The article below suggests how strengthening civil societies can fix politics...
How to Fix Politics
Extract:
Middle-ring relationships, Dunkelman argues, help people become skilled at deliberation. The guy sitting next to you at the volunteer fire company may have political opinions you find abhorrent, but you still have to get stuff done with him, week after week.
Middle-ring relationships also diversify the sources of identity. You might be an O’Rourke, an Irish Catholic and a professor, but you are also a citizen, importantly of the Montrose neighborhood in Houston.
With middle-ring memberships deteriorating, Americans have become worse at public deliberation. People find it easier to ignore inconvenient viewpoints and facts. Partisanship becomes a preconscious lens through which people see the world.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/opini ... ef=opinion
Civil Society and its Institutions
Below is an example of a civil society initiative to involve people in long term thinking about the issues and challenges facing society.
“The East Africa Dialogue Series provides a platform for evidence-led conversation on the issues that confront East Africans."
The East Africa Dialogue Series is a regionally-focused public engagement initiative of the East African Institute of the Aga Khan University, with generous support from International Development Research Centre, Aga Khan Foundation Canada, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, and the Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan Fund for the Environment.
The Dialogue Series provides a platform for individuals and groups to address critical issues facing East Africa. The series will engage a cross-section of African stakeholders committed to tackling the continent’s most pressing problems systematically, and incorporate both scientifically based and experiential evidence with an aim to generate practical and ethically driven solutions to Africa’s existing and future development problems. At its core, the dialogue series will: challenge existing paradigms; ask new questions; focus on solutions; and, raise the level of public debate and engagement.
Welcome to the East Africa Dialogue Series! This platform provides opportunities for you to engage in relevant regional issues that matter to you. Stay informed with us and contribute to conversations surrounding issues of youth, natural resource governance, urbanization, and economic growth and inequality.
There is no better time to think about East Africa’s development challenges, ask questions, and find creative solutions than now.
http://eadialogueseries.org/
“The East Africa Dialogue Series provides a platform for evidence-led conversation on the issues that confront East Africans."
The East Africa Dialogue Series is a regionally-focused public engagement initiative of the East African Institute of the Aga Khan University, with generous support from International Development Research Centre, Aga Khan Foundation Canada, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, and the Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan Fund for the Environment.
The Dialogue Series provides a platform for individuals and groups to address critical issues facing East Africa. The series will engage a cross-section of African stakeholders committed to tackling the continent’s most pressing problems systematically, and incorporate both scientifically based and experiential evidence with an aim to generate practical and ethically driven solutions to Africa’s existing and future development problems. At its core, the dialogue series will: challenge existing paradigms; ask new questions; focus on solutions; and, raise the level of public debate and engagement.
Welcome to the East Africa Dialogue Series! This platform provides opportunities for you to engage in relevant regional issues that matter to you. Stay informed with us and contribute to conversations surrounding issues of youth, natural resource governance, urbanization, and economic growth and inequality.
There is no better time to think about East Africa’s development challenges, ask questions, and find creative solutions than now.
http://eadialogueseries.org/
The following article is about how local initiatives are undertaken by individuals in rural communities of America to build civil societies to combat social isolation.
Extract:
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that Americans are great at forming spontaneous voluntary groups. But in towns like Lost Hills, and in neighborhoods across the country, that doesn’t seem to be as true any more.
Maybe with the rise of TV and the Internet people are happier staying in the private world of home. Maybe it’s the loss of community leaders. Every town used to have its small-business owners and bankers. But now those businesses and banks are owned by investment funds far away.
Either way, social isolation produces rising suicide rates, rising drug addiction, widening inequality, political polarization, depression and alienation.
Fortunately, we’re beginning to see the rise of intentional community instigators. If social capital isn’t going to form spontaneously, people and groups will try to jump-start it into existence.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/opini ... d=71987722
Extract:
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that Americans are great at forming spontaneous voluntary groups. But in towns like Lost Hills, and in neighborhoods across the country, that doesn’t seem to be as true any more.
Maybe with the rise of TV and the Internet people are happier staying in the private world of home. Maybe it’s the loss of community leaders. Every town used to have its small-business owners and bankers. But now those businesses and banks are owned by investment funds far away.
