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Sunday, April 29, 2018

Choose to Let Go of Status Anxiety and Open Yourself to Connection and Opportunity

This essay starts with some Twittervism to contextualize the topic.

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Whereas last night seeing a couple bits of the Mister Roger: It's You Who I Like PBS special,



Few people would dispute that we have strong tensions in the United States right now, and that these tensions have grown even tenser since the 2016 Election. Depending on the side stood on and perspective coming from, explanations for the tension differ. The Right seems to think the Left acts out of proportion to gain or keep power, taking the form of a Deep State, obstructing appointments and policy, fact checking the Right, criticizing actions and policies of the Right, and exposing people on the Right to variety, diversity, and ways of life that are different.

From the perspective of the Right, I can see how they might reach this conclusion. Their criticisms of the Left and marginalized populations/communities acts as a mirror. Instead of admitting their fear and hate, they point out things that non-Rightists do as bad things, even though the Right did these practices themselves (obstructionism, heavy criticism of the Left through Fox, literature one example being Peter Schweizer and Government Accountability Institute, and through online news sites like Breitbart, and physical violence against marginalized communities/populations) or have adopted practices of non-Rightists for themselves (criticized safe spaces but now getting all worked up about "alternative lifestyles" being forced onto them, fearing violence from the "other side", and trying to adopt their identity as a marginalized community/population).

In reality, though, marginalized communities have a long history of having to defend their lives and having to fight and take risks to

  • Get and keep a job
  • Participate in politics and civic life
  • Own property
  • Have relationships that they desire
  • Honor their heritages and backgrounds
  • Have meaning and significance in their life
  • Have dignity and integrity
  • Express their complex identities in the everyday
All the while wealthy, influential straight cis-gendered Christian white people (mostly men), the privileged, have had the most power to determine the boundaries of what can and cannot exist in the boundaries of the United States. In the past, when laws and norms didn't protect marginalized populations/communities as much, the privileged could exert violence more openly with impunity. Now that violence is done

  • On a micro-level
  • Done by someone who the Right disowns and calls nuts
  • Or exerted by an officer of the Establishment
Then the Right

  • Throws up some flimsy excuse
  • Dismisses an actual problem that exists
  • Argues that their First Amendment rights are being stamped on
While not giving a crap about other people's rights or lives.

Layer on top of that, [45] trying to undercut the media and the Department of Justice (DOJ) while the GOP doesn't do their duty to keep him honest because they feel too attacked by the media. Even Senator Bob Corker, one of the few on the Right who criticized [45] for his bad behavior (if not his policies), mended fences with [45] after the media criticized Corker of changing his vote on the 2017 Tax Deal after getting a sweetheart deal in it that did nothing for regular, normal tax payers.

I will keep my criticism of undercutting the DOJ and the media short. For one, it makes [45] and others on the Right hypocrites if they criticize Venezuela, Russia, and other tyrannies for suppressing the media and free speech. The same holds true if they accomplish the goal of cutting down the oversight of the DOJ and media. The government has already expressed the desire to persecute protestors and other critics that focus their aim on his behavior and policies. Want to live in

  • A Stalinist tyranny
  • Dictatorships like Saddam Hussein's
  • Turkey these days
  • Egypt after overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood
  • North Korea?
I bet you, the reader, can think up plenty of your own examples of horrible political regimes that have nothing against using their law enforcement to persecute the press and anyone else who disagrees and criticizes them.

Some people like to focus discussions on the bad policies rather than the behavior. If no one focuses, diffuses, or attacks the behavior effectively, that behavior will lead to suppressing the people, their speech, and head us into the direction of tyranny, dictatorship, and totalitarianism. In many ways, this blowhard's behavior offers more danger than the horrible policies from him and the GOP.

