Canada not immune to 'hate wave': Van Jones
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/ca ... li=AAggFp5
Extracts:
TORONTO - A high-profile political commentator and former White House policy adviser warned Tuesday that the same class tensions and divisive forces that swept Donald Trump to power could easily take root in Canada, adding it would be "irresponsible" to pretend otherwise.
Van Jones, a CNN political contributor, said the "hate wave" that has stirred vigilante behaviour and prompted gatherings of apparent Nazi-affiliated groups is playing out in all Western democracies, and anyone who thinks Canada will be spared is wrong.
.....
Speaking before the event, Jones said everyone, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum, must remain vigilant to keep class and racial tensions from turning into violence.
"Every single part of civil society in Canada, the United States and around the world needs to get very vocal right now, needs to stand up right now," he said.
Civil Society and its Institutions
The article below highlights how strong civil societies and communities nurture social and moral bonds which anchor individuals and hence can tamper the worst effects of the Trump phenomena around the world.
Story- Winter 2017
“We Must Not Be Enemies”
https://theamericanscholar.org/we-must- ... urce=email#
Progressives who wish for a less reactionary America could begin by trying to understand the Trump voter
Extract:
Communitarian sociologists have been pointing out that, for two centuries, the rise of modernity has threatened the communal bonds and shared moral cultures that are essential for a person’s sense of identity, emotional stability, and moral codes. Studies of the rise of Nazism show that communities serve as the best antidote to the mass appeal of demagogues. The kind of reasoned, self-governing, tolerant, civil person whom globalists favor is much less likely to be found among individuals outside the bonds of community than among people with stable social bonds, imbued with a proper moral culture. Hence, globalists have strong reasons to shore up communities. Policies that could enhance them include keeping open local institutions (such as schools and post offices) even if regional ones are somewhat more cost efficient, transferring the responsibility to deliver some services to communities from the states, and encouraging sound design in both urban and rural places—creating public spaces such as parks, ball fields, promenades, and hiking and biking trails, and discouraging suburban sprawl.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Progressives should remember that nobody can bond with seven billion people, and almost everyone feels more responsibility toward those closest to them. People have profound needs for lasting social relations, meaning, and shared moral beliefs. Globalist values can be combined with nationalist, parochial ones—demanding that communities not violate individual rights while allowing them to foster bonds and values for their members in the ways that suit them best.
Local communities need to be nurtured rather than denounced, not only because they satisfy profound human needs but also because they anchor people to each other and thus help to dilute appeals to their worst instincts. Championing fair trade, fostering diversity within a framework of unity and shared values, and accepting many kinds of communities as long as they respect rights—all are positions that show understanding and even empathy for citizens who voted for Donald Trump and will go a long way toward making America as great as it can be.
Story- Winter 2017
“We Must Not Be Enemies”
https://theamericanscholar.org/we-must- ... urce=email#
Progressives who wish for a less reactionary America could begin by trying to understand the Trump voter
Extract:
Communitarian sociologists have been pointing out that, for two centuries, the rise of modernity has threatened the communal bonds and shared moral cultures that are essential for a person’s sense of identity, emotional stability, and moral codes. Studies of the rise of Nazism show that communities serve as the best antidote to the mass appeal of demagogues. The kind of reasoned, self-governing, tolerant, civil person whom globalists favor is much less likely to be found among individuals outside the bonds of community than among people with stable social bonds, imbued with a proper moral culture. Hence, globalists have strong reasons to shore up communities. Policies that could enhance them include keeping open local institutions (such as schools and post offices) even if regional ones are somewhat more cost efficient, transferring the responsibility to deliver some services to communities from the states, and encouraging sound design in both urban and rural places—creating public spaces such as parks, ball fields, promenades, and hiking and biking trails, and discouraging suburban sprawl.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Progressives should remember that nobody can bond with seven billion people, and almost everyone feels more responsibility toward those closest to them. People have profound needs for lasting social relations, meaning, and shared moral beliefs. Globalist values can be combined with nationalist, parochial ones—demanding that communities not violate individual rights while allowing them to foster bonds and values for their members in the ways that suit them best.
Local communities need to be nurtured rather than denounced, not only because they satisfy profound human needs but also because they anchor people to each other and thus help to dilute appeals to their worst instincts. Championing fair trade, fostering diversity within a framework of unity and shared values, and accepting many kinds of communities as long as they respect rights—all are positions that show understanding and even empathy for citizens who voted for Donald Trump and will go a long way toward making America as great as it can be.
Civil society volunteers hold walkathon to promote quality education
ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of participants from all walk of life including educationists, volunteers and social workers participated the walk, jointly organized by Hashoo Foundation and Zindagi Trust here on Saturday.
The initiative aimed to promote the cause of quality education as a basic right for all children to help in contributing towards the national commitments of Sustainable Development Goal No. 4 and to complement the government endeavors of education for all as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan under the Article 25-A.
This walkathon was flagged off by Chief Guest Shah Khawar and Allah Nawaz Samoo renowned Educationist were also there at the occasion.
Informing this to the guests, Ms. Ayesha Khan Country Director Hashoo Foundation said that it is the constitutional right of every child to have access to quality education without any discrimination.
She expressed hope and optimism that through synergetic efforts among civil society, public and private sector of Pakistan would overcome the challenges of education.
Highlighting the motivation for the Hashwani family's philanthropy, Ayesha Khan said that Hashoo Foundation had been striving to translate their vision of improving the quality and access to education by focusing on deprived communities of far-flung areas in Pakistan through scholarships and financial assistance, parent's & teachers' training and professional development initiatives.
The only budget allocated for education is 2 % of National GDP. It's the state's and every individual responsibility to do charity for every needy child around. We must take pledge today to step up for the cause of quality education, said Shah Khawar, Board of Trustee Hashoo Foundation.
Participants attended the event and pledged their support to help the students of underprivileged families from far flung areas of Pakistan who have no access to quality education. During the walk, participants were captivated with face painting, poster competition, Rotary book giveaways and refreshment stalls.
http://dailytimes.com.pk/islamabad/27-N ... -education
ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of participants from all walk of life including educationists, volunteers and social workers participated the walk, jointly organized by Hashoo Foundation and Zindagi Trust here on Saturday.
The initiative aimed to promote the cause of quality education as a basic right for all children to help in contributing towards the national commitments of Sustainable Development Goal No. 4 and to complement the government endeavors of education for all as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan under the Article 25-A.
This walkathon was flagged off by Chief Guest Shah Khawar and Allah Nawaz Samoo renowned Educationist were also there at the occasion.
Informing this to the guests, Ms. Ayesha Khan Country Director Hashoo Foundation said that it is the constitutional right of every child to have access to quality education without any discrimination.
She expressed hope and optimism that through synergetic efforts among civil society, public and private sector of Pakistan would overcome the challenges of education.
Highlighting the motivation for the Hashwani family's philanthropy, Ayesha Khan said that Hashoo Foundation had been striving to translate their vision of improving the quality and access to education by focusing on deprived communities of far-flung areas in Pakistan through scholarships and financial assistance, parent's & teachers' training and professional development initiatives.
The only budget allocated for education is 2 % of National GDP. It's the state's and every individual responsibility to do charity for every needy child around. We must take pledge today to step up for the cause of quality education, said Shah Khawar, Board of Trustee Hashoo Foundation.
