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Compassionate Humanity Community

Reflections on Elizabeth Anderson

Reflections on Elizabeth Anderson

Systmic/Essay

Reflections on Elizabeth Anderson
By Wade Lee Hudson

NOTE: Following is the text used in my January 12, 2020 “Democratic Equality and Democratic Dialog” PowerPoint presentation at the Humanists and Non-Theists committee of the San Francisco Unitarian church.

The article that had the biggest impact on me last year was “The Philosopher Redefining Equality” in The New Yorker. The subtitle reads: “Elizabeth Anderson thinks we’ve misunderstood the basis of a free and fair society.” That profile of Anderson begins: [play audio]

She ended up studying political and moral philosophy at Harvard under John Rawls and teaching at the University of Michigan, where she stayed, despite being heavily recruited by other universities.

In 1999 the esteemed journal Ethics published her path-breaking, widely reprinted article "What is the Point of Equality?" She’s also written three books, including Value in Ethics and Economics, which argues that some goods like love and respect should not be sold on the market or otherwise treated as commodities, and The Imperative of Integration, which examines how racial integration can lead to a more robust democracy. Her many podcast interviews include a great one with Vox.com founder Ezra Klein.

Last year Anderson received the no-strings-attached $625,000 MacArthur “Genius” award. Included in their announcement was this [play video].

politicalWade Lee HudsonJanuary 25, 2020personal, social, cultural, economic, political, transformationComment

Guaranteed Public Service Employment

Guaranteed Public Service Employment

Guaranteed Public Service Employment
By Wade Lee Hudson

Growing interest in a federally funded public-service job guarantee — as reflected in the Job Guarantee Manifesto — challenges the assumption that avoiding poverty is primarily an individual responsibility. In fact, a personal deficiency is not the main reason workers can’t find a living-wage job.

According to conventional wisdom, the cause for poverty is lack of skill, lack of discipline, or emotional instability. The solution therefore is assumed to be more education and training, better habits, or mental health treatment — so poor people can get a job, gain experience, and find jobs that pay a non-poverty wage.

Based on these assumptions, society only provides minor, stigmatizing relief, claims its apparent lack of compassion is justifiable tough love, and denies any responsibility to prevent poverty. People say to the poor, Get your act together. Climb the ladder

If you focus only on the individual, there can be some logic to this argument. Any one individual may be able to do more to improve their situation. But if you look at society as a whole, the flaw in the argument is clear. There aren’t enough living-wage jobs for everyone. If one individual finds a living-wage job, countless others can’t get that job. It’s a game of musical chairs.

Articles/Op-eds/EssaysWade Lee HudsonJanuary 21, 2020economic, politicalComment

Racial Healing: Rhonda Magee

Racial Healing: Rhonda Magee

Racial Healing: Rhonda Magee
By Wade Lee Hudson

Racism continues to inflict enormous suffering. Rhonda V. Magee, an African-American law professor, reports, “I often notice a lingering feeling that I might be in danger—that I could, at any time, be discounted, rejected, disrespected, injured, or even killed for no reason other than my perceived ‘blackness.’” This reality provokes heated resistance from oppressed people, while relatively advantaged people experience guilt and denial (a majority of white people claim to be color-blind). Tensions are high. Discussing these issues is often difficult.

This dynamic applies to all people of color, but I focus on black-white relations, which are most problematic in the United States. When white people fail to fully understand black anger, they often respond with calm, paternalistic advice. When black people find this paternalism offensive, they sometimes end their relationship with the offender. When white people sense what’s happening, they often “shut up and listen” as a way to increase their understanding. Many white people feel they should censor themselves when they talk with black people about race-related issues. As a result of these and other factors, many white people end up unsure about whether, when, and how to speak about racism and race relations. Friendships fade. Unity dissolves. The potential for joint action is undermined.

Within this context, Magee’s work is helpful. Magee teaches meditation to her law students and conducts racial-healing workshops based on her ColorInsight methodology. Her wide-ranging, challenging, and insightful magnum opus, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness, includes many compelling personal narratives and useful self-help exercises, such as “Mindful Speaking and Listening Practice.” She argues that mindfulness practice can help us acknowledge bias and choose how we respond to conflict and division.

BooksWade Lee HudsonDecember 13, 2019personal, social, cutural, economic, prolitical, transformation Comments

Face-to-face Democracy

Face-to-face Democracy

Face-to-face Democracy
By Wade Lee Hudson

A fully democratic society relies on empowerment — self-empowerment and collective empowerment — and respect — self-respect, respect for others, respect for everyone’s essential equal value, respect for individual rights and liberty, and respect for everyone’s right to make ends meet and fully participate in society without being subjected to discrimination or oppression based on race, class, gender, or some other arbitrary characteristic.

