Radical Curiosity: Questioning Commonly Held Beliefs to Imagine Flourishing Futures

Times of transformation require ever greater scrutiny of what kind of government is relevant to communities so essentially redefining themselves.

Nor should the social contract be static. To remain relevant in changing times, such a contract requires amendments. It should exist in a constant state of redesign.

Curiosity has the opposite effect of what Kristof described as Trump’s “corrosive acid.” It has the magical powers of rebuilding and reconnecting. Inquiry, when done honestly, builds bridges within communities.

Americans look to our GDP as a report card on the performance of government. But how might we evaluate government’s performance on its moral charge, found in a government’s original social contract to actively care for the well-being of its society?

The Radically Curious leader is intrinsically multilingual, looking beyond the literal language of traditional books to read culture as a set of stories. Developing this cultural literacy requires that we (1) be honest about naming legacy narratives, (2) listen deeply in order to identify upending indicators, and (3) begin to imagine and articulate

to author more beautiful futures, we must imagine and express what a fundamentally different possibility might be. As the award-winning poet and author Ocean Vuong described with stunning clarity: We often tell our students, “The future is in your hands.” But I think the future is actually in your mouth. You have to articulate the world you want to

I think of the act of naming as diagnosis. Though not all diagnosed diseases are curable, once you know what you’re facing, you’re far better equipped to know what you can do about it.

our contemporary world has privatized much of public life. We retreat into our homes, onto our screens, and into our echo chambers. Immersing ourselves in information mediated by algorithms. Always connected, yet rarely connecting with one another. The result is we are less and less practiced in the craft of conversation, our ability to hear one an

It’s not that we should be wary of stories themselves; rather, we should be wary of losing ourselves inside them. We need to acknowledge how stories can become tidal waves that overpower us and swallow us whole. We can become the characters that others assign to us, unwittingly performing a role that constrains our self-aware choices. Without knowi