The Amoral Joe Biden

Circles, Baldwin, and Comments

Contents:
-Valor Academy’s Circles, By Wade Lee Hudson
-Mass Culture and the Creative Artist, By James Baldwin (1959)
-Readers’ Comments

Valor Academy’s Circles, By Wade Lee Hudson

I found “How one school is centering social-emotional learning” to be profoundly inspiring. This PBS “Brief but Spectacular” video documents a Valor Collegiate Academy mutual aid “Circle.” Since 2014, Valor has expanded to more than 30,000 students nationwide. Their success suggests the holistic, egalitarian movement is spreading. Time is short, however. The world may be on a deadly downward spiral.

Daren Dickson, Valor’s Chief Culture Officer, says

Our dream has been to turn circle facilitation over to the kids as they get into high school. We all know that middle schoolers are much more impacted by each other than by adults, so having them lead the practice will be more meaningful. 

This 11-minute video captures a Circle led by a Valor student.

Valor encourages students to share what’s going on in their lives and accept support. Their mission is “sharp minds; big hearts.”  They aim to create a community of care “to empower our diverse community to live inspired, purposeful lives,…bring our diverse community together, and support each other in identity and relational development.”  Valor bases its approach on four pillars: 1) top-tier academics; 2) intentional diversity; 3) built to last; and 4) whole child development….
(read more)

Mass Culture and the Creative Artist: Some Personal Notes
By James Baldwin (1959)

Someone once said to me that the people in general cannot bear very much reality. He meant by this that they prefer fantasy to a truthful re-creation of their experience. The Italians, for example, during the time that De Sica and Rossellini were revitalizing the Italian cinema industry, showed a marked preference for Rita Hayworth vehicles; the world in which she moved across the screen was like a fairy tale, whereas the world De Sica was describing was one with which they were only too familiar. (And it can be suggested perhaps that the Americans who stood in fine for Shoe Shine and Open City were also responding to images which they found exotic, to a reality by which they were not threatened. What passes for the appreciation of serious effort in this country is very often nothing more than an inability to take anything very seriously.)

Now, of course, the people cannot bear very much reality, if by this one means their ability to respond to high intellectual or artistic endeavor. I have never in the least understood why they should be expected to. There is a division of labor in the world  — as I see it — and the people have quite enough reality to bear, simply getting

through their lives, raising their children, dealing with the eternal conundrums of birth, taxes, and death. They do not do this with all the wisdom, foresight, or charity one might wish; nevertheless, this is what they are always doing and it is what the writer is always describing….
(read more)

Readers’ Comments

Re: “Friedman on Israel”
Larry Walker
Excellent and timely article. My related observation is that the US is losing its role as world leader in other ways as well.

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Re: Introduction
Freddi Fredrickson

Growing a generation of intrinsically minded people.

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Re: Interview with “Fluke” author, Brian Klass”
Jed Riffe

After being self employed for over 50 years, experiencing 19 stock market failures, all of which seriously disrupted my small independent print and documentary film businesses, I feel like chaos is the operating mode. I appreciate Wade’s two comments.

Yahya Abdal-Aziz
Thank you for this! I believe he’s hit on something important about modern society. He’s right, there is – by design! – very little slack in our systems, so any little chance event (“fluke”) can tip us into an unstable situation that may deteriorate rapidly and uncontrollably into chaos and disaster.

Yes, we like to think we’re in control of our personal lives, but “a little less hubris” would be a very good thing for most of us. And perhaps we can trace some of the roots of our modern epidemic of anxiety and depression to our inchoate sense of the precariousness of the teetering sand-pile?

Joyce Beattie

Positivity

“When we inject people with positivity, their outlook expands. They see the big picture. When we inject them with neutrality or negativity, their peripheral vision shrinks. There is no big picture, no dots to connect” (p. 95).
Barbara Fredrickson, Positivity, 2009

Friedman on Israel

I’ve spent the past few days traveling from New Delhi to Dubai and Amman, and I have an urgent message to deliver to President Biden and the Israeli people: I am seeing the increasingly rapid erosion of Israel’s standing among friendly nations — a level of acceptance and legitimacy that was painstakingly built up over decades. And if Biden is not careful, America’s global standing will plummet right along with Israel’s. I don’t think Israelis or the Biden administration fully appreciate the rage that is bubbling up around the world, fueled by social media and TV footage.
Thomas L. Friedman

The Circle

Circles have been used as structures for meeting communally for thousands of years. Some of the earliest known tribes and native people across all continents used Circles, sometimes called councils, to meet to discuss the most important matters their communities faced. In this sense, Circles are natural to us and are not anything new. In many ways, the Valor Circle is a new spin on an ancient practice.
Valor Collegiate Academies

Putin, Truth, and Scapegoating

Spinoza and “God”

What he denies is that God exists as a being or intelligence separate from the rest of the universe…. Spinoza’s argument is disconcertingly simple. God is “a being absolutely infinite,” and the idea of infinity “involves no negation”: it would be contradictory to say that there is some quality an infinite being does not possess or some space it does not occupy…. If God exists, then he must be absolutely everywhere; not even our own bodies and minds can be separate from him.
Baruch Spinoza and the Art of Thinking in Dangerous Times