Practicing how to be democratic — how to relate to others as equals with compassion — nurtures a more democratic society — a society with self-confident, assertive, respectful, empowered members. A democratic society, in turn, nurtures grassroots movements that promote ever more respect and empowerment — an upward, virtuous circle.

At the same time, however, self-centeredness and hyper-competition promote a lack of self-confidence and passivity among the general population, and, among activists, fragmentation and asymmetrical polarization — a downward, vicious circle that sucks ever more people into its vortex and may eventually hit bottom, unless we, the people, mobilize massive, grassroots movements to transform our nation into a compassionate community.

Book clubs, church groups, and activist committees often cultivate democratic equality. These groups are democracy laboratories that cultivate respect and empowerment.

Face-to-face, horizontal, self-regulating, self-perpetuating, peer-to-peer open-ended “democracy circles” explicitly committed to advancing “face-to-face democracy” could build on these examples. Organizations could incorporate such circles into their current work. Existing groups could supplement their activities with such open-ended dialog. And new circles could emerge independently, perhaps with two individuals inviting one or two others to form a circle, which would increase its numbers organically.

Many methods could be used to structure this face-to-face democracy. Systemopedia associates are engaged in brainstorming and evaluating some such options. Following is one possibility.

Original EssaysWade Lee HudsonDecember 4, 2019personal, social, cutural, economic, political, transformationComment

Left-Right, Top-Down, or Multiple Identities?

Left-Right, Top-Down, or Multiple Identities?

Left-Right, Top-Down, or Multiple Identities?
By Wade Lee Hudson

Our primary problem is not “conservatism” or Donald Trump. Our most pressing problem is the Republican Party: an anti-government cult based on racist, populist resentment that serves the interests of would-be plutocrats. This cult scorns compromise, ignores fact, demonizes the opposition, and will accept virtually any abuse of power by the President. This dereliction of duty will open the door to untold abuses in the future unless Trump loses in November. Even then, the dogmatic, irrational Republican cult will remain intact and more effective leaders could be more dangerous.

Republicans frame this conflict as “liberalism” vs “conservatism,” and hurl “liberal” as a label to rile up their base. But this frame is false. Trying to place all political opinions on the left-right spectrum creates confusion. No one spectrum can capture the full range of political beliefs. Multiple spectrums intersect.

The conflict is actually between autocracy and democracy. If Democrats accept the left-right frame and attack Republicans for being “conservative,” they reinforce the Republican strategy. In so doing, they undermine the potential for gaining support from people who embrace a “conservatism” that includes (at least some) positive values.

Weaponizing left-right labels inflames destructive polarization. Not all polarization is destructive, but the polarization we witness today is asymmetrical—only the Republicans are cultish. Alternative frames that are more accurate could counter the Republican strategy…..

Original EssaysWade Lee HudsonNovember 25, 2019cultural, prolitical Comment

Ben Sasse: Strengths and Weaknesses

Ben Sasse: Strengths and Weaknesses

Political/Books

Ben Sasse: Strengths and Weaknesses
By Wade Lee Hudson

In Them: Why We Hate Each Other—And How We Can Heal, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) affirms important values. Unfortunately, his politics contradict his values.

Sasse declares:

By working to secure for each of our countrymen and women the freedom from coercive power, we help to secure for every American the freedom to live lives of love, worshipping as we see fit, serving our neighbors, and pursuing happiness and friendship….

We share common interests and goals that are more important than just about any question of federal policy—chief among these goals, raising our children to be kind, thoughtful, gritty, respectful adults who use their skills and talents to serve others.

He acknowledges serious social problems, such as “persistent racism in our criminal justice system…, the breathtaking inefficiencies and inequities of our health-care system…, the haphazard funding of scientific research.” His primary concern is “the collapse of the local tribes that give us true, meaningful identity—family, workplace, and neighborhood.”

Our communities are collapsing, and people are feeling more isolated, adrift, and purposeless than ever before…. It has to do with the deep bonds that join people together, that give their lives richness and meaning—and the fact that those bonds are fraying…. It’s about the evaporation of social capital—the reservoir of relationships that help us navigate the world.

…These cultural reflections and his stories about the need to serve people in need are sensible. But when he talks about politics, he loses his clarity—both in what he says and what he does not say. He also seems to forsake his honesty. “This book is not going to be about politics,” he declares early on. But the whole book is political. It reads like a campaign memoir.

