Active-ism
My name is Alli and I think we are capable of affecting positive change in our communities.
We can do this without violent actions or language, without coercion, without malice or anger.
We can use educational outreach, active listening and reflection, our voices in the media, arts, academy, and our strength in solidarity.
This is a journey, my journey, thank you for taking it with me. Consider submitting a post about your own active-ism or positive change you see happening in your community, and I would love to spotlight your efforts!
Why Should You Be Scientifically Literate?
Side Note: With all of these recent scientific discoveries and observations like the Higgs Boson particle being found, or the recent Venus transit that wont occur again until 2117, or fresh news of more evidence towards Dark Matter’s existence and its implications I thought it would be great timing to highlight the importance of science news, information, and being a part of the community as a citizen. Scientific literacy seems all the more important as our technologies become more advanced and scientists alongside their tools begin to find out new groundbreaking things. Provided below are my favorite excerpts from Robert M. Hazen’s ‘Why should you be scientifically literate?’. Give it a read, become aware of one of the duties we as citizens should have taken up long ago, becoming literate in the world of science.
Road to Discovery of Self & Reality
by Robert M. Hazen
Why should you care about being scientifically literate? It will help you
— Understand issues that you come across daily in news stories and government debates
— Appreciate how the natural laws of science influence your life
— Gain perspective on the intellectual climate of our time
We live in an age of constant scientific discovery — a world shaped by revolutionary new technologies. Just look at your favorite newspaper. The chances are pretty good that in the next few days you’ll see a headline about global warming, cloning, fossils in meteorites, or genetically engineered food. Other stories featuring exotic materials, medical advances, DNA evidence, and new drugs all deal with issues that directly affect your life. As a consumer, as a business professional, and as a citizen, you will have to form opinions about these and other science-based issues if you are to participate fully in modern society.
More and more, scientific and technological issues dominate national discourse, from environmental debates on ozone depletion and acid rain, to economic threats from climate change and invasive species. Understanding these debates has become as basic as reading. All citizens need to be scientifically literate to:
— appreciate the world around them — make informed personal choices
It is the responsibility of scientists and educators to provide everyone with the background knowledge to help us cope with the fast-paced changes of today and tomorrow. What is scientific literacy? Why is it important? And how can we achieve scientific literacy for all citizens?
What is scientific literacy?
Scientific literacy, quite simply, is a mix of concepts, history, and philosophy that help you understand the scientific issues of our time.
— Scientific literacy is not the specialized, jargon-filled esoteric lingo of the experts. You don’t have to be able to synthesize new drugs to appreciate the importance of medical advances, nor do you need to be able to calculate the orbit of the space station to understand its role in space exploration.
— Scientific literacy is rooted in the most general scientific principles and broad knowledge of science; the scientifically literate citizen possesses facts and vocabulary sufficient to comprehend the context of the daily news.
— If you can understand scientific issues in magazines and newspapers (if you can tackle articles about genetic engineering or the ozone hole with the same ease that you would sports, politics, or the arts) then you are scientifically literate.
Admittedly, this definition of scientific literacy does not satisfy everyone. Some academics argue that science education should expose students to mathematical rigor and complex vocabulary. They want everyone to experience this taste of “real” science. But my colleagues and I feel strongly that those who insist that everyone must understand science at a deep level are confusing two important but separate aspects of scientific knowledge. As in many other endeavors, doing science is obviously distinct from using science; and scientific literacy concerns only the latter.
Surprisingly, intense study of a particular field of science does not necessarily make one scientifically literate. Indeed, I’m often amazed at the degree to which working scientists are often woefully uninformed in scientific fields outside their own field of professional expertise. I once asked a group of twenty-four Ph.D. physicists and geologists to explain the difference between DNA and RNA — perhaps the most basic idea in modern molecular biology. I found only three colleagues who could do so, and all three of those individuals did research in areas where this knowledge was useful. And I’d probably find the same sort of discouraging result if I asked biologists to explain the difference between a semiconductor and a superconductor. The education of professional scientists is often just as narrowly focused as the education of any other group of professionals, so scientists are just as likely to be ignorant of scientific matters outside their own specialty as anyone else.