Either way, social isolation produces rising suicide rates, rising drug addiction, widening inequality, political polarization, depression and alienation.
Fortunately, we’re beginning to see the rise of intentional community instigators. If social capital isn’t going to form spontaneously, people and groups will try to jump-start it into existence.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/opini ... d=71987722
The article below demonstrates how compromising the integrity of the structures and the environment surrounding important historical monuments can destroy vibrant civil societies functioning around them.
The Saint and the Skyscraper
Extract:
"Now Karachi’s savior saint is himself in trouble. Ghazi has a new upstart neighbor: the Bahria Icon Towers, a pair of buildings including one 62 stories high that will be Pakistan’s highest building and the country’s first proper skyscraper. The project, though unfinished, doesn’t just dwarf the saint’s shrine; it has surrounded it with ugly prison-like walls, making the shrine invisible and very, very difficult to access.
Like any wise saint living by the sea, Ghazi, according to folklore, chose to set his shrine at the top of a hillock. Its green and white striped dome used to be visible from miles away. Its open courtyards and surrounding empty spaces have hosted thousands of people every day, and hundreds of thousands on public holidays and on the anniversary of Ghazi’s death. People come for prayer, music, food and rendezvous. The shrine hosts a nonstop party for the kind of people who don’t get invited to parties."
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/opini ... inion&_r=0
The Saint and the Skyscraper
Extract:
"Now Karachi’s savior saint is himself in trouble. Ghazi has a new upstart neighbor: the Bahria Icon Towers, a pair of buildings including one 62 stories high that will be Pakistan’s highest building and the country’s first proper skyscraper. The project, though unfinished, doesn’t just dwarf the saint’s shrine; it has surrounded it with ugly prison-like walls, making the shrine invisible and very, very difficult to access.
Like any wise saint living by the sea, Ghazi, according to folklore, chose to set his shrine at the top of a hillock. Its green and white striped dome used to be visible from miles away. Its open courtyards and surrounding empty spaces have hosted thousands of people every day, and hundreds of thousands on public holidays and on the anniversary of Ghazi’s death. People come for prayer, music, food and rendezvous. The shrine hosts a nonstop party for the kind of people who don’t get invited to parties."
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/opini ... inion&_r=0
The article below is about civil societies emerging in the most socially damaged communities to rebuild the fabric torn by the ravages of excess materialism in America.
A Nation of Healers
Extract:
"The social fabric is tearing across this country, but everywhere it seems healers are rising up to repair their small piece of it. They are going into hollow places and creating community, building intimate relationships that change lives one by one.
I know everybody’s in a bad mood about the country. But the more time you spend in the hardest places, the more amazed you become. There’s some movement arising that is suspicious of consumerism but is not socialist. It’s suspicious of impersonal state systems but is not libertarian. It believes in the small moments of connection."
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/opini ... d=71987722
A Nation of Healers
Extract:
"The social fabric is tearing across this country, but everywhere it seems healers are rising up to repair their small piece of it. They are going into hollow places and creating community, building intimate relationships that change lives one by one.
I know everybody’s in a bad mood about the country. But the more time you spend in the hardest places, the more amazed you become. There’s some movement arising that is suspicious of consumerism but is not socialist. It’s suspicious of impersonal state systems but is not libertarian. It believes in the small moments of connection."
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/opini ... d=71987722
The article below is about how civil society institutions can assist people's innate nature to be cooperative and helpful to each other instead of relying upon external selfish motivations and competition to get things done.
The Power of Altruism
Western society is built on the assumption that people are fundamentally selfish. Machiavelli and Hobbes gave us influential philosophies built on human selfishness. Sigmund Freud gave us a psychology of selfishness. Children, he wrote, “are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.”
Classical economics adopts a model that says people are primarily driven by material self-interest. Political science assumes that people are driven to maximize their power.
But this worldview is clearly wrong. In real life, the push of selfishness is matched by the pull of empathy and altruism. This is not Hallmark card sentimentalism but scientific fact: As babies our neural connections are built by love and care. We have evolved to be really good at cooperation and empathy. We are strongly motivated to teach and help others.
