The New Animism and Commoning

Posted on January 28, 2020 by David Bollier

Rajesh Pamnani via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.

As I have learned about the social life of trees and the intimate bonds that indigenous peoples have with various lifeforms and rivers -- as I pore through recent ecophilosophy that explains aliveness to the western mind -- I’ve concluded: We really ought to be talking more about animism and commoning.

Scientific rationalism and economistic thinking may be the dominant forces of our time, but they aren't so good at creating social purpose and meaning. Which may help explain why evidence of a new animism keeps popping up as a way to re-enchant the world, often finding its voice through commoning. This should not be too surprising, suggests ecophilosopher Andreas Weber, because the biology of life points to reality itself as a commons.

Commons are realms of life defined by organic wholeness and relationality. They stand in stark contrast to a modern world whose hallmark is separation -- the separation of humans from “nature”; of individuals from each other; and a separation between our minds and our bodies.

To be sure, animism has a problematic history. Early anthropologists generally projected their own worldviews onto tribal peoples, denigrating them as backward. As staunch Cartesians and moderns, they saw body and mind as utterly separate. So anyone who ascribed a living presence to animals, mountains and natural forces could only be seen as "primitive" and "superstitious."

But today’s animism (as seen through western eyes) is different. It sees the experience of life as a dynamic conversation among the creatures and natural systems of the Earth. It is about surrendering an anthrocentric vision and seeing the world as “full of persons, only some of whom are human,” in which “life is always lived in relationship with others,” as religious studies scholar Graham Harvey has put it. Animism is “concerned with learning how to be a good person in respectful relationships with other persons.” It resembles the “I-thou” relationship of respectful presence proposed by theologian Martin Buber.

For me, two recent readings have brought animism into sharper focus for me.

The first is a piece in The Guardian by British nature writer Robert Macfarlane (November 2, 2019) that points to “new animism” on the rise. He starts by mentioning a number of “rights of nature” laws that have been enacted around the world. Ecuador and Bolivia are the the most famous cases, but did you realize that the City of Toledo, Ohio – on the banks of Lake Erie – approved a referendum in 2019 that gives “legal personhood” to that troubled lake? Lake Erie now joins the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India and the Whanganui River in New Zealand in enjoying legal standing in their respective nation-states.

Macfarlane explains the significance of the Lake Erie Ecosystem Bill of Rights:

Embedded in the bill is a bold ontological claim – that Lake Erie is a living being, not a bundle of ecosystem services. The bill is, really, a work of what might be called “new animism” (the word comes from the Latin anima, meaning spirit, breath, life). By reassigning both liveliness and vulnerability to the lake, it displaces Erie from its instrumentalised roles as sump and source. As such, the bill forms part of a broader set of comparable recent legal moves in jurisdictions around the world – all seeking to recognise interdependence and animacy in the living world, and often advanced by indigenous groups – which have together come to be known as the “natural rights” or “rights of nature” movement.

Macfarlane goes on to say that a “’radical re-storying’ is presently under way across culture, theory, politics and literature, as well as law” that can be seen in “the creative protests of Extinction Rebellion; in the “new animist” scholarship of Isabelle Stengers, David Abram and Eduardo Kohn” and the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer. I would add the ecophilosophy of Andreas Weber (“Biology of Wonder” “Matter and Desire”) and Stephan Harding (“Animate Earth”).

All these efforts, says Macfarlane, “seek to recognise something we had turned away from: that is to say, the presence and proximity of nonhuman interlocutors,” in the words of Amitav Ghosh.

I have also been quite taken by Eduardo Kohn’s 2013 book How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human. Kohn boldly asks the modern mind to show humility in how it thinks about and represents “nature.” It asks that we try to see the more-than-human world as a vast living system of “biosemiotics” – embodied, living organisms that are constantly creating meaning as they interact with each other.

Kohn warns that we moderns are “colonized by certain ways of thinking about relationality…. Without realizing it we attribute to nonhumans properties that are our own, and then, to compound this, we narcissistically ask them [nonhumans] to provide us with corrective reflections of ourselves.”