I could go on forever with criticism of [45], the GOP, and the Right (because we have at least a few, if not plenty of, Democrats that would fit into the Right. . .at least in Chicago and Illinois). The first Twittervism of this entry makes me think otherwise, though. The episode of Invisibilia tells the story of the UN putting on an American Idol-ish reality TV show in Somalia to try spreading Democratic values and emboldening people to live more Democratically in a nation still fraught by a strongman society. Apparently, American Idol-style reality TV simulates a lot of Democratic-style practices, like

  • Voting
  • Competing
  • "meritocracy"
  • Campaigning
History has also shown that cultural entertainment can go a long way to fighting tyrannical societies and governments by giving the people in those countries an alternate way of life to aspire toward (apparently a lot of North Koreans have defected after enjoying some Western entertainment).

This episode of Invisibilia made a cutting statement that argumentation will more than likely cause resistance on both sides as they try to stratify their viewpoints. We like to think that rational and reasoned out argument will help the other side reach a breakthrough then be won over. Argumentation, per Invisibilia, however, does not fulfill our hopes.

Instead, psychologists in '90s found that poetics, drama, literature, and influencers of emotion, if you will, have a better effect on changing people's minds. This revelation won't stop me from engaging in argument, at least not in the short term. Engagement still needs to happen and rational, reasoned argument still needs to occur to fill in vaccums that could occur after poetics. Also, I don't have any short term poetic strategies that I feel confident enough to use on the fly, though I won't hesitate to practice with them when inspired. . .especially if poetics and argumentation can mix and match.

I might have even stumbled onto some mixing of poetics and argumentation over the last week, based on the research I've been doing for my project and the Twittervism I've posted today. I have to go back about sixteen years first, though, to either a distinct memory I had or an amalgmation of memories that I combined into an imagined memory. Back then, I had gotten myself into the deep end of not having a clue of how to move forward with my project (sometimes I feel that way in the present, but it happens more when dealing with particular, concrete instances rather than the overarching argument).

My problem came down to the argument of one person's utopia being another person's dystopia and that utopia can't ever really exist because human nature, the human condition, and so on and so forth leads to disagreements. The history of utopias, dystopias, and just the fact of our world have not provided any proof that a world of all happy and all virtuous people can exist. I'm not saying that it can or can't exist, I'm just saying it hasn't existed nor has any imagination truly imagined such a world to realization. Pick any utopia and anyone can poke a hole in it. Somewhere in that utopia, someone gets screwed.

To me, a eutopia (quick etymology lesson: Sir Thomas More combined the Latin word u-topia with the Greek word eu-topia for the joke of his book pretty much translating to "no place" [u-topia] and "good place" [eu-topia]) is a place where everyone has

  • Their physical needs met
  • Their emotional needs met
  • Feels welcomed and appreciated, if not fully embraced by everyone for who they are
Disagreements and such could occur, but people wouldn't resort to, as a viable acceptable norm to deal with anger resorting, violence, physical, verbal, or on a micro level, or rejecting people's humanity as a way to exert power. Once someone feels they can resort to violence or rejecting someone else's humanity, they hurt that eutopia. Self defense to prevent loss of life, limb, or ability is allowable because the possibility exists that someone feels they can resort to violence or rejection of humanity. In addition, respect for humanity and non-violence extends to non-citizens, too, and does not necessarily default to "keep out until proven worthy" for people who want to visit or live there.

I expect some would see my willingness to go further in protecting non-humans in eutopia as radical, and I'm willing to work with that opinion about me. After all, this is my eutopia, which restricts me from trying to enact it forcefully onto the real world. My eutopia requires me to non-violently convince others through argumentation or poetics, not through force. You have nothing to worry about coming from me, unless, like some on the Right, you become over vigilant by my

  • Exercising my beliefs in the world around me
  • try to act as example of what I believe is a better world
I've tried backpedaling from my ideal eutopia in the sixteen years since that distinct memory and have completed a few essays. The last essay has been a sticking point, though. I have been able to use ad hoc arguments, the latest argument being about the importance of meaning and feeling of significance. I wrote many of those essays about fictions and communities that had distinct situations of

