9 Amazing Reasons To Be Optimistic

November 5, 2010 / Laura Grace Weldon / 3 Comments

If you could scroll through history searching for an era where you’d like to spend a lifetime, what would attract you?

Probably peace and prosperity. Probably a time when the arts flourish and science is open to new wonders. Probably too, a time period when people behave morally, care for one another, and uphold higher ideals than selfishness.

Does it make a difference to your answer if you don’t get to choose where on Earth you’ll be born? Into what class, gender, creed, and ability?

You’ll probably want to stay right here, right now.

Our 24 hour media attention on what’s terrifying and what’s superficial steers us away from the big picture. That picture, looking at the wider view, is actually pretty heartening.

1. War and global violence continue to decline.

Armed conflicts aren’t going up, they’re going down.

The world has seen a 70 percent decline in the number of high-intensity conflicts since the end of the Cold War era. Genocide is down 80 percent. Weapons sales between countries have diminished by 33 percent and the number of refugees has fallen by 45 percent. Even measuring from as little as 15 years ago, the number of armed conflicts has dropped from 44 to 28.

Why? Project Ploughshares credits peace building efforts.

Chances are, the reasons for peace are complex. Yet a stronger international resolve to focus on peace building and basic human rights is taking place. Imagine the far larger potential for enduring peace if we intentionally educate our children and ourselves in the proven methods of non-violence—-negotiation, mediation, reconciliation, even basic listening skills.

2. Freedom is stretching across the planet.

By evaluating variables including civil liberties, democratic institutions, and independent media it’s possible to assess how free each nation in the world really is. Back in 1973, 29 percent of nations were deemed free, 25 percent partially free, and 46 percent not free.

In a little over 35 years, the number of nations ruled by authoritarian regimes dropped from 90 to 30. Countries around the world considered to be free increased by 50 percent while those not free had dropped by more than half.

Independence has a long way to go. And what we may not recognize as positive signs—protests, dissent, political upheaval—may very well be ordinary people speaking up for freedom.

3. Affluence is on the increase.

A shifting focus away from war, conflict, and chaos means that countries are better able to meet the needs of their citizens. Those 151 countries deemed free or partly free account for 95 % of the world’s gross domestic production (GDP).

The number of people living in poverty has dropped by 500 million people, although most of those successes are in a few key countries. Since 1975 the world’s poor have seen their incomes grow faster than the world’s wealthy, meaning economic equality is increasing.

Of course, we make a mistake when we confuse affluence with well-being. After certain (surprisingly minimal) levels of health and safety are reached, money doesn’t buy happiness.

Current global conditions of institutional breakup, financial chaos, and environmental decline are exactly those which seem to be (slowly) leading to long-term beneficial change. Collectively we’re waking up to the limitations of short-term fixes and relentless economic expansion. Hopefully we’re also waking up to the reality that we’re in this together—rich and poor, developed and developing nations, young and old, left and right. We see in our own lives that what’s important can’t be measured by dollars alone. Things like good health, supportive relationships and a vital ecosystem.

There are plenty of other ways to define affluence. A fascinating measure of wealth lies in a quick look at how many hours of labor it once took the average worker to pay for light. In ancient Babylonia it took over 50 hours to pay for an hour of poor light from a sesame-oil lamp. At the start of the last century, it would have taken the average worker a thousand hours to earn the money to buy candles equaling the light of a single 100 watt bulb. Today’s high efficiency lighting costs us less than a second of work.

4. Fewer people are hungry.

Hunger continues to drop although we have a long way to go. It’s staggering to realize that 925 million people are chronically hungry. But according to The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet by Indur Goklany, global food supplies increased 24 percent per capita in the last 40 years. In developing countries the food supply increased at an even greater rate, 38 percent more food per person. Since 1950, the real global price of food commodities has declined 75 percent.

No one should go hungry. The future of global food justice relies on efforts to restore and protect biodiversity, stop the spread of genetically modified crops, and assure water rights.

5. Longevity is improving yet total population faces a downturn

Fulfilling the cherished hopes of their parents, more children around the world are born healthy. Mortality rates for those under five years of age have fallen by 60 percent since 1960.

Meanwhile, life expectancy has risen 21 years since the mid 1950’s.

This doesn’t mean the planet will be too crowded. Overall population will continue to rise for several more decades but we’re facing a major downturn. Already birth rates are near or below replacement rate in countries all over the world. Increased education and affluence tend to inspire women, no matter what country they live in, to invest their time and resources in fewer children. As Fred Pearce clearly explains in The Coming Population Crash: and Our Planet’s Surprising Future, our little Earth will likely reach a (painful) peak of 8 billion people around the year 2040, then the total number of human will begin to decline so rapidly that nations will struggle to keep their populations levels from slipping too low. They may create perks for becoming parents and incentives to attract immigrants.

