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The next civil and moral revolution in the United States of America should be, and hopefully will be, the right of scientific thinking and rationality to drink from the same fountains of political discourse and public policy as partisan thinking, emotion, and special interest. This, indeed, is the next Big Idea and Moral Revolution, and will be a categorical leap forward in how we as a society choose to answer our most pressing problems of human suffering and human well-being. It will hold ideas and policies to a new standard they are not currently held to- facts, evidence, and argument. Article: Building a Bridge Between Science and Politics Paper: BUILDING A BRIDGE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND AMERICAN POLITICS, Starting with a Reform of the American Criminal Justice System 
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SHORT VIDEO INTRO - A Science of Social Justice: Reason Revival
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shining a light of scientific thinking on mass incarceration and the revolving door of recidivismThe Drug War and Justice Reform as a Starting Point for Rationality “This culture of irrationality will have to change. It must change if we are to flourish - the costs have simply gotten too high and the disillusionment too deep and too broad. It will eventually happen. Partisan rhetoric and emotional sound bites will collapse as the foundational pillars of decades of irrational stupidity give way to reason and logic. Bad ideas and hurtful policies will no longer be enshrined by our traditions nor protected by social correctness or a bias for the status quo. “We’ve always done it this way” will no longer be acceptable, as more and more of us stand up to it as a dangerous and hurtful meme of irrational thinking. As we converge on this kind of nation-wide discussion, fostering conversations and debates between people from diverse walks of life, both famous and common alike, we will start to see a beautiful emergence of commonalities and a love of knowledge and thirst for common sense, even in ‘political tribes’ we thought we’d never interact with…” |
a science of peaceful resistance: the next phase of the moral arcVideo: https://youtu.be/zpoAlpCtgnc - "A Science of Social Justice: Reason Revival" “The Arc of the Moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice…Let us bend it toward justice faster. Science, ethical reason, courage and love are the best tools to do this. The odds may seem overwhelming, but love drives people to try, no matter the odds. Many before us had an unbridled love for our Republic. For humanity, for justice, and for science and truth. We must ask ourselves, each of us: do we have that love?” Video: https://youtu.be/zpoAlpCtgnc - "A Science of Social Justice: Reason Revival" My other blog on this topic, Social Science Warrior http://socialsciencewarrior.blogspot.com/ There is a marvelous intersection between the need (1) to empower people with science and rational thinking, and (2) the need to give many of our marginalized communities a voice at the table to discuss their most pressing issues of poverty and justice. It is perhaps one of the most beautifully interwoven pairings of different human aspirations – that of seeking knowledge and new ways of thinking, as well as the dignity and recognition of one’s basic humanity and right to be heard amidst injustice. For generations, our communities have been subject to a kind of social subordination in how they are treated, neglected, or shoved aside by the status quo. Environmental discrimination by waste disposal efforts, economic pressures of affluent developers, financial discrimination by a staunchly unequal justice system, and targeting by aggressive police policies, these communities have undergone decades upon decades of treatment by a crushing neglect that elicits the most fundamental cry of human yearning for an equal place a the table of civilizational co-existence, an innate, unquestionable desire present in our species since the earliest days of humankind. |
the American founders and the enlightenment: how highly imperfect people pave the way for freedom and justice
The Moral Arc of our American Dream In this short paper I did for CUNY, I talk about freedom, hypocrisy and the co-existence of un-emancipated slaves alongside our unrivaled Constitution and the Enlightenment principles it was based on. During 18th century America, there was an uneasy - and in modern hindsight, unthinkable - coexistence between unprecedented levels of enlightened thought on human freedoms, innate human worth, and the 'Rights of Man', alongside slavery and the subordination of African-Americans, women, and other non-whites in a highly unjust society. This 'moral juxtaposition' is now seen as so ungraspable because we see such high 'peaks' of understanding and an unrivaled concern for human flourishing, tenuously existing alongside 'valleys' of racism, slavery and violations of these same concerns. This strained coexistence along the same 'American moral landscape' is a subject of confusion, dissonance, and wonderment by many students of history, and - more interestingly, I think - a subject of scientific inquiry for students of how societies around the world, and especially Europe and America, expanded their spheres of 'moral inclusion' and their relative arcs of moral progress. Much of this came with an expansion of scientific literacy. Progress and correct moral understanding of human worth and the extension of right to others is something that occurs slowly, and is hard earned. As we see the tapestry of our last few centuries of American history unfold, we see the same pattern of gradual, unfolding moral progress. A progress which moved along the same timeline as the progress of science, of human enlightenment. As our understanding of the universe and the reality of the world around us became more and more refined, the moral lens through which we viewed 'others' outside the 'circle of inclusion' became clearer. As Dr. King said, and as Dr. Michael Shermer reiterates in his book The Moral Arc, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice". | ||