Show Notes
We are living through an age of acceleration. The hardest part is not necessarily the pace of change, but the societal whiplash it creates. One decade we are promised a frictionless future. The next we are told everything is collapsing. The antidote is not certainty, but the discipline of holding opposites together, especially in the realms of identity, faith, and doubt.
In this episode, Turkish novelist Elif Shafak explains why fiction may be our best defense against dogma, propaganda, and collective amnesia. Novels train us to live with complexity and to feel our way into someone else’s life. Shafak argues that this kind of moral imagination is not a luxury. Without it, the danger ahead is not fear, but numbness.
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Mentioned in this Episode:
The Bastard of Istanbul — Elif Shafak (novel, 2006)
The Gaze — Elif Shafak (novel)
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World — Elif Shafak (novel, 2019)
The Island of Missing Trees — Elif Shafak (novel, 2021)
There Are Rivers in the Sky — Elif Shafak (novel, 2024)
What Is It Like to Be a Bat? — Thomas Nagel (essay, 1974)
Angelus Novus — Paul Klee (artwork, 1920)
Where to find Elif Shafak:
Instagram: @shafakelif
Tiktok: @sayyourword
X: @Elif_Safak
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Credits
Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch
Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos
Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney
Theme Music: Marcus Bagala
Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott WilsonFuturology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.
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