Moyn - Gerontocracy in America

Samuel Moyn charted the origin of gerontocracy throughout history and warned of gerontocratic control of politics and the economy in his Gerontocracy in America: How the Old are Hoarding Power and Wealth - and What to do about it (2026).

Asserting that "Whenever seniority is used to allocate positions or resources, an impulse toward gerontocracy - the empowerment of the old - is at work" (page 1). Although the ideas of privileging elders goes all the way back to tribal councils in Sparta, the reference to gerontocracy gained greater popularity in France as Napoleon rose to power. In ancient as well as in more recent ages, governance by old people was intentionally enforced by privileging elder males in councils and judiciaries based on a belief that their wisdom would help to create a stable and manageable life for all. Hmmm...

The systemic enforcement of gerontocracy in the U.S. was similarly intentional which, when reinforced by depression era policies that were designed to prevent indigent elderly from lives of destitution, gave rise to social security and Medicare as government commitments. As the proportion of elderly grew, coupled with public officials' deference to the power of older constituents, the proportion of funding required to sustain what was a good idea at first has become burdensome.

Moyn proposes a number of strategies to deal with and diminish the impact of a gerontocratic society. The first suggestion is term limits on public officials, including executive, legislative, and judicial branches. In addition, age limits could cap the number of years career politicians stay in their positions. Youth quotas would bring younger voters to the ballot box and could be adjusted to reflect population proportions. Controlling campaign finance, substantially funded by wealthy elders, would help to reduce elder power in positioning public officials who serve primarily their needs.

It's important to understand that Moyn does not blame elders (primarily boomers) but instead proposes how generosity could be expanded by promising them dignity, worth, and medical care in their final years. Why do the elderly hoard their money and positions of power and influence? Because of fear. The strategy to reassure elders' fear would be to guarantee health and long-term care as they age. Funding for such a commitment would come from closing tax loopholes and diversion so that the government can fund a commitment to a reasonable quality of life for everyone. Raising taxes for affluent elders would open new revenue sources and could be acceptable if they understood the tradeoff. Hoarding will likely always be a dynamic for some (e.g. Why would citizens celebrate the world's first trillionaire?) but it could at least be reduced by reassuring elders of a secure future. In addition, helping older citizens find relevance after their working lives through volunteerism, philanthropy, community engagement, and sharing across generations would reduce the inclination to stay in the workplace, thus helping to create better and more vibrant communities.

My blogpost introducing Moyn's book "Gerontocracy and its impact on education," illuminates one of the most difficult problems of concentrated gerontocracy (like Florida) - school funding and support for universities declines. This is an intergenerational travesty that will result in declining innovation, productivity, and quality of life for all. Stinginess and hoarding deprive others opportunity while at the same time eroding areas of life such as learning and engagement through which all can thrive.

In the "Conclusion" Moyn calls readers to face the ultimate question of growing old - "Eternal Life amid decline of faculties is not a blessing but a curse" (p. 207). Releasing power and dominance to make room for younger workers and public servants might open the way for a dignified and honorable final chapter of life without the worry of what will I do and who will care for me?

Some might criticize Moyn's proposal as being socialist and undermining the opportunities found in capitalism. When Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who recently won a Democratic primary in Michigan, was labeled as a democratic socialist, he responded by quoting Adam Smith, credited with authoring the idea. Dr. El-Sayed asserted that what we have now is not capitalism based on supply and demand and free economic opportunity but corporatism that allows big business to control the economy to only the benefit of the wealthy.

Dealing with corporatism, requiring big business to pay reasonable taxes, would surely help to balance the budget of a more generous country with its elders as well as correct the extreme differences in wealth and economic opportunity that are now a signature of U.S. policy and presence in the world.

Hamad - The Case for American Power

Shadi Hamad's book, The Case for American Power (2025) is a perfect follow up to my last post about Greek history. Particularly relevant is that Greece is credited with the first attempt at democracy in 508-07 BCE. Hamad cites the worry Plato expressed in The Republic that "democracy encouraged maximum freedom and equality, which over time undermined cohesion and a sense of common purpose" (p. 75). Threat of maximum freedom among an increasingly diverse citizenry, challenges of meeting the wants/needs of a massive population, and a rising generation who never witnessed the devastation of autocracy gone wild, is pretty much America's dilemma today (I use America and United States interchangeably as does Hamad, knowing that "America" goes far beyond the territorial boundaries of the United States).

