culture

You've read Lee Siegel, the New York-based critic who writes for Harpers, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Republic (again). He writes erudite, prickly prose on the subject of American culture – or what counts for it. At one point the New York Times referred to him as "one of the most eloquent and acid-tongued critics in the country." In a nation that enjoys a bit of battering of our neighbor -- and which lives by the adage if you're so smart why ain't you rich? -- even the most liberal-minded of us get both an intellectual thrill and an ignoble shiver reading his work.

Though I highly recommend him for his wit and range, his personal story is a cautionary tale. In 2006 he was suspended from his role at The New Republic for, well, what? Misleading comments, I believe it was. Siegel didn't break any rules, nor certainly any laws. But he had established an alter-ego that attacked negative commentators on his blog. This alter-ego, known as sprezzatura, was an ardent defender of Siegel, Siegel's wit, and Siegel's shining intelligence. OK, so what, right? He's a little insecure.

The situation was disturbing, but not for the reasons most people pointed to. Most commonly, people expressed their disgust at how stupid it was, how egotistical it was, and ultimately, at what a baby Siegel was. The last comment approaches the reason it was appropriate that Siegel was temporarily suspended.

So what if the critic can't take criticism -- that's a weakness that hounds far too many people to make it interesting. The problem was that he was hypocritical at a level that was a betrayal of his true audience. The role of critic suggests intellectual rigor and standards. Critical thinking is the careful analysis of whatever it is we are evaluating, getting past emotions, reactions, historical baggage, psychology, bias, enculturation -- all of the muck that clouds our thinking and prevents us from seeing reality in the clearest possible light. Not that most modern critics actually perform that role for us, but we wish they would. We need them to. And Siegel is capable of operating at the highest levels of intellectual criticism.

Why do I care about something that that is, by American standards, ancient history? Because of something a friend of mine said tonight. My friend Mark and I were talking about billboards in the UK, and how much we appreciate them. In the United States, billboard writers obviously go through a process that, if you were a fly on the wall, would sound something like this:

Ad guy 1: Dude, we need another billboard for our very difficult client.

Ad guy 2: Damn. Didn't we just finish a bunch of billboards for them?

Ad guy 1: Yeah. I hate doing billboards.

Important advertising note. Billboards must be able to deliver a message in less than 3 seconds at roughly 55 mph. Ad guys hate to be responsible for traffic deaths. Well, we assume so anyway.

Ad guy 1: OK, what's the simplest way we can say "get your new muffler at Dan's Auto Haus?"

Ad guy 2: Can't just we say that?

Ad guy 1: No. People don't read that fast. We still have to have room for their website and maybe a phone number.

Ad guy 2: OK, how about, "Mufflers. Dans. www.dansautohaus.com."

Ad guy 1: They might think we're advertising, like, mittens or something.

Ad guy 2: It's summer.

Ad guy 1: Whatever. I don't think it will work.

Ad guy 2: OK, what about, "Noisy car? Dan's Mufflers."

Ad guy 1: They'll think it's just a muffler shop. Dan won't like that.

You get the picture. Eventually the ad guys consult a reference book for children's writing and choose three words from the kindergarten list, and that's what passes for advertising in this country.

In the UK, billboards are vexing. Not only are you trying not to wipe out the left side of your car every time you turn the corner and jumping when people pop out at you from the wrong side of the street, but your head is swimming with the last three billboards you read that you still haven't made sense of. UK billboards cater to the thinkers in their society, which they obviously assume are many, given how democratic they are with their puzzling advertising.

Are American advertising firms dumbing everything down because Americans are lazy thinkers, or are Americans lazy thinkers because we are confronted -- no, assaulted -- by a constant barrage of stupidity? Please, don't try to answer that – it's a chicken-and-egg thing.

It's important to read Lee Siegel because he's capable of – and for the most part, delivers – criticism filled with intellectual honesty. I'm pretty sure I never want him to take on one of my publications, because as thick-skinned as I am, I've probably not evolved to the point where I'm ready to read his take on my work without a therapist by my side. Still, he challenges his readers to intellectual debate. This is an experience to which we have become unaccustomed. Siegel doesn't cater to lazy thinkers. Indeed, he writes as if he expects us to be intelligent.

Lee Siegel should be completely forgiven for his past lapse (and yes, I realize that I am the one bringing it up again, but I couldn't figure out another way to make my point). Seriously. If we're being honest, we can all think of foolish things we have done that disgraced us but didn't add any further damage to the human condition.

But Siegel does have a responsibility that is very similar to that of any parent. We know that parents must set a good example for their children. Parental example is something children count on to feel confident. Parental example is the ballast each child needs while bobbing about in the wakes of peer pressure, demoralizing teachers, and Ad guys 1 and 2.

Those of us who seek a more intellectual discourse are dependent on cultural leaders - of all types – to maintain a certain quality of critical thought. This is a completely reciprocal responsibility (did you think you were off the hook?). The only way to create a rigorous intellectualism for ourselves is to give it first to others, and by doing so we are able to receive the thing we want. That's right – intellectualism is not a zero sum game. The only way we can have it is to give it away. That requires dialogue. Which requires risk. Which was Siegel's failure. Shared by the rest of us, though most of us don't have to fail in such a public forum.

Perhaps Ad guys 1 and 2 are not really ready for this. But I suggest we give them the benefit of the doubt. If enough of us gave intellectual discourse away – trusting everyone around us not to be lazy thinkers – perhaps we would discover ourselves, once again, a country that thinks. I'd wager it would do a lot more for our economy than another cut in the Fed Funds Rate or a bunch of $300 rebates.

Now that the tragedy of Newtown has happened the guns, God, and family-values brigade is out in force. Why don't people think before they stand up in front of an entire press corps (or post semi-ridiculous Facebook memes)?

Having armed gunmen in place didn't help at Columbine, which had an armed guard, didn't help at Virginia Tech, which had its own police force, and didn't help at Fort Hood - which is an Army base for Pete's sake. And while I'm on the topic, putting God back in the schools may or may not have value. But it's sure as hell not the reason that Newtown happened. After all - priests and ministers of all persuasions have a long history of sexually abusing children in places of God. So really? Let's stop with all the knee-jerk platitudes and do some real critical thinking and rational discourse. There are solutions out there - we just have to be intelligent and engaged humans and get out there and find them.

Most men indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is so far error.

—BEN FRANKLIN, AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITINGS (LAST SPEECH)

It is a complicated world we live in. A world in which we require conviction about certain things in order to center ourselves and make our way. A world in which those same convictions can sometimes blind us to a greater truth or realization about life, love, and God.

Most of us Christians, Jews, and Muslims don't understand the history of our religions, the social contexts in which they were developed, and the ways in which all of the sacred texts have been manipulated by various kings, emperors, and tribal leaders to support their personal political agendas. We understand the religious history that was taught to us by our parents, their parents, and their parents' parents, and we accept this verbal history as the truth.

Some of us go so far as to conclude that only those who believe as we do will get to heaven. I'm still shaking my head over a signature line on a colleague's personal email account that reads "If you don't believe what I believe, you'll have an eternity to regret it." It's no small surprise that true biblical scholars – not divinity students, but scholars of the bible and its history – go through a crisis of faith at some point in their studies. They learn how fallible the socially accepted religious texts are. Those who continue to have faith do so because they choose to believe, in spite of all the human error and meddling. What a powerful faith theirs is, to choose not from denial, but from a place of light (truth) and spiritual hope.