So in our modern world of separation, we assume that “nature” is all about individuals striving to survive a dog-eat-dog market competition, ignoring the deep symbiosis and cooperation that is a major part of all biological life. We also assume that the natural world is inert, unfeeling, and without meaning – a mute backdrop for the drama of humankind.

Kohn spent four years doing ethnographic fieldwork among the Runa of the Upper Amazon in Ecuador, an experience that forced him to rethink the meaning of “real.” He brilliantly argues that our planet is alive, literally, and therefore we humans, as biological beings, are deeply implicated in “a complex web of relations that [he calls] an ‘ecology of selves.’”

Whether an organism presents as a threat to others, a sometime-cooperator, or a distant support through the landscape, living creatures must always invent a "self." The whole process of generating and sustaining living selves creates “meaning” embodied in the shape, behavior, and expression of an organism. Or as Kohn puts it, “All life is semiotic and all semiosis is alive.” Life and meaning cannot exist without each other.

Hence the explanation for the book’s title. Kohn argues that forests think as its constituent living organisms interpenetrate each other in highly complicated ways, giving rise to an ecosystem of selves, whether plants or animals or microorganisms.

That’s what is so difficult for we moderns to understand -- the aliveness and relationality that pervades our planet! It’s not just humans who are alive and having thoughts. All sorts of living organisms are creating selves and meaning, independent of human observation and activity. “The rain forest, writes Kohn, is “an emergent and expanding multilayered, cacophonous web of mutually constitutive, living, and growing thoughts.”

The question is, Can we tune into that frequency, the “vast ecology of selves” that are inscrutable to modern epistemologies and ways of knowing? Can we moderns allow ourselves to enter into the logic of how forests think? Can we learn to see the relations between plants and soil, for example, or between human and jaguar, as forms of living representation and meaning, even if they lie beyond linguistics?

We are so accustomed to seeing ourselves as separate and apart from “nature” – as the apex predator that can reshape “nature” however we wish – that we have trouble situating ourselves within the flows and constraints of a living planet. We presume to be masters of “nature” – a presumption ratified by language itself. Western cultures have a strong preference for using generic, abstract nouns whereas indigenous cultures tend to use precise verbs that name relationships and interactions with living systems. Indigenous languages reflect the idea that “there exist other kinds of thinking selves beyond the human.”

I resonate to the new animism because, like the commons, it is about honoring relationality as a core reality of life. That’s an idea that Silke and I tried to feature in our new book Free, Fair and Alive. We wanted to reconceptualize the commons as a living social system of relationships, not merely as an economic vehicle for “managing resources.”

Commoning is all about the peer construction of relationships, including with the large ecosystems in which we live. Fortunately, the new rights of nature laws, scholarly literature on animism, and the proliferation of countless commons are fueling the great OntoShift that is needed. Aliveness and the relationality it requires are getting their due recognition.

new CIRCLE poll of Iowa youth

Posted on January 24, 2020 by Peter

Here is one finding from CIRCLE’s survey of young Iowans, released today. The differences between younger and older Iowa Democrats on Sanders v. Biden are pretty striking.

Although people always overestimate their chances of participating in future elections, 35% of young Iowans say they are “extremely likely” to participate in the presidential caucus. That suggests a substantial increase in youth turnout compared to past years.

The release is on CIRCLE’s awesome new website, also launched today and valuable to explore.

It’s Election Time Again! A Mock Primary Election Resource for You!

Posted on January 23, 2020 by stevemasy

mock election

One of the most important components of a quality civic education involves allowing students to engage in simulations of democratic practices. So on that note, please consider having your students take part in the upcoming mock primary election, sponsored by the Lou Frey Institute and the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections!

This mock election is 100%, and open to all K-12 schools in Florida. The platform is provided by DoubleClick Democracy, and is simple and easy to use.

If you are interested in using this platform with your district, school, or class, contact the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship’s Action Civics Coordinator, Chris Spinale, and he will get you set up!

Let’s get these kids practicing those skills necessary to thrive in a democratic republic!

Ivo Andric, Bosnian Chronicle, Or, The Days of the Consuls

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Peter

Ivo Andric,* the 1961 Nobel Laureate in Literature, wrote the book variously translated as Bosnian Chronicle or The Days of the Consuls during WWII. It depicts his hometown, Travnik in Bosnia, during the years 1807-1813. I read it as translated by Joseph Hitrec (New York, Arcade, 1963).