I know Hamad from his days as a staff member at the Brookings Institute in Doha, Qatar. Whenever he was on a panel, I made a point to go because I found his perspective fascinating. He is a Muslim American citizen of Egyptian family heritage with numerous reasons to be skeptical about the United States, particularly for its constant errors in handling Middle Eastern affairs. With all the reservations he might have, he sees the United States as the world's best bet as a significant and positive influence in world affairs.

Hamad's book was written before the 2nd Trump administration began to dismantle institutions of government and challenge norms of decision making and decorum. Knowing the fuller context of what Trump has done by summer of 2026, Hamad's somewhat generous review of Trump's conduct was jarring. But I understood that Hamad's book is not about Trump although Trump personifies the complexity of governing in today's world and particularly the growing tolerance for oligarch and autocracy.

Authoritarianism and its manifestations have been the subject of critique for generations. Machiavelli's 16th century assertion that in leadership it is better to be feared than loved was followed by Hobbes' belief that "individuals, acting in their own self-interest, would willingly surrender their natural rights" (p. 28). Relying on 20th century understanding of the relationship between power and social relations, Arendt "argued that power can be exercised with others only through cooperation and communication" (p. 29) which led to Nye's introduction of "soft power" where "coercion, bullying, and the use of force seemed both uncouth and gratuitous" (p. 29). "Autocrats understand, correctly, that freedom brings with it the opening of new possibilities" (p. 51) which is precisely the reason for their desperate attempts to control the narrative and actuality of their conduct. These are terrific lenses through which contemporary politics can be analyzed.

Hypocrisy is one of Hamad's most pointed criticisms of the United States. Particularly related to the Middle East, the U.S.A. has consistently served as a protector of Israel and therefore always chooses those who at least do not threaten it, regardless of the degree of their autocratic abuses of their own citizens. With Israel as well as most of America's foreign policy decisions, "For a nation, if not necessarily an individual, to be seen as hypocritical is the cost of trying to be moral" and, thus, "hypocrisy is a necessary component of a moral life" (p. 147). The interesting reflection about the United States under a Trump administration is that, although often claiming moral grounds, it is less hypocritical simply because the opaque grounds for its work are relatively easy to see through. Trump's behavior and foreign policy is simply transactional and intended to achieve his own or his oligarch partners' benefit. While attempting to serve multiple masters, Trump's greatest vulnerability may be trying to do too many things at once, many of which reflect "competing agendas that create inconsistency and incoherence" (p. 158).

Hamad's belief is that democracy as an ideal guarantees that there will be hypocrisy and plenty of it. The point is that the ideal was perhaps actualized for a brief period in Greece when it was a small and growing in its increasingly sophisticated view of its affairs and role in the world. Perhaps serving all people with fairness is impossible in the modern day. The problem with hypocrisy, which most people recognize comes in the political theater, is that the individual who is a hypocrite "is different because of his ostentatious morality, which is meant to obscure and deceive" (p. 128). The electoral competitions and controversies we now observe are replete with this dynamic, with candidates claiming the ability to solve difficult problems in short order with simple solutions. As raw populism and authoritarianism surge in the U.S. and around the world, increasing "polarization provides proof that American democracy is alive and well" (p. 113).

The self-doubt of many American citizens (i.e., oikophobia = "fear or hatred of home or one's own society," p. 62), reflected in citizen pride dropping from 69% in 2004 to 38% in 2022, is not helpful. Instead, Hamad pleas for American exceptionalism and a belief that "democracy, for all its faults, is clearly preferable to the alternative" (p. 91). "To say that America is always the villain is like saying that America is always a force for good; neither is true, and the impulses that drive these seemingly opposed claims are more similar than we night like to admit" (p. 153). Hamad declares in his "Introduction" that "America can change and improve on itself precisely because it is an idea... ideas are about aspiring toward -- and not losing hope in the possibility of -- something better" (p. 5). I take to heart Hamad's philosophy that in order to counter doubt "in life as well as in politics..., it's better to err on the side of ambition" (p. 18).

Beaton - A Global History of the Greeks

Did the Greeks really plant the seeds of democracy that some contemporary politicians idealize? What of the monumental Greek revival style buildings that grace many cultural and governmental centers throughout the world? What happened to the cultural foundations that archeologists have uncovered over the years?