We hide behind our beliefs, afraid to challenge or question them. Psychologically that makes sense. If we suspect our spouse is cheating on us sexually, we go through a phase of not wanting to know. The truth can be difficult and painful because it may cause change. Some people choose to never confront the truth of their spouse's infidelity, and live instead in a state of denial and suppressed pain.

If we have chosen not to confront the infidelity, then woe to the well-meaning (or not-so-well-meaning) friend who points it out to us. Their recognition of the truth means that we must deal with it, and if we have used denial to create a false reality, we don't appreciate someone else shining a light on it.

All of us hide behind denial to some extent. It's a complicated world that presents us with too many contradictions. One person's acceptance of nudity is another person's violation of modesty. One family's arranged marriage for the strengthening of family ties and responsibilities is another person's violation of marriage as an institution dependent on love. One person's pacifism is another person's weakness. One person's polygamy is another person's violation of the sanctity of marriage. One person's martyrdom is a violation of another's sense of God's peace.

Cultural norms and mores simplify life. Merely 200 years ago nearly every human being lived within a community which enjoyed the simplicity of entirely shared values. Well, that's not quite true. For instance, in most western cultures 200 years ago, if a married woman was miserable – whether she was beaten , taken for granted, or anywhere in between – she could not leave her marriage. She couldn't own land, hold a job, or vote. So whether she shared the norms and mores or not was irrelevant – she had to pretend to in order to maintain what little place she had in society. And slavery has been part of the world since time immemorial, continuing still today. Still, most communities 200 years ago benefited from general sharing of cultural values.

 As the world has become more integrated, we experience challenges to our beliefs and values. The Archbishop of Canterbury recently advanced an argument that England should consider Sharia law for the purposes of negotiating marital and civilian disputes. The world immediately split over his suggestion – some suggesting that social cohesion is not possible when multiple legal systems are contending for primacy, and some suggesting that it's about time western culture recognized that Muslims within their cultures require Sharia law to function. Who is right? As the Archbishop of Canterbury has learned, even raising the question of how to accommodate religious views and rights within a secular society can have grave implications for one's career.

 State by painful State the US has been debating whether or not gay couples should have the same rights under the law as married couples. Proponents of the bills argue that gay couples should not have to worry about whether or not they will be able to visit their loved one in a hospital, make medical decisions when necessary, or maintain their joint property after a loved one's death. Opponents of the bills argue that gay marriage mocks the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and that the fabric of society will be permanently torn if gay unions are legally recognized. Who is right?

 I like to reflect on another quotation, this one by Robert Green Ingersoll, who in 1955 said:

 "Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of god, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants, the worst is a slave in power."

 There is room for all of us, whether believers or non-believers, to recognize a certain personal responsibility in Ingersoll's challenge. The challenge is this:

 We cannot simultaneously uphold our own fundamental rightness and offer genuine respect to human beings who believe differently than us. The two positions are mutually exclusive. We can condescendingly agree to accept that the other person has a different opinion, but that is not the same as valuing that person equally to ourselves.

 If we wish to take no risks with our salvation, our only hope is to choose to see the Godliness in every other human being, and to strive to understand how their Godliness leads them to believe differently than we do. We cannot condemn another person without condemning ourselves. We cannot judge another person without likewise turning our judgment on ourselves. If we are among those who believe in God, how egotistical it is to believe that God requires our judgment of others to make His world whole. Don't we think He can handle that aspect Himself?

 If we are not worried about salvation because we don't believe in God or a hereafter, our only hope in life is to learn as much as we can from every other human being we encounter, because this one life is the only one we've got and the only way to live it to the fullest would be to allow its fullness to live in us. 

 One sure path to the truth is to be willing to view our own beliefs with as much skepticism as we view the beliefs of others. An even surer path to the truth is to challenge all of our systems, our laws, and our social structures to uplift and uphold the dignity and supreme worth of every human being. In every choice we make, if we would stop to consider the worth and dignity of those involved – and not just our own views of how the world should work – I believe that we would consistently make better choices.

 In 1902 William James lamented that out of fanaticism "crusades have been preached and massacres instigated for no other reason than to remove a fancied slight upon the God." History does not provide an example of it, but can't you imagine a world where people are seekers of truth and clear thinking? It would be impossible to wage a war, starve a child, beat a woman, or cheat a friend if the only enculturation we knew was to shine the light of equality and love on every person we met.

 No one of us is more special than any other. But we could be incredibly special together if we put our minds – and not our blindered beliefs – to the task.

Several months ago I received a personal email from a long-ago friend who is now a protestant minister. Apparently he had (finally?) learned that I am gay, and felt compelled to express to me his concerns about my choice and therefore, my soul. I was a little surprised that he felt so compelled to impose his opinions on me that way, but chose to use it as an opportunity to write the "what I would say to a minister if he out-of-the-blue decided to preach to me about my queerness" blog.

Here it is.

Thanks for your email (I guess). Not surprisingly, I have a rather different view. Men of God have powerful control to shape society and influence how people treat one another. More control even than politicians or parents. So the influence of ministers, priests, rabbis, and other spiritual leaders is of paramount concern to me as it relates to the shaping of a just and loving society.

In the times of the old testament the religious leaders determined that rape was OK if the man paid the father of the woman he raped 50 shekels and then married her and never divorced (Deuteronomy 22:28). Lucky girl, right? But society was influenced by this determination, as dictated to Men of God by God himself. Rape in that time was condoned. God's instructions (as interpreted by Men of God) on how to take a second wife are found in Exodus 21:10 - in those times polygamy was also an acceptable practice. Also in Exodus, 21:7, you can learn the rules about how to sell your daughter and what to do if she fails to please her new master. These are really old references, right? But these are excellent examples of how men interpreted for other people the Will of God - and thereby shaped the society of their times with their interpretations.

I believe that it is perfectly fine before God's eyes for blacks and whites to marry one another. But as recently as 40 years ago (and in some places, it probably continues today) preachers used the Bible to justify their position that blacks were less human than whites, and therefore intermarriage was an abomination and a sin. They relied largely on the Book of Numbers for this, though there are ample references throughout the Old Testament decrying any form of intermarriage between the Israelites and others considered to be 'lower' than them.

And now preachers use the Bible to say that being gay is a sin, and they can find a few Biblical references to support this, just as there are a few references to the acceptability of rape, polygamy, slave-keeping, and other things that we all agree are abominations today. Yet science can show that gays have existed since the earliest recorded human history. How long will it take- 40 years? 50 years? - before we look back on this time and shake our heads, just as we look in shame at the time when we kept slaves in the United States backed by numerous Old Testament references to the acceptability of keeping slaves, or at the times when blacks who married whites were punished by death or jail? Humans have used their interpretations of the Bible - primarily the Old Testament - to support our biases and fears for many centuries, and I don't expect that to change. We are champions at rationalizing our bad behavior.

