From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 This U.S. election season is a perfect backdrop for discussing James Hoggan’s new book, I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up. Hoggan’s special interests—ethical PR and climate … [Read more...] about Possibility: Don’t wrestle with pigs, and other lessons from the ideological battlefield
Politics
Possibility: The European Union: Think of it as a club
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 Commentary: Mark Schalekamp is a journalist, writer and “social entrepreneur” whose home country is the Netherlands. “Right now there are already around one million Erasmus babies,” one of my “Youropean” interview subjects remarked. … [Read more...] about Possibility: The European Union: Think of it as a club
Possibility: It’s their future
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 In what could be a growing movement, courts in the United States and the Netherlands are siding with environmental activists who argue that governments that promote fossil fuel use and development are violating environmental laws and … [Read more...] about Possibility: It’s their future
Why elections are bad for democracy
From The Intelligent Optimist Magazine Fall/Winter 2016 Our voting system worked well for decades, but now it is broken. It brings forward the wrong people (Donald Trump) and it leads to bad decisions (Brexit). There is a better way to give voice to the people. By David Van … [Read more...] about Why elections are bad for democracy
Possibility: The justice of the crowd
From The Optimist Magazine Fall 2015 In recent years, crowdfunding has become a popular tool to fund projects and interests shared by groups of people. It is particularly common in arts and culture, leaving it up to the audience to determine what gets done and what they want to … [Read more...] about Possibility: The justice of the crowd