Reviews - hypnagogicfun

Repaving the Road to Charity

The Road to HELP: The Revolution in Charity, Philanthropy and International Development is a clear-eyed critique of the twenty-first century international charity/aid industry, an enormous cultural and political phenomenon that it is difficult to define. The book is also a memoir of work in the aid field, told with wisdom, perspective, and a bit of romance. Taken together, HELP is a plea to be aware of the very deep challenges that come with the idea of doing good elsewhere in the world. It is an interesting and troubling book that raises more questions than it answers.

Author Miles Wortmann, a seasoned participant in the world of international development, makes a compelling argument that the business of giving has changed profoundly in recent years. He draws attention to a “religindustry” that has been fed by tremendous private wealth and reshaped and restructured by business and management consultancy. Charting the interconnected growth of simple focused charities into an enormous sector combining celebrity, megawealth, foundations, and professional expertise. HELP is a contemporary cultural and economic leviathan.

Wortmann worries that the massive foundations may overwhelm democratic processes. Their great wealth and freedom to function without democratic or public accountability enhances their power. They also limit the effectiveness of government by supplanting public good. Wortmann argues that big philanthropy crowds out effective public and government action. The foundations may issue report after report, have initiative after initiative, but see little long-term gain. Wortmann believes that data and history prove that meaningful improvement for the world’s poor comes from the steady development of local culture, systems, and government. In other words, the best path for the poor is often through the development of their own public agency and systems. Wortmann offers this critique while also acknowledging that big philanthropy does have successes, employs many well-meaning people, and often does strive to make the world a better place.

Of great concern to Wortmann is the commercialization and commodification of charity. He bristles at campaigns that reduce complex problems to marketing slogans. From ending world hunger to finding a cure to this or that disease, we are awash in private foundations calling for support to address public problems. Even more galling to Wortmann is the place of moral privilege granted to foundations. Questioning their campaigns comes with great risk. To not support an effort is to deny the impulse to do good.

Wortmann’s experience grants him awareness of how big philanthropy operates from within the system. He tells of meetings, consultations, trips and endless reports. The picture he paints is one of meaningless acronyms, large sums of money, and a weird admixture of high-level morality and deep cynicism. It must be an extremely frustrating way to try to effect meaningful change in poor parts of the world.

Some describe hypocrisy as the tribute that vice pays virtue. I wonder if HELP, Wortmann’s mega-religindustry, is the tribute that free market capitalism pays to morality. Wortmann’s book outlines a problem that is well worth time and consideration.

David Potash

May 4, 2014 Reviews, Things someone who grew up in NJ might write

Aerotropoli – A Glorious Future, Now Please Remove Your Shoes

Air travel in the 1960s was different from today. I remember going with my mother and grandmother to pick up my grandfather, an executive for the Continental Can Corporation, from LaGuardia and Newark airports. Terminals had polished floors, dramatic lighting, and viewing pavilions to see the planes taxiing, taking off, and landing. One dressed up to travel by air. I thought that air travel was very exotic and I remember my first flight. The food was good and the cutlery was metal. Over the decades Newark’s airport has expanded dramatically, as has the nearby container shipping and the highways. The piers of New York City, which I also visited as a child, are no longer part of the picture. What remains is a massive transportation hub, the economic engine that keeps much of the greater metropolitan area working. Three overtaxed airports serve New York City and none of them make a positive impression. Air travel lost its glamour years ago, but it remains a sure way of distinguishing the haves from the have-nots. With the bustling growth in transportation, especially in warehousing, warehouse flooring installers now play an essential role in maintaining the infrastructure that supports this vast network of movement and trade. Equally important, high-quality industrial lightning is crucial for safety and efficiency in these expansive space. When it comes to maintaining lighting systems, floodlighting repairs are key to ensuring optimal performance and reliability. For reliable lightning solutions, check out this site at https://commercial-industrial-lighting.co.uk/.