Why is scientific literacy important?
Why should we care whether our citizens are scientifically literate? Why should you care about your own understanding of science? Three different arguments might convince you why it is important:
— from civics — from aesthetics — from intellectual coherence
Civics
The first argument from civics is the one I’ve used thus far. We’re all faced with public issues whose discussion requires some scientific background, and therefore we all should have some level of scientific literacy. Our democratic government, which supports science education, sponsors basic scientific research, manages natural resources, and protects the environment, can be thwarted by a scientifically illiterate citizenry. Without an informed electorate (not to mention a scientifically informed legislature) some of the most fundamental objectives of our nation may not be served.
Aesthetics
The argument from aesthetics is less concrete, but is closely related to principles that are often made to support liberal education. According to this view, our world operates according to a few over-arching natural laws. Everything you do, everything you experience from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to bed at night, conforms to these laws of nature. Our scientific vision of the universe is exceedingly beautiful and elegant and it represents a crowning achievement of human civilization. You can share in the intellectual and aesthetic satisfaction to be gained from appreciating the unity between a boiling pot of water on a stove and the slow march of the continents, between the iridescent colors of a butterfly’s wing and the behavior of the fundamental constituents of matter. A scientifically illiterate person is effectively cut off from an immensely enriching part of life, just as surely as a person who cannot read.
Intellectual Coherence
Finally, we come to the third argument — the idea of intellectual coherence. Our society is inextricably tied to the discoveries of science — so much so that they often play a crucial role in setting the intellectual climate of an era. For example, the Copernican concept of the heliocentric universe played an important role in sweeping away the old thinking of the Middle Ages and ushering in the Age of Enlightenment. Similarly, Charles Darwin’s discovery of the mechanism of natural selection at once made understanding nature easier. And in this century the work of Freud and the development of quantum mechanics have made our natural world seem (at least superficially) less rational. In all of these cases, the general intellectual tenor of the times — what Germans call the Zeitgeist — was influenced by developments in science. How can anyone hope to appreciate the deep underlying threads of intellectual life in his or her own time without understanding the science that goes with it?
Sharing this because closing ourselves to information (no matter how scary the math is) is toxic to our work. Embrace all forms of radical thinking - and science has some super radical dudes.
This link is the web platform for all of Joseph Goldstein’s “Dharma Talks.” If you have any interest in Buddhism as practice, then I highly suggest you give them a listen. I’ll be referring to his talk entitled “Compassion is a Verb” which was passed on to me by a close friend.
Goldstein outlines some basic tenants of what compassion is and how we can practice it in daily life and under extreme duress.
So empathy brings us close to suffering, it allows us to open to it, to feel it, at least to some extent. Compassion takes us a step further; it’s not only feeling what others are going through, but it’s also being motivated to act on that feeling.
I wanted to share this with you all because I particularly enjoyed his definition of the difference between “empathy” and “compassion.”
As active-ists, we are charged with acting (with) compassion(ately). This can be difficult. Facing injustice is hard.
It’s important to understand that in situations when it’s possible, we sometimes do have to take appropriate actions, and even strong actions. You know, where we set boundaries, when people are doing harmful things. And to act, to redress injustices…but can we do this, can we take this active response, with a wise attention to our own motivations? Are our actions coming from anger, or hatred, or resentment? Or do they come out of compassion for the suffering that is there?
As the staff at the Bluegrass Rape Crisis Center like to say, we have to “check our baggage” before acting. What are my motivations? Where do they come from? Is there a way I can be more open/calm/reflective about this situation, even if it seems like there is no redeeming light? This pause to consider our inner turmoil and then stimulate empathy with the stakeholders we are working with is absolutely necessary to sustain ourselves and our projects.
Compassion is Active-ism and Active-ism is Compassion.
