Logic Model

In my last post, in an attempt to clarify my thinking on ethics and politics, I laid out 5 propositions and 5 conclusions. In this post I round out my logic model by identifying 5 assumptions for my 5 propositions and their conclusions, 5 principles for action derived from the conclusions, and 5 specific actions that are integral to my ethical and political policy platform.

Why 5 turtles all the way down? Convenience of presentation. Assumptions proven are of course no longer assumptions but are based on other assumptions. And those assumptions can/should be questioned. But gotta start someplace.

Here are assumptions on which my propositions are based:
1. The evolution of the (human) species by natural selection including body and consciousness.
2. Intrinsic worth and transformative ability of every human person. (So what constitutes a human person?)
3. Human ability for theory of mind and empathy. (So what constitutes that and how?)
4. Imagination as the distinguishing and central human capacity. (What and why?)
5. Problem solving through reason and science as the means to progress (How so?)

Now I repeat my propositions and conclusions (with some further explanation):

Here are my foundational propositions:

1. To be human is to engage the world and know reality. (Human existence as progressive knowing and creating.)
2. Engaging the world is knowing reality. (Unity of knowing and acting.)
3. Humans know reality (subjective and objective) through symbols, humanly constructed models and metaphors. (Constructivist philosophy of knowing as opposed to realism and idealism.)
4. The human enterprise of knowing and engaging reality is a social enterprise. (To become a person is to interact with others).
5. Culture, economics, and politics are distinct ways of knowing and engaging the world. (Understand the priority relationships between maintaining life, having meaning, and exercising power.)

From these propositions come conclusions on which to construct an ethics and politics:

1. Obligation (the "should") arises from the dynamic, progressive character of human existence (the "is").
2. Good and evil, i.e what should be affirmed or denied, is accessible to human nature and reason.
3. The illusion of the absolute, the negation of the other, the separation of being, knowing, and acting, and the confusion of modes of knowing and acting are obstacles to human existence and are the source of evil in the world.
4. Human transcendence does not rest on supernatural transcendents. (Ethics and politics are not dependent on supernatural entities and transcend human groupings, cultures, nations.)
5. Within humans personally and collectively are the guiding principles to deal with the specific issues of life, meaning, and action which confront us today. (Conscience or moral consciousness arises naturally from human interaction in the world).

From these conclusions, I fashion some principles for action:

1. Challenge all assumptions, propositions, beliefs, and principles. (No absolutes.)
2. Keep faith beyond beliefs. (Maintain the difference between human existence and its expressions.)
3. Build publics and connect them. (Support voluntary association that hold all institutions accountable and promote justice.)
4. Create a just social order. (Maintain the tension and priorities between cultural, economic, and political institutions. Refine the processes and structures of society to promote the worth of all beings).
5. Integrate oneself with oneself, others, and the earth. (Understand and hold the tensions of existence to achieve maximum integrity.)

Finally, I promote specific actions for my time and place:

1. organize and act for economic equity (overcome poverty, expand the middle class, limit wealth and its influence).
2. organize and act for renewal of the planet (response to climate change, environmental preservation, new urbanism)
3. organize and act for inclusion and tolerance in diversity (against racism, classism, sexism, etc)
4. organize and act for scientific and technological progress (and against technologies of destruction)
5. organize and act for maximum political participation (local and regional power, nonviolence, voter rights).

And on this is based my manifesto whose preliminary formulation can be found here.

Return to the Mission

I am sitting at my blog site after settling in body to our new settings while still a bit unsettled in soul. Yes, we've moved to a "retirement community" accepting our aging with our growing infirmities and like Diana and Tom in the BBC sitcom "Waiting for God."

Unsettledness is not unusual for me. I have often raised it to a virtue.

But now I want to get back to my mission: considering the future of the universe--or at least the world and the species--thinking about ethics and politics. Why not? Seems to be a worthy enterprise while I wait for God(ot).

I've had lots of discussions about my writings on The New Transformation. I am continuously trying to clarify what I mean, the distinctions that I consider crucial, the expressions I have made and their limits. And so thought goes on and I continue to learn in the process. I do not claim the truth of my positions. Indeed I want them to be challenged--but first understood.

Poor me! I am so often misunderstood.