6. Health continues to improve.

Studies conducted by Robert W. Fogel, a Nobel laureate and economic historian at the University of Chicago, show that in a few hundred years human biology has changed in startling ways. We are more resistant to ill health, more likely to recover when faced with disease and less likely to live with chronic disability. We are also smarter and live longer. Fogel calls this radical improvement “technophysio evolution.”

An interview quotes Fogel as saying, “The phenomenon is not only unique to humankind, but unique among the 7,000 or so generations of human beings who have inhabited the earth.”

Fogel doesn’t necessary attribute the changes to genetic shifts. Improvements in medical care, nutrition, sanitation and working conditions may cause epigenetic changes. These are shifts in gene expression that can last through many generations without altering underlying DNA.

Information amassed by Fogel indicates that chronic diseases such as arthritis, heart disease and lung ailments are occurring 10 to 25 years later in life than they did 100 or 200 years ago. Interestingly, well-being may be more strongly affected by conditions each individual faces in utero and during the first few years of life than previously suspected.

These remarkable health gains don’t diminish our current struggles with cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, autism and other serious health conditions on the increase. Despite the blessing of bodies more resilient and healthy than those of our ancestors of just 150 years ago we suffer the effects of environmental toxins and nutritionally inferior diets. To fully accept the gift of health and energy from our ancestors, we need to make the right choices to pass those benefits to our descendants.

7. Literacy rates continue to improve.

Global adult literacy rates have shot up from 56 percent in 1950 to nearly 84 percent today, the highest ever.

Women’s rates haven’t risen as quickly due to inequality and poverty, but in some areas, particularly East Asia, 90 percent more girls are able to read than 10 years ago. As female literacy goes up, other overall positive indicators tend to follow including decreased domestic violence, improved public health and greater financial stability.

8. Intelligence is on an upswing.

From generation to generation, we’re getting smarter. In fact, to accommodate continuously increasing intelligence the IQ test must be renormalized (standardized to keep the average test results at the 100). This is called the Flynn Effect.

Between 1932 and 1978, mean IQ scores in the U.S. rose 13.8 points. If your grandparent received IQ score results of 98 back in 1932 they’d have been deemed of average intelligence. That same grandparent, if administered today’s tests, would be considered to have a borderline mental disability by current scoring standards. IQ scores have risen even higher in some other countries. Of late, developing countries seem to be experiencing the biggest surge.

Plenty of explanations have been proposed, but the increase can’t be definitively pinned on genetic improvements, improved nutrition, greater familiarity with testing or better schooling.

According to Cornell professor Stephen J. Ceci, the most direct gains are not in subjects that are taught (math, vocabulary) but are shown in parts of the test that seem unrelated to schooling (matrices, detecting similarities). In fact, test gains have been enormous in areas requiring the child to apply his or her own reasoning, such as arranging pictures to tell a story or putting shapes in a series. Although teaching children does return positive results, what a child learns through the natural stimulation of everyday life has a more profound effect. For example, a study to determine the effect of schooling on rural children in India found that the increase in overall intelligence from a year of age is twice the increase from that of attending a year of school.

IQ test scores don’t relate to what truly provides satisfaction in life. But the Flynn Effect is intriguing. Factors we can’t completely explain are giving us the intellectual capacities to deal with an ever more challenging world.

9. Compassion is huge.

Never before in history have so many people worked tirelessly and selflessly to benefit others. Paul Hawken writes in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming that the abolitionist movement was the first major movement by human beings to advocate on behalf of others without seeking advantage for themselves or their particular social or political group. Since that time, such efforts have grown with astonishing vigor.

There are now over a million organizations on the planet working for environmental stewardship, social justice, the preservation of indigenous cultures, and much more. These groups don’t seek wider acclaim, they seek to make a difference for the greater good.

Humanity, which is clever and kind enough to bring about so much improvement for one another, is awakening to the vital importance of living more sustainably on Earth. Unless we pull another planet out of the galaxy’s pocket in the next decade or two, we have to stop using up our precious blue green Earth. It’s time to turn our ingenuity to living well within our means. Peacefully, wisely, and with optimism.

Hand Globe image courtesy of HapciuMadam

Hummingbird image courtesy of PhapPuppy

Do You Suffer From Mean World Syndrome?

October 21, 2010October 29, 2010 / Laura Grace Weldon / 4 Comments

Do you turn on TV news most days? You’re probably not doing yourself or your family any favors.

What you bring into your home is tragedy, violence and the worst of human behavior. Study after study has shown that news programming tends to breed cynicism and helplessness.

Yes it’s important to be informed, but the kind of coverage found in network and cable news is usually superficial. And worse, it’s skewed to visuals and headlines chosen for shock value. That’s what boosts rating. In-depth information that advances real comprehension isn’t what TV news delivers. As a result, viewers are more likely to become pessimistic, fearful and unable to gauge reality.

Yes, really.

The phenomenon is called Mean World Syndrome.