  • "us" vs "them"
  • "us" vs "the world"
  • or even where divisions occurred within communities in which arguments between the sides could easily be parsed and weighed against each other
The last essay hasn't proved so easy, though. Historical texts don't clearly spell out

  • Concrete goals
  • Methods for reaching goals
  • Arguments of real life observations/facts
  • or Even relatable theories that guide people to set up things in a certain way or to interpret things in a particular way
I've had to do a lot of outside research into theory that these people from just under 200 years ago wouldn't have even conceived. I've had to research other things they have referred to. I have to try understanding their actions and behaviors before their attempted utopian community. My studied imagination has spanned continents and centuries after the utopian attempt and before the time of which I'm writing about.

In many ways, it has pushed me to study human nature and the evolution of human nature since this eutopia wanted to provide an example for the world to follow to become a better place. The leader of this utopia would have liked to eventually break down walls and bring people closer together. Even before trying to realize his utopia, what may have encouraged him to try realizing the utopia, he tried breaking down barriers by

    Ministering to the poor
  • Opening viewpoints to make his religion more palatable to the poor and those in the American frontier
  • To try convincing the privileged in his circles to do so
Those attempts failed. Sadly, the failure of his utopia caused enough despair for him to give up on any such lofty goals.

This man and the milieu of social stratification in which he existed, along with our current situation, and the two centuries in between, has pushed me into a lot of deep dives into trying to understand

  • Prejudice
  • Bigotry
  • and just a bunch of issues of sociology, social psychology, and social philosophy, including what has brought about social and cultural change
I have wanted to find a good argument or, if anything, an approach of poetics, that would go a long way to convince people that bigotry and hate hurts them, even if they have the upper hand and privilege.

Tilting at this windmill has its risks. Approaching hate and bigotry as something to try understanding could lead to people on the correct side thinking that I believe hateful, bigotted people deserve empathy or sympathy, especially since I'm painting them as ignorant and just need to give them the right answer to turn them around, when many hateful bigots will stand their ground harder and harder the more you try convince them. I understand that, plain and simple, most bigots will probably never change their ways and will probably keep trying to exert their hate and bigotry on the world.

Another risk is that I have yet to find an argument about bigotry that doesn't assume the conclusion. This approach often leads to

  • Doing good for the sake of it being good
  • Talking solely about strategy
  • Having it become a realpolitik issue of interest groups vying against each other
Sadly on that last item, honestly, the Right has mastered it. If those resisting the Right continue to buy into it, the Right will likely win because they're controlling the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of the fight.

I would be remiss to say that marginalized people have to follow my approach. They're defending their

  • Lives
  • Dignity
  • Rights
  • Integrity
  • Humanity
Just to stay human and alive, they have to fight for all of that every day to an extent that I can never imagine as someone who generally has all the characteristics of privilege. A good deal of marginalized people are fighting for survival, physically and spiritually. With survival on the line, doing the right thing, just because it's right or for a good reason, is a luxury. I won't disaparage someone for doing what they really need to do to survive and defend themselves.

Which actually gets me almost to the focus of where I've wanted to go. Language and perception can get tricky. Nazis and White Supremacist believe that there really is an inevitable race war (even though they're the ones starting it), and that they have to fight it to survive and defend themselves. I believe they're wrong, but their belief shows the trickiness of language and perception.

As much I pour scorn on The Atlantic for using "status anxiety" as a euphemism for bigotry, the term actually provides a constructive way of looking at bigotry. The term could possibly provide me a good argument for the damage that bigotry causes the bigot, themselves. By embracing bigotry, they take on themselves a whole mess of anxiety they don't need.

One way to relieve the pressure of anxiety is to accept that there are just some things that a person can't control, like other peoples' thoughts, emotions, and in a reasonable world, their actions. To a bigot (and abuser), those parts of people are open game, the bigot can see those things as controllable and can be annhilated. Some places these days have norms and laws that are supposed to prevent, but in a society that believes in these things being right, it can be ugly.

