This Week:

Quote of the Week

A Note on Holidays in the U.S.

Morals, Ethics, Values, and Thinking

Greetings,

As is often the case, when I wrote about Mother’s Day a few weeks ago I wrote much more than you saw in the published version. (Those who know me will not be surprised at this!) So this week, upon my return from a cold and rainy week on the East Coast, I am sending along a few thoughts on other holidays. No special occasion, I just have some extra space this week.

In addition to the note on holidays, this week’s edition brings a reprint of a Nygaard Notes essay from long ago. Those among you who have taken any of my classes on media will have seen this essay, since I often assign it as homework. And, of course, long-time readers saw it back when it was originally published. I think it’s worth looking at again, since it touches on the very essence of what is wrong with “professional” journalism as it is practiced in the modern era, and suggests an alternative approach to reporting The News.

I returned from my trip to find that several more pledges had arrived in support of Nygaard Notes. Thanks to all for your contributions to the cause! Pledges can, of course, be sent at any time, but just to let you know, you likely won’t see another Pledge Drive until sometime this fall.

‘Til next week,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

Here are the two lead paragraphs of an article in the Business section of the New York Times (“All The News That’s Fit To Print”) of May 29th, which was headlined “Battle Over Biotechnology Intensifies Trade War:”

“President Bush said last week that Europe’s opposition to genetically altered crops was a threat to efforts to end world hunger.

“But even many critics of Europe’s stance say that the president’s argument does not stand up and that the dispute needs to be understood for what it is: a multibillion-dollar cross-Atlantic battle over agricultural trade.”

This is a classic example of the convoluted language that the corporate media are forced to use instead of the far more simple and direct—and politically potent—“The President Lied.”

Bonus “Quote” of the Week

Also from the NY Times, this time it was the May 28th edition, here is a comment from an Iraqi man who witnessed an ambush in Fallujah, Iraq, in which a guerrilla attack killed 2 U.S. soldiers:

“We are tribal people and we won't allow anyone to intrude in our lives. The Americans have really hurt us. They didn't come here to give us liberty, or free us. They came here to invade us.”

It’s impossible to know how many Iraqis agree with this man, but all indications are that many do.

A Note on Holidays in the U.S.

Three weeks ago I wrote at length about the origins of Mother’s Day and how the original spirit of women’s social and political power has been replaced by an individualistic focus on one’s personal mother. I am totally behind the idea of honoring one’s mother! But it is worth considering how U.S. culture consistently reinforces certain values and marginalizes others. Consider a couple of our other holidays.

Veterans Day.

Why, for example, is Veterans Day celebrated on November 11th? It’s because that is the day, in 1918, that the armistice ending World War I was signed. It was celebrated as a day of peace in various ways until 1938, when the U.S. Congress officially declared it “Armistice Day,” stating that it was “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day.’” In 1954, during the McCarthy era and a year after the armistice ending the Korean War was signed, the U.S. Congress officially changed “Armistice Day” to “Veterans Day.”

It was also in 1954, incidentally, the year of my birth, that the U.S. Congress, after a campaign by the Catholic group the Knights of Columbus, amended the pledge of allegiance to include the words “under God.” Thus, on June 8th of that year, the Pledge, which had always been a patriotic oath now became a public prayer. Those of you old enough to remember those days may be having a sense of deja vu in the post-9/11 era. For example, the recitation of this public prayer in our public schools was made mandatory by the Minnesota state legislature on May 19th of this year. But, I digress...

Labor Day.

The great majority of nations of the world celebrate May 1st as “International Workers’ Day.” The United States and Canada celebrate something called “Labor Day” on the first Monday in September. The May 1st celebration actually began in the United States when, in 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886.

After police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory on May 3rd 1886, killing four and wounding many, anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality. The famous Haymarket Massacre—and the militant labor organizing that provided the context for that tragedy—would forever be linked in the public mind to the celebration of May Day, soon known as International Workers’ Day.

This was so troubling to U.S. elites that eight years later, in 1894, Congress declared that the first Monday in September be celebrated as “Labor Day.” President Grover Cleveland—who, the previous year, had deployed 12,000 federal troops to stop a strike at the Pullman company in Chicago, and who was worried about his reelection in a nation deeply polarized along class lines—quickly signed the bill into law. We still celebrate this “alternative” to May Day in this country. As a child, I was trained to deliver “May Baskets” to my neighbors on International Workers’ Day.

Morals, Ethics, Values, and Thinking

[The following is a special reprint of an essay that was originally published on April 7, 2000, in Nygaard Notes #65.]