But there is no reference to Jesus Christ saying that being gay is a sin. His entire message was to focus on our own spirituality, treat one another with love and without judgement, and to let God worry about the rest. I sometimes wonder - is God more likely to be upset with us for judging someone that He actually loves unconditionally, or would he be more upset with us for loving someone unconditionally that he ultimately judged?

So that is what I believe. Our references are probably somewhat different. As a Jew, I still love to study the Torah and other sacred texts. As a person who went entirely to Catholic schools, my Bible of choice is the New American Bible. As a protestant, I suspect you rely more on the King James. But ultimately, I'm just a spiritual human being, and I can't bear to watch the world justify hatred, bigotry, and war by searching for references in various religious texts that are more relevant to the times in which they were written than to the actual intent of God - whom we all agree is most difficult to understand given our less-than-perfect state. I can only support messages that are closest to that of Jesus himself - a message that says "love one another, be kind to one another, accept one another, don't throw the first stone, and let God worry about the rest." Because honestly, if we started feeding the poor, sharing the wealth, condemning all forms of war, and treating one another as if we could see God's face in the face of each person we looked at, the world would be a beautiful place. And the fact that some men slept with men and some women slept with women wouldn't matter at all in a world like that, would it.

Erma Bombeck was a genius. Whenever I am seeking a wise bon mot – particularly as it relates to popular culture – I turn to her. I did so today, and as usual, I found what I was looking for.

"Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip."

There was a time when famous people were famous for doing something (New York society columns notwithstanding). Now we have K-Fed and Paris Hilton – both of whose entire claim to fame rests on their ability to generate gossip. The Hollywood gossip trade is big business. Just yesterday I heard my six-year-old say – with no small measure of authority – that Jennifer Lopez was having twins. Our neighbor down the street is pregnant, and I'm pretty sure our little one hasn't even noticed. But she knows about J-Lo. And her television time is limited to 30 minutes each day!

My 22-year-old was sitting at the computer and said, "Good grief. Why don't they just leave Britney alone? Can't they see she's going to kill herself if they keep this up?" I walked over and looked at the computer monitor, and sure enough, People Magazine's web-site was loaded, delivering the by-the-minute Britney news they make so much money on.

I know it was kind of harsh, but I had to make a point. I said, "Yes, but it's your fault."

"What?" She started laughing, shaking her head. Just another crazy weird thing for mom to say.

"No, I mean it. It's your fault."

"Right. And I assume you're going to explain how it could possibly be my fault."

"Because you clicked on that headline. And everyone who clicks on that headline tells People Magazine they want more news about that poor girl."

"But there are millions of us looking at Britney news!"

My point. What a strange place for a culture to be. Our compulsion for bad news fuels an entire industry made up of photographers, print magazines, cable magazines, and internet sites. Any overly aggressive photographer with a camera and no need for sleep can earn upwards of $300,000 per year taking pictures of pop stars leaving Vons with their weekly groceries. When did America notice that the writers were on strike? Not until the strike undermined the awards shows and all those great pictures of stars on the red carpet wearing designer gowns. Why didn't America notice? Because we're so busy watching reality TV, which doesn't require writers (at least most don't). Why are we watching reality TV? Because it gives us a chance to watch other people behave badly and become stars in direct proportion to the gossip they generate.

Maybe we are so absorbed in these shows because we can picture ourselves as one of the regular people on a reality program, but not as Julia Roberts. Lucky children have parents who tell them how special they are. Somehow, the meaning gets distorted. We are a nation of people who believe they would make a great novelist (82% of adults polled) but who don't actually write them (2% of adults). We are a nation of people who believe we could be a rock star if we could just get a lucky break, despite the evidence viewed on American Idol each week. So perhaps reality TV and celebrity gossip feed the flicker of hope buried in each not-so-special adult breast.

Or maybe it's what Britney's erstwhile husband said – that people feel good watching two celebrities (well, one celebrity and one pre-nup) go through a rough divorce, because it make the average folks feel more normal.

My daughter closed the People Magazine website window, and I doubt she'll open it for Britney news again. Is it strange to think that one person's choices could make the difference in that poor pop-star's life? Not at all. We have huge social issues before us, and the only way we'll make a dent in any of them is one click at a time.

"Mom, are you working? Can you do something with me, like, now?"

"What's up son?"

"I got kicked out of the mall again. I really want you to help me do something about it."

So began our sojourn into the perception and actions of private corporate security guards. An exploration of the mindsets that look on most teenagers as potentially dangerous unless they fit a very narrow range of physical description and demeanor.

The backstory: My son's friend Richard was wearing a baseball cap with a word written across the back. By the guard's admission, the cap was not gang related. But (again, by his admission) he decided to continue to follow and sweat the boys anyway. After being subjected to the unusually long scrutiny, Richard (16-years-old, 185 pounds of hormone in a 5'10" frame, easily frustrated) blurts out "why the hell do you keep following us? We're not doing anything!"

I surmise the security guard had achieved what he set out to achieve. With what my son described as grim satisfaction the guard began to berate Richard, calling him belittling names and swearing at him. My son must have looked disgusted, because the guard then began to lecture him about the importance of respecting his elders. To which my son replied, in an even tone, "How can you expect us to respect you when you aren't respectable?" (important questionable objectivity disclaimer here – all of these details were confirmed by one of the security guards who witnessed the exchange).

At this point my son was also ejected. Last week he was ejected for loitering, which meant that he didn't have a shopping bag in his hand after being observed in the mall for more than half an hour (he was collecting job applications). Last month he and two friends were ejected immediately upon entry for wearing baggy sweatshirts.

I do understand that there are troublemakers in the world, that our city has a gang problem, and that people carry concealed weapons and go off in malls with alarming frequency. I suspect mall security guards are somewhat on edge these days. But the picture that was painted, as we sat in the mall general manager's office and talked through the situation, was one in which men in their 30s and 40s were exercising unnecessary personal power over teenage boys. What purpose does this serve?

?

The mall manager explained that the mall policy was one of "zero tolerance for gangs," and he went on to talk – at some length – about their extreme concern for preventing any more mall shootings and for protecting the citizens who enter their mall. Who is suspected of gang activity or considered worthy of scrutiny? The answer, at first, was vague. But eventually, as we asked for specific examples, that the profile of a gang member is any brown-skinned teenage male who wears baggy clothes, baseball caps, and walks with a slouch. If white-skinned teenage males dress like the brown-skinned teenage males, they are also suspects. My son is a brown-skinned teenage male who dresses in jeans and t-shirts but does not wear baseball caps. His friend Richard is a white-skinned teenage male who wears very baggy jeans and baseball caps. Neither are involved in gangs (yes, I'm quite sure).

The mall shooter in the most recent event in the Chicago suburbs was an African-American man dressed like any other man in the midst of a bad winter storm– dark jeans, winter coat, black knit cap. The mall shooter in Omaha was a waifish, nerdy looking young white man that couldn't possibly be mistaken for a gang-banger. The mall shooter in Utah was a young white male wearing tan jeans, an overcoat, and a mullet haircut. The shooter in the December incident in a Delaware mall was wearing ordinary jeans and a windbreaker, no cap. I don't see a pattern here.

