Wealth Matters

 Now no plant [natural resources] had yet sprung up on the earth ... and there was no one to work the ground [human labor] ... So God created mankind in his own image ... and said "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth ... and to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky I give every green plant for food." ― Genesis

Our technology, our machines [tools], is part of our humanity. We created them to extend ourselves, and that is what is unique about human beings. ― Ray Kurzweil





Every nation [except America] has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. [But in America everyone mocks the poor by] asking this cruel question: "if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?" ― Kurt Vonnegut


With the "fall of communism" as part of the Revolutions of 1989, the planet's preeminent remaining system for producing and allocating wealth became capitalism ... which appeared to be the no-brainer, default answer to the world's problems. But as promising as it seemed to be, the last four decades have shown us that, even in the absence of viable alternatives, capitalism has not been able to avoid serious and threatening problems such as

• the failure of popular movements to remove oligarchs and dictators,
• endless military and now trade wars,
• a degraded and potentially deteriorating global environment,
• mass migration to avoid hardship provoking nationalism to protect lifestyles and
• exploding economic inequality that is unstable if not unsustainable.

To help us better understand the issues at stake, we will consider the following three questions:

1. How does material wealth arise from combining natural resources, human labor and tools [including all forms of technology]  ... and how do capitalism and socialism justify the different ways they produce and allocate wealth among the members of society? Does this equation help or hinder your understanding of the issues and relationships:

Man's Material Wealth = Natural Resources + (Human Labor x Tools)

2. Is capitalism working as anticipated in America and globally? If not, why not? And how accurate is the claim that Republicans want capitalism while Democrats want socialism?

3. Can capitalism and socialism be "mixed" and if so how should this be done to preserve the benefits while avoiding the pitfalls of each system? Does this thought help or hinder your understanding of the proper dividing line between capitalism and socialism:

"There are, finally, undoubted fields where no legal arrangements can create the main condition on which the usefulness of the system of competition and private property depends: namely, that the owner benefits from all the useful services rendered by his property and suffers for all the damages caused to others by its use. ... In all these instances there is a divergence between the items which enter into private calculation and those which affect social welfare; and, wherever this divergence becomes important, some method other than competition may have to be found to supply the services in question. ... But the fact that we have to resort to the substitution of direct regulation by authority where the conditions for the proper working of competition cannot be created does not prove that we should suppress competition where it can be made to function." FA Hayek, 1944, "The Road to Serfdom", Chapter 3: Individualism and Collectivism

 When, Where and a Flyer

Tuesday, Nov 13,  7:00 to 8:45 pm at Friends University in the President's Dining Room on the 1st floor of Casado Campus Center.  Click FLYER above and [if we have it] you will get a flyer which you can print and post appropriately to alert others about the upcoming meeting.

... and if you are inclined and able to say THANKS to Friends for the serious hospitality extended to NSS during 2018, please consider making a tax deductible gift payable to "Friends University" noting "New Symposium Society" on the memo line of your check.  You can give the check to us and we will get it to them ... or just mail it yourself.

The Evening's Format: Breakout Groups

We will be testing a new breakout group format for the evening. You can read more about it on the Breakout Groups page of this blog.

• Symposiasts will be divided into groups of 10-15 each with its own moderator.
• The members of each group will spend 20-30 minutes discussing each question.
• At the end, we will all regather to adjourn for the evening ... and the year.

Send us an email in advance at NewSymposium@gmail.com if you plan on coming so we can be sure to have enough breakout group spaces and moderators. We look forward to a stimulating evening of total participation.

Epilogue

WOW is the only way to describe our evening discussing why Wealth Matters. With 20+ persons around a table ... in a very comfortable and productive setting in the Friends President's Dining Room ... which included Friends students as well as professors Russell Fox and Malcolm Harris ... and with Mike as our moderator ... WE became co-panelists for the evening as we worked together to articulate and examine various aspects of our topic which arose from our personal experiences and thoughts. We surprised ourselves at how productive and rewarding honest and respectful dialogue can be.

And while there was no AV recording of our dialogue due to the dispersed nature of the conversations, we did end the evening with a brief tally of what those in attendance would like to see most in our society and its leaders if they had to choose only one thing. The hands-down majority answer was expressed in two ways [positively and negatively]:

• more freedom
• less regulation.

