[FRIAM] Hope or Despair

[Nick Thompson]

Hey, Owen, 

 

When I was 32 or so, I ran for the post of Planning Board Chair for the Town of New Braintree.  I was young and very idealistic about participatory democracy, and so I set as my goal to visit every house in Town to talk about the future of the Town, which was just small enough that that goal was plausible.   Like every small New England town, New  Braintree it was riven with factionalism and anger.  However, my hosts agreed upon one thing for sure:  “they” were responsible for all that was wrong with the Town.  Thing was, I never found out who “they” was.  I never even found a “We.”  Political unity existed only in the mind of those who saw themselves the victims of it.  

 

It was about that year that the this cartoon appeared.  

 



 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2017 10:09 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Hope or Despair

 

All those who were outside the set of those hurt by their decisions.

 

On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 9:50 PM, Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

O

 

And who, exactly, is this “elite” of whom we speak with such assurance and contempt? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2017 9:38 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Hope or Despair

 

On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 9:11 PM, Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org <mailto:rec at elf.org> > wrote:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/08/blaming-fake-news-not-the-answer-democracy-crisis

 

-- rec --

 

​Amen!

 

​Democracy may or may not be drowning in fake news, but it’s definitely drowning in elite hypocrisy.​

 

I

​ hope we're able to escape that ourselves​. I'm concerned that we too are "smug liberals". I hope I can invite my garbage collector to my next party as Pope Francis did.

 

   -- Owen


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20170107/0a7add44/attachment-0002.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 78156 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20170107/0a7add44/attachment.png>