Tuesday October 23 and Wednesday October 24

Again this week I'll miss the dialogues, but will be back Tuesday October 30 with a trick for Second Cup and Wednesday October 31 with a treat at Vendome.

The reason for missing them this week is that I plan to attend both the two events that have been organized for Yves Engler's visit in Calgary. They take place this coming Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. The time and place for each appears below. If you want to see the poster for either one, just let me know.

In lieu of actually attending our dialogues this week, I'll append "something to consider" just below this email message. I will also share it with Yves Engler and Ryan Bellerose (the two debaters for the October 24 event).

Book Launch and related event with Yves Engler in Calgary October 23 and 24

Yves Engler is a Canadian author of ten books, most recently Left, Right – Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada.

Tuesday, Oct. 23, 7 pm (book launch)

Community Wise Resource Centre, 223 12 Ave SW

Sponsor: Justice for Palestinians

https://www.facebook.com/events/2062566467100837/

Wednesday, Oct. 24 7PM (A debate “Is Canada's Support for Israel Justifiable?”) Mount Royal University, Jenkins Theatre

Sponsor: Rational Space

https://www.facebook.com/events/1867916996626049/

Arthur

Something to Consider

My own way of thinking about contemporary nationalism and tribalism is that they are dangerous anachronisms. I very much agree with a message from Stephen Hawking which can be summarized with the words “One race, one planet: We must become global citizens.” A link is here http://www.humanexcellence.org/a-message-from-stephen-hawking-it-can-be-done/ and another here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBcxxhqsz34

Each of us has a different way of thinking. Some of us think nationalism is quite okay. I don’t. If one day it becomes obvious that our “Us versus Them” ways of thinking are leading toward human extinction, will we be able to change our ways of thinking in response to that danger?

Consider:

1. “We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.” - Martin Luther King Jr. I refer to these alternatives as “option A” and “option B,” respectively. I prefer option A. We must learn to live together as human beings. John Rawls emphasized the importance of a “veil of ignorance” when we decide about such things. When we make our choices about the world we prefer, we should make those choices conscious of our ignorance. We do not know where our descendants will fit in that imagined world. They might be rich or poor; our great grandchildren might live in this or that part of the planet; and their children might have a parent who is Palestinian or Israeli. We don’t know these things. If I care about the well-being of my family, I should care about the well-being of Israelis and Palestinians. A few generations hence, the descendants of my two brothers might in fact be Palestinians or Israelis. We are all human beings.

2. “To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller. One of the new models we are building in Calgary is the Café Dialogue project. We want a healthy global community and we’ve drawn a map to help us get there. Our twice weekly café dialogues (and other projects we’ve initiated) are represented in the map. Each city becomes a playing field for achieving healthy global community. You could think of it as a game with very high stakes. Each city could do it differently, but part of it would be making your city a great place to live. Ernest Hemingway had said of Paris in the 1920s that if you were lucky enough to live there when you were young, you would take it with you for the rest of your life, for “Paris is a moveable feast.” Our “new model” involves making Calgary a moveable feast for the 21st Century. Like-minded organizations in our city (sharing the "one race, one planet" global citizenship way of thinking) can help with the game plan. Connect those like-minded organizations, and the circle of connections will become another great resource for creating a “moveable feast” in our city. That’s how we are planning to create a better future. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. We'll have to run the experiment to know the result.

So that’s it. It’s just something for you to consider.