Carl Jung Wisdom Jun 3, 2025 Why Most People Never Survive Their Spiritual Awakening | Carl Jung Most people think a spiritual awakening is a peaceful transformation — a shift into light and clarity. But for many, it becomes a storm they never saw coming. In this video, we explore why most people never survive their spiritual awakening, and how Carl Jung helps us understand the terrifying brilliance of collapse. A true spiritual awakening doesn’t just wake you up — it tears you apart. It exposes every illusion you’ve built your life upon. What follows is often an invisible spiritual crisis: confusion, fear, loss of identity, and the unbearable silence of meaninglessness. Why don’t most people survive this? Because they resist the very thing that would set them free: the ego death, the surrender of the mind’s control, the death of the false self. The process triggers emotional fragmentation, and the soul begins to shake — violently — against the structure that once held it in. Carl Jung called this the confrontation with the unconscious — and he knew that many don’t make it through, not because they’re weak, but because they try to escape the pain instead of listening to it. This is the moment of shadow collapse, the full unraveling of what was never real. If you’re going through a spiritual awakening and it feels like you’re losing everything — you’re not alone. You’re being emptied, not erased. What’s being dismantled is not your truth, but your illusion. Only those who surrender survive. And through this spiritual awakening, the soul learns how to live — finally — without pretending.
Bad Faith : Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy
#1 Never-Trumper Apr 26, 2025 Zionists, Evangelists, whatever you want to call them, their BLASPHEMY goes so far as to claim that George Washington went through an “apotheosis” when he died. Literally claiming that a slave owning, over taxing Freemason “became a god.” That is what apotheosis means. It is an undeniable and documented fact that the vast majority of all U.S. founders were Deists and Freemasons, with a much smaller percentage of Christians. The patriotic (PAY-tri-IDIOT) crowd would like to keep dreaming that their slave owning Deists and Masons were “Christians” but in educated reality, they are heavily uninformed and massively in need of facts.
‘Enigma’ Review: A Fascinating Portrait of Two Trailblazing Transgender Legends
With the Sundance-launched HBO documentary ‘Enigma,’ director Zackary Drucker shares the stories of Amanda Lear and April Ashley.
Feb 1, 2025 (Variety.com)
With “Enigma,” director Zackary Drucker (“The Stroll”) makes another intriguing film about trans history. From the sidewalks of New York, this time she takes the audience to glamourous Parisian
nightclubs and the fringes of British aristocracy to tell the story of Amanda Lear and April Ashley. The film is a straightforward chronological documentary relying on archival footage and media interviews from that era. Most fascinating is Drucker’s interview with Lear, which gives “Enigma” much-needed tension and conflict to balance out the conventionality of the rest of the proceedings.
Dubbed the “white queen of disco,” Lear was a famous performer and celebrity in the 1970s, while Ashley started as a model and became a pioneer of trans rights advocacy in her native Britain. According to Ashley, on whose book and recollections most of the film is constructed, they met as showgirls in the late 1950s in the Parisian cabaret Le Carrousel. According to the film, Lear was known as Peki d’Oslo at that time. Though Ashley became her mentor, after they both transitioned, Lear was adamant about living as a woman, so she denied her past and cut off everyone who knew her before. Meanwhile, Ashley was outed because of a messy divorce in the British courts, forcing her into years of trying to claim her identity as a woman while being treated as a freak.
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The dichotomy between the two subjects, both pioneers idolized by many contemporary trans women, gives “Enigma” its narrative strength. Using archival interviews, mostly from TV, Lear and Ashley are asked again and again whether they were biologically born male. Lear denies, while Ashley insists that she is “biologically male and socially female.” Both confrontations are tough to watch, especially in the current climate, when trans people are constantly asked to prove themselves. Lear and Ashley just wanted to live their lives and pursue their career dreams. It’s to “Enigma”’s credit that it doesn’t take sides, presenting both paths as valid.
The film also allows the women to show their personalities. While Lear was interviewed by Drucker and Ashley (who died in 2021) mostly appears in archival interviews, both are given ample screen time to show their personalities. April is funny and self-deprecating, seemingly comfortable in her skin despite the constant questioning of her gender. Lear also comes across as confident, though tension bubbles beneath as she denies ever knowing Ashley or having been at Le Carrousel. She also refuses to give her birth name or talk about her life in definitive terms. But would the audience have noticed this if Drucker hadn’t personally interviewed Lear and confronted her with evidence from her past? Lear remains steadfast that she’s always been a woman, but the film keeps cutting away to other people confirming her transition.
The Drucker/Lear interview gives “Enigma” its most interesting talking point. While both are polite to each other and Drucker shows warmth, there’s also conflict and confrontation. That raises questions about how much truth queer pioneers owe their contemporary counterparts. Lear chose a path and managed to live her life exactly as she wanted. The film tries to out her and keeps quoting Ashley’s book, which outed her. Additionally, there are passages written by the filmmakers and narrated by an actor based on Ashley’s life, which seem too inquisitive toward Lear. Still, Lear agreed to be interviewed, and her history — including questions about her gender — are public record. “Enigma” offers no definitive opinion on which path is favorable, Ashley’s or Lear’s. However, the Lear interviews give it a distinctive edge and make it more than the usual documentary recounting some famous person’s life.
Elsewhere, “Enigma” sticks to a conventional format. There are interviews with performers from Le Carrousel and with contemporary historians and performers commenting on Ashley and Lear. The scenes with the contemporary historians are not as strong, as if added to contextualize information the filmmakers weren’t able to do organically. An awkward scene showing two people walking around the Pigalle in Paris while talking of the history of drag performance further proves that point.
Both Lear and Ashley prove to be intriguing protagonists for a documentary. Drucker’s admiration for them comes through clearly. However “Enigma,” an HBO production that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, derives its strength mostly from Lear’s resolve to always be herself. And with that, the film can inspire courage in its audience, whatever their identity.
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‘Enigma’ Review: A Fascinating Portrait of Two Trailblazing Transgender Legends
Reviewed online, Jan. 31, 2025. In Sundance Film Festival (Premieres). Running time: 95 MIN.
- Production: (Documentary) An HBO Documentary Films release and presentation. Producers: Madison Passarelli, Noah Levy, Donovan Lovell, Stephen B. Strout, Doug Banker, Alex Garinger. Executive producers: Zackary Drucker, Dan Cogan, Liz Garbus, Jon Bardin, Kate Barry, Addison Mehr, Edward Sanders, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, Tina Nguyen.
- Crew: Director: Zackary Drucker. Editor: Claire Didier. Caméra: Clément Beauvois. Music: Danny Bensi, Saunder Jurriaans with James Newberry.