It’s based on the research of George Gerbner. His analysis showed that the violent content of news and entertainment convinces viewers that the world is more dangerous than it actually is. Back when Gerbner did the bulk of his work, media was a smaller and quieter place. Now we have 24 hour access to news channels, movies, and shows as well as all kinds of net content.

Gerbner wrote,

Our studies have shown that growing up from infancy with this unprecedented diet of violence has three consequences, which, in combination, I call the “mean world syndrome.” What this means is that if you are growing up in a home where there is more than say three hours of television per day, for all practical purposes you live in a meaner world – and act accordingly – than your next-door neighbor who lives in the same world but watches less television. The programming reinforces the worst fears and apprehensions and paranoia of people.

And those who are convinced the world around them is a highly dangerous, unpredictable and unforgiving place have more than a heightened sense of insecurity. They are more likely to see violence as a solution to problems rather than to reason in more nuanced ways. Fear also drives them to take hard-line political and social attitudes.

When Gerbner testified before a congressional subcommittee in 1981, he said

Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line measures…

Hmmm.

Fact is, the world is NOT more violent.

Center for Media and Public Affairs did a study on network coverage of murder. Between 1990 and 1995, the murder rate in the U.S. went down thirteen percent. (It continues to go down.) But during that same period, network coverage of murders increased three hundred percent.

Try this antidote, an excerpt of a Steven Pinker article titled “We’re Getting Nicer Every Day: A History of Violence,”

The criminologist Manuel Eisner has assembled hundreds of homicide estimates from Western European localities that kept records at some point between 1200 and the mid-1990s. In every country he analyzed, murder rates declined steeply–for example, from 24 homicides per 100,000 Englishmen in the fourteenth century to 0.6 per 100,000 by the early 1960s.

On the scale of decades, comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture:

Global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth century.

According to the Human Security Brief 2006, the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2,000 per year in this decade. In Western Europe and the Americas, the second half of the century saw a steep decline in the number of wars, military coups, and deadly ethnic riots.

Zooming in by a further power of ten exposes yet another reduction. After the cold war, every part of the world saw a steep drop-off in state-based conflicts, and those that do occur are more likely to end in negotiated settlements rather than being fought to the bitter end. Meanwhile, according to political scientist Barbara Harff, between 1989 and 2005 the number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90 percent.

The decline of killing and cruelty poses several challenges to our ability to make sense of the world. To begin with, how could so many people be so wrong about something so important? Partly, it’s because of a cognitive illusion: We estimate the probability of an event from how easy it is to recall examples. Scenes of carnage are more likely to be relayed to our living rooms and burned into our memories than footage of people dying of old age.”

Yes, we face harsh realities. I hardly need to recount them to you. But when crime, disaster, ecological devastation, famine, and other tragedies are presented as random occurrences nothing constructive is gained. Emotions like anger, fear, and sorrow can rouse us to positive action but only if action is an option. Sometimes that’s direct action, sometimes it’s seeking deeper understanding of how to prevent these occurrences from happening again.

Problems portrayed on movies and shows, problems relentlessly hyped in the news and by pundits—-well, they just seem so pervasive, so disconnected from causes, so impossible to change that we feel helpless to do anything about it. That’s another effect of Mean World Syndrome.

We end up pessimistic, which is bad for our own health and bad for the planet.

True, we humans may be more likely to pay attention to negatives than positives, a trait that probably helped us to survive in saber-tooth tiger days. But long progress of humanity has much more to do with our tendency to cooperate, form close relationships, and to care. We are hard-wired for compassion, not for the imaginary mean world.

Fight Mean World Syndrome

Get your news from sources that adhere closely to the highest journalistic standards.

Consider widening your perspective with international news.

Check out Center for Media Literacy. They offer resources to help young people develop critical thinking skills related to our world of mass media.

Read magazines about people and groups working for positive changes such as Ode and YES.

Enjoy some heartening news with Good News Network and Great News Network.

Fear image courtesy of Jimee, Jackie, Tom & Asha’s Flickr photostream.

When Girls Think Their Looks Mean Everything

October 13, 2010February 28, 2015 / Laura Grace Weldon / Leave a comment

As little girls, Elissa’s friends were rambunctious and wholly themselves. They pursued their own interests with no concern for other people’s opinions. They drew comics featuring hilarious dialogue, danced and laughed simultaneously until they fell down in breathless mirth, conducted basement science experiments, and pretended they had super powers. Their mothers talked about how freely their girls expressed themselves, grateful to have strong daughters.

Then it started.

Like a relentless viral infection, one by one these girls succumbed to our appearance-obsessed culture. Elissa watched angrily as her friends were laden with heavy new concerns. They worried about what they looked like and what others thought of them. By 11, 12, or 13 years old they hid their unique interests and suppressed their considerable talents. Instead they maintained a near constant awareness of hair, make-up, clothes, body shape, who said what, and how everyone else reacted.