Participants attended the event and pledged their support to help the students of underprivileged families from far flung areas of Pakistan who have no access to quality education. During the walk, participants were captivated with face painting, poster competition, Rotary book giveaways and refreshment stalls.
http://dailytimes.com.pk/islamabad/27-N ... -education
The Uses of Outrage
Civil society needs to take a stand.
Are you angry about the white nationalist takeover of the U.S. government? If so, you are definitely not alone. The first few weeks of the Trump administration have been marked by huge protests, furious crowds at congressional town halls, customer boycotts of businesses seen as Trump allies. And Democrats, responding to their base, have taken a hard line against cooperation with the new regime.
But is all this wise? Inevitably, one hears some voices urging everyone to cool it — to wait and see, to try to be constructive, to reach out to Trump supporters, to seek ground for compromise.
Just say no.
Outrage at what’s happening to America isn’t just justified, it’s essential. In fact, it may be our last chance of saving democracy.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/opin ... ef=opinion
Civil society needs to take a stand.
Are you angry about the white nationalist takeover of the U.S. government? If so, you are definitely not alone. The first few weeks of the Trump administration have been marked by huge protests, furious crowds at congressional town halls, customer boycotts of businesses seen as Trump allies. And Democrats, responding to their base, have taken a hard line against cooperation with the new regime.
But is all this wise? Inevitably, one hears some voices urging everyone to cool it — to wait and see, to try to be constructive, to reach out to Trump supporters, to seek ground for compromise.
Just say no.
Outrage at what’s happening to America isn’t just justified, it’s essential. In fact, it may be our last chance of saving democracy.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/opin ... ef=opinion
The article below is about the role of civil society in promoting fact based reporting to counteract the fake based state propaganda machine and hence contribute to its downfall.
How Soviet Dissidents Ended 70 Years of Fake News
If the Soviet Union was the 20th century’s greatest example of a regime that used propaganda and information to control and contain its citizens — 70 years of fake news! — the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution is an important moment to appreciate how it also produced a powerful countercurrent in the civil society undergrounds of Moscow and Leningrad.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/opin ... &te=1&_r=0
How Soviet Dissidents Ended 70 Years of Fake News
If the Soviet Union was the 20th century’s greatest example of a regime that used propaganda and information to control and contain its citizens — 70 years of fake news! — the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution is an important moment to appreciate how it also produced a powerful countercurrent in the civil society undergrounds of Moscow and Leningrad.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/opin ... &te=1&_r=0
I started very young to listen for hours to news on a radio (yes long time ago 1960 - 1980) and I used to listen daily to BBC, Voice of America, Radio Moscow and Radio France Internationale. All of them were reporting the same news according to their own agenda. The propaganda machine was working at the same intensity in each one of these station.kmaherali wrote: How Soviet Dissidents Ended 70 Years of Fake News
The end of cold war has not brought the end of propaganda.
Propaganda had been mastered not only by the then Soviet Union, it was equality mastered by the Western World government. It still is today. bad habits are hard to loose.
The article below is about how civil societies can leave a mark upon individuals throughout their lives.
How to Leave a Mark on People
Excerpt:
Some organizations are thick, and some are thin. Some leave a mark on you, and some you pass through with scarcely a memory. I haven’t worked at Incarnation for 30 years, but it remains one of the four or five thick institutions in my life, and in so many other lives.
Which raises two questions: What makes an institution thick? If you were setting out consciously to create a thick institution, what features would it include?
A thick institution is not one that people use instrumentally, to get a degree or to earn a salary. A thick institution becomes part of a person’s identity and engages the whole person: head, hands, heart and soul. So thick institutions have a physical location, often cramped, where members meet face to face on a regular basis, like a dinner table or a packed gym or assembly hall.
Such institutions have a set of collective rituals — fasting or reciting or standing in formation. They have shared tasks, which often involve members closely watching one another, the way hockey teammates have to observe everybody else on the ice. In such institutions people occasionally sleep overnight in the same retreat center or facility, so that everybody can see each other’s real self, before makeup and after dinner.
Such organizations often tell and retell a sacred origin story about themselves. Many experienced a moment when they nearly failed, and they celebrate the heroes who pulled them from the brink. They incorporate music into daily life, because it is hard not to become bonded with someone you have sung and danced with. They have a common ideal — encapsulated, for example, in the Semper Fi motto for the Marines.
It’s also important to have an idiosyncratic local culture. Too many colleges, for example, feel like one another. But the ones that really leave a mark on their students (St. John’s, Morehouse, Wheaton, the University of Chicago) have the courage to be distinct. You can love or hate such places. But when you meet a graduate you know it, and when they meet each other, even decades hence, they know they have something important in common.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/opin ... &te=1&_r=0
How to Leave a Mark on People
Excerpt:
Some organizations are thick, and some are thin. Some leave a mark on you, and some you pass through with scarcely a memory. I haven’t worked at Incarnation for 30 years, but it remains one of the four or five thick institutions in my life, and in so many other lives.
Which raises two questions: What makes an institution thick? If you were setting out consciously to create a thick institution, what features would it include?
A thick institution is not one that people use instrumentally, to get a degree or to earn a salary. A thick institution becomes part of a person’s identity and engages the whole person: head, hands, heart and soul. So thick institutions have a physical location, often cramped, where members meet face to face on a regular basis, like a dinner table or a packed gym or assembly hall.
Such institutions have a set of collective rituals — fasting or reciting or standing in formation. They have shared tasks, which often involve members closely watching one another, the way hockey teammates have to observe everybody else on the ice. In such institutions people occasionally sleep overnight in the same retreat center or facility, so that everybody can see each other’s real self, before makeup and after dinner.
Such organizations often tell and retell a sacred origin story about themselves. Many experienced a moment when they nearly failed, and they celebrate the heroes who pulled them from the brink. They incorporate music into daily life, because it is hard not to become bonded with someone you have sung and danced with. They have a common ideal — encapsulated, for example, in the Semper Fi motto for the Marines.
It’s also important to have an idiosyncratic local culture. Too many colleges, for example, feel like one another. But the ones that really leave a mark on their students (St. John’s, Morehouse, Wheaton, the University of Chicago) have the courage to be distinct. You can love or hate such places. But when you meet a graduate you know it, and when they meet each other, even decades hence, they know they have something important in common.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/opin ... &te=1&_r=0
The article below is about the role of civil societies in countering the Jihadi State of Mind.
The Jihadi State of Mind
Excerpt:
The challenge we face is to rebuild the organizations of civil society and movements for social change that can not only pierce the jihadi state of mind but also channel the grief and love and anger about terrorism into political hope.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/opin ... ef=opinion
The Jihadi State of Mind
Excerpt:
The challenge we face is to rebuild the organizations of civil society and movements for social change that can not only pierce the jihadi state of mind but also channel the grief and love and anger about terrorism into political hope.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/opin ... ef=opinion
The article below highlights how civil societies can assist in preventing radicalization and jihadi tendencies.