John D. Kasarda and Greg Lindsay, authors of Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next, argue that airports play an outsize role in economic growth, particularly urban economic growth, and that their importance will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. It is a sprawling, messy book, filled with gems and a meandering structure that makes finding those nuggets something of a challenge. Their overarching claim that the future of cities is the airport is not convincing. Nonetheless, if you are interested in urban growth and economic development, it is a book worth considering. Airports, they persuasively claim, are central to our 21st century global economy.

The authors emphasize that airports serve markets, not cities or people. Markets are what make for successful airports. In serving those markets well, airports profit their surrounding areas and enable all manner of innovation and opportunity. What makes this happen – and happen so quickly – is that in our global economy distance is measured not by miles, but by time and cost. It is a different way of conceptualizing connectivity. Time most definitely can equal money. Kasarda and Lindsay offer multiple examples of regular commutes of hundreds of miles. Air travel not only makes them possible but efficient. Further, the growing digital connectivity of people has a constant consequence: people who communicate with each other electronically have a heightened desire to see each other face to face. We all want to see our video-conferenced partners and Facebook friends for real. It makes sense, too, for our networks, no matter how technological, are still about people communicating with people.

The book chronicles urban and airport development around the world in short chapters and vignettes, highlighting the growing relevance of aerotropoli to our thinking. The writing is long-form journalism in need of editing. Some sections tend to the historical; others are first person accounts. All are short on data and long on adjectives. Individually, no one story is compelling. However, accounts of Dulles, Heathrow, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas Fort Worth, Memphis, Louisville, Stapleton-Denver, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai read collectively give Kasarta and Lindsay’s book and ideas critical viability.

Aerotropolis is strongest when it dives deeper into an economic system and its relationship with air travel. The “cool chain” that makes it possible to grow flowers in Africa and sell them profitably throughout Europe through Amsterdam’s flower market is fascinating and a clear example of how global systems operate. And as amazing as that system might be, experts in logistics and technology are always seeking a faster and less expensive way to move goods. Logistical chains driven by market needs are always subject to change.

Sustainability and ecological issues pose questions that Kasarda and Lindsay struggle to answer. Yes, airplanes and airlines are damaging to the environment. While pollution from air travel is not as damaging as coal, it still is a major problem. Worse, almost all in the industry are reluctant to change models to improve outcomes. The authors highlight an initiative by Virgin’s Richard Branson as a potential solution but have no real answers.

Lastly, what Kasarda and Lindsay miss amid the flurry of anecdotes about urban development, office relocation, and runway expansions is that air travel as currently practiced around the world is inherently unpleasant. We endure airports and airlines. We tolerate expensive fees and prices in terminals, grudgingly accept long waits, erratic schedules, and uncomfortable seats. We have come to accept intrusive searches and a culture of distrust in the name of safety. The result is that no one looks forward to the process of air travel. Airports and airlines have very few advocates.

In contrast, many cities have found success renovating train terminals. Whether or not railroads are economic engines of growth, there is often public support for the investment in urban train terminals as an attractive public space. Comfortable flooring solutions can significantly enhance the experience within these spaces. For more ideas on how to enhance such projects, check out this site at https://glassroofextension.co.uk/. Ensuring proper air conditioning cleaning in both airports and train terminals can further improve comfort for travelers. To guarantee these improvements are executed effectively, hiring a snagging inspection company can ensure that all renovations meet high standards. However, to address the challenge of growing call volumes with SEM, without fundamental changes in the way that the entire air industry serves and interacts with the public, economics alone will not guarantee the creation of a successful aerotropolis.

David Potash

April 19, 2014 Reviews, Things someone who grew up in NJ might write

So Where Do Good Ideas Come From?

Steven Johnson is a smart, prolific, and thoughtful writer on science and media. He asks big questions in interesting and unexpected ways. When I picked up his award-winning 2010 book, Where Good Ideas Come From: the Natural History of Innovation, I anticipated a study of cutting-edge brain research and finding out what areas light up when we are creative. Instead, the book asks something more accessible and interdisciplinary: why are some environments are so much better at creating, nurturing, and sharing innovation than others? It’s a brilliant question that demands that we think about things in different ways. It is also a question that almost calls out for action.

