How, as an individual in your own life, you can contribute to the “prophetic” social movement
Other ways you can contribute to turning things around in America
Share your thoughts on what can be done
How you can help this website achieve its goals—with your energy, your expertise, your resources, and/or your network of contacts:
You can help get out the word about this website.
If you think the message on this site is important, please send out to your network of contacts an invitation to visit NoneSoBlind.org. And encourage them to do the same. It’s worth the time to make the cover message substantive enough to be persuasive.
If you have good contacts and good diplomatic skills, you can help foster the kinds of relationships with other websites, other organizations, other groups of people who care about America—that can help the message on this site reach its potential audience, and help build the kinds of alliances across the political spectrum that can make the “prophetic” social movement more of a reality. [Please contact me to discuss what role you might be inclined and able to play.]
If you have good skills as a publicist, and/or good contacts with media –or if you know a good publicist who might want to help—you can help to publicize this website and its message. [Again, please contact me to discuss what role you might be inclined and able to play.]
You can bring your skills to bear to help make the website all it can be.
People who are good researchers and who can help identify the highest quality existing work that can be brought into the book-cubed framework are invited to contribute their talents. Such help can make this the place where visitors can find the definitive case–with reliable information, insightful interpretation, assembled in a systematic and orderly way—for understanding our present moral crisis. [Please contact me to discuss what role you might be inclined and able to play, or simply to share the ideas, information, insights you think should be included in the presentation here.]
You can provide much needed funding for this effort.
People in a position to provide financial support can play a vital role. I’ve been on this mission for more than a year without pay. But there are costs to building this site, and there are ways of publicizing this site that cost money. Advertising in well-selected publications, and on well-selected websites could be money well-spent. NoneSoBlind.org has been made a project of the Grassroots Policy Project, and is thus eligible for tax-deductible contributions. [Please contact me if you are able and willing to contribute financial support, or have ideas about how such support might be obtained.]
You can help provide additional forums in which this message might be presented to the public.
If you are in a position with some church or other organization to have me brought in as a speaker, and/or if you have a foot in the door of some appropriate radio program that might have me on as a guest, you can help get the message out that way. I do a lot of radio and I also frequently speak before groups. (A good example of my guest appearances can be heard on this site at [webaddresss coming soon]–this program, on Ohio Public Radio, explores the question, “How Would a Wise Society Deal with Sexual Morality?”—and a video of one of my talks on “America’s Moral Crisis” can be seen here at [webaddresss coming soon].)
How, as an individual in your own life, you can contribute to the “prophetic” social movement:
It is not easy to talk across the divide that now splits America. People have talked to me of subjects that can’t be discussed among friends, even about friendships breaking up. It’s not easy. In addition, the challenge is on a huge scale, and most of us have the opportunity only to talk on the much smaller, intimate scale of private conversations. Nonetheless, it is essential that we do the work that’s within our reach to do, as difficult as it is. The corrosion of the consciousness of our fellow Americans by dishonest and pandering propagandists over the past generation has been gradual and cumulative, and the work of rebuilding a decent public discourse in this country will likewise not happen overnight.
So one thing anyone can do is to be willing to speak the truth, and to do the work required to be able to do so constructively. Part of this work is mastering the art of telling the stories in the “prophetic” mode, as I attempt to illustrate in Dimension 4 of Book Cubed. Part of this work is becoming knowledgeable enough about the facts that one is able to follow up on the initial foray into a topic with substantiation. And then the most difficult part of the task is having the judgment of how far to press and in what way—an art that I continually wonder about myself as I do two hours of radio each month to an area of this country where more than two-thirds of the people are supporters of a leadership that I regard as manifestly evil.
I do not claim to know for certain how best to go about engendering the changes in thought and perception that are required. But from my reflections on my own experiences –including those on the radio—I would say that one common aspect of liberal perspective on these things is not wisdom. That’s the idea that if one encounters resistance, or if one makes someone angry, then it is clear that one has erred. The liberal sense that confrontation and hostility are inevitably signs of failure is part and parcel of the nexus of illusions that liberalism has cultivated, to its detriment and to the cost of this country.
All things being equal, I’d rather not provoke anger, and I strive not to. But such is the nature of the structures that have been stimulated by these evil forces that any challenge is likely to be met with some anger. And the necessary changes are not going to come overnight. My belief is that the healing process will involve the speaking of many words that will not be received but that will get under people’s skin and do their work over time. The value of many conversations –especially the more difficult ones—is often not evident while the people are engaged in it.
Then there is the question of how to create the opportunity for such conversations, particularly when –as I hear from many people—it is precisely the people with whom we need to be talking who may be most eager to avoid such engagement.
Here’s one idea: people can wear a black arm-band and, when asked what it is for, answer, “I am in mourning for my country.” And then, perhaps if asked further, “I fear that many of the things that have made America great are being dismantled by our present leadership.” It is a message delivered in grief and sadness, and not in anger, and it is less likely to evoke some kind of “counter-attack.” It would be good for people who try this approach to have done their homework, so that they can give their interlocutors pertinent things to think about if the conversation unfolds further.
Other ways you can contribute to turning things around in America:
Many of the usual forms of political action are still useful for the present moment.
1)Write letters to the editor, working to create little “Emperor’s New Clothes” moments for the readers of those papers.
2)Write to office holders—in particular to encourage them to talk about the elephant in the room, i.e. about the way that destructive and amoral forces have been taking over this country.
3)Write to media companies to condemn the craven reporting we’ve seen so much of, and to praise whatever real truth-telling they do.
In addition, you might want to consider my idea about creating a public process –in view of the established fact that a good two-thirds of the American people think that the country is heading in the wrong direction—that would enable the American people to give voice, in a meaningful way, about the direction we as a people would like to see the country heading in. This idea is articulated in the piece, “Crazy Enough It Just Might Work,” which is to be found here at webaddress.
Share your thoughts on what can be done:
In my own assessment, I have more to offer in terms of understanding what’s happening in our cultural system than in terms of what kinds of practical actions might be most effective in creating the necessary change. If you’ve got ideas about actions that could be taken to address the problems described here, please send them along for possible posting on this site.
