A call to counter-revolution

released 9/17/2026

In this July 2026 lecture, Jeanne Schindler argues that three key technological inventions — the car, central heating, and digital devices — have contributed, respectively, to the loss of “at-homeness” people experience in the city, the home, and within ourselves. Each of these technological inventions has made the world around us and our interior lives feel inhospitable. The automobile radically changed the character of civic life, destroying unique places and livable neighborhoods where one could live, work, worship, play, and shop. Central heating scattered family members to private rooms throughout a house, whereas the hearth used to be a central gathering place that ordered the household’s rhythms. The digital revolution, Schindler says, has been the most revolutionary of all, destabilizing and disorienting both people’s outer and inner worlds. It has disintegrated us from body, place, time, community, and our own souls. Schindler explores the ramifications of this for children and students in particular and calls for a counter-revolution that will seek healing and restoration at each level — city, home, and the self.

This lecture is provided courtesy of the CiRCE Institute.

50 minutes