Confronting Tyranny and Stupidity -- recent updates

It's been a little over four years since I delivered a brief talk -- "Confronting Tyranny and Stupidity: What Works?" -- for a teach-in on democracy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  The occasion was the abolition of the Faculty Senate at the university.  Much has happened since then, including this, this, and this from recent days. The natives are restless.  My talk was basically about the varieties of oligarchy that have afflicted many world societies and, alas, some contemporary American institutions as well.  (The YouTube video of the first part of the talk streams above.  Part II and Part III can be found here.) 

Dan Froomkin's essay in Nieman Watchdog describes the some of the broader patterns of oligarchy in the country right now, noting the forces now arrayed against the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Quoting political scientist Stanley Winters, he comments:

What this means, Winters says, "is that although U.S. democracy is founded on one-person-one-vote, each oligarch can bring to the political table the dollar impact of 20,000 Americans.  Decisions like Citizens United open the flood gate for oligarchs and their minions in the wealth defense industry to flex the maximum political muscle money can buy.  And that's just in the context of electoral campaigns.  No one is even talking about how the wealth defense industry silently and invisibly benefits American oligarchs every day, year-round."

By contrast, he says: "Anybody who wants to challenge the wealthy, they've got to get rained on, and eventually snowed on, and it means they have to stop whatever they're doing. Ordinary citizens actually have to join organizations and physically be there and participate, to the exclusion of anything else they might do. And that is at tremendous burden."

His conclusion: "This is one of the reasons a very small number of ultra-wealthy Americans can distort democracy in their favor against tens of millions of ordinary citizens."

My talk concludes with some reflections on Barbara Tuchman's wonderful book, The March of Folly, a work that grows in relevance each day.  Here is her optimistic vision of how citizens, leaders and whole societies might begin to dissolve the follies in which they are enmeshed:

"If the mind is open enough to perceive that a given policy is harming rather than serving self-interest, and self-confident enough to acknowledge it, and wise enough to reverse it, that is the summit of the art of government."  
        
             
                    

Few for Change -- A small but active NGO

If you're looking for a good place to send some holiday dollars -- perhaps as a present in the name of a friend or family member -- Few for Change is a wonderful choice.  The organization supports the educational needs of children of the indigenous Ngöbe-Buglé people in Panama.  As indicated the the not-for-profit organization's web page:

Our Mission: Our mission is to provide financial assistance — covering tuition, uniforms, transportation and books — to high-achieving middle and high school students who would not otherwise be able to continue their studies.

Our Vision: We envision a world where each child has access to basic education, regardless of race, ethnicity, location or socioeconomic status.

Our Values: We believe that education is a basic human right which can facilitate and sustain transformation for students and their communities. Education:

• expands horizons by inspiring and motivating individuals;
• builds social capital and lays a framework for community action and autonomy;
• empowers children to become leaders within their communities;
• provides the tools necessary for students to reach their full potential;
• enables people to break the cycle of poverty.

Our commitment is to keep 100% of the resources that we raise directed towards our scholars and their educations.

About $450 helps provide a child a middle school education and solid step out of the cycle of poverty.  My son, Brooks Winner, is one of the group's organizers and is still active in making it happen.  All of the money donated goes directly to the children.  The web site contains photos and brief bios of the girls and boys chosen to receive scholarships.
  

  

From "disability" to "functional diversity" -- The wheels of life

This cartoon, Las ruedas da la vida, "The wheels of life," nicely illustrates an interesting concept -- functional diversity -- that redefines the ideas, issues and theories often lumped together under the concept of "disability," "impairment" or of "people with disabilities."  The picture shows a baby/boy/man moving through life with changing capacities of mobility and changing needs for wheeled devices to help him move.  It's significant that it also shows the need for people who become helpers along this spectrum of mobility as well -- the woman pushing a baby carriage at the beginning and a nurse pushing an old man in a wheel chair at the end of the sequence.

The basic idea is that all human beings are situated a points along a spectrum of functionality (actually wide range of conceivable spectra of this kind) that reveals what they able to do.  In this way of seeing, the human community is composed of a innumerable kinds of diversity in functionality, circumstances that change for all individuals during their lifetimes.  Thus, the familiar notions of "diversity" that encompasses gender, race, ethnicity, social class, age, etc. can be broadened further to include "functional diversity," an alternative to understandings and labels that have often singled out particular kinds of physical traits and personal features as "defective," "abnormal," "undesirable," and the like.

To the best of my knowledge, the concept of "functional diversity" was first proposed in Argentina as an alternative to derogatory terms that describe the features of persons often discriminated against in societies around the world.   It now has a strong presence in philosophical and policy debates in Spain and Latin America.   Here is an explanation of the basic idea from the seminal article, "Functional diversity, a new term in the struggle for dignity in the diversity of the human being." by Javier Romañach and Manuel Lobato (2005).

We, women and men with functional diversity, are different from most of
the population, from the biophysical standpoint. Due to having different
characteristics, and given the conditions of the context generated by society, we
are forced to do the same tasks or functions in a different way, sometimes through
third parties.

Hence, a deaf person communicates through the eyes and by signs or signals, while
the rest of the population does so basically through words and hearing. However,
the function that these perform is the same: communication. To move around, a
person with a spinal injury customarily uses a wheelchair, while the rest of the
population do so using their legs: the same function, but in diverse forms.

For this reason the term “functional diversity” corresponds to a reality in which a
person functions in a different or diverse way from most of society. This term takes
into consideration the person’s difference and the lack of respect of majorities,
who fail to consider this functional diversity in their social and environmental
constructive processes.

I first ran across the concept of "functional diversity" during my stay at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in Madrid in 2010.  My colleagues in the Institute of Philosophy there -- Francisco Guzmán, Mario Taboso and Melania Moscoso --  are developing this idea in fascinating, systematic ways and have taught me a great deal.  In fact, I am just beginning to grasp the significance and broader (highly useful) implications of their work for philosophy, social science, public policy, political activism, design, and engineering.  I plan to write about these matters in future postings here.

[Alas, I don't yet know the name of the person who drew the cartoon.]

 * * * * * * * * 
[Correction:   Francisco (Paco) Guzmán has written me with the following point, "...as far as I know, the first official reference of functional diversity appeared in 2005 in the article by Romañach and Lobato, both Spanish. The first book where it was mentioned was "el modelo de la diversidad" released in 2006, written by Agustina Palacios, Argentina, in collaboration with Javier [Bustamante?]."
Thanks, Paco!]