Sotomayor’s dissent in Trump v. CASA
Trump v. CASA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Trump v. CASA, Inc.)
Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. ___ (2025), was a United States Supreme Court case addressing whether lower-court judges have the authority to issue “universal injunctions” to block the enforcement of policies nationwide. On June 27, 2025, the Court ruled in a 6–3 decision that universal injunctions were in excess of the judiciary power unless necessary to provide the formal plaintiff with “complete relief”. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett emphasized that “complete relief” for a plaintiff was distinct from “universal relief” impacting all similar situations nationwide.
While the case did not directly address birthright citizenship in the United States, it centered on several universal injunctions blocking Executive Order 14160, issued by President Donald Trump to redefine the government‘s understanding of the Citizenship Clause. Three district court judges issued universal preliminary injunctions to block the order nationwide while the cases proceeded through the legal system.
The government appealed to the Supreme Court arguing that district judges should only be allowed to block enforcement with respect to the specific challengers filing a given lawsuit. The Supreme Court consolidated the appeals into Trump v. CASA. In its ruling, the court issued partial stays on existing injunctions except for those that were parties to the cases.
The opinion did not address the constitutionality of the birthright citizenship executive order and left open the ability for plaintiffs to pursue class-wide relief through class action lawsuits.
Background
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump stated that he would end birthright citizenship in the United States.[1] After his second inauguration, he signed Executive Order 14160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”, which ordered all departments of the executive branch to refuse to recognize children born to illegal immigrants or visa holders as citizens.[2] An estimated 150,000 such children were born in the United States each year.[3]
The order was quickly blocked by multiple universal preliminary injunctions issued by district court judges.[4] In addition to the three cases consolidated into Trump v. CASA, the executive order was also blocked by Judge Joseph Normand Laplante in New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support v. Trump.[5] Including these orders, as of May 14, 2025 there had been 39 injunctions issued against the second Trump administration blocking actions such as mass federal employee layoffs, federal funding freezes, and deportations.[6]
The administration viewed each injunction as judicial overreach and argued lower-court judges should only be allowed to block a contested policy from affecting the actual plaintiffs involved in the case.[3][6] Neither side of the dispute briefed the Supreme Court justices on the constitutionality of Executive Order 14160.[3]
Lower court history
Eighteen states and two cities (San Francisco and Washington, D.C.) filed a lawsuit in the District Court for the District of Massachusetts as New Jersey v. Trump. Four other states filed a second lawsuit, Washington v. Trump, in the District Court for the Western District of Washington.[7][8] A third lawsuit, by immigrant and asylum-seeker rights groups CASA de Maryland and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, was filed in the District Court for the District of Maryland on behalf of five pregnant women.[9]
Federal judges in each of the district courts issued preliminary injunctions to block the order from taking effect anywhere in the country.[4] Judge John C. Coughenour, presiding over Washington v. Trump, called the order “blatantly unconstitutional”.[2] Government appeals challenging the injunctions were rejected by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.[4]
U.S. Supreme Court
On April 17, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Trump v. CASA, consolidating it with Trump v. New Jersey and Trump v. Washington and setting oral arguments for May 15.[10]
Oral arguments were heard on May 15, with the solicitor general of the United States, D. John Sauer, representing the administration; Kelsi B. Corkran, for the immigrant groups, including CASA;[11] and Jeremy Feigenbaum, the solicitor general of New Jersey, for the various states.[12]
Decision
On June 27, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that, “Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.”[13]
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion. Barrett’s opinion did not declare universal injunctions unconstitutional, but concluded that they were an overreach based on the Judiciary Act of 1789 and inconsistent with “historical equitable practice”.[14] Barrett wrote that “the equitable relief available in the federal courts” should be akin to what was “‘traditionally accorded by courts of equity’” at the time of the founding of the United States,[14] quoting the Supreme Court’s holding in Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo, S.A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, Inc. (1999).
The Court granted the government a partial stay of the injunctions blocking Executive Order 14160, but “only to the extent that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue.”[13] They specified that the executive order could not take effect until 30 days after the ruling.[15]
Barrett acknowledged the importance of providing “complete relief” to plaintiffs seeking an injunction, but said “complete relief” was a narrower concept than “universal relief”. Barrett wrote that a pregnant mother would receive complete relief as long as her own child was not denied citizenship. “Extending the injunction to cover all other similarly situated individuals would not render her relief any more complete,” Barrett continued.[16]
However, the Court left it to the “lower courts [to] determine whether a narrower injunction is appropriate” with respect to the states suing the administration.[16] The states had argued that only a universal injunction would provide them with complete relief, because tracking the immigration statuses and residences of parents moving between states before providing a newborn with mandated benefits would be administratively complex.[16]
The court’s ruling left open the ability for plaintiffs to seek widespread relief by filing class action lawsuits.[17]
Concurrences
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh filed concurrences. Justice Neil Gorsuch joined Thomas’s concurrence and Thomas joined Alito’s concurrence.[18][19]
Thomas’s concurrence explicitly stated that the Court’s decision ended the practice of district courts issuing universal injunctions and emphasized the need to create remedies specifically tailored to the parties in a case.[20]
Kavanaugh wrote that plaintiffs may still request the “functional equivalent of a universal injunction” by filing “statewide, regionwide, or even nationwide” class action lawsuits.[19]
Alito opined that the Court’s decision may potentially have a loophole if states can assert third-party standing to obtain broad injunctions on behalf of their residents, or if district courts award injunctions to broadly defined classes in class action lawsuits. He urged lower courts to be vigilant against potential abuses of these methods.[21][20]
Dissents
Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissent which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor argued the government had not pursued a complete stay of the injunctions because such relief would require them to prove that Executive Order 14160 was likely constitutional. She wrote:[22]
The gamesmanship in this request is apparent, and the Government makes no attempt to hide it. Yet, shamefully, this Court plays along.
Jackson also filed a separate dissent, in which she wrote:[23][24]
When the Government says ‘do not allow the lower courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for unconstitutional conduct,’ what it is actually saying is that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution—please allow this.