Andric introduces scores of characters clustered in seven main groups: the “Begs” (Ottoman chiefs), the Vizier’s court, the French consulate, the Austrian consulate, the Franciscan monastery, the bazaar, and the Sephardic Jewish community.

He describes relationships between pairs of people within these clusters and from one cluster to another. For the most part, these interactions take the form of bilateral meetings and conversations, but there are other formats as well. For instance, an important character in the French consulate, Desfosses, has a largely wordless flirtation with the wife of the Austrian consul. At various points, the French consul sees across the darkened town the candlelight from the Austrian consulate and from a Moslem mausoleum: a physical manifestation of links between clusters.

These interactions create a dense lattice, and I have the sense that they are arranged carefully, with symmetry and other forms of rhythm. I have not taken the time to explore the whole pattern carefully, but, for example, the Prologue and the Epilogue both describe conversations among the Begs, who otherwise rarely speak to anyone. There are 28 chapters, and the 14th tells of the sexual crisis between Desfosses and the Austrian consul’s wife, thus linking the French and Austrian consulates in a debacle of misunderstanding.

In the first chapter, the newly arrived French consul, Daville, receives a cold welcome from the people of Travnik. His “little cavalcade passed through the town arousing little or no interest among the Travnichani. The Moslems pretended not to see it, while the Christians dared not show undue attention.”

In the final chapter, Daville and a Travnik Jew named Solomon experience a moving moment of near-contact just before the Frenchman rides out of Travnik for the last time. Solomon generously assists Daville with money because he wants to convey his own experience to the departing Frenchman so that he can be understood, because this would “make everything we have to bear more tolerable.”

But the very desire that filled him so intensely all of a sudden, to convey and impart something more, some important and sweeping truth about his own life and situation and the indignities which the Travnik Atiases had had to endure all these years, prevented him from finding the right manner and the words needed to express, briefly and adequately, what now choked him and started the blood pounding in his ears. And so he began to stammer out, not the things he was so full of and which he longed to express—how they struggled and managed to preserve an invisible strength and dignity—but only the disjointed phrases that came to his tongue.

The narrator explains in detail what Solomon would have said to Daville “had he known how, had he been a man used to speaking his thoughts,” instead of one who, “even in his crib [had not been allowed] to cry out loud, let alone speak freely and clearly during his lifetime.”

In other words, the novel begins and ends with a rift between Daville and the people of Travnik–the first an intentional shunning, the last a pitifully unsuccessful effort to communicate.

Solomon is not the only one who yearns to be heard. Daville, too, seeks

something that neither life nor books could give: a compassionate fellow spirit who would be willing to listen and would have an endless capacity for understanding, to whom he might talk openly and receive lucid and honest answers to all questions. In this dialogue he might then, as in a mirror, see himself for the first time as he really was and learn the true value of his work and determine, without ambiguity, his own position in the world.

The narrator is interested in why almost all of the bilateral conversations are unsatisfactory. For instance, when the wives of the Austrian and French consuls meet,

their talk was bound to falter. When two people converse, one word usually sparks another and together they light a flame, but here the words missed one another and went off in different directions.

Or a married European couple who wash up in Travnik:

But what they needed most urgently, it seemed, was to talk and quarrel, for they neither listened to nor cared to understand each other.

Or a group of ne’er-do-well Travnik Moslems:

they hummed or talked in undertones, with sluggish tongues, disconnectedly, without particular reference to one another’s words. … They looked at one another with unseeing eyes, they listened without hearing …

Or the two European consuls:

A conversation with the Colonel was, in fact, an exchange of data—which were invariably accurate, interesting, and copious, on any and all subjects—but hardly an exchange of thoughts and impressions. Everything about these talks was impersonal, dispassionate, and general. Having said all he wanted to, the Colonel would leave with his rich and precious bag of facts, as fresh, neat, cool, and upright as he had come, and Daville would be left just as lonely as he had been before, his craving for a good talk unappeased. A discussion with the Colonel left nothing for the senses or the soul; one could not even recall the timbre of his voice. His conversation gave the partner no clue to his inner personality, and invited no confidence from the latter.