Migrant Maids and Nannies for Jihad
Excerpt:
"The causes that lead migrant maids and nannies to join jihad are complex. Deportations and arrests are no solution; if anything, they are a sign of failure, evidence that radicalization has already occurred. The Indonesian government’s recent decision to block Telegram is an ineffectual form of prevention because it targets the means of radicalization rather than its sources. A better approach would seek to build viable communities, including spiritual ones, for migrant workers in order to forestall the sense of alienation that leads some of them to embrace terrorism."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/opin ... dline&te=1
Migrant Maids and Nannies for Jihad
Excerpt:
"The causes that lead migrant maids and nannies to join jihad are complex. Deportations and arrests are no solution; if anything, they are a sign of failure, evidence that radicalization has already occurred. The Indonesian government’s recent decision to block Telegram is an ineffectual form of prevention because it targets the means of radicalization rather than its sources. A better approach would seek to build viable communities, including spiritual ones, for migrant workers in order to forestall the sense of alienation that leads some of them to embrace terrorism."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/opin ... dline&te=1
The articles below explain the role of civil societies to provide vital health and legal services to the rural communities.
India’s Barefoot Lawyers
Excerpt:
Until recently, Bogribail had been asking IRB and government officials for compensation for these problems, and had gotten nothing. Villagers did not ask IRB or the government to stop or diminish the pollution, because they didn’t know that the factory’s practices violated numerous regulations.
Then Maruti Gouda took the case.
He’s the opposite of a superlawyer. (He’s also no relation to Ravi Gouda; many people in the area have that family name.) He is 29 and not a lawyer at all, actually — he attended college but didn’t graduate. Like his father and most of the people in his nearby village, he’s a clam harvester.
Since 2014, though, his employer has been Namati, a nonprofit organization that works in several Asian and African countries and the United States to democratize law. Around the world, four billion people lack basic access to justice, said Vivek Maru, the American lawyer who founded the group in 2011. (Disclosure: Namati gets some funding from the Open Society Foundations and had early support from its Justice Initiative, where my husband works.)
The movement has taken a cue from the rise of community health workers, one of the most important developments in global health. India, Ethiopia, Ghana and other countries are training thousands and thousands of villagers to provide basic medical care where doctors are scarce — a practice that began in China’s Cultural Revolution, when rural peasants were trained to give health care and teach preventive health practices.
China called them barefoot doctors. Now Maruti Gouda is a barefoot lawyer (sometimes actually barefoot).
“We can always teach them the law,” said his boss, Mahabaleshwar Hegde. “We can’t teach them to be from here.”
Even in countries like India that have good laws, law is often merely poetry, ignored in the real world. Lawyers are too expensive to be a widespread solution. But lay people with a few weeks of training are not expensive. Namati’s paralegals in Africa and Asia make about $200 per month.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/opin ... ef=opinion
******
Sending Health to Rural Ghana via Traveling Medics
Excerpt:
In a country where about 45 percent of the 28 million people live in rural communities miles from health clinics, with no reliable form of transportation, the government began deploying thousands of CHWs in 2016 to bridge the gap in access to health services. Trained in basic health care, the CHWs assist in emergencies and also — as important — take steps to prevent those emergencies from happening.
“We believe,” said Nathaniel Ebo Nsarko, who heads Ghana’s chapter of the One Million Community Health Workers Campaign, which is helping coordinate the deployment, that “this is the answer to universal health — to send in people to their homes to engage them, to share what they must do and what they mustn’t do to stay healthy.”
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 400 million people across the globe lack access to basic health services. Many live in remote locations like Abosamso, where it is impractical to build and staff health facilities within easy reach.
Ghana is one of numerous countries turning to CHWs. The idea is not new; the model has been around for about 80 years. The advent of village health workers, or so-called “barefoot doctors,” dates to China’s Rural Reconstruction Movement in the 1930s. But in recent decades, it has become established as a core pillar of efforts to advance global health. Countries like Ethiopia have employed the approach to slash maternal and child mortality rates, including a 64 percent drop between 2000 and 2015 in deaths among Ethiopian children under five years old.
In Ghana, the government has long relied on local volunteers to deliver health care services to those who live far from the nearest facility. But government officials say the needs are too great to rely too much on those volunteers, who can grow fatigued by the demands.
So now the Ghanaian government has begun to pay CHWs. Other countries have attempted similar initiatives, but the scale and the speed of Ghana’s effort make it distinctive. If it succeeds, it could signal a path toward universal health programs for other countries.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/opin ... mn%2Ffixes
India’s Barefoot Lawyers
Excerpt:
Until recently, Bogribail had been asking IRB and government officials for compensation for these problems, and had gotten nothing. Villagers did not ask IRB or the government to stop or diminish the pollution, because they didn’t know that the factory’s practices violated numerous regulations.
Then Maruti Gouda took the case.
He’s the opposite of a superlawyer. (He’s also no relation to Ravi Gouda; many people in the area have that family name.) He is 29 and not a lawyer at all, actually — he attended college but didn’t graduate. Like his father and most of the people in his nearby village, he’s a clam harvester.
Since 2014, though, his employer has been Namati, a nonprofit organization that works in several Asian and African countries and the United States to democratize law. Around the world, four billion people lack basic access to justice, said Vivek Maru, the American lawyer who founded the group in 2011. (Disclosure: Namati gets some funding from the Open Society Foundations and had early support from its Justice Initiative, where my husband works.)
The movement has taken a cue from the rise of community health workers, one of the most important developments in global health. India, Ethiopia, Ghana and other countries are training thousands and thousands of villagers to provide basic medical care where doctors are scarce — a practice that began in China’s Cultural Revolution, when rural peasants were trained to give health care and teach preventive health practices.
China called them barefoot doctors. Now Maruti Gouda is a barefoot lawyer (sometimes actually barefoot).
“We can always teach them the law,” said his boss, Mahabaleshwar Hegde. “We can’t teach them to be from here.”
Even in countries like India that have good laws, law is often merely poetry, ignored in the real world. Lawyers are too expensive to be a widespread solution. But lay people with a few weeks of training are not expensive. Namati’s paralegals in Africa and Asia make about $200 per month.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/opin ... ef=opinion
******
Sending Health to Rural Ghana via Traveling Medics
Excerpt:
In a country where about 45 percent of the 28 million people live in rural communities miles from health clinics, with no reliable form of transportation, the government began deploying thousands of CHWs in 2016 to bridge the gap in access to health services. Trained in basic health care, the CHWs assist in emergencies and also — as important — take steps to prevent those emergencies from happening.
“We believe,” said Nathaniel Ebo Nsarko, who heads Ghana’s chapter of the One Million Community Health Workers Campaign, which is helping coordinate the deployment, that “this is the answer to universal health — to send in people to their homes to engage them, to share what they must do and what they mustn’t do to stay healthy.”
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 400 million people across the globe lack access to basic health services. Many live in remote locations like Abosamso, where it is impractical to build and staff health facilities within easy reach.
Ghana is one of numerous countries turning to CHWs. The idea is not new; the model has been around for about 80 years. The advent of village health workers, or so-called “barefoot doctors,” dates to China’s Rural Reconstruction Movement in the 1930s. But in recent decades, it has become established as a core pillar of efforts to advance global health. Countries like Ethiopia have employed the approach to slash maternal and child mortality rates, including a 64 percent drop between 2000 and 2015 in deaths among Ethiopian children under five years old.