My diving into argumentation generally ends there, in the fact that someone in a society that backs their bigotry and if that bigot works everything right, they can mold the world in their image. This point is a hypothetical because no one has molded the whole world into their image. The Nazis were defeated. Slavery is generally not an accepted practice by the powers that be in today's world, even if it still occurs in an underground fashion away from the eyes of authorities. Some genocides may have had 100% success, but no ethnic group has yet ever wiped out or gained full domination of ALL OTHER ethnic (phenotypic) human groups. And as we see in how much societies and religions don't make sense, people in a group will inevitably disagree, will divide, and will get to violent fighting over the littlest thing over the sake of being right and pure. They will create new ethnicities/phenotypes.

All that investment into being right and winning leads to a lot of worry, risk, and anxiety! Humans have a thing about ranking the status of themselves, whether individually, as groups, or as a species against everything and everyone else. It's part of the human tendency to essentialize, which we instinctively do from birth then become able to discuss verbally a few years later.

Expanding on the ideas from David Livingstone Smith's Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, religions and schools of thought have thought up spiritual/immortal caste systems, from the Hindus to the Christian Great Chain of Being. Even without necessarily a religion backing a system, Aristotle, the Humanist, even made arguments of what ranked higher and lower based on how "rational" they are (which even just common sense of today would shatter, since a lot of Western history's demoting women was based on Aristotle arguing women weren't as rational as men).

Religion has a bad precedence for framing reality and society. Just look at the religious wars that occurred in Europe over the "right" Christianity and the "right" monotheistic religion based around Yahweh.

Look at what a lot of the warring factions in the Middle East over the "right" Islam and the "right" monotheistic religion based around Yahweh.

Look at the disagreements over Judaism in Israel or the different interpretations of Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions in the East.

Philosophies and science don't have the best record. Maybe they don't start as many wars and battles, but they're constantly changing as the perception of humanity increases.

Even just spatially, we have such a small miniscule undersanding of reality, we are fated to destroy ourselves and the Earth around us before making any meaningful progress out to other worlds, just to establish that one group knows better than the other group.

How can we know the actual right, true path or belief and be willing to die for it when human history is full of those KNOWING the actual right, true path then leaving a wake of destruction. . .or not really knowing, but then others in the future discounting their idea of the actual right, true path or belief?

With the human propensity for ranking ourselves against each other, other species, and other objects, status anxiety as a source for bigotry makes sense to me. Unless people check themselves, they will find something to fight about, even if it's just about being on the side that ranks higher than the others.

Sometimes martyrs will occur, but those without the means to win will often know they can't win and not fight back until they're pushed back into a corner. Other groups of those that can't win, especially if they're close enough to the privileged dominating group, will generate stories to tell themselves that those on top are looking out for them or that if they work hard enough or act in certain ways hard enough, they will gain the power to make it to the top, either by joining the privileged group or by defeating the privileged group (Marxism is just a ideology of one interest group taking over from another one). Or maybe they can have enough learned helplessness that they're just happy to be alive. Some groups accept that they won't rank that high on the same scale, but they can create their own alternative scale and parallel social world to make a comfortable enough rank for themselves there.

Reaching this revelation yesterday that the term "status anxiety" has some use, I broadcasted on social media the idea that we can check our privilege (it bears repeating):


From my college years explorations of other viewpoints, I found Americanized Buddhism/Hinduism and Twelve Step programs especially useful (I have plenty of issues with how both can be practiced by some groups or people, but both of them have some good ideas, including take what works and leave the rest). I still had and have some growing and wisdom to learn. Learning that it is possible to let go of some anxiety helps a lot, especially after

  • Learning to properly gauge what you do and do not have power over
  • And possibly even more important: what is worth having power over
Frankly, I determined that it's not worth having to force my power over something; influence and persuasion within moral and ethical norms, maybe, but not force. Forcing power over something just leads to anxiety since you'll always to have gauge when and how much force to exert, while also worrying about possible backlash and predicting when backlash may occur. Vigilance is tiring and anxiety-inducing.

