6.10 Thompson (2017)
Thompson, Keith (2017) "Stand Up For Truth and Reality! Helping Restore a Strong Truth/Reality-Based Majority in America" (four handouts used in a class at First United Methodist Church, Boulder, CO)
The handouts for this class were written by the author of this website (see 3. Meet the Author). Also included on this site are my (2004) "Using Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ to Explore the Heart of Your Faith--A Discussion Starter." (see 4.8) and (2015) "Experiencing God in the Bible: Bible Basics for Progressive Christians" (see 4.16)
The handouts for this class were written by the author of this website (see 3. Meet the Author). Also included on this site are my (2004) "Using Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ to Explore the Heart of Your Faith--A Discussion Starter." (see 4.8) and (2015) "Experiencing God in the Bible: Bible Basics for Progressive Christians" (see 4.16)
Will we, in our significant communities and not just as individuals,
answer the call to stand up for Truth and Reality at this crucial time when
the very existence of our liberal democracy is at stake in America?
If this sounds unreasonably alarmist, have you noticed the growing number of respected commentators on our national scene who are sounding this precise warning? And if “Truth and Reality” seems too abstract to be an important component of a call to join a social justice movement, please read on.
The four handouts are designed to provide what I believe are some of the most significant--and often surprising--information about the deepest roots of this long-developing threat to our democracy and what we can do about it. They will be available one per month during the fall of 2017.
My hope is that early in 2018 secular and religious communities will use this information to decide how they--as communities--can take their own unique actions to stand up for Truth and Reality to strengthen our democracy.
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The topics of the four handouts are:
(click on the highlighted names to access the PDFs)
I. Oh, Come On! The Very Existence of Our Liberal Democracy In Danger?
The Issue: Do “Post-Truth” and “Alternative Reality” really threaten our nation?
Primary Resource: (A) On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the 20th Century by Timothy Snyder (2017)
(Presentation and Discussion 10/8/17, 9:00-10:30 am, First United Methodist Church, Boulder, CO)
II. America: Fantasy Trumps Truth and Reality (pun intended)
The Issue: Why do such large percentages of our population fervently believe things that are demonstratively false?
Primary Resource: (B) “How America Lost Its Mind” by Kurt Andersen (14 page article in the September 2017 issue of
Atlantic Magazine - a summary of his 2017 book Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire--A 500-Year History)
(Presentation and Discussion 10/15/17, 12:00-1:00 pm, First United Methodist Church, Boulder, CO)
III. The Decades-in-the-Making Enormous U.S. Socio-Economic Class Gap
The Issue: Why did so many middle class whites vote for Trump’s extremist nationalist/ populist agenda?
Primary Resource: (C) The Retreat of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce (2017)
(Presentation and Discussion 11/12/17, 12:00-1:00 pm, First United Methodist Church, Boulder, CO)
IV. The Essential Roles of Faith and Repentance for Communal Social Justice Action
The Issue: Why is it so difficult for American communities, religious and secular, at the local level to develop and sustain
healthy, effective ways to promote social justice?
Primary Resource: (D) The Church for the World: A Theology of Public Witness by Jennifer M. McBride (2012)
(Presentation and Discussion 12/17/17, 12:00-1:00 pm, First United Methodist Church, Boulder, CO)
More information about the subjects in Handout #1
Click Here to access more information about (A) On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the 20th Century by Timothy Snyder (2017).
Click Here to access two critical clips from a review of On Tyranny, which are addressed in Handouts #2 and #3.
Go to http://www.cc.com/video-clips/63ite2/the-colbert-report-the-word---truthiness for Colbert's 2005 hilarious video clip.
Go to https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/22/president-trumps-list-of-false-and-misleading-claims-tops-1000/?utm_term=.7f88e5774cc6 to access The Washington Post's list of Trump's untruths.
Go to https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-unbearable-stench-of-trumps-bs/2016/08/04/aa5d2798-5a6e-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html?utm_term=.cf3bdd66e21f for Zakaria's "The Unbearable Stench of Trump's B.S." column.
Go to http://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/robert.tierney/phil1301-6/bullshit/g.a.-cohen-deeper-into-bullshit/at_download/file
for a full copy of Harry Frankfurt's 1986 essay "On Bullshit" in the Rarity Quarterly Review 6(2), which he published in book form in 2005.
One of the many excellent books published in 2018 on the topics of this handout is How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.
More information about the subjects in Handout #2
Go to https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/ to access Andersen's complete Atlantic Magazine article.
Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRqDzEOJImw for an hour-long YouTube video interview of Petersen by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic Magazine.
Click Here to access more information about Dan Stiver's Theology After Ricoeur.
Go to https://youtu.be/U5ydF5hE5Q4 for a short YouTube video about today's radical subversion of truth and reality featuring Trump and Putin in March 2017.
Click Here to access my detailed, five-part personal profile on my website that helps you begin to see some of the foundations of my interpretations.
More information about the subjects in Handout #3
Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrUe15eF0Yc for a 35-minute talk by Luce followed by Q+A about his book The Retreat of Western Liberalism.
Go to http://www.pbs.org/video/pbs-newshour-edward-luce-its-time-to-start-thinking-america/ for a brief PBS interview with Luce about his earlier book--Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent (2013).
Go to https://youtu.be/8X6VwqQT4h8 for a brief YouTube video of an interview with Peter Pomerantsev about his book Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia (note this was in Dec. 2014).
Go to https://youtu.be/wrCgC3xWZBI for a more extensive, 35-minute YouTube video interview with Peter Pomerantsev (note this was in Feb. 2015).
Go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/putins-revenge/ to watch the special 2-hour edition of PBS's Frontline that examines Putin's rise to power in Russia and his use of disinformation to sow seeds of doubt about truth and reality in order to destabilize Western liberal democracies including the U.S. right up to the present.
One of the most important books published in 2017 on the topics related to this handout is White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America by Joan C. Williams. That book is an expansion of her earlier paper in the Harvard Business Review, 11/10/2016--"What So Many People Don't Get About the U.S. Working Class," which contains the basics of her argument.
More information about the subjects in Handout #4
Click Here to access a 2013 interview with Jennifer McBride on The Church for the World. See especially her understanding of "triumphalism" on p. 1, "confession" + "repentance" on p. 3, the "political" nature of the Christian faith and that "any ordinary congregation" can embody the way of life to which she's pointing (pp. 4-5).
Go to https://youtu.be/xwQsVcAHogo for a brief YouTube video (posted 11/23/17) of a PBS NewsHour interview with E.J. Dionne and Norman Ornstein about their 2017 book, co-authored by Thomas Mann, One Nation After Tump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported.
Go to https://youtu.be/WBSpIFIkqO4https://youtu.be/WBSpIFIkqO4 for an hour-long YouTube video (posted 12/4/17) of an Aspen Institute interview with Dionne and Ornstein on their book (directly above).
One of the many excellent book published in 2018 on the topics in this handout is Them: Why We Hate Each Other--And How To Heal by Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska. He argues forcefully that only a recovery of "rootedness" can heal our lonely souls.
(There are no plans at this time for either a Highlights or Detailed Review for this resource.)