Courses — David Lawrence Morse

Defining, framing, and analyzing the problem. Identifying and evaluating potential solutions. Writing with clarity, concision, and grace.
Recognizing that disinformation is only an extreme form of win-at-all-costs strategic persuasion. Learning the tools of rhetoric. Crafting arguments that persuade but don’t manipulate.
Human beings are storytellers. We tell stories to impart to the chaos of our lives some order and meaning, or to generate empathy, or to convince others to understand our version of reality. How can the art of storytelling help improve the public’s understanding of politics and/or policy?

Plato. Thomas More. Fourier, Skinner, Le Corbusier. Octavia Butler. Dystopias help us analyze what might have gone wrong in our existing society; utopias encourage us to imagine alternatives at a time when radical solutions are sorely needed.
When (if ever) is lying justified—on a personal or political level? What policy problems are created by the ubiquity of lying? To search for answers, we read broadly in literature, philosophy, history, politics.