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Gerard Michols on philosophy in decision-making
Gerard Michols is a public philosopher from Upstate New York who had discussed and written prolifically about reflecting on life from nothingness through reason and ethics. On the podcast, John and Gerard discuss:
The primacy of philosophy in all decision-making
Preferences for and against philosophy as a driving force in human lives
The Ivory Tower’s failures
Contextualizing philosophy for everyone’s needs
Types of decisions most appropriately suited to philosophical framing
Distinctions between philosophy and science
Philosophical frameworks versus philosophical situations
Language and reality
The process of philosophy instead of the idea of philosophy
Nothingness as the starting point for all philosophical applications
Defenses of abstraction in decision-making
The burden of choice
Storytelling as necessary for human survival
Detail as a block to ethical decision making
The place of aesthetics and ethics in decision making, and
The place of reason and data in decision making
Guest
Gerard Mikols lives in upstate New York.
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Edward Knows Emory
Distance learning is an even more radical shift for international students. Moving abroad and holing up means a new generation of university students begin their higher education with zero campus life. Stale debates about online learning’s efficacy have been replaced by practical discussions about implementing and improving the online experience. Higher education remains a main attraction in the US for international students. The pandemic will almost certainly change that forever.
John interviews international Emory student from China, Edward Xue. Edward came from Shanghai to Atlanta and experienced both a full dose of campus and distance learning in only a few months.
What does distance learning mean for students with little or no campus experience? John and Edward discuss a full range of issues about the impact of learning during a pandemic: the experience of moving abroad for a remote college experience, socializing and building friendships online, how universities are seeking to replicate the campus virtually, the relative importance of campus life to the total value offered through university education, the role of gumption in online models, the unique study space needs facing students, the challenges of being separated from families and peers, time management challenges, living abroad in unknown neighborhoods and cities, the pandemic’s effect changing long term planning and short term expectations, the impact of international relations on learning, the focus on outcomes and the pandemic’s effect on the vision, hopes and dreams of new university learners.
Guest
Edward Xue is a second year student at Emory University.
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Episode 1.13 - Janice Berliner
Covid19 staying-at-home has left many of us hoping to write our first novel.
Janice Berliner did it. She finished her first novel well before the current crisis. After a mid-career Cancun inspired revelation, Berliner merged fiction with expertise from her lifelong career in genetic counseling.
Berliner joins the podcast to discuss genetics and writing. She offers frank observations emerging from decades of revelations in genetics, science and the work of genetic counseling.
Berliner discusses her time as a clinician, the ground-breaking book she edited on the ethics of genetics and genetic counseling, her writing process, the shortage of genetic counselors, developing a new genetic counseling graduate program and leadership in a quickly growing field. Berliner provides a perspective on the profession that’s informal, timely and accurate. She offers detailed perspectives on the science of genetics, the politics of genetics, genetics as intellectual property, online learning, uncertainty and risk in genetics practice, scientific advances, international differences in genetic counseling, pop culture, advice for aspiring professionals and her own love of learning.
Guest
Janice Berliner is a licensed and board certified genetic counselor, who has more than 30 years of experience in the areas of prenatal, pediatric and cancer genetic counseling, and now academia. She has written many lay and scholarly articles and book chapters on genetics topics, and volunteers extensively within her profession and her community. Brooke’s Promise is Janice’s first novel, derived from her expertise working with patients and their family members facing the risk of disease, and the intensely personal and life-altering nature genetic illness can have on family relationships.
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Episode 1.22 - Ava Knows Schooling-in-Place
Ava is sheltering-in-place in Vermont where she’s attending seventh grade. This is the first in a series of episodes discussing the sudden worldwide emergence of schooling-at-home. In this episode, Ava explains her daily study habits, the benefits of having control of her time when doing assignments, the effect of losing face-to-face connections and how she and her peer are compensating for that loss, the differing approaches of teachers for different classes, what she would like to see continue from this massive social experiment when sheltering is over, the effect on her family life of studying at home, innovative approaches to learning in classes one might not associate with distributed learning models, Ava’s favorite classes and how those choices have changed since starting e-learning, the impact on social networks, her vision of the future of learning and Ava’s frank advice for professional educators everywhere.