In my unworthy desire to be loved, respected, and understood, I will attempt to summarize and clarify the main points I am making. I know they are controversial and many will not agree to them, including you. I repeat that I want you to disagree--but first understand what I am trying to say.

Here are my foundational propositions:

1. To be human is to engage the world and know reality.
2. Engaging the world is knowing reality.
3. Humans know reality (subjective and objective) through symbols, humanly constructed models and metaphors.
4. Culture, economics, and politics are distinct (not separate) ways of knowing and engaging the world.
5. The human enterprise of knowing and engaging reality is a social enterprise.

From these propositions come others on which to construct an ethics and politics:

6. Obligation (the "should") arises from the dynamic character of human existence (the "is").
7. Good and evil, i.e what should be affirmed or denied, is accessible to human nature and reason.
8. The illusion of the absolute, the negation of the other, the separation of being, knowing, and acting, and the confusion of modes of knowing and acting are obstacles to human existence and are the source of evil in the world.
9. Human transcendence does not rest on supernatural transcendents.
10. Within humans personally and collectively are the guiding principles to deal with the specific issues of life, meaning, and action which confront us today.

Now if reading those over, you understand what I am saying we can have a great conversation. But my expression is so influenced by my history, my values, my social status, my desires that I cannot expect anyone who has not read the same books, chosen the same life-style, had the same heroes, been brought up by the same ancestors to speak my exact same language. Yet our languages have evolved together with many of the same values and experiences; and we can actually take on each other's perspectives and appreciate each other's values through our ability for communication, for empathy, and for entering into each other's world.

So my hope and intent is that, as I elaborate each of these propositions and discuss them with you, we will reach the understanding of each other where we can hold a meaningful discussion, learn together, and perhaps settle on a course of thinking and acting ethically and politically.

Carpe Diem

Robin Williams is dead. The news startled many, including me. Because he was so admired. Because he made us laugh. At ourselves. At the world. At everything.

But for those of us who have suffered clinical depression, this event was special because he killed himself--something many of us have contemplated. And perhaps even those of us who have been treated, take medication, practice positive thinking, exercise regularly, get plenty of light, keep learning new things, socialize with friends, and maintain a project in life, still do from time to time. When the dark matter and energy overcome our outward expansion and start compressing us inwards.

We understand why. It is simply to flee the insufferable pain. It is a useless, irrational, purposeless pain we know when we think about it. But thinking about it often doesn’t help, and may make it worse. We know how fragile we are but don't want to admit it for fear of using it to manipulate others which simply adds to our self-loathing.

Yes, self-loathing—a sense of self which is useless, incompetent, without value. A self that looks at others and grandizes their accomplishments, products and achievement we cannot even understand much less duplicate. A sense of self that is not a partner with or part of others, but a competitor in some sort of race to nothing. A sense that I am not God, in control. I'm not even Robin Williams or Barack Obama.

Stupid, of course. But whether caused by genes or memes, heredity or culture (and certainly both are related), there it is. I am what I yam, as Robin William’s Popeye says. And I am grateful.

So Robin died. And so will I. He died earlier than he had to. But don't too many of us do so?—the kids shot at Sandyhook, the kids in Gaza shelled while playing football on the beach, the kids without healthcare, the kids killed in a car crash or in a drone strike or terrorist attack. Suffering and dying--that's life. Unnecessary suffering and dying—stopping it should be our project.

I will keep up my regimen to overcome my tendency to ruminate in depression even when I see my depression as a heightened state of consciousness, an insight into reality.

But I will follow the greatest advice that Robin gave us from the dead poet: Carpe Diem!

Thanks, Robin. You were a gift to us all.

Faith in and Love of God

After I die I doubt that I will meet God face to face. He or She won't have one and neither will I.

Ah metaphors! let's not be literal, you say.

All words are metaphors, symbols, even these I write now. They do not mask things in our world or reality. They are our way to it. Our world, human reality, is constructed by metaphors, symbols, models of thought by which we adapt to our environment and adapt our environment to us collectively.

And God?

Well, that's a metaphor for which I have little use except historically. Ground of Being, Spirit of Love, Objective of the unlimited desire to know, Emerging Future, Infinite Love, Mystery of the Universe, Higher Power, Transcendent Meaning. All wonderful metaphors. What's the reality they contain or point to?

