Across the political spectrum, people agree on one point and one point only: our public sphere is a great big mess. Mistrust of our neighbors, anger at their folly, inadvertent or deliberate misunderstanding of their views, attribution of the worst possible motives to those whose politics we despise: these are the dissonant notes we hear

By Emily Esfahani Smith, author of The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters (Crown, January 2017) When I was a senior in high school, I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life: I was going to be a doctor. I loved science, and easing the suffering of others, I