Barrett criticized Jackson’s dissent, writing that “Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”[24]
Subsequent legal action
Within hours of the Supreme Court ruling, CASA de Maryland filed a motion in their existing district court case in Maryland, asking Judge Deborah Boardman to certify a class of children born to immigrant parents who would be ineligible for birthright citizenship under Executive Order 14160.[25] The American Civil Liberties Union filed another class action suit in New Hampshire the same day.[26]
Meaningful Coincidences in Our Lives with Bernard Beitman
New Thinking Jun 26, 2025 Dr. Bernard Beitman, MD, is former Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is author of many books, including Connecting with Coincidence: The New Science of Using Synchronicity and Serendipity in Your Life and Meaningful Coincidences: How and Why Synchronicity and Serendipity Happen. His newest book is Life-Changing Synchronicities: A Doctor’s Journey of Synchronicity and Serendipity. His website is coincider.com. Here Beitman and Mishlove share personal stories of synchronicities they have experienced. They reflect on the different types of meaningful coincidences and the patterns that exist among them. Beitman urges the viewers to make a study of synchronicities and serendipities in their own lives. He offers suggestions as to how this can be done successfully. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:07:00 Patterns of coincidences 00:14:31 The power of love 00:20:36 Synchronicity and serendipity 00:23:59 Breaking through fear 00:37:34 Psychiatry and the paranormal 00:41:21 A synchronicity occurs during the interview 00:44:43 Divination and coincidence 01:00:41 Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on June 2, 2025)
Talking with Your Wise and Well Ancestors with Tamala Floyd
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Jun 24, 2025 Tamala Floyd, LCSW, is a psychotherapist, consultant, and speaker. She is the first black lead trainer with the Internal Family Systems Institute. She taught at the University of Phoenix and the University of Southern California in Human Services and Social Work. Her work focuses on women’s trauma, mothering, and relationship issues. She is author of Listening When Parts Speak: A Practical Guide to Healing with Internal Family Systems Therapy and Ancestor Wisdom, and Healing the Wounded Mother, and she is a contributor to Fiercely Speaking. Her website is tamalafloyd.com. Tamala shares key concepts from Internal Family Systems therapy and ancestral lineage healing for connecting with a wise and well ancestor to heal personal, generational, and cultural wounds and trauma. She describes how burdens can be passed down through generations, the gifts that can be received from ancestors, and the significance of after-death communication in the healing process and for continuing bonds. 00:00 Introduction 02:56 Internal Family Systems 06:18 Speaking with ancestors 12:09 Wise and well ancestors 15:07 After-death communication 19:59 Personal and legacy burdens 23:53 Healing previous generations 30:52 Cultural legacy burdens 39:52 Ancestors as spirit guides 42:03 Conclusion Edited subtitles for this video are available in Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, and Spanish. New Thinking Allowed CoHost, Emmy Vadnais, OTR/L, is an intuitive healer and health coach based in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is the author of Intuitive Development: How to Trust Your Inner Knowing for Guidance With Relationships, Health, and Spirituality. Her website is https://emmyvadnais.com (Recorded on March, 2025)
The Strong, Silent Type
Jaclyn A. Siegel On Masculinity And Male Body Image
BY SAM RISAK • MARCH 2023 (thesunmagzine.org)
Women are pushing back against the unrealistic body ideals that have long dominated American society, speaking out about discriminatory, fatphobic “norms” and sharing stories about related eating disorders. Such conversations still have a long way to go, but they are at least being had. This is not the case among men.
Social psychologist Jaclyn A. Siegel was pursuing her master’s degree at Villanova University in the mid-2010s, researching how workplace environments can support or hinder eating-disorder onset, maintenance, and recovery, when she noticed that little information existed on eating disorders in men. This research gap encouraged Siegel to study the issue as she worked toward her PhD at the University of Western Ontario. Concentrating on the intersection of gender and eating disorders, she published research on topics like self-objectification, body-based social comparisons, body shame, and father-daughter communication about body image. Her current research focuses on the effects eating disorders have on intimate relationships.
At the age of twenty-six, Siegel became a postdoctoral research scholar with the San Diego State Research Foundation. She continues to serve there as project director of the Pride Body Project, an NIH-funded clinical trial of an eating-disorder prevention program for individuals who identify as men and are gay or bisexual, or experience sexual attraction to men. Siegel is also an adjunct professor at San Diego State University, teaching classes on the psychology of human sexual behavior. She sits on the editorial boards for five academic journals — Body Image, Psychology of Women Quarterly, Psychology of Men & Masculinities, Frontiers in Social Psychology (Gender, Sexuality, and Relationships), and Sex Roles — and is the style editor and social-media coordinator for Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Over video calls, Siegel and I discussed how traditional masculinity in the U.S. leads to a certain male body ideal, which has contributed to eating disorders, body-image dissatisfaction, and muscle-dysmorphic disorders in individuals across sexual and gender identities. These issues are compounded by a lack of awareness and research, and in Siegel’s view the field has a lot of room to grow. Ultimately, though, she sees the problem as not with men themselves, but with patriarchal structures that are harmful to society in general. The solution, she says, is to expand our definition of masculinity, and thus expand men’s potential.
Risak: How do you define masculinity?
Siegel: I would describe masculinity as a set of stereotypes about what is “normal” for men. Masculinity is socially constructed, and being seen as a “real man” in the eyes of others is a precarious undertaking. In societies marked by gender inequality, where traditional gender roles are rewarded or socially mandatory, many men feel that they must regularly engage in behaviors consistent with these norms to be perceived as sufficiently masculine and thus avoid stigma, discrimination, and sometimes even violence.
We often talk about “toxic masculinity,” but, in reality, masculinity is multifaceted and contains many beautiful elements. It appears in different ways in different cultures and in different eras.
Risak: How do we typically evaluate masculinity in the United States today?
Siegel: In 2003 James R. Mahalik and colleagues published the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory, a psychological inventory we use for evaluating different elements of masculinity, which includes eleven distinct factors: winning (the desire to be high achieving); emotional control (the idea that men shouldn’t cry); risk taking (being unafraid of a challenge, not willing to back down); pursuit of status (the desire to get money or power); primacy of work (choosing your employment over your interpersonal relationships or your personal well-being); violence (not necessarily a desire to engage in physical or verbal violence, but a sense that violence is sometimes warranted); playboy attitude (a desire for multiple sexual partners); self-reliance (don’t ask for help, figure things out on your own, and don’t let anyone see you sweat); power over women (a sense that men are natural leaders and should be in charge of women); dominance (a desire to be in charge of every situation); and homophobia. Obviously this last one does not translate easily to gay or bisexual men, but many experience internalized homophobia, which is strongly positively correlated with body-image dissatisfaction.
Risak: Are these norms specific to the U.S., or would you say they are relatively universal?
Siegel: I mostly study men in the U.S., but I did some work in Canada as well. We see a little less rigidity in masculine norms in Canada. There are certainly other countries in the world where traditional masculinity is highly prized and rewarded, and men there experience more gender-role stress. For example, men in Greece and Japan score higher on measures of gender-role stress than men in countries like Sweden or the Netherlands. But most of the published research on masculinity focuses on countries that are WEIRD — Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.
Risak: Why do you think that is?