Accordingly, we will begin work on a 2019 symposium on "Regulations Matter" at which we can discuss individual freedom and collective regulation as two distinct ways to "organize" ourselves sociologically and see if we can better discern the strengths and weaknesses of each and the proper, dynamic dividing line that can help us determine "how much" of each we need.

We welcomed old and new friends alike. We would especially like to thank the Friends University students who joined us ... they have so much to contribute! And we hope YOU will stay in touch with New Symposium Society in 2019. If you have some ideas to share about ways to improve or expand our work ... just let us hear from you with a COMMENT below ... or an email to NewSymposium@gmail.com.  Goodbye until our next meeting and stay tuned to our blogsite for further info about 2019.

NSS  Readings [with links]

Required
Buddhist Economics, EF Schumacher, 1966, Schumacher Center for a New Economics

Universal Basic Income Is Silicon Valley’s Latest Scam: The plan is no gift to the masses, but a tool for our further enslavement, Douglas Rushkoff, Medium, 2018

Suggested
A Review of Buddhist Economics and Universal Basic Income, Bob Love, Nov 2018 

Adam Smith on the Crisis of Capitalism, Machinery of Politics, 2012 [the desire for and danger of monopoly]

Founding Finance: Against the consensus account of America's formative years, review of Hogeland's book [see below] by David Skeel, Christianity Today, 2012

Founding Finance: How Debt, Speculation, Foreclosures, Protests, and Crackdowns Made Us a Nation, William Hogeland, 2012

Key Terms
Fascism [wikipedia]
Mixed Economy [wikipedia]

Dialogue Matters

"Why should ye be stricken any more? ... the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. ... the calling of assemblies, I cannot ... Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together." ― Isaiah

“If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.” ― Socrates

"When Judge Douglas says that whoever, or whatever community, wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical if there is nothing wrong in the institution; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong." ― Lincoln

What are the critical elements, purposes, and consequences of dialogue in our psychological and sociological lives?

The notion of "dialogue" comes to us from the combination of two Greek words:

• dia - across, through
• logos - oration, reason, speech, word ... the link between rational discourse and the world's rational structure.

A graphic depiction of it might look something like skilled archers shooting arrows to identify the boundaries as well as the center of an otherwise invisible target. It is often time consuming [alot of arrows] ... and humbling [alot of misses] ... and requires the archers to work together from their different vantage points to reveal the target with a significant degree of clarity. But even though the work is never easy ... it is usually [if not always] rewarding for somebody.

There are many good questions we might try to answer about the presence and role of dialogue in our lives. Here are just a few.

• Does dialogue differ from and/or relate to dogma, debate, propaganda and compromise?
• How have historical forms of social media [in education, economics and politics] utilized dialogue ... and has that significantly changed today?
• Are students learning the art of working through a complicated topic?
• Are citizens losing the bigger picture in the narrowness of party politics?
• Given the dynamic complexity of many personal and social problems, can we realistically hope to formulate comprehensive solutions without broad-based dialogue?
• Solutions notwithstanding, are there still ways our psychological health and sociological lives can be improved by simply promoting dialogue?

When, Where and a Flyer

Tuesday, Sep 25th,  7:00 to 8:45 pm at Friends University, William Penn Hall, Room 100 [west of Riney Fine Arts Bldg].  Click FLYER above and [if we have it] you will get a flyer which you can print and post appropriately to alert others about the upcoming meeting.

Panelists and Moderator 👥

Please welcome our generous and accomplished panelists and moderator. Click a name to see a bio [if we have it]. And remember, they have busy lives so we do NOT require them to provide a position statement or suggested readings in advance ... but if they do, we have provided links to those materials following their name/bio below ... and we encourage you to review these links to get to know our panelists and moderator better.

Bill Coleman - A former teaching fellow at Harvard University, Bill is entering his fifteenth year as a teacher of literature, composition, and drama at Northfield School of the Liberal Arts. Bill is a longtime NSS member.

Laura Lombard - among her many accomplishments and pursuits, Laura was a primary candidate for U.S. Congress in Kansas’ 4th district in 2018. We are glad to welcome her back from politics! She is currently building a workforce development company in Wichita called ImEPIK.

Vicki Ronn - an associate professor of English at Friends University. We are always privileged to have Friends represented on our panel.

Joel Ybarra - a Marriage and Family Therapist at Real Life Counseling in Wichita who finds meaning coming alongside others and helping them see things in new ways. We look forward to listening to Joel ... something he does everyday for others who need to speak.