In chapter 12, soon before the embarrassing sexual encounter between Desfosses and the Austrian consul’s wife (chapter 14), we are introduced to the four doctors of Travnik: one each from the French consulate, the Austrian consulate, the Franciscan monastery, and the Jewish community. The occasion for introducing them is a tragedy that strikes the most morally appealing character in the novel, Mme Daville (who is the opposite of her Austrian counterpart).

Each doctor has a different relationship with his patients and with the other physicians. Each holds a different theory of human health and fate. The best relationship forms between the Franciscan and the Jew, who “had been inseparable friends and confidants” for 20 years. “The Travnik bazaar had long become used to seeing Mordo and Fra Luka huddling and whispering together, or browsing through herbs and medicines.”

The doctor in the Austrian consulate, Cologna, seems initially as inscrutable as the silent Jewish healer, but for the opposite reason: “he talked too much and constantly modified what he said.” However, in chapter 15 (symmetrical with 13), Desfosses initiates an interview with Cologna in which the latter suddenly becomes both eloquent and sincere in describing himself as a man caught between cultures. At the end of his speech,

The doctor dropped his arms with an air of utter hopelessness, of anger almost. There was no vestige left of that queer, elusive “Illyrian doctor” Desfosses had known. Here stood a man who thought his own thoughts and expressed them forcefully. Desfosses burned with the desire to hear and learn more; he had quite forgotten his own feeling of superiority of a little while before and the house he was in and the business on which he had come.

This is one of the fleeting moments of connection that are distributed on the network of misunderstandings that structure the novel.

Many characters–and sometimes the narrator–employ the categories of Europe and the Orient, or East and West, or Europe and the Levant. Such distinctions are problematic in general. To be more specific, some Bosnians have accused Andric of anti-Moslem prejudice in novels like Bosnian Chronicle.

I cannot judge his whole oeuvre and I could easily have missed bias in this novel, but I read it in a different way. I think the East/West distinction is an error on the part of the characters and works as a red herring for the reader. Human faults and frailties are evenly distributed across the communities of the novel. Their common problem is a failure to connect, and such categories as East and West contribute to that that failure. To be sure, the Ottoman government is tyrannical, but the problem is tyranny, not the Turks as a people. (And some of the Ottoman officials are much more appealing than some of the Christians.)

Apparently, the 1961 Nobel committee considered E.M. Forster along with Andric (and others). The comparison seems fitting, since Forster’s catchphrase, “Only connect,” could also be the motto of Bosnian Chronicle. But I think that gaol is much harder in Andric’s world than in Forster’s.

*His name should be spelled with a diacritical mark under the “c,” but for reasons that I can diagnose but not fix, my website won’t display diacriticals.

Summer Peacebuilding Institute Scholarship Deadline: 1/31

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Keiva Hummel

Our friends at the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) sent out a reminder yesterday via their newsletter that SPI 2020 scholarship deadlines are quickly approaching on January 31st! This phenomenal program offered by NCDD member org, the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, is an opportunity to learn from leaders in the D&D field about conflict transformation, restorative justice, and more. Courses can be taken to improve your skills or for academic credit (and they now offer an M.A. in Restorative Justice program). Read more in the post below and on the Summer Peacebuilding Institute site here.

Summer Peacebuilding Institute – Dedicated Scholarship deadline January 31, 2020

Gain the Skills You Need Personally and Professionally

To build a more peaceful and just world, we need to work effectively at community and local/regional levels in every country, starting with our own. SPI 2020 training courses offer the skills you need personally and professionally to make this happen. Join us for an exciting time of shared learning across national boundaries. All courses are offered for training or academic credit.

This year we are offering a wide variety of courses on topics including, but not limited to:

Trauma awareness
Leadership
Social media and violent extremism
Transforming harmful community spaces through collaboration
Racial healing and challenging systemic racism
Restorative justice
Circle processes
Building personal and organizational resilience
Designing facilitated processes
Using media and the arts for peacebuilding and security

Click here for more information on all courses at SPI 2020, instructor bios, costs, and information about our annual Community Day event on February 14, 2020, that creates a one-day, SPI in miniature.

