Matt Rota (source). What a loaded image!
A rough note on some dots that ought to connect somehow — or that point at things we should want to connect:
- Kevin Bales’s and Michael Rota’s book Friends of God and Slaves of Men (Interview with the authors at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture)
- “The fundamental fact of slavery, past and present, is that a person is reduced to ‘property’ and may be used, abused, exploited, bought, sold, or killed. Slaves today, because they tend to be much less costly than slaves in the past, are normally treated as disposable inputs in criminal activities.”
- Free the Slaves:
- “Modern slavery is a result of social, cultural, and political conditions that make people vulnerable. Poverty, war and conflict, migration, lack of access to basic human rights, and many other related factors create conditions where the powerful have the opportunity to oppress and exploit the weak. To end slavery, those most vulnerable to slavery must have the knowledge and resources they need to protect themselves and their communities.”
- Carmen Imes’ “Bearing,” “Being,” “Becoming” series (Interview with Imes at OnScript — “This is God yelling.”)
- Amy Pope’s piece (and interview) on immigration and labor in Foreign Affairs
- “When immigration is poorly managed, communities feel the tension. Yet when local officials receive the support and resources required to manage immigration, they are often the first to express their support for newcomers.”
- Luke 13:23-30 — “The narrow door and the table of God” (emphasis on “striving,” agōnizesthe, as compared to, say, excuse-making or “realism”)
- Sarah Susanka in her book The Not So Big House:
- “Frank Lloyd Wright believed that everyone should be able to live in an architect-designed house, each on its own acre of land. Much of his life and work was devoted to the de-urbanization of America, with the single-family homestead as the basic building block of civilized life. Wright designed a series of houses that were affordable and smaller than the typical house of the day—interestingly enough, promoting the idea even then of eliminating the formal space of the house and integrating the kitchen into the primary living space.”
- Christopher Alexander’s Timless Way
- “When a pattern language is properly used, it allows the person who uses it to make places which are part of nature. The character of nature is not something added to a good design. It comes directly from the order of the language. When the order of the patterns and the language is correct, the differentiating process allows the design to unfold as smoothly as an opening flower.” (Some mutatis mutandis required, but maybe not as much as you might think.)
- Chris Smaje, Finding Lights in a Dark Age:
- “My main point is that the dismal economics of the self-employed vegetable grower are ultimately a reflection, if a slightly distorted one, of the real economy of nature and Earth systems, to which all of us are destined to return.”
- “Instead of a politics of labour agitation that hopes to summon greater riches for workers out of capital, we need to degrade capital so that we can interact with each other in community as owners of our own labour and necessary capital, including land.”
- “In view of the enormous uncertainties of the present meta-crisis, it’s worth everybody imagining themselves as a potentially friendless migrant.”
- Also, Smaje and Michael Budde in the previous post
And of course, words from a Silly Old Bear:
“I’ve been thinking,” said Pooh, “and what I’ve been thinking is this. I’ve been thinking about Eeyore.”
“What about Eeyore?”
“Well, poor Eeyore has nowhere to live.”
“Nor he has,” said Piglet.
“You have a house, Piglet, and I have a house, and they are very good houses. And Christopher Robin has a house, and Owl and Kanga and Rabbit have houses, and even Rabbit’s friends and relations have houses or somethings, but poor Eeyore has nothing. So what I’ve been thinking is: Let’s build him a house.”
“That,” said Piglet, “is a Grand Idea. Where shall we build it?”