No comments
Persona vs Person on Facebook
How much of what we put on Facebook is the life we would like to be having, vs the one we are having? Continue reading
Author: Marc Stier
The Key to a Useful Life
They key to an an exciting and useful life (and one worth examing, too): stifle your fears and put yourself in as many difficult situations as you can, in your work and everywhere else. Continue reading
It’s Past Time for Reparations
It’s long past time for the United States to create a program of reparations for Black Americans, not just for slavery but the second, third, and fourth iterations of systemic racism in the United States–the segregation in North and South after the Civil War, the terrorism against Black people perpetuated by the lynchings and chain gangs of Jim Crow, the attack on Black communities through urban renewal and red-lining, and the mass incarceration carried out as a result of the war on drugs. Each of these policies were created by the white supremacy and systemic racism that was created in the 17th century by rich white people who sought to use create and heighten racial division to undermine opposition to them. Each of these policies have had not only an immediate and devastating impact on the Black people in one generation but have had been repeated in different ways in… Continue reading
Sweeping the Sand on the Cape
There comes a day, in every trip to the Cape, when you have to decide whether to sweep all the sand you’ve brought into the house. Sweeping is how we reaffirm our committment to civilization. It generally happens on Thursday. Continue reading
Daily News Article on our Efforts to Save the Nugent and Presser Buildings
Democracy and Diversity
This paper draws on my experience as a leader of West Mt. Airy Neighbors in the early 2000s as well as on my academic work on communitarian political thought. It was written for an International Conference on Deliberative Democracy held in Hangzhou, China in December 2004. It was published in Chinese translation in 2005 in a book edited by Bao-Gang He. An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in 2003. Abstract One of the oldest arguments in the history of political theory is that strong communities are only possible where people live a life in common. And one of the central themes of participatory democratic theory is that involved citizens are only possible where communities are strong. Together, these arguments lead to the conclusion that strong, democratic communities must be homogenous. Homogeneity is frequently thought to be a prerequisite for strong communities… Continue reading
Christianity in the Western Tradition
“Christianity in the Western Tradition,” in Don Thompson, Darrel Colson, and J. Scott Lee, Universality and History: Foundations of Core(University Press of America, 2002) An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Core Texts and Courses in April 2000. The link is to a slightly expanded version of the published article. This paper examines the place of Christianity in the Western tradition. It is a dissent from the idea—found in a wide variety of mid-century works—of a great tradition of political and moral thought that begins in Athens and Jerusalem and is rejected by the founders of modernity. On this view, Ancient Greek and Biblical thought share the aspiration to ennoble human beings. Modernity, on the other, builds on low but presumably more solid foundations. In this paper I wish to put forward a different story. My claim is that, though modernity fundamentally rejects the… Continue reading
How Much of Communitarianism is Left (and Right)?
How Much of Communitarianism is Left (and Right)? in Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey, eds. Community and Political Thought Today (Praeger, 1998). An earlier version was presented at a conference on Communitarianism and Civil Society at Berry College on October 17, 1996 Abstract In the last few years, the conflict between communitarians and liberals has cooled. Communitarians have pointed out—and many liberals have recognized—that for all their criticisms of liberal political and social life, communitarians are firmly committed to the central achievements of liberalism: the protection of civil rights and liberties and liberal democratic government. Liberals have pointed out—and many communitarians have recognized—that liberalism can be defended apart from any commitment to the individualist, asocial philosophical anthropology found in philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke. Thus a liberal political theory need not neglect the inherently social character of human life. Nor need a liberal regime deny the importance of… Continue reading