"People are spurred into action not so much by knowing the right facts and numbers as by hearing stories and developing a worldview that makes sense of the confusion and contradiction in their lives."
Paul Loeb, Soul of the Citizen.
Friday, August 26, 2005
Pat's story
I come from a hard working, Democratic, middle class, Catholic family. My parents and perhaps my religious education were responsible for fostering in me a genuine concern for those less empowered (like the Good Samaritan who stopped to help the injured traveller in the New Testament). I also hold central to my life the possibility of an equitable, just, and sustainable world where priority is placed on human wellness. I believe my mother in particular has strongly contributed to the formation of some of these values. She has always been a jovial and friendly person who genuinely cares for the well-being of others, regardless of what stereotype society may have placed on them. I recall the numerous times during my childhood and adolescence she stopped to offer assistance to those in need; like offering a ride to a person waiting for a bus in the rain or snow on a busy Chicago street. Another person who has helped form and sustains my values is my life partner, Tony. He is always there to support me in the pursuit of my values and will often pull me back when I stray too far.
There are several defining moments in my life that I believe have helped solidify my values. While at university, I took a course in political philosophy. The professor encouraged us to think critically and to seek out and support fairness and justice in society. Several students from this class (including myself) took part in an organised march on Washington D.C. to protest against US involvement in Central America. Taking part in this event showed me first hand the power of human voice.
After the birth of our first child I decided to give up paid employment and became a full-time stay at home mom. During this time I began volunteering for the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society. This was another life defining moment. Their well-child health philosophy made a lot of sense to me: providing families with the tools needed to grow physically and emotionally healthy children at birth (and beyond) can help to keep children well and avoid future problems. When the Society threatened to close one of its facilities in our area, due to cuts in Government funding, our committee organised and carried out a protest march down the main street of Auckland. This facility remains open today.
After our second child started school I decide to take a couple of graduate courses at the University of Auckland. It was here that I met my mentor, Niki. She encouraged me to explore my interests in well-being; my honours dissertation investigated the factors that contribute to wellness during adolescence. I continue my exploration of positive youth development today as I work on my PhD.
To live my values I speak to community organisations about the practical applications of my research whenever the opportunity arises. I also do what I can to engage young people and support their empowerment. In my everyday life I try and share my values with our children. What is really exciting is that I have begun to notice our children taking up and supporting some of these values. Like my mother I often stop and offer assistance to those in need. We make regular donations to the Auckland City Mission and each year at Christmas our family takes time out to select and donate gifts for children less empowered. We recycle when we can and do our best to donate items we no longer need. I take the bus when I can, but still rely too heavily on my car. This will change. I believe that we can live our values more fully by taking time to think about what is really important in our lives (such as writing our story and keeping a journal of our progress). This encourages us to keep our values top of mind, and to not allow the madness of everyday life take control.
There are several defining moments in my life that I believe have helped solidify my values. While at university, I took a course in political philosophy. The professor encouraged us to think critically and to seek out and support fairness and justice in society. Several students from this class (including myself) took part in an organised march on Washington D.C. to protest against US involvement in Central America. Taking part in this event showed me first hand the power of human voice.
After the birth of our first child I decided to give up paid employment and became a full-time stay at home mom. During this time I began volunteering for the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society. This was another life defining moment. Their well-child health philosophy made a lot of sense to me: providing families with the tools needed to grow physically and emotionally healthy children at birth (and beyond) can help to keep children well and avoid future problems. When the Society threatened to close one of its facilities in our area, due to cuts in Government funding, our committee organised and carried out a protest march down the main street of Auckland. This facility remains open today.
After our second child started school I decide to take a couple of graduate courses at the University of Auckland. It was here that I met my mentor, Niki. She encouraged me to explore my interests in well-being; my honours dissertation investigated the factors that contribute to wellness during adolescence. I continue my exploration of positive youth development today as I work on my PhD.