Natural science is Johnson’s touchstone, so the book regularly references Darwin and biological concepts. He starts off drawing parallels between between coral reefs, biological diversity, and cities. It is a powerful way to think about interactions and the changes that come from proximity. Johnson calls is the “adjacent possible.” While popular culture may have cast the inventor as a solitary figure, Johnson takes great pains to make sure that we know that most innovations come from interactions. He observes that the atoms that allow for more interactions – carbon, most notably – are more important. Connections matter greatly.

Johnson also argues that things are more innovative and relevant when they are in the edge of chaos, not too ordered and not too anarchic. A famous example of this are the tremendous ideas that came out Building 20 at MIT, a temporary structure that brought brilliant minds together in an unstructured environment. It isn’t just the idea, either; context is vitally important. Johnson looks at the hunches surrounding the World Trade Center bombings that never were followed through. The hierarchical and segmented environment that defined the FBI, CIA, and National Security worked against collaboration and the exploration and pursuit of a different idea.

Serendipity has a place in innovation, too. The word comes from a Persian tale called “The Three Princes of Serendip,” which recounts the adventures of three very clever innovators. Johnson’s point is that serendipity cannot be pursued, but one can prepare for it. It can be cultivated – in cities, in schools, and on the web.

Johnson introduces a useful concept from biology – exaptation – to explain the unusual paths that ideas often take. Exaptation comes from evolutionary biology and it describes an adaptation that is then re-repurposed. Bird feathers, for example, were probably an evolutionary way to maintain temperature. Only later did feathers become important to flight. Cities are where exaptation occurs constantly as people, work, ideas, culture, and concepts are constantly re-purposed. Popular music is dependent upon exaptation.

The power of exaptation and innovation is greater with an emergent platform. Platforms are more than ideas and environments – they are systems that enable innovation. Not only is the web a platform, structures within the web are platforms. APIs (application programming interfaces) are platforms that enable more changes.

Johnson brings all of his arguments together in his concluding chapter entitled the fourth quadrant. Borrowing from Boston Consulting Group, he arranges innovation into a simple 2×2 grid: Market/Individual; Market/Network; Non-Market Individual; Non-Market Network. The distinction between individual and network is clear. As for market/non-market, Johnson identifies an important distinction between those that sought to capitalize directly from their idea and those that let their idea flow. Admitting that his classifications are not iron-clad, Johnson proceeds to assign a slew of major innovations and inventions from the Renaissance to one of these four quadrants.

The fascinating thing about the quadrants isn’t what is populated in each – it is the changes in kinds of innovation over time. Five hundred years ago, most innovation was individual and non-market. Think of brilliant scientists in the Renaissance. By the 1700s, more innovation came from non-market networked environments. There will still brilliant individuals, but by this period innovations were more institutionalized and collectively pursued. For this period, consider the development of the smallpox vaccine. When we move to the last two hundred years or so, the proliferation of non-market networked innovation is overwhelming. The vast majority of what we have learned and created, from modern science and health to engineering and technology, emerges out of this quadrant.

Quite a lot to consider, isn’t it? It does help explain many things – from why collaboration breeds creativity to the importance of communication and tolerance. And it letting a little bit of Johnson’s chaos into our minds, I hope that it spurs some good ideas.

David

March 15, 2014 Reviews, Things someone who grew up in NJ might write

What’s In Style These Days

Stuck in an airport because of flight delays – an all too common experience – what to do? WiFi and work, of course, and there’s almost always miles and miles of shopping. Embracing the concept, Philadelphia’s airport is more mall than travel hub. But what if you don’t want to shop? Or if the carry on is full and that special something from Brookstone would need a bag check and an additional fee? The standby is reading a book.

Recently “trapped” in O’Hare I searched for a terminal and airplane read. My bias is against hardcover and popular fiction. What remains is non-fiction, business, and staff recommendations as my shelves of choice. With bad weather and the zeitgeist in cahoots at O’Hare, I felt oddly compelled to read Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black. A book and a Netflix series, this prison memoir is resonating in our collective cultural landscape. When in Rome . . . .

