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The spreading of Wall-Mart
In many communities a heated debate rages about whether to welcome a new Wal-Mart to town. But there’s another Wall-Mart we should be debating. It’s the marketing of Walls to keep people different from ourselves out. These Walls can be seen from Israel to the US-Mexican border to your nearest gated community to now Iraq. What is it about Walls? People have used them throughout history to keep others out. They can make us feel safe; they can even produce safety. Look at Israel’s Wall in the West Bank. Suicide bombings and other forms of attacks are reportedly way down since its construction. Just this morning I heard on National Public Radio that American soldiers have started building a Wall late at night in a besieged Sunni neighborhood. The Prime Minister of Iraq now says he wants the Americans to stop. According to NPR, people in the neighborhood don’t want to be “caged in.” During a recent speech a gentleman asked me whether the physical development of US communities is undermining our sense of connection to one another and to public life. It’s a question I hear more frequently nowadays. The answer: a lot. Many new US communities are now gated, and some older neighborhoods have retrofitted themselves with gates, Jersey barriers, and Walls. I must tell you that when I thought about writing this piece, I felt a tinge of built-in ambivalence about Walls myself. (Even though people tell me that effective bloggers should always take strong and clear positions.) It’s not hard to understand why some people may be so fearful that they see no alternative but to build a Wall. Indeed, a wall may be a short-term response to acute or festering problems that have no apparent remedy. But my concern is that we see the Wall as the remedy. I can think of no society in which a Wall brought about peace and stability – whether here or abroad. It denies people their most basic aspirations to be a part of something larger than themselves and their close-knit circles. It allows us to put our hands over our ears, to shut our eyes, to close off our hearts to others. It is a form of escapism that only comes back to bite us. Now, I do not intend to sound utopian here; I am no utopian. I believe we must be practical and pragmatic in these matters; I also believe that our pragmatism must be informed by a deep sense of ideals – that we have faith in ourselves that we can do better. This means being clear that it is much easier to build Walls than to tear them down. It means that we must not reach for “Walls” as a way to sidestep alternative solutions or to face up to our own missteps. Our efforts should be in trying to scale the Walls that others have built, not to build new Walls. Building a Wall gives rise to the stench of defeat. The Wall itself is the very symbol of defeat. It signals to everyone in concrete terms that we cannot find a way forward. It suggests that some lives are more valuable than others. It turns the people we are seeking to keep out into “the other,” a pawn, an objectified opponent. Maybe there are short-term reasons to build a protective wall. But the spreading of Walls should tell us something about our own society and where we find ourselves. The building of Walls should make us stop to consider what we are doing and whether our current approaches are working – whether they are pragmatically effective and true to our ideals. Is our plan to build Walls whenever we cannot solve a problem? -
The antidote to today's news
The last seven days have made a week to remember. We started off with Imus in the Morning, abruptly returned to the Duke rape case, and now find ourselves facing the unimaginable tragedy at Virginia Tech. Meanwhile, troubling scenes from Iraq and Afghanistan of U.S. soldiers (and locals) being maimed and killed, only escalate. All this activity makes one wonder if we have momentarily lost our senses.
• Could it be true, for instance, that a relatively silent but corrosive racism lingers just beneath the surface of society – and that it exists to a much greater extent than we are willing to admit or deal with?
• How was it that a popularly-elected district attorney could hijack a case that put three college-aged kids through hell, while much of society stood by and cheered him on, reflexively assuming the students were guilty?
• How many U.S. soldiers must die – and how many Iraqi and Afghan people must perish – before there is an open and honest debate over a real course for this war. How long will we allow our leaders, news media, and others simply to use the war for rhetorical and political games?
• At what point are we willing to tell demagogues to go home with their belligerent and hurtful words – no matter their political party, race, or religion? When will we tell them to stop polluting our public square?
• What should we say to kids across America about the situation at Virginia Tech? Is it that something in society has gone awry, or are they to believe that such violence – from Virginia Tech to Columbine to 9/11 to the war overseas – is just part of their times?
My own sense is that while most people want to find ways to remain safe and secure, sometimes even withdrawing form the larger society, they believe deeply that events such as those we have witnessed this week require a response. There is a yearning among people to reconnect; a desire to give better shape to our society; a hope that we can take a different course.
To make our aspirations real will require that we reclaim the public square – nothing less. I say this not to promote one particular position or another on some specific challenge. Instead, my point is that changing our path requires that we engage with the kinds of questions I listed earlier – with our kids, with each other, with leaders.
We must know that there is no magic mechanism for easily engaging all of us on such topics; there is no single way to cultivate and harness our public sentiments and ultimately our political will to change course.
The starting point is with each of us – to make these issues our own, to make our voices heard (from discussions at home and in our schools, through polls and town meetings, to call-in shows, etc), and to make clear what we hold to be valuable. Then we can feel more safe and secure, and possibly make sense of these trying times.
We can each start now in our own small ways. Eventually such efforts do make a difference, because eventually they do get heard. That’s how we see movement, however big or small, on such concerns as the war and global climate change and various local issues.
If you agree with me, pass this entry along to others. Talk with them. We can reclaim the public square, piece by piece.