To live my values I speak to community organisations about the practical applications of my research whenever the opportunity arises. I also do what I can to engage young people and support their empowerment. In my everyday life I try and share my values with our children. What is really exciting is that I have begun to notice our children taking up and supporting some of these values. Like my mother I often stop and offer assistance to those in need. We make regular donations to the Auckland City Mission and each year at Christmas our family takes time out to select and donate gifts for children less empowered. We recycle when we can and do our best to donate items we no longer need. I take the bus when I can, but still rely too heavily on my car. This will change. I believe that we can live our values more fully by taking time to think about what is really important in our lives (such as writing our story and keeping a journal of our progress). This encourages us to keep our values top of mind, and to not allow the madness of everyday life take control.
Niki's story
I recently heard about a young man, living in the USA, who was gay and Republican. “How does that work?” he was asked, “No one who is gay could possibly be Republican.” The young man is said to have replied, “Well, I don’t know if I was born gay, but I’m sure I was born Republican.”
If he was born Republican (poor guy) I was definitely born left-wing. Even if my left-wing orientation isn’t a direct result of my genes or something my mother ate, it was bred into me so young that I don’t remember ever viewing the world differently. In a very fundamental way, I believe in social justice. Not just believe in an intellectual sense, you understand, I am oriented towards it, in the same gut-level way I’m oriented towards a box of chocolates that are being passed around. I am skeptical of notions of equal opportunity, I want equal outcomes. In my ideal world, individuals and nations would be forgiven for the historical events, both imposed and chosen, that lead to poverty and would still be able to get their share of the resources. Everyone who is sick would be treated according to the best medical practice of the time, and all children would learn to participate in their communities, free from any threat of violence. We would all own our own homes and nobody else’s. At every step of the way, we’d protect the earth and repair the environmental damage we’ve already done.
In the household of my childhood, there was never any hint that some people were worth less than others. During her lifetime my mother did various things to try and bring about justice on an international scale (although she wouldn’t have called it that), including volunteering for many years with Trade Aid, an organisation that buys beautiful products from third world countries for a fair price. When my father talked about his work in tertiary institutions, it seemed to be with a concern for the welfare of the organisation as a whole, which I now think of as one of his contributions to making the world a better place. If he thought in terms of his career he never articulated that to us children.
I try and live my values in my daily actions. Many are small. I vote. I virtually never buy bottled water or Coke. I don’t eat at McDonalds. When I do buy fast food, I nearly always get it from an independent outlet. Not only do I think that the practices of multinationals are often suspect, to me the very fact of multinationals and franchises erodes the possibility for local communities to create their own ways of doing things. I have cloth shopping bags. When I forget these, which is often, I try to make do without a plastic bag, or with as few as possible. I put everything I can in the recycling, and use both sides of a piece of paper. I try not to consume too much. I am currently resisting getting a flip-top cell phone, even though I think they are really cool. My car is old and small and well, ugly since I dented the front door some years ago. Our last TV was good for 12 years; our fridge has been going for fourteen.
On a slightly larger scale, I cycle to work about three days a week. I sometimes struggle with this one, as it doesn’t feel all that safe and it can be pretty uncomfortable on a wet winter’s day. I belong to two cycling advocacy organisations. I’ve recently joined with a group of residents in our community to try and reduce traffic on our streets and encourage a more sustainable approach to transport use. As a family, we sponsor a child from Zambia, and put aside money every month to go towards a charity that seems worthwhile. This month my son chose the World Wildlife fund, and my daughter Canteen, an agency for teenagers with cancer. We also gave a donation to World Vision and got some “Make poverty history” bands. At work I try to put the needs of my students ahead of my career. When I think, as I sometimes do, about something being good or bad for my chances of promotion, I try not to act with that in mind. I almost always take opportunities to talk about my research on injury prevention with community groups and the media. I am on the board of trustees at my daughter’s high school.