Russell Fox [moderator] –  Political Science Professor and Director of the Honors Program at Friends University ... a valued addition to our society whenever he is available.

The Evening's Format

The first half of the evening will consist of each panelist presenting an 8-9 minute opening position statement. In the second half of the evening, the audience will help our panelists by asking questions.

And for those of you who are inclined to get some questions out in the open for consideration BEFORE the evening's meeting ... feel free to join the liberales ... and blog your COMMENTS and REPLIES below as needed/wished to build some trains of thought for us.

Epilogue

With great teamwork by our panelists and a thoughtful audience, we learned important things about dialogue ... including the thought that real dialogue always requires us to do three things "together" [com]:

converse - "turn, bend" [versare]
contemplate - "place to take auguries" [templum]
confide - "trust" [fidere]

As it says in the old Quaker verse: 
"When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right."

For those who missed [or just want to relive] this stimulating evening at Friends University, here is the link to the AV recording on "Dialogue Matters" ... again with thanks to Paul Soutar at Graphic Lens ... or you can just go to YouTube and search for us under "New Symposium Society Dialogue Matters".

We welcomed alot of old and new friends ... and hope YOU will stay in touch with New Symposium Society in the future. And if you have some ideas to share about ways to improve or expand our work ... just let us hear from you with a COMMENT below ... or an email to NewSymposium@gmail.com.  Goodbye until our next meeting and stay tuned to our blogsite for further info about our last 2018 meeting in November.

NSS  Suggested Readings [with links]

Dialogue, Wikipedia
I and Thou, Martin Buber
Attention, a Necessary Condition of Spirituality, L'Osservatore Romano, Isabella Adinolfi
Vatican II

The Council was instrumental for renewal in the self-understanding of the Church and its inner life by engaging in its relationships with other Christian traditions, with other religions and with the world.

Major Sociological Theories,  www.ThoughtCo.com
Dialogical Self Theory, Wikipedia
What Is Shared Inquiry?, Great Books Foundation
To Know as We are Known/A Spirituality of Education, Parker Palmer

"truth is communal ... seeking truth by keeping troth ... relationships [not facts and reasons] are the key to reality"

Dialogue as Interaction, Social Psychology Journal
Open Dialogue: A New Approach to Mental Healthcare, Dr Tom Stockmann, Psychology Today

"They decided to free themselves from searching for a non-existent truth, concentrating instead on curiosity and improvisation. Linked to this, they incorporated the recognition that language shapes our reality, and that one’s language, and thought, is dependent on seeing the world through a personal ‘lens’. The main aim of clinician involvement became the creation of a shared understanding of the problem, through a shared language."

The Role of Political Dialogue in Peacebuilding and Statebuilding

Immigration Matters

"And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee."
― Leviticus 25  600 BC

"For ... I was a stranger and you invited me in."
― Matthew 25 33 AD

بَدَأَ الإِسْلاَمُ غَرِيبًا وَسَيَعُودُ كَمَا بَدَأَ غَرِيبًا فَطُوبَى لِلْغُرَبَاءِ
"Islam began as something strange and it will return to being strange, so blessed are the strangers." 
― Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 145 846/232 AH

"He is not a citizen who is not disposed to respect the laws and to obey the civil magistrate; and he is certainly not a good citizen who does not wish to promote, by every means in his power, the welfare of the whole society of his fellow-citizens." ― Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments 1759 AD

"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment." ― George Washington, letter, 1783 AD

"If aliens might be admitted indiscriminately to enjoy all the rights of citizens at the will of a single state, the Union might itself be endangered by an influx of foreigners, hostile to its institutions, ignorant of its powers, and incapable of a due estimate of its privileges. ... There is great wisdom, therefore, in confiding to the national government the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States." ― Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1098--99, 1833 CE

To what extent or degree should a national community/bordered country define and enforce who lives and works within its borders? Are there extenuating human factors that deserve consideration? Is there a win-win solution for everyone to these challenging issues?

Human vocabulary is littered with words [and human history with acts] that have no intelligible meaning other than to divide human beings into two subsets ... "us" and "not-us".

