[Springboard] THE BIG SORT Part One Tuesday, June 23. 6 pm Pacific time
James Wiegel
jfwiegel at yahoo.com
Mon Jun 22 23:19:29 CDT 2009
See attached notes for our study.
Join us for the study this Tuesday. Call in 269-320-8400. access code 881373#
Charles and Doris Hahn, David and Ellen Rebstock, Sandra True, Dick West, and I had a good introductory overview of THE BIG SORT. Turns out the author, Bill Bishop, was the publisher of the county newspaper where the Hahn's had their last parish in Texas (Smithville?).
We are going to focus on the introduction and the first part: THE POLITICS OF PLACE, which includes 3 chapters -- THE AGE OF POLITICAL SEGREGATION, THE POLITICS OF MIGRATION and THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRIBE.
We will focus on the first chapter: THE AGE OF POLITICAL SEGREGATION
Jim
SLEEP was a marvelous invention,
but whoever first thought of filling it
with DREAMS was truly inspired. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
Jim Wiegel
401 North Beverly Way
Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
+1 623-936-8671
+1 623-363-3277
jfwiegel at yahoo.com
www.partnersinparticipation.com
--- On Sun, 6/21/09, Marianna Bailey <wmbailey at charter.net> wrote:
From: Marianna Bailey <wmbailey at charter.net>
Subject: Re: Springboard studies A way to accelerate development of common memory? summer reading??
To: "James Wiegel" <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>
Date: Sunday, June 21, 2009, 3:37 PM
What are we reading for Tuesday's
discussion?
Marianna
----- Original Message -----
From:
James Wiegel
To: Springboard Dialogue ; ROBERT A MURIEL
GRIFFIN
Cc: Marianna Bill Bailey ; Marianne Bailey ; Bill
Bailey ; Order
Ecumenical Community ; Joe and Marilyn Crocker ; Colleague
Dialogue ; Bob and Sandra Rafos ; Richard
West ; Richard West ; Judy
Wiegel
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 2:27
PM
Subject: Springboard studies A way to
accelerate development of common memory? summer reading??
Over the past year, an assortment of the larger "us" have
been reading books / studying them together. Limits of Power, Hot,
Flat and Crowded, Community, The Outliers to name a few. We have
both used events (early mornings at the ToP Trainers meetings) and "free
conference" phone calls to get together.
One of the strategic intents coming out of the recent ICA Community
strategic thinking weekend is "Accelerating development of common
memory". One simple way to do this might be to (a) share our
reading lists and recommendations with one another and (b) choose some
books to study together in some simple way. This will enable some
common language and images about what is going on that can give us more
in common when we talk, plan, work together.
The Big Sort is a recommendation (see below). I am sure there
are others. If there are enough people interested, and with the
book, we can start a conference call study group this Tuesday evening at
5:00 pm Pacific time. Want to participate? Email me.
I'll get it started. 1-269-320-8400. access code
881373#
What other suggestions do you have?
THE
BOOK
THE BIG
SORT (Houghton
Mifflin, May 7, 2008) is the landmark story of how
America came to be a country
of swelling cultural division, economic separation, and political
polarization.
Going
far beyond the simplistic red state/blue state divide, journalist Bill Bishop (in collaboration with
sociologist and statistician Robert Cushing) marshals original data and
incisive reporting to show how Americans have sorted themselves
geographically, economically, and politically into like-minded
communities over the last three decades.
Homogeneity may
be a perk of the unprecedented choice our society offers—but it also
breeds economic inequality, cultural misunderstanding, political
extremism, and legislative gridlock. This is the story of our times, and
its reality poses a profound threat to democracy, but no one before now
has seemed to notice, let alone been able to describe, its causes and
consequences.
The
nation we live in—our culture, economy, neighborhoods, and churches—has
been sculpted by the Big Sort over the past thirty years:
•People
with college degrees were relatively evenly spread across the nation's
cities in 1970. Thirty years later, college graduates had congregated in
particular cities, a phenomenon that decimated the economies in some
places and caused other regions to flourish.
• The
generation of ministers who built sprawling mega-churches in the new
suburbs learned to attract their stadium-sized congregations through the
"homogenous unit principle." The new churches were designed for
cookie-cutter parishioners, what one church-growth proponent described
as "people like us."
• In
1976, only about a quarter of
America 's voters lived in a
county a presidential candidate won by a landslide margin. By 2004, it
was nearly half.
•
Businesses learned to target their marketing to like-minded "image
tribes," a technique used by Republicans in the 2004
campaign.
Living
in politically like-minded groups has had its consequences. People
living in homogenous communities grow both more extreme and more certain
in their beliefs. Locally, therefore, governments backed by large
majorities are tackling every conceivable issue. Nationally, however,
Congress has lost most of its moderate members and is mired in
conflict.
Like Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, Richard
Florida's The Rise of
the Creative Class, and Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with
Kansas?, THE BIG
SORT explores the
connection between cultural evolution, economic change, and the power of
place. THE BIG
SORT, however, is the first account that systematically ties
cultural and economic evolution to the changing political landscape of
America . And
when you have finished reading, the country—its conflicts and
turmoil—makes a new kind of sense
Jim Wiegel
If
anyone tells you something strange about the world, something you had
never heard before, do not laugh but listen attentively; make him repeat
it, make him explain it; no doubt there is something there worth taking
hold of. -- Georges Duhamel.
401 North Beverly Way
Tolleson,
Arizona 85353-2401
+1 623-936-8671
+1
623-363-3277
jfwiegel at yahoo.com
www.partnersinparticipation.com
---
On Thu, 6/11/09, James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>
wrote:
From:
James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Springboard]
Wonder where we are in the Springboard studies?
To: "Springboard
Dialogue" <springboard at wedgeblade.net>
Date: Thursday, June
11, 2009, 4:42 PM
I just got back from the library with The Big
Sort
Jim Wiegel
If anyone tells you something
strange about the world, something you had never heard before,
do not laugh but listen attentively; make him repeat it, make
him explain it; no doubt there is something there worth taking
hold of. -- Georges Duhamel.
401 North Beverly Way
Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
+1 623-936-8671
+1
623-363-3277
jfwiegel at yahoo.com
www.partnersinparticipation.com
---
On Thu, 6/11/09, Richard West
<rwestica at ms69.hinet.net> wrote:
From:
Richard West <rwestica at ms69.hinet.net>
Subject:
[Springboard] Wonder where we are in the Springboard
studies?
To: springboard at wedgeblade.net
Date: Thursday,
June 11, 2009, 3:41 PM
Sorry I missed the last one, but am
interested in continuing. Is there a new
decision?
Dick
-- Richard West
ICA Taiwan
3F, # 12, Lane 5, Tien Mou West
Road
Taipei, Taiwan 111
T) 8862-2871-3150
F)
8862-2871-2870
email) rwestica at ms69.hinet.net
skype)
rwestica
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