Category: culture

Social Contract

As we start the new year, a big question on my mind is: what will become of our relationships with people we don't know, people who aren't like us?

It's tempting to feel like the social contracts in place to ensure we aren't blatantly reckless with each other's lives, health or humanity have started to untangle just recently. But I suppose that would be my privilege talking.

If I get a little too bummed that it feels like people are no longer bothering to balance their self-interests with the greater good, I try to remember that Black people, people of color, women, poor people and many other populations have been affected by of some version of that imbalance for generations, and have often suffered greatly because of it.

Still, there's nothing like being headed toward a preventable year three of a pandemic to crystalize the ways  in which so many people seem to be saying an active "screw you" to any notion of addressing a public health crisis through even minimal personal sacrifice. And I too often feel a great big "screw you back" welling up inside of me in response, as much as I wish it weren't so.

I'm working on that, but I'm not always sure if working on it means embracing that energy and letting it inspire me to action, or suppressing it in favor of more diplomatic responses. (You know, for the greater good.)

I guess these are all versions of the questions I asked in June 2020:

  • How can we get people to care about and act on problems that don’t seem to immediately or directly affect them?
  • How can we get people to care about making the distinction between what’s verifiably true and what’s not?
  • How do we make change happen fast enough to matter?
  • What should I do?

There is a great deal of good in the world, and a great deal of good in my own life. I have so much to be thankful for.

But I used to believe that People are, on the whole, good and wanting good things for each other. Now I'm not so sure, and I don't like that uncertainty. It feels like it could poison the future. My future.

I'd like to raise my daughter with an optimistic outlook about the nature of humanity, but I may need to scale that back a bit. An optimistic outlook about the good she can create in her own life and for those around her? An optimistic outlook about next week's dinner menu?

Happy New Year.

World on fire

As I read about and watch the events unfolding around us in recent months I find that I have more questions than answers, and unfortunately more despair and anger than I do hope or clarity.

I'll get to the questions in a moment. First, the things I know:

Black Lives Matter. The open wounds of slavery and racism upon which so much of modern U.S. society was founded and continues to operate are far from universally acknowledged or understood, let alone healed. Finding ways to pursue justice for black people and people of color everywhere is one of the greatest and most important challenges of our era. The ongoing hate, oppression, discrimination, aggression, violence and death that is wrought by us upon our fellow humans because of the color of their skin is an atrocity, an outrage and an embarrassment to anyone who would think us any kind of moral model in the world. It demands our greatest care, attention and action. As white people, it demands our solidarity, our self-examination, our hard work, our listening, our discomfort. I fully support the protests and other direct action happening around the world in the name of big changes and in pursuit of justice.

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Running

I should go. I should do it.

I hate running. It’s stupid and hard.

Maybe there are other ways? Lifestyle changes, eating better, etc?

I could just do a long, invigorating walk in the park tomorrow instead.

But I said I was running. I told everyone I was going for a run.

I should go.

Maybe my running clothes are all dirty, I’ll probably need to do laundry first.

Oh. Nope, there’s a clean set.

What have I eaten today? Maybe I need more digesting time. Or actually, maybe it’s been so long that I’m going to be too hungry. Maybe after the next meal, then.

Or I could just go.

I need to cross it off the list. I’ll ostensibly feel good if I do it. Maybe.

Fine, I’ll go.

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Restorative justice and resolving online conflict

The most important part of last week's episode of On The Media was probably the segment on how the Restorative Justice process can serve as an alternative to the broken prison system in the U.S.  I highly recommend it. But the segment that followed, about what role Restorative Justice could play in resolving conflicts that happen online, was also intriguing, especially as someone who has been trained as a conflict mediator and participated in conflict resolution advocacy programs in the past. It got me thinking about what the one-off experiment on Reddit that Micah Loewinger and Lindsay Blackwell conducted might look like in wider practice.

Right now when two or more people are in conflict on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or elsewhere, the most likely eventual outcome is that someone will be blocked, banned, muted or otherwise removed from the conversation, either by a participant or by a moderator of the service itself. As the On The Media episode notes, the best that social media companies seem to be able to come up with in this problem space is making it even easier to report or block someone. (And to be clear, I'm generally a supporter of users being able to block/mute someone else at will without having to explain themselves.)

But if anyone involved in or affected by the conflict was interested in a different outcome, how could they get there?

An idea I'm exploring here would be a bot that someone, either one of the parties or an observer, could mention to initiate a conflict resolution process with elements of the Restorative Justice approach included.

