Culture

Adolf Hitler, Michael Lerner, and I

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This is a story I have always known, a story I grew up with. It is the story of how in Germany on Kristallnacht, Nov 9th, 1938 the mob which was destroying the houses of all the Jews in Mainz came to the house in which my Jewish grandparents lived. There they were met by Maria, my family’s Catholic cook, who faced the mob and said, “Why are you here? You know these people and you know they have done nothing to harm you.” And the people left the house untouched.

Empathy

Immigration Reform and Families

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I’m a total supporter of immigration reform that recognizes the impracticality of deporting nearly 12 million people who are in our country without proper documentation. Let’s find a way to bring them out of the shadows. But, I also look at the immigrants who are here WITH proper documentation, who have been working for years – separated from their families, and I implore Congress to consider and honor those people with reform legislation that helps reunite them with those they love. I’m half Gypsy – half Russian. My grandparents immigrated to this country a very long time ago.

Culture

Empathy and Authenticity in the Workplace (part 2 of 3)

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Part 1 of this mini-series was posted here on Tikkun Daily. Bringing Our Authenticity into the Workplace
In the workplace, as in the home and elsewhere, many people forget about including themselves when it comes to connection. I have already written (“Is Resentment Inevitable?”) about how leaving ourselves out can lead to resentment. How does this apply in the workplace? Including yourself means bringing your opinions and visions when you have them, even when there may be disagreement.

Culture

Neil Innes: Pop Goes Your Culture

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All around the musical villageThe alarm-clock chased the vulture.The sands ran through the hourglass -Pop! goes your culture……………(old children’s song) “Good evening,” said Neil Innes, as he stepped out onto the Hughes’ Room stage last Thursday. “It’s wonderful to be.” He opened with “I’m the Urban Spaceman”, ended it after 30 seconds, smiled at the audience and said, “Thank you. That was a medley of my hit.”

Culture

We Were Never Meant to Survive

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“For to survive in this dragon we call America, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson – that we were never meant to survive. Not as human beings.” –Audre Lorde, in “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”
The first time I read Audre Lorde’s words, above, they exploded my understanding of my relationship to this life. At some level, I had known for a while that I HAD NOT survived, not intact, not as a fully alive person. Although I probably couldn’t have articulated all this back then, I knew that somewhere along the way, I had lost my connection to my body, my ability to connect at the deepest levels with other people, my sense of awe and wonder, my ability to hear constructive feedback from others without my world disintegrating, and much of my ability to feel.

Empathy

Taking Action in the Face of Despair and Helplessness

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“I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.” Dawna Markova
Penny Spawforth asked me in a comment: “I would love to hear how you transform the despair you feel about where the world is heading and your helplessness about contributing sufficiently as I daily experience and feel a sense of helplessness that creates despair and minimal action (‘no action seems large enough to be of use’). What I see as my tiny contribution to the world I want to help create just doesn’t feel ‘enough.'”
Before discovering my current passion for Nonviolent Communication, I was in exactly the kind of place that Penny describes. I saw no way that I could support movement towards what I wanted to see in the world. Then, while talking with my friend Tom Atlee, we came to realize that having a calling, knowing what you are to do in your life, is a form of privilege.

Empathy

Pursuing Personal And Structural Transformation Simultaneously

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So here’s another long post. I keep trying to work out how to express this adequately. I wrote about the difficulty of reclaiming hopefulness on the Left, had an exchange with Peter Gabel about two kinds of transformative experiences, and asked how necessary it is to walk the talk. This one feels to me to get to the heart of my own philosophy about what’s needed, but some time soon I will no doubt try again. Miki Kashtan referred me to a post called “A world where everyone’s needs matter” at the delightfully named blog The Implicit & Experiential Rantings of a Person.

Empathy

Empathy and Authenticity in the Workplace (part 1 of 3)

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When I talk with people about Nonviolent Communication and about empathy and authenticity, I often hear skepticism in the form of “Yes, but what about_______.” Frequent candidates for filling in the blank are teenagers that don’t respond to anything; Hitler; very angry people; and workplace situations. It seems many of us are habituated to thinking that empathy and authenticity belong only in some contexts and not others. Today I want to look at the workplace context, because so many of us are at work more of our awake time than anywhere else. Can Connection and Effectiveness Coexist? On the surface, it appears that the time it would take to reach mutual understanding and collaboration would detract from task-oriented focus, thus taking away from productivity and efficient decision-making.

Empathy

Empathy and Good Judgment

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President Obama ignited controversy when he named empathy as a necessary quality in a Supreme Court judge. Wendy Long, legal counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, said, “Lady Justice doesn’t have empathy for anyone. She rules strictly based upon the law and that’s really the only way that our system can function properly under the Constitution.” Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) referred to empathy as “touchy-feely stuff.” During Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) asked her, “Have you always been able to have a legal basis for decisions you have rendered and not rely on extralegal concepts such as empathy?”

Culture

Radical Educator Herb Kohl's "My Blue Heron"

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Herb Kohl has been one of the most influential writers on progressive education during the last forty years. His has been one of the leading voices encouraging teachers to get beyond the stereotypes they may have about the types of children in their classrooms. Here’s an evocative piece he just sent me about connecting with the natural world, and with some people he found himself close to stereotyping. My Blue Heron
By Herbert Kohl

Where I live it is impossible to own the night. It owns you, swallows you, surrounds you outside of the beam of your flashlight, hints at nocturnal life, awakenings, silences punctuated by the last cries of owls and the first of ravens and jays. I love to get up before the sun and walk to my study when it is dark, when there is no moon or when the waxing and waning moon tints the trees silver and yellow.