We Americans have strange ideas about social class. In study after study, the vast majority (often more than 80 percent) self-identify as “middle class,” suggesting that for some people identity is aspiration and for some illusion. When social scientists study class distinctions based on measurable factors such as income, it turns out unsurprisingly that 1/3 …
The company was convivial, the food delicious, the candlelight and music divine. Then one guest, just making conversation, began to inventory recent outrages from the powers-that-be: did we hear about fraud and callousness in this government program? About this attack on civil liberties? About this scandal in high places? Air began to leak out of …
This week I dug out the light box I bought when we lived in Seattle, where darkness falls before 4 pm each day and persists till nearly 9 in the morning. The box generates an intense light that helps overcome the malaise some people experience in the season of darkness. For some reason, even though …
There is a persistent story that people who stood up to fascism in the 1930s, before World War II took shape, were later condemned as “premature antifascists.” Some of the members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, volunteers who fought the fascists in Spain in 1936-39, described facing this opprobrium when they later attempted to join …
Everywhere I look these days, I see an new, integrated awareness emerging from collaborations that transcend just about every conventional boundary there is: national borders, cultural differences, race, religion, gender—you name it. Two weeks ago, my good friend was one of more than 1200 people attending an event at the Pachamama Alliance, an extraordinary group …
“Man was born free,” wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau 250 years ago, “and he is everywhere in chains.” As Thanksgiving approaches, Rousseau’s words have been cycling through my mind. I am thankful for the tremendous freedom of movement, association and speech I have as a citizen of this country (even as I join others in fighting to …
In 1963, when I was a junior in high school, the late, great Nina Simone released a powerfully angry song called “Mississippi Goddam.” “The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam,” the song began, “And I mean every word of it.” Here’s the last stanza: You don’t have to live next to me Just give …
I’m off to Mississippi to visit with Thousand Kites, one of the projects described in my just-published book, New Creative Community. In prison slang, a “kite” is a message, such as a note or letter to a prisoner. The project is a collaboration between Holler to the Hood (H2H) and Roadside Theater, two groups based …
“Not everyone has drunk the Kool-Aid,” said my friend, calibrating the precise level of fanatic devotion practiced by her colleagues on an especially consuming project. Then I heard it on a TV program: the mother-figure of a somewhat suspect group offered glasses of red liquid to two bright-eyed teenagers: “Kool-Aid anybody?” “Don’t worry,” she said, …
Commemorations bring out my ambivalence. In the public sphere, most holidays and anniversaries make one of two statements: “We won and we’ll never let you forget it”; or “We lost and we’ll never forgive you.” Neither message describes a state of mind that seems worth cultivating: between triumphal belligerence and wounded bellicosity, my choice is …