The World We Want

Creating The World YOU Want - Get Engaged

Here are some ideas for how to take action in your community:

Host a Book Discussion - Bring a group together to delve deeper into the complex issues raised by the book. Download a list of discussion questions View an invitation to Associated Grant Makers' Book Discussion (August '07 in Boston) Invite Peter to Give a Motivational Speech - Hear directly from the author about his thoughts on social change, the role for philanthropy, and pick his brain about what it all means. Description, video, and transcript from The Boston Foundation's Kickoff Event (September '07)

Partner with TPI to Host a Workshop for Donors in Your Community - Thematic workshops allow participants to discuss their own thoughts, how they intersect with those presented in TWWW, and delve deeper into a particularly meaningful theme. View a list of workshop themes Description of the workshop at The Minnesota Council on Foundations (November '07, led by Peter and TPI Senior Fellow, Amy Ellsworth).

Host a Private Event - Bring together a group of concerned citizens to discuss your goals for making a difference in your community. Read about the dinner for the President's Council on Civic Leadership (October '07, hosted by The Case Foundation in Washington D.C.)

Organize a Large-scale Community Event - When a community is ready to move from "We need to do something" to "We're ready to get started," bring all the players and stakeholders together to solicit feedback and create community ownership. Read about the 2-day event in St. Louis to support collaborative community action (December '07, hosted by the Business Journal and The Gateway Center for Giving)

Discuss the Book Over Breakfast We invite you to join us at TPI's office in downtown Boston at 9:00am on January 31, 2008 for a discussion of "The Power of Advocacy" (Chapter Four - The Listening Post: Reflection and Radical Change) Discussion topics will include: Is there an advantage in taking an inventory of basic human needs? What are the "commodities" essential to making your community a better place? Does advocacy play a role in your citizen or philanthropic efforts? If not, what holds you back? How does the role of government differ between Canada and the U.S.? Is it possible to replicate in the U.S. what the Maytree Foundation has accomplished? What are the advantages to a rational, "shoulder to the stone" approach versus ideology and sentiment? Contact Lucy Wolfe at lwolfe@tpi.org for more information about this event.

Peter Karoff Interviewed by Ellen Remmer

Ellen Remmer, head of The Philanthropic Initiative, interviews H. Peter Karoff, founder of TPI, about The World We Want.

Sleepwalkers Awakening

Published at Gifthub. A tribute to what I have learned from Peter.

Ongoing Lessons from Wingspread

The jongleur, H. Peter Karoff as.

From Conversation to Collaboration

Jane Maddox in her update on The World We Want writes,

The virtual and online networks have great capacity for conversation, but the sense of community in which action can be taken is more elusive.

That about sums it up. Within the world of The Philanthropic Initiative, it is about more than talk because the clients are generally large foundations or wealthy families. The budget, connections, board memberships, etc. are already in place, or within reach. The question is how best to leverage them for maximum effect. Online, among ordinary citizens, the resources are not so apparent.  To go from talk to action by the many may require leadership and resources from the few. Convening that conversation from book to blog could be an interesting experiment in sociology.

The World We Want: From Athens and Jerusalem

H. Peter Karoff -- can you imagine him bald and barefoot in Athens, like Socrates or Diogenes, accosting the wealthiest citizens and asking crafty questions about "The World We Want?" I can. I believe his writings are essentially an attempt to come to terms with that role, the role of, as Socrates put it, being "the midwife" of the interlocutor's soul, or moral life. Paideia is the term for doing that, the elicitation of what is best in a person, within the traditions by which the person has been formed and must pass on, as any creature is formed by its genes and passes them on with variations. (Part of our genetic code as Americans is the charming delusion that we are each self-made, just coincidentally as alike as mass manufactured commodities.) In any case, at Gifthub, Giving as Moral Heroism is about these issues. Where the work of philanthropy goes wrong is when we honor big givers who give just a little of what they have over broken people who give all. Gifted givers are all equal in the eyes of God, if we take Jesus as any guide to that. That is my theme, and you can say, I impose it on Peter's work. But if you read his essays again you will see that the examples holding his attention are creative, artistic, or heroic, and that many instances are not about money at all. The book, The World We Want, may be mostly about the life-determining and culture-determning gifts of the wealthy, but Peter's surprising inclusion of me in that book was at least a back door open to people of limited financial means. I hope that through this blog we can include in the conversation gifted givers whose wallets may be empty, but whose head, heart, and dedication might put many wealthy people to shame. Where the World We Want may come to life is when we meet as citizens in common purpose and money is subordinate to shared ideals, joint action, and love (caritas). I believe these were among the founding principles of our country, and reflect our debt to Athens and Jerusalem.  We pay that gift forward, whether rich or poor by upholding those ideals and passing them on intact to our heirs, keeping our democracy alive, even as wealth, power, honors and prestige, flow upward to the few. To keep our traditions alive, to conserve The World We Want, we must wake up, as Peter suggests in Sleepwalkers. As vile a man as he might be, I will give my own Morals Tutor the last word.
 