Siegel: The first reason is that most psychological research is conducted on undergraduate students, because they are cheap and available. Participation in research is often a requirement for undergraduate psychology courses. Another reason is that many of the psychological instruments we use to assess masculinity or body image — such as the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory — are developed using WEIRD samples and cannot readily be translated into different cultures or languages.
Risak: Have these norms changed throughout history, or have they remained largely static?
Siegel: Social psychologists have been attempting to assess masculinity only for the last few decades, so it’s hard to say with certainty whether changes have occurred. I do think that, as society evolves and gender relations shift, we see changes in what it means to be a man, particularly when it comes to something like attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community. We are currently seeing the emergence of more-flexible masculinity among celebrities like Harry Styles. But I’m not convinced that, as a society, we are becoming broadly accepting of men who distance themselves from masculine norms, as traditional masculinity is still prized in a variety of domains, such as the workplace. The emergence and popularity of celebrities and influencers who endorse and promote rigid masculinity ideology, such as Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson, speaks to the broad appeal of these ideologies today.
Risak: How is the “masculine body” defined?
Siegel: It depends on the person and where they live, but in the U.S. we typically see a mesomorphic ideal: lean, muscular, and with a low body-fat percentage. This is persistent across the U.S. and common in LGBTQ+ communities in particular. Sexual-minority men are at elevated risk for eating disorders due in part to the lean ideal being perpetuated in their communities. I do want to note, though, that there are queer subcultures with totally different body ideals. Gay “bears,” for example, idealize larger, hairier men.
Risak: Why is lean and muscular the ideal?
Siegel: There are evolutionary theories: that such a body type suggests the man is probably fertile, capable of getting resources, and would otherwise be a good fit for sexual reproduction. But as a social psychologist, I hesitate to accept biological or purely evolutionary answers to these questions.
The “tripartite influence model” in social psychology focuses not on where these ideals come from but rather on how they are perpetuated. This model was initially proposed to explain why women experience body-image dissatisfaction, but it has since been expanded to capture men’s experiences. How we decide what our body should look like, and why, traditionally comes from our three primary sources of information: peers, parents, and media. Research on men’s body image has also included a fourth source: romantic and sexual partners. When I teach this to my students, I refer to it as the “four Ps”: peers, parents, porn, and partners. Porn is only one subset of media, of course, but there is quite a bit of research suggesting that increased exposure to sexualized media is a predictor of body-image dissatisfaction in men.
The body-related messages communicated from all these sources reinforce the mesomorphic ideal in a variety of ways. People may experience teasing or bullying from peers if their bodies don’t conform to the ideal. This teasing may be about muscularity or about weight. Parents and partners may make disparaging comments about weight or shape, but these are often cast as concerns. Partners may inadvertently reinforce norms through compliments about bodies. And the media certainly perpetuates the mesomorphic ideal.
We learn from these norms and strive to adhere to them, particularly if we’re someone who fears backlash or makes a lot of social comparisons. We know that people who make more social comparisons about their bodies or eating tend to feel worse about themselves, because they believe they’re failing to measure up to their peers.
Risak: What role do these body ideals play in the dynamic between men and women?
Siegel: Body norms work to reinforce unequal gender dynamics, with many men striving to be big and muscular, and many women striving to be dainty and petite. Within the context of most heterosexual relationships, there’s often a consensual reinforcement of these norms: many women, explicitly or not, communicate that they want to be with muscular or tall guys, and many men communicate that they want to be with curvaceously thin women. The bodies we idealize are representing the structural power difference between women and men. For men, actual physical force is a form of social power, and for women, being physically smaller has the potential to make them reliant on men. Feminist scholars have portrayed the cultural obsession with women’s thinness as a feature of patriarchy that keeps women distracted from their lack of power and diminished social status. It can be hard to focus on your civil rights when you are fixated on your appearance or weight.
We often talk about “toxic masculinity,” but, in reality, masculinity is multifaceted and contains many beautiful elements. It appears in different ways in different cultures and in different eras.
Risak: Have these gender dynamics shifted at all in the wake of the #MeToo movement?
Siegel: I don’t know of a study that provides that sort of information. Since #MeToo just happened in 2017, research is unlikely to have been published yet. I am curious, though. I think we did see an initial impact of #MeToo on policies, procedures, and social attitudes. But, as with all social movements, things tend to regress to the status quo. A pretty clear example of this is Black Lives Matter in 2020: There was initial social momentum toward defunding the police. A few years later we’re seeing that people, cities, and organizations are not following through on the promises they made in 2020. I’m not optimistic that the #MeToo movement will maintain its momentum. I hope it will, but the backlash we have seen to it gives me pause.
Risak: How do social norms of gender affect people who don’t conform to the gender binary or who don’t identify as heterosexual?
Siegel: As a person who is cisgender [individuals whose current gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned at birth — Ed.] and not actively doing transgender research, I can only try my best to summarize this. To get the best information, you should read the original work being done by Jerel Calzo, Claire Cusack, Scout Silverstein, and Allegra Gordon.
Some statistics suggest that transgender individuals have a two- to four-times-greater risk of eating disorders. One reason is that controlling their bodies can help them pass in a transphobic society: Transgender women can pass more easily if they make their bodies smaller. Trans men can pass more easily if hips and curves are bound or hidden. Being thin can reduce gender dysphoria and help transgender individuals avoid the violence and discrimination that are pervasive in our society. It’s a safety strategy.
There is less research on nonbinary individuals. They can be pulled in either direction — toward masculine body presentation or feminine body presentation — or they might fluctuate in between. It’s hard just to be a person who’s not gendered, because we have such strong gender norms and expectations about what bodies are “supposed” to look like.
Risak: Many fitness influencers recommend exercise routines, diets, and nutritional supplements to help followers achieve an ideal physique. At what point does this type of messaging become problematic?
Siegel: Joyful movement is good for you. Getting your heart rate up is healthy. Getting out and being with your friends while moving can provide a positive social experience. But if you are exercising out of a drive for muscularity or thinness, to alter the appearance of your body rather than the functioning of your body, then you might find yourself trapped in a cycle that puts you at risk for an eating disorder.
There are certainly fitness influencers who promote a healthy relationship with the body, regardless of its size. Jessamyn Stanley, the yoga influencer, is a perfect example. But, more often than not, exercise is portrayed as a way to lose weight and become more attractive. Influencers might also encourage certain eating regimens, such as “bulking and shredding,” that have the potential to contribute to dysregulated eating. Not everyone who engages in rigorous exercise or dysregulated eating patterns will develop an eating disorder, but for people who are susceptible to disordered eating, these fitness regimens can potentially cause harm.
Another somewhat insidious way exercise and fitness influencers can have an adverse effect on people’s well-being is through coded language around health. The relationship between health and weight is far more complicated than we might think. Being thin and losing weight are not necessarily signs of good health, and being fat and gaining weight are not necessarily signs that someone is in poor health. Encouraging people to “get healthy” through weight loss is misguided, unscientific, and, frankly, fatphobic.