The plot and outline are well-known: upper middle class Smith graduate, Kerman hangs out with the wrong older crowd after graduation. She travels to Europe, becomes a money courier for a drug ring – almost accidentally in her memoir – then wises up and gets her life in order. All things seem fine until the police knock on her door years later and she is convicted as part of a larger government investigation. Kerman spends 13 months in a federal prison – not maximum security – and recounts her experience in this breezily written first hand account.

At pains to distinguish her situation from those of her fellow inmates, who are poorer, usually African-American or Hispanic, Kerman uses her position of privilege to do an almost-ethnography of life behind bars. She reads, she writes, she runs, and she learns about herself and other women in prison. She is also very fortunate. Her family and boyfriend are steadfastly supportive and there is the likelihood of a positive life after incarceration. Kerman regularly reminds us that she is well aware of her good fortune and her culpability. It is an easy read, without much reflection or difficult questions. I thought of “Life in a Chain Gang” light with yoga. Kerman knows that her experience was not “real prison.”

Even as I zipped through the pages from my own place of privilege in wide-body jets and shopping malls disguised as airports, Orange is the New Black annoyed me. Kerman’s account has been criticized for its upper-middle class white perspective, but that did not trouble me. We are who we are. It was only after Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death – and my own memories of people that I have known whose lives have been ruined or ended because of drug addiction – that my disappointment with Kerman came into focus. She admits – up front – responsibility for her actions. She also, briefly, seems to realize that her contributions to the drug trade may have caused others harm. But through the text there is no real appreciation of that, no real sense of ownership. She is sorry but not remorseful.

Kerman has monetized her experience extraordinarily effectively. The very same traits that allowed her to navigate a terrible experience so successfully – her focus on herself and her lack of interest in reflection – helped put her in prison in the first place. With success, however, comes an expectation of responsibility, or at least something more. Orange is the New Black is an interesting but not a thoughtful book. Absent is the state of grace that can accompany true contrition.

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David Potash

February 13, 2014 American Culture Today, Reviews

The Sharp Edge of Comedy

My son and I recently saw the Chicago’s Shakespeare’s Theatre’s production of The Merry Wives of Windsor. I prepared by looking online and reviewing the plot (confessions of a former English major). Merry Wives is not produced all that often and I learned that critics tend to rank it as one of Shakespeare’s weaker plays. The story is an ironic look at relationships, love, fidelity, and ego, with disguises and mistaken identities. It is well suited for an opera with the wives perhaps more wise than jolly. Throw in a fat, aging, and cynical protagonist – Sir John Falstaff – and the play has a bit of a play on itself.

The Chicago production is set in post-WWII small-town England, with musical interludes and lots of antics. Think of Benny Hill doing Shakespeare. The play moves quickly, the jokes are broad, and the happy ending is inevitable. It was enjoyable Shakespeare light, done quite expertly.

That said, there’s something very uncomfortable about the comedy and its humor. It lingered with me. Falstaff appears in two other of Shakespeare’s plays where his character is more developed. Here, Falstaff is an opportunistic buffoon and an object of ridicule. Jokes are at his expense, and perhaps Falstaff’s most endearing quality is his ability to laugh at himself. Over the course of the play, an unexpected pathos worms its way into the barbs. Watching the pratfalls it was difficult not to squirm. I thought of the many ways that we marginalize fat people, the meanness that comes as we smile at the overweight. The good people of Windsor were ridiculous, too, but they enjoyed wealth, families, and bourgeois comfort. They were never in any danger.

Popular movies today are not without fat jokes, fat humor, and fat suits. But we are careful, mostly, to pull back from direct ridicule. When we make fun of the obese, it is often leavened with a countervailing message. Consider, for example, the movie Shallow Hal. Can 89 minutes of fat jokes be forgotten with an ending that argues that real beauty is from within? I wonder if humor in Shakespeare’s time was all that different from humor today and whether toiling in higher education for all these years has warped my sensibilities.