On the flipside, though, we can find real connection, understanding, and bonding if we let each other go, and we come back (or all it takes is a reminder that we're around for the other person to stay connected). And is it really worth pushing and pushing to try keeping something when it requires so much effort and risk?

I might have adopted a stoic attitude at some point in life.

I acknowledge that some people do have

  • Clinical anxiety
  • had Traumatic pasts
  • and Plenty of things
that lead them to not have the choice of letting go of anxiety.

These days I still have to deal with my own demons, especially since I have so many projects and things that I want to get done but get in the way of the practices like

  • Meditation
  • Personal journaling
  • Other exercises
that helped me work through my hang ups and anxieties.

In the end, though, despite the human propensity to ranking and bigotry, I believe that we human beings can choose to let go of the anxieties and propensities. Maybe it takes some work, especially after living with these thoughts for a good amount of time. The first step is just seeing the damage status anxiety does to you and deciding to put an end to it, choosing a life of control over your thoughts, emotions, and propensities.

Don't worry, you'll find a lot of support once you drop your barriers and open yourself to connect to other people in a welcoming fashion. People are now trying to defend themselves and their souls from you and your anxious anger presently. Humble yourself and see how your status anxiety has caused damage, and I'm sure you'll find it rewarding, worthwhile, and who knows, opportunities might abound and you may discover things you never knew about yourself.

One tip, though: don't go looking for forgiveness from those you have harmed. That will likely cause further harm. Seek your own absolution by fighting against bigotry and status anxiety other people have. Seek your own absolution by working to make the world a better place. Show your growth by your actions, not your words. You may never get forgiveness from the people in your past, especially if you've caused lasting harm, but you may learn to forgive yourself by helping the world be a better place.

Or live with your anxiety, vigilance, fear, stay the same, and miss out on the warmth that the world can provide. Every person gets to make their own choice.

Me, I choose life, openness, warmth, and connection.

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Posted by The_Lex at 9:44 PM 0 comments

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Thursday, April 26, 2018

Getting Back into the Swing of Things with Some Twittervism

I tried posting some Twittervism last night but ended up posting the following on social media:



It took some time to just stream the Twittervism last night, so I'll just start then get it done:













































































































If you like what you see here and in the past and want to free me up for more, support my endeavors by Buying Me a Coffee!

Posted by The_Lex at 7:21 PM 0 comments

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Sunday, April 08, 2018

Getting Involved in Hopefully Positive Participatory Local Governance

In the midst of a fairly busy week, I had a good, interesting experience with the Cook County Government. It happened at a Community Conversation regarding a "Cook County Policy Roadmap" that President Toni Preckwinkle, the current Cook County Board President, posted on one of her Facebook pages.

Even the fact of the event being announced on President Preckwinkle's Facebook page struck me as positive. A constituent just has to follow President Preckwinkle on Facebook to know about outreach events happening. In this day and age, when our personal information along with our friends' personal information gets skimmed from Facebook to possibly sway US Federal Elections, practically anyone who cares can stay fairly apprised of announcements from a governmental office by just following it on social media. If readers take anything away from this blog entry, I hope they'll go follow the Facebook pages and other social media accounts of their elected officials and governmental offices to stay abreast of public announcements.

I won't get into too many localized details about the event, so non-Cook County residents don't have to worry too much about feeling left out or getting bored. We discussed some local matters, but the event itself ended up more of brainstorming event, which felt refreshing. I'll describe some aspects of the meeting, but nothing too particular to Cook County. If anything, mentioned aspects could provide some insight into governmental practices and discussions governments have with their constituents.