GUEST
Ava attends seventh grade on the border between New Hampshire and Vermont.
She plans to be a US Supreme Court Justice.
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Episode 1.21 - Shelly Knows Genetics
Genetics Counselor and businesswoman Shelly Cummings joins John from her home in Indy to discuss career, science, learning and the future.
Guest
Shelly’s a longtime genetic counselor turned businesswoman in one of the hottest industries of our time.
She is the Director, Oncology Medical Affairs at Myriad Genetics. She worked for almost 25 years as a cancer Genetic Counselor, educator, researcher and published author of numerous peer-reviewed publications and textbooks.
Shelly is based in Indianapolis.
You can find Shelly here.
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Episode 1.20 - Elizabeth Rogers Knows Ed Tech
Elizabeth Rogers discusses stay-at-home life in Coronavirus times and the explosive increased use of educational technologies that will redefine how we think and learn. John and Elizabeth discuss ed tech firms, traditional higher and K12 education, instructional design, best practices for companies developing ed tech products and services, data-driven instruction and the outlook for public, private and nonprofit actors as we all become more comfortable working and learning from home.
GUEST
Elizabeth currently manages key accounts for an education technology company based in Chicago. Leveraging data and a powerful technology platform, she works with clients to help them create learning ecosystems that deliver content to their users, most of whom are preparing for high-stakes credentialing exams, in the most efficient and impactful way. You can find Elizabeth here.
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Winners and Losers in the Coronavirus Stimulus
I have a group chat I share with three friends. We are old friends with wildly different life paths. I’m a teacher, lawyer, writer in Chicago, and Jim in an entrepreneur in Chicago. Steve is a hospital administrator in New York. Pete is a scientist in Vermont.
Early in January, Pete heard the news of this new virus from a Wuhan, China, wet market. Pete researches disease and drugs for a living, and since he’s talking with friends, he occasionally lets himself be wrong for dramatic effect.
Coronavirus was big. His posts were dramatic, and when the rest of us teased him, he pushed back, explaining how “we’re screwed.” Over the next month, Pete would be proven entirely correct. By mid-March no one on earth hadn’t heard of Covid-19 and its cause, the novel coronavirus. Even Congress was listening.
Two disasters loomed. The millions likely to die would only be outweighed by the total failure of the global economy that could impoverish the world in a way never seen in modern times. No reasonable person disagreed with either disaster.
For the first time in a decade, Democrats and Republicans in Congress started talking. The health crisis required instantaneous action mostly already within the statutory authority of the Executive branch. The economic crisis needed legislative action. People needed to stop moving around and spreading the virus, and it had to happen immediately. This meant no one who couldn’t work from home could work at all. No work meant no money. No money meant no food and no home. People with no money in the bank, which meant most Americans, needed money immediately or they would go to work and spread the virus because they would have no other choice.
I need to defend Congress here. The President dithered, but the Majority and Minority leaders in the House and Senate moved quickly to act.
Quick action reveals instincts. When you’re in a crisis, you respond using the reasoning capacities you’ve built up prior to the crisis. When in the crisis itself, you react. Congress reacted, and the subsequent bill tells us a lot about the default positions of the Democratic and Republican parties.
What is the Act?
It’s called the CARES Act, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. You’ve already heard it’s $2 trillion. The government is spending money, so that’s why it’s being called a “stimulus.” There are good reasons not to call it a stimulus, since governments take stimulus actions to encourage economic growth. This bill is doing the opposite. It’s encouraging people to stop economic activity, or at least to stop economic activity that is not essential. The goal of the bill? ”Freezing the economy in amber“ or ”putting the economy into an induced coma” are two metaphors explaining the goal of the stimulus, but for those of us who live in a partisan world, a world where government is either spending or not spending money, this is massive government spending that can comfortably be called a stimulus.
Who are the winners?
