A Place to Stand | February 2021
America stares into the abyss | Martin Luther King's message to us | Don't believe everything that you breathe | Educated by a gearhead: why we need to encounter reality
America stares into the abyss
12 January 2021
Last week, America stared into the abyss and the world stared with it. Images from the storming of the US Capitol have gone global, especially photos of the activist known as Q Shaman. With his horns, fur, facepaint, and tattooed torso, braying for the cameras in the sanctified corridors of power, the surreal photos perfectly encapsulate a shocking transition; the hours when virtual posturing and LARPing suddenly became a deadly serious assault on an institution of federal government, like electricity arcing from one electrode to another. But the photos and the events they represent aren’t just an American problem. They contain a deeper lesson about the frailty of the habits and institutions that we depend on, even in New Zealand. Continue reading
Martin Luther King’s message to us
19 January 2021
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the US, which prompted me to reflect on his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” written in 1963. It’s not just beautifully written—by turns eloquent and needle-sharp—but speaks to us about current issues and challenges, and provides an inspiring example of the kind of leadership we need today. In this post, I want to briefly highlight some of the themes that stand out to me. But first, some background. Continue reading
Don’t believe everything that you breathe
4 February 2021
In the halcyon days of 2015, we apparently had so few real problems that we could afford to hold a pointless referendum on the New Zealand flag. The referendum was established carefully: an expert panel was commissioned to engage with the people, flag designs were sought and earnestly considered, and in accordance with the law passed by Parliament four flags were chosen by the panel to be voted on by the public. Then social media got involved. The resulting shambles isn’t just an embarrassing historical footnote. It’s also a good example of something illustrated by recent British research: social media might be like the air that we breathe, but it’s dominated by a small subset of influential voices. Continue reading
Educated by a gearhead: Why we need to encounter reality
26 January 2021
I’ve never seen a job advertisement that says, “the successful applicant will have suffered a major disappointment in life.” But apparently this was one of the requirements for working in the White House under President Lyndon Johnson because, “the responsibility of working there was too great … to be entrusted to people who weren’t painfully aware of how badly things can go wrong.” This story appears in Matthew Crawford’s book, Shop Class as Soulcraft, first published more than a decade ago but which I only picked up recently. The work of a philosopher-mechanic, the book isn’t just an ode to the trades and manual work. As virtual reality becomes ever more immersive, Crawford’s book is an increasingly important reminder of our human need to engage with real people, making real choices, in the real world. Continue reading