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Remembering Daniel Quinn

Daniel Quinn died over a year ago, but it doesn't feel too late to offer up some remembrances and tributes to the many ways he made a difference in my life, and the lives of so many others.

Quinn's novel Ishmael, and the lifetime of study, contemplation, research and thinking that led up to it, is at the center of his impact, at least for me. In critically examining the most fundamental stories our culture tells itself about our origins, our purpose and our place in the world, Ishmael and subsequent books from Quinn provided a new framework of understanding and exploration about how human society works, and could work.

It would be over-simplifying to say that it is a novel about environmentalism and sustainability, or uncovering cultural biases, or problematic religious traditions, or human potential and selfishness, although it is deeply about all of those things.  For me personally, reading it was a ground-shaking event in my college years, both because it named feelings, experiences, certainties and doubts I already had inside me, and then introduced a slew of new ones that I had to work through. That I am probably still working through. Whereas some novels have to invent a plot device that provides a dramatic twist at the end -- the ancient secret society DOES exist and the magical stone was hidden behind the painting all along! -- in Ishmael all of the secrets that are uncovered are real, buried in our cultural history and traditions, and the implications for revealing them are far reaching in how we live our lives.

As a person, Quinn was not a pushy evangelist for his ideas, nor did have a neatly packaged solution to offer up for the many challenges his books highlighted. Yes, he spent a lifetime trying (along with his wife Rennie) to make his ideas more clear, more accessible, more actionable through giving lectures, engaging with his readers and their questions, traveling to events and facilitating connections between those who were inspired by his work. But he wasn't selling, he wasn't anybody's savior, and his emphasis was always on improving our thinking and what might come from that.

I do not claim to have known Dan very well, but every time I talked with him or saw him in person, I experienced him as a grounded, authentic, kind, and intensely intelligent person. He had a contemplative nature, and I always appreciated that when asked a question about his work or his ideas, he would listen carefully and then pause for as long as he needed to provide a thoughtful, intentional answer. If he didn't know or couldn't form a useful response, he just said so. He was keenly aware of the power of words to persuade, convince, change minds and alter the course of history, and so he also seemed wary of uttering something that could be misinterpreted, re-appropriated or used to stuff his very not-mainstream ways of thinking into a comfortable mainstream box. He didn't have much patience for people who weren't trying to think for themselves or learn from past mistakes.

Because of the power of his books, many people wanted Dan to be their leader: the leader of their movement or their project or their personal journey through the world, or all of the above. I was always careful about not worshipping Dan himself or of not elevating his writing as sacred texts. But I guess I did help to start a group of people and a series of events centered around his work that jokingly referred to ourselves as a "cult of Ishmael" -- sorry, Dan. 🙂

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Conflict resolution as a life skill

I've always had an interest in understanding and practicing conflict resolution. In recent years I've realized just how important the ability to identify, mediate and resolve conflicts is as a skill in life and in professional development.

In our personal lives, being able to see conflict and move toward it with hopes of addressing/resolving it makes for better and deeper friendships, relationships, marriages and family dynamics.

In our neighborhoods and communities, being able to resolve conflicts without calling the police or filing a lawsuit is a way to build trust, connection and understanding with the people around us.

In our government institutions and with our elected leaders, the ability to engage in respectful dialog and work toward compromise around issues where we disagree prevents deadlock and leads to improvements in services, infrastructure and public life.

In our places of business, being able to see a conflict with a coworker or supervisor, actively trying to understand each others` underlying interests and needs and working toward a solution that is acceptable to all involved can mean the difference between being miserable or thriving in our careers and professional lives.

In activism and social justice work, the ability to speak clearly and boldly about the systems, laws and practices that are problematic and engage directly, respectfully and effectively with people who have a different point of view can be critical to making real progress.

Even in tech and software development, the concepts of conflict resolution can be essential for success. Maybe it's reconciling different approaches to software architecture, or moving toward the hardest, most complex technical problem to solve first so that you can untangle it and remove any unknowns or mysteries that might affect the rest of your project.

In these cases and more, it seems being able to handle and resolve conflict is critical. But I have also been learning just how hard this is for so many people.

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6 ways to get more involved in your local community

Someone recently asked me for ideas about how they could get more involved in their local community.

I like thinking about this question and coming up with suggestions. It may seem like the most consequential decisions and conversations about our future happen at the national or global levels. But when it comes to actions that we can take as individuals to make the world a better place, our attention is also needed at the local level.