These are questions addressed by Roderick Beaton in A Global History of the Greeks (2021). Beginning in 1500 BCE and ending in 2021, Beaton traces the roots and tendrils of Greek thought and culture through the ages and around the world. Mycenae, the Bronze age citadel, provides evidence of the first of these complex societies. Mycenaean warriors conquered Crete by 1450 and turned it into a blended culture between Minoan Crete and Greek-speaking mainland. This culture included an integrated economic structure that supported a population center greater than any that preceded it and fostered trade throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Some sort of systems collapse resulted in the decline of Mycenean dominance around 1200 BCE, signaled by its failure to conquer Troy, an important rival of the age. The population of mainland Greece fell by almost half and cultural and economic prosperity descended into a 'dark age' through 1000 BCE. The darkness lifted around 800 BCE as the Iron Age allowed the Greeks to again move further throughout the Mediterranean, establishing trade with Phoenicians and Etruscans.

Written records improved once the Greeks picked up Phoenician notation systems and combined them with Semitic signs that used "mnemonics for the respective sounds: alf, bet, and so on" (page 61) to form the alphabet. This alphabet improved communication to such a great degree that fields such as history, philosophy, and literature began to emerge. The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (now understood as possibly multiple authors) are transcending evidence of the new importance of language and written records, acquiring a level of prominence almost equivalent to sacred scripture. As movie theaters await the introduction of the story of Odysseus in the summer of 2026, his long journey and its symbolization of a difficult quest will no doubt stir numerous conversations. It's important to recognize that these stories are of an imagined age of heroes rather than reflecting historical evidence.

The growing population centers on the coastlines of the Mediterranean came to be known as polis (poleis in plural) which can be translated as 'city-state.' With ceremonial and trade areas at their centers, the deliberation to organize citizens into a polis led to the idea of reasoned argument in politics (affairs of the people). The three forms of polis known to these settings were rule by one man (tyrannis), rule by the many (demokratia), or rule by the few (oligarchia). The "world's first functioning democracy is usually said to have been created in Athens during the years 508-507 BCE" (page 100). Adding to the richness of the poleis, authors/poets performed in private houses with food and drink (symposium) and philosophoi (lovers of wisdom) emerged for Greeks to look outward to the rest of the known world. A fascinating attempt to negotiate internal struggles and tensions in some of the new democratic institutions was a yearly vote by 'ostrakon" (painted sherd) whereby citizens could vote someone who they believed had been disruptive to be exiled (known to be the origin of 'ostracism').

The "classical age" of Greece from 494 to 404 BCE was an era of conflict as wars between and among Greek city-states and the distant Persians emerged. The Persian/Greek battle of Thermopylae ('hot gates'), struggles between Islam and Christianity, and other conflicts were in many ways a reprisal of the earlier struggles of Athens and Sparta. Resistance to Persian invasion can be seen as the beginning of what historically has been viewed as the conflict of a 'civilized west' and 'barbarous east'. During this age of conflict and perhaps stimulated by it, Socrates emerged as the great philosopher who engaged fellow citizens in dialogue on the purpose of life. For him, "the goal of all human beings was arete" (page 146) meaning 'goodness' and 'virtue'. To not explore this reason for being meant resigning oneself to an unexamined life, one not livable for a human being. Almost immediately after Socrates' death, Xenophon and Plato picked up his intellectual legacy. Isocrates extended their historical and philosophical musings into what would be recognized as identity, "understood as a set of values that anyone can aspire to attain" (page 171). Although a hereditary monarch, Phillip II, King of Macedonia, fully embraced these ideas, personifying the Hellenic ideal, and was responsible for an era that attracted painters, sculptors, and philosophers from Athens and other southern Greek cities to the north. Among the most notable was Aristotle who had studied with Plato and would become tutor to Phillip's son, Alexander. No doubt that Aristotle's teaching "that the goal of human life is 'so far as possible to become immortal and to strive in every way to live according to the finest thing that is in us," (page 195) contributed to the heroic aspirations of young Alexander. Influencing, conquering or enveloping numerous cultures along the way, Alexander the Great extended the influence of Hellenism to the farthest reaches of the known world of the day. This success of these notable thinkers and leaders is significant because it connects the importance of an examined life to an understanding of identity in a free society via the spread of Hellenic (e.g., Greek) culture through influence and battle.