Before getting into the positivity and refreshingness of the event, though, I want to make sure other residents of Cook County know that two more events in the Policy Roadmap Community Conversation program looking for input from constituents will be occurring in April. Click here for further details on the program, including details on the next two events. It also includes a link for submitting ideas that you might have through a survey (especially if you can't make it to one of the events).

President Preckwinkle didn't make it to this event, so attendees may not want to have expectations about her showing up at the future events, either. The host did a good job with this one and had a sense of humor. The host and other staff also showed a lot of enthusiasm and sincerity about realizing the feasible aspects of the discussions, with the emphasis on feasible. Government, politics, and budgets being what they are, who can say how far any of these ideas will really go?

This meeting and the other Conversations make up a part of a process set forth by President Preckwinkle to create a Strategic Framework for the Cook County government. The machinations for this process has very much just started. See the last sentence of the last paragraph to see my expectations for how well I expect this enterprise to succeed and how much I expect it to please constituents. Nonetheless, the fact that the Cook County government puts effort into outreach towards its constituency to get input on the process feels heartening.

In a Powerpoint presentation, the host presented the following goals to the Policy Roadmap:

  • Craft one comprehensive plan that includes the integration of existing and new priorities
  • Raise awareness about who we are as a County, what we do and how our work impacts residents
  • Ensure that we have a plan to achieve our goals with intention
  • Reflect your ideas and suggestions for services that are important or need improvement
  • Make the plan transparent and accountable: it will be made available to the public
These Community Conversations meetings likely focus on goal four from the list above. The majority of the meeting involved breaking out into groups for us residents/constituents to express our thoughts on the shortcomings of the Cook County government regarding the following categories (copied from Powerpoint presentation):

  • Criminal Justice (Safe and Thriving Communities): Community Safety
  • Health and Wellness (Healthy Communities): Healthcare, Human Services and Service Delivery including Employee Health and Wellness
  • Economic Vitality (Vital Communities): Inclusive Growth, Economic Development and Workforce Development
  • Environmental Justice (Sustainable Communities): Clean Energy and Environmental Protection
  • Public Infrastructure & Assets (Smart Communities): Managing Public Assets, Technological Infrastructure and Roads and Bridges Infrastructure
  • Operational Stewardship (Open Communities): Financial Health, Transparency and Accountability, Customer Service, Engaged Workforce that is Diverse, Culturally Responsive and High-Performing
The first thing that stuck out to me occurred at the beginning of the event. The host introduced herself then asked everyone else in the room to introduce themselves. A lot of people in the room introduced themselves as part of the Cook County government or as representing some type of community organization that likely looked to influence the government. Out of around twenty of us, I think only three or four of us announced our names without listing representation of an organization.

Introducing myself without an organization attached at that point and introducing myself in a break out group as a "private citizen" met with positive reaction, which surprised me. The host and the leader of one of the groups seemed to smile a little more and perk up a bit, giving off the sense that they had more interest in the course of events. I could be reading more into those interactions than reality, but I'll stick to my perception (especially considering I originally thought the government and organizations didn't want novices involved, thinking the novices would just get in the way of getting things done).

I may have disappointed the leader of the first break out group I participated in. At the end of the break out discussions, someone in each group would provide a quick summary to the rest of the meeting. The group leader wanted me to make the announcement, but I refused. I used the excuse that I felt a bit too tired (I was), but I also felt a little shy and uncomfortable.

  • I don't really have the hang of this whole government or political thing
  • Only knew one other person in the room
  • Haven't really done in public speaking in awhile
  • I didn't have that sense of inevitability that something needs to get done so I might as well do it
Maybe sometime later when I get more involved in these types of things and get back into the hang of speaking with strangers and putting myself out there, I'll put myself out there more.

The smaller break out groups didn't really intimidate me much, but I also had time to feel out the group before breaking into the discussion. Comparably, I didn't have much sense about the rest of the room. Associations of heated political discussions in my head could have also contributed to my hesitation of presenting myself to a large room of politically involved people (though some day I really need to get over myself on this aspect since I want to make the world better).

