I want to be a MacArthur Fellow when I grow up
I decided a few days ago to finally visit the MacArthur foundation website. I had been hearing their recognition clip on NPR for years: "The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world." I think it's a great mission statement for a foundation: it is nearly exhaustive without losing focus on the values that it promotes.
At any rate, this led me to read more about the programs that they sponsor, and subsequently to realize that I want to be a MacArthur Fellow. Unfortunately you can't apply to be a MacArthur fellow. Which is probably an excellent idea to save your selection volunteers from having to pour over oodles of applications from all over the spectrum (a lot of people would do anything for $500,000 in no-strings-attached funding).
But, in deciding what I would do with the funding, I came to a few important realizations: (1) that I am ready to begin work on writing on some of the topics that I have been researching and thinking about since I left graduate school eight years ago and (2) that I know what the core idea of the writings will be about.
A few caveats:
1. I am supposed to be working on a sermon right now that I am delivering on Sunday (in 3 days) so, in part, I am procrastinating by writing this instead.
2. My thinking about the sermon has been deeply interconnected with thinking about my courses of action in life (since the sermon is on karma). So that writing this will get it out of my head, so that I can move on with my sermon.
The trilogy of books looks something like this:
1. Human Governance: Leadership, Legislation, and Regulation in a Post-Nation-State World.
2. Abstract Ecologies: The Circulation of Value in a Post-Capitalist Global Economicy.
3. Real Meanings: Honest Religion in a Post-Denominational and Post-Mythological World.
The trilogy deals with three dominant aspects of the contemporary human condition, three aspects that are all well past their prime. They will be replaced by something else, the questions are: by what, when, and how. The answers proposed are not predictions, (I believe in free-will) they are proposals.
Here's a last little note about context: The next stage of human (cultural) evolution involves the reinvention of the generalist (the role of philosophers in the enlightenment comes to mind as an analog). In the past 100 years we have delved deeply into many areas of reality, both through science (Einstein, Heisenberg, etc.) and through religion (Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas K. Gandhi, etc.). It is time to integrate all that we have learned and to purposefully apply it to the world which we create every day.
We (as a species) spend so much time and energy feeling powerless in the world that we fail to recognize our direct and unavoidable relationship to creating the world that we share through each and every action, each and every choice that we make. It is for this reason that honest religion, post-denominational religion, demands that we begin our searches for truth, for justice, and for health with ourselves.
The idea behind the trilogy is to begin immediately organizing three conferences, each about one year apart. The first conference on governance and government, the second on economics and ecology (ecology in the organic systems sense of the word, not in the protect the planet sense, although the value of the latter is not to be underestimated), the third conference would be on religion. Each conference would seek to bring together a group of the smartest, and more importantly, wisest people who work in each area to present, talk, and reflect about the 'next phase' proposition... not what it will be, but what we should and can and will make of it. The books issue from each conference. Perhaps and edited volumes, perhaps as co-authored pieces, details could be worked out later by people who understand publishing far better than I.
OK, I must go write my sermon now...
I'll post the final version when I'm done.
According to my arrangement with my wife, that will be prior to 10pm on Saturday night.
Eric
At any rate, this led me to read more about the programs that they sponsor, and subsequently to realize that I want to be a MacArthur Fellow. Unfortunately you can't apply to be a MacArthur fellow. Which is probably an excellent idea to save your selection volunteers from having to pour over oodles of applications from all over the spectrum (a lot of people would do anything for $500,000 in no-strings-attached funding).
But, in deciding what I would do with the funding, I came to a few important realizations: (1) that I am ready to begin work on writing on some of the topics that I have been researching and thinking about since I left graduate school eight years ago and (2) that I know what the core idea of the writings will be about.
A few caveats:
1. I am supposed to be working on a sermon right now that I am delivering on Sunday (in 3 days) so, in part, I am procrastinating by writing this instead.
2. My thinking about the sermon has been deeply interconnected with thinking about my courses of action in life (since the sermon is on karma). So that writing this will get it out of my head, so that I can move on with my sermon.
The trilogy of books looks something like this:
1. Human Governance: Leadership, Legislation, and Regulation in a Post-Nation-State World.
2. Abstract Ecologies: The Circulation of Value in a Post-Capitalist Global Economicy.
3. Real Meanings: Honest Religion in a Post-Denominational and Post-Mythological World.
The trilogy deals with three dominant aspects of the contemporary human condition, three aspects that are all well past their prime. They will be replaced by something else, the questions are: by what, when, and how. The answers proposed are not predictions, (I believe in free-will) they are proposals.
Here's a last little note about context: The next stage of human (cultural) evolution involves the reinvention of the generalist (the role of philosophers in the enlightenment comes to mind as an analog). In the past 100 years we have delved deeply into many areas of reality, both through science (Einstein, Heisenberg, etc.) and through religion (Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas K. Gandhi, etc.). It is time to integrate all that we have learned and to purposefully apply it to the world which we create every day.
We (as a species) spend so much time and energy feeling powerless in the world that we fail to recognize our direct and unavoidable relationship to creating the world that we share through each and every action, each and every choice that we make. It is for this reason that honest religion, post-denominational religion, demands that we begin our searches for truth, for justice, and for health with ourselves.
The idea behind the trilogy is to begin immediately organizing three conferences, each about one year apart. The first conference on governance and government, the second on economics and ecology (ecology in the organic systems sense of the word, not in the protect the planet sense, although the value of the latter is not to be underestimated), the third conference would be on religion. Each conference would seek to bring together a group of the smartest, and more importantly, wisest people who work in each area to present, talk, and reflect about the 'next phase' proposition... not what it will be, but what we should and can and will make of it. The books issue from each conference. Perhaps and edited volumes, perhaps as co-authored pieces, details could be worked out later by people who understand publishing far better than I.
OK, I must go write my sermon now...
I'll post the final version when I'm done.
According to my arrangement with my wife, that will be prior to 10pm on Saturday night.
Eric
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