Zócalo Public Square

Is Politics Really Tearing America Apart?

Is Journalism About Social Justice?

More than 17 million adults in America—7 percent of people 18 and older in the U.S.—have at least one major depressive episode annually. An estimated 15 percent of all people on Earth are expected to experience depression during their lifetimes. In 2015, UCLA launched a campus-wide initiative to cut the global burden of depression in half by 2050. Are we suffering more from depression than we used to? What is the balance between genetics and life experience in determining who suffers from this disease? How have the excesses, technologies, and even toxins of 21st-century life contributed to this epidemic? And what 21st-century tools might end it? UCLA Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics director and psychiatrist Nelson Freimer, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Mental Health Shelli Avenevoli, and psychologist and director of UCLA’s Anxiety and Depression Research Center Michelle Craske visited Zócalo to discuss modernity’s role in the global epidemic of depression. Moderated by Amy Ellis Nutt, forme

Did Americans Ever Get Along?

Can Phoenix Become Remotely Green? by Zócalo Public Square

Margaret Wertheim, “Space Versus Spirit: Why the Battle Between Science and Religion Is Driving Us Crazy” Science and religion are often viewed as two competing and utterly opposed worldviews–one based on faith, the other on reason. Yet both are systems that attempt to make sense of the world and of humanity’s place within a wider cosmological scheme. Religions usually posit that the material realm is just one part of a larger whole that also includes an immaterial spiritual domain, while modern science speaks only of a physical realm. But at the birth of modern science in the seventeenth century no one imagined that science was articulating the whole of reality. Los Angeles-based science writer Margaret Wertheim will trace the history of how any notion of a spiritual realm was written out of Western science. She will examine the social, psychological, and cultural effects of this transformation and urge us to acknowledge the intellectual gifts we derive from both sides of this maddening divide.

Last May, Michael Tomasky published an essay in The American Prospect, the respected liberal opinion magazine he edits, that set Washington on its ear. "Party in Search of a Notion" was Tomasky’s call for the Democrats to rise above the politics of interest-group particularism and become the party of the common good. The influential essay got front-page treatment in The New York Times and is one of the most widely quoted magazine essays of the past decade. Tomasky will discuss his ideas, his critics, and the new historical opportunity for progressive politics.

The razor thin margin of its recent presidential election has left Mexico deeply divided and the future of its democracy in question. Mexican political scientist and columnist Denise Dresser visits Zócalo to discuss candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s challenge to the election’s outcome and the credibility gap that a Felipe Calderón presidency would inevitably face. Known for her bold, insightful, and unbiased commentary on Mexican politics, Dresser will share the backstory of this long and winding presidential campaign as well as deliver the definitive analysis on its historic outcome.

The subject of social class may the last taboo. No one likes to talk about it, but we spend a lot of time thinking—and worrying—about where we fit into the culture of conspicuous consumption. But is “class” really a matter of money? What do tastes and values say about our relationship to our own social class? Does anyone really believe America is a “classless society”? Does Los Angeles still subscribe to the theory of “you are your car” or has the cult of real estate become our primary mode of aspiration and personal expression? Join three of LA’s wittiest and most insightful social observers–L.A. Times columnist Meghan Daum, filmmaker Nicole Holofcener (“Friends With Money,” “Lovely & Amazing”) and author/performer Sandra Tsing Loh (“Mother on Fire,” “A Year in Van Nuys,”)– for a frank and provocative discussion about social class in Los Angeles and beyond.

Acclaimed actress, Amy Brenneman, creator and star of CBS’ hit series “Judging Amy,” and Brad Silberling, director, writer and producer whose films include “City of Angels” and “Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events”, visit Zócalo to discuss what role morality plays in the creative process. Husband and wife and occasional coworkers, Brenneman and Silberling will compare notes, assess the state of their industry, and welcome audience input as they explore what kinds of responsibility artists have to both their audience and themselves.