There are three big winners in the bill. Individuals get 30% of the stimulus. Big corporations get 25%. And small business, state and local governments and public services share the remaining 45%. Democrats insisted on the direct payments and the unemployment increases, and Republicans insisted on saving big businesses, especially the airlines.
The remaining 45% breaks down with 19% for small businesses, 17% for state and local governments and 9% for public services, mostly hospitals.
It’s already clear the next bill will help states and local governments. Lobbying is happening at a furious, socially distant pace, but state and local governments cannot run deficits like the federal government. That is, states and localities cannot simply print money, like the The feds will have to provide them support or the downstream effects will create an economic tsunami as great as the coming federal one.
It may seem like Congress acted quickly, but plenty of horse trading went into the preparation of this bill. Only the cruelest free marketeers can stand up and say government should stay out of this crisis. Those people exist, and they seem to want a certain number of dead bodies before they act. Luckily, enough Americans understand the gravity of the crisis and drown out partisan drum beating in the name of saving our loved ones’ lives.
Who are the losers?
The worst losers are people on fixed incomes and future debt payers, like today’s college and younger kids. No matter what the feds call it, the US is taking on debt. Since Donald Trump arrived in office, the debt went up $3 trillion bringing the pre-coronavirus stimulus to $23.5 trillion or $70,000 for every person living in the US. Now that debt will be $25.5 trillion. Future generations have to pay.
A quick side note, this stimulus is a necessary and good kind of debt. As Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff has said, "The whole point of not relying on debt excessively in normal times is precisely to be able to use debt massively and without hesitation in situations like this." Borrowing costs money, but saving lives at this scale is worth it.
The primary losers, then, are future generations. But that’s a generic reality for government debt. The primary losers that could have been named in this bill but weren’t are more interesting.
Small businesses are definitely losers. Unlike the checks written to individuals, small businesses has strings attached to most of the money in the stimulus. Small businesses are asking right now whether they are able to keep everyone on their payroll, which is the stated purpose of the stimulus loans. The primary question is whether, if they are already heavily leveraged, they will be able to take on this additional debt. The stimulus provides that any small business that keeps paying its workers will receive forgivable loans, but small businesses aren’t sure how or if that will really work. Small businesses face this uncertainty despite the desire of Congress to pass a decisive bill that would remove uncertainty in the economy. Why?
At least a sectional of the Democratic Party does not like business. They are still reeling from the Great Recession when, according to the left, bailouts should have gone to individual homeowners and not big banks. Democrats make little distinction between big business and small business. Terms like “profiteers” and “capitalists” don’t allow for subtle distinctions like separating Boeing from your corner mom and pop coffeeshop. Blue Chip Republicans don’t care about small companies much either. They want to ensure companies already running and already providing big products and big services to big quantities of people keep running. That’s why the second biggest winner of the stimulus are large corporations.
Small business is a blend of Democrat and Republican, so when the crisis arrived and wish lists were created, small business took a back seat to the Democrats’ individual payments and the Republicans’ corporate payments.
Losers in the stimulus are the environment, education, youth, poor, infrastructure and essential workers.
Carbon offsets and clean energy incentives like solar, wind and nuclear never made it into the bill. The impact of climate change like mass migrations, regional armed conflicts, ecosystems failed and lives lost will make this pandemic’s worst death toll estimates of 2-5% of those infected truly seem like the seasonal flu.
Education got money in the stimulus, but it’s not what you think. States run education, not the feds, and federal involvement in education is, compared to the big money spent by states and local governments, miniscule. Schools that are keeping staff won’t be doing it for long. Tax revenues will be small as the effects of shelter-in-place kick in. Schools will be the hardest hit since in most states schools are the largest recipient of state and local revenue that will disappear. Schools will likely hold onto all their workers, even if they know they’ll have to borrow to pay them. States and local governments assume federal help is coming, and Speaker Pelosi has already said the next legislation will help state and local governments, which is code for schools and other less expensive essential services like police and fire. But it’s notable that education didn’t make it into the first stimulus bill. It signals, however slightly, that neither the Dems nor the Republicans care to prop up the existing school system exactly the way it exists today.