Threats, screaming outbursts, bleak despair became common. And that was just their mothers’ reaction to their daughters’ behavior. Helplessly witnessing what has become a female ritual of relentless self-scrutiny causes many of us to lose it. We know all too well that the effort to constrict oneself into a mold is exhausting.

But who can blame our girls, let alone the adult women who continue to suffer painful confidence wounds, when impossible standards are the norm? It’s almost as if we females are set up to fail at this appearance game. Oh wait, we are. Even the Beautiful People aren’t beautiful enough.

Celebrities “fail” too. Take a look at the already lovely Mena Suvari, model and actress whose acne is removed, pores eliminated, eyes brightened and skin smoothed.

Check out the before-photoshop pics of women like Kirsten Dunst, Alicia Silverstone, Christina Ricci, and others. Until they’re rendered plastic smooth and Barbie thin, they look somewhat like ordinary people.

And let’s not forget, reality shows have made transformation from ordinary to perfect an entertainment phenomenon in a society where make-overs for little girls and high heels for babies aren’t out of the question.

Image after image through their young lives, girls absorb an ever present lesson that females aren’t good enough as they are. Such lessons aren’t confined to images. Girls and women portrayed in movies are typically clad in sexualized clothes and lead one-dimensional lives.

What’s the effect?

Devastating, according to the American Psychological Association. Shame, anxiety, eating disorders, and depression. Girls judge their bodies harshly as young as the age of five. No wonder a girl might choose keep the vitality of her true self hidden.

But there’s another side, often overlooked. Because Elissa and a few of her friends didn’t suffer (at least fully) the perils of lookism. They barreled through their pre-teen and teen years fueled by interests strong enough to hold them steady. Elissa poured her energy into a number of pursuits. She was a docent at the zoo, raised white rats, studied an ever increasing range of scientific interests, and moderated an online forum. One of her friends took up photography, becoming proficient in pinhole camera techniques and making albumen prints, while also advancing in a hockey league. Elissa noticed that girls who didn’t engage in the looks-first game were often ostracized by their more mainstream peers, but they also had strong friendships beyond school. Elissa, homeschooled through highschool, was one of those friends. She says she felt freer to follow her own interests without the pressures of school culture and advocated individuality to others.

As a teen, Elissa was angry at the influences that swayed so many of her other girlhood friends. She scorned their preoccupation with boys, clothes, body image, and interpersonal drama. But now Elissa is in her early 20’s. She’s reconnected with many of these same friends and learned a little about the adversity they suffered as they made their way through adolescence different than hers. One of her childhood friends became a mother at 15, another made multiple suicide attempts, still another struggles with bulimia. Elissa is sure the strengths from girlhood are still with all of them. She just doesn’t know how to let them know that their looks don’t define them.

Here are a few resources to light the way.

About Face

Adios Barbie

All Made Up: A Girl’s Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype to Celebrate Real Beauty

Body Drama: Real Girls, Real Bodies, Real Issues, Real Answers

Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image

Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel

Mothers for a Human Future

New Moon Girls

Packaging Girlhood

Pink Stinks

Resolving the Confidence Crisis

Teen Voices

The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls

101 Ways to Help Your Daughter Love Her Body

Trying to Be Happy courtesy of Orm Huz

What To Expect From A Load of Crap

September 17, 2010May 25, 2015 / Laura Grace Weldon / 6 Comments

I’ve had one of those days. A steaming pile of crap sort of day. You know how it is.

We all have them. When the morning starts out with headache, an angry tailgater or the continuation of some tough circumstances the bad mood usually isn’t far behind. This has a ripple effect. We complain to others, tipping conversational topics toward what grinds and grates. And somehow that negative outlook sets our personal radar to scan for more difficulty on the horizon. Those days rarely improve.

Some of us hold out a little longer. We work hard at emphasizing the positive, which is handy because moods are downright contagious. Studies show an individual’s emotions can influence entire groups (families, playgrounds, workplaces). Positive contagion leads to more cooperation and less conflict. Negative contagion, well, you know how fun that can be. Apparently moods stick like that pink goo from The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

No one is upbeat all the time. Besides, constantly perky people inspire loathing. But I keep learning the necessity of choosing the way we experience life’s ups and downs. You know how easy it is to focus on five minutes of difficulty rather than the smooth progress of the day. We do it all the time. A child’s angry outburst overshadows hours of sunny cooperation. A colleague’s late return from lunch somehow reflects badly on a week’s worth of work. Or a whole slew of minor problems start to look like a steaming pile.

I’ve discovered while reading Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom that we’re fighting a hard-wired tendency. Our brains pay more attention to the negative than the positive. That was probably helpful when saber-toothed tigers threatened our early ancestors. Not so helpful these days.

