What do you think this relentless treadmill of accumulation and pressure to consume and debt accumulation, what does it tell us about the deeper underlying psyche, do you think?
I think it tells us that something is hurting inside us as individuals, and as a society. We are tribal animals and we want to have a sense of belonging and a sense of community and a tribe. If we don’t have that through strong family ties and healthy social relations and participation in different civic activities, then we go buy that sense of belonging through a shirt that has a particular logo on it. To me, when I see people spending 50 or 100 dollars on a t-shirt that has a particular logo on it, I feel sorry for them that they feel the need to purchase that social proof or social access.
I have a teenage daughter who loves buying these clothes, so I get to watch the dynamics unfold right here in my house. What I see among her and her friends is the kids who have strong senses of self and strong identity – my daughter is on a sports team so she gets a strong sense of meaning and community and identity through that, those kids are so much more resistant to the advertising messages, that they have to have a certain article of clothing to be cool. I feel that the more that we can invest in our social relations and our sense of identity and our sense of civic participation, the less people will be trying to fill that hollowness inside them with more stuff.
~Annie Leonard (author The Story of Stuff)
Published on December 19, 2013, by Rob Hopkins
FEELING EMPOWERED IS MORE THAN SOMETHING YOU DO FOR YOURSELF.
IT IS CONTAGIOUS AND FEEDS OFF OF ENERGY IN SYSTEMS.
HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND #power?
HOW YOU DO FLEX YOUR CIVIC MUSCLE?
“Eric Liu is on a mission to make civics “as sexy as it was during the American Revolution or the Civil Rights Movement.” As he describes in today’s TED Talk (watch: Why ordinary people need to understand power), we are at a moment of crisis in the United States. The average person simply doesn’t know how to participate in local government, and this means that clout is disproportionately concentrated in the hands of the few who do. Liu’s solution to this imbalance? That we teach everyone the basic skills of power.”
4 TAKEAWAYS from Liu’s TED TALK
- “Before you can learn to write power, you’ve got to learn how to read it.”
- “Looking through the lens of your issue, take inventory of the forms of power that are in play in your community. Get literate in the way decisions get made,” “Understand what bodies have the authority to make decisions on the issue you care about, and start observing who has influence over those bodies.” “These are not questions that people tend to ask, unless there is a moment of crisis.”
- “Try new approaches, note what you are learning, observe the patterns of what works, share what you know.”
- “Learning to read and write power is like learning to read and write, period. It takes everyday practice to build fluency.”
#WestCOMSW 