Zak Stein - Why Reclaiming Value Is Essential for Humanity's Survival

Zak is a writer, educator, and futurist whose work explores issues around existential risk and the meta-crisis. He studied religion and philosophy at Hampshire College and then later educational neuroscience, human development, and educational philosophy at Harvard. He is a co-founder of several organizations including Lectica, Civilization Research Institute, and the Center for World Philosophy and Religion. He is also the author of several books including “Education in a Time Between Worlds” and a co-author of “First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on Cosmoerotic Humanism, the Meta-crisis, and the World to Come.” In this episode we speak about the problems of post-modernity, why value & consciousness are fundamental aspects of reality, Cosmo-Erotic humanism, evolving perennialism, the problem of evil, the most powerful and dangerous religion in the world today and so much more.



🔗[Links & resources] 🔗

• Zak Stein’s personal site
• First Principles First Values by David J. Temple (Zak’s latest book)
• My first conversation with Zak on the Education Crisis
• My second conversation with Zak on his approach to human development
• David Ray Griffin
• David Hume
• Iain McGilchrist
• John Vervaeke
• Nick Land
• Deep Utopia by Nick Bostrom
• Perennial Philosophy
• Jurgen Habermas
• Ken Wilber
• Stuart Kauffman
• B.F. Skinner
• Noam Chomsky
• Richard Dawkins
• Rupert Sheldrake

📝[Show Notes] 📝

0:00 - Introduction
1:55 - The Problems of Post-Modernity
12:31 - Why value & consciousness are fundamental aspects of reality
21:35 - What is Cosmo-Erotic Humanism?
42:40 - Evolving Perennialism and The Problem of Evil
52:20 - Global Intimacy Disorder & Emotional Maturity
1:04:35 - Balancing advances in technology with ethical development
1:10:36 - Bringing the wisdom of religions to the scientific rationalist mind
1:26:26 - The most powerful & dangerous religion in the world today
1:32:30 - The difficulty of transmitting ethical leadership



*Subscribe to the Insighter substack to get in-depth articles on the theory and practice of human transformation through a post-conventional lens