Exercise is a dicey subject even among eating-disorder researchers. When we look at the definitions of eating disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), exercise isn’t involved in many of them. Exercise can be listed as a compensatory behavior in diagnosing cases of bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa, but some people experience compulsive exercise outside of that.
We are learning more about the complexity of eating disorders, which have long been understood as a female condition associated with the SWAG stereotype — skinny, white, affluent girl — even though eating disorders have been documented in men as far back as the 1600s. These conditions were called “anorexia nervosa” and “bulimia nervosa,” instead of “anorexia hysteria” and “bulimia hysteria,” because men do develop them, and doctors didn’t believe that men could experience hysteria. For long periods in the twentieth century, however, there was a general misconception that eating disorders affected only women, and the diagnostic criteria and treatment options became gendered. Older versions of the DSM, for example, list “amenorrhea” — cessation of a menstrual period for at least three months — as a diagnostic criterion for anorexia nervosa.
In the 1980s more and more men were entering eating-disorder clinics, and they weren’t presenting in the same ways as women were. Although women often develop eating disorders out of a desire for thinness, the masculine norms of dominance, confidence, sexual success, and physical and emotional self-control make men more likely to develop an eating disorder in an attempt to become muscular. So, many men engage in different behaviors to achieve an ideal body, including excessive exercise, regimented eating behaviors, and appearance- and performance-enhancing substance use.
Men now make up 25 to 33 percent of eating-disorder diagnoses. The threatened-masculinity hypothesis of disordered eating posits that one reason why we’re seeing an uptick in muscularity-oriented disordered eating is men’s desire to reestablish dominance in increasingly gender-egalitarian societies.
I suspect that every statistic we have about men with eating disorders is an underrepresentation of the actual number, because it’s not stereotypically masculine to admit to having these conditions.
Risak: What impact does the feminine association with eating disorders have on men?
Siegel: As I mentioned, self-reliance is one characteristic of traditional masculinity. Because of this, men are less likely to seek help for medical and psychological conditions. They’re not expected to have mental-health problems, because that would shatter the ideal of the strong, stoic man. Add a traditionally “feminine” condition like an eating disorder on top of that, and it puts them at risk of being ridiculed as less manly if they acknowledge or seek help for the condition. I’ve heard men express the fear they might be perceived as gay for having these conditions.
I suspect that every statistic we have about men with eating disorders is an underrepresentation of the actual number, because it’s not stereotypically masculine to admit to having these conditions, and it’s definitely not stereotypically masculine to go to a doctor or specialist and get a diagnosis. So it’s difficult to know how many men are really struggling. And since most treatment plans were developed with women in mind, we don’t often see the same level of effectiveness for men who do get into treatment. Traditional elements of masculinity are not addressed in most eating-disorder programs. I think there are some men who might acknowledge they have a problem but who feel they’re not going to get help once they get in the door. More therapists are becoming knowledgeable and sensitive to these issues, however. So if you don’t succeed with the first therapist, don’t give up. Continuing to seek help, even after negative initial experiences, is always recommended.
Risak: Is it possible to recover from an eating disorder, or is it something a person must learn to live with?
Siegel: That’s a debated question. I’m in recovery from an eating disorder: during my early twenties I was in treatment for acute anorexia. And I believe that full recovery is possible. For the last eight years I’ve been researching people living with eating disorders, and there are definitely some who feel the eating disorder is no longer a meaningful or salient part of their life. Many people go on to live very full lives after the initial eating disorder, and symptoms don’t have to be monitored as closely. But there are also people who have chronic eating disorders and experience periods of relapse and remission throughout their lives. I don’t think professionals in the field have taken a definitive stance on whether full recovery is possible for every person with an eating disorder.
Risak: What is “muscle dysmorphia,” and what are its risks?
Siegel: You will often see muscle dysmorphia colloquially referred to as “bigorexia,” but that’s a bit of a misnomer. Muscle dysmorphia is characterized by obsessive thoughts about muscularity, a perception that one is insufficiently muscular, a powerful desire to become more muscular, and repetitive urges and self-surveillance associated with a desire to be muscular. In many instances muscle dysmorphia is associated with excessive exercise; it is important, however, to note that these studies have small sample sizes. One study showed that 90 percent of men who experience muscle dysmorphia have used appearance- or performance-enhancing drugs. That particular study, however, included laxatives as an “appearance- and performance-enhancing drug,” which is a broader categorization than we typically see. Other research has shown that 40 to 50 percent of men diagnosed with muscle dysmorphia have at least experimented with anabolic steroids — to create the appearance of additional muscle mass — and androgenic steroids, to create more traditionally masculine features, like a stronger jawline.
There are various adverse outcomes associated with steroid use, including cardiovascular disease and psychiatric effects such as mood swings, aggression, and violence. Long-term use has also been associated with hypogonadism [when the sex glands produce fewer hormones — Ed.] and neurotoxicity, though this research is still new. Muscle dysmorphia itself can have a host of physical and social consequences, including muscle or joint damage from compulsive exercise, as well as prioritizing exercise over work, social outings, or romantic relationships.
There’s a lot of debate about whether the muscularity-oriented disordered eating associated with muscle dysmorphia should be labeled as a feeding-and-eating disorder, rather than an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Right now, muscle dysmorphia is a specifier for the “body dysmorphic disorder” label in the DSM, which falls under obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. The major diagnostic criteria for muscle dysmorphia focus on compulsive thoughts and “checking” behaviors. People with the disorder may have difficulty being present with others or focusing on the task at hand because they are constantly plagued by thoughts about their body and are consistently monitoring their body. Some research suggests that men with muscle dysmorphia engage in more body-related social comparisons and are more likely to withdraw socially from their peers.
Risak: Research on muscle dysmorphia focuses almost exclusively on white men. Are there studies of the disorder in individuals of other races and gender identities?
Siegel: I don’t have data readily available on the disorder in women, or in nonbinary people. I have seen a few studies that looked at female bodybuilders to determine whether muscle dysmorphia can exist in women. It seems as though it can, but overall more research is needed on women. There is also scant research on the condition in men who are not white. In fact, there is very little research on the body-image experiences of Black men at all.
Risak: What does the absence of research on Black men suggest to you?
Siegel: That the undergraduates who participate in student sample research are mostly white. We’re diversifying our methods in psychology, but convenience sampling is still the most common, even though it is definitely not the most representative of the population. There’s a belief that Black men are shielded from eating disorders and negative body image, but that’s because of flawed methodology. It’s not grounded in reality. One reason why we’re not seeing Black men with eating disorders is because the tools we use to evaluate eating disorders generally aren’t culturally sensitive. Even if Black men are included in research, we’re missing the specific cultural nuances necessary to assess their disordered eating.