Maybe the real concern is shoplifting? Probably not, because according to the National Shoplifting Prevention Coalition, shoplifters are equally divided between males and females, and only 25% are juveniles. Most notably, the coalition reports that a common profile for a shoplifter does not exist, so it can't be targeted.

I must admit to a lot of curiosity on this issue. Does this profile fit for preventing mall fights involving teenagers? Research indicates that mall fights occur in all demographics with all types of teens. Juveniles (Americans under the age of 18) account for 25% of the population, and they account for 17% of all arrests, and 15%-25% of all violent crime (which the statistics indicate is generally not happening in malls). Juvenile males account for a disproportionate amount of violent crime, but misdemeanors demonstrate a much higher participation rate by females. Of great interest is that juvenile violent crime dropped 30% between 1994 and 1998, and has continued to improve (though I couldn't find good recent statistics).

Is it possible that media-induced irrational fear of teenagers has turned our treatment of the future into a guilty-until-proven-innocent experience? A Public Agenda Online (http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html) survey indicates a disheartening lack of faith in our kids, with 71% of the general public reporting a negative attitude toward teenagers, including expressing the idea that they do not believe kids today will make the world a better place. Actual statistics of juvenile crime over a 20-year-timeframe indicate that juvenile crime has been misleadingly analyzed and reported (http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/myth/myth.html).

I don't think my son and I changed the world during our one-hour meeting with the mall manager. But we both learned a lot, and I hope the mall manager did too. My son was able to practice the art of constructive conflict and exercise the ability to listen to someone with an opposing viewpoint before presenting his own ideas. The mall manager, once he stopped defending the mall's position and really began to listen, started taking notes and promised to have a meeting with security to discuss improvements to their process. My son is no longer banned from the mall.

But the larger issue concerns me greatly. I have been acutely aware as my peers, all of us teenagers roughly a quarter of a century ago, begin to judge teenagers for their clothing, their speech habits, and their music. I don't have the best memory, but I sure do remember my dad bemoaning my wardrobe, my parents telling me to turn down my music and what-was-I-listening-to-anyway, and being constantly corrected and chided for using teen slang. As an adult I have had very entertaining conversations with my parents about how their own parents were convinced that they (my parents) represented the end of society as they knew it. And while we didn't turn out so bad, I also have a sinking feeling every time I see an adult behave poorly in public, act disrespectfully to other adults in front of their children, and show up regularly on the evening news as perpetrators of a broad range of crimes. If we are going to ask "what is the world coming to," shouldn't we be asking it of ourselves?

I believe we should be vigilant against the presence of gangs in public life. It freaks me out that I live in a state where anyone can carry a concealed weapon. I, too, want to feel safe when I enter a mall. But the real answer doesn't lie in antagonizing teenage boys in the process of figuring out who they are, how they want to look, and what they want to do with their lives. None of the statistics I researched demonstrated that there is any benefit in the type of profiling that is occurring in this mall (and I assume, other malls). If we could just turn our attention to poverty, public schools, adult training, fair housing, mental health, drug abuse, and nutrition, we could reduce crime statistics overnight. So who might we look to as a perpetrator of these ambitious acts of public salvation? The profile probably looks just . . . . like . . . us.

It's time for all lawmakers and wanna-be lawmakers to denounce Michelle Bachman's Muslim witch-hunt. After six people were murdered for being perceived to be Islamists in Wisconsin yesterday, and a mosque in Joplin burned to the ground today, it's time that our leaders take responsibility for their part in even tacitly supporting this most UnAmerican of behaviors. Any insanity in the name of "God" and "country" is still insanity - and we are no better for behaving violently for those reasons here than those we denounce for behaving violently for those reasons elsewhere.

What makes a person believe that others owe him or her more than they owe in return? People who constantly borrow money from others but never pay it back, people who expect others to bail them out from problems they have caused, people who will do anything to get their own way, people who are indignant when they break the rules and then have to suffer the consequences - even people who don't say thank you but expect others to do so to them - these people seem to feel the world owes them more than they owe the world. Is this a personality-driven character flaw or something that has developed over time? It probably has something to do with both, but I have some theories on how someone who is not born the entitled type might cultivate those negative characteristics over the years.

It seems as if a common trait the entitled ones share is a sense of victimhood. These entitled folks often believe that the hurts they have experienced have created a debt to them that others must participate in repaying. 

All people experience some type of attack - on their person, their feelings, their belongings, or their beliefs - at some point in their life. The attack may come from another person, an organization, or their own biology. It may have been intentional or just exceedingly bad luck. Most people experience attack more than once. So, if everyone has been victimized at one point or another, what is the difference between a person who has been victimized and a person who is a victim?

It seems to me that victim-hood has stages, and that the difference is found in how deep into those stages a person descends. The stages are:

Stage 1. Feeling like a victim. When something bad happens to us, we all might go here. How long we stay here matters a lot.

Stage 2. Investing in victimhood. This is the point where the feeling-like-a-victim stage turns a corner and gets serious. The person may be determined to find someone to blame, obsessed with getting payback, and so focused on the bad thing that has happened to her that she loses sight of the fact that suffering happens to everyone. It is at this point that the victimhood is embraced and becomes an element of her identity.

Stage 3. Using victimhood as an excuse to not be responsible or accountable for our lives. People in this stage lean hard on the "but I had such-and-such bad thing happen to me," or "you don't know how hard it is to . . . "

Stage 4. Expecting others to compensate for our victimhood. This stage is when victims begin to leech off of others, to have unreasonable expectations and to rationalize asking to receive more from others than they are willing to give back. I also wonder if this stage is when people lose the joy and reciprocity of gratitude.

Stage 5. Defensive victimhood. The by-now-professional victim has to create defenses and rationales to support their bad behavior. These defenses include a unhappy stew of jealousies, petty complaints, and manufactured battles.

If you have one of these victims in your life, then you have probably gone through the "victim-support" stages. 

Support Stage 1: Feeling sorry for the victim and wanting to help them in any way.

Support Stage 2: Starting to feel concerned or even frustrated that they aren't doing a bit of bootstrapping, and encouraging them to start working to recover.

Support Stage 3: Getting irritated when they use their bad experience as an excuse, but then feeling like an insensitive support person for feeling irritated.

Support Stage 4: Trying to not feel resentful when they ask for more than they should.

Support Stage 5: Exhaustion with the person who has taxed your love and support (and possibly your bank account) to the limit.

I have tremendous sympathy for people who are going through a tough time. I've personally experienced the ups and downs that life doles out, from deep personal disappointments to financial insecurity to being physically assaulted. I know what it means to be victimized. I also know what it means to choose not to be a victim. The process of healing is different from experience to experience and from person to person, and the only person who can embrace healing and make it happen is the person who is hurting. This takes strength - physical strength, character strength, and the strength to embrace optimism even if you don't feel it. But exercising those types of strength feels better than feeling powerless. So it's a big choice, but it's also immediately rewarding.

If my observations of the stages of victimhood are accurate, then the phrase don't be a victim just took on new urgency for me. I relish the idea that we all come into this world capable of self-sufficiency, able to develop deep resilience, filled with limitless potential, and blessed with the natural grace to give more to this world than we take from it. If being a victim can rob someone of those promises, that's a pretty steep price to pay for out-of-control self-indulgence.