In higher education, appropriateness dictates that we treat the obese and anorexic, the able and the disabled, and all shades, creeds, colors, and faiths, with the same courtesy and respect. It is woven into our policies and rules – and is a hallmark of a well run institution. When we see cruelty, machinery and culture swing into action. The aim is acceptance and tolerance. We may achieve these ends only for a short while and in a physically circumscribed space, the campus, but it is an aim across higher education. We dislike bullying and meanness. The collective goal of a better society and culture has taken hold in a deep way in American higher education. Accordingly, if conflict is essential for drama, our demand for appropriateness and genuine acceptance and inclusion may be why there are so few good plays set in higher education.

And lastly, Shakespeare, consistently, wrote plays that make you think.

David Potash

January 22, 2014 American Culture Today, Reviews

Intriguing and Inspiring Fashion

Past the velvet ropes and the purple walls, it’s possible to catch a glimpse of high-fashion stylish mannequins at the Chicago History Museum. Text and image are on the walls, but reading the title – Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair – makes little sense to the uninformed. Wandering in, fancy dresses are next to outlandish costumes are next to beautiful gowns. It is more than the eye can take in. The clothes radiate expense and seem more like works of art than items for sale.

The outfits are meant to be worn. Through video and photography, is possible to see the artifacts on models and as clothes. Read more wall texts and start to imagine the fashion fair, and the clothing and the show take on different meanings. Issues of gender, body image, class, globalism, race and racism reverberate. The exhibit looks at the introduction of high-end fashion to the African-American community from 1958 to 2009 through a traveling road show sponsored by the community’s leading magazine. It is fascinating, educational and not didactic. It makes clear that fashion can be much more than clothing and the Ebony Fashion Fair had significance well beyond consumption. For a unique twist on fashion accessories, check out this article about tentacle earring plugs at https://www.gearfuse.com/tentacle-earring-plug-um-do-you-know-theres-a-sea-monster-in-your-ear/. Also, consider this sites at 레플리카 for more latest fashion trends.

The Fashion Fair was the creation of Eunice W. Johnson, who along with her husband John H. Johnson, created a very successful publishing company aimed at the African-American market. Benefiting from the rising circulation of Ebony, their most popular magazine, Eunice Johnson started the fashion fair to raise money for charities. She visited Paris fashion shows and designer houses across Europe and the US, developing a network of contacts and relationships. Back in the US, the fair was booked throughout the country and often required specialized services, such as audio visual hire for corporate meetings, to enhance its presentations. It featured African-American models, bringing high-end fashion to African-Americans in an entertaining and accessible way. Attending the Fashion Fair was a major event. Videos and recollections of Johnson make clear that she was an extraordinary woman.

The show contains dozens exotic dresses and ensembles, ranging from the demure to the outrageous. It explains the context of the fair and gives a good sense of what it would have been like to attended. They were lively, theatrical events that spoke to the growing economic power of African-American women. The exhibit explains, postulates, and makes visible – and is grounded in the real. The clothing can engage without explanation or tags. It is that interesting and the explanations of the fair highlight a community that was little known by white America. For events like these, https://soundsystemrental.co.uk/sound-system-rental-for-fashion-shows/ is essential to create the right atmosphere, making the experience even more immersive. These events were also among the first to use led screen trailers, adding an innovative touch to the presentations.

Collectively, Inspiring Beauty shows that clothing, above and beyond something interesting to look at, can have surprising social power. The right fashion can, indeed, inspire.

David Potash

January 20, 2014 Reviews

Authentic Artifice

Sometime in my late-20s, I noticed that the conventions of theater were no longer working for me. It was a gradual change, akin to failing eyesight. Others simply were able to see things on stage that I could not. Perhaps I needed glasses? Optometry has offered no relief.

I used to enjoy drama, musicals, and other kinds of theater. Now I find myself unable to engage “normally” with whatever is happening on stage. It is a strange phenomenon and I do blame Brecht. My mind wanders, raising questions of the structure, support, and the great collective effort that leads this person and that person performing in front of me to do whatever they are doing. I think about about the proscenium and the staging. I wonder if how this line was re-written or that line looks on the page. I evaluate lighting and sound. I restage blocking and the movement of the cast. It takes great concentration for me to engage with what is happening as an audience member, and when I can, it is fleeting. I sneak looks to the left and right of me – others in the audience, invariably, are engaged. The productions are not at fault. The problem is mine.