As Matthieu Ricard notes in his rigorous book “Altruism,” if an 18-month-old sees a man drop a clothespin she will move to pick it up and hand it back to him within five seconds, about the same amount of time it takes an adult to offer assistance. If you reward a baby with a gift for being kind, the propensity to help will decrease, in some studies by up to 40 percent.
When we build academic disciplines and social institutions upon suppositions of selfishness we’re missing the motivations that drive people much of the time.
Worse, if you expect people to be selfish, you can actually crush their tendency to be good.
Samuel Bowles provides a slew of examples in his book “The Moral Economy.” For example, six day care centers in Haifa, Israel, imposed a fine on parents who were late in picking up their kids at the end of the day. The share of parents who arrived late doubled. Before the fine, picking up their kids on time was an act of being considerate to the teachers. But after the fine, showing up to pick up their kids became an economic transaction. They felt less compunction to be kind.
In 2001, the Boston fire commissioner ended his department’s policy of unlimited sick days and imposed a limit of 15 per year. Those who exceeded the limit had their pay docked. Suddenly what had been an ethic to serve the city was replaced by a utilitarian paid arrangement. The number of firefighters who called in sick on Christmas and New Year’s increased by tenfold over the previous year.
To simplify, there are two lenses people can use to see any situation: the economic lens or the moral lens.
When you introduce a financial incentive you prompt people to see their situation through an economic lens. Instead of following their natural bias toward reciprocity, service and cooperation, you encourage people to do a selfish cost-benefit calculation. They begin to ask, “What’s in this for me?”
By evoking an economic motivation, you often get worse outcomes. Imagine what would happen to a marriage if both people went in saying, “I want to get more out of this than I put in.” The prospects of such a marriage would not be good.
Many of our commitments, professional or civic, are like that. To be a good citizen, to be a good worker, you often have to make an altruistic commitment to some group or ideal, which will see you through those times when your job of citizenship is hard and frustrating. Whether you are a teacher serving students or a soldier serving your country or a clerk who likes your office mates, the moral motivation is much more powerful than the financial motivations. Arrangements that arouse the financial lens alone are just messing everything up.
In 1776, Adam Smith defined capitalism as a machine that takes private self-interest and organizes it to produce general prosperity. A few years later America’s founders created a democracy structured to take private factional competition and, through checks and balances, turn it into deliberative democracy. Both rely on a low but steady view of human nature and try to turn private vice into public virtue.
But back then, there were plenty of institutions that promoted the moral lens to balance the economic lens: churches, guilds, community organizations, military service and honor codes.
Since then, the institutions that arouse the moral lens have withered while the institutions that manipulate incentives — the market and the state — have expanded. Now economic, utilitarian thinking has become the normal way we do social analysis and see the world. We’ve wound up with a society that is less cooperative, less trusting, less effective and less lovely.
By assuming that people are selfish, by prioritizing arrangements based on selfishness, we have encouraged selfish frames of mind. Maybe it’s time to upend classical economics and political science. Maybe it’s time to build institutions that harness people’s natural longing to do good.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/opini ... ef=opinion
The Power of Altruism
Western society is built on the assumption that people are fundamentally selfish. Machiavelli and Hobbes gave us influential philosophies built on human selfishness. Sigmund Freud gave us a psychology of selfishness. Children, he wrote, “are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.”
Classical economics adopts a model that says people are primarily driven by material self-interest. Political science assumes that people are driven to maximize their power.
But this worldview is clearly wrong. In real life, the push of selfishness is matched by the pull of empathy and altruism. This is not Hallmark card sentimentalism but scientific fact: As babies our neural connections are built by love and care. We have evolved to be really good at cooperation and empathy. We are strongly motivated to teach and help others.
As Matthieu Ricard notes in his rigorous book “Altruism,” if an 18-month-old sees a man drop a clothespin she will move to pick it up and hand it back to him within five seconds, about the same amount of time it takes an adult to offer assistance. If you reward a baby with a gift for being kind, the propensity to help will decrease, in some studies by up to 40 percent.
When we build academic disciplines and social institutions upon suppositions of selfishness we’re missing the motivations that drive people much of the time.
Worse, if you expect people to be selfish, you can actually crush their tendency to be good.