Fortunately I live on a small farm where the cows produce loads of actual crap. So I know what to expect from it. Whether mixed in to the garden beds or left in a heap, eventually it bursts into flower.

The same potential lies dormant in our worst days. No matter what, we’re still in charge of our own attitudes. Because “sh*t happens” is only one way to look at it. “Compost happens” too.

Dirt in hand photo courtesy of Tea Cupie

Flower in hand photo courtesy of Prismes

I Know You Are But What Am I?

August 4, 2010 / Laura Grace Weldon / 5 Comments

Quick, describe your neighbor. The friend you just talked to on the phone. And one other person you know.

Tally up the negatives and positives. What do they indicate?

Actually, they say a lot more about you than the people you’re describing.

Sages, poets and mystics have told us all along that what we perceive is who we are. Research indicates they were right. Our perceptions of others actually say much more about us.

According to a study in the July 2010 issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the tendency to assess people in our social networks positively is linked to our own

enthusiasm,

happiness,

kind-heartedness,

politeness,

emotional stability,

life satisfaction,

even how much others like us.

A lead researcher says, “Seeing others positively reveals our own positive traits.”

The opposite is also true. The study found that how negatively we view others is linked to our own unhappiness as well as a greater likelihood of problems such as depression, narcissism and antisocial behavior.

That explains a lot.

Sure, any three people we know are likely to have annoying traits. Who doesn’t? But as Carl Jung said, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Often people whose behavior is most challenging turn out, in retrospect, to bring out new strengths in us. They illuminate what we don’t want to see, make us more aware and teach us to be better people ourselves. Perhaps we’re drawn to the sandpaper that smoothes us our own imperfections.

It isn’t reasonable to cast a wholly positive light on every person. But knowing that what we see is what we enhance in ourselves, that can make all the difference.

A human being is essentially

a spirit-eye.

Whatever you really see,

you are that.

Rumi

Art courtesy of SkyHorizon

Spreads Like Butter But No Calories: Kindness

March 19, 2010 / Laura Grace Weldon / 6 Comments

No matter how many times someone claims that humans are naturally selfish and aggressive, they’re wrong.

We’re constructed for compassion.

It’s easy to tell. Our bodies function best when we’re in a state of cooperation and caring. Research shows this in our skin, our brains, nervous systems, our hearts. Research also proves this whether looking for physical, emotional or social benefits.

Kindness, generosity and compassion not only keep us healthy as individuals, they bind us together in networks of family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. These networks spread across the globe for many of us, drawing us in close circles of caring despite distance.

As we grow up we learn to emphasize some behaviors over others, but it appears we speak an innate language of kindness before we speak in words. Hard to believe? Take a look at babies. As reported in, Why We Cooperate (Boston Review Books), studies of babies between one to two years of age show them remarkably eager to help, share and cooperate. Not true of our ape friends. Similar studies of chimpanzees show them to be selfish, particularly when they can get more food for themselves.

James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis, authors of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives write that cooperative behavior is not only natural, it’s contagious. When people benefit from the kindness of others they go on to spread the compassion. The tendency to “pay it forward’ influences dozens more in an enlarging network of kindness. And even more heartening, the effect persists. Kindness begats more kindness, blotting out previously selfish behavior.

These findings amplify what anthropologists are now saying (see Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace), that the long progress of humanity has been made possible through generosity and cooperation.

Christakis says, “Our work over the past few years, examining the function of human social networks and their genetic origins, has led us to conclude that there is a deep and fundamental connection between social networks and goodness. The flow of good and desirable properties like ideas, love and kindness is required for human social networks to endure, and, in turn, networks are required for such properties to spread. Humans form social networks because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs.”

“If there is anything I have learned about men and women, it is that there is a deeper spirit of altruism than is ever evident.

Just as the rivers we see are minor compared to the underground streams, so, too, the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what people carry in their hearts unreleased or scarcely released.”

Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Butter image Creative Commons. Children holding hands image thanks to Bill Gracey’s Flickr photostream.

Dear Cleveland

March 1, 2010March 1, 2010 / Laura Grace Weldon / Leave a comment

Dear Cleveland,

What’s with the lonely sidewalks? You’ve got so much to offer. No, I’m not saying that because I feel sorry for you. You have a great personality and a good heart, that’s what matters.

Wipe that look off your face right now. How many times have you been told to stop putting yourself down? I don’t care who called you America’s Most Miserable City. Someone didn’t raise those name callers right. That’s right, you laugh it off.

You don’t need to prove yourself with casinos or a med mart or port development just because everyone else is doing it. Stop comparing yourself to all those other cities. It’s how you treat one another that counts.

You know you can sing and dance with the best, and that’s after you beat them all in science class. If no one asks you to play, don’t think about it another minute. You already know how to party hearty don’t you Cleveland?

When you feel small, know that’s because the bounteous arms of Sister Erie embrace you and the blessed skies look upon you. So clean that grime from your windows. Smile at the weather, greet your neighbors and tell your stories. Remember, you are wise as your oldest people and lively as your newest baby.