There is a story in the Talmud that is often used to summarize the essence of Judaism. During the first century B.C.E., a revered rabbi named Hillel was asked to sum up Judaism while standing on one foot. He replied: "Certainly! What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. The rest is commentary, now go and study."

As a person who was born a Jew, raised in a charismatic Catholic household, and now chooses not to follow any religion, the major religious holidays are always somewhat confounding to me. Not because of any internal conflict; I am quite comfortable with my choice to avoid religion, dogma, and religiosity at all costs. No, it’s the external conflict that confounds me.

Ignorance is at the heart of most religious conflict. Most people who follow a particular religion don’t really understand how and why their religion came to be. I can't think of a single religion today that is the same as it was when it first began. Each religion has evolved, largely in response to social conditions. The simplest analogy I can think of is driving. The driving rules of the road were created to embed safety into the transportation experience. The rules evolved as transportation became faster and faster and vehicles became deadlier. 

Religion is a Social Creation, Generally Intended to Instill Social Order

When it comes to change, Christianity has been the most fluid. As the world has transitioned through political and social change and scientific and technological advancement, the Christian church has morphed, divided, and realigned itself over and over again, all the time influencing its dogma. The Catholic Church has been one of the most political institutions of all time (it is, after all, essentially its own Country), and has made countless changes to dogma in its pursuit of financial, political, and social gain.

(Yes, you want references. Try these: The First Council of Nicea in 325 established an “agreed upon” dogma and declared all other Christian practices and beliefs as heretical. Ad Extirpanda of 1252 authorized torture of those who did not believe the Catholic teachings, including forfeiture of all their property to the Catholic Church. The Dum Diversas in 1452 aligned the Catholic Church with the King of Portugal, authorizing him to conquer and enslave Muslims and heathens. The 1864 Syllabus of Errors introduced a list of previous Catholic teachings that Pope Pius X deemed required revision. These are just four examples spanning 1500 years, which will require you to investigate on your own, but demonstrate that I’m not just making stuff up).

Schisms in Christian sects have bred an overwhelming offspring of Christian denominations. How does this happen? When Christian leaders can’t agree on what God wants, and as a result split into factions so they can go their own ways believing their different beliefs. So the Christian faith has always been a faith in flux, and each sect of Christianity has at its heart disagreement with and separation from a previous sect.

Likewise, Judaism and Islam include many different sects, each based on ideas that differ sometimes slightly, sometimes significantly, from other believers of the same faith. One can be a conservative Jew, a reform Jew, or an ultra-orthodox Jew. The Shiite/Suni conflict has been waged for centuries, since Mohammed died. And at the heart of much (if not most) of all religious change and conflict – Christian, Jewish, or Islamic – has been a very human grappling for power. In each of the major religions, the standards of right and wrong are as much the products of time and culture as they of divine inspiration. The pursuit of power (or freedom from some other’s power) has been the one constant.

But the acknowledgement of moral relativism doesn’t automatically assign one to atheism either. I personally believe that God is the shared soul of all humans, and that religion is a human construct that keeps so many from realizing the fullness of God. Does this mean nobody should follow religion? Not at all. There is comfort to be found in shared ritual and community. But any time a religion tells someone to place his or her own needs, beliefs, or interests over the value and well-being of another human, they should have the moral courage to question that instruction.

This is the conflict I have on major religious holidays. Today is both Easter and Passover. At the heart of both celebrations is a brilliant and uplifting message of hope, optimism, and joy, just as the well-being of humanity is at the heart of each of each major religion. But with each layer of dogma, each act of social engineering, each ploy for power, each political struggle, each atrocity, each war in the name of God, the good of humanity is set aside for the good of a few.

So today, on Easter and Passover, here is what I believe God is really asking us to consider: Do not do anything to your neighbor that you would not want to be done to you. The rest is commentary. Now go and study.

Dear White People,

I’m glad we’re discussing race. As the heirs & beneficiaries of the systems that limit people of color, it’s our job to end institutional racism. We must examine our attitudes, prejudices, behaviors, and fears, and understand how they contribute to stereotyping, exclusion, and violence. Yes, we need to talk.

Honestly, it should be largely a white conversation. We’re not talking to Black people – they already know more about racism than any of us could ever handle. We’re not talking for Black people. They speak eloquently and profoundly for themselves. In fact, there are several things that are happening that really, really, need to stop.

Don’t use Black icons to defend your fears and opinions. Saying, “I can’t imagine what Martin Luther King would think about this rioting;” and posting Black leaders’ or celebrities’ quotes to support your anti-BLM or anti-protesting position is wrong. And you're right - you really can't imagine.

What you're actually saying when you do this is, “See! Black people agree with me on this!” But they don’t. They really don’t. Using Black voices to promote a white perspective is a form of appropriation and an act of privilege. If you don’t understand this, read this paragraph over and over again until you do.

Don’t say, “I’m (gay, female, fat, short, etc.), so I understand.” Not the same. All discrimination is bad, and we must eliminate all of it. But it’s not all the same. The sooner we realize we don’t understand, the sooner we will begin to.

Get over the “I have Black friends/I’m not racist” false equivalence. If you do have Black friends – as in, the kind of friends who would lean on you in a crisis like family – then you wouldn’t even use this defense. Most likely, you have Black acquaintances. One can certainly be a racist while playing nice in a meeting room or at the gym.

“I don’t see color” is not a thing. Of course you do. We all see color. Our ability, as white people, to ignore color is part of our privilege. Those arrogant, angry, white McCloskeys pointing a pistol and semiautomatic at peaceful protestors in St. Louis last week are alive now because they are white. Everyone sees color.

When you defend confederate monuments, you’re not defending history. What you’re really saying is, “I don’t know why they have to be offended about glorifying racists and why I have to care.” Here is a parallel for you to consider: The devil is an important part of Christian teaching. The lessons are regularly taught, and remembered. But you won’t find monuments to Satan in Christian churches. We can teach about evil without aggrandizing it.

Don’t use any Black person — ever — to make your point. If you’re offended by looting and rioting, don’t use looted Black store owner to suggest that “his Black life didn’t matter.” You don’t get to speak for — or assume to understand — Black people who suffered losses during the riots.

We don't get to point out conflict between Black liberals and Black conservatives and say, "I guess Black conservatives' lives don't matter." This is just a cynical, appropriating way of using Black people to support being offended by Black Lives Matter. 

We don't get to suggest Black cops are hurt by Black Lives Matter. Do you even KNOW any Black cops? People in the Black Lives Matter movement (including cops — Black and white) don’t see it as “Black vs. Blue.” That’s a white construct. Stop it. It’s not real.

We don’t get to complain about how tired we are of all the stress and confusion and angst. You know who’s tired? Talk to any Black mother. She’s fucking tired. Of asking, and praying, and giving the talk, and kneeling, and watching her loved ones suffer. And go to jail. And die. All the dying. Black moms are all so tired.

If you mean well and you’re committed to change, but you've just made some rookie white ally mistakes, then OK. You can learn and do better. We all can. If I’ve offended you so far, then I have news for you. You’re not a white ally. You’re just posing as a white ally. Does this surprise or hurt your feelings? Then do better! We have lifetimes of deprogramming to do. Let's start now.