I am aware that I can only do what I do because my husband is an artist who paints from home and so looks after our children before and after school. In the context of modern life, this is a great privilege. It came about through another privilege, inheriting enough money some years ago to allow us to pay off our house, which means we do not feel the need for two full incomes. For a long time before that we both worked fulltime and our children went to daycare and it was a lot harder. I certainly didn’t cycle to work or stand for the school board during that period. In fact, not one of my value-based lifestyle choices represents an original idea I dreamt up all by myself. I only got my ideas about multinationals from reading, the media and conversations; I started cycling after chatting with people from one of the cycling advocacy groups I now belong to at their stall at a community festival.
How could I live my values more fully? I could play a more active role in the cycling advocacy groups I belong to, Auckland desperately needs safer bike routes. I joined the Green party a couple of weeks ago and could (and should) deliver leaflets for them in the upcoming general election in New Zealand. I shudder to think what direction this country would go in if we end up with a centre-right coalition in power. I could join with other university staff to campaign for ethical investment criteria to be applied to our pension fund. I could initiate and be part of more conversations about the good society and how we can create it by our practices. Getting this website underway is a big part of that.
If he was born Republican (poor guy) I was definitely born left-wing. Even if my left-wing orientation isn’t a direct result of my genes or something my mother ate, it was bred into me so young that I don’t remember ever viewing the world differently. In a very fundamental way, I believe in social justice. Not just believe in an intellectual sense, you understand, I am oriented towards it, in the same gut-level way I’m oriented towards a box of chocolates that are being passed around. I am skeptical of notions of equal opportunity, I want equal outcomes. In my ideal world, individuals and nations would be forgiven for the historical events, both imposed and chosen, that lead to poverty and would still be able to get their share of the resources. Everyone who is sick would be treated according to the best medical practice of the time, and all children would learn to participate in their communities, free from any threat of violence. We would all own our own homes and nobody else’s. At every step of the way, we’d protect the earth and repair the environmental damage we’ve already done.
In the household of my childhood, there was never any hint that some people were worth less than others. During her lifetime my mother did various things to try and bring about justice on an international scale (although she wouldn’t have called it that), including volunteering for many years with Trade Aid, an organisation that buys beautiful products from third world countries for a fair price. When my father talked about his work in tertiary institutions, it seemed to be with a concern for the welfare of the organisation as a whole, which I now think of as one of his contributions to making the world a better place. If he thought in terms of his career he never articulated that to us children.
I try and live my values in my daily actions. Many are small. I vote. I virtually never buy bottled water or Coke. I don’t eat at McDonalds. When I do buy fast food, I nearly always get it from an independent outlet. Not only do I think that the practices of multinationals are often suspect, to me the very fact of multinationals and franchises erodes the possibility for local communities to create their own ways of doing things. I have cloth shopping bags. When I forget these, which is often, I try to make do without a plastic bag, or with as few as possible. I put everything I can in the recycling, and use both sides of a piece of paper. I try not to consume too much. I am currently resisting getting a flip-top cell phone, even though I think they are really cool. My car is old and small and well, ugly since I dented the front door some years ago. Our last TV was good for 12 years; our fridge has been going for fourteen.
On a slightly larger scale, I cycle to work about three days a week. I sometimes struggle with this one, as it doesn’t feel all that safe and it can be pretty uncomfortable on a wet winter’s day. I belong to two cycling advocacy organisations. I’ve recently joined with a group of residents in our community to try and reduce traffic on our streets and encourage a more sustainable approach to transport use. As a family, we sponsor a child from Zambia, and put aside money every month to go towards a charity that seems worthwhile. This month my son chose the World Wildlife fund, and my daughter Canteen, an agency for teenagers with cancer. We also gave a donation to World Vision and got some “Make poverty history” bands. At work I try to put the needs of my students ahead of my career. When I think, as I sometimes do, about something being good or bad for my chances of promotion, I try not to act with that in mind. I almost always take opportunities to talk about my research on injury prevention with community groups and the media. I am on the board of trustees at my daughter’s high school.
