by Barry Phegan | Oct 31, 2020 | Aging, Social comment
Conflicting cultural norms and expectations can spring up in unexpected places. Spilled movie-popcorn led me to rethink some lifelong assumptions and question my wisdom. Scene (Part I): Conflict in the Lobby It’s pre-COVID. I’m at the movie theater with my...
by Barry Phegan | Oct 17, 2020 | Social comment
Several of you asked to hear more about the non-adversarial traditions of native Hawaiians and American Indians described in my last blog — alternatives to the U.S. adversarial decision-making process. Let’s dive in and I’ll explain. First, a recap. For 30...
by Barry Phegan | Sep 30, 2020 | Social comment
While we are toppling monuments, let’s topple the biggest obstacle to equality — our adversarial public decision process. It enables the powerful, disenfranchises the weaker, fosters divisiveness, and destroys trust. How dare I question this sacred cow of...
by Barry Phegan | Aug 14, 2020 | Social comment
Condensed from Measuring What Matters, Scientific American, August 2020, by Joseph E Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in Economics. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is almost universally used to gauge how well a society is doing. In fact, it is a measure of market...
by Barry Phegan | Jul 31, 2020 | Social comment
Tribalism is built into our genes and our culture. It brings cooperation and kindness with those we know, and discrimination and brutality against ‘others’. We’ve layered on a political and regulatory system allowing a powerful minority to extract wealth from...
by Barry Phegan | Jul 15, 2020 | Living Life, Social comment
Many of us are doing deep soul searching in the wake of graphic police brutality and the systemic racism that spawned it. It’s the latest step along the way of 100,000 years of man’s brutality against those who are, “Not my tribe.” Tribalism and its close...