I don't think the group leader asked me to present just because of my status as private citizen, either. Even though I took a few minutes to enter the conversation, I had some good ideas. A lot of my input was more

  • "Yeah, that would be cool"
  • "I never knew we had that going on or we had these things in Cook County"
  • Relating some experience I had since moving to Chicago about twelve years ago
  • some questions about the availibility of a few services
I said very little on shortcomings since I didn't and don't have any in mind.

The above happened in the Environmental Justice group, and honestly, other than recycling, being a conscious consumer, and possibly commuting on a bike every chance I get, I don't see myself having much influence or even context on the matter, though I have interest in learning more. I guess from my input and reactions, though, it became clear to a staff member of the Cook County Forest Preserve that they need to do more to promote their activities, their locations, and frankly, their existence, to the public. The same goes for other programs that the Cook County government has for addressing environmental concerns.

When the group leader asked for any ideas how to actually promote these things, we had few ideas. One person mentioned putting something on tax bills (but that struck me as a little classist/elitist since only property owners would get the tax bill, but promotion is promotion). I might have but might not have suggested promoting on public transportation, both in the vehicles and at stations.

This part of the conversation led me back to wondering how to successfully promote and reach out to people these days as we possibly

  • Become more atomized
  • Socialize more online
  • End up doing more things on a solitary basis rather than through interaction with other people
Which leads me to ask:

  • Do advertisements work reliably?
  • Do they have the personal touch needed?
  • Does the Internet of today provide the local promotions needed?
  • Do people pay enough attention to advertising in the first place?
  • Have people become so cynical of government, politics, media, and just society, in general, that they may not pay as much attention as needed?
The next break out group, Economic Vitality (Vital Communities), had a different chemistry compared to the first one. The group leader had something of a strange way of running things. He expressed his opinions then mentioned that since he was a leader, he couldn't just write down his ideas. The ideas that he wrote down had to come from us. This leader definitely felt like he wanted to steer the conversation into certain directions by presenting his ideas then saying that he couldn't write them down on his pad of paper to take back to the Cook County government.

Other than the leader and me, we had two other men in the group. We all presented some ideas and had some interesting conversations about them all. Oddly, though, about three quarters of the way through the break out session, the other two guys got into a conversation about something off topic. It didn't bother me. The phenomena unfolding in front of me fascinated me more than anything.

We had come up with some interesting ideas but ran out of steam, and the leader of this group seemed more interested in steering the conversation more toward his ideas than to encourage the group to come up with the ideas. Unlike the Environmental Justice group with group leaders pretty much asking the same question and requesting elaborations on shortcomings of the Cook County government, and the participants staying on topic and feeling energized, the Economic Vitality group with a leader steering the conversation didn't always stay on topic and didn't always stay energized. The group dynamic fascinated me.

At one point, though, one of the other group members in the Economic Vitality group, someone involved in a community organization, complimented me on having good ideas. I don't remember the context. It might have happened at one of the points where I got self conscious in the discussion. I frequently have this reaction while in group interaction, thinking that I might have been hogging time then pull back to try giving someone else the floor to contribute their own ideas. I have plenty of ideas, especially in this category, but I don't want to silence anyone else's voice (though to be frank, the other two participants were black, I'm white, and I didn't want my perceived social privilege to quiet anyone else's voices). Nonetheless, getting that compliment from someone who I perceived as having experience in this political/governmental realm gave me a little boost of confidence.

This Community Conversation event won't provide any immediate or even medium term results. The host of the event anticipates that they'll have a Policy Roadmap set up and shared with the public by the end of Fall 2018. Even then, though, as mentioned above:

  • Money
  • Politics
  • Government
By the time the process goes from ideas to execution, the end result can look little like the ideas. So many other people and interests get involved that things get diluted because all the different interests get balanced against each other. If good results come of this, great! If not, it's politics and government that we're used to.