Samuel Bowles provides a slew of examples in his book “The Moral Economy.” For example, six day care centers in Haifa, Israel, imposed a fine on parents who were late in picking up their kids at the end of the day. The share of parents who arrived late doubled. Before the fine, picking up their kids on time was an act of being considerate to the teachers. But after the fine, showing up to pick up their kids became an economic transaction. They felt less compunction to be kind.
In 2001, the Boston fire commissioner ended his department’s policy of unlimited sick days and imposed a limit of 15 per year. Those who exceeded the limit had their pay docked. Suddenly what had been an ethic to serve the city was replaced by a utilitarian paid arrangement. The number of firefighters who called in sick on Christmas and New Year’s increased by tenfold over the previous year.
To simplify, there are two lenses people can use to see any situation: the economic lens or the moral lens.
When you introduce a financial incentive you prompt people to see their situation through an economic lens. Instead of following their natural bias toward reciprocity, service and cooperation, you encourage people to do a selfish cost-benefit calculation. They begin to ask, “What’s in this for me?”
By evoking an economic motivation, you often get worse outcomes. Imagine what would happen to a marriage if both people went in saying, “I want to get more out of this than I put in.” The prospects of such a marriage would not be good.
Many of our commitments, professional or civic, are like that. To be a good citizen, to be a good worker, you often have to make an altruistic commitment to some group or ideal, which will see you through those times when your job of citizenship is hard and frustrating. Whether you are a teacher serving students or a soldier serving your country or a clerk who likes your office mates, the moral motivation is much more powerful than the financial motivations. Arrangements that arouse the financial lens alone are just messing everything up.
In 1776, Adam Smith defined capitalism as a machine that takes private self-interest and organizes it to produce general prosperity. A few years later America’s founders created a democracy structured to take private factional competition and, through checks and balances, turn it into deliberative democracy. Both rely on a low but steady view of human nature and try to turn private vice into public virtue.
But back then, there were plenty of institutions that promoted the moral lens to balance the economic lens: churches, guilds, community organizations, military service and honor codes.
Since then, the institutions that arouse the moral lens have withered while the institutions that manipulate incentives — the market and the state — have expanded. Now economic, utilitarian thinking has become the normal way we do social analysis and see the world. We’ve wound up with a society that is less cooperative, less trusting, less effective and less lovely.
By assuming that people are selfish, by prioritizing arrangements based on selfishness, we have encouraged selfish frames of mind. Maybe it’s time to upend classical economics and political science. Maybe it’s time to build institutions that harness people’s natural longing to do good.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/opini ... ef=opinion
The article below highlights how proper design of the future cities can promote vibrant civil societies...
Extract:
2. Make public life the driver for urban design.
In 2009, Copenhagen (where Gehl is based) enacted a plan called "A Metropolis for People," which was based on Gehl's work. It envisioned what the city should look like in the future.
"The city council decided upon a strategy to make Copenhagen the best city for people in the world, and it is interesting to read what their arguments are: We have to walk more, we have to spend more time in public spaces, and we have to get out of our private cocoons more," Gehl says. "This becomes good for society, good for the climate, and good for health. They said that if people spend more time in the public spaces, the city becomes safer. It becomes more exciting and more interesting. And it furthers social inclusion. This is an important part of having a democratic society: having citizens who can meet each other in the course of their daily doings, and not only seeing different people on television or on screens."
More...
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3061586/sli ... r-urbanist
Extract:
2. Make public life the driver for urban design.
In 2009, Copenhagen (where Gehl is based) enacted a plan called "A Metropolis for People," which was based on Gehl's work. It envisioned what the city should look like in the future.
"The city council decided upon a strategy to make Copenhagen the best city for people in the world, and it is interesting to read what their arguments are: We have to walk more, we have to spend more time in public spaces, and we have to get out of our private cocoons more," Gehl says. "This becomes good for society, good for the climate, and good for health. They said that if people spend more time in the public spaces, the city becomes safer. It becomes more exciting and more interesting. And it furthers social inclusion. This is an important part of having a democratic society: having citizens who can meet each other in the course of their daily doings, and not only seeing different people on television or on screens."
More...
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3061586/sli ... r-urbanist
The article below discusses the efficacy of civil societies in the context of American past and how at present it is gaining support among the youth as opposed to the individualistic/atomistic outlook of today.