Not a superman in the sky, not a tribal warlord or god, not a supreme entity out-there controlling everything, not a feudal king, not the images in sacred scriptures--at least not anymore for me and I suspect for most of us.

Words, concepts, useful metaphors and models are grounded in personal and inter-personal experience. They move to discern and categorize our experience and are applied back to our experience for verification. This is so for ordinary language as well as science, art, religion, economy and all our ways of knowing the world and ourselves in the world.

So what is the experience that grounds the notion of God and all its surrogates?

It is the dynamic transcending experience of our very existence in the world. It is the background experience of every question we ask, of every risk we take or experiment we make, in our enjoyment of nature, in our commerce with each other, in our search for new learning, in our reading of a great book or participating in a work of art, and in our delight in family and friends. Yes, it is in the background--but then it often emerges in a feeling of wholeness, of worth and dignity, of respect along with a desire for more. More understanding, more meaning, more connection, more respect, more love.

So does that background transcending experience have an end. If by "end" I mean term, I think not, I hope not. If by "end" I mean meaning, well, yes, that is why I point to our transcending experience. But I realize that I will die, my body and brain will decompose, and I will no longer have the consciousness of my "self," including my transcending existence. I will not meet God face to face.

My faith in meaning however goes beyond my individual existence. I have no evidence that my meaning, our meaning, and the meaning of the universe will perdure. That's why it is a matter of faith. My faith keeps me going, learning, engaging, risking, loving, and happy. And my faith makes the meaning of it all so.

Mind Meld

I'm thinking more about the constructivist and realist minds and why the former belongs to the true revolutionary.  ("True" as defined by a constructivist, of course, i.e. authentic, integral, in accords with human existence or nature, not with the "real-outside-there-now" as Bernard Lonergan calls it.)

I have a common sense, likable cousin who calls himself a tea-party conservative.

I have an intelligent, likable colleague, a Democratic liberal, who writes on religious matters.

I find that both have "realist" minds. There is no arguing with their opinions because they are built into their intractable belief systems. Reality or truth for them is how it appears, how it conforms with the "reality as it really is," with "things and events as they really are," that is, apart from bias or prejudice or perspective or human intervention. When I do try to "reason" with them, I don't get arguments, I get names. They know the truth. I don't.

With my cousin, I have finally after many years come to the conclusion that it is not worth discussing matters of importance with him and especially not public policy. I am grateful to have learned more about the realist mind by interacting with him. But I don't believe I can learn much more from him.  I know he will not learn anything from me. The same became true when discussing religion and ethics with my colleague.

I will be pleasant with my cousin and talk about sports and vacation experiences and of course family. I will simply delete his diatribes and name-calling from FOX News, Limbaugh, Savage, and tea party sources) that he passes on through emails--just as I do with many of the base-rallying, money-making attacks from so-called progressives. His mind is made up. He knows the truth and nothing I say will have him question it.

I have told him often that the reason we see things so differently is that we have different values which gives us different perspectives and interests. I don't think he understands what I am talking about. It's either true or it isn't. This is so with my colleague who writes on religious matters. That's the realist mind.

So I simply won't talk politics or religion with them any more. Civility is more important to me than righteousness.

The realist mind can be very dangerous in persons with power. True belief is associated with mass movements that encourage fear of the "other," practice genocide, wage religious wars, purge unbelievers, export ideology, use violence, control markets, and build empires. "Realpolitik," as practiced by those who are called "neo-cons" or sometimes "neo-liberals," is often a product of the realist mind. Making the world safe for democracy, winning the cold war against communism, manifest destiny, America for Americans, are often slogans of this realpolitik.

But usually persons with a realist mind, like my cousin and colleague, are harmless--though often fearful of newcomers, focused on deficiency over abundance, very wary of new science, and wanting back that "old time religion" and things the way they were. I understand where they are coming from and why they see me as "unrealistic" and even "kooky." They are so focused on the objective that they neglect how the subjective influences it. They believe there is an absolute real to which our minds should conform. Ideas are true if they conform to an outside the mind reality. False if they do not.

My "constructivist" mind is never settled. No belief is unquestionable to me. Truth, like freedom, is a process of engagement. Engagement with the constantly changing environment and with each other through words, images, and other symbols. We are always in process of acquiring truth, freedom, justice. 