• hebrew - Semetic word meaning - "one from the other side"
• gentile - Hebrew word meaning - "not Hebrew"
• barbarian - Greek word meaning - "one of unintelligible speech"
• alien - Latin word meaning - "other, different"
• heathen - English word meaning - "neither Christian nor Jewish" 

And although variations on these broad-brush approaches to distinguishing among individual human beings may seem to lack precision [and logic] even as they raise troubling questions [moral, civil, criminal, economic, etc.], they are likely to persist because they are relatively easy to administer. 

So ... in the spirit of dialogue, New Symposium Society encourages its members and friends to lay aside all previous judgments concerning this and related issues ... personal and cultural ... chosen or inherited ... and to make room for an evening of honest and open examination of the alternatives available to communities [from neighborhoods to nations] to regulate the rights and privileges of the people who pass through and/or dwell within their boundaries.

We will be working HARD to assemble a panel and moderator who can

• identify and define the keywords,
• articulate and connect the thoughts then
• construct and test the arguments

which will help us bring a little light to bear on a topic which is greatly overheated in America and across the world.

When, Where and a Flyer

Tuesday, June 26th,  7:00 to 8:45 pm at Friends University, William Penn Hall, Room 100 [west of Riney Fine Arts Bldg].  Click FLYER above and [if we have it] you will get a flyer which you can print and post appropriately to alert others about the upcoming meeting.

Panelists and Moderator 👥

Please welcome our generous and accomplished panelists and moderator. Click a name to see a bio [if we have it]. And remember, they have busy lives so we do NOT require them to provide a position statement or suggested readings in advance ... but if they do, we have provided links to those materials following their name/bio below ... and we encourage you to review these links to get to know our panelists and moderator better.

Irene Caudillo, MPA  - President and CEO of El Centro in Kansas City, with the mission to strengthen communities and improve lives of Latinos and others through education, social, and economic opportunities.

Frank Choriego – business owner and Special Projects Consultant, Wichita State University Business Development Center, who describes himself as a serial entrepreneur.

Judah Kogen – Rabbi at Wichita’s Hebrew Congregation.  He is a noted academic within his tradition and has been on the bimah for more than 15 years. We welcome Judah back as a panelist whose insights are always as provocative to our minds as they are touching to our hearts.

Joyce Mucci – Southern Field Representative FAIR, Federation for American Immigration Reform, a public interest organization untied in the belief that immigration policies and laws should serve the nation’s future needs.

Dr. Russell Arben Fox [moderator] –  Political Science Professor and Director of the Honors Program at Friends University ... a valued addition to our society whenever he is available.

The Evening's Format

The first half of the evening will consist of each panelist presenting an 8-9 minute opening position statement. In the second half of the evening, the audience will help our panelists by asking questions.

And for those of you who are inclined to get some questions out in the open for consideration BEFORE the evening's meeting ... feel free to join the liberales ... and blog your COMMENTS and REPLIES below as needed/wished to build some trains of thought for us.

Epilogue

With exceeding thanks to our informed and articulate panelists ... to our wise and just moderator ... and to EACH AND EVERY passionate and patient symposiast ... we experienced some of the finest moments in the history of New Symposium in our discussion of why "immigration matters". We understood [even if we did not know] that the words "passion" and "patience" come from the same Greek verb "patior" which means "to suffer".

Immigration is a subject that brings us all to our feet [sooner or later] because it affects us where we live ... personally and intimately as well as collectively and socially. But once again we were able to demonstrate that honest and ardent sharing thru dialogue is a powerful agent for helping us get in touch with ourselves and with others ... to form and sustain community which both welcomes and strengthens us all as co-members of and co-contestants in the "human race". And if nothing else, we came away with a better understanding of the feelings behind the perennial plea e pluribus unum:

“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

For those who missed [or just want to relive] this stimulating evening at Friends University, here is the link to the AV recording on "Immigration Matters" ... again with thanks to Paul Soutar at Graphic Lens ... or you can just go to YouTube and search for us under "New Symposium Society Immigration Matters".

Whatever your personal profile is, we hope you will stay in touch with New Symposium Society in the remaining months of 2018 and join us again in the future. And if you have some ideas to share about ways to improve our work ... just let us hear from you ... contact us at newsymposium@gmail.com.  Goodbye until our next meeting and stay tuned to our blogsite for further info.