The Constitution of Knowledge

Trump showed himself to be an attentive student of disinformation and its operative principle: Reality is what you can get away with…. Previous presidents and national politicians. They may spin the truth, bend it, or break it, but they pay homage to it and regard it as a boundary. Trump’s approach is entirely different…. He was asserting that truth and falsehood were subject to his will…. The lying reflects a strategy,… a national-level epistemic attack: a systematic attack, emanating from the very highest reaches of power, on our collective ability to distinguish truth from falsehood….
From The Constitution of Knowledge

social-emotional learning

  • How one school is centering social-emotional learning

    At Valor Collegiate Academy in Nashville, helping students thrive personally and academically through a weekly social-emotional learning practice called Circle is central to their values. The school encourages students to share what’s going on in their lives and to accept support, creating a community of care. According to one student, “It’s half-way between a group therapy session and an AA meeting.” (read more) [posted in Social/Education] On PBS Newshour here.

The NFL and the Egalitarian Cultural Revolution

By Wade Lee Hudson

Challenges to top-down power are spreading. Compassion-minded people are developing ways to empower people rooted in mutual respect. In his February 16 Washington Post column, Fareed Zakaria affirmed “bottom-up systems” that cultivate “organic communities, rooted in freedom and choice, built bottom-up not top-down.” Changes within the National Football League also illustrate aspects of this cultural revolution. 

During this year’s Super Bowl, when he was angry about not being in the game, Travis Kelce, Kansas City Chief’s star tight end, walked up to his coach, yelled at him, bumped into him, and knocked him off balance. The coach, Andy Reid, shrugged it. off. 

Bill Belichick, the former New England Patriots coach who led the NFL’s greatest dynasty, would never have responded that way. He was an authoritarian control freak who abused his players, including his premier quarterback, Tom Brady. His style has become outdated. Since he and the Patriots parted ways last year, no team has hired him.

Recently, Burke Robinson, a Stanford University management lecturer, helped the San Francisco 49ers to winning records with a new collaborative formula. This approach emphasizes the collective embrace of collaboratively defined core values and principles that provide a precise sense of direction. 

The 49ers place their core values into two categories. “Talent” includes objective factors: speed, physical toughness, character traits, scheme fit, and football IQ. “Spirit” includes subjective personal qualities: loves the game, contagious enthusiasm, mental toughness, dependable on commitments, accountable to self and others. 

They say their players “will represent our core values and beliefs in both their talent and spirit. We firmly believe that players who embody these core values will change the culture and reestablish the 49er Way — a Brotherhood that will lead us back to competing for championships year after year.”

General Manager John Lynch says, “Culture is the people you surround yourself with. We’ve got to bring quality people to have a great culture… We’re all a product of our experiences.” He says the team “indoctrinates” all of their people in this culture.

He considers their vision “our beacon that reminds us who we are and what we’re  trying to be… If you’re on a sailboat, you have to know which port you’re heading for. Everybody in this building has got to know (what exactly we want). We’ve got to be able to articulate that. It’s got to be crystal clear.” 

The 49ers emblazon their vision statement, place it on walls, and laminate it for distribution. It’s the “guiding light” for the entire organization. 

This unity started upstairs with a collaborative process between the coaching staff and scouting department. It then spread and nurtured strong locker room cohesiveness.

“We haven’t been afraid to tweak the vision statement a little bit when things have changed,” Lynch said. 

Others in the NFL are learning from the 49ers. Teams have hired away three coaching assistants as their head coach and selected two of the four participants in that original vision statement meeting as their General Manager.

Countless innovative projects in other arenas are developing similar approaches, even within hierarchical organizations. Key elements include maximizing collaboration on all levels. Articulating a written vision that everyone understands and embraces. Ensuring everyone has a voice and feels heard. Developing a collective culture that affirms both measurable goals and intangible personal qualities. Attention to the importance of culture. An intentional commitment to establishing new structures that cultivate personal and collective growth. Cultivating joy and contagious enthusiasm. Mutual support for self-development. 

The Compassionate Humanity Community website has long affirmed these ideas. 

Cultural changes in the NFL are also manifest in its Inspire Change social justice initiative. The NFL has dedicated more than $300 million to grants approved by the Player-Owner Social Justice Committee. This project “drives further progress” in police-community relations, criminal justice reform, education, and economic advancement. It is

aimed at reducing barriers to opportunity, particularly in communities of color, and showcasing how the NFL family is working together to create positive change. Inspire Change comes to life at all levels of the league — current and former players: NFL teams and ownership; and throughout the league office.

The Criminal Justice Reform component Just City 

will continue its Clean Slate advocacy, which has sealed the criminal histories of hundreds of people and eliminated statewide barriers to expungement; expand Court Watch to bring more transparency and accountability to local criminal courts; and build out its Public Data Accountability Project.

The Police-Community Relations component includes the Vera Institute of Justice which “will partner with cities nationwide to implement policies that reduce the scope of law enforcement responses to health and social issues.”

These reforms are not revolutionary in and of themselves. Nevertheless, they plant seeds for an egalitarian cultural revolution. These seeds increase awareness of the need for more fairness and kindness throughout society. 

Maybe someday, people who see the need for more mutual respect, bottom-up power, economic security for all, and personal and community empowerment will come together and demand compassionate changes in public policy, knowing it will be necessary to be in the streets in massive numbers, engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience as needed.