Oct 8, 2026 · 28 min · 8 segments
Todd Deatherage is the Co-Founder of Telos, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to the formation of communities of American peacemakers across lines of difference to bring healing to conflict…
Todd DeatherageGuest
Cyndi ParkerHost
Which I find to be really amazing, the power of a shared goal and a shared value, when that is placed at the center, how it's okay to work with people who have different opinions, different-
That can bring people with different voices and perspectives together, and we, we can agree to disagree if we're pushing this value of human dignity forward.
Which I just find more and more people a little bit allergic to being able to do that, 'cause they kinda want to align-
... themselves with people who have aligned all their other values with them as well.
Yeah, I mean, what, you know, again, I think coming out of a, again, gently fundamentalist religious world helped me understand fundamentalism in, in a lot, 'cause fundamentalism exists outside of religion.
it certainly exists in the political world, and I think we are in a kind of politically f- an ascendant moment of political fundamentalism in our own country right now.
And so it's actually, you know, there's these purity tests and you can't, you know, you can't, you know, you're...
Th- there's a lot of policing of who's in and who's out, and you can't work with people who have a different view on something else because, you know, so there's that, that, that way in which any kind of ki- like, you know, cross-partisan work is seen as comp- as compromise, and compromise as being like not just, you know, bad, but like there's an, you're, like, dealing with the devil when you start to, you know, compromise with these people who are not just misguided, you know, political opponents, but are actual, like, enemies.
And so I think that, that fundamentalism is very much what you see in so much of the kind of political extremes right now, and that, that, that creates it, it makes it really hard to, to get things done in common purpose when people just can't even work together on the thing they do agree on.
Which I find to be really amazing, the power of a shared goal and a shared value, when that is placed at the center, how it's okay to work with people who have different opinions, different-
That can bring people with different voices and perspectives together, and we, we can agree to disagree if we're pushing this value of human dignity forward.
Which I just find more and more people a little bit allergic to being able to do that, 'cause they kinda want to align-
... themselves with people who have aligned all their other values with them as well.
Yeah, I mean, what, you know, again, I think coming out of a, again, gently fundamentalist religious world helped me understand fundamentalism in, in a lot, 'cause fundamentalism exists outside of religion.
it certainly exists in the political world, and I think we are in a kind of politically f- an ascendant moment of political fundamentalism in our own country right now.
And so it's actually, you know, there's these purity tests and you can't, you know, you can't, you know, you're...
Th- there's a lot of policing of who's in and who's out, and you can't work with people who have a different view on something else because, you know, so there's that, that, that way in which any kind of ki- like, you know, cross-partisan work is seen as comp- as compromise, and compromise as being like not just, you know, bad, but like there's an, you're, like, dealing with the devil when you start to, you know, compromise with these people who are not just misguided, you know, political opponents, but are actual, like, enemies.
And so I think that, that fundamentalism is very much what you see in so much of the kind of political extremes right now, and that, that, that creates it, it makes it really hard to, to get things done in common purpose when people just can't even work together on the thing they do agree on.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.