In Ghana, the government has long relied on local volunteers to deliver health care services to those who live far from the nearest facility. But government officials say the needs are too great to rely too much on those volunteers, who can grow fatigued by the demands.
So now the Ghanaian government has begun to pay CHWs. Other countries have attempted similar initiatives, but the scale and the speed of Ghana’s effort make it distinctive. If it succeeds, it could signal a path toward universal health programs for other countries.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/opin ... mn%2Ffixes
The following article is highlighting the role of civil society in providing moral compass and voice in times of political turbulence.
The Moral Voice of Corporate America
The nation has split into political tribes. The culture wars are back, waged over transgender rights and immigration. White nationalists are on the march.
Amid this turbulence, a surprising group of Americans is testing its moral voice more forcefully than ever: C.E.O.s.
After Nazi-saluting white supremacists rioted in Charlottesville, Va., and President Trump dithered in his response, a chorus of business leaders rose up this past week to condemn hate groups and espouse tolerance and inclusion. And as lawmakers in Texas tried to restrict the rights of transgender people to use public bathrooms, corporate executives joined activists to kill the bill.
These and other actions are part of a broad recasting of the voice of business in the nation’s political and social dialogue, a transformation that has gained momentum in recent years as the country has engaged in fraught debates over everything from climate change to health care.
In recent days, after the Charlottesville bloodshed, the chief executive of General Motors, Mary T. Barra, called on people to “come together as a country and reinforce values and ideals that unite us — tolerance, inclusion and diversity.”
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/busi ... d=45305309
The Moral Voice of Corporate America
The nation has split into political tribes. The culture wars are back, waged over transgender rights and immigration. White nationalists are on the march.
Amid this turbulence, a surprising group of Americans is testing its moral voice more forcefully than ever: C.E.O.s.
After Nazi-saluting white supremacists rioted in Charlottesville, Va., and President Trump dithered in his response, a chorus of business leaders rose up this past week to condemn hate groups and espouse tolerance and inclusion. And as lawmakers in Texas tried to restrict the rights of transgender people to use public bathrooms, corporate executives joined activists to kill the bill.
These and other actions are part of a broad recasting of the voice of business in the nation’s political and social dialogue, a transformation that has gained momentum in recent years as the country has engaged in fraught debates over everything from climate change to health care.
In recent days, after the Charlottesville bloodshed, the chief executive of General Motors, Mary T. Barra, called on people to “come together as a country and reinforce values and ideals that unite us — tolerance, inclusion and diversity.”
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/busi ... d=45305309
The article below explains how civil societies can promote the art of thinking well.
The Art of Thinking Well
Excerpt:
But I’d say that if social life can get us into trouble, social life can get us out. After all, think of how you really persuade people. Do you do it by writing thoughtful essays that carefully marshal facts? That works some of the time. But the real way to persuade people is to create an attractive community that people want to join. If you do that, they’ll bend their opinions to yours. If you want people to be reasonable, create groups where it’s cool to be reasonable.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/opin ... dline&te=1
The Art of Thinking Well
Excerpt:
But I’d say that if social life can get us into trouble, social life can get us out. After all, think of how you really persuade people. Do you do it by writing thoughtful essays that carefully marshal facts? That works some of the time. But the real way to persuade people is to create an attractive community that people want to join. If you do that, they’ll bend their opinions to yours. If you want people to be reasonable, create groups where it’s cool to be reasonable.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below suggests how allegiances to civil society institutions can improve the political outlook of individuals.
When Politics Becomes Your Idol
Excerpt:
If politics is going to get better we need better myths, unifying ones that are built on social equality. But we also need to put politics in its place. The excessive dependence on politics has to be displaced by the expulsive power of more important dependencies, whether family, friendship, neighborhood, community, faith or basic life creed.
To be a moderate is to be at war with idolatry. It’s to believe that we become free as we multiply and balance our attachments. It’s to believe that our politics probably can’t be fixed by political means. It needs repair of the deeper communal bonds that politics rest on, and which political conflict cannot heal.
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/opin ... -idol.html
When Politics Becomes Your Idol
Excerpt:
If politics is going to get better we need better myths, unifying ones that are built on social equality. But we also need to put politics in its place. The excessive dependence on politics has to be displaced by the expulsive power of more important dependencies, whether family, friendship, neighborhood, community, faith or basic life creed.
To be a moderate is to be at war with idolatry. It’s to believe that we become free as we multiply and balance our attachments. It’s to believe that our politics probably can’t be fixed by political means. It needs repair of the deeper communal bonds that politics rest on, and which political conflict cannot heal.
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/opin ... -idol.html
Bosses are under increasing pressure to take stances on social issues. How should they respond?
Excerpt:
Employees, many of them in the big, Democrat-leaning metropolitan areas where large companies are often based, increasingly demand that their firms take positions on issues ranging from gay rights to climate change. Nearly half of young American employees say they would be more loyal if their boss took a public position on a social issue. A big test came in 2015, when Indiana was considering a “religious freedom” bill that would have let firms and non-profit organisations discriminate against gay and transgender people; Apple and Salesforce.com were among those to oppose it, saying it would harm their customers and staff.
And shareholders are judging firms on broader criteria than financial ones. Investments that considered environmental, social and governance factors accounted for $13.3trn of assets under management in 2012; that sum was $22.9trn in 2016. Over a fifth of the funds under professional management in America fall into this category, up from a ninth in 2012.
Not every company faces the same pressures: a consumer-facing firm needs to be more attuned than a corporate-facing one. Nor is there a simple recipe for how a business should best balance purely commercial goals with the competing interpretations of its social responsibilities from employees, customers and shareholders. But to help them navigate the era of activism, CEOs should bear two rules of thumb in mind.
More...
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/ ... na/84122/n
Excerpt:
Employees, many of them in the big, Democrat-leaning metropolitan areas where large companies are often based, increasingly demand that their firms take positions on issues ranging from gay rights to climate change. Nearly half of young American employees say they would be more loyal if their boss took a public position on a social issue. A big test came in 2015, when Indiana was considering a “religious freedom” bill that would have let firms and non-profit organisations discriminate against gay and transgender people; Apple and Salesforce.com were among those to oppose it, saying it would harm their customers and staff.
And shareholders are judging firms on broader criteria than financial ones. Investments that considered environmental, social and governance factors accounted for $13.3trn of assets under management in 2012; that sum was $22.9trn in 2016. Over a fifth of the funds under professional management in America fall into this category, up from a ninth in 2012.
Not every company faces the same pressures: a consumer-facing firm needs to be more attuned than a corporate-facing one. Nor is there a simple recipe for how a business should best balance purely commercial goals with the competing interpretations of its social responsibilities from employees, customers and shareholders. But to help them navigate the era of activism, CEOs should bear two rules of thumb in mind.
More...
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/ ... na/84122/n
The article below is about how civil society and the principles of neighbor relations are better and humane tools to deal with specific conflict situations rather than applying legal instruments.
How Not to Advance Gay Marriage
Excerpt:
'At this point, Craig and Mullins had two possible courses of action, the neighborly and the legal.
The neighborly course would have been to use this situation as a community-building moment. That means understanding the concrete circumstance they were in.