Scholarships and Fellowship Opportunities
We know that personal and organizational budgets are sometimes stretched tight and many of you may have difficulty fully financing your time at SPI. We have several scholarships and a fellowship to help those with need. Many of our scholarships do not have a deadline, but the deadline for our dedicated scholarships and our fellowship is January 31, 2020. Scroll down or click here for more information on scholarship and fellowship possibilities.

Still not sure if you should attend the Summer Peacebuilding Institute?

Click here to watch a short video of SPI participants, faculty, and staff talking about “the magic of SPI”.

Click here to apply online for SPI 2020 (Note, you must complete the application before you can apply for a scholarship).

Scholarships and Fellowships

Several varieties of scholarships and a fellowship are available to help individuals and organizations with tight budgets. Apply early as our scholarship pool is limited. See information below for requirements for individual scholarships or click here for information about all scholarships and fellowships.

The deadline for the dedicated scholarships and the Winston Fellowship is January 31, 2020 (Please note that there is no deadline for the matching or partial scholarships or the organization mini grant. These are given out until the funds are exhausted).

Dedicated Scholarships
SPI receives some donations with defined parameters for distribution. The qualifications for each scholarship differ, as does what is covered. Click here for information on all dedicated scholarships. The deadline for applying is January 31, 2020.

Winston Fellowship
All-inclusive fellowship covering international airfare, lodging, and participation in three training courses. Intended to train individuals new to the fields of peacebuilding, justice, or trauma work. Requires a post-SPI internship with an organization in your local community. Click here for more information. The deadline for applying is January 31, 2020.

Matching Scholarships
Covers fees for an additional session of SPI if participants are able to pay for at least one session and any transportation costs. Offered on a rolling basis as long as funds are available. Click here for information.

Partial Scholarships
Up to $500 toward training fees if participants are able to pay all other fees for at least one session. Offered on a rolling basis as long as funds are available. Click here for information.

Organization Mini-Grant
Discount of 1/3 of the training fees for organizations that send three or more people to SPI. E-mail the SPI office by clicking here for information.

Email spi@emu.edu for more information on these scholarships.

You can find the information on the Summer Peacebuilding Institute website at www.emu.edu/cjp/spi/.

National Civic Review 2020 Winter Edition is Now Available!

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Keiva Hummel

Hot off the digital press! NCDD member org, The National Civic League, just announced the release of the 2020 Winter Edition of the National Civic Review. This esteemed quarterly journal offers insights and examples on civic engagement and deliberative governance from around the country. Friendly reminder that NCDD members receive the digital copy of the National Civic Review for free! (Find the access code below.) We strongly encourage our members to check out this great resource and there is an open invite for NCDD members to contribute to the NCR. You can read about NCR in the post below and find it on NCL’s site here.

National Civic Review: Winter 2020 – Code: NCDD19

The Winter 2020 issue of the National Civic Review is dedicated to journalist and author Neal R. Peirce, an indefatigable advocate for democratic governance, regionalism, civic engagement, and positive community change. A frequent contributor to this journal during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Neal served on the Board of Directors of the National Civic League from 1986 to 1995. He passed away on December 27, 2019.

To access this edition, go to the table of contents where you will be prompted to enter your unique access code: NCDD19

One of the Nation’s Oldest and Most Respected Journals of Civic Affairs
Its cases studies, reports, interviews and essays help communities learn about the latest developments in collaborative problem-solving, civic engagement, local government innovation and democratic governance. Some of the country’s leading doers and thinkers have contributed articles to this invaluable resource for elected officials, public managers, nonprofit leaders, grassroots activists, and public administration scholars seeking to make America’s communities more inclusive, participatory, innovative and successful.

du Bois: “Organization is sacrifice.”

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Peter

A group can accomplish more than an individual can—whether for good or evil—as long as it holds together. To form and maintain a functioning group is an achievement, requiring individuals to coordinate their behaviors and often to sacrifice for the whole. Only once you have a group can you ask the citizen’s question, which is: “What should we do?”

