More of a call to reason than a call to arms, the book offers hope in the face of great challenges.
A multicultural, interdisciplinary overview of activism as a means to an end.
As a social ethicist and Unitarian minister, Welch (Communities of Resistance and Solidarity: A Feminist Theology of Liberation, 2017, etc.) balances idealism and pragmatism, arguing that “we can be morally pure but strategically inept, and when that happens we lose.” Through surveys of literature, personal experience, and profiles of those on the front lines, she makes a case for “visionary pragmatism” as “an alternative to utopian thinking or cynicism and despair.” She finds kindred spirits where others see resistance or compromise: socially responsible corporations, socially engaged academics, a movement dubbed “Solutions Journalism” (which some would consider crossing the line from observer to participant), and Barack Obama, disparaged by some activists as too moderate but praised here for “one of the ongoing legacies of the Obama presidency—a catalytic form of civic engagement—not utopian but committed to the creation of microtopias that bear the seeds of ongoing critique and engagement.” The author’s approach stresses progress and process rather than pie-in-the-sky goals that see protests dissipate when they are unrealized. She allows that there are many different approaches that can be employed to achieve similar ends and that any sign of progress might well intensify resistance (Obama followed by Trump). Throughout, Welch draws from a tale told within the Potawatomi Nation of the “Windigo, a person driven by greediness with a heart as cold as ice, only focused on his or her own needs.” She urges white activists to recognize the Windigo within, to see how its spirit within the nation has exploited others, and to strive for an inclusive society that reflects and serves our better natures: “Helping people to create organizational structures and policies that identify and check such implicit biases or prejudices is essential in our work of creating a society and economic system that truly embodies our values.”
More of a call to reason than a call to arms, the book offers hope in the face of great challenges.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4798-5790-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: New York Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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