One of America’s most formidable intellectuals, Francis Fukuyama, visits Zócalo to discuss his new book America at the Crossroads and to explain his very public break with neoconservative foreign policy. Always brilliant, incisive, and compelling, Fukuyama will outline his vision of a “Realistic Wilsonianism” that he thinks ought to guide America’s future relations with the outside world.

Are private foundations doing enough to help improve the quality of life in Los Angeles? Robert K. Ross, M.D., President and CEO of The California Endowment, the state’s largest private health foundation, will visit Zócalo to discuss the challenges the philanthropic community faces in LA.

Historian William Deverell, the director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, visits Zócalo to deliver a groundbreaking lecture on the role that the American West played in healing the wounds inflicted by the Civil War. After all, it was questions about the future of the West that provoked the war in the first place. Unable to reconcile antagonistic positions regarding the expansion of slavery into western territories, North and South capitulated to four years of catastrophic warfare. Then what? Did the post-war American West become a region in which to heal the wounds of disunion? Deverell explores themes of reunification through stories of the convalescence of individuals and the re-fashioning of what it meant to be an American after the Civil War.

Moderated by Jon Healey of the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board Dan Glickman, the Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), joins us to discuss the state of the film industry at a pivotal moment in its history. As Hollywood’s point man in global capitals from Washington to Beijing, Glickman works to open markets to the studios’ goods, battle piracy and promote the movie industry. In a wide-ranging interview, he will discuss everything from box office trends and the advent of high-definition home video to the challenge posed by bootlegged DVDs. He will also talk about the opportunities presented by the industry’s experiments with digital cinema as well as Hollywood’s ongoing battle to access movie screens around the world.

Is the Age of Gutenberg finished?  Has the Internet now become so widespread as to render books obsolete?  Are publishers dinosaur institutions? Is the crisis of American literacy also a crisis of American democracy? Does it matter? Steve Wasserman, former editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, will argue that books will survive as long as the human species is defined by its opposable thumb and its obsessive need to tell each other stories.

Moderated by Andrés Martinez, Los Angele Times Editorial Page Editor Immigration may be a national issue, but its economic implications are felt locally. Is it true that immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S.-born Angelenos? Or do those who come across the border take the work that Americans just won’t do? Join Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, civil rights attorney Connie Rice, Fernando J. Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles, and Times op-ed columnist Erin Aubry Kaplan as they discuss the economics of immigration and how they affect local politics and race relations.

Greg Critser, “Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies” by Zócalo Public Square

An Evening with Jorge Castañeda by Zócalo Public Square

Scientists have demonstrated that climate change is real, but polls show that 30 percent of Americans disagree. Scientists have shown that genetically modified foods pose no threat, but, according to one survey, half the country sees such foods as dangerous. And despite scientific assurances about vaccine safety, the number of very young children who don’t get vaccinated has quadrupled in the past two decades. Why are so many Americans ignoring—or rejecting—broad scientific consensus on these and other questions? Can skepticism about scientists be blamed entirely on the internet, the media, or ideological polarization among both conservatives and liberals—or do scientific institutions themselves bear some responsibility? And what are the broader consequences of this decline in belief in science as our society becomes ever more dependent on technology and discovery? Caltech historian of science and co-author of Merchants of Doubt Erik Conway, UCLA sociologist Jeffrey Guhin, and Cary Funk, director of science a

If state projections prove right, the sea level along California’s coast will rise 55 inches by the end of this century. That increase, which will be even higher during tidal floods and Pacific storms, would threaten the economies of the coastal counties that 85 percent of Californians call home. And it could spell doom for water sources, major roadways, hazardous waste facilities, military installations, power plants, airports, and seaports. How will this sea level rise change coastal communities, coastal industries from fish to oil, and postcard settings from Big Sur to San Diego? What can be done to mitigate the effects of rising seas and save California treasures? Or will California have to abandon many of its coastal and low-lying areas? Atmospheric physicist and director of the UCLA Center for Climate Science Alex Hall, California Coastal Commission member Effie Turnbull Sanders, and Sean B. Hecht, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law School, vi