As social and emotional learning (SEL) picks up pace in the twenty-first century, it is often presented as a universally progressive and even apolitical phenomenon. At the same time, a growing number of politically conservative groups are attacking SEL as a form of "lib-eral indoctrination." Amidst these layered contexts, there is an urgent need for deep, crit-ical, and culturally humble conversations that recognize SEL as an inevitably political and power-laden phenomenon that must be consciously partnered with a commitment to social justice. In this article, we provide highlights and commentary from an interview podcast with two critical scholars, Clio Stearns and Kathleen Hulton, who shed important light on the sociocultural underpinnings of SEL. These scholars question how far the field of SEL can go in merely improving or reforming current practices, arguing for more radical trans-formations to the ways in which social and emotional humanity is conceptualized.