A weekly podcast about building great relationships, cultivating wonder, and making things better for other people. Hosted by veteran community-builder Bart Campolo, Humanize Me features friendly, thoughtful conversations with a wide array of scientists, activists, artists and oddballs.
Have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Call the Humanize Me ‘Q Line’ at .
An simple index of episodes can be found here.
Humanize Me is a production of Jux Media.
Bart answers a question from a listener called Erin, who called our ‘Q Line’ to ask how to start to make new connections with people:
“How do I talk to people at the beginning of something new? Say I meet someone and I want to be friends with them or there’s someone I haven’t seen in a long time and they’ve come home for a visit or something, how do I make the next move? What are the steps to setting up a platonic date?”
Bart took off running, saying that it’s one of his favorite questions to be asked and drawing from his own experiences with college students to give a pretty comprehensive primer on how to talk to people, connect, and get to the next level with them.
Takeaways: Do it over food or drink; be clear about your intentions; as the initiator, take the lead; double down on curiosity and ask thoughtful questions; affirm people and be in a ‘giving’ mode; don’t be afraid to go deep; don’t be afraid of prep ahead of time and evaluation afterwards; be engaged as an active listener; communicate that you notice them.
Human centered design (HCD), and its closely-related sibling, impact design, is about understanding challenges facing people or society, and working with others to design solutions to those challenges. Design thinking is an interdisciplinary thing, a collaborative process and a highly skilled area.
Kate Hanisian and Ramsey Ford are the co-founders of Cincinnati-based ‘Design Impact’, leading a team of people working on a range of things like social inequality, community and social change. This conversation they had with Bart Campolo is recorded a little differently than most episodes of Humanize Me, and is more like listening in on a chat in a coffee shop!
Check out Kate and Ramsey’s website at D-Impact.org.
On this week’s Q&A episode of Humanize Me, Bart answers a question from a listener called Matt (who called our new ‘Q Line’ to leave his question for Bart directly). Matt’s question concerned his 5 year-old son, who was given an abrupt theology lesson from his 6 year-old cousin recently:
“My son mentioned that he did not think that God was real, to which his cousin responded by saying that, since he did not believe God is real and that he did not go to church, he would be sent to Hell by God if he died. And he describes Hell, of course, as a terrible place with fire and darkness where you don’t want to go, and my son kind of angrily responded that he didn’t think that was true and did not want to go to such a place.”
This led to an assertion from the boys’ grandfather, who confronted Matt’s wife and told her that they were leading the child astray by not teaching him about these matters.
Bart Campolo had some thoughts about both how to talk to children about things – like Hell – that they may hear from other children or adults, and about how to talk to the grandfather in this example about how his wife and he are raising their son.
Takeaways: Asking thought-provoking questions may be better than refutations; instilling respect for the beliefs of others is important; asserting boundaries around parenting is also important; teaching them about the whole variety of religions in the world may provide perspective; project security and confidence in your conclusions and your kids may well pick up on it.
Glenda Jordan makes money by being sexy, and dancing on stages in a form of adult entertainment. But that doesn’t mean that she is merely a sex object, or that she gives up her humanity to do it. So what’s the difference between objectification and empowerment?
In this conversation with Bart Campolo, Glenda talks about how the female body is seen by males from the early stages of a woman’s life, the attention women get whether they want it or not, physical safety as a woman, and social conditioning in men.
But at the very center of the conversation is a simple message: sexuality is about context, and there are both appropriate and inappropriate contexts in which to look at, enjoy and – yes – sexualize the female form. Glenda sees her work as an example of one such appropriate context, where she is in control, where she’s getting paid for it, where she is empowered to perform and works hard at it, and where she has chosen to express herself in a sexualized way.
Where are the lines? How should men behave around women they find attractive, generally? Is cat calling ever okay? When is it wrong to look, and is there an obligation to look away, too? And is common sense around this subject really all that common?
Glenda lives in Las Vegas and works full time as a model, performer and dancer. She moved to Vegas after graduating with an art degree from the University of Tennessee. Being raised fundamentalist Southern Baptist and transitioning to atheism helped her develop a deep understanding and appreciation of feminism and social justice. Follow Glenda on Instagram.
Suicide is on the minds of the many after some prominent ones in the past week or two. So today, we get to a question close to the hearts of the rest of us:
“How should we think about high profile suicides like those of fashion designer Kate Spade and TV personality chef Anthony Bourdain? These people seemingly had everything they could want, and yet they found themselves apparently without hope. What does this teach the rest of us, how should we think about suicide in general and how can we begin to prevent it from happening?
Bart attempts to answer the question, which is difficult by its very nature.
Takeaways: We don’t really know celebrities like we think we do; we should remember that people will often not reach out when they’re anxious or depressed and need frequent check-ins from people they love; investments in the science of happiness are worthwhile.
Bonus question: What books does Bart recommend for people coming out of faith?
Links:
Paulogia’s YouTube review of Leaving My Father’s Faith
Mr. Rogers’ simple set of rules for talking to children – The Atlantic
Like Bart Campolo, Kent Dobson had a prominent Christian father, and, like Bart, Kent finds himself a post-evangelical. But, although their journeys share some similarities, these two have not ended up in the same place. Kent thinks differently.
In this wide-ranging conversation between them, Kent talks about his current work with a values-based community that includes believers and non-believers, being part of (and pastor of) the Michigan megachurch founded by Rob Bell, the ‘faith unraveling’ since, the state of Israel, the work of Carl Jung, trying on different theological ‘hats’, and the (not so easy to answer) question of whether there’s a personal force in the universe.
Kent Dobson’s website can be found at kentdobson.com. The C3 community can be found at c3westmichigan.org.
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