Beaton traced the idea of Hellenism as it influenced Egypt, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Perhaps the most important influence was Rome as it expelled its last king in 109 BCE and defined its new state as res publica, a state belonging to the people. The rule of Augustus resulted in a 200-year pax romana that expanded continents and spread the ideal of Hellenism that Roman's had incorporated into their views of government and culture. The births of Jesus of Nazareth around 4 BCE and crucifixion in 30 BCE led to the emergence of Christianity. One of its central authors was Paul, whose letters are the oldest Christian texts and were written in Greek due to the continuing influence of Greece on language and culture. Perhaps because of these early Christian texts being in Greek, and their content challenging the abuses of the Roman empire, Christians at different times were persecuted or, under the rule of Constantine, embraced. Both the rejection and adherence to Christianity continued to be controversial and a threat to the Roman empire until its conclusion during the reign of Diocletian in 305 AD.

As I skip chapters that summarized centuries, and fast-forwarding to the present, Beaton declared that the present global movement across national boundaries may be larger and impacting more nation-states but, in some ways, it is not dissimilar from the inclination of Greeks from their earliest days 5,000 years ago.

In the "Epilogue" Beaton advised that, with half of those who consider themselves Greek living outside the Hellenic Republic, the story of Greece and its influence is not over. Perhaps the poem by Iranian refugee in Greece, Hiva Panahi, captures the journey of so many over so many generations (p. 505):

We the wandering, We the barefoot, We without space or country, We the burnt and fiery winds. We say you, with those final breaths, that burned a piece of the sea.

The realization that Greece had different forms of government in its early days of experimenting with democracy offers some solace for where democracy stands today. Perhaps most significantly, the fables we celebrate, the language we use, and the monuments that elude to days of old, are consoling and they represent the lingering impact of Greece in contemporary culture.

Leadership learning at a crossoads...

I recently participated in the International Leadership Association's webinar "What has changed? The Global Context Leadership Educators must face." This webinar recording link includes several of my ILA colleagues and is substantially based on the article I published last year - "Leadership Learning at a Crossroads: Adapting the ILA General Principles for a Changing World."

Publishing the article and participating in the webinar reflects the culmination of 50 years of exploring, researching, and theorizing about leadership and how to cultivate it in others. This journey has been a labor of passion and love allowing me to arrive at this moment in peace - I did all I could, I kept the faith that the work was worthwhile, and I shared with numerous wonderful colleagues along the way.

One of the things I've advocated most consistently is sharing the work of leadership cultivation across programs, disciplines, sectors, cultures, and every type of possible different perspective. My Crystal Ball... reflections confirm the importance of joint and complementary work and add insights I've gained related to international leadership that I shared at the Leadership Educators Institute of 2024.

The AI era is upon us and will require additional layers of capacity than we previously had, or sought to nurture through education of all sorts. The blog post on my other blog, Future proofing graduates, addresses how the current graduates of higher education can best prepare for a promising future. The Gemini 3 AI generated response to the question of future-proofing asserted that graduates will need to develop increasing metacognition agility, ethical discernment, empathic leadership, and fuller systems thinking and application. Complementing these ideas and driving them more deeply into the self-awareness required to thrive in the future, Otto Scharmer proposed that we are at a "new axial" in human experience. This new axial is at least as monumental as when humans moved from hunter-gatherers to communities of shared purpose and destiny.

I believe that the most powerful driver of dysfunction and discord today derives from one central issue - fear. Fear of change, fear of others, fear of not getting our fair share, fear of missing out, fearing the loss of meaning. Boiling down all that I've said or written to the central challenges of leadership, I believe that the primary purposes of our work are 1) deeper understanding of self, 2) honoring the interdependence of humanity, 3) optimism that there is enough, and 4) facing the future with hope.

Fairfield - Introducing Dewey

I have long been curious about John Dewey but after years of reading references to him, or reading things I thought surely were related, I picked up Paul Fairfield's Introducing Dewey (2024) to take a deeper dive. Fairfield's book provided excerpts from select publications and referenced other authors who noted Dewey to place him in context historically and philosophically, and explored the application of Dewey's ideas to ethics, liberal politics, education, religion, and aesthetics.

John Dewey received his undergraduate education at the University of Vermont (1879), pursued post-graduate studies at Johns Hopkins (1884), first joined the University of Chicago faculty from 1894-1904, and spent the rest of his academic career at Columbia University until his retirement in 1930. Philosophically, Dewey was decidely anti-positivist, seeing science as a constant process of exploration. Knowledge as an absolute was anathema to the idea of discovery and experiential learning which were foundational in the way Dewey viewed all fields. Dewey embraced a naturalistic and biological conception of "the living organism as fundamentally bound up with its environment and engaged continually in a myriad of interactions" (p. 8). The idea of "pragmatism" was imbedded in this view and proposed that "an idea may be defined in terms of the practical effects that the idea's object may be said to have" (p. 8) - a practical, applied, and purposeful way of ideating. The idea also contributed to the notion that specializations (i.e. "scientism") were confining and that a scholar ought to be a roving inquirer in search of understanding.

