Speaking, Workshops, Book clubs & Lunch Groups

“Great workshop and presentation.  When our staff first experienced this seminar in Orlando, they said others in the Siemens Organization needed to see it and learn from it. So, we put on three more workshops and keynote addresses for Siemens globally.  We felt the message and seminar should be experienced not only by Siemens but also by our customers, so he was also our keynote speaker for Siemens’ Customer Appreciation Day.” ~ Michael Philpott CEO: ~ Siemens Canada Limited

Are We Ready to Explore? Are We Ready to Choose?

Exploring our communication history is crucial for all facets of understanding technology and societal phase change. This exploration deepens our understanding of our shared knowledge as human beings. It enhances our knowledge of social justice. It also enriches our grasp of social teachings, which are fundamental to AI ethics. Furthermore, it fosters unity within our community. As part of this exploration, we will delve into technological change in America. Our discussion will also cover profound insights of leading thinkers in the field. These insights come from people deeply rooted in their understanding of humanity and technology. They will help us comprehend the circumstances of our time. The difference in being human and the difference it makes is key to understanding technology.

Technology as a Cultural Phenomenon: Technology is not just tools but a reflection and product of human culture, making it a subject of anthropological and communication studies.

Interdisciplinary Perspective: Understanding technology requires an anthropological approach to grasp its social and cultural dimensions. Think The Medium is the Message.

Keynotes, Lunch Presentations, Workshops, Small Group Meetings/Discussions: Live & Zoom.

Exploring the Intersection of Artificial Intelligence on how technology is the Medium of the Message as We Experience New Machines and Human Life. Think: Planet~People~Purpose in Life~Prosperity for all human beings. The focus is on Ethics: The difference in being human and the difference it makes.

Our goal is to challenge, inspire, and equip you to think differently about technology’s role in human flourishing. The title “Digital Dignity” captures the essence: technology should serve human dignity, not undermine it.

“The Medium is the Message”

“It does us no good to make fantastic progress if we do not know how to live with it if we cannot make good use of it, and if, in fact, our technology becomes nothing more than an expensive and complicated way of cultural disintegration.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The Human Algorithm: Catholic Social Teaching and the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

We are living through a moment that would have been unimaginable to the workers of the Industrial Revolution—and yet the Church saw something like it coming. For over 130 years, Catholic Social Teaching has asked the same essential question in different forms: What do we owe one another as the world of work changes beneath our feet?

This talk is built around that question: In a rapidly changing world of work and technology, we must re-examine our responsibilities to one another and our society. The main takeaway is to equip you with a practical, principled framework~rooted in Catholic Social Teaching~for engaging with AI ethically and meaningfully.

Artificial intelligence is already reshaping our lives, how we write, create, search for information, and imagine our futures. It’s influencing hiring decisions, political discourse, and the definition of creative work itself. And most curricula aren’t ready for it. This talk is designed to help you get ready~not just by understanding what AI is, but by developing a principled, theologically grounded framework for evaluating it, one you can share with others.

Drawing on the Church’s rich tradition of responding to technological and economic upheaval—from Rerum Novarum (1891) through the most recent 2026 Vatican guidance on AI and authoritarianism—we won’t just discuss AI in the abstract. The main takeaway: Using the See-Judge-Act method, you will learn to evaluate automation and surveillance capitalism for their effects on human dignity, justice, and the unique qualities only humans possess.

This isn’t a talk about being afraid of technology or dismissing it. It’s about giving you—and others you love—the vocabulary and moral imagination to engage it honestly.

Why This Matters for You and Me?

A New Kind of Literacy: “How to use” AI is already being taught everywhere. What’s missing is the why and the should. This talk helps you bring ethical depth into conversations you are already having.

The Dignity of Work: You will see a labor market being transformed in real time. Theological reflection on automation, the gig economy, and the meaning of work gives them something no career counselor can: a framework for understanding our own dignity as human beings.

Civic and Democratic Life: The same technologies reshaping the economy are also reshaping truth itself. We’ll honestly look at the tension between AI, authoritarianism, and democracy—and give you tools to help navigate a world where misinformation is industrialized.

