examining our lives
An investigation of our human responsibilities commingles with a discussion of our daily perception of reality in the film Examined Life, a documentary which places some of today’s most influential thinkers in the day to day context of our world.
It takes tremendous discipline, it takes tremendous courage to think for yourself, to examine yourself…
—Cornel West
The film includes Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor.
Any intelligent society would somehow give special privilege to critics.
It is by criticizing that society—that humanity—has made progress.
…I think it’s always the outsiders, the ones that don’t fit in,
[who] are the ones who’ve pushed us forward.
—Philip Jones Griffiths
Excerpt from an interview with Philip Jones Griffiths
by Bob Dannin in New York City, January 2002
“Can journalism be a humanitarian art? New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has learned that reportage can deaden rather than awaken the consciousness, much less the hearts, of his readers. He shares his wide ethical lens he’s gained on human life in our time — both personal and global.”
—Krista Tippett