You’ll always be my Cleveland. Don’t you forget that.

Love,

Laura

Photo courtesy of ifmuth’s Flickr photostream

Real Action Footage Hard to Find: World’s Most Powerful Force Rarely Filmed

February 23, 2010January 19, 2013 / Laura Grace Weldon / 5 Comments

Few talk about it. Fewer know much about its principles or how to apply them. Yet it has a profound impact, a long history and a reach nearly as wide as heaven. I’m talking about non-violence.

Sure, we know a bit about the civil rights movement and a bit about Mahatma Gandhi, but not much. Mainstream media focuses on the changes wrought by violence.

Pacifism is confused with those who are passive. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider Liberia. This nation was birthed by colonization and racism. It existed in oppression for over 150 years. A few years ago Liberia was a land torn apart. Dictator Charles Taylor’s reign imposed hunger and brutal killings on Liberia’s people. The rise of rebel groups made the situation worse. Children were forced to become soldiers. They roamed the countryside stealing, raping and killing. Villages were burned. Brutalized refugees crowded the cities. No one was safe. No one knew where to turn. The only answer lay in the powerful force of love in action, non-violence.

By 2003 women began gathering at their own risk to demand peace. They wore white and sang in the marketplace. They called themselves Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Their numbers grew. Against tradition, Christian and Muslim women worked together—singing, praying, planning and insisting on love. They held signs as truckloads of soldiers drove past, the same men and boys who terrorized them. Their signs said, “We love you. Put down your guns.”

Ignored at first, their numbers grew. As peace marchers walked past, other women joined in from the streets. Children sang along. Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace tactics included passive resistance, withholding sex (in part to avoid birthing children who would later be raped, killed or forced to become soldiers) and insisting on reconciliation. Finally they forced a meeting with President Taylor, where they made him promise to attend peace talks in Ghana. Then they bravely met with representatives of the rebel faction, who also agreed to attend the peace talks.

A delegation of Liberian women went to the talks in Ghana at their own expense. They waited outside the hotel where negotiations were held, wearing white as reminding presence. The men stayed in luxury, stalling as they attempted to get more and more power for themselves without agreeing to more rights for the citizenry. After weeks of these fruitless talks the women learned that an embassy in Liberia had been bombed and war there had intensified. Afraid for the families they’d left behind, they took another risk. Entering the hotel, one hundred women linked arms outside the doors of the negotiating hall. They intended to force the men to stay without food and water, privations Liberian refugees knew well, until they had reached an agreement. Guards threatened them. One of the rebels kicked at them.

Leymah Gbowee, a leader of Women of Liberia Mass Action stood. She began to take off her clothing. This was a last resort. It is taboo to see one’s sister, mother or grandmother unclothed. The guards backed down. Two weeks later an agreement was signed.

When Liberia held landmark elections, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became the African continent’s first elected female head of state. Yet look around. The extraordinarily brave, powerfully liberating work by Liberian women went largely unnoticed by major news organizations. Heck, even the Liberia page on Wikipedia doesn’t cite their involvement. Stephen Colbert’s interview with Leymah Gbowee promos the sex strike angle.

An extraordinary documentary about Women of Liberia Mass Action, called Pray the Devil Back to Hell came out in 2008. Producer Abigail E. Disney couldn’t rely on footage shot by news organizations. They barely cover non-violence. Instead she managed to find three years of material on the peace movement that shifted the course of history from “private individuals who just happened to be there with cameras.”

We can do more than thank goodness.

We can use non-violence so that goodness is a force for change.

Going to Hope in a Handbasket

January 4, 2010October 29, 2010 / Laura Grace Weldon / 3 Comments

“Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” Arundhati Roy

Fear sells. Blood and guts sell even better. What really grabs our attention? Out and out panic. That largely explains today’s so-called news channels, talk radio, actually much of commercial media. The worse it sounds, the greater audience share they grab and the more money they make. Trouble is, they also make up minds and harden hearts and plant misery where optimism could so easily flourish.

But they’re wrong.

Sure, it seems we’re in big trouble. Structures we count on to be stable are crumbling—finance, health care, education, consumption driven economies, us versus them mentalities, you name it.

Remember the parable of the mighty oak and thin reeds? The oak boasted of his immense girth and height, mocking the reeds all around him for their weaknesses. But the reeds could withstand wind, lightening and the weight of snow. The oak succumbed while the reeds survived, stronger than the oak in their ability to bend and stand again. Big institutions are fighting transparency, reform or annihilation with everything they’ve got, believing that strength means rigidity. Meanwhile a shift is happening on the grassroots level, as flexible and self-correcting as reeds in the wind.

Times of change are destabilizing and difficult, but ultimately valuable. After all, what’s broken, corrupt or simply no longer workable must be fully revealed before it’s healed or transformed into something much better.