Because groups have potential and are vulnerable, it can be wise to support less-than-ideal groups in order to maintain them for another day. In Talking to Strangers, Danielle Allen emphasizes that democracy always involves sacrifice, and the amount and type of sacrifice is usually unequal. Therefore, crucial democratic practices include recognizing, acknowledging, and trying to reciprocate sacrifices. This is true at the scale of a nation-state but at least as true at smaller scales.

I recently found a three-word sentence by W.E.B Du Bois that sums it up: “Organization is sacrifice.”

The context is an article in the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis, that you can read in its original format online. Du Bois is responding to charges that the NAACP is too strongly influenced by Whites. He mentions the 8-to-1 predominance of Blacks in the NAACP’s membership as a whole and in its leading offices. He defends the value of “a few forward looking white Americans” to the organization. And then he suggests that the “real animus back of this veiled and half articulate criticism is the fact that a large organization must make enemies—must create dissatisfaction in many quarters , no matter what it does”

This is where he posits a general principle: “Organization is sacrifice.” And he elaborates:

You cannot have absolutely your own way–you cannot be a free lance; you cannot be strongly and fiercely individual if you belong to an organization. For this reason some folk hunt and work alone. It is their nature. But the world’s greatest work must be done by team work. This demands organization, and that is the sacrifice of some individual will and wish to the good of all.

W.E.B. DuBois, “White Co-Workers,” The Crisis, vol. 20, no 1 (May 1920), p. 8

For someone as fiercely principled and intellectually independent as Du Bois was, this realization must have come hard; but he was right. To be able to ask the question, “What should we do?” implies that all have given—and some may have given much more than others—to create the “we” that acts together. There comes a point when the sacrifice is too high (Du Bois ultimately resigned from the NAACP over a fairly subtle matter of principle), but some sacrifice is necessary to create the conditions for politics in the first place.

Muhammad Ali as a Commoner?

Posted on January 22, 2020 by David Bollier

Was Muhammad Ali a commoner? He may not have used that term, but in a spontaneous moment at Harvard University in 1975, Ali certainly revealed his personal inclinations.

Thirty-three-years old at the time, Ali was widely admired for mixing his flamboyant style with deeper truths, all of it leavened with witty wordplay and a generosity of spirit. He preened as “The Greatest,” but showed great humility as a humanitarian and civil rights activist.

After delivering a commencement address to 2,000 Harvard students, someone shouted out, “Give us a poem!” A hush descended and Ali thought for a moment.

Out tumbled what has been called the shortest poem in the English language – “Me. We.”

That arguably encapsulates Ali’s philosophy of life – his struggle to align two poles of one’s life, individual and collective experience. Ali celebrated the joy of being totally himself, but he invariably saluted the larger reality of “the We” that enframes anyone's life.

One can make too much of an impulsive utterance, but Ali's poem does point to a complicated existential reality that American culture tends to ignore.

Ali’s poem came to my attention last weekend when I visited the Smith College Art Museum. In the lobby, a 2007 installation piece by the artist Glenn Ligon, “Give Us a Poem,” greets everyone. Made of PVC and neon, the word “Me” lights up and goes dark just as the word “We” lights up. The piece was originally created for The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Dynamic Line-Up of D&D Webinars – Happening TODAY!

Posted on January 22, 2020 by Keiva Hummel

Today has an exciting line-up of D&D webinars that we strongly encourage folks to sign up for ASAP! FOUR great webinars starting with NCDD sponsor org The Courageous Leadership Project and their “Brave, Honest Conversations” webinar at 9 am Pacific, 12 pm Eastern. There are two webinars after that at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, one from NCDD member org National Civic League webinar on “Collaborations to Address Mental Health” and the other from NCDD member org MetroQuest, “How SCDOT Engaged 13,000+ Residents on a Tiny Budget”. Last though certainly not least, Zehr Institute‘s “Beyond Circles and Conferences: Everyday Restorative Justice Practices in PK-12” at 1:30 pm Pacific, 4:30 pm Eastern.

Additional upcoming D&D online events from NCDD member orgs National Issues Forums Institute and Living Room Conversations, as well as, from the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), and Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.

NCDD’s online D&D event roundup is a weekly compilation of the upcoming events happening in the digital world related to dialogue, deliberation, civic tech, engagement work, and more! Do you have a webinar or other digital event coming up that you’d like to share with the NCDD network? Please let us know in the comments section below or by emailing me at keiva[at]ncdd[dot]org, because we’d love to add it to the list!