First, it’s just a cake. It’s not like they were being denied a home or a job, or a wedding. A cake looks good in magazines, but it’s not an important thing in a marriage. Second, Phillips’s opinion is not a strange opinion. Barack Obama was elected president arguing that a marriage was between a man and a woman. Most good-hearted Americans believed this until a few years ago. Third, the tide of opinion is quickly swinging in favor of gay marriage. Its advocates have every cause to feel confident, patient and secure.
Given that context, the neighborly approach would be to say: “Fine, we won’t compel you to do something you believe violates your sacred principles. But we would like to hire you to bake other cakes for us. We would like to invite you into our home for dinner and bake with you, so you can see our marital love, and so we can understand your values. You still may not agree with us, after all this, but at least we’ll understand each other better and we can live more fully in our community.”
The legal course, by contrast, was to take the problem out of the neighborhood and throw it into the court system. The legal course has some advantages. You can use state power, ultimately the barrel of a gun, to compel people to do what you think is right. There are clearly many cases in which the legal course is the right response (Brown v. Board of Education).
But the legal course has some disadvantages. It is inherently adversarial. It takes what could be a conversation and turns it into a confrontation. It is dehumanizing. It ends persuasion and relies on the threat of state coercion. It is elitist. It takes a situation that could be addressed concretely on the ground and throws it up, as this one now has been, to the Supreme Court, where it will be decided by a group of Harvard and Yale law grads.
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/opin ... dline&te=1
How Not to Advance Gay Marriage
Excerpt:
'At this point, Craig and Mullins had two possible courses of action, the neighborly and the legal.
The neighborly course would have been to use this situation as a community-building moment. That means understanding the concrete circumstance they were in.
First, it’s just a cake. It’s not like they were being denied a home or a job, or a wedding. A cake looks good in magazines, but it’s not an important thing in a marriage. Second, Phillips’s opinion is not a strange opinion. Barack Obama was elected president arguing that a marriage was between a man and a woman. Most good-hearted Americans believed this until a few years ago. Third, the tide of opinion is quickly swinging in favor of gay marriage. Its advocates have every cause to feel confident, patient and secure.
Given that context, the neighborly approach would be to say: “Fine, we won’t compel you to do something you believe violates your sacred principles. But we would like to hire you to bake other cakes for us. We would like to invite you into our home for dinner and bake with you, so you can see our marital love, and so we can understand your values. You still may not agree with us, after all this, but at least we’ll understand each other better and we can live more fully in our community.”
The legal course, by contrast, was to take the problem out of the neighborhood and throw it into the court system. The legal course has some advantages. You can use state power, ultimately the barrel of a gun, to compel people to do what you think is right. There are clearly many cases in which the legal course is the right response (Brown v. Board of Education).
But the legal course has some disadvantages. It is inherently adversarial. It takes what could be a conversation and turns it into a confrontation. It is dehumanizing. It ends persuasion and relies on the threat of state coercion. It is elitist. It takes a situation that could be addressed concretely on the ground and throws it up, as this one now has been, to the Supreme Court, where it will be decided by a group of Harvard and Yale law grads.
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below is about how vibrant civil societies can revive democracy[/b]
How Democracies Perish
Excerpt:
Liberalism claims to be neutral but it’s really anti-culture. It detaches people from nature, community, tradition and place. It detaches people from time. “Gratitude to the past and obligations to the future are replaced by a nearly universal pursuit of immediate gratification.”
Once family and local community erode and social norms dissolve, individuals are left naked and unprotected. They seek solace in the state. They toggle between impersonal systems: globalized capitalism and the distant state. As the social order decays, people grasp for the security of authoritarianism. “A signal feature of modern totalitarianism was that it arose and came to power through the discontents of people’s isolation and loneliness,” he observes. He urges people to dedicate themselves instead to local community — a sort of Wendell Berry agrarianism.
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opin ... dline&te=1
How Democracies Perish
Excerpt:
Liberalism claims to be neutral but it’s really anti-culture. It detaches people from nature, community, tradition and place. It detaches people from time. “Gratitude to the past and obligations to the future are replaced by a nearly universal pursuit of immediate gratification.”
Once family and local community erode and social norms dissolve, individuals are left naked and unprotected. They seek solace in the state. They toggle between impersonal systems: globalized capitalism and the distant state. As the social order decays, people grasp for the security of authoritarianism. “A signal feature of modern totalitarianism was that it arose and came to power through the discontents of people’s isolation and loneliness,” he observes. He urges people to dedicate themselves instead to local community — a sort of Wendell Berry agrarianism.
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opin ... dline&te=1
This book emphasises the importance of civil society for the post liberalism vison of the future.
Book: If Liberalism Is Dead, What Comes Next?
Excerpt:
“Today’s widespread yearning for a strong leader, one with the will to take back popular control over liberalism’s forms of bureaucratized government and globalized economy, comes after decades of liberal dismantling of cultural norms and political habits essential to self-governance,” Deneen writes. His critique in this slender volume is impressively capacious. Ruthless economic liberalization has left many people materially insecure; relentless cultural liberalization has left them unmoored. Communal ties are discouraged in order to encourage a mobile force of workers. Freedom becomes something for an increasingly powerful government to grant or withhold.
Mere tinkering won’t alleviate the deep rot in the liberal project, Deneen insists. He says we need to envision a future after liberalism, where local, preferably religious communities tend to the land and look after their own. These groups would cultivate “cultures of community, care, self-sacrifice and small-scale democracy.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/book ... d=45305309
Book: If Liberalism Is Dead, What Comes Next?
Excerpt:
“Today’s widespread yearning for a strong leader, one with the will to take back popular control over liberalism’s forms of bureaucratized government and globalized economy, comes after decades of liberal dismantling of cultural norms and political habits essential to self-governance,” Deneen writes. His critique in this slender volume is impressively capacious. Ruthless economic liberalization has left many people materially insecure; relentless cultural liberalization has left them unmoored. Communal ties are discouraged in order to encourage a mobile force of workers. Freedom becomes something for an increasingly powerful government to grant or withhold.
Mere tinkering won’t alleviate the deep rot in the liberal project, Deneen insists. He says we need to envision a future after liberalism, where local, preferably religious communities tend to the land and look after their own. These groups would cultivate “cultures of community, care, self-sacrifice and small-scale democracy.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/book ... d=45305309
The article below discusses the hopes and aspirations of the youth today based on relationships established through locally based organised civil societies and social movements.
A Generation Emerging From the Wreckage
Excerpt:
I came away from these conversations thinking that one big challenge for this generation is determining how to take good things that are happening on the local level and translate them to the national level, where the problems are. I was also struck by pervasive but subtle hunger for a change in the emotional tenor of life. “We’re more connected but we’re more apart,” one student lamented. Again and again, students expressed a hunger for social and emotional bonding, for a shift from guilt and accusation toward empathy. “How do you create relationship?” one student asked. That may be the longing that undergirds all others.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/opin ... dline&te=1
A Generation Emerging From the Wreckage
Excerpt:
I came away from these conversations thinking that one big challenge for this generation is determining how to take good things that are happening on the local level and translate them to the national level, where the problems are. I was also struck by pervasive but subtle hunger for a change in the emotional tenor of life. “We’re more connected but we’re more apart,” one student lamented. Again and again, students expressed a hunger for social and emotional bonding, for a shift from guilt and accusation toward empathy. “How do you create relationship?” one student asked. That may be the longing that undergirds all others.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below highlights the role of civil society in combating the practice of female genital cutting (FGC) in Somaliland.