Something You Can Actually Use on Monday: The See-Judge-Act method isn’t just a theological concept—it’s a practical structure for evaluating new technologies, current events, and social movements. You’ll leave with something teachable.

Topics We’ll Explore

* From Assembly Lines to Algorithms — What the Church learned from the Industrial Revolution, and why those lessons are newly urgent in the gig economy

* What Rome Is Actually Saying — A close reading of the Vatican documents on AI, authoritarianism, and social movements

* Human vs. Machine — Defining creativity, purpose, and personhood in an age of generative intelligence

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“Still Human~The Quietest Intelligence: Why stillness is the key to understanding — and surviving — the age of AI

In the age of the Autonomous Revolution, we have been handed the most powerful cognitive tools in human history — and no instruction manual for our own minds. We’ve outsourced memory to the cloud, judgment to the algorithm, and attention to the feed. We equate “optimized” with “good,” and “automated” with “inevitable.”

But there is a radical, ancient discipline re-emerging precisely because it is so foreign to the world AI is building around us. It’s called Contemplative Resistance, and its central claim is this: you cannot think clearly about artificial intelligence if you cannot first think clearly at all. The most subversive act in the age of machine cognition is to reclaim your own.

In an age of endless outrage and burnout being driven by emerging technology, how do we actually change the world without losing our souls?

Many of us treat activism and contemplation like separate lives—as if we have to choose between the silence of the chapel and the noise of the streets. But Thomas Merton, the 20th century’s most famous monk, argued that you cannot have one without the other. Join us for an insightful exploration of Contemplative Resistance Philosophy, a radical way of living in which deep prayer fuels social justice.

Why This Matters Now

We’ve all seen it: even the best movements can devolve into the same bitterness and violence they aim to stop. Philosophers have warned that without an “interior life,” our activism is just another form of noise.

In this talk, we’ll dive into:

• The Myth of the Retreat: Why genuine contemplation isn’t an escape from world suffering, but a deeper dive into it.
• Beyond Strategy & Outrage: Moving past the “logic of movements” to find a resistance born of the meaning of being a human.
• The Seer Acts: Learning from the wisdom of Merton, Bonhoeffer, Adler, and McLuhan on why understanding the medium is the message must stand or fall together.
• Facing Our Complicity: How silence provides the “painful, liberating” space to heal the roots of violence within ourselves.

Stop being a “guilty bystander.” Come discover how the most profound resistance to injustice begins not in a manifesto, but in the transformative power of what is means to be fully human and the difference it makes.

To gain a good reputation is to be what you desire to appear.” ~ Socrates

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The Digital Tower of Babel: Christian Nationalism in the Age of AI & Emerging Technology.

“Christian Nationalism: What Say Ye, Merton, Bonhoeffer, Adler, and McLuhan on the rise of AI and Emerging Technologies? “

Father of Media Studies Marshall McLuhan, who taught us that the medium is the message, and a key founding member of the Confessing Church Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who gave us insights into faith and ethics when confronted with tyranny, and then we have Mortimer Adler, the philosopher who taught us how to read a book and understand the great books of history, and a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, who wrote about how emerging technologies, media, and culture, shape faith and politics, emphasizing their importance for believers today. These individuals shape how narratives of faith, power, and identity circulate and are embedded in culture and politics, making the topic highly relevant to engaged individuals.

“We should ask ourselves, ‘How do the McLuhan media laws, Bonhoeffer, Adler, and Merton’s thinking, speaking, and writings amplify or enrich the core message of the gospel in the world, education, and politics?'”  Christian Social Teaching is the Antithesis of Christian Nationalism.

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“Pride makes us artificial, and humility makes us real.” ~ Thomas Merton

“Taking Down Their Harps”: Black Catholic Voices That Shaped America — A History of Faith, Resistance, and Belonging

What does it mean to be Black and Catholic in America? What does it mean to be white and Catholic in America? And what does it mean for the Church when both truths have always coexisted — and one has been systematically silenced?

