Sam Liebeskind

The transformative potential of civil society institutions is core to that Skocpolian transition that you're talking about from membership to management. These historical membership-based institutions that Theda Skocpol studies were built on the idea that they matter because they equip us with the habits and skills that we need in order to forge a... See more

Here’s the other problem with Facebook and Twitter and even The New York Times. When you expose yourself to those things, especially in the constant way that people do now—older people as well as younger people—you are continuously bombarding yourself with a stream of other people’s thoughts. You are marinating yourself in the conventional wisdom.... See more

But long before the internet, philosophers and religious leaders theorized a global connectivity, or collective consciousness. In 1922, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin coined the term “Noosphere”, or the “thinking layer” of the earth, networking all human thought. In the internet era, his predictions have become surprisingly accurate, now starting to... See more

Friction is inevitable in human relationships. It can be uncomfortable, even maddening. Yet friction can be meaningful—as a check on selfish behavior or inflated self-regard; as a spur to look more closely at other people; as a way to better understand the foibles and fears we all share.

When we seek to intervene in any system created by someone, it’s not enough to view their decisions and choices simply as the consequences of first-order thinking because we can inadvertently create serious problems. Before changing anything, we should wonder whether they were using second-order thinking. Their reasons for making certain choices... See more

A working-class-focused media could be supported by the dozens of media-oriented philanthropies and local news initiatives funded by taxpayers, like the recent ones in New Jersey and California, as well as independent media cooperatives—people pooling resources to create real alternatives to corporate media. As Pickard has written, public funding... See more