The absence of culturally sensitive tools for finding body-image disorders in Black subjects speaks to a larger problem of generally ignoring the experiences of Black people in our research. The field of psychology is only starting to grapple with its structural racism.
Risak: How difficult is it for men suffering from muscle dysmorphia to ask for help?
Siegel: It can be extremely difficult for people with muscle dysmorphia to even recognize they have this condition. There is a normalization of muscularity-oriented disordered eating among men. It’s hard to know where the boundary lies between “gym-bro” culture and a psychological condition. Some men take pride in strictly adhering to specific dietary practices and exercise behaviors that give them a sense of control and enhance their appearance, and they might not recognize this as a problem. Their friends, if they’re also steeped in gym and exercise culture, might be rewarding them socially, and romantic or sexual partners might make positive comments about the size or shape of their body and musculature.
I don’t want to minimize women’s eating disorders — they are very serious; I would know — but one benefit women have is that people, including medical doctors, are more aware of eating disorders and body-image concerns in women. They are more likely to notice behaviors like skipping meals, restricting certain food groups, losing a lot of weight, or bingeing and purging, and they will call them out. A loved one or friend or parent will step in and say, “This isn’t acceptable. We’re going to get you help.” That’s often not the case for men. Because men with big muscles are praised in our society, it can be difficult for people to intervene and say, “Hey, you need to get help for this.”
Risak: What can we do as a society to make treatment a more accessible option for men?
Siegel: We need to take a threefold approach. First, we have to grapple with traditional masculinity and the adverse behaviors associated with it. We have to acknowledge how it hurts men and makes it difficult for them to get the help they need.
Next, we need to figure out how we can create a more expansive, more colorful version of masculinity that allows men to engage in the elements of it that feel right for them — being assertive, being a leader, taking risks — without harming themselves. Author Tony Porter discusses the “man box” of masculinity, suggesting that rigid adherence to traditional masculinity doesn’t allow men to reach their full potential, because there are elements of femininity necessary for them to succeed. Men who are stuck in the man box can’t feel their feelings or be particularly effective communicators. They might not get the help they need for body-image issues, alcohol-use disorder, depression, or anxiety. Men have the potential to be so much more and do so much more good in the world. If we expand our definition of masculinity, we will help society as a whole.
We also need to destigmatize therapy. I recently spoke with Joe Kelly, who has written a series of books about how men can support their children in getting treatment for eating disorders. He uses the language of coaching rather than therapy with men, because they are more receptive to that approach. He helps men understand that getting help doesn’t make them less of a man. We must also address the financial issues, because therapy can be financially out of reach for many.
Ultimately we want men not to need help. We don’t want these problems to exist in the first place. I talked about the tripartite influence model; we have to think about how we as peers, as parents, as partners, and as consumers and producers of media contribute to men’s unrealistic body ideals. We have to stop promoting this mesomorphic ideal as the best a man can be. The best a man can be has nothing to do with what he looks like, but rather with his kindness, his care for others, his passions. We need to stop venerating men who are nice to look at and instead find role models in men who are nice to others.
It’s worth noting that we live in an extremely fatphobic society. Weight stigma is regarded as one of the last socially acceptable forms of prejudice, perpetuated by doctors, peers, nutritionists, fitness influencers, and others. Trying to make your body lean or thin is a natural response to that pressure. If we truly want to change the way people engage with their bodies, we have to fix our weight-stigma problem.
Risak: What are you working on now?
Siegel: I am researching eating disorders in the context of romantic relationships. I have interviewed more than sixty people, including quite a few men and nonbinary people, who are living with and recovering from eating disorders and are also in romantic relationships. So far my research suggests that relationship quality can play a huge role in determining the trajectory of someone’s recovery — or relapse.
There is not much research on how eating disorders affect relationships, and vice versa, and virtually all of it focuses on the experiences of heterosexual couples in which the woman has anorexia. So I sought out a diverse sample regarding diagnosis, gender, sexual orientation, relationship configuration, and age to shed light on elements that were overlooked in past research.
We talk about relationship-related triggers, ways that partners can effectively support those living with eating disorders, and how they fail to do so. We also discuss how eating disorders affect dating, sex, and pregnancy; how partners can create an environment where the person recovering from the eating disorder feels safe, loved, and supported; as well as any fears they may have for the future.
A lot of people I’ve spoken to, including men, feel anxious about discussing their eating disorders or body-image concerns with their partner, but I consistently find that people who have not disclosed their eating disorder to their romantic partner feel ashamed or embarrassed, as if they had something to hide, whereas people who have disclosed these things feel closer to their partner. They can be more honest. They don’t have to pretend that everything is OK. And their partner can then be more sensitive to their concerns.
Risak: We’re two women discussing issues regarding men’s bodies. If the situation were reversed, it would likely be seen as problematic.
Siegel: Problematic is a word that I try to avoid, because it’s nonspecific and gets thrown around a lot. I think there is room for both lived expertise and research expertise. But deliberately choosing to interview a man about women’s experiences of their bodies could be perceived as overlooking the numerous female experts in this field.
In this context, we are two women discussing men’s body image, and you absolutely could have spoken to a man about this. I don’t have the experience of living in a man’s body, but I have interviewed many men about their bodies. I speak to men about their bodies and body image every single day. Anyone who feels I am providing a partial perspective should speak to the men in their lives about their bodies. I would prefer that. This discussion is a great starting point, but the most important thing people can do is normalize conversations about body image.
There’s a moment that comes to mind: Years ago I was doing a study about how men experience eating disorders in the workplace, and how the workplace can serve as either a barrier or a bridge to recovery for them. One man made a point that has stuck with me. He said, “There’s no script for men to talk about their bodies.” And I think that is right on. He struggled for words throughout the interview because, he said, he’d never been asked about this before, even though he was living with a clinically significant eating disorder.
So go talk to the men in your life. Get the full story from them.
Risak: For a researcher who studies the harmful effects of traditional masculinity, you present men in a mostly positive light.
Siegel: I call myself a capital-F Feminist, and a lot of people, when they speak to me, think I’m going to say, “We just have to get rid of the men; then all of our problems will be solved!” But I’ve seen the best of men. I have witnessed them leverage their power to support women and LGBTQ+ colleagues. I recognize that men are under tremendous pressure to perform traditional masculinity, and they could use our support. I also live with my incredible male partner. He’s a man I enjoy quite a lot. He is the best of men.
