The Killing Screens: Media & the Culture of Violence 6 min
The Killing Screens urges us to think about the effects of the media in new and complex ways. In contrast to the relatively simplistic behaviorist model that media violence causes real-world violence, Gerbner encourages us to think about the psychological, political, social...
Michael Sandel: Why We Shouldn't Trust Markets with Our Civic Life 15 min
In the past three decades, says Michael Sandel, the US has drifted from a market economy to a market society; it's fair to say that an American's experience of shared civic life depends on how much money they have. (Three key examples: access to education, access to justice...
The Brainwashing of My Dad 90 min
What happened to Dad? As filmmaker, Jen Senko, tries to understand the transformation of her father from a non political, life-long Democrat to an angry, right-wing fanatic, she uncovers the forces behind the media that changed him completely: a plan by Roger Ailes under...
A Vision of America the Possible 6 min
Gus Speth imagines a compelling vision of a better, happier country—and how to make it possible. Read more: http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/america-the-possible-a-manifesto
The World's Most Powerful Photographs 2 min
What makes a great photograph great?
Derrick Jensen: How the West Has Won 28 min
Peak Moment 200: "Is the world a better place because you were born?" asks author Derrick Jensen. He contrasts sustainable indigenous cultures, who enrich their habitat, with the current "dominant culture destroying everything." He explores how industrial civilization is...
TED is a powerful and paradigm shattering initiative that brands itself with the slogan “Ideas worth spreading.” At this point, we have probably all heard of TED and the short talks given by inspiring people from all around the world to audiences at different conferences...
The Society of the Spectacle: Guy Debord's Classic Work Remade into a Mind-Bending Short Film 18 min
Guy Debord's classic 1967 text, remade into a contemporary context, with all sorts of visual remixing in the grand spirit of 'the spectacle.' Also includes Marshall McLuhan and John Berger.
Affluenza 56 min
AFFLUENZA diagnoses a serious social disease - caused by consumerism, commercialism and rampant materialism - that is having a devastating impact on our families, communities, and the environment. We have more stuff, but less time, and our quality of life seems to be...
In my unending search for just the right vintage images for our articles, I have looked through thousands of photographs of men from the last century or so. One of the things that I have found most fascinating about many of these images, is the ease, familiarity...
Schooling the World 66 min
If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children.
Photographer Proves Strangers are Friends You Haven't Met Yet 2 min
What a beautiful, inspiring story. Photographer Richard Renaldi takes two random strangers on the street and has them pose together in a photograph as if they were intimate family members. Almost
Earth, Stories Of A Pale Blue Dot 2 min
Emerging from the echoes and end-game of a dualistic ego-driven world, we find ourselves once again with the opportunity to reflect on the past and change our planetary future into a whole new positive, conscious and peaceful paradigm. The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of...
Alan Watts: What is Wrong With Our Culture 5 min
Thought-provoking 5 minutes on the state of the world from the late, great Alan Watts - a man far ahead of his time.
If she's twerking on it, maybe we'll pay attention.
Freedom Riders 117 min
This is the story of more than four hundred Americans who participated in a bold and dangerous experiment designed to awaken the conscience of a complacent nation. These self-proclaimed, 'Freedom Riders' challenged the mores of a racially segregated society by performing a...
We can cultivate empathy throughout our lives, says Roman Krznaric—and use it as a radical force for social transformation.
When the Ben Swann team has conference calls we certainly do not discuss pop culture. However, after watching the Miley Cyrus video pop up in my Facebook news-feed multiple times I said to myself, “What the hell, watch it.” After regaining composure from the visceral...
Over the years, CNN.com has become a news website that many people turn to for top-notch reporting. Every day it is visited by millions of people, all of whom rely on “The Worldwide Leader in News”—that’s our slogan—for the most crucial, up-to-date information on current...
Neighbors in Conover Commons in Redmond, Washington, share an open field as their community gathering spot. This photo originally appeared in Jay Walljasper's book, How to Design Our World for Happiness.
What can we do to help young men respect women, recognize consent, and have healthy sexual relationships? Teach them kindness to others—and the courage to go against the crowd.   When Max was just a few months old, I sat cross-legged on the floor with him in a circle of...
