Systemic change takes time, vision and nuanced leadership at every level, most especially among donors and museum boards. Selfless investment and fortitude are required. So is a willingness to endure discomfort. To move forward, the entire ecosystem must devote itself to a longer game.
Don’t argue to win, argue to learn
Alan Jacobs, via Tim Harford
Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet | The New Yorker
“Social networks, no matter how big they get or how familiar they seem, are not ineluctable forces but experimental technologies built by human beings.”
I enjoyed this thoughtful examination of the complex challenges social media companies should be facing up to (whether they admit it or not).
Harvey Weinstein and the Economics of Consent
“For me, this all distills down to the following: The things that happen in hotel rooms and board rooms all over the world (and in every industry) between women seeking employment or trying to keep employment and men holding the power to grant it or take it away exist in a gray zone where words like “consent” cannot fully capture the complexity of the encounter. Because consent is a function of power. You have to have a modicum of power to give it. In many cases women do not have that power because their livelihood is in jeopardy and because they are the gender that is oppressed by a daily, invisible war waged against all that is feminine—women and humans who behave or dress or think or feel or look feminine.”
This is an excellent and intelligent read. (my bold)
Source: The Atlantic
Aye, there’s the rub. Many of us “helper” types are as much or more concerned with being seen as good helpers as we are with serving the soul-deep needs of the person who needs help. Witnessing and companioning take time and patience, which we often lack — especially when we’re in the presence of suffering so painful we can barely stand to be there, as if we were in danger of catching a contagious disease. We want to apply our “fix,” then cut and run, figuring we’ve done the best we can to “save” the other person.
Source: onbeing.org
Here’s the deal. The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard and companioned exactly as it is.
Real solidarity requires sacrifice. There is no way to balance out a historically unbalanced system of reward (if that is an ideal you value) without those who always get more either deciding to, or being forced to, give up some of it.
Art is the ethical space where we encounter the pain of others and truly reflect on its significance to a shared human community.
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