Patriarchy is the problem, not men. At the end of the day, patriarchal norms and expectations hurt us all. We need to promote authenticity and reduce the need to adhere to traditional masculine or feminine norms. If we do that, everybody wins.
The razor-thin line between contagion and connection
Dan Taberski | TED2025
• April 2025
After a mysterious wave of tics and twitches swept through a small-town high school in New York, documentary podcaster Dan Taberski set out to investigate what was really happening. Drawing on extensive research and intimate interviews with the people involved, he explores the roots of mass hysteria — and what it reveals about the line between illness and belonging. What happens when the very thing that makes us sick … is also what connects us?
Want to use TED Talks in your organization?
About the speaker
Dan Taberski
Documentary podcaster, director
Baltimore Named City With Best Quality Of Pigeon Life
Published: January 5, 2016 (TheOnion.com)
BALTIMORE—Noting key indicators such as safety, health, and climate, a new survey published Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal ranked Baltimore the number-one city in the U.S. for quality of pigeon life. “Baltimore came out ahead of pigeon-friendly cities like New York and Boston due to its ample nesting alcoves, the lack of bird-repellent spikes, and the accessibility of dropped French fries and corn dogs,” said the newspaper’s senior editor, Bethany Crandall, adding that pigeons in the mid-Atlantic metropolis enjoyed sprawling public parks and some of the lowest rates of toddler-chasings in the country. “Baltimore has a vibrant and diverse pigeon population, and there are lots of flock-friendly places to raise chicks. The number and variety of puddles is a major draw, and the awnings are world-class. It’s no wonder that more and more pigeons are choosing to make the city home.” The survey also found that Philadelphia was the best city for single pigeons.
Bill Moyers, a Face of Public TV and the White House, Dies at 91
He was a renowned television correspondent and commentator who also had long ties with Lyndon B. Johnson, including as his press secretary.
The television journalist and commentator Bill Moyers in 2011. He was once described as “a kind of secular evangelist.” Credit…Chad Batka for The New York Times
By Janny Scott
- Published June 26, 2025 Updated June 27, 2025 (NYTimes.com)
Bill Moyers, who served as chief spokesman for President Lyndon B. Johnson during the American military buildup in Vietnam and then went on to a long and celebrated career as a broadcast journalist, returning repeatedly to the subject of the corruption of American democracy by money and power, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 91.
His son William Cope Moyers confirmed the death, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He lived in Manhattan.
To Americans who grew up after the 1960s, Mr. Moyers was known above all as an unusual breed of television correspondent and commentator. He was once described by Peter J. Boyer, the journalist and author, as “a rare and powerful voice, a kind of secular evangelist.”
But before that, Mr. Moyers was President Johnson’s closest aide. Present on Air Force One in Dallas when Johnson took the oath of office after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Moyers played a pivotal role in the inception of Johnson’s Great Society programs, and was the president’s top administrative assistant and press secretary when Johnson sent hundreds of thousands of troops to fight in the Vietnam War.
Mr. Moyers resigned from the administration in December 1966 at age 32, finalizing an irreparable falling out between the hot-tempered, flamboyant Johnson, who demanded unwavering loyalty, and the cool, self-contained Mr. Moyers, whom Johnson had denied several foreign policy positions. The two men never reconciled. In his 1971 memoir, “The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969,” Johnson mentioned Mr. Moyers only fleetingly, reducing him to little more than a footnote.
In his four decades as a television correspondent and commentator, Mr. Moyers, an ordained Baptist minister, explored issues ranging from poverty, violence, income inequality and racial bigotry to the role of money in politics, threats to the Constitution and climate change. His documentaries and reports won him the top prizes in television journalism, more than 30 Emmy Awards and comparisons to Edward R. Murrow, his revered predecessor at CBS.
In an age of broadcast blowhards, the soft-spoken Mr. Moyers applied his earnest, deferential style to interviews with poets, philosophers and educators, often on the subject of values and ideas. His 1988 PBS series, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” drew 30 million viewers, posthumously turned Mr. Campbell — at the time a little-known mythologist — into a public broadcasting star, and popularized the Campbell dictum “Follow your bliss.”
‘A Sense of Moral Urgency’
To admirers, many of them liberals, Mr. Moyers was the nation’s conscience, bringing to his work what one television critic called “a sense of moral urgency and decency.” Others, mostly conservatives, found him sanctimonious and accused him of bias. In a 2004 retrospective, the conservative website FrontPageMag.com called him a “sweater-wearing pundit who delivered socialist and neo-Marxist propaganda with a soft Texas accent.”
Famously modest and self-deprecating, Mr. Moyers often invoked his humble small-town roots in Marshall, Texas. Yet he was ambitious, political, intense and shrewd. His Rolodex was once said to contain the names of every important person who ever lived, but he emphasized the importance of speaking to, for and about “regular people.” He could draw anyone out — from psychiatric patients to Supreme Court justices.
But he resisted opening up about himself. He occasionally spoke about his Johnson years, but he never consented to be interviewed by Robert A. Caro, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who has spent more than 40 years on his five-volume Johnson biography.
“By all accounts, despite his soft, East Texas style, he is one of the most complicated men that politics or the media ever produced,” the journalist Ann Crittenden wrote in a 1981 profile for Channels magazine titled “The Perplexing Mr. Moyers.”
Billy Don Moyers was born on June 5, 1934, in Hugo, Okla., the younger of two sons of John and Ruby (Johnson) Moyers. His father was an unskilled laborer.
The family moved to Marshall, near the Louisiana border, when Billy was 6 months old. Taking a summer job on a newspaper while still in school, he sliced the ‘y’ off his byline, deciding that the name sounded more dignified without it.
His Baptist parents dreamed that he would become a minister. “Our parents wanted so deeply for us to make some kind of mark,” Mr. Moyers’s brother, James, once said. But Mr. Moyers took a different path. He worked for The Marshall News Messenger in high school and later credited its publisher, Millard Cope, with encouraging his interest in public affairs. He went on to study journalism, government, history, theology and ethics in, he said, “deliberate preparation for a career in public service.”
A First Link to Johnson
He majored in journalism at North Texas State College in Denton, where he was elected class president two years running. In his second year, he wrote to Lyndon Johnson, then the majority leader of the United States Senate, and landed a summer job as an assistant on his 1954 campaign. Johnson persuaded Mr. Moyers to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin and take a job at a radio station owned by Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird. Mr. Moyers graduated in 1956 with honors.
After studying religious history on a fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, he spent two years at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, preaching on weekends. At 25, he was an ordained minister.