BooksWade Lee HudsonNovember 4, 2019personal, social, cultural, politicalComment

A Stump Speech

Wade Lee HudsonOctober 3, 2019Comment

My Story: Peer-to-Peer Community (Part One)

My Story: Peer-to-Peer Community (Part One)

About/Wade Lee Hudson

My Story: Peer-to-Peer Community (Part One)
By Wade Lee Hudson

My first organizing was on sandlot softball fields. Boys would show up and two “captains” took turns selecting teammates, assigned positions, and set the batting order. Two of the better players, which usually included me, served as captain, but anyone could do it, and many often did. There were no arguments about this decision. Each captain was dispensable. The players weren’t dependent on a leader. Little did I realize that this simple, horizontal, self-regulating, self-perpetuating, peer-to-peer structure would become a community organizing model for the rest of my life — though, alas, I followed it imperfectly.

My second project was the high school chess club, which I initiated. After advertising, some fifteen students joined and met weekly. At the first meeting, we randomly determined each student’s initial position on a vertical ladder. Players moved up and down the ladder as they won or lost. Another peer-to-peer structure, this one within a larger, democratic hierarchy: the school administration.

During high school, as is common, I participated in a clique. Mine was a group of five boys who read and discussed iconoclastic literature such as H.L. Mencken and Bertrand Russell and frequently gathered at night to smoke pipes and play poker. That informal structure also nurtured a rewarding sense of peer-to-peer community. As Bob Dylan sings, “I wish, I wish, I wish in vain / That we could sit simply in that room again.”

When I entered the University of California, Berkeley in 1962, I joined a student co-op as a boarder.

Original EssaysWade Lee HudsonSeptember 9, 2019personal, social, cutural, economic, political, transformationComment

Citizen University Sermons

Citizen University Sermons

Politics/Books

A review
Become America: Civic Sermons on Love, Responsibility, and Democracy
Eric Liu
Sasquatch Books, 2019, 302 pages

Citizen University Sermons
By Wade Lee Hudson

Eric Liu’s latest book, Become America: Civic Sermons on Love, Responsibility, and Democracy, is eloquent and inspiring. His exhortations to be engaged in civic activism, beyond voting, are compelling. In the end, however, he comes up short. He neglects the need for new, holistic structures that nurture an energizing cultural environment.

The book consists of “civic sermons” that Liu presented at various locations throughout the country as part of a series of “Civic Saturdays,” a project of the Seattle-based Citizen University, which is dedicated to “building a culture of powerful, responsible citizenship.” In the Preface to the book, Liu declares:

We are the counterculture now. In a culture of celebrity worship and consumerism, we stand for service and citizenship. And in the age of hyper-individualism, we practice collective action and common cause. In a time of sentimentalism and showy sanctimony, we stand for discernment and humility. In the smog of hypocrisy and situational ethics, we still live and breathe the universal timeless values and ideals of the Golden Rule, the Tao, the Declaration, and the Preamble of the Constitution. That is radical.

In the “A Divided Heart” chapter, Liu reports that a friend, Mark, who was a founder of the Tea Party, in so many words said, “Millions of Americans have felt left out and put down, told that they’re deplorable racists and bigots and sexists if they challenge the elites and insiders who are tolerant of everyone but them. They're tired of it, and with Trump, they found a way to say so.” Become America and the Citizen University aim to speak to these people.

Liu has concluded “Americans today lack the coherence and moral clarity and civic self-possession to resist a real Hitler, and that's one thing we’d better work on.”

politicalWade Lee HudsonSeptember 6, 2019power, domination, organizing, structuresComment

Building a “Full-Stack Society” with “New Power”

Building a “Full-Stack Society” with “New Power”

Building a “Full-Stack Society” with “New Power”
By Wade Lee Hudson

Process is important. So is product. Advocates for democracy who focus on mobilizing popular power can forget that the tyranny of the majority is a real threat. New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World -- and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms acknowledges this reality, and offers a solution. …

They make a strong case for dynamics that are “open, participatory, and peer driven.” Yet they also write: ”As we see with ISIS and the growing hordes of white supremacists,... the tools that bring us closer together can also drive us further apart.” Heimans and Timms argue we can avoid this danger by creating “a world in which all major social and economic institutions are designed so that [all] people can more meaningfully shape every aspect of their lives.”

According to their vision:

politicalWade Lee HudsonSeptember 5, 2019personal, social, cultural, economic, political, transformationComment

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on Identity Politics: Ezra Klein Interview

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on Identity Politics: Ezra Klein Interview

An important recent Ezra Klein Show podcast is the interview with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an associate professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University and the author of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, which traces the origins of the term “identity politics.” In the podcast, Taylor argues that the weakening of social movements in the 1980s contributed to a distortion of the term’s original meaning.

SocialWade Lee HudsonAugust 31, 2019personal, social, cutural, political, transformation, identity politicsComment

Transforming the Democratic Party

Wade Lee HudsonAugust 31, 2019Comment