Wildcat Pride. Proud of my Cats. The Big Blue Nation. I bleed blue. These words echo around the University of Kentucky campus like a bird caught inside a barn, bouncing against walls at a breakneck pace. “You’ll look good in blue” proclaims our website to potential students and partners. With so much confidence, we, like most other people, tend to wear our emotions on our sleeves.
Literally.
My first week as a freshman at UK, I was given 10 free t-shirts, mostly from different organizations promoting their missions as well as introducing us to Wildcat Pride. In the weeks that followed, I’d be encouraged to purchase t-shirts for the organizations that I joined, the departments that I enrolled in, one for each sports team I would support, and of course for the various tournaments and bowl games we would win (or hope to win) over the next 9 months. I could stock an entire department store with the number of t-shirts I’ve been given or purchased since arriving at college. Multiply that by 29,000 and you’re talking some serious business.
Unfortunately, not all of the business that UK does is as award winning as our sports teams. We contract the Fair Labor Association to independently verify the (un)ethicality of our corporate partners, but the FLA has been criticized many times for being too lax in it’s reporting and for serving the big business interests over those of students. See the United Students Against Sweatshops’ official critique of the FLA’s practices here.
Fortunately, we are doing some good business. Our campus bookstore, a franchise of Follett Books, carries a small amount of Alta Gracia Apparel. Alta Gracia is many things: it is a union factory in the Dominican Republic, which pays a living wage to its employees and makes an effort to treat each person as a real human being; it is a college clothing (t-shirt) line, certified by the Worker’s Rights Consortium, to be ethically sourced, traded, sweat-free and just plain old awesome; finally, it’s a success story, a lullaby to us active-ists, that non-violent, horizontally-organized, action by students can make tangible, sustainable differences in the lives of people who need a little lift in the world.
Alta Gracia is a success story, a message, and a method. One which I want to see spread around UK’s campus like peach jam on a croissant.
Here’s a fantastic video one of the USAS members created which details the long path students and workers walked to win their battle.
What does this have to do with active-ism?
Everything! Not only was this victory for unions achieved through an equal exchange of energy and knowledge between students and factory workers (between the Global North and South, you economic/social scientists might say), but continued contact across the Caribbean has allowed
a) communication about the progress/benefits of unionization for workers and their families,
b) continued public pressure by students/other allies on Knight’s Apparel to invest in worker’s livelihoods,
c) dialogue about how to make this success happen at other factories in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere.
It is this crucial continuance that ensures sustainability and humility in projects and their coordinators. In the old paradigm, the USASers would have walked away after “solving the worker’s problem” and not looked back. With an active-ist’s mindset, however, the “project” is never over, because a person’s life is more than a set of demands and time tables: people are complex, on both sides of an issue, and deserve a sustained effort to understand and negotiate the most beneficial circumstances for all.
So there you have it folks, it all comes down to t-shirts. Some make them, other’s wear them, but we’ve all got a vested interest in making sure our apparel doesn’t perpetuate inequality and strife. And I want my university to be a role model for other institutions to put aside childish ignorance, and take up the standard of Trade Justice.
GO, CATS!.
Alternative Food Networks: Knowledge, practice, and politics
M.K Goodman, Melanie DuPuis, and D. Goodman.
[Well, more of a personal synthesis than a book review, however this was an excellent read and I recommend anyone interested in the politics of food give it a read. 5 stars!]
The authors have taken three (four, including locality products) well-known, alternative food “movements” and examined their knowledge practices, structural/processual alerity, and their politics in/of place. Referring to knowledge practices as “how we grow food and how we know what we are eating,” Goodman et al reveal that consumers and producers mutually construct not only the supply-demand flow of goods, but also how we define what is alternative and the social practices that accompany those meanings (8). By using a politics in place rather than a politics of place lens to talk about the process of creating AFNs, the authors are able to highlight the juxtaposition of local, global, and national rather than reinforcing normative ideas of what each alternative system is and does (18). In doing so, the emphasis moves away from standards, labels, and formal acceptance into rigid groups towards a more holistic understanding of the ways in which people and institutions interact and build their landscapes.
