#AcademicRunPlaylist - 5/29/25

It was life-affirming being on campus during commencement, especially during this current moment, and while contemplating the future of higher education in the US I listened to a number of books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist

First was "Complicit" by Max Bazerman. Bazerman cuts right to the chase in this refreshingly honest book on complicity, examining his own complicity in Dan Ariely's infamous fraud case. Much of this book is an enumeration of different famous examples of complicity, which are jarringly juxtaposed (placing questionable personal financial dealings around WeWork after the Nazis, for example). These cases are mostly uninformative. The meat of the book comes from the chapters that deeply examine the roots of complicity and how to individually and systematically avoid them. Highly recommend https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691236544/complicit

Next was the "Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tsu, translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. This founding text of Taoist thought is still illuminating and thought-provoking, and this edition by Feng and English contains an equal amount of content describing the translation choices and process, the history behind the text, and situating this philosophy amidst other major traditions. Highly recommend https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/180810/tao-te-ching-by-lao-tsu-trans-gia-fu-feng-and-jane-english-with-toinette-lippe-intro-jacob-needleman/

Last was "Ethics" by Simon Blackburn. This book packs a ton of ethical thought into a small package, with Blackburn situating major ethical topics through a contemporary lens. I appreciated his insightful and clear interpretation of different ethical schools of thought, and the writing is surprisingly devoid of the jargon and awkward phrasing that plague philosophy books. While this is certainly only a jumping off point, it is an extremely valuable one. Highly recommend https://academic.oup.com/book/31834