The psychologist John Gottman discovered a fundamental condition of successful romantic relationships (which is consistent with my experience of 21 happy years of marriage). Partners frequently make “bids” for positive attention. Emily Esfahani Smith illustrates with an example: “the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, ‘Look at that beautiful bird outside!’ He’s not just commenting on the bird here: he’s requesting a response from his wife—a sign of interest or support—hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird.” Couples who stay together respond positively to each others’ bids an average of 86% of the time. Couples who end up divorcing respond only 33% of the time.
The opening scene of the Marriage of Figaro is set in the room that Figaro and Susanna expect to occupy after their wedding the next day. They are alone together. Figaro is busy measuring the space for the bed that they will share. He sings a foursquare, masculine theme that has been identified as a march. Simultaneously but separately, Susanna is admiring herself in a new hat and telling herself how happy it makes her. Singing in her own ornamented and undulating gavotte, she asks Figaro to pay attention for a moment: “look a little, my dear Figaro.” He keeps on counting, and she keeps on asking: their two themes now playing in counterpoint. She gets more insistent as her light gavotte turns forceful: “look a little / will you look already at my hat!” At that point, Figaro notices her bid. He switches to her melody and meter to reply, “Yes, my heart, it is very pretty. It really seems to have been made for me. Ah, next morning at our wedding …” Susanna answers in counterpoint, “How sweet is my tender groom,” as Figaro keeps singing about the “beautiful little hat.” Their melodic lines join as they sing the same lyrics about their wedding.
If you interpret the duet as a competition or struggle of wills, then Susanna wins. Daniel Heartz (1987) writes:
Susanna makes Figaro sing her tune to her rhythm, while complimenting her on her hat. With this little drama in music, which almost needs no text, Mozart has succeeded in foreshadowing the entire opera in the first number. By the end of Act 4 Figaro will have been taught a lesson by Susanna, and learnt to sing her tune for good, we hope, with regard to matters of trust and mutual respect between them. The conflict of march and gavotte, of military masculinity with the feminine grace of one of the most gallant court dances, will [recur in later scenes as well].”
But I’d prefer to see the scene as win/win. Each partner makes a bid and each replies. As soon as the duet concludes, Susanna asks in recitative, “What are you so busy measuring, little Figaro?” Statistics predict that these two will have a happy marriage.
source: Heartz, Daniel (1987). “Constructing Le nozze di Figaro.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 112.1, 77-98. For a more detailed analysis of the duettino, see Stephen Rumph, Mozart and Enlightenment Semiotics, University of California Press 2011. And see why romantic relationships do not function like markets.
In case you missed our original announcement, we want to remind everyone that we are hosting our next Confab Call event this Thursday, May 4th from 3-4pm Eastern/12-1pm Pacific. You won’t want to miss it, so be sure to register today!
The Confab will feature the insights Rich Bartlett and MJ Kaplan, two of the co-founders of a non-heirarchical, cooperative organization called Loomio that has helped develop online tools to help groups across the globe make consensus-style decisions. But instead of focusing on the tech side of Loomio, we’ll take a dive into their cooperative’s internal dynamics. We’ll look at Loomio’s unique decision-making processes, talk about the ins and outs of “flat” organizations, and think about what the D&D field and non-hierarchical cooperatives like theirs can learn from each other.
We’re sure to have a rich, lively discussion on the call, and you can sign up to be part of it today!
This Confab Call is a “virtual stop” on a US tour that Loomio staff have embarked upon to host discussions with groups who want to share and reflect on “the challenges and delights of non-hierarchical, inclusive, intersectional, collaborative, horizontal organising.” There are many ways that what we do in the D&D field applies to, intersects with, and diverges from the kinds of shared work and collaborative workplaces Loomio embodies and supports, and we hope this conversation can serve as a jump off point for a deeper exploration of those commonalities and differences.
Don’t miss the chance to be part of this provocative conversastion – register today to join us! For more background on Loomio or on Rich and MJ, check out our original announcement at ncdd.org/23494.
The resource, The Civic Engagement Primer, from Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE) was released April 2017. It was designed to help philanthropies explore fostering civic engagement interests and increase their understanding of the civic engagement field. You can view the primer’s write up from PACE below and check out the primer on PACE’s site here.
