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 …
In ancient Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was a kind of maze built at Knossos by Daedalus for King Minos of Crete. It was designed to hold the Minotaur, a mythical creature that was half-man and half-bull. Unlike an ordinary maze, a labyrinth is easy to get into; but once you attain the center, it is …
I took part in an arts conference on Monday (more about that in my next blog). In a discussion I moderated on art and civic engagement, speakers had a lot to say about pursuing social change by engaging people in community life and democratic discourse via music, media, dance, drama, and other types of art. …
I woke up in the middle of a dream this morning. Side-by-side with a young woman (I can see her earnest face so clearly, the tumble of dark curls that nearly covered it), I strolled through an encampment occuping a city square. We stepped over bodies, threading our way through a maze of conversations. “Before …
The east is awash in Irene and earthquakes, and commentators everywhere are noticing how utterly shook up the world order also seems to be. Here’s Tom Friedman in the New York Times: [T]he European Union is cracking up. The Arab world is cracking up. China’s growth model is under pressure and America’s credit-driven capitalist model …
The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred. Our brains evolved to “expect” stories with a particular …
The world didn’t end yesterday (unless the next world includes a bus from New York to Philadelphia equipped with the electrical outlets and wifi that enabled me to write this essay). Yes, I’ve been on the road all spring, a condition that tends to impair my ability to focus on a single topic long enough …
Do you feel like tucking your head under your wing and letting the world go by? You are not alone. When political discourse—such as the current combat over the federal budget—is this frighteningly unhinged from on-the-ground reality, a raw will to power is in play. Never mind all the spin, the carefully crafted arguments and …
Someone I know wrote the other day that his friends in Japan are “getting used to the aftershocks; they’ve become normal.” But of course, “normal” doesn’t quite describe what happens when we sustain repeated shocks, becoming inured. What actually happens has more to do with numbing, with defensive insulation, and with the denial or evasion …