BAN ON FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING IN SOMALILAND IS PROGRESS, BUT SUCCESS RELIES ON WORKING WITH RELIGIOUS LEADERS
Excerpt:
Whole networks of communities must come together to advocate for change. This model was the exact outcome of a human rights curriculum introduced in Senegal by the organization Tostan. While not initially focused on eradicating FGC, Tostan realized that when women learned about human rights, they came to the decision to end FGC on their own and began to advocate for far reaching, lasting change. In the past 25 years, Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program has influenced over 8,000 communities in 8 countries to publically declare abandonment of FGC.
More...
http://religiondispatches.org/ban-on-fe ... e-84570085
BAN ON FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING IN SOMALILAND IS PROGRESS, BUT SUCCESS RELIES ON WORKING WITH RELIGIOUS LEADERS
Excerpt:
Whole networks of communities must come together to advocate for change. This model was the exact outcome of a human rights curriculum introduced in Senegal by the organization Tostan. While not initially focused on eradicating FGC, Tostan realized that when women learned about human rights, they came to the decision to end FGC on their own and began to advocate for far reaching, lasting change. In the past 25 years, Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program has influenced over 8,000 communities in 8 countries to publically declare abandonment of FGC.
More...
http://religiondispatches.org/ban-on-fe ... e-84570085
A huge earthquake in China ten years ago was a turning point
It helped to spur the development of civil society
Excerpt:
But Ms Zhang, the social scientist, says the earthquake did result in a change of attitude by the government towards civilian involvement in disaster relief. “This event provided a model for how social forces could be put to use to respond to a big crisis,” she says. At the time, officials had no guidelines for working with civil society. The flood of volunteers caused congestion and compounded difficulties with feeding and sheltering everyone. But NGOs and the government soon established trust—a spirit often lacking in the party’s dealings with organisations that it does not control. When another big quake struck Sichuan in 2013, she says, the government was more prepared. “They said, ‘OK, we can put out the money and you can do the work.’”
The new model involves leaving the heavy work of rebuilding cities and roads to the government but creating space for civil society in areas such as the counselling of bereaved families. After the more recent earthquake, NGOs helped to resolve conflicts that erupted during the relocation of survivors of destroyed villages. In the past few days, a local group in Dujiangyan has been raising funds for quake victims with permanent disabilities. Ms Zhang says NGOs have been particularly helpful in the rebuilding of shattered societies.
More....
https://www.economist.com/news/china/21 ... m=20180514
It helped to spur the development of civil society
Excerpt:
But Ms Zhang, the social scientist, says the earthquake did result in a change of attitude by the government towards civilian involvement in disaster relief. “This event provided a model for how social forces could be put to use to respond to a big crisis,” she says. At the time, officials had no guidelines for working with civil society. The flood of volunteers caused congestion and compounded difficulties with feeding and sheltering everyone. But NGOs and the government soon established trust—a spirit often lacking in the party’s dealings with organisations that it does not control. When another big quake struck Sichuan in 2013, she says, the government was more prepared. “They said, ‘OK, we can put out the money and you can do the work.’”
The new model involves leaving the heavy work of rebuilding cities and roads to the government but creating space for civil society in areas such as the counselling of bereaved families. After the more recent earthquake, NGOs helped to resolve conflicts that erupted during the relocation of survivors of destroyed villages. In the past few days, a local group in Dujiangyan has been raising funds for quake victims with permanent disabilities. Ms Zhang says NGOs have been particularly helpful in the rebuilding of shattered societies.
More....
https://www.economist.com/news/china/21 ... m=20180514
The article below is about how societies at local levels have been redeemed and have made progress in America through the application of civil society based approaches at a time when there is political uncertainty and paralysis at the national level.
The American Renaissance Is Already Happening
Excerpt:
Most of the cities tell a redemption story about themselves. They had a booming industry; it collapsed; now they are rebuilding with new industries and new wealth.
Many of the cities began their recovery with infrastructure projects that revived the downtown core. In Greenville, S.C., an ugly highway bridge was removed and replaced with a gorgeous walk along the Reedy River, which is now home to parks and cafes. In Fresno, Calif., the misbegotten pedestrian mall that crushed downtown development was bulldozed, and now there are human-size streets that encourage visits and activity.
A second common thread for these cities was that they were often led by business leaders who were both entrepreneurial and civically minded. In these places if you become successful, it is expected that you will become active in town life.
Mike Gallo went to San Bernardino, Calif., as a junior officer in the Air Force. He left to work for a company pioneering new missile technology. Then he helped found an aerospace technology company. When the firm succeeded, he set up an education nonprofit called Technical Employment Training. Then he ran for the school board and became its chairman.
Third, these places tend to have strong vocational schools and community colleges, teaching modern workplace skills in partnership with local businesses. Raj Shaunak and his family went to Columbus, Miss., and founded a manufacturing firm. After they sold it, Shaunak went to work at East Mississippi Community College, where students learn on real versions or scaled-down models of the same machines that operate at the local manufacturing plants.
Fourth, these places tend to have a lot of social capital and entrepreneurial civic institutions. In Allentown, Pa., a couple needed a foam pit for their new gymnastics center. So the local Mack Trucks factory donated leftover padding used in the airplane seats it manufactured, it delivered the padding in a fleet of trucks and 200 town volunteers showed up with electric kitchen knives to carve it into pieces.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/opin ... ening.html
The American Renaissance Is Already Happening
Excerpt:
Most of the cities tell a redemption story about themselves. They had a booming industry; it collapsed; now they are rebuilding with new industries and new wealth.
Many of the cities began their recovery with infrastructure projects that revived the downtown core. In Greenville, S.C., an ugly highway bridge was removed and replaced with a gorgeous walk along the Reedy River, which is now home to parks and cafes. In Fresno, Calif., the misbegotten pedestrian mall that crushed downtown development was bulldozed, and now there are human-size streets that encourage visits and activity.
A second common thread for these cities was that they were often led by business leaders who were both entrepreneurial and civically minded. In these places if you become successful, it is expected that you will become active in town life.
Mike Gallo went to San Bernardino, Calif., as a junior officer in the Air Force. He left to work for a company pioneering new missile technology. Then he helped found an aerospace technology company. When the firm succeeded, he set up an education nonprofit called Technical Employment Training. Then he ran for the school board and became its chairman.
Third, these places tend to have strong vocational schools and community colleges, teaching modern workplace skills in partnership with local businesses. Raj Shaunak and his family went to Columbus, Miss., and founded a manufacturing firm. After they sold it, Shaunak went to work at East Mississippi Community College, where students learn on real versions or scaled-down models of the same machines that operate at the local manufacturing plants.
Fourth, these places tend to have a lot of social capital and entrepreneurial civic institutions. In Allentown, Pa., a couple needed a foam pit for their new gymnastics center. So the local Mack Trucks factory donated leftover padding used in the airplane seats it manufactured, it delivered the padding in a fleet of trucks and 200 town volunteers showed up with electric kitchen knives to carve it into pieces.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/opin ... ening.html
The article below highlights the need to nurture social bonds, communities and civil society to counter the negative effects of meritocracy.