Youth are a big loser in the stimulus. College kids dependent on their parents will not get a check, which should draw the attention of college kids who are going to join the workforce in what’s shaping out to be another Great Recession. Bigger is the future bill youth will have to pay for the excesses of this generation.
Are you under 30? If so, consider that you will live in a world your parents and grandparents created that benefitted them enormously but that you will never enjoy. China will be the world’s biggest economy soon, and just as the US set the rules when it was the biggest economy, you can be sure China will set the rules when it’s number one. You will be working in a smaller economy and paying bills your parents ran up today based on poor planning.
Another loser in the stimulus is the poor. Cataloging the ways the stimulus fails the poor require too much space, so let’s focus on the big, obvious ways. First, poverty means people are less likely to file taxes, which means they won’t get a check. Second, poverty means jobs are more precarious, low wage workers were the first to be let go, and they will be the first to run through the additional unemployment benefits in the stimulus, if they can get through to their state’s unemployment agency before they are evicted, have the internet turned off at home or don’t have time to file because they are homeschooling their children since the schools are closed. If the poor have jobs, they will likely need to go and have fewer protections to avoid catching the virus. Mobile phone location data is already coming out showing poor neighborhoods are staying-at-home far less than wealthier areas. But most of all, the stimulus targets the economy as a whole. The American economy as a whole never did much for the poor. They still don’t have quality health care or any health care. They still have worse schools. They still have worse food. This stimulus improves nothing for the poor.
Buzz in Washington is that another $2 trillion bill for infrastructure is being negotiated. If the feds want to inject a big stimulus in the economy, it should have passed that infrastructure bill in the first bill. We have all heard the list of infrastructure needs, but each is essential. First, the US needs national broadband. Second, the US needs a web of connected transportation options, from transit and air to railways, roads, and waterways, as a means to reduce congestion, protect the environment, and stimulate economic development. Third, the US needs a massive workforce development program to transform workers for the digital economy. Fourth, the US needs to up its funding of Pre-K-12 and higher education to ensure every child is ready for the new economy. Fifth, the US needs a far better public safety program including offering federal leadership for technical assistance that helps all levels of government develop evidence-based community policing programs that build trust, improve community relations and reduce racial tensions and crime rates.
Essential workers were losers in this stimulus bill, too. The stimulus provides big money for Covid-19 responses that should include making sure essential workers are well protected and well paid. Other countries like the UK and Germany have provided additional benefits to essential workers, identifying them by name and marshaling national resources to ensure they have protective gear and abundant equipment. The stimulus echoes the current US response. It’s vague and indirect. Chicago where I live keeps sending emergency notifications to all cell phones even while almost every health care worker I know on the front line is telling me they want to quit. Spain is the worst example of endangered essential workers. Garbage bags, old shirts and duct tape do not provide the kind of protection they need, and the US isn’t doing much better.
Why should we care?
Crises come suddenly, and they reveal core priorities and levels of preparedness. How prepared the US was for this crisis will be readily apparent in the next 6-12 months. What core priorities the US holds is already apparent. We should care about the apparent core priorities of our elected leaders because, if they don’t match our priorities, they need to be held accountable at election time.
That Republicans support big business and the Democrats support individual workers is no surprise. This is the first crisis felt by all Americans with such far reaching effects. Being optimistic, let’s say a vaccine is developed quickly and life returns quickly to close to its pre-pandemic rhythm. No one will ever forget that when a crisis hit, government was called on to solve it. No matter whether you have a righty Republican’s healthy mistrust of government or a lefty Democrat’s exuberant trust of government, responding to catastrophes is what governments need to be prepared to do. To the extent we are not prepared, it’s time to make a mental note for the future.
We need to care about the winners and losers of the first stimulus for two major reasons. First, the first time a big bill is passed, it sets the cap on what will be passed in future legislation. The stimulus was the bigest gun Congress could fire in defense of the US. Future legislation could go bigger, but if the infection rate doesn’t decline, and if a vaccine isn’t discovered quickly, the gun wasn’t big enough. Once the infection rate declines a bit, we can expect more politics, more friction, slower decision-making and less powerful effects from the next rounds of legislation.