I am aware that I can only do what I do because my husband is an artist who paints from home and so looks after our children before and after school. In the context of modern life, this is a great privilege. It came about through another privilege, inheriting enough money some years ago to allow us to pay off our house, which means we do not feel the need for two full incomes. For a long time before that we both worked fulltime and our children went to daycare and it was a lot harder. I certainly didn’t cycle to work or stand for the school board during that period. In fact, not one of my value-based lifestyle choices represents an original idea I dreamt up all by myself. I only got my ideas about multinationals from reading, the media and conversations; I started cycling after chatting with people from one of the cycling advocacy groups I now belong to at their stall at a community festival.
How could I live my values more fully? I could play a more active role in the cycling advocacy groups I belong to, Auckland desperately needs safer bike routes. I joined the Green party a couple of weeks ago and could (and should) deliver leaflets for them in the upcoming general election in New Zealand. I shudder to think what direction this country would go in if we end up with a centre-right coalition in power. I could join with other university staff to campaign for ethical investment criteria to be applied to our pension fund. I could initiate and be part of more conversations about the good society and how we can create it by our practices. Getting this website underway is a big part of that.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Brad's story
There are so many influences on my present social orientation. As with many people I have talked to, much of it is attributable, at least in some vague form, to a psychological disposition I have always possessed. Analytically, some of it also has to do with the wonderful and natural kindness of my mother, who has modeled so many positive behaviors, who is filled with a sense of care for others, and has enabled in me, like many of us who work on social justice issues, a strong sense of empathy.
But the source of a social justice orientation is rarely found only in what is good. For most of us who hold these values, there is typically some first-hand experience of not only "justice" but also "injustice." Most of my life experiences in this sense are not at all spectacular or unusual. I was a bit shy when young and a bit heavy in weight, and like many others have experienced a sufficient amount of teasing from other students to know that verbal harm and hierarchies contribute little to this world.
I also had relatively severe asthma and allergies. Although I was in otherwise good health, I had, through my asthma, experienced what Seneca described as having so much trouble breathing from this condition that one develops a greater cognizance of death, as if one has practiced the process of dying again and again. This heightened awareness of my own mortality, this propensity toward more existential thinking, and a subsequently greater fear of death made me somewhat of an overall "chicken" growing up.
Unlike most children, this made me avoid swimming, I hated any type of amusement park ride, and having doubted its mechanics, I did not successfully ride a bike until I was nine.
I entered kindergarten a year early, my parents and I having thought I'd like it, but I preferred daydreaming a lot, and didn't get all that much done. Many of my other existential disadvantages prevented me from keeping up with my friends physically and sometimes academically, even though I still somehow managed to have many friends.
All this extra time during school and throughout the summers was spent thinking about things, and while my grades were average to poor throughout junior high school, I read considerably, and ended up with very good books at that, many with the best implicit social justice-oriented morals.
Implicit morals and philosophies in these books also led to my atheism that I had fully developed by the age of 12, a belief system that in an unusual way, was never reversible even when I likely could have coped more effectively having held religious beliefs. Yet this atheism promoted a greater humanism and a need for social justice in the here and now.
Some of the beliefs I held were taught to me directly. I can remember from a very early age my grandfather making prejudicial statements about a wide range of ethnic groups. My dad, while less blatant, had many similarly-based attitudes, and I can remember my mom stating outright, that "You never act like that. I want you to promise to never hate other people like that." I took this advice seriously and again felt it was naturally consistent with my outlook on the world.
My dad also, with all of his biases, was very socially active in the community. In many of the most positive ways he worked with the Park District of our small town and created legendary Halloween festivals and film programs for kids. People still talk about the outrageous chances he took to make these events truly scary or exciting and fun for the whole town. I like to think that I have some similar organizational proclivities that can help in getting somewhat different social actions done.
