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James Risen Talks About The Important Things

In his acceptance speech on being awarded the Elijah Lovejoy award, Mr. James Risen talks about how conventional wisdom can stifle real thinking.

There is much food for thought in his speech and made me think 'what if there is a slavery problem in our time' or 'what if there is a Hitler in our age'?

The meaning should be clear — just because there is no problem as acute as actual 'slavery' does not mean there are no acute problems left. So, what is our response to the worst of our extant problems? How much of unconventional thinking are we willing to undertake about them? What are the boundaries of our concerns or how far do they stretch.

I feel it's critically important to escape the shackles of routine thinking and justifying mindsets and attitudes just because they were bequeathed to us by our culture, society or surroundings. Humans must learn to become less parochial.

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