Here are a few of the ways you could try to get more involved in your local community:

1. Join or form a neighborhood association. When we know more about the people we live around, we can tackle challenges and provide support a lot more quickly and easily. In-person gatherings can be a great way to learn about projects and opportunities for helping others, and many associations now have online groups that share neighborhood-specific information too. If you live in a mostly business-oriented area, look for a small business or merchants association where you can sit in and learn about issues facing those stores. If that all seems like too much, consider just starting with an open house or back-yard potluck and inviting the folks who live right around you.

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Believing women, pursuing justice

Part of me is horrified at the stories of rape, assault, sexual misconduct and other inappropriate behavior that continue to come out every day now. I ache with grief and anger for those who have had their lives and careers changed forever by these violations, and who must now also face the judgment and distortions of having their experiences made public.

Part of me has known for a long time that our culture is one that facilitates and encourages these transgressions. That so many men move through the world causing pain and misery, sometimes by choice, sometimes because they lack the courage or will to choose something better, sometimes because the rest of us choose not to stop them.

We all know about it at some level, don't we? That long before we elected a misogynistic, sexual predator bully as President, long before any celebrity accusations were headlines or Twitter non-apologies were made and dissected, we as a culture have accepted that women (and some men) are going to be raped, assaulted, preyed upon or otherwise exploited, and that it's just who we are as a people? Many, if not most, of the women I know have their own stories of violation at some level (many, I'm sure, with stories I don't know about), and can further relay the stories of their mothers, sisters, daughters and friends beyond that.

So I believe women. I am grateful that we are in a moment where more often than not, at least some women are being listened to, heard and believed in the face of denials and cowardice from men who, in the past, got a pass.

What does justice look like moving forward?

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Star Trek values

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a panel at Silicon Valley Comic Con consisting of various members of the cast of the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation. Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, Jonathan Frakes, Denise Crosby, Marina Sirtis and Robert O'Reilly were joined by original series cast member William Shatner to talk about the show, their lives as actors, and what the Star Trek universe has taught and can teach us about the real world.

For someone who watched every episode of the show when it originally aired and who has remained a fan since, it was an hour and a half of nearly pure joy. For one, I was just excited to be a part of a whole auditorium full of people reflecting on how much influence the stories, dialogue and creativity of the show had on our lives, the panelists included. Several audience members stood up to say just how strong that influence has been, informing the careers they chose, the people they've become, the kind of lives that they now lead, and I was right there with them.

In watching Star Trek as a young person I remember being invigorated by the complex problem-solving scenarios that the Enterprise crew faced week after week. I learned from the principles of collaboration, mutual respect and cross-species equity that were practiced. I saw strong women in leadership roles, and I saw non-Caucasian characters developed with an unusual (for mainstream TV, anyway) depth and texture. And I was inspired by a vision of the future that offered so many possibilities for exploration, discovery and growth. I'm sure that my real-world evolution as technologist and computer geek was propelled forward significantly by my immersion in that make-believe world of technological wonders.

The panel also highlighted a new angle of my appreciation for the Star Trek universe. I hadn't previously thought about Trek as having a political point of view, because I assumed that the vision of a world where humanity had figured out how to eliminate poverty and hunger, celebrated and built on our various differences, and employed innovation to protect and restore the environment was a vision that anyone would embrace and want to strive for, and not a particularly politically-charged one.

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What we are, what we can become

One of the many recent life lessons I've learned from parenting an 18-month-old is that where you are and what you know right now doesn't have to limit where you can go and what you can become.

It's been fascinating to watch our daughter learn about the world and incorporate that knowledge into her life on timelines that span mere days and weeks. I had apparently developed a cynical view of what people have the capacity to learn and how long it takes, and she is challenging those assumptions and views every day. The old, limiting way of thinking about this puzzle/game/word/object/creature is so yesterday, dad! It is delightful and surprising to watch the human brain expand its understanding of how the world works, and I must constantly re-evaluate what she is capable of in order to keep up.

It's also a good reminder for me about how much we as a society tend to categorize and label people and what they have the capacity to know or do based on our initial encounters of them.

I've been thinking lately about how this dynamic is at work in the tech world in particular - people are pigeonholed into being developers, support/customer service, marketing/sales people, administrative/HR people, founders, or other roles and then we quickly start to make assumptions from there about how they think, what they know and what they're capable of. We can quickly forget that someone might have a broad range of skills and life experience that would allow them to take on multiple roles or see a given problem space from multiple perspectives, even if they choose to primarily occupy one particular role right now. Even worse, there's strong temptation to use only one or two direct encounters to label someone as a good/bad/mediocre version of their singular role, never again mentally giving them the chance to demonstrate otherwise.

"Him? Oh yeah, I worked with him on a project three years ago. He's a so-so developer but I wouldn't trust him to really thrive with this new project."

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