There’s no class in high school on how to not be a shitty boyfriend or girlfriend. Sure, they teach us the biology of sex, the legality of marriage, and maybe read a few obscure love stories from the 19th century on how not to be. But when it comes down to actually handling...
The Innovation of Loneliness 4 min
What is the connection between Social Networks and Being Lonely? Quoting the words of Sherry Turkle from her TED talk - Connected, But Alone. (ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html) Also Based on Dr. Yair Amichai-Hamburgers hebrew article -The Invention of...
Samsara (2011) (trailer) 1 min
Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.
Things are getting real. Entertainment, specifically. And by "real" I don't mean serious, or imminent, or even necessarily honest -- but real, as in pushed to the limit of what we perceive as real, and even further, until it's so real we can't distinguish what's real and...
War/Dance 106 min
The superb documentary War/Dance reveals the redemptive power of music, even in the most horrific places. Focusing on three children in their early teens in war-torn Uganda–stoic Nancy, driven Dominic, and soft-spoken Rose–War/Dance tracks the efforts of the school of a...
Why Hierarchy Creates a Destructive Force Within the Human Psyche 9 min
Dr. Robert Sapolsky discusses some rather amazing discoveries related to the social and personal consequences of hierarchy.
"I wasn't worried about freedom. I was worried about people being turned into morons by TV." -- Ray Bradbury in 2001 talking about his book Fahrenheit 451
It's The Greatest Drama of All Time and You Just Might Be Missing It 6 min
When you're glued to the latest series of a show like Game of Thrones, caught up in the drama, the twists and turns of the plot, you may be missing the most intricate, massive drama imaginable; the one happening all around you, in real time.
Laughology 66 min
Laughter... Plato Hated it. The Bible discouraged it. The school you went to probably banned it. The first ever feature documentary about the subject, Laughology is a "screamingly funny," groundbreaking odyssey into why we laugh and those who would stop us.
Here it is: Power. Now, quick, before reading further, close your eyes. What associations come to mind? If your list is full words like coercion, force, guns, oppression, domination, money, you could be in big trouble.
With Al Jazeera America launching in a couple of weeks, Current TV's John Fugelsang decides to address the
As parents begin to seek a more gentle method of discipline, they often start by dropping the obvious punishments, such as spanking or removal of unrelated privileges. Finding themselves without tools to enforce their instructions, they begin to rely heavily on traditional...
After the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot an unarmed African-American teenager, the fo
TERRA BLIGHT (trailer) 2 min
Terra Blight is a 55-minute documentary about America's consumption of computers and the hazardous waste we create in pursuit of the latest technology.
Civic Engagement: Community Disaster Relief Wagon 3 min
Circus Maximus flew from Seattle with his partner Karissa to help out in NJ after Hurricane Sandy. Using skills that he already had as a caterer, he decided to create The U-HUNGRY Cafe to mobilize and distribute food to shore towns without electricity and whose cars had been...
Surviving Progress 79 min
Humanity's ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, A Short History Of Progress inspired Surviving Progress, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by...
Sext Up Kids: How Growing Up in a Hyper-Sexualized Culture Hurts Our Kids 3 min
The powder keg that is porn culture has exploded in the lives of North American children. From thongs and padded bras for 9-year-old girls to "sexting," 24-7 internet porn, and unfiltered social media, kids today are bombarded with commercial sexual appeals like never before.
Love, Reality, and the Time of Transition 77 min
This video sheds light into the nature of love, relationships, the "New Age" movement, reality-creation, quantum physics, objectivity vs. subjectivity and how it all relates to the topics of "conspiracy theories", psychopathy, and the importance of esoteric self-work. "Love...
Neil deGrasse Tyson Smacks Down an Assumption We've Held About Our Animal Relatives For Far Too Long 4 min
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, American astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium, discusses the human-animal connection from a scientific standpoint.
Ladies of New York , you are free to walk bare-breasted through the city! New York City's 34,000 police officers have been instructed that, should they encounter a woman in public who is shirtless but obeying the law, they should not arrest her. This is a good step towards...
