Beneficence

Open Source Economics

For my new friends who are open source afficianados, there's this link from Marginal Revolution. I'm hanging in there and learning!

Have been "off-blog" for too many days now. Lot's of work piled on my desk--well, it's actually all on the floor now, as I just bought a new stand-up desk and haven't yet finished putting it together. Too bad the desk fairies don't come in and handle all of it at night while I sleep! Wonder why only cobblers have their own little elves!?

Managing the Commons

David Pollard asks whether there isn't a middle way between neocon and liberal strategies for managing common spaces. Good question!

Interesting that there are increasing spaces like this where real communication among progressives and libertarians might take place, but seemingly few links between. Lessig and perhaps James Surowiecki are among the most likely cross-pollinators I've come across.

Some might like to have a look at Marginal Revolution, where James Surowiecki is currently guest blogging.

Another Fall

After writing my post on original sin this morning it strikes me that I have also fallen from those nice manners of Southern ladies that my mama tried to teach me: That the subjects of religion, politics, and money don't make for polite dinner conversation! Seems that those are the most intriguing topics of all, and we're hitting them all here! What a great place is this blog-world, where new civilities and manners can be worked out. Thanks to all my interlocutors!

Conblogation

Chris Corrigan is still sharing with us his reflections as he reads Lewis Hyde's The Gift.

Chances are we won't be able to slow Chris down sufficiently to catch up with him, but what if some of us cross-posting in these spaces were to select something that we could read and blog about simultaneously.

I recently hosted an online conversation in a private discussion space that was facilitated by Amy Kass. We had about a dozen participants talking about two short readings in her book, The Perfect Gift.

Now that I'm beginning to get the hang of this blogging stuff it seems that we could do something similar out here in the open. I have a few extra copies of The Perfect Gift if anyone wants to take me up on it! We would simply agree on a reading and a time frame in which we would begin blogging. Could be fun.

Lay Your Hammer Down

In his recent commencement address at Hilldsale College, Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation makes a compelling call for civil discourse. Explaining how incivility fuels incivility (by way of discussing James Wilson's "broken windows theory"), Feulner writes:

What we see today, I am afraid, is an accelerating competition between the left and the right to see which side can inflict the most damage with the hammer of incivility. Increasingly, those who take part in public debates appear to be exchanging ideas when, in fact, they are trading insults: idiot, liar, moron, traitor.

He then enjoins the graduating class at Hillsdale:

After four years of study at Hillsdale, you know the difference between attacking a person's argument and attacking a person's character. Respect that difference.

I'm thrilled to read these remarks, which echo some of my own considerations in this space. Makes me proud to have once worked with Ed at Heritage.

I wonder further whether it isn't also incumbent upon us all to remember as well that when someone attacks our argument, they may not necessarily be attacking our character. An important but overlooked virtue of a free, self-governing people is their slowness to take offense.

In a world where public discourse is increasingly marked by incivilities of ad hominem argument and invective, we all get bristly and rise too quickly to defend our character when what is needed is more clear headed and calm persuasion.

I believe the trends of incivility are accelerated by our tendencies to separate ourselves off into pure enclaves, where we can interact mostly with those who think like us. The more we take our identities from our political/ideological cohorts, the more difficult it is to think clearly--without taking personal offense--about arguments against the ideas we hold dear. In this way, ideas truly may have consequences, and perverse, unintended ones at that. It does us all good to be reminded how easily we wield our hammers, and how quickly everything outside our own worldview begins to look like a nail.

Uplift Improv

Tom Munnecke at Uplift makes an Opening Uplift Improv Offer:

We need to create more Weapons of Mass Affection, giving our societies more ways of connecting with each other in positive, life-affirming ways.

Please continue this line of thinking on your blog, beginning Yes, and... and linking back to this entry.

See Tom's blog for the background on this, but here goes...

Yes, and let's call them not "weapons" but "gifts" of mass affection.

Serious Popcorn

Martha Bayles, a friend from my days in DC and author of Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music has started a new blog at ArtsJournal called Serious Popcorn. I'm looking forward to being able to follow her reflections on the way to the theater. She promises that

while I will bash movies that deserve it, my focus will be positive. Despite what's in the theaters on any given day, we are living in a golden age of film. The number of superb movies each year is not in the triple or even double digits. But amazingly, they keep coming. Film is the chief narrative art of our time, and for all its problems, it's flourishing.

And don't you love the name of the blog!? When you pay $7 for a tub of popcorn, you have to really be serious! My husband, Steve, is notorious for refusing to stand in line and pay for popcorn at these prices. I notice that he never manages to keep his hand out of my bucket, though. My own little way of being beneficent, I suppose...

Corporate Contributions

In what he calls an invitation to conversation, Phil Cubeta at GiftHub writes:

I look forward to sharing whatever thoughts I have toward an ethic of giving that encompasses both liberty and justice for all, while ordering the licentious liberty of corporations, disciplining them to give mightily for the commonweal.

Yes, Phil, I'm chuckling. And while I'm the first to say that tort law is a critical component of a free nation-- despite it's frivolous treatment by many of America's ravenous trial lawyers--I think the corporations are doing pretty well on their own to give mightily for the commonweal. There's hardly one thing on that list that I would willingly live without these days. And it does not rub me the wrong way at all that some folks get to drive Rolls Royces for working hard to organize a group of people to bring such "contributions" to fruition and to market.

For a closer look at the extent of the medical liability crisis, I hope Phil will take a look at some of these stories.

American Generosity

I happened upon this old post of Will Wilkinson's with a link to an intriguing little piece by Lawrence Lindsay on American generosity. Lindsay focuses on materialism and individualism as cornerstones of our generosity, and it's worth pondering his reflections.