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Passion Struck with John R. Miles

Rick Hanson & Joshua Greene on From Us and Them to All of Us | EP 704

December 18, 2025·1h 8m

What if the most significant leadership challenge of our time isn’t strategy, speed, or scale but our shrinking capacity to care for one another?In an era of deepening polarization and quiet loneliness, this special episode of Passion Struck confronts the root of division: our brain's ancient "us vs. them" wiring that once ensured tribal survival but now fragments society.Host John R. Miles joins Harvard cognitive scientist Joshua Greene (author of Moral Tribes) and psychologist Rick Hanson (New York Times bestselling author and founder of the Global Compassion Coalition) to explore how evolutionary moral instincts fuel exclusion and how neuroscience and compassion practices can rewire them toward broader belonging.Blending rigorous science with profound wisdom, the conversation explores how to expand the "moral circle" from narrow identities to shared global humanity, cultivate moral courage without erasing differences, and turn insight into action.A highlight: the tied-in Pods Fight Poverty initiative, uniting leading podcasters to support GiveDirectly's evidence-based cash transfers. These lift entire Rwandan villages out of extreme poverty with dignity-restoring direct aid (amplified by Giving Multiplier's matching funds).This episode does not just diagnose division. It offers a hopeful, actionable path to inclusion, proving small acts of expanded empathy ripple into real-world change. At a time when trust is eroding, this reminds us that true belonging is not zero-sum. It is the future we can choose.Go Deeper.