The final section focuses on Fair Trade Networks as globalized Alternative Food (Goods) Networks. Goodman et al begins with a retelling of fair trade’s movement from a clearly processual, alternative, and “against-the-market” methodology to a commercialized, economically integrated “brand” in many cases. Beyond simply the disturbing trend of allowing MNCs to license the FLO fair trade label (Nestle), is an equally disheartening pattern of replacing the moral economy of fair trade (the emphasis on producer livelihoods and equality) with the “moralities of the market” (taste, quality, consumer-centric) (239). Yet how important is this critique when producer communities are still receiving a markedly improved profit? The authors argue that when looking to the future of globalized AFNs, the ability to maintain an independent existence outside the influential sphere of MNCs will determine whether fair trade moves beyond commercialization to forcefully challenge neoliberal dominance or will be pacified as yet another quality control label on supermarket shelves (244).
Guest post: Is Feminism About Choice?
A guest video by Heather.
Recently, as I was procrastinating something important or another, I came across a picture on somebody’s Tumblr. It was a silly graphic of a woman shaving her legs, and it said, “To me, feminism means choice. I can choose to shave my legs, and I can choose not to. There is no right answer, one option does not make me any more or less of a feminist than the other. I can shave or not shave. Whatever the hell I want to because it’s my choice!” This was reblogged hundreds of times and posted on Reddit and various other places online. It received quite a lot of support.
I find this disturbing. It’s as though somebody took the entire lexicon of feminist theory, feminist literature, history of feminism, and women’s studies, and then crossed out billions and billions of words and circled the one that justified literally anything they wanted. Feminism is not about choice. Feminism is about equality of the sexes.
Mr. Howard has a penchant for speaking out about safety concerns and violations in the mines he works in in Eastern KY. Because of that, he’s been fired 3 times.
Luckily, he’s also been reinstated 3 times.
Firing a whistle-blower for their revelatory actions is illegal in the U.S., yet is one of the greatest fears of those considering going to authorities about their concerns. While this article didn’t address it, I would venture to guess that the items Mr. Howard was concerned with were in some way addressed after his very public hearing (and courtroom victory) meaning that not only will he be returning to work, he and his fellow miners will be returning to safer work.
Mr. Howard says it all:
“I’d rather lose my job than lose my life and be taken away from the people who love me,” Howard said. “These coal operators and coal owners, for over a hundred years now, they’ve tried to put this DNA into the miners — ‘Hey, it’s coal or go. It’s coal or you don’t survive.’ It’s like they’re God.
“They need to revamp their whole philosophy about mining and how they treat people,” he said.
New for you! I’ve added a links page: Active-ism in Lexington, KY.
This page includes a sampling of some of my favorite projects and organizations in Lexington to showcase the great work that Kentuckians are doing everyday. I encourage everyone to check out these websites, because being inspired isn’t a geographically isolated experience!
I think that a common stereotype of activists is that they are cynical and caddy. A moment’s further reflection would reveal, though, that a person who truly dedicates their energies to seeking out solutions to problems or recognition for oppressed peoples isn’t cynical.
It takes a lot of curiosity and hope to do the work that active-ists do everyday. We see a world full of beauty and compassion, mired in confusion and closed-mindedness.
To me, active-ism is a cycle with interchangeable and personalizable steps:
- Curiosity about the world.
- Self-edudcation about a specific phenomenon or object.
- Conviction that a problem is present but that a solution exists (hope.)
- Outreach education about that phenomenon or object.
- Community building.
- Dialogue with stake holders (those who are affected by or have an interest in the phenomenon/object.)
- Action.
- Repeat.
![futurejournalismproject:
Nine-Year-Old Blogger 1, Bad School Food 0
Via Wired:
For the past two months, one of my favorite reads has been Never Seconds, a blog started by 9-year-old Martha Payne of western Scotland to document the unappealing, non-nutritious lunches she was being served in her public primary school. Payne, whose mother is a doctor and father has a small farming property, started blogging in early May and went viral in days. She had a million viewers within a few weeks and 2 million this morning; was written up in Time, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and a number of food blogs; and got support from TV cheflebrity Jamie Oliver, whose series “Jamie’s School Dinners” kicked off school-food reform in England.