Now let’s talk about what we should do. First, we should listen to Black voices, even when it’s uncomfortable, even though it hurts. If you feel defensive, that’s human, but not useful. So let’s do the hard work, open our hearts, and hear and try to feel the pain.

We can be accountable for our reactions and feelings. Why did the protests scare you if you didn’t live anywhere near them? Why does the phrase Black Lives Matter make you squirm? What impulse makes you insist All Lives Matter when you hear Black Lives Matter? Why do you feel tense when you approach a group of young black men? Why do you wonder to yourself if the Black mom in the supermarket checkout line is about to use a WIC card (pro tip here — white families account for the vast majority of food stamps dollars in the US)? What assumptions and biases and beliefs are you clinging to that perpetuate the problem? Dig deep.

We can be brave and say something. Don’t let any small or large racist comment or action go without challenging it. If white people object to racism and racial stereotyping every time we see it or hear it, we can end it. Silence in the face of tyranny is . . . tyranny.

We can rethink what we’ve been taught and study what we don’t know. Study the Black Panthers, read the New York Times “1619 Project,” “White Fragility” by Robin Diangelo, or “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White.” Watch “13th,” “Teach Us All,” or “Malcolm X.” There's more! Explore the websites Racial Equity Tools, or Not in Our Town. Yes, do this even if you already have Black friends . . .

There’s so much more. Vote. Organize. Support. Join. Make change happen. Yes, let’s talk about racism. Let’s have a big old white conversation, informed by Black history, perspectives and voices. Let’s take responsibility for a 500-year-old problem. Let’s fix what’s broken. Let’s own it.

The Wisconsin Family Action Council won't even tolerate gays 'imitating marriage'. I had no idea that what we were doing for the past almost 20 years - raising children, taking care of each other, caring for in-laws, being active members of our extended families, and investing in our schools and communities, was an imitation. I always thought it was real!!

Why Global Drought Matters Locally

We didn't get our garden this year. For those of you who know me, that's a huge deal. But as week after week without rain in Wisconsin started burning out cornfields and private wells, we went from feeling sorry to ourselves to feeling sorry for, well, everyone.

Widespread drought has huge implications for more than just farmers without crop insurance, though those of us living in farm country know more than a few of those families personally. And the issue goes beyond the fact that your grocery bill will be higher later this year (though for many of our neighbors that could be devastating).

The big thing to worry about is that drought weakens the social fabric around the world. When people don't have a place to sleep they can generally find some sort of shelter, and when they don't feel safe they've been known to move en masse across entire continents. But not being able to find food tends to do strange things to people. They get pissed. Civil unrest on one continent can shake up the markets (and therefore the economic well-being) of people across the globe from them. Worse yet, though a World War III is unthinkable, that doesn't mean it's impossible. To see the well-documented relationship between food prices and civil unrest, check out this article.

Nobody is arguing that this is the hottest summer since temperature recording began, and the worst US drought since 1995. Nor is anybody arguing that temperatures keep edging slightly up on average (which doesn't mean every day is warmer - just that the average of all days are warmer, for those of us who struggle with the concept of on average, say, most of the people in political office and those listening solely to Fox News). And we all know that the occurrence of extreme weather events has been on the rise for at least a decade and possibly longer.

So why-oh-why-oh-why are we having this stupid argument about global warming?

I think it must be that we are really having an argument about social responsibility, as in, it's-not-our-fault,-the-world-just-warms-up-sometimes-why-should-we-have-to-pay versus it's-corporate-greed-causing-the-problem-and-it's-time-to-make-them-pay.

Does it really matter? It's HOT out there folks! Who cares why? Why wouldn't we do whatever we can to ease pressure on the environment, even if we're not the cause of it? So what if the world changes all by itself sometimes? Don't you think if the dinosaurs could have prevented their own extinction they would have?

I had a conversation with my dad recently in which he suggested that global warming was a farce, that we are just in a natural cycle. Not willing to have the political argument embedded in that position, I simply asked, "well, if the world is warming up, don't we have a responsibility to foster the environment so as to mitigate whatever negative impact we humans are having?"

His response was that he liked the word foster, that he far preferred it to the word environmentalism. And I think that's precisely what's wrong with the whole debate. It has been polarized and politicized to the point where we no longer understand that environmentalism and fostering are the same thing.

Hey, use whatever words work for you, OK? And please, don't do it for the scientists, the environmentalists, the Democrats, or for your minister. But perhaps, just perhaps, if we all tried to reduce our very human, very intrusive carbon footprint just a little, we could be doing it for our kids. We probably won't make the world cooler, but we could certainly make it safer. I would hope that's something all of us could agree on voting for.

Simply, it costs to much. In America. During these days of emotional, largely uninformed, often ignorant, and completely politicized discussion, I can only hope it will be useful to pass along information that has been fact-checked. I realize that many people don't care about facts these days, but I remain hopeful . . .

Thanks to Upworthy for this video:

John Green is kind of amazing. He knows his facts way better than you or me. And they are mindn-blowing, and/or horrifying . . . 

The Pope is leading again.

He has taken personal responsibility and apologized for the sex abuse by Catholic Church. I honestly didn't know which category to put this commentary in - the business/leadership blog or my Saints & Sinners section - because it is deeply relevant to both.

From the Catholic Church perspective, there is a long way to go before true healing can take place. Injured people are still fighting for validation and reparations from a generally hostile Bishopric.  But this accountability, this personal willingness to take responsibility for things that he was never personally a part of, this is the essence of leadership, and it will enable the healing to begin.

Up until now the Popes (including Pope Francis) expressed their unhappiness with the situation and spoke out against sexual abuse. But those statements had a hollow ring to them. Those statements were like the good friend who stomps all over your feelings and then says, "I'm sorry you're upset," instead of saying, "I'm so sorry that I hurt you." The first is entirely superficial, the latter is genuinely accountable.

Every organization of every type makes mistakes, and any mistake that hurts or damages the trust of its constituency will directly interfere with the organization's purpose. Hundreds of thousands of Catholics lost faith in their Church's ability to be a credible spiritual leader because the Church would not take responsiblity for the behavior of its leaders.  The whole purpose of the Catholic Church is to bring people closer to God, and that purpose could not be effectively served - not just because of the mistakes, but because of the Church's failed response to those mistakes.

As a leader, there will be many times when you must sift through the details and get to the principles of an issue. Asking, and answering, the questions who do we serve and what do we stand for should be key considerations in your deliberations. In the case of the Catholic Church, it is clear that the leadership thought about money and reputation - and almost nothing else - in its efforts to hide and then evade the sexual abuse scandal. If every Monsigneur, Bishop, and Cardinal had instead focused on who do we serve (the Catholic family) and what do we stand for (love and goodness in Christ's image), they would have realized that only accountability and immediate resolution would have been a sufficient response. In the end, the Catholic Church's approach to the sex scandal cost them hundreds of millions (or more?) of dollars and turned into a publicity nightmare anyway, but with the added disaster of disenfranchising so many of its members and tarnishing its reputation across the world.

This type of failed decision-making has contributed to business melt-downs as well. Nobody will ever think of the name Enron again without thinking about its failed ethics. While they accomplished many interesting and even game-changing things during their years as a business powerhouse, ultimately their failure to think about who do we serve and what do we stand for led to their demise and landed more than a few people in jail.