The Great Affluence Fallacy
Extract:
The native cultures were more communal. As Junger writes, “They would have practiced extremely close and involved child care. And they would have done almost everything in the company of others. They would have almost never been alone.
If colonial culture was relatively atomized, imagine American culture of today. As we’ve gotten richer, we’ve used wealth to buy space: bigger homes, bigger yards, separate bedrooms, private cars, autonomous lifestyles. Each individual choice makes sense, but the overall atomizing trajectory sometimes seems to backfire. According to the World Health Organization, people in wealthy countries suffer depression by as much as eight times the rate as people in poor countries.
There might be a Great Affluence Fallacy going on — we want privacy in individual instances, but often this makes life generally worse.
.....
Millennials are oriented around neighborhood hospitality, rather than national identity or the borderless digital world. “A neighborhood is the place where you live and sleep.” How many of your physical neighbors know your name?
Maybe we’re on the cusp of some great cracking. Instead of just paying lip service to community while living for autonomy, I get the sense a lot of people are actually about to make the break and immerse themselves in demanding local community movements. It wouldn’t surprise me if the big change in the coming decades were this: an end to the apotheosis of freedom; more people making the modern equivalent of the Native American leap.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/opini ... inion&_r=0
The Great Affluence Fallacy
Extract:
The native cultures were more communal. As Junger writes, “They would have practiced extremely close and involved child care. And they would have done almost everything in the company of others. They would have almost never been alone.
If colonial culture was relatively atomized, imagine American culture of today. As we’ve gotten richer, we’ve used wealth to buy space: bigger homes, bigger yards, separate bedrooms, private cars, autonomous lifestyles. Each individual choice makes sense, but the overall atomizing trajectory sometimes seems to backfire. According to the World Health Organization, people in wealthy countries suffer depression by as much as eight times the rate as people in poor countries.
There might be a Great Affluence Fallacy going on — we want privacy in individual instances, but often this makes life generally worse.
.....
Millennials are oriented around neighborhood hospitality, rather than national identity or the borderless digital world. “A neighborhood is the place where you live and sleep.” How many of your physical neighbors know your name?
Maybe we’re on the cusp of some great cracking. Instead of just paying lip service to community while living for autonomy, I get the sense a lot of people are actually about to make the break and immerse themselves in demanding local community movements. It wouldn’t surprise me if the big change in the coming decades were this: an end to the apotheosis of freedom; more people making the modern equivalent of the Native American leap.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/opini ... inion&_r=0
The article below discusses how the formation of civil societies in the Washington State has enabled communities to deal with the social problems.
Extract:
“Fifteen or 20 years ago, the Highlands was desolate,” Patricia Thompson, a 61-year-old resident, recalled. “There was garbage and junk everywhere. There were thugs all around. You didn’t feel safe walking down the street.”
Today, the Highlands still has high unemployment and poverty, but residents say the neighborhood has improved substantially. From 2009 to 2012, calls to the police about burglary, stolen and abandoned vehicles, domestic violence and public disturbances dropped significantly.
“People are involved with each other, not just sitting at home with their curtains closed,” said Hite. “I’m out on the street meeting my neighbors.”
“It’s still an economically depressed area,” said Thompson. “There’s not many jobs here. But it’s safer and more hopeful. Young people are realizing they can go to college. The main difference is that we don’t leave people by themselves anymore.”
At a time when poverty and economic insecurity remain widespread in the United States, how does a very poor community like the Highlands strengthen its capacity to improve itself? What does the possibility of change look like from the vantage point of ordinary citizens who care about their community, but struggle to see a path to a better future?
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/opini ... 87722&_r=0
Extract:
“Fifteen or 20 years ago, the Highlands was desolate,” Patricia Thompson, a 61-year-old resident, recalled. “There was garbage and junk everywhere. There were thugs all around. You didn’t feel safe walking down the street.”
Today, the Highlands still has high unemployment and poverty, but residents say the neighborhood has improved substantially. From 2009 to 2012, calls to the police about burglary, stolen and abandoned vehicles, domestic violence and public disturbances dropped significantly.
“People are involved with each other, not just sitting at home with their curtains closed,” said Hite. “I’m out on the street meeting my neighbors.”