Look more closely. Things are getting better all the time. In fact amazing evidence shows that we’ve long been on the path to health and harmony. Here are a few examples.

We’re Smarter.

Intelligence continues to increase from generation to generation. In fact, to accommodate continuously increasing intelligence the IQ test must be renormalized (standardized to keep the average test results at the 100). This is called the Flynn Effect.

Between 1932 and 1978, mean IQ scores in the U.S. rose 13.8 points. If your grandparent received IQ score results of 98 back in 1932 they’d have been deemed of average intelligence. That same grandparent, if administered today’s tests, would be considered to have a borderline mental disability by current scoring standards. IQ scores have risen even higher in some other countries: 27 points in the UK between 1942 to 1992. Of late, developing countries seem to be experiencing the biggest surge.

Many explanations have been proposed, but the increase can’t be definitively pinned on genetic improvements, improved nutrition, greater familiarity with testing or better schooling.

According to Cornell professor Stephen J. Ceci, the most direct gains are not in subjects that are taught (math, vocabulary) but are shown in parts of the test that seem unrelated to schooling (matrices, detecting similarities). In fact, test gains have been enormous in areas requiring the child to apply his or her own reasoning, such as arranging pictures to tell a story or putting shapes in a series. Although teaching children does return positive results, what a child learns through the natural stimulation of everyday life has a more profound effect. For example, a study to determine the effect of schooling on rural children in India found that the increase in overall intelligence from a year of age is twice the increase from that of attending a year of school.

We’re Healthier.

An interview in the University of Chicago Magazine quotes Fogel as saying, “The phenomenon is not only unique to humankind, but unique among the 7,000 or so generations of human beings who have inhabited the earth.”

Fogel’s most dramatic proof of technophysio evolution was found by comparing Civil War veterans to subsequent generations. Researchers examined health and longevity data of 45,000 Union Army veterans, including over 6,000 black soldiers. Military records revealed that young American men of that era commonly suffered debilitating health conditions. Approximately 65 percent of men from 18 to 25 years of age volunteered for the Union Army. But arthritis, tuberculosis, cardiovascular disease and blindness disqualified a quarter of them. And the military of that era wasn’t choosy. Incontinence and blindness in one eye didn’t disqualify a recruit. Even the youngest men lived with chronic disabilities. Fully one-sixth of volunteers between 16 to 19 years of age were rejected for serious health conditions.

By the time Civil War vets passed the age of 65, 68 percent of them suffered from arthritis, 76 percent from heart disease and over 50 percent from back problems. World War II veterans at the same age, in contrast, counted among their ranks 48 percent as arthritis sufferers, 39 percent with heart disease and 30 percent with back problems.

These remarkable health gains don’t diminish our current struggles with cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, autism and other serious health conditions on the increase. Despite the blessing of bodies more resilient and healthy than those of our ancestors of just 150 years ago we suffer the effects of environmental toxins and nutritionally squalid diets. To fully accept the gift of health and energy from our ancestors, it seems we must expand our awareness to make positive changes here and now. That way our choices continue to benefit our descendants.

We’re More Peaceful.

We function best through cooperation and harmony. Even our body systems are in greatest sync when we are peaceful, according to studies at the Heart Math Institute. It may be taking us quite a while, as a species, to get accustomed to living in larger settled groups but it seems we’ve come a long way in the last few centuries.

And peace is how our species has come this far, despite what history tells us. According to anthropologist Douglas Fry, evidence shows that for 98 percent of human existence on earth we lived in small nomadic bands that thrived precisely because warfare was avoided. He presents compelling proof in his book, Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace
along with the message that human beings have highly developed capacities to seek and maintain peace.

Psychologist Steven Pinker points out in an essay titled “A History of Violence” that public cat burnings were a popular form of entertainment in the sixteenth century. Although we pay more attention to atrocities now than ever before, the horrors of slavery, genocide, barbaric punishment and vigilante justice were accepted as commonplace a little more than a century ago.

Empathy for people of another race or class? Not a typical attribute even a few generations ago. Pinker notes, “Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler.”

As Pinker cites specific data, the good news gets better. For example, the homicide rate has declined from a rampant 24 murders per 100,000 Englishmen in the 14^th century to 0.6 per 100,000 in the 1960’s (5.4 per 100,000 in the U.S. in 2008).

No matter what the angle, the view is good when we look at more recent U.S. history through this lens as well. Despite what ranting pundits and blaring news promos may indicate, crime rates have been steadily dropping per capita since the 1970’s. Some analysts say by as much as 50 percent in 15 years. Despite staggering economic losses, crime has continued to decline recently.

The ecumenical organization Project Ploughshares reports, “Peacebuilding efforts do work. Although one conflict is too many for those being killed and wounded, there has been a significant decrease in the number and intensity of armed conflicts over the past 10 years.”