In Nygaard Notes #48 I outlined a six-step process to use in analyzing the nature of a magazine. I claimed it would only take about one minute to do this analysis, then admitted that “to be honest, there is some self–knowledge assumed here that can take some time to acquire. For example, have you done the work necessary to be clear on your values and beliefs?” Many people have not done “the work,” because it is not easy to do. This week I will talk a little about this work and how it can help you think better.

The Why, The How, and The What

One of the things that I have done over the years that has helped me clarify my values is to participate in social change organizations. The process of working with others to set mission, strategy, and practice (the why, the how, and the what) for a group has really forced me to think about my own beliefs, and working with others forces me to back up my talk with action. It makes me a better person.

Groups have to do certain things in order to be fully effective, and I think some of those things can be used in an individual’s life to help get our values to more closely match our morals. That is, to become more the type of people we want to be.

I believe that any effective organization needs to first of all understand why it exists. This is often called the “mission” of the organization, or the “vision.” Once everyone understands why the organization is there—and this can take a while!—then there needs to be some agreement as to how to proceed toward living up to the purpose of the group. This is often called the organization’s “strategy.” Exactly what must be done to carry out that strategy is known as the “tactics,” or “practice,” of the group. All of these things require much thought and discussion in any democratic organization.

Mission > strategy > tactics. How does this apply to individuals?

Your “mission” is why you think you are here on the planet. This is where you ask: “What makes us human?” Why has our species been given these fantastic abilities to think, to empathize, to communicate with others? And what are the special skills or talents that you, yourself, have developed or come into the world with? I don’t have the answer to this question for anyone but myself, as these answers fall in the realm of morals, ethics, and beliefs.

An individual person’s “strategy” for their life is how you have arranged to spend your time over the long haul. Here you ask: “What should a person like me be doing?” Maybe your focus is on earning as much money as possible. But maybe you have arranged your life to need less money so you have more time to do other things. Those other things might be raising children, or being an urban gardener, or being a community organizer, or publishing a weekly newsletter. Thinking about the “strategy” for your life should be more than career planning. Many people wait for a crisis to consciously consider their life’s strategy, but you don’t need to; you can simply decide to set aside time to get more clear on your values.

Where an organization speaks of “tactics,” an individual can speak of “daily practice.” Here is where you ask: “What am I going to do today (this week, this month) to be more like the person I say I want to be?” This is where the rubber meets the road. For example, if you say you are a person who loves children, you have to do something to carry that out. There are many practices that will fulfill this. You could directly act on this value by working in day care, or by volunteering as a Big Brother or Big Sister. A little less direct action might be to donate money or time to children-focused political organizations like the Children’s Defense Fund. You could work to increase the wages for child-care workers or to increase funding for children’s health.

If you find yourself incapable of narrowing your focus down to a single issue, your daily practice could be spent trying to open up possibilities and free the imagination of your fellow citizens, in the process encouraging them to work in their own ways to try to create a society in which we are all more free to act in accord with our moral and ethical beliefs. This is what Nygaard Notes is all about.

Thinking and Values

How do your moral beliefs and your values affect your thinking? When we see something on the television news, we all see the same thing. But, depending on our beliefs and values, we interpret it—that is, we “think” about it—differently. To use this example, if your belief is that people are basically “bad,” then your response to street crime may be to “lock ‘em up and throw away the key.” You may see a criminal and nothing but a criminal. But if you believe that people are basically “good,” then you may be able to think about restorative justice or rehabilitation. You may see the need for incarceration, but you will also be able to think about positive alternatives.

That’s just one example. Every time you interpret something you are relying on your values and beliefs. Every time you direct your attention to one thing and ignore something else, you are making a choice, and that choice will reflect your values. This is not an “objective” process, nor should it be.

This is why, if you want to be a clear thinker, it helps to become conscious of your values. And it is also why, if you act on your beliefs, your thinking will improve. Not only will you begin to see how the values and beliefs of the larger, dominant, culture have affected you spiritually and morally, but you will become aware of the biases and prejudices that you have internalized, and of how they shape your mental processes.

Values affect everyone’s thinking, including writers and editors. To use a very concrete example, if a “white” reporter has not taken the time in her or his life to work on challenging their internalized racism, then they will often fail to understand how racism impacts the stories they are covering. Then, when they put together their journalistic puzzle—their “story”—a huge piece may be missing, and usually they won’t even know it.

I call my type of writing “Values-Based Journalism.” Actually, until now I hadn’t called it anything; I just made this up since I thought I needed a catchy phrase. (How does it sound?) I think this is a more honest term for what every journalist does, and must do. We all make decisions to focus on one news item and not another, or to believe one person and not another, or to put one thing on the front page and one on the back.

The difference is that I don’t go around saying that I am “objective” when I do it; I just I try to make my biases and my principles very obvious. Judging by the volume and thoughtfulness of the mail I get, I might be on to something here. I’m sure you’ll let me know if I’m wrong.