And that I think is the way of the true revolutionary. 

Violence Breeds

Violence is in the realm of necessity, i.e. economy and household affairs--what we need to survive. Justice and Peace are in the realm of freedom, i.e. politics and public affairs--where we are fully human. The question for humankind is whether economy trumps freedom or politics trumps necessity.

A democratic republic is a place of freedom over necessity. It is open to all and engages the participants in the actions that form the republic. But when the republic is brought under the control of those few who make laws to increase their ability to produce/consume by not providing the means for all to live in dignity, freedom is overcome by the violence of necessity.

The United States of America is dedicated to the ideals of a free democratic republic within its borders, but uses massive force to control certain citizens within the borders as is evidenced by one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world and outside its borders evidenced by the largest spending on and maintenance of military might and spying. 

Our military spending is estimated at $620 billion in 2014. That does not include foreign military support, e.g. $3.7 billion to Israel or $8.5 million a day. Nor does it include the cost of military intelligence. The cost of incarceration is about $40 billion a year. 


Except for those who have been killed or maimed in war and those who are or have been incarcerated (primarily through Americans' insatiable appetite for illegal drugs), this violence has benefitted most US citizens by providing defense jobs, prison jobs, foreign resources, and generally increasing the Gross National Product. This huge government spending has of course benefited some a lot more than others; and those who have most benefitted are usually the ones who claim they got their wealth solely by their own individual actions.

Violence breeds violence, the saying goes. Or biblically, those who rule by the sword perish by the sword. Today we are suffering the fruits of our national and patriotic violence. Let me cite three instances of this.

1. The nation was built on slavery followed by Jim Crow laws supporting a new type of slavery, and now a new Jim Crow as well as urban and housing policies that supported segregating housing and education. The legacy of these policies is the disparity in racial and social equity that fragments our social unity, encourages crime, and fosters unnecessary suffering.

2. The defense of United Fruit and large corporations in Latin America and especially Central America including the deposing of elected leadership, trade policies that work to the advantage of owners and managers rather than workers, and military intervention to assure United States dominance of the area and the war on drugs is now bringing refugees by the thousands to our borders.

3. Our war on Communism, including Korea, Vietnam, and Latin America and our intervention in the middle east has brought terrorism to our shores. Many have traced the blowback, including 9/11, directly to our actions to defend and dominate. 

It is not simple. Defense of our borders, our culture, our people is legitimate if not justified. But we are fools if we think we Americans are always right and always with God in our actions. Our focus should be on reducing force and violence and creating a space of freedom for all even if it means lowering our expectations for material wealth. 

We humans are caught in a cycle of entropy where our energies are dissipated; and force and violence adds to the disorganization of our neighborhoods, cities, nations, and world. Some dare say that the American way in which we achieve our goals through force, including the domination and destruction of the natural order, will cause the sixth massive extinction in this anthropocene age. 

But there are others, and I am one of them, who bet on empathy over entropy. I have faith and hope that we can overcome our dominating, realistic, forceful ways in which we accept the inevitability of violence by experiencing our most intimate connection with others. All others--not just those of my tribe and nation and culture. But there is no evidence for this position and that is what makes it a matter of faith. In fact there is just as much evidence that we humans will undo ourselves and self-destruct like so many other species have done. It is the faith in ourselves and our future that will make the difference.

(The new Pascal's wager!)

Radical Constructivism and the Revolutionary Mind

A classmate I had in college once said of classicists who malign jazz that they have a “univocal notion of being,” whereas jazz lovers have “an analogical notion of being.” He was referring to the Aristotelian Thomistic refutation of the Platonists. He was arguing that being or reality was approached through analogy rather than direct intuition of eternal ideas.  Reality is not fixed out-there apart of human intellectual operation. There is no perfect form of music or of anything. Reality appears only through human perception that uses images, models, and analogies—constructed forms. It distinguishes itself from a passive theory of knowing that assumes an independent reality in itself separate from human imagination and symbolic activity.