From the site…
A new conversation about civic engagement is emerging. At PACE–a network of funders and foundations committed to civic engagement and democracy–we’ve seen the swell in interest and urgency around this work firsthand. Philanthropies are continuing to understand the civic engagement field and the role they can play in its future. We’re getting a lot of questions–things like:
What is civic engagement? How is it defined and what does it look?We don’t have all the answers, but we do have this:
This Civic Engagement Primer–also known as the #PACEprimer–is a resource designed to explore these questions and help philanthropies assess their interest and understanding in civic engagement, and ultimately help them along their journey toward integrating it into their work. This tool is intended for:
It should take users 20-30 minutes to work through the Civic Engagement Primer. At the end, we hope philanthropies will:
Click here to view PACE’s Civic Engagement Primer. Continue reading
Did you know that NCDD member Mark Gerzon did his own TED Talk recently?
We were proud to see Mark – the Founder and President of NCDD member org, the Mediators Foundation – speak at TEDxVail this past January about the need for our country to deepen the work of #BridgingOurDivides between the partisan left and right blocs. In his talk, he challenges us to take inspiration from the integration of the left and right parts of our own physiology as we consider the importance of going beyond partisanship.
We think Mark’s selection for this prestigious opportunity speaks to the power of the sorts of ideas that drive the work of NCDD. We encourage you to join us in congratulating Mark on the accomplishment, and check out his 11 minute talk below.
It’s widely argued that the federal government made concessions on civil rights between 1945 and 1970 because blatant racial oppression was embarrassing during the global struggle against communism. Doug McAdam illustrates this argument by noting the “stark contrast” between FDR and Truman on issues of racial justice. FDR was an extraordinarily powerful president who tended toward liberal personal attitudes on race and drew overwhelming support from Black voters in the North, yet he did virtually nothing for civil rights–not even endorsing anti-lynching bills that were pending in Congress. Truman held more ambiguous views and faced political peril, yet he took substantial steps to desegregate the military and civil service. McAdam, following other authors, attributes the difference to the onset of the Cold War.
This explanation has two slightly dispiriting implications (not for McAdam, but for other observers). One is that White American leaders didn’t respond to moral arguments, principles, or empathy; they simply wanted to win a geopolitical struggle. The other is that the Civil Rights Movement succeeded thanks to a fortunate circumstance, not due to its own courage and excellence.
What those inferences overlook is the skillful and principled ways that the Movement took advantage of openings to shift Whites’ hearts and minds.
First, Movement leaders intentionally provoked responses that would look ugly on national TV. After the setback experienced in Albany, GA, where local authorities behaved civilly but refused to budge, the Movement rushed to Birmingham, AL to confront Bull Connor during his lame-duck period because they knew he could be counted on to respond with brutality. The Cold War made the US vulnerable, and the movement took full advantage.
Second, the protesters wrapped themselves in the flag, the constitution, and other symbols of American patriotism. I am sure this was sincere–I read thinkers like King and Rustin as genuine patriots. But it was also smart.
As McAdam concludes: “the extraordinary string of civil rights victories achieved in the 1950s and 1960s (and beyond) has to be accounted as owing at least as much to the creativity and courage of movement forces as to favourable environmental circumstances.” Stephen Jones argues that successful social movements almost always need both “luck and pluck.”
The skill and success of the Civil Rights Movement then echoed in unexpected ways. In Communist states such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, television footage of brutal American racism was widely aired to discredit the US. These regimes also broadcast antinuclear protests from Western Europe. At least some viewers identified themselves with the protesters–and the communist state with the oppressors. They learned that nonviolent social movements could succeed against powerful governments like their own.
Aldon D. Morris writes, “in the early days of the Solidarity movement in Poland, Bayard Rustin, a major tactician of the civil rights movement, was summoned to Poland to give a series of colloquia and speeches on how nonviolent direct action worked in the civil rights movement.” Later, the Tiananmen protesters in China learned “that King’s methods of non-violence and civil disobedience had helped the blacks win civil rights in the United States. They were also impressed by King’s interactions with American presidents in that effort, which offered them a model to follow when they requested a meeting with China’s leaders.”
A movement for universal human rights embarrassed a government ostensibly committed to those values. Foreign dictatorships then tried to exploit this embarrassment, only to inspire similar movements against themselves. This is a story of some luck and lots of pluck.
Sources: Doug McAdam, “The US Civil Rights Movement: Power from Below and Above, 1945-70,” Merle Goldman, “The 1989 Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square and Beyond: Echoes of Gandhi,” and Stephen Jones, “Georgia’s ‘Rose Revolution’ of 2003: A Forceful Peace,” all in Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash (eds.), Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Aldon Morris, “A Retrospective on the Civil Rights Movement: Political and Intellectual Landmarks,” Annual Review of Sociology vol. 25, no 1 (Nov. 2003), pp. 517-539.