Second, when in crisis and you have to negotiate, you resort to your biggest wants. We need to work to ensure the environment, education, youth, poor, infrastructure and essential workers are front of mind, as we continue responding to this crisis and for the next one.
The macroeconomic effects of this global shock will almost certainly be felt for decades. China’s claim of a V-shaped recovery seems overblown for China, so the odds of that happening in the US are slim. A big drop is rarely followed by an equally big increase. Make a gun with your left hand. A gun-shaped recovery seems more optimistically realistic. The thumb is the drop, and the pointer finger is the recovery. In other words, return to normalcy will likely come slowly as winners build their strength and losers lose even more.
Pete my friend’s worst fear seems right now to be untrue. It’s still early days understanding this virus, but if it mutates, come back annually in winter or never leaves and keeps mutating, the harm to lives and economies will return annually as well. The Spanish Flu came back a second time and killed more people in the second wave than the first. Right now, rumblings from scientists are that this virus isn’t mutating. If it’s not, that means that once there is a vaccine, it will stop the virus completely and allow us to rebuild our economies before they impoverish too many people.
The question we should be asking ourselves in the moments we can see beyond the immediate crisis is this. Are we happy with the winners and losers Congress chose to create with the largest economic stimulus bill in the history of the world?
John Heintz is based in Chicago.
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Episode 1.19 - Tom's Best Students
Returning Parsons School of Design Professor Tom Handley joins John with a retrospective. Tom covers his favorite students. Tom’s taught some of the most notable future leaders in the fashion and design industries. He gives Budding professionals will benefit from the value of the contact.
This is a pre-pandemic recording, so please excuse us for focusing on traditional careers, connections and thinking that will unquestionably change as the world transitions.
Guest
Tom Handley is a professor of Marketing and Public Relations at Parsons School of Design at the New School in New York. He’s been nominated three times finals for Distinguished Faculty of the Year. He’s an expert in public relations, social media and online education. He has successfully placed over 500 young and experienced students in internships and over 300 in jobs. Find Tom here.
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Episode 1.18 - Gerard Knows Philosophy
Gerard Michols, Chicago area transplant to upstate New York, reflects on insights about philosophy that apply to our daily lives. Tracking his journey from early firebrand to pensive parent, Gerard discusses the daily role of philosophy and ethics at home and work, with family and friends and in pursuit of creating a better world.
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Episode 1.17 - Will Scott Knows Culture
Improving culture is like improving gravity. Will Smith tackles the biggest question faced by any organizational leader: How do I improve culture? In his new book, The Culture Fix, Will offers an empirically-driven guide not only to improving culture but creating positive ones across all types of organizations. In this episode, Will explains how he brings competence, confidence and authentic joy to organizations. Will offers advice for world-class executives from the board room to the living room.
Will joins John after Second Rail’s two month hiatus as John returned from China to the US. John interviews Will about life, work, philosophy and, where Will shines most, coaching great leaders targeting the greatest of all challenges, palpably improving an organization’s culture.
Guest
A longtime member of the Entrepreneurs Organization, Will Scott served on the board of EO Chicago for five years and is a facilitator of the EO Accelerator and 10,000 Small Businesses programs. With an MBA in international business from the University of Southern California, Will has been an entrepreneur for more than 20 years and is an implementer of the Entrepreneurial Operating System™ or EOS™.
Born in Zambia, Will is a European and naturalized US citizen who has lived in six countries and done business in more than 50. He has served in Her Majesty's Royal Marines and led transformations in organizations as diverse as student unions, churches and global charitable foundations. Will is the proud father of Sam and Chloe, an avid fan of National Geographic, practices yoga daily and completes several triathlons each year.
You can contact Will here.
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Reggio Emilia
Tanzania and Zanzibar face daunting early childhood education issues. Most Tanzanian children from 3-6 depend on a public education, and the country focuses too few resources on early childhood.
