Tag: CM
-
Three Problems of Modern Life
Public life is beset by three problems. Each is an extreme expression of a fundamentally human trait, exacerbated and amplified by some aspect of modernity. Anonymous Atomization. It is a normal aspect of the human condition that we struggle to really take others into account as anything more than actors in our own dramas. Our…
-
Finding Tension
One of the things that gets in the way of making sound collective judgments is that, too often, we avoid facing the tensions inherent in the problems we share. When we sit down to talk about what to do about some community problem, we avoid tensions and indeed we actively seek to remove them when…
-
The Pioneers of Courage
Independence Day is my favorite holiday of the year. The day we declared ourselves a free people. Our efforts were imperfect then, our freedom parsimoniously shared, our efforts remained imperfect through the decades, and they are imperfect now. We have much progress to make. But I relish this day, as I meditate on the courage…
-
Rising, Walking, Civic Deserts
A friend tells the story of a time he was seriously injured and ended up in the hospital. He was bedridden for a long time and was going to have to work very hard just to walk again. At one point, his doctors cleared him to try to move around. But they were concerned he…
-
Many Ways to Express Citizenship
Many ways to express citizenship, an incomplete list (add your ideas): Read reputable news outlets Examine the sources of news that you come into contact with Read news outlets you disagree with Read LOCAL news outlets Talk with a friend or family member about their views; share yours Attend civic and community meetings Vote Encourage…
-
The Apparatus
There is a memorable scene in Aaron Sorkin’s HBO series The Newsroom. It is the culmination of an ongoing argument between Jim Harper and Hallie Shea: Harper is a national network TV news producer and Shea is a correspondent-turned-blogger. In the 3rd season episode “Contempt,” Harper and Shea are arguing over whether Shea was right…
-
Machinebrain, Gardenbrain, Forestbrain
Some of my friends may have heard me refer to “machinebrain” and “gardenbrain” in conversation over the past few months. This idea is taken from Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer’s The Gardens of Democracy, in which they argue that a new way of thinking about social systems needs to be developed. Liu and Hanauer contrast a…
-
Complementary Production and the Village of Hawk Creek
The story of Tom Newman and the Village of Hawk Creek gives a good example of “complementary production” (the kind I was trying to describe here). There is a man, Tom Newman, in Cleveland, Tennessee who has spent years slowly gathering five frontier log cabins to his property and turning it into a kind of museum: Over a…
-
Neighborhood Community Politics and #Blizzard2016
I study democratic politics and I mean both of those terms in the most fundamental way possible. I understand “politics” to mean “the way people who live in a place make choices and address shared problems and opportunities, where there are disagreements about what should be done.” And by “democracy” I mean “people collectively deciding…
Brad Rourke 