NSS  Suggested Readings [with links]

Featured
Political Tribes: Group Instinct And The Fate Of Nations, Yale law professor Amy Chua, 2017
>>Review: A Time Of Tribalism, Rod Dreher, The American Conservative, April 27, 2018
Who Is Dayani Cristol, a film by Gael García Bernal and Marc Silver

Pro or Con
Opposition to immigration, Wikipedia
Yes, Violent Crime Has Spiked In Sweden Since Open Immigration, The Federalist, 2017
Immigration, League of Women Voters,  2017
Is Immigration a Threat to Our Culture?, Robert Tracinski, The Federalist, 2015
15 Common Arguments against Immigration Addressed, Alex Nowrasteh, FEE, 2016

Pro and Con
Should the Government Allow Illegal Immigrants to Become Citizens?, ProCon.org, 2017
Should America Maintain/Increase the Level of Legal Immigration?, BalancedPolitics.org

Public Opinion Polls
What Americans want to do about illegal immigration, Sara Kehaulani Goo, Pew Research Center, 2015
Muslim Beliefs about Sharia Law, Pew Research Center, 2013
Public Opinion Polls on Immigration, FAIR [Federation for American Immigration Reform]

Gender Matters

Is she beautiful ...
“Flowers spring to blossom where she walks
The careful ways of duty;
Our hard, stiff lines of life with her
Are flowing curves of beauty.”
― Among the Hills, John Greenleaf Whittier

... or bold ?
“What do you fear, lady?' he asked. 'A cage,' she said.”
[Lord Aragorn and Lady Éowyn]
"I am no man.”
[Lady Éowyn to the Lord of the Nazgûl as she slayed the one whom no man could kill.] ― Return of the King, JRR Tolkein

Is she passive ...
"Women oppose change, receive passively, and add nothing of their own … I have found that people who know that they are preferred or favored by their mothers give evidence in their lives of a peculiar self-reliance and an unshakable optimism which often bring actual success to their possessors … That is all I have to say to you about femininity ... if you want to know more inquire of your own experiences of life, or turn to poets, or wait until science can give you deeper and more coherent information." ― Sigmund Freud c. 1925-1933

... or attentive ?
“Attention is detaching oneself from oneself and returning to oneself, just as one breathes in and breathes out … it is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
― Simone Weil c. 1916

"Attention is neither an act of will nor a muscular effort … neither an innate quality nor something that happens without our consent: it presupposes a task, it entails an effort, perhaps greater than any other, but this is a negative effort … to free one’s mind from personal preoccupations, thoughts and desires and to create an emptiness within oneself … effacing the will and the ego to let them be filled by something else."
― L'Osservatore Romano, Attention, a necessary condition of Spirituality, Isabella Adinolfi, 2017

“What has history taught us … about women … about our feminine voice … about the fundamental laws [both sociological and biological] of gender in the composition and functioning of human society … and what lessons have we failed to learn?”

In a world with no dearth of urgent issues ranging from economic inequality to nuclear holocaust, we have been recently and forcefully thrust into a highly-prioritized moment which has seemingly suspended all other progress … until we once-and-for-all answer foundational but lingering questions which promise to change the universe of possible answers to everything else … how should we assess and address gender differences and similarities in human relations and civilizations?

New Symposium Society will say “me too” in confession and affirmation that gender matters … and that gender is a basic topic which we neglect at our peril, since our answers to questions about gender will inevitably constrain/enable the available/correct answers to many other vital questions we must face ... together. The vital questions our panelists will address in their opening statements are both perennial and practical.

• Is the marginalization of women currently detrimental to American society and culture?  How so?  What should be done?
• Should we emphasize male and female equality or gender differences, which might even be complementary?  What are the crucial or foremost differences?
• Is there a distinctive feminine voice/perspective?  If so, what are its most beneficial distinctions?  What are the consequences of not heeding it?
• Given the recent and ongoing revelations of sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace, what must sexual politics be like going forward?

When, Where and a Flyer

Tuesday, April 3rd,  7:00 to 8:45 pm at Friends University, Administration Building [with the iconic clocktower], Alumni Auditorium [2nd floor].  Here is a FLYER you can print and post appropriately to alert others about the upcoming meeting.

Panelists and Moderator 👥

Please welcome our gracious and accomplished panelists and moderator. Click their name to see a bio [if we have it]. And remember, they have busy lives so we do NOT require them to provide a position statement or suggested readings in advance ... but if they do, we have provided links to those materials following their name/bio below ... and we encourage you to review these links to get to know our panelists and moderator better.