I also had a socially progressive grandmother who lived in Chicago and was always up on Chicago politics. This work in Chicago political activities is now one of my favorite forms of social involvement. In many ways it is one of my weekend "religious" activities, particularly
in terms of my work on the Westside of Chicago.
The organization I chaired along with Congressman Danny K. Davis' office worked to get a treatment-on-demand referendum on the Cook County ballot with 118,000 signatures from registered voters. The initiative won with 1.2 million people supporting it.
I have been involved with many other activities and try to use my psychological background to create more change in myself and others. I am still struggling with existential issues about whether the work I am engaged in is truly making a difference. I think we all struggle with this. It helps for me to remind myself that all of it is not about me, not about my ego, but about others, and about something much larger than myself.
It is for this reason in particular that a website like everyday activists can help us all see the bigger picture, to provide informational and social support, to know there is a place to communicate with others about these communal activities.
But the source of a social justice orientation is rarely found only in what is good. For most of us who hold these values, there is typically some first-hand experience of not only "justice" but also "injustice." Most of my life experiences in this sense are not at all spectacular or unusual. I was a bit shy when young and a bit heavy in weight, and like many others have experienced a sufficient amount of teasing from other students to know that verbal harm and hierarchies contribute little to this world.
I also had relatively severe asthma and allergies. Although I was in otherwise good health, I had, through my asthma, experienced what Seneca described as having so much trouble breathing from this condition that one develops a greater cognizance of death, as if one has practiced the process of dying again and again. This heightened awareness of my own mortality, this propensity toward more existential thinking, and a subsequently greater fear of death made me somewhat of an overall "chicken" growing up.
Unlike most children, this made me avoid swimming, I hated any type of amusement park ride, and having doubted its mechanics, I did not successfully ride a bike until I was nine.
I entered kindergarten a year early, my parents and I having thought I'd like it, but I preferred daydreaming a lot, and didn't get all that much done. Many of my other existential disadvantages prevented me from keeping up with my friends physically and sometimes academically, even though I still somehow managed to have many friends.
All this extra time during school and throughout the summers was spent thinking about things, and while my grades were average to poor throughout junior high school, I read considerably, and ended up with very good books at that, many with the best implicit social justice-oriented morals.
Implicit morals and philosophies in these books also led to my atheism that I had fully developed by the age of 12, a belief system that in an unusual way, was never reversible even when I likely could have coped more effectively having held religious beliefs. Yet this atheism promoted a greater humanism and a need for social justice in the here and now.
Some of the beliefs I held were taught to me directly. I can remember from a very early age my grandfather making prejudicial statements about a wide range of ethnic groups. My dad, while less blatant, had many similarly-based attitudes, and I can remember my mom stating outright, that "You never act like that. I want you to promise to never hate other people like that." I took this advice seriously and again felt it was naturally consistent with my outlook on the world.
My dad also, with all of his biases, was very socially active in the community. In many of the most positive ways he worked with the Park District of our small town and created legendary Halloween festivals and film programs for kids. People still talk about the outrageous chances he took to make these events truly scary or exciting and fun for the whole town. I like to think that I have some similar organizational proclivities that can help in getting somewhat different social actions done.
I also had a socially progressive grandmother who lived in Chicago and was always up on Chicago politics. This work in Chicago political activities is now one of my favorite forms of social involvement. In many ways it is one of my weekend "religious" activities, particularly
in terms of my work on the Westside of Chicago.
The organization I chaired along with Congressman Danny K. Davis' office worked to get a treatment-on-demand referendum on the Cook County ballot with 118,000 signatures from registered voters. The initiative won with 1.2 million people supporting it.
I have been involved with many other activities and try to use my psychological background to create more change in myself and others. I am still struggling with existential issues about whether the work I am engaged in is truly making a difference. I think we all struggle with this. It helps for me to remind myself that all of it is not about me, not about my ego, but about others, and about something much larger than myself.
It is for this reason in particular that a website like everyday activists can help us all see the bigger picture, to provide informational and social support, to know there is a place to communicate with others about these communal activities.
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