Well, goodbye to all that.
This afternoon, Martha (who goes by “Veg” on the blog) posted that she will have to shut down her blog, because she has been forbidden to take a camera into school.
At which point the Internet erupted.
Today, Wired comes back with this update:
So much happened overnight:
Huge amounts of public support, including from Jamie Oliver (who tweeted “Stay strong, Martha!”) and Neil Gaiman.
214 news articles worldwide in the past 12 hours.
Another half-million pageviews at the NeverSeconds blog (and almost 1,000 comments on her Goodbye post, up from about 150 when I posted last night).
The Guardian proposed that people take pictures of their lunches and tweet them #MyLunchforMartha
Also today, the Argyll and Bute Council, whose decision it was to ban Martha’s photography, relented. Back to Wired:
…[T]he leader of the Argyll and Bute Council, Roddy McCuish, [just] went on the BBC’s World At One program on Radio 4 and announced they were backing off the ban in response to a request from Scotland’s education minister along with vast pressure from social media.
Lesson: Don’t mess with a nine-year-old blogger.
Image: Martha Payne’s lunch from May 25, via NeverSeconds.
This is a great story. This fab young gal has led her country in taking some serious first steps toward realizing that school food is not always good food (by any stretch of the imagination.)
A true active-ist youth, Martha not only was working to bring awareness to the poor nutritious quality of school lunches in the UK, she was also raising money for Mary’s Meals, a program that helps establish school lunch programs and kitchens in schools in Malawi.
So congrats, Martha! You are an inspiration to those of us who want to have a positive and sustainable impact on our communities.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5nx9pDxM01qedj2ho1_500.jpg)
Nine-Year-Old Blogger 1, Bad School Food 0
Via Wired:
For the past two months, one of my favorite reads has been Never Seconds, a blog started by 9-year-old Martha Payne of western Scotland to document the unappealing, non-nutritious lunches she was being served in her public primary school. Payne, whose mother is a doctor and father has a small farming property, started blogging in early May and went viral in days. She had a million viewers within a few weeks and 2 million this morning; was written up in Time, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and a number of food blogs; and got support from TV cheflebrity Jamie Oliver, whose series “Jamie’s School Dinners” kicked off school-food reform in England.
Well, goodbye to all that.
This afternoon, Martha (who goes by “Veg” on the blog) posted that she will have to shut down her blog, because she has been forbidden to take a camera into school.
At which point the Internet erupted.
Today, Wired comes back with this update:
So much happened overnight:
- Huge amounts of public support, including from Jamie Oliver (who tweeted “Stay strong, Martha!”) and Neil Gaiman.
- 214 news articles worldwide in the past 12 hours.
- Another half-million pageviews at the NeverSeconds blog (and almost 1,000 comments on her Goodbye post, up from about 150 when I posted last night).
- The Guardian proposed that people take pictures of their lunches and tweet them #MyLunchforMartha
Also today, the Argyll and Bute Council, whose decision it was to ban Martha’s photography, relented. Back to Wired:
…[T]he leader of the Argyll and Bute Council, Roddy McCuish, [just] went on the BBC’s World At One program on Radio 4 and announced they were backing off the ban in response to a request from Scotland’s education minister along with vast pressure from social media.
Lesson: Don’t mess with a nine-year-old blogger.
Image: Martha Payne’s lunch from May 25, via NeverSeconds.
This is a great story. This fab young gal has led her country in taking some serious first steps toward realizing that school food is not always good food (by any stretch of the imagination.)
A true active-ist youth, Martha not only was working to bring awareness to the poor nutritious quality of school lunches in the UK, she was also raising money for Mary’s Meals, a program that helps establish school lunch programs and kitchens in schools in Malawi.
So congrats, Martha! You are an inspiration to those of us who want to have a positive and sustainable impact on our communities.
