citizenship

Civic Diary 4/29/2016

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Hey all! So what’s the latest on my civic diary – my efforts to be more of a citizen?

Not much happened since last week as I got insanely busy. There’s a good lesson here in that you cannot do everything all the time. Sometimes you have to take care of yourself.

I think this is a big reason some people don’t really “dive into” citizenship activities; it’s exhausting and hard to pace yourself.

A few insights:

  • I’m realizing a lot of people do not know how to discuss politics – they know how to argue and fight, but not actually talk. I clearly need to get better at the discussion part.
  • Still convinced I need to get more involved in political organizations or organizing, which is hard as I have to pick something. For now I’m staying aware I should be more involved, and looking for opportunities to do so. I like observing this publicly as it makes me more self-conscious – so I do it.
  • The above has made me realize that, though I may understand many things of the world, my understanding of the political establishment (in the broad sense of everyone engaged in organized politics) is really quite poor. My work with Civic Geek helped me see how many organizations there are doing good in the world, and in turn I now see how much of our world, our society, are these interlinked structures. Being outside them disempowers you.
  • I think the disempowerment people feel is often real – but the solution is being empowered and empowering others. Getting aware and involved. A lot of political rage we see is just people finding new ways to be enslaved by jumping on fads.
  • Haven’t found anything new to write my representatives on. I am never sure how much of an effect it has, but I figure enough pebbles forms an avalanche.
  • Finally, I look at my other social involvements – clubs, speaking, museums, and worry I’ll downplay those too much. THere’s probably a balance – or a continuum – of healthy, different kinds of civic involvement.  Maybe you can be too political.

– Steve

 

Civic Diary 4/24/2016

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

OK I got off a bit on posting on my Civic Diary by a few days.  Pretty crazy week.

So if you’re new to this, this is my experiment in being a better citizen.  I’m posting once a week.  My current major efforts are to be more aware via joining organizations and following them, writing my representatives, and in general contemplating and analyzing what to do next.

So what did I learn

  • First it’s easy to think our representatives do the right thing, but sometimes they do stupid ones.  To wit, Feinstein, one of my reps backed a pretty badly thought out security bill in Congress.  So I wrote her specifically on that.  Gotta take the good with the bad – and I’m glad my continued awareness led me to figure this out.
  • Secondly, as I follow politics the truth of the matter is that to affect politics you have to be in an organization or be involved in one.  That’s it, end of story..  When you watch the protests organized by Democracy Now, or realize how people are involved in awareness and get-out-the-vote efforts, you realize people who get stuff done make the difference.  Yes, these people may be “the establishment,” but you’re not going to change that establishment until you get involved and make a counterpart or become part of it and change it.  Anyway, I think I need to ask more on how I can do my part organizing or being part of an organization – and Martin Longman puts it best, so just read this column.
  • Third, that question of “what more can or should I do” makes me realize the limits so much of us have – time.  There’s a lot of different tensions in our lives, which is a pain, but at least we can be aware of them and find a resolution.  Maybe you want to be an engaged citizen but can only do so much as you’re damn busy – at least you know it, admit it, do what you can, and maybe change what you do when life is less crazy.
  • Fourth, political activity is not a substitute for social activity.  Community work, your friends, family, city, clubs are also important.  I think there’s a kind of continuity we need to find between all levels of our lives to be good citizens . . . and it’s different for each of us.
  • Fifth, the more I pay attention to news the more I realize how much B.S. is out there.  The news is a product and it’s meant to get your attention.  Be selective in your news consumption, and look for real information.
  • First and foremost it’s about Citizenship as Nancy LeTourneau puts it.  Read that column too.
  • A lot of these realizations are pretty humbling.  Asking how to be a good citizen kinda makes you realize where you fail or are ignorant, and suddenly you don’t get so arrogant about your fellow citizens activities.

That’s it for me.  Have you started your Civic Diary yet?

– Steve

 

Civic Diary 4/9/2016 – Community

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

So my latest Civic Diary is on community.

As I document my experiments in being a better citizen (which I haven’t exactly defined, but we’ll learn along), I wanted to share my latest finding on community.

My local writer’s group needed me to take over a writing event as the person running it at the time had a change of schedule and wouldn’t be doing so for quite some time.  I took over out of a desire to help out – it’s a good group that focuses on getting together and writing.

At that point I suddenly thought about my other activities in communities.  Helping at a museum.  My video gaming group.  Movie nights for another club.  All those little things (remember when I mentioned the power of weak links?) that create alliances and bonds.  I saw how important they were.

All these little bits of community involvement are important as community is important.  Community ties us together, community helps us connect, community builds something bigger than us.  If you want to be civicly engaged, building some community, virtually any kind, is important – and lets you use other interests to do good.

Some community seem trivial?  That Steven Universe fan group could also let people network to find jobs.  Your anime club can do charities.  Your doll collector group might be a place where you can offer your skills in accounting to someone with tax questions.  Multiply those opportunities over a lifetime and you can see how important community -any community – is to being a citizen.

Obviously, I think we need to consciously think what kind of community we should build. I will doubtlessly go on about that more in the future.

A few more thoughts on community building:

  • * Real community is built by real people – be it face to face or with your real name, yu need to connect as human beings.
  • * Functional community is integrative, not divisive.  A community ma address a problem, but it does so with a larger purpose of bringing people together.
  • * Community should be connected to the “big picture” even if the big picture is “man we all have hard days, let’s have a movie club every Friday night.”  Insular communities have a way of being very non-civil.
  • * Community has some kind of identity. It needs to know what it is.

So there’s my thoughts.  What’s your community?

– Steve