“It’s still an economically depressed area,” said Thompson. “There’s not many jobs here. But it’s safer and more hopeful. Young people are realizing they can go to college. The main difference is that we don’t leave people by themselves anymore.”
At a time when poverty and economic insecurity remain widespread in the United States, how does a very poor community like the Highlands strengthen its capacity to improve itself? What does the possibility of change look like from the vantage point of ordinary citizens who care about their community, but struggle to see a path to a better future?
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/opini ... 87722&_r=0
The article below is the second of the three part series of articles, highlighting the role of civil societies in building the bridge between the political divisions and improve the living conditions of communities.
How Community Networks Stem Childhood Traumas
Extract:
Liberals and conservatives often disagree about the causes of poverty and other social ills. Broadly speaking, liberals point the finger at structural factors and advocate for policy changes, while conservatives look to individuals and families and favor behavior changes. Clearly, both points of view have validity. But what’s often overlooked is what lies between these two poles — communities and neighborhoods — and the value of focusing on this middle zone.
.....
The notion that a modest investment in a “community network” can chip away at entrenched social ills seems hard to believe. But the main lesson of the Family Policy Council is that when local citizens acquire the capacity to work together in smarter ways, communities change. “We have to expand leadership to include the people who are most affected by problems,” said Laura Porter, who directed the council from 1998 to 2013. “Not just advice, but real leadership. People will step into that space, and what happens is you get this expansion of resources.”
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/opini ... ef=opinion
How Community Networks Stem Childhood Traumas
Extract:
Liberals and conservatives often disagree about the causes of poverty and other social ills. Broadly speaking, liberals point the finger at structural factors and advocate for policy changes, while conservatives look to individuals and families and favor behavior changes. Clearly, both points of view have validity. But what’s often overlooked is what lies between these two poles — communities and neighborhoods — and the value of focusing on this middle zone.
.....
The notion that a modest investment in a “community network” can chip away at entrenched social ills seems hard to believe. But the main lesson of the Family Policy Council is that when local citizens acquire the capacity to work together in smarter ways, communities change. “We have to expand leadership to include the people who are most affected by problems,” said Laura Porter, who directed the council from 1998 to 2013. “Not just advice, but real leadership. People will step into that space, and what happens is you get this expansion of resources.”
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/opini ... ef=opinion
The article below describes cohousing which functions as civil societies
Modern Housing With Village Virtues
Working families in the United States have many struggles today: expensive child care, not enough time to cook healthy meals, disconnection from nature, a sense of social isolation — what the sociologist Robert Putnam famously called “bowling alone” — and more. Older Americans, a booming population, often end up segregated generationally and in dire need of care and companionship.
What if there was a potential salve to all of these struggles? One that was introduced to Americans 25 years ago, but hasn’t yet gone to scale?
That potential solution is cohousing, a form of shared living in which groups of families with their own private homes (usually about 15 to 40 households) also share common spaces — a kitchen and eating area, often a garden, tool shed, or laundry facilities, or all of them, and a set of principles and practices about living interdependently. The principles can vary, depending on the size and type of community (urban vs. rural, religious vs. secular, intergenerational vs. over 65), but most groups hold in common a belief that a high quality of life is achieved not through self-sufficiency, but through a village mentality. Families will often share meals, yard work and repair labor, sometimes even cars; they also help one another spontaneously in many other ways.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/opini ... dline&te=1
Modern Housing With Village Virtues
Working families in the United States have many struggles today: expensive child care, not enough time to cook healthy meals, disconnection from nature, a sense of social isolation — what the sociologist Robert Putnam famously called “bowling alone” — and more. Older Americans, a booming population, often end up segregated generationally and in dire need of care and companionship.
What if there was a potential salve to all of these struggles? One that was introduced to Americans 25 years ago, but hasn’t yet gone to scale?
That potential solution is cohousing, a form of shared living in which groups of families with their own private homes (usually about 15 to 40 households) also share common spaces — a kitchen and eating area, often a garden, tool shed, or laundry facilities, or all of them, and a set of principles and practices about living interdependently. The principles can vary, depending on the size and type of community (urban vs. rural, religious vs. secular, intergenerational vs. over 65), but most groups hold in common a belief that a high quality of life is achieved not through self-sufficiency, but through a village mentality. Families will often share meals, yard work and repair labor, sometimes even cars; they also help one another spontaneously in many other ways.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/20/opini ... dline&te=1
The article below discusses how technology is weakening the social bonds that nurture civil societies...