Dewey believed that "the entire life of the mind can be explained within a three-stage model of sensation, idea, and response" (p. 42). These three elements are the foundation for "reflective thinking" which "starts from the presence of a problem (sensation), and.... its first business is to become clear as to what the problem is and why it is a problem (ideation)" (p. 60). Experimental inquiry can then proceed to hypothesizing and testing with these two steps contributing to loop learning that refines knowledge, identifies new problems, and pursues the process yet again (response). Dewey preferred to call this cycle "instrumentalism" rather than pragmatism that was often used to describe his philosophy (p. 68).

Human experiences, whether empirical, ethical, educational, aesthetic, religious or otherwise, are "profoundly rooted in a social and linguistic world" (p. 45) according to Dewey. The heart of useful knowledge then becomes understanding the relationship between means and consequences. This premise inspired Fairfield to explore each of these areas in depth. Given my interest in wholistic and leadership learning, I choose to focus on education in this post.

"A precondition of a viable democratic order is an educated citizenry" (p. 129). This was the core idea expressed in Democracy and Education  (1916/1938). Dewey believed that the disconnection from students' experience, excessive information retention, and passivity were the primary challenges that had to be faced in democratic education. The alternative was classroom learning enhanced through inquiry and complemented by out-of-class experiences that resulted in continuous and integrated learning. He was not an "Ivory Tower" advocate nor a "student centered" learning proponent, believing that every learning interaction required teachers who guided rather than relying on independent exploratory activity by students. These ideas contributed to a view that "Liberty of mind, thought, inquiry, and discussion is not adjunct of education but an indispensable ingredient of it" (p. 152). John Dewey's Philosophy of Education reiterates the above points about education in a brief video.

In the subsequent chapters, Fairfield explored how Dewey's view of instrumental learning can transfer to domains such as politics, religion and aesthetics. Dewey advocated a similar process of discovery - sensation, idea, and response - in each of these areas. As an example, exposure in music can be a fluid, adapting, and increasingly complex area of learning. However, when exposure to music is limited, there may be an initial rejection of unfamiliar types of music. By contrast, new experiences can lead to new openness and exposure to the numerous types of music that one can enjoy. The initial sensation and ideation about something new then leads to expanding music listening preferences including styles, formats, and creators of diverse music. Consider how this idea might be applied to politics or religion and imagine how different individual and community dynamics in these areas might be.

My only disappointment with Fairfield's excellent integration of Dewey's contributions to multiple sectors was that student affairs work (commonly referred to as student personnel work in the early 20th century) was not mentioned at all in the education sector nor any other. As a student of higher education history who has written of Dewey as foundational to the field, it is both telling and disappointing that there was no recognition of Dewey's impact to how student affairs was shaped by and likely contributed to the preservation of Dewey's ideas in higher education. While I have not found reference to student affairs work, a very interesting article relating Islam to Dewey demonstrates how "instrumentalism" holds value in learning in other cultures beyond the West.

Fairfield's concluding chapter focused on Dewey's legacy, logging the broad implications and applications of his ideas in today's world. Dewey may have been eclipsed by some philosophers and educators in mid-20th century but many of his ideas are as applicable today as ever. Fortunate for those of us interested in exploring Dewey's ideas in greater depth, Southern Illinois University holds and has published Dewey's complete works. Perhaps the current crises in higher education will result in a return to core ideas of how learning can best be understood and hopefully Dewey's ideas will reemerge in these conversations.

Reich - Coming Up Short

Robert Reich's Coming Up Short (2025) includes reflections on his life experiences coupled with the political evolution of the U.S., which in his estimation is "coming up short" for so many of its citizens. Reich owns his politics through the book which will not be a surprise to anyone who knows his career. While the assessment of where we are coming up short politically is dark, he does offer hope in describing students he has taught over the last years of his working life.