Bob Filner, former mayor of San Diego, didn't consider his constituents or his principles when he behaved inappropriately toward women. Even if he had very weak character development (which does seem likely), a pause to consider what a person with character would do may have led to different outcomes for both the women he hurt and his own utterly ruined career. Surely giving some thought to what his constituents would think about him feeling up women in his offices if they found out about it might have caused him to behave differently.

So I am excited. Though I am not a Catholic, I treasure important role models for the good they can do for all of us. Pope Francis has clearly stopped and reflected on who do we serve and what do we stand for, and he has come down on the side of accountability. Let the healing begin.

Citizen gun pundits are having a ball the past few days quoting Newt Gingrich to support their lack of support for gun control. The latest is that Newt picked up on the statistics about gun violence in Chicago, and used Chicago's tight gun control laws and high gun murder rate as a rationale for less gun control.

But as with so many things in life, it's really important to zoom out and look at the whole picture, and not just the few pixels that interest you. In Chicago, the vast majority of the gun murders are due to gang-related violence. Misguided children running around shooting one another fueled by hopelessness and drugs. If you talk to the people in the neighborhoods where this is happening, they will all tell you that the last thing they want is more guns - and that the 'promise' of concealed carry would only make them all even less safe. If you go into the neighborhoods where gangs are not an element (and that's most of them) the only people concerned about gun violence are the women who are being abused by husbands/boyfriends (the other large % of gun violence in the city).

The next thing you would see upon zoom-out is that the big reason for the proliferation of guns in Chicago is that you can go a mere one hour north to Wisconsin and get any gun in any configuration from just about anybody. This close proximity of gun dealers who make a healthy living off of Chicago gangland demands makes it close to impossible to stop the gangland gun violence in Chicago.

I never feel in danger of guns in Chicago unless I have need to go into some areas of the South or West Sides where the gangs are active. But I sure wish there was no way that these kids could get their hands on 1) easy guns with no requirement for registration and background check in Wisconsin or 2) automatic weapons. While it would still take years to reduce the numbers of guns already in circulation, it would be the beginning of change that we really need to happen.

Just in case you want a little perspective from someone other than Newt, who is renowned for his pixilated perspective, here's a different article on the topic looking at it from a bit of a broader view. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_12/500_murders_in_chicago_in_2012042087.php

I am simply weary of people using sacred texts to justify cruelty, bigotry, and small-mindedness. I know that a lot of people feel the same way, so this video from the VLOG Brothers, tackling religion, marriage, and gay marriage, delights me.

My earliest religious teaching - from my mom and dad - emphasized the importance of taking the Bible as a whole, because understood in pieces it lost context. This continued through my teen years, when Father Larkin was adamant that we understood the Bible as both an inspired document AND a product of its times and the people who wrote/interpreted it. My Jewish mother reminded us that the Old Testament was a history book, and my Lutheran father interpreted the New Testament as an advisory to have a direct, personal, and responsible relationship with God. So when people pull a chapter here and a verse there to support their bigotry and fear, it doesn't feel like religion at all to me. It just feels like human failing in its smallest, saddest form. Happy Sunday to all. It's a good day to reflect on the big themes of the Book - responsibility, community, integrity, family, charity, humility, and love- always love.

This year Pope Francis washed the feet of women, the disabled, prisoners, and non-Catholics. A symbolic and archaic act to be sure, but no less radical now than it was 2,000 years ago. To wash someone's feet is to submit yourself before them; to say that you are no more important than they are. I am not a Catholic, but this act of humility speaks to me; it inspires me.

I spent the past week in Las Vegas at a trade show. I saw many acts of kindness, friendship, and even love. Trade shows can be such an exciting time as friends and business associates across an industry gather together for what may be the only time each year. But trade shows are also a microcosm of the world we live in, and if you are aware, you will see many instances of jockeying for power and position.

The most obvious is the behavior with service people. Sure, if you were gentry in the Victorian era, it would have been considered untoward to be thanking and greeting your 'staff'. But seriously? We don't have royal or noble classes in America, and those Victorian rules don't apply. So when I see people treating service staff as if they are invisible, it makes me cringe. These people aren't serving us because they owe it to us, they are serving us because they need a job and the hotel/restaurant is providing an experience. Plus, it would be disruptive if all of us were running to the kitchen for glasses and flatware. Not only do guests in these environments fail to say please and thank you, many of them speak to service staff with disdain and disrespect. What, they didn't anticipate your need for more ice in your water or fetch you a new fork fast enough? Put on your big girl panties and ask nicely.

I have also grown weary of the false power paradigms in place in business settings. The boss power paradigm I won't even go into here (though my friends are encouraging me to write a book entitled "How to be a Boss Without Being an AssHat"). The Buyer Power Paradigm is the one we see in abundance at trade shows. Ah, the buyer, the person who holds the purse strings. He knows he has power and the vendor does too. The truth is, the buyer needs the vendor and the vendor needs the buyer. That sounds pretty equal to me. But purse strings mean a lot in our society, and that simple truth plays out in the most basic of our interactions.

And of course in many industries (particularly small ones) the adults also form and protect hierarchies. Isn't there always a cool group, an in-clique? It looks a lot like high school, when our teenage brains were still a hot mess of hormones and social confusion. Sorting people into castes creates a sense of order to the chaotic adolescent mind. But, at least theoretically, we're all adults now and we've sorted out that we're all people with gifts differing but value the same.

We continue to be part of a world in which women and people of color are paid less than white men, in which people of various religions hold that their own religions are better than the religions of others, in which brown boys suffer dramatically shorter lifespans than all other boys, in which children of poverty aren't even aware of the opportunities that children of the middle class take for granted. Most of the people reading this blog post have the vantage of looking at all that tragedy as outside themselves. But is it? Or is it part of a much larger problem? Isn't that behavior just part of a world in which people feel more important than their servers, discount others who think or believe different things than they themselves believe, or even look down on someone for her fashion choices and body type?

The truest truth is that none of us is more important than another. The saddest truth is that philosophers and prophets have been saying the same thing since time immemorial and yet the compulsion to elevate ourselves at the expense of others seems to have a biological grip. And maybe it is biological, but if it is, it's no more valid in these modern days than an appendix or a gall bladder.

There is a Buddhist belief that we must try to see the face of God in everyone we meet. Perhaps we should also try to see our own face in everyone we meet. The ability to see someone else as "other than" is the ability to see ourselves as "better than." And crazy optimist that I am, I do believe we are all capable of being better than that.

It was all over the news this month - Verizon Communications will buy AOL, Inc. in a $4.4 billion deal. Yes, this is big news for investors and Verizon competitors, but does it matter to you? It certainly does, and here's why.

Content Content Content (but this isn't the main reason)

The mobile market, dominated by Verizon, Sprint and AT&T, is fighting harder and harder for market share now that nearly everyone who wants a smartphone has acquired one. So how do they grow? They grow by competing in two areas: content and advertising. And the reason that content and advertising matter to the big mobile companies is that content and advertising matter to consumers. In 2013 (the last time we have numbers for this statistic), less than 35% of smartphone users reported they used their phones to make phone calls. You can see why that matters to the big mobile companies. But it also matters to you. Because what are they doing on their phones? They are accessing content.