A century ago, industrialists like Andrew Carnegie believed that Darwin’s theories justified an economy of vicious competition and inequality. They left us with an ideological legacy that says the corporate economy, in which wealth concentrates in the hands of a few, produces...
April is usually a cheerful month in New England, with the first signs of spring, and the harsh winter at last receding. Not this year. There are few in Boston who were not touched in some way by the marathon bombings on April 15 and the tense week that followed. Several...
Cause And Effect: The Consequences of What We Take for Granted 5 min
EVERYONE should watch and share this short video to educate and humble themselves, and destroy ignorance worldwide--through understanding the consequences of what goes into our daily routines, and the hidden horrors behind the privileges we take for granted. Please take just...
Your information diet is an ethical choice of yours, so when you’re on the Huffington Post looking at say the Kardashians and you click on the Kardashians, understand that you are not only reading that article, but you’re also voting for that article.
As a perpetual emotion machine -- producing and guzzling its own political fuel -- the “war on terror” continues to normalize itself as a thoroughly American way of life and death. Ongoing warfare has become a matter of default routine, pushed along by mainline media and the...
The thriving metropolis of Boston was turned into a ghost town on Friday. Nearly a million Bostonians were asked to stay in their homes – and willingly complied. Schools were closed; business shuttered; trains, subways and roads were empty; usually busy streets eerily...
Simply Rob 14 min
Simply Rob is a portrait of Bronx based Poet and Activist Rob Vassilarakis. Estranged from his family when he was just a teenager because of his sexuality, Rob fell into a world of self hatred and drug abuse. In 1993 he was diagnosed with HIV, he was 22 years old. After years...
Yesterday, the US House prepared for the debate on the privacy-invading "cybersecurity" bill called CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. The rules committee hearing was the last stop before the bill is voted on by the full House.
Americans will remember Monday, April 15, 2013 as a day in which unspeakable violence took the lives of three people and wounded at least 153 after bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line. Thousands of miles away, Iraqis will remember this same Monday as a day in...
Late last night I saw on Twitter news reports coming in about the twin bombings at the Boston Marathon. I saw the photographs of bloodied runners on the ground, read the stories about how people had their legs and ankles blown off. I heard that an 8 year old boy died from the...
The Mona Lisa Curse (2008) (trailer) 5 min
In The Mona Lisa Curse, art critic Robert Hughes subjected present-day commercialisation of art to a withering criticism. It's a damning indictment of the general tendency of art to degenerate into flashy triviality to the degree that it subordinates itself to money-making...
Drying For Freedom 2 min
Our planet’s economic and environmental future hangs on an unlikely thread: the clothesline.
Humanity: Unchained 11 min
Short film release from Dominoes Falling Productions, featuring Jacque Fresco, Charlie Chaplin, Joe Rogan with music from William Fitzsimmons & Priscilla Ahn (JacM Chillstep Remix).
Just in case you were beginning to think rich people were deeply misunderstood and that they feel the pain of those who are less fortunate, here's the world's wealthiest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, with some helpful advice. "If you're jealous of those...
Militainment Inc – Militarism and Pop Culture 13 min
Militainment, Inc. offers a fascinating, disturbing, and timely glimpse into the militarization of American popular culture, examining how U.S. news coverage has come to resemble Hollywood film, video games, and “reality television” in its glamorization of war. Mobilizing an...
Everything Is A Remix 64 min
This documentary is a bold celebration of remix culture — making the case that true creativity doesn’t come from thin air, but from reimagining what already exists. It’s not about being original. It’s about being transformative.
People are waking up. They're getting involved. They're saying, "Not another day! This is where I mark the line." Their desire to change the world is turning from simple wishful thinking on Monday mornings into tangible action. The thoughts they used to have only occasionally...
The Bloom: A Journey Through Transformational Festivals (trailer) 9 min
THE BLOOM, a ground-breaking new documentary webseries, illuminates the blossoming phenomenon of Transformational Festivals, immersive participatory realities that are having profound life-changing effects on hundreds of thousands of lives.
Baraka 97 min
Featuring no conventional narrative, this film presents footage of people, places and things from around the world. From chaotic cities to barren wilderness, the movie takes viewers around the globe to witness a variety of spectacles in both natural and technological realms...