These questions are not abstract. They are woven into the very fabric of American history — and they are as urgent today as they have ever been.

You will meet people you were never taught about.

The first Black Catholic to set foot on Texas soil was an enslaved man named Estevanico, who arrived in 1528, decades before the first English colony existed. An enslaved layman in New York who became the city’s most beloved philanthropist. Mixed-race brothers who were ordained bishops while passing as white — navigating identity and survival in an institution that both welcomed and excluded them. Nuns who defied segregation at great personal cost. Lay activists who demanded that the Church live up to its own gospel. Communities that built vibrant, faithful, culturally rich spiritual lives in the face of indifference and outright hostility.

These are not footnotes. These are the foundations.

“Taking Down Their Harps” — drawn from Psalm 137 and the image of a people in exile, silenced, refusing to sing — speaks directly to the experience of Black Catholics throughout American history. Yet this session is not a lament. It is a celebration. It is the story of a community that refused exile, that took down its harps and played them anyway, that sang its own song inside a Church that did not always want to listen.

This session explores what scholars call the inculturation of faith — the vibrant ways Black Catholics have expressed their spirituality through music, oral tradition, liturgy, theology, and communal life. It honors the irreplaceable contributions of Black women to the life of the Church. And it confronts the theological and institutional failures that made those contributions so hard-won.

At the dawn of Catholicism in the United States, there were Black Catholics.

Their history is not parallel to the American Catholic story. It is inseparable from it. To understand what it means to be Catholic in America — truly, fully, honestly — we must reckon with this history. We must let it complicate our assumptions, expand our imagination, and deepen our faith.

This keynote does not simply recount the past. It speaks directly into today’s conversations about race, religion, and belonging. It asks what the Church has learned — and what it still must do. And it leaves participants with something that good history always gives: a more truthful, more human, more hopeful picture of who we are.

Powerful stories. Forgotten names. A faith that endured. Join us.

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Collaboration in the Public for the Public: 

Study Groups, Book Clubs, and Discussion Groups are The Foundation of Innovation, education, and collaboration.  All can be Live & Zoom

    “All genuine learning is active, not passive. It involves the use of the mind, not just the memory. It is a discovery process, in which the student is the main agent, not the teacher.” ~ Mortimer J Adler

We start with great books, leading us to great discussions—this is the heart of learning. Our continuing education seminars and discussion groups foster intellectual curiosity. We hope that from conversations around the “Zoom Table,” you share what you learn. Share it with others in your community and organization. We start where all learning begins: With Curiosity and Puzzlement, maybe a slight Bewilderment. Together, we address the “warm fuzzies and the cold pricklies,” trying to answer the question: “Why Bother? Does it make a difference?”

So, as adults, is it worth your time, effort, and commitment to “KNOW” why you bother? Over the past forty years, I’ve learned the importance of “reductio ad absurdum.”  

We work towards the highest standard of a life well-lived when we practice and cultivate WISDOM. In all contexts of our lives, like family, social, and business, we call that Eudaimonia.

In our discussion groups, we aim to inspire everyone. We do this by exposing them to the inner workings of history’s most brilliant minds. These include philosophers, scientists, and artists. We also cover writers, musicians, and more. We strive to think deeply and innovate. We discuss intensely, educate, and live boldly through collaboration.

Eudaimonia transforms cultural and social institutions over time, profoundly impacting society. The Art of Social Phase Change is brought on by the technology of the period. Understanding History/Culture/Politics teaches us about patterns, social change, and the meaning of life in the age of autonomous technologies.​

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” ~ Aristotle, Metaphysics

“Most excellent workshop for our people. Richard was our keynote and kick-off leader for a major new business initiative that involved all aspects of the company, globally. each morning, It was the inspiration and leadership we needed to move forward. We used him over and over again for coaching and consulting.” ~ Nancy D. Reyda VP, Brand Development: Chevron

 

     

Got Philosopher? Decide and Thrive!

Podcasts: Connecting history, philosophy, and culture to today’s challenges 

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