The Strange Failure of the Educated Elite
Excerpt:
What happened? How has so much amazing talent produced such poor results.
A narrative is emerging. It is that the new meritocratic aristocracy has come to look like every other aristocracy. The members of the educated class use their intellectual, financial and social advantages to pass down privilege to their children, creating a hereditary elite that is ever more insulated from the rest of society. We need to build a meritocracy that is true to its values, truly open to all.
I’m among the many who have been telling this story for 20 years. And I enjoy books that fill in compelling details, like Steven Brill’s “Tailspin,” which is being released Tuesday.
But the narrative is insufficient. The real problem with the modern meritocracy can be found in the ideology of meritocracy itself. Meritocracy is a system built on the maximization of individual talent, and that system unwittingly encourages several ruinous beliefs:
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/opin ... elite.html
The Strange Failure of the Educated Elite
Excerpt:
What happened? How has so much amazing talent produced such poor results.
A narrative is emerging. It is that the new meritocratic aristocracy has come to look like every other aristocracy. The members of the educated class use their intellectual, financial and social advantages to pass down privilege to their children, creating a hereditary elite that is ever more insulated from the rest of society. We need to build a meritocracy that is true to its values, truly open to all.
I’m among the many who have been telling this story for 20 years. And I enjoy books that fill in compelling details, like Steven Brill’s “Tailspin,” which is being released Tuesday.
But the narrative is insufficient. The real problem with the modern meritocracy can be found in the ideology of meritocracy itself. Meritocracy is a system built on the maximization of individual talent, and that system unwittingly encourages several ruinous beliefs:
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/opin ... elite.html
The article below highlights the need for an individual to be embedded in civil society to realize his full potential of responsible freedom.
Anthony Kennedy and the Privatization of Meaning
America’s founders certainly believed in individual liberty, but they believed that liberty happens within a shared community. They began the Constitution with the phrase, “We the People.” We are all one thing — a people, a nation, a collective.
That people shares a moral order — rules that are true for all people in all times and that govern us in our freedom. Among them, for example, is the idea that all people are created equal.
That people shares a common enterprise. We are a self-governing nation, and we all play a role in that enterprise by fulfilling the roles that define us — father, mother, neighbor, citizen and legislator. We are parts of a covenant and pass down our shared order to our posterity.
Over the decades, that sense of we-ness began to turn into a sense of I-ness or you-ness. You can see it in today’s commencement clichés: Follow your passion, march to the beat of your own drummer, listen to your own heart, you do you.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/opin ... alism.html
Anthony Kennedy and the Privatization of Meaning
America’s founders certainly believed in individual liberty, but they believed that liberty happens within a shared community. They began the Constitution with the phrase, “We the People.” We are all one thing — a people, a nation, a collective.
That people shares a moral order — rules that are true for all people in all times and that govern us in our freedom. Among them, for example, is the idea that all people are created equal.
That people shares a common enterprise. We are a self-governing nation, and we all play a role in that enterprise by fulfilling the roles that define us — father, mother, neighbor, citizen and legislator. We are parts of a covenant and pass down our shared order to our posterity.
Over the decades, that sense of we-ness began to turn into a sense of I-ness or you-ness. You can see it in today’s commencement clichés: Follow your passion, march to the beat of your own drummer, listen to your own heart, you do you.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/opin ... alism.html
Where American Politics Can Still Work: From the Bottom Up
Civic coalitions are succeeding at revitalizing old towns where governmental efforts have failed.
Excerpt:
My original host was the Hourglass, a foundation founded by community leaders in Lancaster County in 1997, when the city of Lancaster was a crime-ridden ghost town at night where people were afraid to venture and when the county’s dominant industrial employer, Armstrong World Industries, was withering.
Some of the leading citizens decided that “time was running out” — hence “Hourglass” — and that no cavalry was coming to save them — not from the state’s capital or the nation’s capital. They realized that the only way they could replace Armstrong and re-energize the downtown was not with another dominant company, but by throwing partisan politics out the window and forming a complex adaptive coalition in which business leaders, educators, philanthropists, social innovators and the local government would work together to unleash entrepreneurship and forge whatever compromises were necessary to fix the city.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/opin ... dline&te=1
Civic coalitions are succeeding at revitalizing old towns where governmental efforts have failed.
Excerpt:
My original host was the Hourglass, a foundation founded by community leaders in Lancaster County in 1997, when the city of Lancaster was a crime-ridden ghost town at night where people were afraid to venture and when the county’s dominant industrial employer, Armstrong World Industries, was withering.
Some of the leading citizens decided that “time was running out” — hence “Hourglass” — and that no cavalry was coming to save them — not from the state’s capital or the nation’s capital. They realized that the only way they could replace Armstrong and re-energize the downtown was not with another dominant company, but by throwing partisan politics out the window and forming a complex adaptive coalition in which business leaders, educators, philanthropists, social innovators and the local government would work together to unleash entrepreneurship and forge whatever compromises were necessary to fix the city.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below highlights the role of civil society to address issues of social isolation and fragmentation and provides a model to work on.
Where American Renewal Begins
A Baltimore-based community program provides the architecture for kids’ success.
Excerpt:
Thread has taken 415 academically underperforming students in Baltimore schools and built an extended family around them, with about 1,000 volunteers. Each student is given up to five volunteers, who perform the jobs that a family member would perform.
Each volunteer is coached by a more experienced volunteer, called the Head of Family. The Head of Family is coached by a Grandparent, who supports the Head. The Grandparents are coached by Community Managers, who are paid Thread staffers. Circling the whole system are Collaborators, who offer special expertise when called in — legal help, SAT tutoring, mental health counseling, etc.
In short, the organization weaves an elaborate system of relationships, a cohesive village, around the task of helping kids. The social network is as much for the adults and the city as for the kids.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/opin ... dline&te=1
Where American Renewal Begins
A Baltimore-based community program provides the architecture for kids’ success.
Excerpt:
Thread has taken 415 academically underperforming students in Baltimore schools and built an extended family around them, with about 1,000 volunteers. Each student is given up to five volunteers, who perform the jobs that a family member would perform.
Each volunteer is coached by a more experienced volunteer, called the Head of Family. The Head of Family is coached by a Grandparent, who supports the Head. The Grandparents are coached by Community Managers, who are paid Thread staffers. Circling the whole system are Collaborators, who offer special expertise when called in — legal help, SAT tutoring, mental health counseling, etc.
In short, the organization weaves an elaborate system of relationships, a cohesive village, around the task of helping kids. The social network is as much for the adults and the city as for the kids.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below highlights how civil society is shaping across borders bringing individuals of diverse backgrounds together forming strong communities.
Airbnb Is the New NATO
The nation state is trumpeted. The nation state is redundant.
I was chatting earlier this year with Brian Chesky, the co-founder and chief executive of Airbnb. He told me about trying to raise $150,000 in 2008 for his idea of a peer-to-peer home and room rental company. Everyone called him crazy. They scoffed at the notion that people would trust one another enough to allow strangers into their homes. They derided the idea that those strangers would be nice enough, or honest enough, to respect properties.