Culture In Decline #4: The War on Nature 29 min
In this episode, Peter Joseph investigates the nature of War and human conflict; the White House declares War On Nature itself; a french chef prepares an international delicacy for the kids; Louie the Logic Gremlin returns to piss everyone off and our Man on the Street gets...
Race: The Power of An Illusion 180 min
The division of the world's peoples into distinct groups - "red," "black," "white" or "yellow" peoples - has became so deeply embedded in our psyches, so widely accepted, many would promptly dismiss as crazy any suggestion of its falsity. Yet, that's exactly what this...
Fall and Winter 102 min
This stunning film takes you on a hypnotic journey, reaching to the past to understand the origins of the catastrophic environmental transitions we now face. Over two years, director Matt Anderson traveled 16,000 miles to document firsthand our modern industrial world and the...
Occupy Love 85 min
Join acclaimed director Velcrow Ripper on a journey deep inside the global revolution of the heart that is erupting around the planet. Occupy Love explores the growing realization that the dominant system of power is failing to provide us with health, happiness or meaning.  ...
Reconvergence (2012) (trailer) 2 min
"An epic rumination on the nature of modern human existence." -Maryland Film Festival At the core of humankind's ethos is an ongoing struggle to come to terms with the impermanence of self. Reconvergence offers an intriguing exploration of mortality, consciousness and...
The Family: Friend or Foe?
The war on germs is just one expression of a medical system based on control. Control, in turn, arises from our sense of self, that we are separate beings in an alien and indifferent universe. Not being part of any purpose beyond ourselves, naturally we seek to maximize the...
The Internet is Closing Down 15 min
"We live in the feudalism era of the digital age"
Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview is an exciting and surprisingly uplifting new documentary about the role of ideology in finding solutions to the urgent global crises humankind faces in the 21st
Is greed all that's wrong with capitalism? No. It is not enough to attack capitalists for being greedy, although this is a common tactic. I hope to explain why in this short essay.
An increasing foundation of scientific research shows a significant linkage between personal well being and environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. This is not coincidence; it is a profound truth of crucial importance in the quest to create sustainable societies...
Obama Supporters Actually Hate Obama's Policies 7 min
Obama supporters condemn right-wing-sounding policies when they think they’re Romney’s, but either excuse them or go into denial  when told that the policies are actually Obama’s.
A 'cult,' according to Merriam-Webster, can be defined as "Great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work..(and)..a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion."
Fractured Land (trailer) 4 min
Caleb Behn is a young, Indigenous warrior fighting to save his people's land and culture. Deep in the exquisite wilderness of northeastern British Columbia, the ancestral home of Caleb's Dene people, the multi-billion-dollar oil and gas industry emits chemicals linked to...
Cultural Creatives 1.0: The (R)evolution 81 min
Featuring many key figures from Europe and the U.S., this is the first documentary film to look with scientific thoroughness at the world of Cultural Creatives. It shows that a great mass of people think differently from the way propagated by the media and promoted by the...
This might seem a stretch but when John Muir said everything in the universe is connected to everything else he was serious. He was speaking of the ecology of natural systems in the broadest sense – and human ecologies too, no doubt. Ecology in both senses has to do with...
Incredible Speech by Charlie Kaufman Reminds Us: Things Don't Have To Be This Way 5 min
This is an excerpt from an incredible speech made by Charlie Kaufman during BAFTA's 2011 Screenwriters' Lecture Series. The video touches on how the world is built on consumerism. It serves to distract us, killing the human in side of us, leaving us feeling inadequate...
Political Travels 13 min
Want to see the world from a different perspective? Want to trade mind-numbing life for a fiery one? Want to plan your rebellious getaway now? Political travel is the address if you are looking for a revolutionary way to travel.
When it comes to competition, we Americans typically recognize only two legitimate positions: enthusiastic support and qualified support. The first view holds that the more we immerse our children (and ourselves) in rivalry, the better. Competition builds character and...
Slavery by Another Name 85 min
Slavery by Another Name is a 90-minute documentary that challenges one of Americans' most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. The film tells how even as chattel slavery came to an end in the South in 1865...
Share this: