It was hot in the COSTCO parking lot. We had just finished loading the car, but I needed to go back in to use the restroom, before our hour-long drive home. So, I reached in from the driver’s side to insert the key in the ignition so my wife could roll down her window to … More An Epidemic of Nasty: On the Abandonment of Empathy and the Surge of Angry White Entitlement
Uncertainty is everywhere and growing fast. That makes many people uncomfortable at best, violent at worst. Most seek certainty in what they perceive as a set of beliefs that they equate with reality. When conditions appear uncertain or change quickly, certain people conclude that someone is messing with their reality. They expect to live in … More Against Ideology: Creativity is Best Hope in an Uncertain World
Humanity, indeed the entire Earth System, now experiences not merely an evolutionary transition, but a full-blown New Great Transformation, unlike anything before. Already traumatized by a history of change, we find no simple answer to the need for both individual healing and societal transformation. The current rise of hate groups, neo-fascists, and bizarre conspiracy theories … More Our Political Predicament and the New Great Transformation
The tension is palpable almost anywhere I turn. We have an incumbent president who will not commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses the election. He blatantly claims that voting by mail is subject to widespread fraud, yet nobody had found any evidence to support his claim. He encourages “Trump trains” of … More What to Do Now: Saving Electoral Democracy from Autocracy
Most of us remember at least vaguely the constitutional admonition that any authority it does not explicitly assign to the federal government, “are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (Amendment X, to the Constitution of the United States of America) We also remember how southern politicians weaponized the principle of “states rights” … More A New Meaning for “States Rights”: Community Sovereignty for Health and Safety
Relative deprivation is a peculiarity of human perception and fact. The COVID-19 pandemic has hurt many people in many ways. As public health researchers study the virus and learn more about its behavior, they have learned that it attacks humans in many ways. However, it has become clear that in the US, Blacks, Latinos, Native … More Relative Deprivation in Black and White
It is not easy for America to sort it all out when police openly commit widespread racial profiling of Black lives and gratuitous violence on Black bodies, and so many white folks fail to object to the fact or even acknowledge it. It is not easy for America to sort it all out when the … More Take a Knee for Me
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 