Theater still beckons and I still attend, but things are different. Enjoyment comes in other guises.

Bear this lengthy caveat in mind as I enthuse about The Hypocrite’s production of The Mikado. Currently showing at the Steppenwolf Theater Company, this is a fresh take on a somewhat ridiculous and lovely Gilbert and Sullivan classic. The Mikado is a comic opera set in a topsy-turvy Japan, replete with highly stylized characters and many jokes. Performed “traditionally” the Mikado can easily lapse into a stilted, dated racism that is more often than not meliorated with camp.

In this production, boundaries between performers and audience are erased. The performance takes place in an open room with areas defined by low-benches, platforms, rings and lighting. All of the actors play instruments, so the stage orchestra is also on stage. The audience is allowed – encouraged – to move around the space to engage as they see fit. The rules of the performance are simple: the actors and the audience should not pretend that they do not see each other. If an actor needs to get to a spot and an audience member is in the way, they will point or tap to clear a space. And the bar remained open through the show.

The Hypocrites are an interesting theater company with a mission to make “a Theater of Honesty” and a manifesto to “create theater as an artistic expression.” The company identifies the audience as part of that process. The Hypocrite’s Mikado was a delight to attend. The talent level was very good, but more importantly, it was what it was – and it did not pretend to be anything else. It was great fun. For this all too artificial opera, written in England 140 years ago about a love story in a fictionalized and absurd Japan, the Hypocrites found authenticity. I am impressed.

David Potash

November 29, 2013 Reviews

No Easy Job

More than a biography, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs is a cultural phenomenon. It was the best-selling book on Amazon in 2011 and it has continued to sell. A movie will follow. It is a well-written and well-researched work. Steve Jobs has entered our collective consciousness, just like its founder and Apple. Understanding how that happened is a obvious pull. Who isn’t intrigued? Referencing the book, as I have learned, is a reliable way to generate conversation. Everyone has an opinion about Steve Jobs.

Unfortunately, for me and most of those that I have talked with, reading Steve Jobs was far from a pleasant experience. It can be downright grim. There is little joy amid Jobs’ many accomplishments. Granting Jobs his business genius, we are left with a thorough study of a manipulative, sometimes cruel, and driven man whose primary passion outside of his company was Bob Dylan and Zen philosophy. Jobs made an unlikely Buddhist.

Many biographies turn out to be studies of morality and character. Others biographies are windows into a life and lifestyle. Celebrity biographies often follow this format – we are curious about those that we idolize. Isaacson’s book satisfies on neither front. Jobs was not a particularly good or moral person. Further, his lifestyle was not that interesting. While he met many fascinating people, it is to tell if he had any significant interactions outside of business. In many ways, the primary legacy of his Zen pursuits was an indifference to how he lived. The result is a striking absence of vicarious happiness in reading about Jobs’ accomplishments.

What remains – and here is the value of Isaacson’s book – is a powerful examination of the intersection of information technology, consumerism, and popular culture, and the ability to generate your paystubs by the help of this software. The business genius of Jobs was the integration of these powerful arenas. It is a history that we are living every day. Isaacson offers a human but privileged perspective from which to make some sense of it all. Additionally, one can navigate their finances more effectively with the aid of a financial toolkit for paystubs.

