Tag: ideal

Categories
culture politics

Community: Communication

The communication aspect of a community runs from the formal (newsletters, bulletin boards) to the informal (chatting with neighbors). Without the means to communicate, the various members of what would otherwise be a community are isolated. Communication is also the lubricant that keeps other aspects of community working. Actions by the government must be communicated to members in a reliable way. Commerce flows more freely when there is a means of advertising available goods and services.

I believe that both formal and informal means of communication must be present in order to have a healthy community.The key is to have various channels of communication and to ensure that communication multi-directional (and multi-modal with current technology).

Categories
culture

The Law of Abundance

I have thought for a long time about the basic premise of capitalism and economics. Thanks to the discussion on Wealth is Always Distributed I have decided to write down my thoughts on the subject.

Economics are based on the assumption of scarcity. My observations lead me to believe that the only real scarcity is a scarcity of effort, and a scarcity of time. Even when we consider those two scarcities we do not actually have any shortage of resources with which to meet our needs as a society.

This thinking has led me to what I call the Law of Abundance. This law is illustrated in Each Little Bit Helps from last year. I think the law could be stated that we could accomplish anything (besides defying the laws of physics) if people would just get in and help make things happen without asking the questions of scarcity – Is it going to be fair? Will I get paid for my work? How much will it cost? The only question that is asked under the law of abundance is – Should this be done? Once that question is answered then the work moves forward. Questions of efficiency (such as maximizing profits) are laid aside (although answers about efficient means are still welcome).

I admit that this law of abundance is not very useful on an individual, day-to-day scale. As an individual I have to eat and provide for my family so I am not always free to just jump in and do things without regard to what’s in it for me. I am very interested in the development of my community, but unless someone can pay me for it I can’t devote all my time to those efforts – I must still remain gainfully employed. (I’m lucky enough to enjoy my gainful employment but that is not the topic of this post.)

Where the law of abundance works is things like feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. When we operate under this law of abundance we do not let fields lay fallow in order to receive a government subsidy or prop up the price of the crop we could have been producing. Instead we produce the crop and get it into the hands of those who need it. In essence, production becomes more important than profit. We do not avoid hard work so long as the work has value. We would rather have grain rotting in bins than stomachs rotting with hunger while there is any way to provide food.

We often see an attitude similar to this during times of crisis when people pull out all the stops and just make things happen without prejudice, favoritism, or concern for financial repercussions. I argue that we should operate in this mindset more – always where possible. The key is to make sure that we are careful about getting the right answer to the “should it be done” question.

Categories
culture politics

Community: Government

I think that most people have a pretty clear idea of what the government element of community is. We can all imagine city hall as a place where meetings of the community leaders meet and make laws and where members of the community may appeal for changes which they feel should be made. The more I read and study, the more I become convinced that government has no business beyond codifying and enforcing the law. I am also convinced that we almost universally exceed those boundaries by making “laws” to give incentive to certain behaviors (fines for driving a car with a broken taillight, or tax breaks for buying alternative fuel vehicles). While those examples are largely outside the scope of a small municipality, which is where my attention is focused, they illustrate how easy it is to exceed the proper bounds of government.

Categories
culture politics

Think Globally; Act Locally

I think that the idea of “think globally, act locally” (TGAL) points us in the wrong direction. If I base my local actions on what is best for everyone globally it leads to uninformed decisions because I have a very limited knowledge or control over the global repercussions of my actions. No matter how much I study I cannot fully understand the situation, needs, motivations, and perceptions of others. The further they are from me, the more built in error to my decisions. And no matter how good my understanding I have no control over the actions of those other global people.

I think that the world would be better served if we were to practice “plan for the future, act in the present.” There are still many elements that I cannot control or know about the future, but my thoughts and actions are now entirely focused on those things which are my responsibility. I also believe that this attitude would encompass those aspects of TGAL which are beneficial. If I think of my future I will do those things which are beneficial to others where that may have a positive impact on my future.

Interestingly, after I started this post I received a link to a book on economics that seems to suggest that one of the causes for bad economics is thinking of the present but not the future.

Categories
culture

Buildingblocks of Community

As I think about the components of an effective community I thought it would be valuable to list what I think are the essential parts of an effective community. I will try to define them just enough here to make it clear what I am thinking. If anyone finds anything I have missed, or a definition that they think should change, please let me know.