Reich's family benefitted from coming of age after the collapse of Gilded Age fortunes in the Great Depression, the result of which was wealth flowing to a new middle class, providing unbridled opportunity for many. The conservative perception (espoused by Ayn Rand, a prominent political commentator) of the popular Christmas story of this era, It's a Wonderful Life, was that it was evidence of Communist infiltration. The age of a rising middle class was built at a time of growing industry, population, and people of all sorts together in new and vibrant communities.

The upheaval of the Gilded Age and birth of a middle class was ripe for McCarthyism, which was a post WWII view striving to undermine the gains of FDR's New Deal. And who was ready to aid McCarthy's project - Roy Cohn. Cohn later became useful to the emerging NYC real estate mogul Donald Trump. As a fixer and mentor to Trump, one of Cohn's most significant introductions was to Rupert Murdoch. The significance of these three men's life-long working relationship cannot be overstated.

Reich recounted many of his childhood experiences, which are entertaining while revealing his character. Because of his small stature, Reich was often the object of bullies. During the summer of his 3rd grade year, he met Mickey, a teenager vacationing in an Adirondack cabin near where Reich's family was staying. During that summer, Mickey became Reich's supporter by just being a handsome big kid to hang with. Having lost track of Mickey, the stunning revelation that Mickey Schwerner was one of three murdered "Freedom Riders" in the summer of 1964 cemented Reich's commitment to be part of the generation of Americans "called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders" (p. 58). The Summer of 1964 and Reich's free speech and civil rights activism brought him to see "the central struggle of civilization as fighting bullies - standing up against brutality" (p. 66).

Reich dated Hillary Clinton, got chewed out by Bobby Kennedy as a campaign volunteer, and studied with Bill Clinton as a Rhodes Scholar. Exposure to these key figures was formative but experience in a T-Group in big Sur (similar to one I experienced in Cedar City, Utah, in 1971) caused him to see his youthful experiences of being bullied as related to the violence and upheaval that was gripping America. The assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., leaders who appealed to the idealism of young people and progressives, drove Americans from hope to despair.

About half-way through the book, Reich sharpened his critique that the U.S. government has shifted its focus. He said, "The real choice is who benefits by the decisions government makes about the rules of the game - people who are wealthy and privileged or those who are not, and who pays for it" (p. 258). Relaxed policies about campaign and candidate financial support have resulted in buying influence in the houses of congress and the White House. What is particularly problematic about this is that moneyed interests have shifted to maximizing their wealth rather than investing in innovation, services, improving productivity, and citizens' welfare.

Cruelty is found in individual actions as well as communities and governments. The prevailing form of cruelty in conservative politics is often based on a philosophy "that the only moral purpose of life is the pursuit of one's own happiness" (p. 81) which was foundational to the conservativism emerging in the 1970s, influenced by the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Reich retorted, "If we are losing our national identify, it is not because we are becoming blacker or browner or speak in more languages than we once did. It is because we are losing our sense of common good" (p. 87).

The battle between conservative and liberal ideas has now become a battle for big money that corrupts lawmakers as they change rules to make the rich even richer. Assuming that capitalism is the only way to prosperity and that economic benefit will eventually trickle down to others, lawmakers and moneyed interests trample over any commitment to the public good. This perspective eclipsed the idea that businesses are stewards of public trust to benefit employees and consumers and that sharing wealth through good wages for employees and reasonable prices for goods and services was an ideal to which America ascribed.

Reich peppered quotable gems throughout the book as he reflected on his personal life experience and involvement in politics. Some of my favorites include:

On parenting - Teenage boys can't be scheduled. They're like clamshells. They open just for a moment, to take in a little nourishment or expel some dirt... If you're around when they open, you have a chance to see something truly beautiful inside (p. 301).

On partisanship - Once unbottled, mass resentment can poison the very fabric of society, the moral integrity of society, replacing ambition with envy, replacing tolerance with hate (p. 305).

On journalism - If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, "I have a solution to the Middle East problem" and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news? (p. 308)

On privilege - My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks (p. 328)

On change - Being an activist for social justice means working hard but not expecting the goals to be achieved anytime soon (p. 379). 

On leadership - The long game requires a new and different conception of leadership, one in which leaders see part of their responsibility as building public trust (p. 431).

On American capitalism - The harshest form of capitalism in all the world's advanced economies. It takes almost no account for social costs and benefits (p. 426).

On youth - Instead of being bitter or angry, they have all sorts of ideas for how to clean it up, fix it, make the world better (p. 405).

On aging - ...there are four ages to life: youth, middle age, old age, and YOU LOOK GREAT (p. 458).