AOL may have fallen off your radar, but one of the reasons they matter to Verizon is that they own some big content providers, like Huffington Post and TechCrunch. If Verizon is willing to spend $4.4 billion to acquire a company that looks like a has-been, you can bet your lunch money that they've studied this acquisition and decided it makes sense to them. They are betting that consumer hunger for content will only continue to grow. Sure, they could be wrong, but the folks at Verizon have been very smart so far, making less mistakes than your average bear. So tuck this in your idea bank: content matters now and it will matter more in the future. Ask yourself how you can participate in the content marketplace in the years to come.

Advertising Relevance

Another thing that AOL has and Verizon wants is the ability to sell and serve ads. We all know why selling ads matters. But what about serving ads? 

Think about this: The last time you considered buying advertising for your business, did you think about going to Verizon? Next time, you should. AOL earned nearly $1 billion last year from advertising revenues on sites that it owns, and another $856 million selling advertising for third party sites. That's a lot of consumer eyeballs. Even more important, the technology that AOL has developed for selling and delivering ads is very advanced, enabling them to slice and dice and target consumers better than most other advertising companies. Because of AOL's innovations, using technology to manage advertising is not only making targeting better, it's lowering the cost of advertising overall. Expensive human management has been replaced by algorithms that can decide in a split-second which ads to show each time a web page loads. 

Now that you're competing with businesses all over the world (and you have been, for much of this past decade), you can't just sit around and wait for consumers to remember you or to find out about you. You must advertise. But today's consumers are busy and distracted and they have no patience with irrelevance. You can get their attention though, if you catch the right people at the right time with the right message. Verizon is betting big that AOL's advertising technology is worth a lot of money. You should be betting that too. If you're not doing so already, start thinking about how your business can stretch its advertising wings and use the internet to reach more relevant consumers on their phones and tablets. 

Pay Attention to Video

Verizon believes that video will be one of the primary reasons people use smartphones in the years to come (AT&T believes it too). Verizon has already developed plans to launch a video service specifically geared to mobile devices. Enter AOL, which has created some nifty tools for delivering video advertisements. Their technology makes it easier for ad agencies and brands to enter the video advertising space.  Why does this matter to you? The consumer appetite for video seems to have no limit. If you're not already looking at ways to use video for your advertising, it's time to start. The tools to shoot and edit video are getting less expensive all the time, but it takes experience and skill to pull off video offerings that appeal to consumers.

When a solid company like Verizon, with deep pockets and lots of research staff, decides to invest in online advertising delivery, video, and other content, we need to pay attention. They have done the analysis and decided that mobile content is where all the consumers are going to be in the next few years. If they're right, then small business needs to be there too.

A lot of people are expressing surprise at how terrible people are. They are disappointed in family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers who refuse to wear masks, or who refuse to stay in and avoid socializing, or who appear to be racists or, at the very least, unconcerned about racism (which really are the same thing, but that’s another discussion). I think all this awareness is because we are in a strange moment in time, facing many existential and identity challenges at once. Though it seems shocking to see how selfish people are, I think we’re just experiencing people outing themselves right and left as zero-sum-gamers.

I have a theory that the two kinds of selfishness and hatred we’re seeing right now are all wrapped up in the same origin. I don't know if it's correct or not, but it seems to me that there are two types of people: People who think life is a zero-sum-game, and people who don't. For people who think life is a zero-sum-game, then life is a ledger made up of a “me” column and an “everyone else” column. To zero-sum-gamers, deposits that go in the “everyone else” column require a withdrawal from their own column.

I think there have always been a lot of zero-sum-gamers (let’s call them ZSGs), but the stakes aren't usually so high, nor the results so obvious. For ZSGs, typical types of generosity have a strong component of self-interest. Giving to the church reflects on them and their reputation (and maybe buys a space in heaven). Acting like they care about others makes them more respectable. As long as none of that encroaches on their belief that they are building deposits in the "me" column, they are OK. But when it comes time to do something simply for the good of others, at the cost of their own inconvenience, they balk. They start thinking, "but how will this affect ME? What does this take away from ME?" They can’t see how putting a deposit in the "everyone else" column benefits themselves enough to make up for the discomfort or inconvenience of doing so. So they start looking for rationalizations to support their selfishness, because none of us really want to admit how selfish we are. And this is why it is SO HARD to get through to us when we act in purely self-interested ways. Because self-awareness hurts.

So instead of self-awareness, we humans go to all kinds of lengths to justify our selfish behaviors. In some cases, the level of selfishness seems so small, yet we go to Herculean efforts to defend it. Refusal to wear a mask is the most absurd, yet perfect, example. Wearing a mask makes one look funny (until it’s normalized). It is a bit uncomfortable. It requires getting used to. But look at the extremes people will go to, to defend refusal to wear a mask! Embracing wacky scientific theory that it’s bad for you (literally no science supports this), that it encroaches on individual liberty (then why wear seat belts?), that it doesn’t work (when all the science says – and always did say – that it does) are all extreme ways of defending one’s right to . . . what? Look cute? Not steam up one’s glasses? Not smear one’s lipstick? ZSG behavior isn’t necessarily rational, but it’s full of rationalizing, along with the hunt for experts to support your opinion so you can feel justified.

Of course, there are some who are casual, unthinking racists who will wear masks. There are some who won't wear masks, but support Black Lives Matter. I don't think this breaks my theory. I think it supports it, by acknowledging that self-interest is still at the core of their un-empathetic behavior. It just depends on what they're comfortable with and/or worried about. If they have a deep personal fear of Covid-19, then mask-wearing and staying at home serves their self-interest. If they are personally comfortable with people who are different than them (or if it helps their public persona to be perceived as broad-minded), then there's no discomfort in supporting BLM. But to embrace ALL the ways we need to help our fellow-man requires being the other type of person.

The other people are the ones who believe life is the opposite of a zero-sum-game. For this group of people, anything that benefits the group benefits the self. So wearing a mask may be inconvenient and slightly (so slightly) uncomfortable, but the greater good makes it worth it. Staying home may be boring and even stressful, but making personal sacrifices to increase the chances of survival for people they don't even know makes sense to this group. This group also accepts that eliminating systemic racism would improve the world for everyone. This group believes that investing tax money in health care for all means a healthier society and a healthier economy for everyone. This group believes that selfishness actually harms the self, that putting deposits in the "everyone else" column is a way of improving everyone's life, and that the individual can never be whole if the group is broken.

I don't think my theory is so radical here. All major religions and philosophies encourage us to look at life this way, to accept that the good of the group is really the good of the individual. But putting others before ourselves is hard work, and requires constant recalibration and self-awareness. It requires the ability to delay personal gratification for greater good. And it challenges us to embrace individual failure when we falter (because we all do), to laugh at our human frailties, and to pledge to do better next time.

I don’t know what the answer is to all this. I’m not even sure if my theory is correct. But it helps me to understand why I am seeing so much disappointing behavior all at one time right now. And maybe it will lead to insight about how to influence more people to consider putting deposits in the “everyone else” column, and to embrace the idea that what is good for all is ultimately what is best for me.