Perhaps I should start be defining what I mean by “community.” I am specifically thinking about a city or town, in other words a physical community of people who live within some defined proximity. Despite that, I believe that the elements of a community that I am considering are applicable to other kinds of community such as a business, or a virtual community.

Government – a body responsible for defining the community and the rules that govern the community. The government of a community would be responsible for arbitration if community members have a dispute about what is acceptable within the community.

Communication – a way for community members to share information about the community, to voice their opinions, or to record events of significance.

Commerce – something to facilitate transactions between members of the community in an organized way so that those transactions are recognized by other members of the community when necessary.

Entertainment – a means of promoting informal interaction between community members which is not focused on commercial repercussions (although there may be commercial elements to the interactions).

Ritual – a celebration of community identity. The purpose of ritual is to solidify the community identity and help members remember the purpose and/or history of the community.

Categories
technology

Inherently Unequal

My whole family is getting over being sick (here’s a story about that) and as I reflected on the experience I was thinking how nice it would have been to have the kinds of beds they had 150 years ago (pre-industrial age) where you would clean a mattress after someone threw up on it by emptying it, washing the cover, and then filling it with fresh stuffing. The old, soiled filler could be discarded or burned. Now we have mattresses that are “permanent” so when my daughter wakes up from her nap throwing up we have to clean all the covers and try to clean the mattress and then live with the fact that it’s never going to be entirely clean.

When we moved from temporary mattress filling to permanent mattresses we did not keep all the beneficial traits of the old mattresses. Perhaps someone should market a disposable sick-bed. Hospital beds have vinyl coverings so they can be wiped, disinfected, and covered with new sheets. Crib mattresses (at least the ones we have) are the same, but regular mattresses have lost that trait from the mattresses that our great-great-grandparents used to have.

I’m not suggesting that we should go back to those mattresses – though I was tempted to when the thought first struck me. I think we have many products to help mitigate that difference. However, the thought struck me that there is no such thing as a flawless upgrade when we start using new technology like that. There is always some characteristic that we might overlook which has its benefits. It’s something to think about as we rush onward with new technologies and find that it is easy to see their strengths. Sometimes we have to take a step back and see if we might have missed some strengths from the old technology.

Categories
culture politics

Uncivil War

Today is the anniversary of the official surrender at Appomatox that ended the Civil War in 1865. That random tidbit struck home to me as I was reading The Passing of the Armies by Joshua Chamberlain (who officially received the arms and flags of the Confederate army in surrender). I had not realized until I was getting to that climax of the book that I was reading of the events on the day 142 years after this all happened. When I realized that, it really made me think about the results of that war and the example of humanity displayed during that surrender.

Now, a century and a half later, we are engaged in a war that is, in many ways less civil than that one. I am not talking about Iraq or Afghanistan – I am talking about America. Our political and social ideologies are every bit as divided as they were in the 1860’s. We have seen the same rancor and the same intensity of rhetoric for the last 13 years (or more) and it signals a deep rift in our nation. Like the war that brought about a rebirth in our nation, most of the citizens are able to live rather amicably with their neighbors, but our public discourse on ideas rages hotter and hotter when we feel free to express ourselves.

I ask myself, where is our Gettysburg, where the tide turns and we stop winding up our division and start winding down our conflict? Is it past? Or is it (more likely) yet to come? When we finally come to a resolution will we act with the dignity and honor displayed by the Union and Confederate soldiers? They honored each other with displays of respect and valued the courage displayed by their former enemies and forged again the bonds of national brotherhood even when they did not see eye to eye on some of the (semi)concluded issues.

Like the Civil War, I am confident that a resolution will come to the issues we face today which cause so much division among us. Will we be able to effect a better reconciliation than they did? We had to fight a second campaign after 100 years to bring further resolution to the questions of how all people should be treated and we still feel the effects of that divisive war.

Where is our President Lincoln or our General Lee who could fight so passionately and so honorably for the ideas they believed in and yet they held no malice for their opponent, only for the ideas they opposed?

What lies ahead for us? Is it possible that we can be passionate without being scurrilous?