That’s not unusual. Advances in neuroscience and child development research continue to heap on the evidence that education investments in Early Childhood Education produce disproportionate lifelong benefits. Even as the research heaps and politicians hesitate, teachers know what really works.
Modernizing the Missionary Past
Tanzania and Zanzibar teachers offer a unique perspective. The Madrassa Early Childhood Program arrived around 2010. Parents heralded its arrival. Most parents here practice Islam, so replacing the old missionary Christianity with local religious values amplified support for the Madrassa Program. All public pre-primary schools follow the Montessori model. Only private schools may choose other curricula approved by Tanzania’s education ministry, the International Baccalaureate or Reggio Emilia.
Montessori is a good start.
Montessori is a child centered teaching approach focusing on physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. Classes in Montessori schools include arithmetic learning, alphabet learning, physical education, playtime, creativity-enriching activities using Play-Doh or Legos. Teachers individually observe each child and assess thought processes and interpersonal skills. The Montessori approach uses structured learning built upon individual eagerness for knowledge and individual initiative for learning.
Montessori in Tanzania has been a success. Students display exemplary knowledge and superior abilities to traditional desk-and-row programs. The Ministry of Education reports improvements in a host of skills with particular successes in idea abstraction, concept adaptation, thinking logic, nonverbal expression, information reception, activity transition and relationship building.
Reggio Emilia is better.
In recent years, small private early childhood schools have introduced Reggio Emilia. Like the Montessori program, Reggio Emilia is child centered. Unlike Montessori, Reggio Emilia focuses more on self-directed and experiential learning in relationship-driven environments. In layman’s term, Reggio Emilia prioritizes child’s play. Reggio Emilia is a growing global trend. In Tanzania, schools that have adopted this approach too Montessori to the next level of student freedom. Teachers quickly noticed that freeing a child’s thought process both intellectually and emotionally occurred best without long hours of structured teaching under Montessori. Teachers saw three advantages, improved relationship-building, thought-expression, opinion-expression and empathy-signaling.
Reggio Emilia roots its curriculum on respect, responsibility and community. Those principles match the other preferred global curriculum, the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program. Both programs’ principles are derived from research requiring curricula recognize individual student personalities, learning styles and intelligence types. Starting from the assumption each child needs a tailored education program, Reggio Emilia is self-guided.
Teachers observe, gauge and engage students based on demonstrated student interest. Planning follows observation. Teachers are co-learners, mentors and advisors. On the ground, Reggio Emilia students paint, perform, play, talk and listen. Theatre, music, art and show-and-tell happen every day.
Children succeed.
On the social-emotional side, Reggio Emilia children exhibit more confidence, expressive skills, oneness and compassion than their peers. On the academic side, they exhibit exemplary creativitiy in academic performance. Local elementary school teachers report that children who have exited the Reggio Emilia approach echo the same gains. They note disproportionate advantages in adaptability, academics, relationships and persistency in their areas of love, such as art or arithmetic.
Teachers of this program believe Reggio Emilia offers three advantages over other curricular systems.
Children grow into the individuals they ought to be.
Children focus on their own best traits.
Children enhance their own best traits to the extent of their capacity.
Touching, moving, listening, and observing happen routinely in Reggio Emilia schools. Full sensory engagement improves perception and comprehension. Teachers knew that. What teachers didn’t know and learned in Tanzania is that Reggio Emilia’s whole-life-experience approach to learning creates gains far beyond academics. In a time when learning-to-learn is the focus of K-12 and higher education systems, no goal is greater than raising students who know themselves and are happy with what and who they are.
Donaldina Lugeumbiza is a Tanzania-based freelance writer. She writes on the cross section of diplomacy, international development and education. She enjoys medical novels, medical dramas, deep sea diving and experimental cooking.
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Episode 1.16 - Michael Hicks Knows Shanghai Music
Mike Hicks moved to Shanghai almost a decade and a half ago to pursue life as a musician in one of the most up-and-coming newly open cities in the world. Mike joins John Heintz this fortnight to discuss how his Shanghai has changed over approaching two decades. They discuss music, finance, technology, education, politics, travel, housing and of course food.