Karen Robu

• Women Without Superstition “No Gods – No Masters”: The Collected Writings of Women Freethinkers of the Nineteenth & Twentieth Centuries, edited by Annie Laurie Gaylor
• Deborah’s Daughters: Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation, Joy A. Schroeder
• Rediscovering Eve, Carol Meyers

Brandi Calvert
Becky Elder
Jenny Wood
Lacey Stevenson
Pilar Pedraza, host of "Kansas Week" on KPTS, as moderator

The Evening's Format

The first half of the evening will consist of each panelist presenting an 8-9 minute opening position statement. In the second half of the evening, the audience will help our panelists by asking questions about the sometimes elusive and often misunderstood feminine voice in our midst.

And for those of you who are inclined to get some questions out in the open for consideration BEFORE the evening's meeting ... feel free to join the liberales ... and blog your COMMENTS and REPLIES below as needed/wished to build some trains of thought for us.

Epilogue

Our very talented and articulate panelists and moderator brought us not only historical and contemporary insights into why "Gender Matters", but they candidly shared [and helped us get in touch with] some of the more personal feelings and convictions we have and hold [consciously or not and reasonably or not] about this most intimate and yet most common aspect of our humanity.

It has been proposed, with allegedly supporting evidence,  that women are from Venus and men are from Mars, but if we learned one thing during our evening together it is that, regardless of where we happen to be "coming from" in our lives, we can only really know one another individual-to-individual.

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre 

For those who missed [or just want to rewind] this extra special evening at Friends University, here is the link to the AV recording on "Gender Matters" courtesy of Paul Soutar at Graphic Lens ... or you can just go to YouTube and search for us under "New Symposium Society Gender Matters".

Whatever your personal profile is, we hope you will stay in touch with New Symposium Society in 2018 and join us again in the future. And if you have some ideas to share about ways to improve our work ... just let us hear from you ... contact us at newsymposium@gmail.com.  Goodbye until our next meeting and stay tuned to our blogsite for further info.

NSS  Suggested Readings [with links]

Science
Feminine Voice, NY Speech & Voice Lab, Christie Block [Speech-Language Pathologist]
10 Gender Differences Backed Up by Science, Jen Viegas, Seeker, 2013
Gender Differences in STEM Programs, Darcy Hango, Statistics Canada
Is There Something Unique about the Transgender Brain?, Francine Russo, Scientific American, 2016

OpEds
Republican Men Against Women’s Rights, Fran Moreland Johns, Huffington Post, 2017
'Equal rights' for women: wrong then, wrong now, Phyllis Schlafly, LA Times, 2007
Mike Pence's Awful Positions on Women's Rights, Prachi Gupta, Cosmopolitan, 2016
Has #MeToo turned into a witch hunt?, The Journal, 2018

Constitutional Debate
Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution:  Unfinished Business
Should women have equal rights to men?, debate.org
Debate Over Equal Rights Amendment, Daily Titan, Sarah Gerhard, 2013
LGBT RIGHTS: Right or wrong?, debate.org
Anti-Trans Bathroom Debate,  Sarah Posner, Rolling Stone, 2018
Are LGBTQ activists ‘hijacking’ the ’60s civil rights movement?, Tim Funk, Charlotte Observer, 2017

Religious Conduct
Sexual Harassment in the Bible, J.L. Robb, The Omega Letter, 2017
The Bible Says What? ‘King David was a rapist’, Rabbi Aaron Goldstein, Jewish News, 2017
Muslims Addressing Sexual Harassment Head-On, Zainab bint Younus, About Islam, 2018
Code of Conduct, Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism, 2005

War Matters

Historians say ...
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in might ... otherwise, the strong do whatever they can and the weak suffer whatever they must.”
― Thucydides c.400 BC

"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace."
― Tacitus c.100 AD

Soldiers say ...
“God of our fathers ... Strengthen my soul so that the weakening instinct of self-preservation ... shall not blind me to my duty to my own manhood, to the glory of my calling, and to my responsibility to my fellow soldiers. … Let me not mourn for the men who have died fighting, but rather let me be glad that such heroes have lived. If it be my lot to die, let me do so with courage and honor in a manner which will bring the greatest harm to the enemy, and please, oh Lord, protect and guide those I shall leave behind. Give us the victory.”
― George S. Patton c.1944

"Military power serves the cause of security by making prohibitive the cost of any aggressive attack … the cause of peace by holding up a shield behind which the patient constructive work of peace can go on. ... [But] every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower c.1958

Humanitarians say ...
"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that [violence will] not solve their problems. ... But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? ... Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."
― Martin Luther King Jr, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City

“Every 60 seconds 24 people flee their homes because of war.”