Recently a colleague accused my ethical theory of integrity as illogical and unrealistic because it was built on an understanding of existence as operating in the environment to fashion worlds, many diverse worlds. He thought I had gone bonkers. “if it quacks and looks like a duck, it is a duck,” said he. “An apple is an apple is an apple.” Yes, said I; but “apple” and “duck” have a long development in the Indo-European language tradition and take their meanings within a whole set of assembled relationships in the English speaking world. “Bonkers,” he responded.

In epistemology or the theory of knowing, I situate myself with those, like Ernst von Glasserfeld, who call themselves “radical constructivists.” I find John Dewey’s pragmatism, Merleau-Ponty’s existential phenomenology, and Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper’s instrumentalism within the same vein. I argue that human knowing is a construction and reconstruction of the images, metaphors, or models we use to encounter the world and achieve reality. And I cite many a neuroscientist and evolutionary psychologist to prove it.

A fact (“factum’) is the construction of interacting minds. It is a model that fits our common experience, a formula that works to sum up and express the evidence of our perceptions, or a word that we use in common to standardize and pattern our sensations. It is “radical” construction because it follows on the deconstruction of previous patterns and habits of thinking. However, it does not destroy the past, but transforms it into the new mode and model of thought.

I don't like to divide the world into twos: liberals and conservatives, good guys and bad guys, citizens and barbarians, christians and heretics, clean and unclean, and so on. Doing so neglects the complexity of life and the multiple tensions of human existence among which are past and future, interior and exterior, self and other--the Kantian mind categories of space, time, and self. Also it confuses economy where life's needs are met, culture where we assert and make meaning, and politics where we act together in common space. It's too simple, uncritical, and too absolute.

But that's just it. Those who see the world in terms of either/or lack the subtlety, ambiguity, and irony of our humanity. They are the "realists" with a univocal notion of being. Let me define "realist" as that mode of thinking in which thinking tries to mirror or correspond to the reality out-there. Things are there and give off their essences to the open, receiving mind. All you have to do as a realist is look. Realists are distinguished from "constructivists" who think that knowing is a dialogue between the organism and it's environment through, in the case of humans, symbols (images, words, formulas, models) that are fashioned to adapt the organism to its environment and the environment to the organism. Now this division of minds explains a lot to me including all the other manufactured dualities.

I believe that this mind, the radical constructivist theory of knowing, separates the progressive revolutionary from the true believer of the absolute mind. The absolute mind falls into either idolatry where the word is venerated as unchanging truth that cannot be transformed into a more complex and inclusive model. Or iconoclasm where all past words and formulas are disdained and destroyed, wiped out in favor of some discontinuous ideal that has been revealed from outside.

The true progressive revolutionary mind is that of the early Marx and Mao, not the Marx interpreted by Engels, not the Mao of the Cultural Revolution. It is the mind of Socrates before Plato and Jesus before the Fathers of the Church. This mind accepts the founding documents, whether Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon, Upanishads, or Constitution, as living developing words, not dead and embalmed.

The difference between the two minds, realist and constructive, is significant. In the realist mind, one shifts responsibility to the divine or the demonic. In the mind of reconstruction, one accepts responsibility.  As Von Glasserfeld says: “Indeed, one need not enter very far into constructivist thought to realize that it inevitably leads to the contention that man – and man alone – is responsible for his thinking, his knowledge and, therefore, also for what he does. Today, when behaviorists are still intent on pushing all responsibility into the environment, and sociobiologists are trying to place much of it into genes, a doctrine may well seem uncomfortable if it suggests that we have no one but ourselves to thank for the world in which we appear to be living. That is precisely what constructivism intends to say – but it says a good deal more. We build that world for the most part unawares, simply because we do not know how we do it. That ignorance is quite unnecessary. Radical constructivism maintains – not unlike Kant in his Critique – that the operations by means of which we assemble our experiential world can be explored, and that an awareness of this operating … can help us do it differently and, perhaps, better.“[i]

The progressive revolutionary mind accepts, indeed takes, responsibility for her world and helps others to see that they too create the world that will sustain and further humanity or destroy it.