Guest
Michael Hicks is a musician living in Shanghai. You can contact him here.
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Venezuela's Cultural Problem
March was a total apocalypse in Venezuela. We had many power cuts that lasted between 3 and 6 days. Food was scarce, hospitals were flooded with people. Renal patients who could not be dialyzed died and fuel was too hard to find for many hospitals’ power plants. Sum that with the fact that many of the cities that have suffered the worst parts of the crisis, like Maracaibo, generally have temperatures over 90°.
Ravaging was widespread. The owner of a bakery killed himself after he saw what angry mobs did to his business. At night, you could hear gunshots popping like fireworks on New Year. Some businesses were not looted only because owners and security personnel slept on the roof and were armed with pistols and shotguns.
It was like Mad Max, The Purge and a Western got mixed up in one terrible nightmare.
One of those days, I was in a long line outside a market trying to buy some food –whatever I found, for my family. In the line, there were a couple of people talking about the looting of a business the previous day.
“They were selling everything too expensive, they deserved it.” “You know, I even helped one guy move a juice cart he took. But he was too stupid to grab some fruit. How is he going to make juice now?” And then some people laughed.
Let’s move further to the month of June. In Maracaibo, where I live, the electrical situation was not solved: we still had (and have) daily power cuts of somewhere around 6 and 14 hours. In a good day, you may only have a 3-hour cut, in a bad one you may spend the whole day without power.
Also, the gasoline situation is hideous. 2-day lines to fill 20 or 30 liters of gasoline are the norm. If you want a full tank you have to give alguito to the tanker: a pack of rice, a coffee, a $1 bill or so.
If you’re having a good day, you may fill your tank in 10 hours. Obviously, there are ways to fill your tank in an hour. You pay $20 to the tank guy or the National Guard (yes, the stations are militarized) and you’ll fill your tank quickly. In a country where the minimum wage does not reach $10, that is not an option for many.
One of those days I was around 36 hours in a line. It was hell. People were selling their spots; others were trying to wriggle around the line. Dozens of people paying the guards to pass first, some paying to fill 20-liter containers to then re-sell them (20 liters of gasoline cost somewhere around $15 and $20 on the black market).
And it’s the same everywhere: if you want to renew your passport, you have to pay a hefty sum if you want it to receive it faster. If you need some dollars for traveling or saving, you’ve got to go to the black market. Maybe you need to register your college degree and do not want to lose a whole week coming and going to the registry? Then pay. And it’s all perfectly fine.
You see all this and you may reach the same conclusion of many Venezuelans: The crisis of Venezuela has a cultural root.
After all, we are the culture of Tío Tigre y Tío Conejo (Uncle Tiger and Uncle Rabbit), a group of Venezuelan folk tales where Tío Conejo always won using his wit and tricking Tío Tigre. We are a culture that applauds viveza criolla. That expression is a bit hard to translate directly, but it basically means being like Tío Conejo: not playing by the rules, being “street smart” to achieve your goals.
Is there a cultural and civic education problem in Venezuela? Definitely. Is that the root of our problems? Definitely… not.
After all, we are also a culture of hard-working people. Millions of Venezuelans have fled the country and there are many complaints about us in the host countries: that we are loud, that we take people’s jobs, that we complain too much about communism, and that our women rob husbands (In Peru they even made a song about that!), but they never complain about Venezuelans being lazy. Also, take a look at the people that are still here: Many of them earn a wage between $8 and $15 a month and still decide to wake up every morning at 5 a.m., walk for half an hour or more to the bus stop to reach their jobs where they probably won’t have electricity for around 6 hours, get back home around 6 p.m. and have a power cut at 8 p.m. And they still decide to go to work every day.
Also, if you read a bit about countries during great disasters like war, a natural disaster or a hardline socialist rule you’ll see the same stories: black markets, general loss of civility, and rampant corruption. When external conditions force it, the law of the strongest imposes: many people only care about surviving and many others see an opportunity in people’s pain. That’s not culture, it is biology.