In the closing pages of the book Reich reflects:

Most people who "retire" stop what they call "working" and begin what they call "playing." But what if your work is also your play? What if it's your calling? What if its' deeply meaningful to you? (p. 456)

and continues...

Meaningful work - work that's more play than work - can lead to a longer life (p. 457).

Reich's reflection is in many ways a luxury that most people do not have the opportunity to obtain. There's a lot of privilege in teaching and writing but for those who are so lucky, comes the heavier responsibility of cultivating a legacy - something that shows you gave your best effort in your life's work.

Berry - World-Ending Fire

I was introduced to Wendell Berry over coffee by a candidate positioning himself to run for Illinois state representative in my district. I was immediately struck by Patrick Hanley's thoughtfulness and apparent intelligence, so I decided to pick something up and I chose The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry (2017). I chose this book because it was a sequential collection of Berry's writing from 1968 to 2011. I found the entire book interesting but, because it was a collection over time, there are certain themes that are repeated through different stories and revelations. I found that the first several chapters and a couple of concluding chapters captured the "essentials" and I therefore focus on them in this review.

Hanley and Berry are both excellent examples of grounded leadership that is focused on improving communities and the general welfare of those who inhabit them. As studies of character, their conviction in leadership is exemplary.

Berry was a university professor with somewhat eccentric views of the environment and community resulting from his experience in restoring and expanding his family farm throughout his life. The introduction says, "Over the last century, by some estimates, over half the world's topsoil has been washed away by the war on nature that we call industrial farming" (page viii) and that is the central warning that frames the rest of the book. He attributes the fall of small family farms to urbanization that drew young people away from their own origins, origins that previously had connected them to other animals, plants, and the communities that nurtured them. Abundance seemed to prevail in the impersonal, disconnected spaces of cities and thus living abundantly (excessively) became the perceived mark of progress. All the while, the lands and animals that inhabited them were exploited and began a slide to unproductivity.

Berry offers an ominous prediction:

There appears to be a law that when creatures have reached the level of consciousness, as men have, they must become conscious of the creation; they must learn how they fit into it and what its needs are and what it requires of them, or else pay a terrible penalty; the spirit of the creation will go out of them, and they will become destructive; the very earth will depart from them and go where they cannot follow (p. 21).

The antidote is that we must embrace the universal reality that what is good for the world is good for us, which happens only when we try to know the world and our roles in it rather than exploiting and benefitting from it. Filling oneself with knowledge of the earth then brings the realization that the world is inexhaustible and will outlast any humans today or in the future. The question is an earth in what form and condition? A world that is dominated by consumerism and competition "destroys the natural environment" and it "abuses racial and economic minorities" in the same way (p. 49). To correct the abuse of the earth and other humans, "we are going to have to go far beyond public protest and political action. We are going to have to rebuild the substance and the integrity of private life in this country" (p. 53). In sum, "we will be wrong if we attempt to correct what we perceive as 'environmental' problems without correcting the economic oversimplification that caused them" (p. 66).

A theological perspective (not labeled as such) of creating and sustaining a beloved community is Berry's way forward - creating "common experience and common effort on a common ground to which one willingly belongs" (p. 94). The point of this strategy is that only by restoring local soil with joint effort can community cultures be restored - connected, appreciative, moderate, and abundant. A philosophical assumption of this kind of community is that the "standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter's goals are money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health - his land's health" (p. 122).

Berry's chapter on "Two Minds" describes the "Rational Mind - motivated by the fear of being misled, of being wrong," and the "Sympathetic Mind - motivated by the fear of error of carelessness, of being unloving" (p. 180). The 'Sympathetic Mind' is "informed by experience, by traditionborne stories of the experiences of others, by familiarity, by compassion, by commitment, by faith" (p. 184). In Berry's view, conservation is not enough and must stretch to "conserve the possibilities of peace and good work" (p. 199).

"Compromise Hell" asserts that "The general purpose of the present economy is to exploit, not to foster or conserve" (p. 313). The sustainable alternative economy advocates:

1. Humans don't have to live by destroying the sources of their life.
2. Respect ourselves and our dwelling places and quit thinking of rural America as a colony.
3. Reaffirm the economic value of good stewardship and good work.
4. Reconsider solving economic problems by 'bringing in industry'.
5. Confront honestly the issue of scale - bigness promotes greed, indifference, and damage.
6. Prioritize caring for our land.