Technological used to take time to reach the public. Decades elapsed before Bell’s telephone or Edison’s light bulb was in American homes. The marketing, communication, and distribution networks were not robust. During periods of discovery and development, technology could evolve along with public reaction and understanding of it. The speed of innovation, distribution, and adaptation today is tremendously shorter. It is extraordinary how quickly we discover, adapt, saturate, and discard. The closing of Blockbuster stands as a great example – from thousands of stores a few years ago to none in 2014. Such platforms play a crucial role in connecting sellers with buyers in an efficient and timely manner. An excellent example of this is a ticket sales platform, which instantly connects event organizers with potential customers, facilitating rapid dissemination of information and enabling swift ticket sales. Businesses today leverage various tools to stay competitive, including digital marketing strategies, social media platforms, and audio visual hire UK services. Also, video wall hire is a popular solution for enhancing audience engagement, providing high-quality, dynamic visual displays that captivate and inform attendees. Additionally, services like AV hire for corporate events ensure that businesses can efficiently manage their technological needs, enhancing the overall experience for attendees. For more specialized needs, businesses can also refer to this site at https://avequipmentrental.co.uk/led-video-wall-hire/.

Jobs’ successful products made technological innovation attractive to many. He had a talent for designing, packaging, branding, and rendering. Jobs’ ability was not something that he could explain in words. Isaacson, too, struggles to capture what it was about Apple designs that made them so special. It was Jobs’ good fortune to be in a location and at a time when that talent could take the engineering and computer science skills of others and marry them to popular consumption. It is a strange talent that has left a powerful – and problematic – legacy.

David Potash

November 10, 2013 Reviews

Accelerating Democracy – From a Governing Perspective

John O. McGinnis, professor law at Northwestern University, has faith in democracy, empiricism, and technology to improve governance. His latest work, Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology, provides an overview of the ways in which democratic government can use and respond to technology. He is mot concerned with claims about how democracies should use and respond to new technology.

Driving the work is a serious question: how do democracies make and evaluate decisions? How can they do so more effectively? McGinnis identifies the ever-increasing importance of the social sciences and new technologies to answering that query. For us to live in a rationally governed world, it is essential that we have an understanding of the consequences of policies and choices. New technologies permit more sophisticated questions and answers. We can now do this quickly and efficiently.

McGinnis calls for more experimentation. He wants a revival of federalism with multiple pilots. He identifies great value in more information, more readily shared and assessed. In addition, McGinnis emphasizes the values of predictive markets. Technology can make all of this possible. However, McGinnis does not advocate for a technocratic élite. His aim is about harnessing the social values inherent in new technology.

New technology, particularly analysis of big data, can lead to smarter decisions. Businesses use it well. However, I am not confident that public policy preference is grounded in efficiency. We often make decisions reasons that are less effective and less rational. There is also great potential within dispersed communication (social media) to disrupt government and rational decision-making. Democracies do not always move toward greater democracy. McGinnis, acknowledges bias but believes that technology and greater information can be a corrective.

McGinnis’s vision rings true within the world of public policy and administration. Data and empirical information has the nagging habit of getting in the way of suppositions, biases, and predetermined plans. Officials and leaders who use new technologies can and will be more effective because they will notice this. Happily, these are also the people most likely to read Accelerating Democracy.

David Potash

June 15, 2013 American Culture Today, Reviews

Measuring Manhattan

John Randel was a brilliant crank, an idiosyncratic and irascible character who mapped Manhattan in the early 1800s. Randel made the world-famous grid of avenues and streets a reality through extraordinarily detailed maps. His obsession for accuracy was matched only by his commitment to his reputation. Marguerite Holloway’s The Measure of Manhattan is a generous and thoughtfully crafted biography of Randel. Holloway champions Randel, admits but tolerates his weaknesses, and lobbies mightily to raise his star.

The challenge facing Holloway is that Randel was not a visionary, a planner, or a theorist. He was not even a particularly nice or interesting person. Randel played a very important role in the mapping of Manhattan, but that role could have been shouldered by another. He was an outstanding surveyor.Randal’s role in history is notable because he possessed the right skills in the right place at the right time.

The true subject of the book is not Randal, but the processes involved in mapping the island of Manhattan. Surveyors imposed order on chaos and structure on the organic. If we equate happiness with property – and many Americans do – than happiness is only possible with a reliable map. It’s a good thing that Manhattan has so many happy people, and if only for that, I give thanks to John Randel.

David Potash

June 14, 2013 Reviews, Things someone who grew up in NJ might write

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