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The painted desk and our charity
I have a visceral negative reaction when I hear about “charity” these days. I’m not sure my reaction is either healthy or wise, but then again it keeps coming up. I can’t seem to escape it as I travel the country. Maybe someone can set me straight. Think about the following: • When I brought my daughter to visit colleges this past week, all the schools talked about “service.” Indeed, at one university, the tour guide proudly proclaimed that a few “needy students” are brought to the campus green every year to paint their desks with the help of college students. She beamed when telling us how great her fellow co-eds feel about the experience. • I am running into more and more people who have taken or plan to send their kids to Costa Rica (or some other destination) to build housing for the poor. • During my recent visit to New Orleans, I was taken aback by the sheer size of that community’s challenge and yet how long it takes for a single group of individuals to rebuild a single home. • A recent Google Foundation study noted that a significant portion of charitable giving does not go to people in need, but supports things like religious organizations (non-soup kitchen-type activities, like a concert I just attended) and people’s favorite local non-profits – all worthy causes, but many support of our own immediate interests and not the most needy among us. These and other efforts lead me to a series of questions that I hope you’ll have something to say about: • What happens when the efforts of volunteers get more emphasis than the people in need? This question is no red herring. Increasingly, for baby boomers and their kids (I’m just barely included in this group!), we’re told over and over that “It’s all about you!” and “We’re working hard to give you a great volunteer experience!” While it may be essential to find new ways to ‘hook” people into volunteering, we must not make volunteering the next new consumer-driven experience. It’s the person in need who should be the focus of our concerns. • When people go to another country to volunteer, do they understand that needs exist right here in their local communities? I’m not saying that having an “international experience” is not useful or important. After all, the Peace Corps is wonderful and has been for years. But as I hear people talk about volunteering, especially for a week or so, it sometimes seems as if they’re going on a travel excursion or vacation rather than going off to help their fellow human beings. At times, we can sound on the verge of creating a culture of “designer volunteer trips.” What’s more, some of the same people who boast about their international volunteering seem to have little knowledge of the needs right next door. • When is volunteering important but not enough – and when should we push for change? Indeed, it seems that we can sometimes use volunteering as a way to put-off larger societal decisions that we need to make. Take the magnitude of the Gulf Coast situation: while individual volunteers are needed (and do incredible work), a larger collective response is required, too, if that area is to combat inadequate public schools, poor housing, and other ailments. I believe that citizen action in areas like the Gulf Coast, and in our own communities, is pivotal to bringing about real and sustainable change; but such action must be more than the kind of volunteering I’ve mentioned above. • How should we think about the impact of our volunteering? Surely, we can talk about the personal and spiritual growth that occurs within each volunteer. I’m all for that; indeed, I have personally benefited from such engagement. But what about the impact on the students with the desks I mentioned earlier – while one or two, or even five, newly painted desks are all for the good, let us not mistakenly think that we’ve licked the educational problem in that or other communities. Nor should building a few homes in Costa Rica allow us to believe that fundamental issues in that area have been resolved. Instead, in our desire to help, in our genuine giving, we must maintain a clear sense of understanding in what we have achieved – and what remains to be done. My concern is that we sometimes allow the very idea and act of volunteering to lull us into a safe comfort zone in which we don’t have to face up to the larger change that is required in society. I’m sure some of us feel that we can’t effect larger change, so we’ll start by painting a desk or two. Then, at least someone is helped. True enough, someone is helped by such acts of kindness. And these acts help to make a better society, in many, many different ways. But when it comes to volunteering, I want us to be more forthright about our efforts and more focused on those people truly in need. -
Innate goodness of people
Among the key ideas I find myself emphasizing as I travel the country is the following: I believe people are born with innate goodness and they are in search of ways to express it – especially nowadays. This may seem like either pure pablum to some people or obvious to others. But in my travels, neither is true. Indeed, when I remind people of this notion – when I voice it publicly – their faces quickly show a sign of relief and possibility. What I am not suggesting is that evil or bad things don’t exist; we all know they do. But so too does our innate goodness. Of course, this goodness is seen clearly and convincingly from time-to- time when we are called to respond to a major crisis like Hurricane Katrina, or when we witness it in our individual private lives. But in public life the notion of innate goodness is too often missing or even belittled. It has been crowded out by the acrimony and divisiveness thrust upon us; by a politics which gauges a candidate’s success by their ability to raise record-breaking amounts of donations, even if the candidate fails to reflect our concerns; by an obsession with the personal destruction of opponents and the near-constant questioning of each other’s motivations. The result of these and other trends is to denigrate and cheapen public life. They signal to people that goodness has little or no place in our public arena. They warn people that unless they are ready to do battle under the current rules of engagement, they will be run over or run out. Just when do we say enough is enough? When do we say to these purveyors of mistrust and mischief that they have no right to take over the public arena and make a mockery of people’s genuine concerns and heart-felt aspirations? Last week I visited Hartsville, South Carolina and just weeks before, I was in Newark, New Jersey. I suspect many people would think that these two places could not be more different from each other – here, a Red state and Blue state; a rural community and an urban area; one place in relatively good economic shape, the other still desperate. But in reality people in both places had similar things to say – and most of them are tired of a public life and politics that takes us no place good. I have said much about how to improve public life and politics here in this space; yes, I believe that progress will come by building small pockets of change to propel us forward; by us standing publicly next to good leaders who need our support and for whom we must vouch; by creating boundary spanning organizations that can span across dividing lines and help up us to see each other and work together. But today, what I want to say most of all is what I have come to say over and over again on the road: People hold an innate sense of goodness and it is waiting to be expressed. The task of our leaders and of ourselves is to make room for this innate goodness – to give it space to emerge and find its expression; to harness it in ways that enable people to join together for productive common purposes; and to tell stories that reflect its power and persuasion. But let’s be clear. Emphasizing our innate goodness is not simply about charity or volunteering. It is about our most basic orientations in public life and politics – about whether we hold the belief that we are capable of finding ways to come together even amid our disagreements and dislikes, or whether we will retreat to the sidelines to allow negativity and inaction to win the day.