Intimacy for the Avoidant
Over the past generation there seems to have been a decline in the number of high-quality friendships.
In 1985, most Americans told pollsters that they had about three confidants, people with whom they could share everything. Today, the majority of people say they have about two. In 1985, 10 percent of Americans said they had no one to fully confide in, but by the start of this century 25 percent of Americans said that.
All of this has left people wondering if technology is making us lonelier. Instead of going over to the neighbor’s house, are we sitting at home depressingly surfing everybody else’s perfect lives on Facebook?
Over the past decade, the best research has suggested that no, technology and social media are not making us lonelier. These things are tools. It’s what you bring to Facebook that matters. Socially engaged people use it to further engage; lonely people use it to mask loneliness.
As Stephen Marche put it in The Atlantic in 2012, “Using social media doesn’t create new social networks; it just transfers established networks from one platform to another.”
But recently, people’s views of social media have grown a bit darker. That’s because we seem to be hitting some sort of saturation level. Being online isn’t just something we do. It has become who we are, transforming the very nature of the self.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/opini ... d=71987722
Intimacy for the Avoidant
Over the past generation there seems to have been a decline in the number of high-quality friendships.
In 1985, most Americans told pollsters that they had about three confidants, people with whom they could share everything. Today, the majority of people say they have about two. In 1985, 10 percent of Americans said they had no one to fully confide in, but by the start of this century 25 percent of Americans said that.
All of this has left people wondering if technology is making us lonelier. Instead of going over to the neighbor’s house, are we sitting at home depressingly surfing everybody else’s perfect lives on Facebook?
Over the past decade, the best research has suggested that no, technology and social media are not making us lonelier. These things are tools. It’s what you bring to Facebook that matters. Socially engaged people use it to further engage; lonely people use it to mask loneliness.
As Stephen Marche put it in The Atlantic in 2012, “Using social media doesn’t create new social networks; it just transfers established networks from one platform to another.”
But recently, people’s views of social media have grown a bit darker. That’s because we seem to be hitting some sort of saturation level. Being online isn’t just something we do. It has become who we are, transforming the very nature of the self.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/opini ... d=71987722
The article below explains how healthy communities and civil societies can rescue democracy and counter the polarization of ideas caused by social media....
To Rescue Democracy, Go Outside
Real spaces, not digital ones, will fix our politics.
Extract:
"While in one sense this is just another facet of today’s increasingly polarized world, it also provides us with an opportunity. When we interact through social media, we self-identify and seek out like opinions. In real life, we have less control over that selection—we never know who we’ll run into. Physical interactions are also very powerful. They are much better at changing opinions than digital media. Studies show such interactions produce better learning outcomes,10 a greater chance of reaching consensus,11 and greater satisfaction in workplace teams.12
So what would happen if the way we interacted with each other forced us to mix with people of different groups? If we didn’t allow ourselves to dive ever deeper into self-reinforcing groups? What would happen if we mixed primarily through that quaint and old-fashioned technique, namely moving about in our physical environment, encountering opinions and perspectives that we did not pre-select? Could we counter the devil’s brew of single-community media combined with physical segregation? My research at MIT strongly suggests that the answer is yes. In businesses, on the street, and in peer groups, ideas are shaped more by face-to-face interaction than by digital media.13, 14"
http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/to- ... go-outside
[/b]
To Rescue Democracy, Go Outside
Real spaces, not digital ones, will fix our politics.