Culture is dynamic. What builds civic culture is institutions and education. If institutions play by the rules and work correctly, if people earn livable wages and have access to decent services, the incentives for corruption are greatly reduced. If the government leaves their hands out of production and promotes a strong private sector, then a black market makes no sense. If people knew about the importance of being a citizen and cultivating civic virtues, maybe things would be different.
Venezuela has a cultural problem, but that’s not a root of the issue. It’s a systemic crisis: we have a social and political system that rewards being a Tío Conejo, not being a good citizen.
Edgar Beltrán is a 22-year-old political scientist and philosophy student from Maracaibo, Venezuela. He is passionate about discussing how politics affects the daily lives of people and about untangling the hidden structures of reality through philosophy.
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Episode 1.15 - Sy in Shanghai
Living and learning in Asia, Europe and America, Sy Shi of Shanghai joins John for a fun conversation about growing up in China and living in Spain and Tennessee.
Guest
Sy Shi is a cultural expert living in Shanghai.
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Episode 1.14 - Mary Avalos Knows Standards
Florida’s new governor eliminated Common Core. In her Miami Herald op-ed, Mary Avalos responded to the announcement’s basic errors. Mary is Professor of Teaching and Learning at the University of Miami. Her heavily re-Tweeted op-ed in the Miami Herald challenged the Governor and suggested a path forward. Mary hits on the strengths of functional grammar, the maker movement, the challenges of English learners and, the greatest goal of measurement in schools, creating classroom-based assessments that drive instruction. Mary joins John for a discussion that dabbles in policy and dives into professionalism.
Guest
Mary Avalos Professor of Teaching and learning at the University of Miami’s School of Education and Human Development and an opinion writer for the Miami Herald.
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Episode 1.13 - Tom Handley Loves Backpacks
Parsons creates the world’s top designers. Tom Handley teaches them. Public relations expert and pioneer of online learning, Tom gives an inside look into his own teaching secrets and the secret power of design. He talks about his core area of expertise, public relations, and the impact all professionals can have building high-value relationships, influencing the conversation and bringing authenticity to social media. Tom speaks to early-career designers, mid-career communications experts, late-career executives and live and virtual educators about many of the pink elephants in their living rooms. He distills decades of professional experience with the world’s biggest brands into life lessons that transcend a single product, service, profession, industry or nation.
Guest
Tom Handley is a professor of Marketing and Public Relations at Parsons School of Design at the New School in New York. He’s been nominated three times Distinguished Faculty of the Year. He’s an expert in public relations, social media and online education. He has successfully placed over 500 young and experienced students in internships and over 300 in jobs. Find Tom and his love of sneakers here.
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Episode 1.12 - The DNA of Disease
Every living thing leaves DNA in the environment, including organic waste. Andy Rothstein hunts down the genes to aid threatened species and stop forecasted pandemics. Andy gauges the health of ecosystems. He’s a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley who joints the podcast to talk about a range of topics, from research and education to environmental careers and the future of the planet.
Andy discusses the need to foster independence in education as well as environmental work. He compares more and less effective education models including pushing for better means to move science forward than the traditional publishing model.
Guest
Andy is a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley in Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. His current work is combating emerging wildlife diseases with an emphasis on using genetics to monitor and manage wildlife populations.
Before UC Berkeley, he completed his Master’s of Science at Western Washington University where he again used genetic tools to “forensically" track wild harbor seal populations on Vancouver Island through their poop!
Andy began his academic education at University of Vermont where he fostered his passion for biology and the environment during his time in their School for the Environment and Natural Resources.
Through his graduate work he has taught classes in variety of educational capacities from lecture and lab based courses, to discussion groups, to hands on computer coding, to his most recent venture as a fellow for Berkeley Connect which links undergraduate students with experienced mentors in departments and the full university.
Links from the pod:
Andy’s lab
Hands on data science class for which Andy was a graduate student instructor
Berkeley Connect Mentor Fellows program I will be starting for Fall and Spring semesters
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