---

[i] http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/EvG/papers/070.1.pdf

Seizing Power

Toronto, Leslie Community. Neighbors between Queen and Eastern Streets in this largely blue collar and working poor area felt powerless to do anything but breathe the sooty fumes from the smokestacks of nearby Canada Metal Company. That is until they organized themselves at a meeting with Carleton Smith, president and general manager. At this meeting, Mr. Smith said that there was nothing that could be done to retrofit the air polluting flues, but under pressure of the crowd, said he would look into it. The crowd then took to the streets, leafleting the workers of the plant and presenting their demands to stockholders, to the local member of parliament, to the local City Councillor, and to the general public. Mr. Carleton quickly called for another meeting at which he announced a timetable for the retrofitting of the smokestack to prevent particulates from entering the air. The Organization immediately embraced Mr. Carleton and Canada Metal as a good neighbor. At the founding convention of the Greater Riverdale Organization (GRO), Canada Metal agreed to appoint a vice-president to its board and became one of the key supporters of the community organizing effort being sponsored by local churches and neighborhood associations throughout the Riverdale area of Toronto.


With power comes respect. And the strongest motive for human being and behavior is respect.

Yes, we want to be liked; but we are willing to be disliked to be respected. The child will risk being seen as a nuisance to gain the attention of respect. An organizational leader will gain respect before trying to be liked. Yes, we want to be loved but only a love built on respect is true love. Yes, we want to live and survive; but survival without respect is slavery and, for many, worse than death.

Power is not given and received. It is recognized and exercised. While authority is often given from someone or someones in power, authority is not power unless it is recognized and exercised. This makes power different from potency (potentia) from which the word is often translated--e.g. power is the capacity to act or even, better, the capacity to act in concert which implies a "power base" on which to act.

The capacity to act is given to all of us by God, Nature, or evolution and is closely linked with the capacity to imagine, to use images to understand the world, its past and its posibilities.  It is the foundation for the dignity of all persons. But it only becomes power when it is seized upon. Authority is received, power is assumed.  Think of the elected official or even the monarch or despot and their appointees, the autocrats and the bureaucrats. Their power only comes when it is recognized by themselves and by others and when they use it.

Power can be seized by force as did Alexander the Great, Ghengis Kahn, Napoleon, Andrew Jackson, Oliver Cromwell, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and innumerable others throughout human history. But to be power, there must be a base of popular support, an army, a fearful or compliant populace, a consensus of lords with armies and fearful, compliant populaces,  Power seized by force must usually be defended by force. And since force is the application of violence, the state in which laws are enforced becomes a "monopoly of the means of violence," rather than an expression of the consent of the governed. Thus power by force and the authority that comes from it is dependent on violence.

This is of course the neo-conservative and neo-liberal, sometimes called realist, point of view which argues that the dominant powers--they who control the means of violence--must build the boundaries, enforce the rules, thus providing the space for human growth and prosperity. And there is much to be said for this argument. Even Marx thought that a dictatorship of the proletariat needed to precede the demise of government in a classless society. But violence as a means usually winds up in a violent end.

Yet, there is another kind of power. It is the power that comes from inside-out rather than top down. Some call it "power-with" to separate it from "power-over." Some call it power-from-consent to separate it from power-from-force. This is a power against violence, a power that comes from within persons both individually and collectively, not a power that is forced upon them. It is a power that, like martial arts, uses violence against itself, as did the freedom movements led by Ghandi, King, Havel, Arbenz, the student leaders in Cairo and Libya until many of these movements were turned to violence as happened in the French and Soviet revolutions.  Necessity in these cases overcame freedom.

In America, these two kinds of power are often confused. Populists of left and right are opposed to "big government" and want to reduce its power and define freedom as liberty--or freedom from government. Yet they often paradoxically support neo-conservatives or neo-liberals in supporting the use of government to control markets and other nations. Or another way of putting it: "freedom-from" overcomes "freedom-to."

True democratic republicans will focus not on the size of government, but on its effectiveness in supporting publics, spaces of freedom where people can gather, speak, and act to take care of themselves, their families, their neighborhoods, and their cities. Also they will not confuse free markets with private corporately controlled markets using the military power of the state.

Just as the Riverdale neighbors did in creating their own power base to gain the respect of corporations, governments, and themselves.

Going Deep

When we lived in Hawaii, we'd meet haoles with what was called "rock fever." They felt stuck in a small place, marooned on an island in the middle of the Pacific with nowhere to go, isolated from the outer world.

