It happens so often, doesn’t it? Something burrows its way to the surface of your awareness in the little world of face-to-face, and then you see the same dynamic writing itself across the globe. For instance, I spent Yom Kippur in services with dear friends, grateful for the opportunity to pause, reflect, reorient. One feature …
You know the “Stockholm Syndrome,” right? It’s when hostages empathize with their captors, a form of what psychologists call “traumatic bonding.” Welcome to the Stockholm Syndrome State. The culture of politics is in a coma, the result of an overdose of deference to authority dissolved in a long drink of state-sponsored fear. Shall we wake …
When we have rights, it’s easy to take them for granted. It’s when they are contested that they matter most. Today, I write about two very different examples provided by the U.S. Supreme Court and the movement for Scottish independence. There have been many times in my adulthood that I questioned the meaning of voting. …
I first got wind of it in Linda Essig’s post on Facebook (Linda, who writes the blog “Creative Infrastructure,” was also kind enough to post a “love letter” to The Culture of Possibility last week). Then I got a note from my friend David Francis in Edinburgh, a wonderful musician (he and Mairi Campbell make …
In New York for my book launch, I did some of the things I usually do: walked the streets endlessly on my way from one meeting to another, connected with old friends, wondered what exactly it says about “civilization” that we are increasingly expected to get along without public restrooms…. I walked crosstown from NYU …
I had a conversation last week with someone who gave up making films to start a business he hopes will earn enough money to finance major social-change organizing projects. He condemned progressives for their illusions, saying they that think if they’ve watched a hard-hitting film, they’ve done something, but really, “they’ve done nada. The most …
As I write this, my plane has just taken off from Heathrow, seven hours after its scheduled departure. I spent six of them on the tarmac, trying to soothe the part of my brain that was spinning a story about British Airways’ incompetence. That was fairly challenging: during the previous hour, I’d stood in the …
Few things make me as happy as discovering a way of seeing the world that illuminates both large political events and my own inner voices. I’m happy right now, because I’m ready to add another name to my list of uncolonized minds—the thinkers who have most inspired me through their willingess to engage reality, interrogate …
In English, we say “Shhh” to mean “Quiet down.” In Yiddish, it’s “Sha.” If a nightmare sent me into inconsolable sobs, my grandmother would say, “Sha, sha, bubeleh, don’t scare yourself, it’s only a dream,” and that gave me some comfort. My grandmother was a tiny, ruthless person with biceps like Popeye’s mother. Her repertoire …
Lately, I’ve been on the road a lot for speaking engagements, the proximate cause of a temporary lapse in my blogging. But I could have squeezed it in somehow: I’ve often spent airport hours blogging or eased my re-entry home with a new essay. Truth be told, this political moment has left me at a …