We’ve come a long way without direct efforts to educate each person in the ways of negotiation, mediation, intervention, reconciliation, heck, even listening skills. Imagine turning our attention toward cooperation and mutual respect. Surely acknowledging the human tendency toward peace welcomes greater possibilities for harmony in the years to come.

We Care.

Never before in history have so many people worked tirelessly and selflessly to benefit others. Paul Hawken writes in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World
that the abolitionist movement was the first major movement by human beings to advocate on behalf of others without seeking advantage for themselves or their particular social or political group. Since that time, such efforts have grown with astonishing vigor.

Artist Chris Jordan has made a mandala of the names of those million-plus organizations. His work is inspiring—-make sure you look at the images up close as well as the whole picture.

It’s time to turn our attention away from doom-shrieking media. While it’s valuable to be informed, such knowledge is useful only to the extent that it motivates us to turn more consciously in a positive direction.

A heavy heart, or worse, a hardened heart, makes it nearly impossible to raise a child or plant a garden or grow a benevolent future.

Creative Commons image

Getting and Giving, Big Time

December 12, 2009December 12, 2009 / Laura Grace Weldon / 3 Comments

We haven’t gotten this far through brutal force or greed.

Nope. It has taken cooperation, curiosity and cleverness.

Ninety-nine percent of our time on earth as a species has been spent as hunter-gatherers. Our ancestors wouldn’t have survived without collaborating to find food, raise children and stay safe from large predators.

This is still true now no matter what 24 hour news channels tell us. Each moment of the day we’re more likely to react with compassion, calm interest or cleverness than with any form of overt negativity.

Cooperative efforts abound all around us. Perhaps we simply need to look at life-enhancing innovations we take for granted in a new way. Consider these examples.

Want to travel the world finding friendly strangers offering you a place to sleep for free? You can through CouchSurfing. Their motto encourages everyone to “Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch at a Time.” Started in 2004, this non-profit network has connected travelers with locals in 232 countries. This has resulted in nearly 3 million positive experiences, almost 2 million reported as friendships. People who never would have met are connecting, sharing experiences and developing greater cultural understanding.

How about Freecycle? Nearly 7 million members across the world make up this grassroots, non-profit movement of people who give and get goods for free in their own communities. The Freecycle Network, which started humbly in 2003, says, “Our mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community.”

Or consider books set free to find new readers. Since 2001, BookCrossing members in more than 130 countries have shared millions of books with strangers. They’ve also enjoyed the treasure-hunt pleasure of finding books they want to read. It’s all part of an innovative network linking books and readers. More local book-sharing concepts are springing up everywhere. Recently a small town in the UK transformed an unused phone booth into a book exchange. They outfitted the booth with shelves and waited to see if anyone would participate. Residents continue to share books and movies anonymously at the booth, which is always open.

Maybe you need a bigger example. There’s always the Internet. Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain notes in a TED talk that the net itself is built by millions of “disinterested acts of kindness” and based on trust, curiosity and reciprocity.

Giving and collaborating seem to be an intrinsic part of human nature. That may be why people freely share their expertise by editing Wikipedia entries, providing support online or otherwise helping people they’ll never meet via the net. That may be why giving inspires people to greater heights of generosity or creative expression, even when the act remains anonymous. The blogosphere abounds with art, craft and music exchanges. Increasingly this is taking place IRL more often too. In October an art collective calling themselves the Future Machine transformed an unused newspaper box into a “Stranger Exchange.” Located in Boston, the box features simple instructions on the side.

1. Leave an item; 2. Take an Item and 3. Don’t be a Stranger.

Their website offers a simple way to link people who give and take items in the box. Items in the box have included a map of Luxembourg, AA batteries and an invitation to a long ago New Year’s Eve party. They’ve also included projects created specifically for Stranger Exchange such as artwork and a mix tape made in response to another mix tape found in the box.

A post about this phenomenon by Rachael Botsman noted, “Interestingly, the early ‘members’ of the Stranger Exchange seem be participating for similar intrinsic motivations that are fueling the open peer-to-peer movements such as Flickr, Wikipedia, BitTorrent, BePress and so on. For these systems to keep flourishing, people need to “give before they get,” a dynamic that is built on a new kind of trust, trust in people you don’t know or are not even friends with.

This in turn reinforces certain behaviors—collaboration, kindness, openness and honor—that are critical for sharing to happen between strangers. What’s interesting is that once people participate in these exchanges, they experience the proverbial “warm inner glow” and they crave that experience again. In other words, the altruistic action and indirect reciprocity becomes self-reinforcing.”

Botsman is co-author of a book coming out next fall titled What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. I’m looking forward to what the book will tell us about the rise in sharing, trading, gifting and swapping in communities around the world. I suspect it will have to do with the cooperation, curiosity and cleverness—-the foundations of our early survival and the building blocks of our shared future.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Erica Reid’s Flickr photostream