Visitor friends would often ask me: "don't you get rock fever?" meaning, wouldn't they?  I would respond that it all depends whether you have horizontal or vertical consciousness. With vertical consciousness there was no end to the levels of depth that you could keep discovering. Never were you constrained by boundaries on land or sea.

Another way of putting it is pointing out the difference between a consciousness of scarcity and a consciousness of abundance. We all know people, even very rich or wannabe rich people, who are more apt to see what they don't have and are fixated on getting and consuming more and more. They see the world, people, and themselves as deficient, as victims (e.g. of corporations, others, government, communists and capitalists), as needing to free themselves from constraints to gain more power.

And we also know people, even very poor in material possessions or poor in spirit, who are more apt to see what they do have and are grateful for their life, their friends, and the beautiful world they have inherited. They acknowledge their limits in time, space, and capacity but use them to grow in wisdom and grace. They recognize and experience injustice done to others because they have a strong sense of empathy but even this they see as a way to free themselves to engage with others to gain more power.

I pray to be a person of vertical consciousness with a spirit of abundance. I imagine the Buddha, Socrates, Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Francis, Saint Ignatius, Emerson, Gandhi, King, Mandela and all true revolutionaries to be such souls.

I am working in a small neighborhood, through a small organization, connected to a small faith community of the District of Columbia. This does not seem as exciting as heading a UN project or a multinational corporation, not as thrilling as contributing to space exploration, not as significant as restructuring a political party to change national policy or studying the neural basis of Alzheimer's disease as I have friends who are so doing.  Yet, when I think about it with my vertical consciousness and abundant spirit I am quite energized.

For I see our little project in our little neighborhood of Columbia Heights, DC as a microcosm of, entry point into, and lesson for a universe. It doesn't get much bigger than that!

Let me probe the levels of what we are doing. It compares to inhabiting the crust of the earth with its seas, mountains, and plains. But underneath tectonic plates are moving. And underneath them a flow of molten lava that affects the planet's magnetic polarities. And then we come to the core and the center of gravity.

Here are levels of our human life and action that a vertical, abundance oriented spirit might discern.

1. personal: solving personal problems through programs and projects.
2. common: knowing and affecting the region within which our little neighborhood is being shaped
3. sociological: discovering the patterns in the American political economy that has shaped the global economy.
4. philosophical/ethical: probing the roots of behavior in human nature and existence.
5. spiritual/religious: co-creating a universe of meaning for our being and action.
6. transcendent--descending into the core of existence and ascending through it out to the stars.

The personal level is where individual troubles and opportunities arise. Its where we make day to day decisions about where to live and work, where to shop and bank, where to go to school, and who to befriend and love.

At the common level we recognize that our individuality is really conditioned by our affiliations, our families and clans, our communities and nations. We do not exist except already connected in a web of relationships. This is the John Donne "No Man is an Island" level.

The third level is discerned by what C Wright Mills called "the sociological imagination." Here we uncover the hidden social structures in our political economy within which our personal troubles and opportunities arise and how they are being shaped by the society into which we are born or plunged.

At the forth level, through deep thinking within ourselves and each other and with the aid of philosophic and scientific psychology and anthropology, we reflect on the structure of our common human nature and existence. Through our understanding of the human condition and capacity, we can develop criteria for judging our behavior individually and communally. We are able to raise the question of justice.

At the fifth level we critique and reinvent the narratives that give us meaning--the narratives relating to our origins and destinies, our place and time in the universe.

The final level for me is the dynamism that connects all levels and all beings vertically and horizontally. It is the transcendence in evolution, in community, and in our spirit.

_______________________________


And so I have developed a proposal that I have submitted to the Atlantic Magazine and the Washington Post.

I propose an article on Columbia Heights, DC as a microcosm of, window into, and consequence of the urbanizing process in the US that is promoting increasing inequality and division as well as great opportunity for many. This dynamism seems to be a result of free individual decision making of many seeking amenities and opportunities. But is there underneath these observable activities a more hidden dynamic in the way our winner-loser economy and housing policies are structured?

Columbia Heights, scene of urban segregation, riots, white flight, and slumification, is now the fastest gentrifying and high rent neighborhood of the Capitol area. There has been an invasion of upwardly mobile Millennials while long-term residents, many African American and older, are being priced out. Much of this has been articulated in recent news articles like: “Millennials ready to break out into households;” “Latest poll shows inequality is a matter of geography;” “ Where are all the boomers going?”  “US Cities with the Highest levels of income segregation;” “Redlining in the 21^st Century.”

