By David Brooks
I had hoped this election would be a moment of national renewal. I had hoped that the Democrats could decisively defeat MAGA populism and send us down a new national path.
That’s clearly not going to happen. No matter who wins this election, it will be close, and this is still going to be an evenly and bitterly divided nation.
In retrospect, I think I was expecting too much of politics.
Read MoreTalcott Parsons and other sociologists have seen society as a system that is made up of interconnected parts, where each part has a specific function that contributes to the overall functioning of society. Specialized institutions that perform specific functions help maintain social stability. individuals are socialized to internalize societal norms and values, which guide their behavior, constrain their freedom, and reinforce social order.
For more, see “Sociological Theorists: Talcott Parsons,” by Graham Scammbler.
Read MoreEarlier this month, Eileen Watson, the facilitator of the monthly Engaged Spirituality group for the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, which meets monthly, invited me to give a 10-minute presentation about the Compassionate Humanity Community at its 2/26 meeting, to be followed with five minutes for questions and answers.
The following is the script I used for my 8-minute presentation, which began 15 minutes prior to the time for adjournment, and a report on the response.
Read MoreBy Randy Thomas
We are living in the world in the greatest revolution in history, a huge spontaneous upheaval of the human race. Not a revolution planned and carried out by any particular party, race, or nation, but a deep elemental boiling over of all the inner contradictions that have ever been in people, a revolution of the chaotic forces inside everybody. This is not something we have chosen, nor is it anything we are free to avoid”
Thomas Merton
Indeed, we are living in the midst of uncertain and transitional times. The life, fate, and destiny of “human civilization” and our planetary home as we have historically come to understand it is unknown. It is a time of challenge, crisis, and opportunity for all of us.
Read MoreBy Wade Lee Hudson
As political violence permeated the United States and spread across the globe, in 1969 the influential political philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote On Violence. This small, passionate book analyzed the nature and sources of violence, offered some prophetic speculations, and challenged many widespread assumptions — including some that I had embraced but now reject. This re-evaluation will lead me to rewrite some of the content on this site.
Read More…Wooldridge calls for private schools to offer half their places to poorer students and advocates the creation of a “highly variegated” school system consisting of technical and art schools as well as academically selective ones. He also says we need a “moral revival” in our values to counteract our society’s obsessive celebration of intelligence. He points out that many members of the cognitive elite (such as bankers and journalists) are generally despised by the ordinary public, who revere the caring professions instead….
Read MoreIndividual liberty is valuable. Self-determination enables co-equal partnerships, nurtures cooperation, and helps build strong communities, which benefit individuals in a virtuous circle. Limits to individual freedom are essential, however. The classic example is a child running into traffic. How to define and enforce justified domination is not easy. Doing so can provide massive loopholes that undermine efforts to dissolve exploitative domination.
One example is “vulnerable adults” legislation that highlights the tension between elderly individuals who want the freedom to make their own decisions and others who consider them no longer competent to do so. There are known cases where children of the elderly get the government to make this designation to seize the assets of their parents. Striking a fair balance is a challenge.
Another example is the legal requirement for drivers to have car insurance, which protects the public from having to pay medical bills for injuries due to accidents. One impact of this policy is that some poor people who can’t afford insurance can’t legally drive though they may need to drive to hold down a job. Is this fair?
Who has the right and the wisdom to exercise justified domination? Who is competent to intervene interpersonally, write legislation, or administer well-intentioned legislation…
Read MoreBy Thomas L. Friedman
…It has been obvious ever since Trump first ran for president that many of his core supporters actually hate the people who hate Trump, more than they care about Trump or any particular action he takes, no matter how awful.
The media feed Trump’s supporters a daily diet of how outrageous this or that Trump action is — but none of it diminishes their support. Because many Trump supporters are not attracted to his policies. They’re attracted to his attitude — his willingness and evident delight in skewering the people they hate and who they feel look down on them.
Humiliation, in my view, is the most underestimated force in politics and international relations. The poverty of dignity explains so much more behavior than the poverty of money….
Read MoreGod, I'm full of so much gratitude right now. And I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees or anyone in this room because we share the same love, the love of film. And this form of expression has given me the most extraordinary life. I don't know what I'd be without it. But I think the greatest gift that it's given me, and many of us in this room, is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless.
I've been thinking a lot about some of the distressing issues that we are facing collectively. I think at times we feel, or we're made to feel, that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality. I think, whether we're talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we're talking about the fight against injustice. We're talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender or one species has the right to dominate, control and use and exploit another with impunity.
I think that we've become very disconnected from the natural world, and many of us, what we're guilty of is an egocentric world view — the belief that we're the center of the universe. We go into the natural world, and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk that's intended for her calf, and we put it in our coffee and our cereal. And I think we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something, to give something up, but human beings, at our best, are so inventive and creative and ingenious. And I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.
Now, I have been, I have been a scoundrel in my life. I've been selfish. I've been cruel at times, hard to work with, and I'm grateful that so many of you in this room have given me a second chance. And I think that's when we're at our best, when we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other toward redemption. That is the best of humanity.
When he was 17, my brother wrote this lyric. He said, 'Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow.'
Read More