The Invisible Community Forms

The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.  - Coleridge, Frost at Midnight

Woods S. Lot with a hat tip to Dave Pollard with a hat tip to Jon husband links to Lohmann's essays on building community. Gives one faith in the whole concept of social filters. These are discriminating readers who are making the connection link by link. So invisible communities are formed and maintained. This is not a market. What is given is not for sale. 

In Praise of Deference

Deference as of faithful servant to master, as of Jay Hughes to Dynastic Wealth, is the etiquette of aristocracy. Call it fealty. If you wish to play a role in the official transcript where preferment is offered to pundits, consultants, financial advisors, attorneys, fundraisers, astrologers, think tank thinkers, you must not be shrill, uncivil, or rude - you must not buck the system in how you present yourself. Your opinions may be at odds with accepted opinion but must be couched in forms that demonstrate that you both know and follow the rules of good manners and good taste, that you are  in every speech act tractable, and able and willing to kiss up. How then does one go beyond disagreeing agreeably, to shaking the frame of the discourse, upending hierarchy, and re-engaging with democracy based on reciprocity rather than deference, and the servile worship of celebrity, wealth, rank, and power? There are proven models - carnival, masquerade,  satire, parody, pantomime, and the other weapons of the weak canvassed by James Scott and Bakhtin.  Practicing these modes is the public responsibility of subordinated artists and thinkers in a  once and future democracy. Do not fear that this is a career limiting move. Uncle Tom is Uncle Remus. The Trickster/Sychophant is Brer Rabbit. Handling your indignation appropriately you can sleep as did Peter Karoff in the Big House and still write Stillness.

Now the style of this post is acceptable. Strunk and White prose; radical views presented in a mild, civil, toothless style that shows quite clearly that the author has failed completely to learn the lesson he allegedly teaches. He writes as a stooge about the importance of the Fool. But I am a successful man, well acculturated to working with wealth. I have no interest in playing the Fool, turning the whole social scene upside down, and ending up in Dumpster with nothing to show for my selflessness than a sack of garbage to sleep on, and the contempt of the powers that be who would then pass me by without a glance. Better with Peter to stay on good terms with our clients. Profit, I have always found, is the best index of civic virtue. Candidia Cruikshanks, my generous patron, will do more for orphans and cripples with her new Bordello than all the transfer payments that would just make these losers dependent on a handout. I salute her. The skills cripples and orphans learn as pimps and whores will serve them well in whatever career they next embrace, whether in politics, business, the media, or philanthropic consulting. And the money Candidia makes can be plowed back into more D/s whorehouses the world over. This is what we call a sustainable double bottom line social venture. No wonder Candy earns accolades from Presidents.

Status Quo Comity

Mr. Scruggs suggests that the decorum of philanthropy, indeed of The World We Want, assures status quo comity.

So, what can be done? My view is that wealthy donors are best ignored. The power asymmetry and power games admit of no resolution that I can see. Even if they come through, there are too many control issues. The same skills that make a good facilitator in that realm apply just as well to low level organizing, seeking funds in the $10s and $20s for work that isn't likely to be getting anyone a charitable deduction. I understand that that is terribly inefficient. It would probably take decades to get anywhere.

What would happen if hundreds of thousands of highly paid experts in law, social theory, public policy, and family values were to flatter and cajole the likes of Mr. Scruggs, begging him for time, attention, a link, a penny, under the delusion he were a person of substance in every sense of that word, i.e., filthy rich? None would dare offend him. The press would cover him with awe. In the World We Want, might some nobody like Scruggs, win a kind of credibility lottery each day, and be treated for 24 hours for all the world as if he or she were a noted philanthropist? No matter what nonsense Scruggs would utter, the lackies would write it down, and talk it up. The dumbest idea, in my experience, sounds like genius when uttered by a newly minted billionaire. "Double bottom line." "Political Return on Investment." Sounds so profound. The World We Want would contain much mirth. Rich and poor would feast together, drink together, fornicate, play at fisticuffs, and fall asleep together beneath the table, good fellows one and all, not to exclude the doxies, rich and nonrich. Let us find comity as we gouge each other's eyes out in a spirit of fun.

The Legend of Saint Progressive

The World We Want as the lesser of evils. Download a 3-minute video by Mr. Scruggs here, "The Legend of Saint Progressive." Raises in my mind many of the same issues as H.Peter Karoff's Sleepwalkers. Politics, sales, and philanthropy are arts of the possible. Awakening our fellow citizens is, if not impossible, pretty risky, particularly if the citizens in question are at the tip of the social pyramid. Better with Saint Progressive to steer a middle course.  Elsewhere in End Times Prophecy,  lamb is on sale at Piggly-Wiggly. I also recommend the veal.