Categories
culture

Buying Local

There is nothing completely new in the premise of Scott’s Buying Local Saves? I’m fairly sure that I have heard stories almost exactly like this one:

. . . Kelly Cobb’s effort to make a suit of clothes using only resources available within a 100-mile radius of Philadelphia. ‘The suit took a team of 20 artisans [eighteen] months to produce — 500 man-hours of work in total.’

That should serve as conclusive evidence that you can prove almost anything with the right setup. Scott does a good job of illuminating some of the reasons that cause these kinds of results and calls into question the theory behind local-only shopping. The thing that held my interest is that I have preferences towards that kind of behavior, for some similar reasons to what he discusses.

There is a major difference though – I do not favor local products and services strictly for some moral good, and I don’t favor them in all cases. I think I would call my purchasing habits a pragmatic approach to buying local. I favor getting my hair cut at the local barbershop because I see no reason to pay my money to Great Clips or any other chain. I am especially pleased by the fact that the local barbershop is no more expensive, and I like the haircuts better than the chain stores. I also shop at the local grocery store rather than Walmart. I know some people who think Walmart is evil, but my reasons are much more mundane. I like the fact that the local grocer is not open on Sundays – I like to support businesses that don’t live in the 24/7 world of business. I also like the fact that the local grocery store is only one third the distance from my house as the nearest chain grocery store.

What it really comes down to is the fact that I have tried to divorce myself from the idea that saving a penny is always worth the cost. I save more in time, energy, and fuel by shopping local than I spend extra because their merchandise is 3 cents more expensive per item than Walmart. My favorite result of this new mindset is the freedom to look at things from more than just a checkbook perspective. It’s quite liberating.

Categories
politics

Ideal Politics

Now that election day is over – here are some things I would like to see (ideally) in politics:

  1. Two candidates running against each other who canvas together, advertise together, and publicly seek to achieve 100% voting in the area covered by the office they are seeking.
    • I could just imagine two candidates who have different views coming before the voters and saying “Vote for me, or vote for him, just vote.”
    • I could imagine mailings and flyers where one side presented the views of one candidate and the other side presented the views of the other candidate. The bottom would read “Paid for by the committee to elect the next representative of State House District #21”
  2. No negative campaigning – that would be necessary for #1 to work

If those things were to happen I think we could have real political dialog happening, and we could hardly fail to get good people elected – I can imagine that only good people would engage in such a campaign.

I know this is extremely idealistic. I would be very surprised to ever see such a thing.

Now for some results of yesterdays elections.

Nationally, NPR has a story on how the base of the GOP failed on election day. I think they got the story backwards. It would be more accurate to say that the GOP failed the voters before election day. Thus the results at the polls.

I also saw that Donald Rumsfeld is resigning as Secretary of Defense. This is good news, but a few years later than it should have been.

Voters chose not to retain Judge Leslie Lewis. This means that voters were getting the information being presented about her. To put this result in context – 54% of voters voted not to retain her. All other judges were retained, receiving between 88.32% and 76.55% support for retention. In other words Judge Lewis received 30 percentage points less support from voters than any other judge in this election. Now the question is – does it require the kind of negative publicity that Judge Lewis received to make voters drop a sitting judge? While I believe that the majority of judges do a good job, I still believe that voters suffer from a dearth of information on their judges so it is difficult to make meaningful choices with our ballots where judges are concerned.

The opinion question that I felt was under-publicized passed with over 66% support. I don’t think that indicates a good campaign for the issue since every ballot issue on my local ballot passed with similarly high margins. Some of them probably should not have passed – at least not that easily.

Categories
culture life

Slow Way of Life

While running errands this afternoon I was listening to the radio and I heard about a movement that started in Italy in 1999 that really seems to embody the lifestyle I would like to create for myself. The movement is called Cittaslow and their philosophy is basically described as slowing down and not becoming caught up in the fast pace of our modern life.

It was very interesting to learn about this movement. They currently have 100 partner cities in 10 countries. I don’t know that they have any partner cities in the United States, but the US probably has at least as great a need for some “slower” towns as any other country. I wonder how the principles of the philosophy embodied by Cittaslow could be implemented by an individual or family. They are geared towards municipalities, but there must be an application on a smaller scale.