The District of Columbia has excellent programs for developing and maintaining affordable housing and the diversity of residents, more than any other city, I believe, in the nation.  These include rent control, inclusionary zoning, a housing trust fund, support of non-profit housing groups, public-private partnerships, and all the federal HUD programs for private multifamily and public housing. Yet the poor, and especially the working poor, are being sucked out into places where jobs and transportation are less available.

I have worked in housing and community development most of my life in many cities, both in the private and public sectors. I am now working in Columbia Heights through my All Souls Church housing corporation with tenants trying to organize to stay in their units and with active voluntary groups trying hard to maintain the diversity of the neighborhood.  They are trying to use all the programs available.  But are these program mere patches on a splintering wall attempting to hold back the latest tsunami?

I think Columbia Heights can be an avenue to the story behind the story and, thus, may help us refine our housing policies and, more important, our economic investment and taxation policies. Ta-Nihisi Coates in his excellent article on “The Case for Reparations” cited Clyde Ross a leader of the Chicago Contract Buyers League that uncovered the structural racism, embedded in public policy, which created a segregated and unequal Chicago and many other cities. I worked with Clyde Ross and the Contract Buyers League and so learned the causes of racism and inequality that went far behind black-white cultural views and feelings. 

Now we need to uncover the structural causes in the 21^st century despite the many good programs that were fought for in the 20^th.  These go far beyond Columbia Heights to the regional Capital area including Maryland and Virginia and all the way to the housing and economic policies of the nation.

It was largely the young who learned and organized themselves to bring in the rights of African Americans and the fights against poverty of which we now celebrate the 50^th anniversary.  But they also had the assistance of veterans of earlier struggles.

I see many Millennials in the Columbia Heights neighborhoods who are recognizing their role in changing the patterns of urbanization even as they attempt to start establishing their household. And while they contribute to smaller programmatic efforts in their neighborhood, they also need handles for grasping and acting upon the underlying causes in our social policies and economic structures. It is with them I have the most hope and to which I raise these questions. But as boomers attempt to find and cap meaning even as they move to the security of care in old age, I address them as well to support the new generation of Millennial challengers.

How shall I tell the story of Columbia Heights so that it beams light on the urbanizing processes of our nation? I want to tell the story through the mouths of the participants. I propose to interview the following:

1.     Old timers in the neighborhood and those who have left.

2.     New comers in the neighborhood—both those in affordable housing and those who are renting and buying new houses, condos, and apartments.

3.     Institutional leaders in urban development and housing in DC including Adianne Todman, BB Otero, Harriett Tregonning, John Kelly.

4.     Leaders in non-profit organizations advocating and developing affordable housing:

5.     Think tank leaders including Bruce Katz of Brookings, Rolf Pendall of UI, Victor Rubin, Angela Glover Blackwell of PolicyLink, and Richard Florida of the Atlantic.

6.     Other City Leaders including Bill O’Brien of Detroit, Keith Bergthold, Ashley Swearengin of Fresno, John McKnight, Jack MacNamera of Chicago, Julian Castro, San Antonio, HUD

Some of the questions I will ask of resident leaders in and out of Columbia Heights:

1.     What are principal reasons they moved in (or out)?

2.     What was/is happening in C H that they like or don’t like?

3.     What/Who are the key movers for CH?

4.     What generation do they identify with? (pre-boomer, boomer, generation X, Millennial.

5.     Who else do you suggest I talk with?

Some of the questions I will ask institutional leaders?

1.     What patterns do you see in the urbanizing process that relate to race, class, income, wealth, divisions?

2.     Are there winners and losers in the process and who are they?

3.     What do you think are contributing to those patterns?

4.     What would you suggest in housing and economic policy to foster more equity. 

5.   Who else do you suggest I talk with?

      I will reflect on the data I gather by using the criteria of justice based on an understanding of human nature and existence, informed by many thinkers, scientists, philosophers, and theologians. I will suggest alternate scenarios and narratives to guide us in the setting of policies and action to achieve justice and so transcend the injustice in which we find ourselves.