My big personal takeaway, though: Sometimes our governments want to hear from us private citizens outside of elections, maybe even community organizations want more private citizens involved. Just the pleasant surprise and attempts by some of the officials and staff at this event to get me more involved showed me this.

The fact that this event occurred in the first place shows an attempt to get private citizens involved, even though it resulted in a lot of community organization representatives showing up. Still, a couple of those representatives wanted me to get involved, too, complimenting me on my ideas and encouraging me to speak up more. We might like to think that all this governmental and political stuff focuses too much on influence peddling and power grabbing, but sometimes, maybe even a lot of the time, our governments and politicians sincerely reach out to us to get involved.

Not to say that this event always felt like a completely selfless, altruistic exercise to work out ideas and thoughts. Some networking occurred. People exchanged business cards. I even got a couple business cards. Next time I should have some cards ready to hand off/exchange.

For the most part, though, at least 80% of the business cards handed off came from employees of the Cook County government reaching out to constituents and who wanted to make
  • Themselves available to provide additional information
    • Help the public access services provided by Cook County
  • Or even asking people to contact him with their ideas about shortcomings and thoughts on how to improve things on a day-to-day level
So, yeah, maybe a little influence peddling occurred at the event, but I mostly saw people sincerely trying to improve things.

That's where we, as private citizens, come in. It didn't take me much work to get involved here. A couple weeks ago, at the end of the week in which the Illinois Primary Elections for 2018 occurred or the week after that, I decided to follow my elected officials on Facebook and Twitter. I have little ambition for public office, but I want to make the world better and a major way I see doing that is

  • Helping good people get into office
  • Maybe influencing political parties and government offices to get more involved with everyday people
  • Engaging in more outreach to them
(Though I've lived a fairly uninteresting life, I don't want to go through or put my closest family through the close scrutinity involved in an election.)

Very soon after I joined President Preckwinkle's Facebook group, I saw the announcement for the Community Conversation event. I debated going to it for a little bit since I have a lot to do then decided to go the night before. To make the world better and improve the connection of government/politicians with the public, I needed to go, I needed to get involved. So I went. Remember me mentioning that feeling that something needs to happen encourages me to say "Screw it" then do what needs doing?

And I think everyone in the United States and the world, where it's feasible and not life and limb risking, should do the same.

  1. Go onto the social media of your choice
  2. Follow your public officials
  3. Follow the politicians that you think will make a difference
  4. Pay attention to their posts
  5. Interact with them where and when needed on social media
  6. When you see announcements for public events like this Community Conversation, go and get involved!
I think this is especially the case for people who complain about politicians in office, that they don't trust the government, that they don't think their vote matters, etc. etc. Stop being cynical and get involved.

Because you never know, they might actually listen to you and take you seriously. Apparently a couple people did at an event that I went to. At least two of them were staffers for the government that perked up and might have even felt inspired about a private citizen getting involved. Maybe they felt that their initiative actually would have the voice of people involved, and our governments could become a government by the people, for the people.

And to our government officials, have more conversations and town meetings like this. Listen to your constituents. Even you Federal elected officials. Your lack of outreach has had a lot to do with enabling the populous to put Trump into office. And when possible, local, State, and Federal officials shouldn't hesitate to coordinate town meetings and conversations with their constituents. Don't just do it when we have elections coming up, do it as much as you can!

The same goes to people thinking about running for office or campaigning for office. Reach out to the consituents. Set up these types of meetings. Get them involved. Inspire your potential constituents. Embolden your potential constituents into action. Get them to think that it's only natural for you to get into office because you're attending to the needs of the area, the state, the country, the world, and to them. Make it so they have a hard time eliminating themselves from participating through selection bias. Help them feel welcomed into the process, not alienated. Engage them!

Get involved and involve others. Be the change you want to be and encourage others to become change. Help make the world a better place and embolden others to do the same. Even little old you can make a difference. I believe in you. Believe in yourself.

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Posted by The_Lex at 4:46 PM 0 comments

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