The Right Way to Flourish

> Brown’s family wants to see every police officer working the streets wearing a body camera. The White House has said the cameras could help bridge deep mistrust between law enforcement and the public. This paragraph came from a Boston Globe [story](http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/12/02/obama-toughen-standards-police-use-military-gear-provide-cameras-for-officers/meAQroN36Sjzfmiramzh6L/story.html) about plans for sending military equipment to local police force. Most of the article was pretty much gobbledy-gook, but this jumped out at me. How in the world can body cameras build trust? This idea is terrible. It is just another example of the addiction we have to technology. This one is particularly disturbing because of the nature… Read More

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Part of my family was gathered for Thanksgiving. We enjoyed a sumptuous meal. An organic turkey from Vermont. A luscious Vouvray that went perfectly with the meal. The proprietor of the wine shop had said to me that this was the one he was going to open. Four varieties of pies. Two kinds of potatoes. My greatly admired stuffing and gravy. Much all around to be thankful for. My son-in-law was in the middle of the second week of chemotherapy, but feeling well enough to eat heartily. While sitting around after the meal, I noticed that one of the children’s… Read More

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As is quite frequent, I begin with a comment based on a David Brooks column. [Today](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/opinion/david-brooks-interstellar-love-and-gravity.html?src=me), he is talking about the movie, *Interstellar*. Based on the publicity, I had decided to skip it, but now I will have to see it. The nub of his thoughts show up in these few paragraphs: > More, it shows how modern science is influencing culture. People have always bent their worldviews around the latest scientific advances. After Newton, philosophers conceived a clockwork universe. Individuals were seen as cogs in a big machine and could be slotted into vast bureaucratic systems. > > But… Read More

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My favorite blog source, David Brooks, turns out to be an existentialist. Who would have thunk it? His column [today](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/opinion/david-brooks-the-agency-moment.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region) (11//14/2014) is about finding agency, a fancy word for discovering and taking on a self, and acting from that center. The central theme in virtually all existentialist writing is agency although few of the existentialists use this word, for good reasons. Agency carries too many meanings. The simplest refers to any intentional act without reference to the cognitive source. Brooks, I think, is being more explicit, using agency to refer to acts coming from free choice: from the self to… Read More

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I continue to slowly, very slowly, work on the next book about flourishing. I have been and will continue using this blog to try out ideas about it. I would greatly appreciate comments from you. You will have to send them directly to me using the email link on the right hand side of this page below the archive of previous entries or to my regular address if you know it. I am deep into the existentialist world these days, delving for ideas and language to use in my work. As I read, I am more and more convinced that… Read More

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If you asked any heroin addict what they would like to sustain, they would answer something like, “My high.” If you could imagine asking this question to a business, it might answer, “Growth and my competitive edge.” If you asked the US government, the answer would probably be, “Growth. Then if you ask them how the world is treating them right now, you would get a very different answer. The heroin addict might say, “His or her body is falling apart and needs ever more of the stuff.” The government might say, “The natural and social worlds are falling apart… Read More

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Today’s (October 24. 2014) NYTimes Sunday Review had an [article](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/opinion/sunday/the-meaning-of-fulfillment.html?ref=opinion) about fulfillment by Emily Fox Gordon that might be a literary gem (She is a writer.), but didn’t ring true to me. Here is, as I read it, the story, entitled “The Meaning of Fulfillment,” in the first few lines: > AT 66, I find myself feeling fulfilled. I didn’t expect this, and don’t know quite what to make of it.…Fulfillment is a dubious gift because you receive it only when you’re approaching the end. You can’t consider your life fulfilled until you’re fairly sure of its temporal shape, and… Read More

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The German philosopher, Johann Fichte, was a strong proponent of 19th century idealism, but wrote this in a letter to a colleague, “We philosophize out of need for our redemption.” Unlike the abstract nature of idealism, this one-liner of his might be taken as an early expression of existentialism. If one can put brackets around the religious sense of redemption, it would seem to make a strong argument that clear, reflective, systemic, critical thinking, that is, philosophy, is the way out of the broken modern cultures that, in the name of progress, are destroying the very system in which we… Read More

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I have just returned from a conference/workshop titled, Flourish and Prosper. It is the third triennial Global Summit organized by the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit, a unit of the Weatherhead School of Management. The title is drawn from the recent publication, *Flourishing Enterprise*, the main product of a project there and is coauthored by myself and eight others. Over 600 people attended, coming fro business, both profit and non-profit, academia, and other places. On the first day, I gave a workshop (twice) with my colleague and collaborator, Chris Laszlo. Titled, Dare to Flourish, it… Read More

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David Brooks did me another favor today in writing a [column](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/opinion/david-brooks-the-problem-with-pragmatism.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0) so far off the mark that I could not pass by the opportunity to comment. I checked the several hundred comments already pouring in and saw that adding another there would be contribute very little that was not already said. But since the topic he presented, pragmatism, is one of my central themes I feel compelled to write something here. He pulled a column written by Lewis Mumford for the out of the dustbin and treated it as if it were written yesterday. Here’s Brooks: > For example, The… Read More

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