Social and Ethical Responsibility
Lesson arranged by Nicole Abraham and Kirk Wydner
Class Discussion:
"We have is what we need"
The "bigger or better" game with jelly
beans (no one would take a free one, had to give it value)
Book example: false scarcity.
The idea that there is not enough to go around.
"we become grasping and distrustful".
Anybody ever had your car broken into? How much did
you trust your neighborhood after that?
Quote from interstellar "7 billion people, all
trying to have it all."
Where did this idea come from that each of us needs
to have all their own means and be completely self-sufficient?
Real power comes from cooperation, pooling and
sharing resources.
Who has ever been part of a ride-share or carpool?
That's communities leveraging technology and each other's resources to act more
responsibly.
Not everybody in the neighborhood needs their own
riding lawnmower, or inflatable movie screen, or snowcone maker. All it takes
is a little creativity, cooperation and trust. Like Heather's block party idea
and the community board. Check craigslist for goods and services trade. Corvallis even has an Hour trader coop.
I
avoid national politics. Maybe that's socially irresponsible of me, but I don't
have the time. But when Obama was running for president, I canvassed my
neighborhood because I believed in his message. I was a bit disappointed after
he was elected to find that he was still a politician, and that he would not be
able to magically fix everything broken with our government. I asked myself,
"Where are all the good leaders?"
At
the time, this was purely rhetorical. Now I see it as myself.
There
is no one who shares my exact same values and, therefore, no one to defend
every cause I care about. The only person who can defend everything I care
about is me. I recognized that sooner, or later, you have to stand up for what
you care about or it might get taken away from you. The entire time I worked in
Utah, I could have been fired from my job just because I'm bisexual. It wasn't until
SB 296 was passed THIS YEAR that that law changed.
"Our creativity produces infinite wealth"
Book example: wealth
What is wealth to you?
My father always talked about wealth and where the
word came from. It's origin in English is from the words 'weal' and 'well'.
Weal means 'that which is best for a person'. It has nothing to do with money.
In fact, if you go back even further, 'weal' comes from the German word
"wollen" which means 'will', as in what is your will? In the Germanic
tribes, long before the idea of credit and credit scores, a person's worth was
determined by what they willed to do with their life. When they reached the age
of 16, they wrote it down in a book in the town hall as a promise to the
community. If you had given service to the community in your boyhood, then
members of the community would give you the tools and opportunities you needed
to get started in fulfilling your life's work.
"The leaders we need are already here"
- Anonymously write down a fear and put it in a [hat]
- Read someone else's fear and tell about how it feels
- Empathy is crucial to feeling involved with your community or any group of people. Finding a group that shares your interests or shares their feelings with you will help you feel connected and part of something greater.
Locus of Control Questionnaire
We need to understand our Locus of Control so we can have a better understanding of how we perceive issues and if we are more likely to take a seat in the drivers seat or the back seat!