“Airbnb, without fundamental human goodness, would not work,” Chesky said. A decade later, Airbnb is in more than 190 countries. It has had more than 300 million guest arrivals. It is valued in the tens of billions of dollars.
From all the data the company has accumulated, no major country anomalies, in terms of patterns of behavior, have emerged. People from Japan, Brazil, Nigeria, Russia, the United States, Mexico and France are equally respectful and honest. There are no national outliers, Chesky said, on the goodness or trustworthiness scale. There are no enemies.
That is interesting. I wonder if we are looking in the wrong places to assess the state of the world. The twilight of an era, as in Vienna a little over a century ago, is always murky. With nationalism and xenophobia resurgent, examples of humanity’s basest instincts abound. They grab the headlines. At the same time, community and sharing, often across national borders, through digital platforms like Airbnb, BlaBlaCar and Facebook, expand. This is the world’s undercurrent. It shifts the perceptions of billions.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/opin ... 3053090804
Airbnb Is the New NATO
The nation state is trumpeted. The nation state is redundant.
I was chatting earlier this year with Brian Chesky, the co-founder and chief executive of Airbnb. He told me about trying to raise $150,000 in 2008 for his idea of a peer-to-peer home and room rental company. Everyone called him crazy. They scoffed at the notion that people would trust one another enough to allow strangers into their homes. They derided the idea that those strangers would be nice enough, or honest enough, to respect properties.
“Airbnb, without fundamental human goodness, would not work,” Chesky said. A decade later, Airbnb is in more than 190 countries. It has had more than 300 million guest arrivals. It is valued in the tens of billions of dollars.
From all the data the company has accumulated, no major country anomalies, in terms of patterns of behavior, have emerged. People from Japan, Brazil, Nigeria, Russia, the United States, Mexico and France are equally respectful and honest. There are no national outliers, Chesky said, on the goodness or trustworthiness scale. There are no enemies.
That is interesting. I wonder if we are looking in the wrong places to assess the state of the world. The twilight of an era, as in Vienna a little over a century ago, is always murky. With nationalism and xenophobia resurgent, examples of humanity’s basest instincts abound. They grab the headlines. At the same time, community and sharing, often across national borders, through digital platforms like Airbnb, BlaBlaCar and Facebook, expand. This is the world’s undercurrent. It shifts the perceptions of billions.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/opin ... 3053090804
Why Imran Khan Must Bat for Civil Society in Pakistan
The prime minister must reverse policies that are preventing NGOs from carrying out their necessary work.
Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan has set out an ambitious development and reform agenda. He is determined to reign in elite corruption and increase spending on health, education and women’s welfare.
To carry out these important social programs, Mr. Khan needs the support of Pakistan’s battered and bruised civil society. He needs to put an end to the coercion civil society groups have faced from the previous government and the military and help them to function effectively and without constraints.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/opin ... dline&te=1
The prime minister must reverse policies that are preventing NGOs from carrying out their necessary work.
Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan has set out an ambitious development and reform agenda. He is determined to reign in elite corruption and increase spending on health, education and women’s welfare.
To carry out these important social programs, Mr. Khan needs the support of Pakistan’s battered and bruised civil society. He needs to put an end to the coercion civil society groups have faced from the previous government and the military and help them to function effectively and without constraints.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/opin ... dline&te=1
To Restore Civil Society, Start With the Library
This crucial institution is being neglected just when we need it the most.
Excerpt:
Libraries are being disparaged and neglected at precisely the moment when they are most valued and necessary. Why the disconnect? In part it’s because the founding principle of the public library — that all people deserve free, open access to our shared culture and heritage — is out of sync with the market logic that dominates our world. But it’s also because so few influential people understand the expansive role that libraries play in modern communities.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opin ... dline&te=1
This crucial institution is being neglected just when we need it the most.
Excerpt:
Libraries are being disparaged and neglected at precisely the moment when they are most valued and necessary. Why the disconnect? In part it’s because the founding principle of the public library — that all people deserve free, open access to our shared culture and heritage — is out of sync with the market logic that dominates our world. But it’s also because so few influential people understand the expansive role that libraries play in modern communities.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opin ... dline&te=1
A Really Good Thing Happening in America
A strategy for community problem-solving does an extraordinary job at restoring our social fabric.
Not long ago, in Spartanburg, S.C., I visited the offices of something called the Spartanburg Academic Movement (SAM). The walls were lined with charts measuring things like kindergarten readiness, third-grade reading scores and postsecondary enrollment.
Around the table was just about anybody in town who might touch a child’s life. There were school superintendents and principals, but there were also the heads of the Chamber of Commerce and the local United Way, the police chief, a former mayor and the newspaper editor.
The people at SAM track everything they can measure about Spartanburg’s young people from cradle to career. They gather everybody who might have any influence upon this data — parents, religious leaders, doctors, nutrition experts, etc.
And then together, as a communitywide system, they ask questions: Where are children falling off track? Why? What assets do we have in our system that can be applied to this problem? How can we work together to apply those assets?
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/opin ... 3053091009
A strategy for community problem-solving does an extraordinary job at restoring our social fabric.
Not long ago, in Spartanburg, S.C., I visited the offices of something called the Spartanburg Academic Movement (SAM). The walls were lined with charts measuring things like kindergarten readiness, third-grade reading scores and postsecondary enrollment.
Around the table was just about anybody in town who might touch a child’s life. There were school superintendents and principals, but there were also the heads of the Chamber of Commerce and the local United Way, the police chief, a former mayor and the newspaper editor.
The people at SAM track everything they can measure about Spartanburg’s young people from cradle to career. They gather everybody who might have any influence upon this data — parents, religious leaders, doctors, nutrition experts, etc.
And then together, as a communitywide system, they ask questions: Where are children falling off track? Why? What assets do we have in our system that can be applied to this problem? How can we work together to apply those assets?
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/opin ... 3053091009
Recovering the (Lost) Art of Civility
Deepening political divisions in America are spurring acts of extreme violence. What will it take to regain civil discourse that serves common interests?
Can anything be done to reduce the acrimony in American society?
Recently I spoke with David Fairman, the managing director of the Consensus Building Institute and associate director of the M.I.T.-Harvard Public Disputes Program. For three decades, Mr. Fairman has been helping groups of people — often with long histories of bitter opposition — to get to a place where they can talk respectfully with one another and even find ways to work meaningfully together.
Mr. Fairman has had success working on many issues, including human rights, climate change, economic development, education and criminal justice policy. He has the rare talent of envisioning pathways forward through what appear to be intractable conflicts. I asked him to reflect on the divide in America today.
Interview and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/opin ... dline&te=1
Deepening political divisions in America are spurring acts of extreme violence. What will it take to regain civil discourse that serves common interests?
Can anything be done to reduce the acrimony in American society?
Recently I spoke with David Fairman, the managing director of the Consensus Building Institute and associate director of the M.I.T.-Harvard Public Disputes Program. For three decades, Mr. Fairman has been helping groups of people — often with long histories of bitter opposition — to get to a place where they can talk respectfully with one another and even find ways to work meaningfully together.
Mr. Fairman has had success working on many issues, including human rights, climate change, economic development, education and criminal justice policy. He has the rare talent of envisioning pathways forward through what appear to be intractable conflicts. I asked him to reflect on the divide in America today.
Interview and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/opin ... dline&te=1