Extract:
"While in one sense this is just another facet of today’s increasingly polarized world, it also provides us with an opportunity. When we interact through social media, we self-identify and seek out like opinions. In real life, we have less control over that selection—we never know who we’ll run into. Physical interactions are also very powerful. They are much better at changing opinions than digital media. Studies show such interactions produce better learning outcomes,10 a greater chance of reaching consensus,11 and greater satisfaction in workplace teams.12
So what would happen if the way we interacted with each other forced us to mix with people of different groups? If we didn’t allow ourselves to dive ever deeper into self-reinforcing groups? What would happen if we mixed primarily through that quaint and old-fashioned technique, namely moving about in our physical environment, encountering opinions and perspectives that we did not pre-select? Could we counter the devil’s brew of single-community media combined with physical segregation? My research at MIT strongly suggests that the answer is yes. In businesses, on the street, and in peer groups, ideas are shaped more by face-to-face interaction than by digital media.13, 14"
http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/to- ... go-outside
[/b]
The initiative below is an example of how activities related to art can bring people of different backgrounds together and enhance civil societies
Q & A With Nabila Alibhai: Colour in Faith
1. How did this collaboration with Art @ The Bus come about? Deciding to paint the big red bus yellow? What’s the thinking behind it, as Colour in Faith focuses on places of worship?
Colour in Faith is about about creating a movement toward pluralism through art. Although Colour in Faith has focused primarily on houses of worship, doing something in the center of Nairobi’s creative hub with conveners of creativity makes total sense with our vision! Art @ The Bus is becoming more central within Nairobi’s cultural scene as a place that brings together people of all races, incomes, religions etc.
The bus itself is a fantastic metaphor for the mobility of culture and we were thrilled to be invited to paint the bus yellow! Over the next month we’ll be collaborating on a host of events that speak to art and change-making… panels, poetry jams, yellow interactions.
2. How has your journey with Colour in Faith been like so far, especially in Africa?
It’s been equally inspiring and challenging. We were thrilled to find that the message of the project made sense to a lot of people. In the Kenyan context, where different religions have co-existed and enjoyed one another for decades, we’ve found that there is a lot of pain and paralysis from our experience of terrorism and the rising threat of fundamentalism.
With the elections coming up in 2017, people are also wary of religion being manipulated for political gains. The idea of visually communicating love, faith in common humanity and unity, has had widespread appeal!
More...
http://www.upnairobi.com/2016/06/05/q-a ... lturalism/
Q & A With Nabila Alibhai: Colour in Faith
1. How did this collaboration with Art @ The Bus come about? Deciding to paint the big red bus yellow? What’s the thinking behind it, as Colour in Faith focuses on places of worship?
Colour in Faith is about about creating a movement toward pluralism through art. Although Colour in Faith has focused primarily on houses of worship, doing something in the center of Nairobi’s creative hub with conveners of creativity makes total sense with our vision! Art @ The Bus is becoming more central within Nairobi’s cultural scene as a place that brings together people of all races, incomes, religions etc.
The bus itself is a fantastic metaphor for the mobility of culture and we were thrilled to be invited to paint the bus yellow! Over the next month we’ll be collaborating on a host of events that speak to art and change-making… panels, poetry jams, yellow interactions.
2. How has your journey with Colour in Faith been like so far, especially in Africa?
It’s been equally inspiring and challenging. We were thrilled to find that the message of the project made sense to a lot of people. In the Kenyan context, where different religions have co-existed and enjoyed one another for decades, we’ve found that there is a lot of pain and paralysis from our experience of terrorism and the rising threat of fundamentalism.
With the elections coming up in 2017, people are also wary of religion being manipulated for political gains. The idea of visually communicating love, faith in common humanity and unity, has had widespread appeal!
More...
http://www.upnairobi.com/2016/06/05/q-a ... lturalism/
Dancing in a Hurricane
Extract:
These accelerations in technology, globalization and Mother Nature are like a hurricane in which we’re all being asked to dance. Trump and the Brexiters sensed the anxiety of many and promised to build a wall against these howling winds of change. I disagree. I think the challenge is to find the eye.
For me, that translates into building healthy communities that are flexible enough to move with these accelerations, draw energy from them — but also provide a platform of dynamic stability for citizens within them. More on that another day.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opini ... d=71987722
Extract:
These accelerations in technology, globalization and Mother Nature are like a hurricane in which we’re all being asked to dance. Trump and the Brexiters sensed the anxiety of many and promised to build a wall against these howling winds of change. I disagree. I think the challenge is to find the eye.
For me, that translates into building healthy communities that are flexible enough to move with these accelerations, draw energy from them — but also provide a platform of dynamic stability for citizens within them. More on that another day.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opini ... d=71987722
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.
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.
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.
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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