Mr. Moyers accepted a job teaching Christian ethics at Baylor University in Waco, then changed his plans after Johnson asked him to be his personal assistant on his 1960 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Soon he was Johnson’s executive assistant, and he seemed to be running the campaign. But after Johnson lost the nomination to John F. Kennedy, became his running mate and was elected vice president, Mr. Moyers asked to resign so that he could work on plans for the Peace Corps, a new Kennedy initiative. James H. Rowe Jr., a Johnson friend, in a letter to the Peace Corps director, R. Sargent Shriver, praised Mr. Moyers as “that curious and very rare blend of idealist-operator.”
Mr. Moyers supervised the drafting of the legislation that created the Peace Corps, then squired Mr. Shriver around Capitol Hill, persuading skeptical members of Congress to pass it. He designed the agency’s recruiting, community relations and congressional relations programs. At 28, he became the second in command of the Peace Corps, doing work that he later said was the most satisfying of his life — developing “an idealistic dream” into “an effective program.”
On Nov. 22, 1963, he was in Austin, Texas, when he heard that President Kennedy had been shot. He chartered a plane to Dallas, where he learned that Johnson was on Air Force One. Stopped by a security agent at the stateroom door, he wrote a note to Johnson: “I’m here if you need me.”
He flew back to Washington with Johnson. “I’m just here helping a friend,” he professed to a reporter that week, “and when that ends, I’ll drift away and never be heard of again.”
He worked with Kennedy’s speechwriter Ted Sorensen to craft Johnson’s first statements to the country, and became the link between the Johnson and Kennedy circles. As the Johnson era began, Mr. Moyers’ familiarity with the bureaucracy helped him organize and guide the 14 task forces of government officials and outside experts that produced most of the Great Society domestic legislation.
His Great Society role was what one friend called his “finest hour.” He overcame the doubts of East Coast intellectuals about Johnson, melded that group with the best of the bureaucracy, enabled continuing communication with the academic community, and, Patrick Anderson noted in his book “The President’s Men” (1968), made sure that the process produced “a coherent program flowing from a central philosophy.”
During the 1964 presidential campaign, when Johnson faced Senator Barry M. Goldwater, the Republican nominee, Mr. Moyers oversaw the creation of one of the most notorious attack ads ever, the “Daisy Girl” commercial. In it, a child plucked petals from a daisy as the sound of her counting dissolved into the sound of a countdown and as images of a nuclear explosion filled the screen.
The commercial, implying that Mr. Goldwater could not be trusted with the country’s nuclear arsenal in an international crisis, was widely criticized and pulled from the air after a single showing. But many believed the damage had been done: Its impact was magnified by news coverage and commentary about it in the weeks and months that followed.
In July 1965, with the escalation of American military involvement in Vietnam underway and Johnson’s relationship with the press deteriorating, the president added the job of press secretary to Mr. Moyers’s responsibilities.
Many in the news media were impressed. Tom Wicker, The New York Times’s Washington bureau chief, called Mr. Moyers “the most able and influential presidential assistant I have ever seen or read about.” Writing in The Washington Monthly in 1974, James Fallows said that Mr. Moyers, “intentionally or not,” had “helped to postpone the tide of criticism which finally drove Johnson out of office.”
But Mr. Moyers resigned in late 1966, citing family obligations. His admiring notices had begun to wear on the president, and he had been denied two foreign policy jobs that he reportedly wanted.
In 1967, he became publisher of Newsday, the Long Island daily newspaper. He strengthened the paper’s Washington coverage, added international bureaus and hired Saul Bellow to cover the 1967 Mideast war. The paper won two Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure. But its conservative owner, Harry F. Guggenheim, said to be annoyed by the “left wingers” running the paper, sold his majority share in 1970, having turned down a higher offer from Mr. Moyers, who resigned.
At the suggestion of friends, Mr. Moyers embarked on a 13,000-mile bus trip, a tape recorder and a notebook in hand, “to hear people speak for themselves,” as he put it. The dispatch that resulted — a rumination on race, economic power, police-community relations, health care, the environment, unemployment, the media — filled almost an entire issue of Harper’s Magazine. Drawing on that article, he wrote “Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers His Country” (1971), the first of many best-selling books.
PBS to CBS and Back
Mr. Moyers turned down offers to edit newspapers, run colleges and co-host the “Today” show on NBC. (“I just didn’t like the idea of selling dog food in a world where so many people were eating it,” he told People magazine.) Instead, he began producing a weekly public affairs program on PBS, devoting entire shows to topics like the Watergate scandal and public education. John J. O’Connor of The Times called his show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” “one of the most outstanding series on television.”
In 1976, said to be frustrated by the limited resources in public television, Mr. Moyers joined CBS, the top commercial network, as chief correspondent for the documentary program “CBS Reports.” He produced documentaries on subjects ranging from arson in the South Bronx to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. But he objected to the show’s irregular schedule: To have more impact, he said, the documentaries needed to appear more often, with more promotion and in better time slots. Rebuffed, he returned to PBS.
Three years later, he was back at CBS, this time as the commentator on the evening news, with something close to a promise of a public affairs program of his own. When he found himself steered onto shows that he considered shallow and commercial, he left again.
“The line between entertainment and news was steadily blurred,” Mr. Moyers told Newsweek. “Our center of gravity shifted from the standards and practices of the news business to show business.”
He returned once again to PBS with $15 million in grants and his own production company, Public Affairs Television. His wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, whom he had met in his freshman year in college and married in 1954, became president of the company in 1988 and was executive producer of many of his documentaries.
She survives him. In addition to her and his son William, Mr. Moyers is survived by two other children, Suzanne and John Moyers; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Mr. Moyers’s six hourlong interviews with Joseph Campbell, who died in 1987, shortly before they aired, were among the first productions made by the new company. Tens of thousands of videotapes of the interviews were sold, and viewers formed study groups to watch them. A companion book — championed by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was then an editor at Doubleday — became a best seller, as did earlier books by Mr. Campbell.
Between the late 1980s and 2007, Mr. Moyers and Public Affairs Television turned out nearly 100 documentaries and reports. The subject of one five-part series in 1998 was addiction, a problem with which the Mr. Moyers’ eldest son, William, had struggled. “Bill Moyers Journal” returned to the air from 2007 to 2010, starting with an investigation of the shortcomings of the news media in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
In 2012, when he was in his late 70s, Mr. Moyers launched an hourlong weekly interview show, “Moyers & Company,” with funding from major foundations, including the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation. The show aired on public television and radio stations nationwide.
Eight years earlier, Mr. Moyers had seemed for a moment to be retiring. Journalists had stopped by to write about the final episode of “Now,” the weekly PBS newsmagazine show that he had hosted for two years. Emerging from the editing room to speak to a reporter, he said, “Maybe finally I’ve broken the habit.”
Apparently, he hadn’t. He finally retired in January 2015, at the age of 80.
Ama Sarpomaa contributed reporting.