― International RESCUE Committee 2017

Statesmen say ...
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
― "Political Observations", James Madison 1795

What are the historically revealed causes, characteristics, consequences and alternatives of/to war as a "necessary evil" ... and how have they changed for us in America today?

Mark Twain once joked that “God created war so that Americans would learn geography.” But, perhaps, there are sobering truths hidden in his words that can provoke us to think more deeply.

• How do wars start?
• How does war depend on the "parties" [military, allies, proxies, civilians] and the "weapons" [trade, currency, cold-deterrence, conventional, non-conventional, mass-destruction] ?
• Do wars depend on propaganda?
• What are the costs and benefits of war ... and who are the winners and losers?
• How do wars end?
• Has war always been and will it always be necessary and/or evil?

To help us grapple with these and other questions about war, New Symposium Society is gathering [with your help?] another exceptional group of panelists from those in our community who have experienced and/or thought deeply about this troubling topic as they have viewed it [first hand and/or from afar] from differing vantage points over their lifetimes [long and short].

And although their collective wisdom will be great, we can still only hope to glimpse the distant outlines of such a vast and complex subject. Nevertheless it would seem to be an effort worth making in our day and time when "wars and rumors of wars" abound.

When, Where and a Flyer

Tuesday, February 20th,  7:00 to 8:45 pm
Friends University, William Penn Hall, Room 100 [west of Riney Fine Arts Center]
Here is a FLYER you can print and post appropriately to alert others about the meeting.

Panelists and Moderator 👥

Please welcome our 5 panelists and moderator [listed in order of acceptance]. Click their name to see a bio [if we have it]. And remember, they have busy lives so we do NOT require them to provide a position statement or suggested readings in advance ... but if they do, we have provided links to those materials following their name/bio below ... and we encourage you to review these links to get to know our panelists and moderator better.

Marvin Martin [panelist] - Marvin is a long standing member of and contributor to the Wichita community and well known to [and always in demand by] almost all of us for his friendly manners, his thoughtful insights and his firm convictions. As a young WWII combat veteran, Marvin returned to Wichita to embrace his adult life as a faithful husband, a loving father, and a distinguished jurist/lawyer [founder of the Martin Churchill law firm] … seeking to understand and further … law and order … liberty and justice … mercy and love.
#57 This time I don't even have to pack my bags
#58 Aliens and strangers in the world
for more reflections on life by Marvin go to http://fromgrandpawithlove.com/

Dan Gates [panelist] - As President & CEO of American Water Purification, Inc., Dan is a decorated Vietnam veteran from a military family who has given us a comprehensive position statement outlining his thoughts on war to help us organize our thoughts in advance ... an excellent strategy for those who wish to know where they may be headed BEFORE embarking [aka intelligence].

Holger Meyer [panelist] - As a physicist, Holger brings the powerful realities and sobering implications of science to our discussion of warfare ... a perspective that is analytical and ethical not political ... which can help us simplify [or avoid reaching] the "complications" which those with only a "just cause" for going to war always seem to encounter.

Andrew Veatch [panelist] - Andrew is the member of our panel who has had the least opportunity to consider war but is the most likely to fight and die as a combatant. On behalf of all "child soldiers" [see below], we need Andrew's generation to be more articulate and adamant ... since it is their futures which are being most affected by our wars. Thank Andrew for his thoughtful position statement.

Becky Elder [panelist] - Becky is known to most of us as a wife, mother and a teacher. The perspective she brings to us from her triple vantage point may help us to see a strategy and develop tactics that make war "less necessary" as the chosen pathway to reach our legitimate personal and social goals. Please read and feel free to "Reply" to Becky's blog "Comment" below summarizing her thoughts.
Thoughts on WAR from St. John

Russell Fox [moderator] - A distinguished and opinionated academic career in political science notwithstanding, Russell brings us the intimate and guiding presence of the classroom teacher ... one skilled in moderating dialogue to assist diverse participants to discover the answers which, as Socrates reminds us, they already knew. Russell has provided us with some initial thoughts which we have put into a Moderator's blog "Comment" below ... so read and "Reply" to Russell and help us "jump start" this dialogue.