– Upcoming Online D&D Events –

From Our Sponsors & Partners

The Courageous Leadership Project webinar – Brave, Honest Conversations

Wednesday, January 22nd
9 am Pacific, 12 pm Eastern

Some conversations are hard to have. Fear and discomfort build in your body and you avoid and procrastinate or pretend everything is fine. Sometimes you rush in with urgency, wanting to smooth things over, fix them, and make them better. Sometimes you go to battle stations, positioning the conversation so you have a higher chance of being on the “winning” side. NONE OF THIS WORKS. Instead, it usually makes a hard conversation harder; more divided, polarized, and disconnected from others. The more people involved, the harder the conversation can be. I believe that brave, honest conversations are how we solve the problems we face in our world – together.

In this webinar, we will cover: What is a Brave, Honest Conversation? Why have one? What can change because of a brave, honest conversation? How do you have one? What do you need to think about and do? How do you prepare yourself for a brave, honest conversation?

REGISTER: www.bravelylead.com/shop/freewebinarbhc

National Civic League AAC Promising Practices Webinar – Collaborations to Address Mental Health

Wednesday, January 22nd
11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This webinar will highlight two community programs that are addressing mental health issues through collaborations and unique partnerships. Registrants will hear about Somerville, MA’s Teen Empowerment Youth Mental Wellness Ambassador program and the Behavioral Health Consortium in El Paso, Texas.

REGISTER: www.nationalcivicleague.org/resource-center/promising-practices/

From Our Members

MetroQuest – click here

How SCDOT Engaged 13,000+ Residents on a Tiny Budget – Wednesday, January 22nd at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern

Living Room Conversations – click here

2020 Election: Concerns and Aspirations – Thursday, January 23rd at 4 pm Pacific, 7 pm Eastern
Empathy – Tuesday, February 4th at 1:30 pm Pacific, 4:30 pm Eastern
Fellowships and Friendships, the Rotary 4-Way-Test – Wednesday, February 12th at 4 pm Pacific, 7 pm Eastern
Gender – Monday, February 17th at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern
Fake News – Thursday, February 27th at 3 pm Pacific, 6 pm Eastern

National Issues Forums Institute – click here

Hidden Common Ground Initiative: Health Care – How Can We Bring Costs Down While Getting the Care We Need?
- Thursday, February 6th at 5 pm Pacific, 8 pm Eastern
- Saturday, February 8th at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern
- Saturday, February 15th at 4 pm Pacific, 7 pm Eastern
- Friday, March 13th at 1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern

From the Network

Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice – click here

Beyond Circles and Conferences: Everyday Restorative Justice Practices in PK-12 – Wednesday, January 22nd at 1:30 pm Pacific, 4:30 pm Eastern

International Association for Facilitators – click here

Digital Tools to Spice Up Your Facilitation Session – Tuesday, January 28th at 8:30 am Pacific, 11:30 am Eastern

International Association for Public Participation – click here

IAP2 Taster Series: Embracing Emotion: Using The Socratic Circle© To Change The Conversation – Thursday, January 30th, time unlisted

Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) – click here

Violent Extremism and Terrorism: Exploring New Frontiers in West Africa – Friday, January 31st at 6 am Pacific, 9 am Eastern

some thoughts on natural law

Posted on January 21, 2020 by Peter

Those RULES of old discover’d, not devis’d,
Are Nature still, but Nature methodis’d;
Nature, like liberty, is but restrain’d
By the same laws which first herself ordain’d.
– Pope, An Essay on Criticism (writing here of aesthetic laws)

… the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God …
— The Declaration of Independence

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.
— Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

As I begin to teach a course on Martin Luther King–and while thinking about how to teach civics at all levels–I am giving renewed consideration to the idea of natural law. This is a matter for debate (and should be presented as such), but here are some personal thoughts:

A substantial part of any concept of natural law is a set of rights. Rights impose obligations. If I have a right to life, you have an obligation not to kill me. If I have a right to an education, someone has an obligation to pay for my schooling. These obligations fall on both individuals and institutions. For instance, my right to life implies not only that you may not kill me but that some kind of state must protect me.