Bob Love [stand-by panelist] - As the NSS trustee primarily responsible for organizing this symposium, Bob is actively searching for panelists and moderators to provide the perspectives needed to bring the "leviathan" of war into better focus. As usual, he sees war from a detailed economic point of view which he has also summarized and is prepared to share with us as a backup panelist. We can always count on Bob for an opening blog COMMENT or two below ... so watch our blog ... and learn how to enter into the blogging with your own COMMENTS and/or REPLIES.

PS. Please let Bob know if you are aware of others who would like to serve as panelists for this important evening, since sometimes "things change" and having good backups on short notice is a real blessing [ask any coach].

The Evening's Format    [is a little different ... so read this carefully]

The first half of the evening will consist of each panelist presenting an opening position statement about war per se. Due to the breadth and complexity of the subject, we will give the different panelists greater than normal latitude to help us gain an overall perspective of the different vital aspects of war and how they relate to and influence one another.

In the second half of the evening, we will depart somewhat from our normal procedure. Instead of simply probing the panelists' opening statements, we will be practically applying them. We want the audience to pose questions concerning the realities of war for Americans in the 21st century in light of what we have learned from our panelists. This will be a little different dynamic than normal, so bring thoughtful questions and be ready for some spontaneous responses from the panelists as they work together to apply general principles about war to the specific situations we are facing today ... putting static ideas into spontaneous practice ... something every soldier is required to do in combat !!

And for those of you who are inclined to get some questions out in the open for consideration BEFORE the evening's meeting ... feel free to join the liberales ... and blog your COMMENTS and REPLIES below as needed/wished to build some trains of thought for us.

Epilogue

A heartfelt thanks to our panelists and moderator for sharing important thoughts on why "War Matters". The scope of the topic was epic and the perspectives broad ... and although the "war" is not over, important loyalties were tested and proven in the battle regardless of how you interpreted its outcome.

“Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.” ― Martin Luther

For those who missed another wonderful evening at Friends University, take time to view the excellent AV recording on "War Matters" from Paul Soutar at Graphic Lens ... or just go to YouTube and search for us under "New Symposium Society War Matters".

We hope you will stay in touch with New Symposium Society in 2018 and join us again in the future. And if you have some ideas to share about ways to improve our work ... just let us hear from you ... contact us at newsymposium@gmail.com.  Goodbye until our next meeting and stay tuned to our blogsite for further info.

NSS  Suggested Readings [with links]

Documents
Wealth of Nations V.1.0 [on national defense], Adam Smith 1776 
>> critical >> US Constitution Article I, Section 8, Clause 12  1789

Articles
Just War Theory and War Finance  Wikipedia
The Ethics of War, Bertrand Russell 1915
C.S. Lewis on War and Peace, CS Lewis Institute, David C. Downing
The Costs of War Project - Brown University Nov 2017
"No More Good Wars", A transcript of the Lew Rockwell Show podcast episode 431 with John Denson, LewRockwell.com, August 13, 2015

On War Propaganda

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

>> breaking news >> "The BIGGEST Secret", James Risen, The Intercept, 2018 
"The media’s role in war propaganda", Elizabeth Willmott-Harrop August 2005
"War, Propaganda and the Media", Global Issues, Anup Shah 2005
"Western Media Persists in Propaganda About Iraq’s Purported WMD", Foreign Policy Journal, Jeremy R. Hammond 2009
A Saudi Imam, 2 Hijackers and Lingering 9/11 Mystery, NYT, Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, June 2016
Did France convince NATO to overthrow Gaddafi to prevent the launch of a Pan-African Gold-Backed Currency and to seize Lybia's oil fields?, Horace Campbell and Mark Fancher, Democracy Now 2017

On Child Soldiers

"Older men start wars, but younger men fight them.” Einstein 

>> breaking news >> "Yemen's Child Soldiers", by Sarah El Sirgany, CNN, February 3, 2018
"Children in the Military", wikipedia
"The Disposability of Boys", Good Men Project
"Psychology of Child Soldiers", Carr Center Harvard
"Hitler Youth and Nazi Propaganda",  Master of Education

Online Books
The Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar  58-50 BC
War is a Racket, General Smedley Butler 1935
The Costs of War: America's Pyrrhic Victories, John V. Denson 2011 [highly recommended collection of cutting edge essays and letters]