To honor and protect others’ rights is obligatory. It is a moral and not merely a legal duty.

Governments do not create rights and obligations, because we can and must assess any given government by asking whether it protects the rights that people deserve.

Other animals have rights because people have obligations to treat them ethically. But non-human animals do not have rights in relation to each other. In that sense, rights are human, although they extend to humans’ treatment of other species.

Rights are linked to the organism’s characteristics as a natural species. For instance, we human beings are born helpless, remain interdependent, yet develop unique goals and desires that are rooted in our private mental lives. Our rights would be different if we had no need for each other, or no private lives at all–or if we differed in other fundamental ways from actual homo sapiens.

Rights are connected to happiness, which means–not the balance of pleasure over pain–but some deeper form of flourishing or self-realization. Flourishing for human beings is natural in the same way that a mouse or an apple tree has certain natural ways of flourishing.

At the same time, one of the unusual and fundamental features of human beings is our ability to flourish in many different ways, and so we have a right to choose our own paths or be the authors of our own lives. This right to choose is based on our ability and desire to choose, which is a natural characteristic.

I have suggested that fundamental interests, needs, and goods are rooted in nature. However, it is not a natural principle that anyone has an obligation to protect or provide for the needs of anyone else. An individual rabbit has a profound interest in not being eaten, yet a fox does not have an obligation to refrain from eating rabbits. Nature is red in tooth and claw.

We are obligated to honor everyone else’s rights, which are based in their natural interests, but this obligation is not natural. It comes from somewhere else. If you think it comes from God, that is fine, but the obligation is then divine and supra-natural, not (merely) natural.

Perhaps we have an instinct to universal beneficence that emerges from our everyday sympathy for other people and animals. That instinct could be seen as the natural (not divine) basis for our commitment to universal rights. Mengzi puts it very well:

Humans all have hearts that are not unfeeling toward others. Suppose someone suddenly saw a child about to fall into a well: everyone in such a situation would have a feeling of alarm and compassion—not because one sought to get in good with the child’s parents, not because one wanted fame among their neighbors and friends, and not because one would dislike the sounds of the child’s cries. [F]?rom this we can see that if one is without the heart of compassion, one is not a human. If one is without the heart of deference, one is not a human. The heart of compassion is the sprout of benevolence. The heart of disdain (shame/disgust) is the sprout of righteousness. The heart of deference is the sprout of propriety. The heart of approval and disapproval is the sprout of wisdom.” (2A6; see also 6A6)
Quoted in Owen Flanagan, The Geography of Morals (p. 57). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

However, we have many instincts, including warlike, competitive, and cruel ones. Universal beneficence seems a subtle and rare sprout in the wild garden of our instincts. To select and cultivate that particular sprout may be wise and right, but it is a choice that’s not itself directed by nature.

Nature can be understood as everything that science can explain (and science is any valid explanation of nature). So defined, “nature” offers no basis for obligations. A purely empirical study of nature would suggest that members of any species, including homo sapiens, are unequal in capacity, frequently selfish, and fully determined by physical processes rather than choice. We can broaden our understanding of nature to encompass things like obligations, purposes, and goods–for instance, happiness as the purpose of human beings, and non-domination is a good required for happiness. But then nature is not exhausted by positivist science.

Partly because positivist science does not comprehend things like rights, it is very hard for people to know the ideal list of rights and their correlative obligations. All of our ancestors were wrong about some rights–according to us–which means that we ought to be humble about our own ability to know the ideal list.

The best we can do is to decide, in reasonably fair and reflective forums, which rights and obligations ought to apply to whom. That means that although governments do not create rights, people must identify and determine rights through politics and in institutions such as governments. We should expect their outcomes to vary over time and space, not because rights are mere matters of opinion, but because the only way we can know real rights is to exchange and test our opinions.

In conclusion, I feel comfortable speaking of law that is importantly connected to nature, and especially to the nature of human beings. Understanding it requires reflection on our natural circumstances. But I wouldn’t call it “natural law” if that implies that it is part of, or determined by, nature, because it has sources other than nature itself.

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