If you are a humanist, concerned with quality of life and conditions that support it, quantity of anything, including economic growth, is not likely your primary focus.

As much attention that was focused onOntario’s budgetary deficit should be directed to delineating what defines a desired quality of life for its people.  The functional majority is unlikely to crave excesses or mention economic growth as a priority for the province.  There probably is a growing number who recognize that more is not always better and cooperatively sharing ultimately is better for everyone.

Perhaps the most important service the functional majority, when surveyed, would say they want are conditions that are conducive to the optimal realization of all children’s potential.  I for one do not want to see my children co-opted by the status quo obsessed with consumerism and the banal lives of a privileged few whose sordid affairs we are constantly bombarded with in the media.  I wish for them and everyone of us a new social order in which quality of life is the focus and in which responsible productivity, social cooperation and harmonious co-existence with the environment and all other people are equally valued.

So by all means let us all support balancing the budget of all governments.  But also factor into formulas, such as that proposed by Mr. Drummond, attending to the human element so that there is not only agreement with the need but support for fiscal financial responsibility because of a realization that quality not quantity is what really matters.

Talk about, maybe even make a list of what defines your qualify of life.

Notwithstanding the fact that genetically we are very close to many creatures, I believe chimpanzees being the closest, our brain is a key distinguishing factor.  Specifically, every brain structure above our reptilian module, on top of our spinal cord, is the essence of what affords us the potential of becoming human.  To quote the late Carl Rogers we are not human beings we are human becomings, a reality none of us should ever ignore.

Because of our cerebral cortex therefore, we have an appreciation, indeed a desire for the aesthetic.  Sure other creatures use aesthetics to attract a mate but we human becomings go beyond this function.  Indeed we exert great effort and assign much resources in the pursuit of aesthetics.  For us too the aesthetic serves a function albeit of a different order than securing a mate by the show of brightly coloured feathers.  Yes I know we human becomings also resort to this aesthetic function but it is the other functions to which I am referring.

I believe the other functions to be two fold.  I believe the one function to be a key element in the process of becoming human.

As our cognitive developmental perspective evolves and our primary needs are more than not satisfied, so also our aesthetic sensibilities develop and discernibly change over time.  In contract when our development is obstructed by adverse environmental conditions and the pursuit of our primary needs are paramount the development of our aesthetic sensibilities also is constrained.  As a result universal interest in the aesthetic is not uniform.  It takes many forms such as various mutilations of the body or the creation of David by Michaelangelo.  Regardless of what form the created aesthetic takes it is assuredly a human pursuit.

The aesthetic can and does serve another purpose than being a key factor in our becoming human as evidenced by our changing views of what is beautiful.  It is significant in establishing status and thereby power.  This explains the grandeur of European palaces, parliaments and the private homes of the nobility.  This function also explains the grandeur of the American industrialists’ homes and the Nuevo Riche expenditures on art and all things masterfully crafted.  When aesthetics are used for this function, to convey status and power, certain primary needs are unresolved for the user and cognitive development perspectives are obstructed.  Their appreciation, understanding and derived benefits of and from the aesthetic is preconventional and thereby is not only limited to the immediate but also is dispensable.  For a more detailed description of obstructed development and its impact on human functioning see Chapter Six in Because We Can,  http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php.

Unfortunately the appreciation for and the pursuit of the aesthetic also is embedded in consumerism.  This too can and does give it a negative connotation and for certain contributes to my emotion of guilt for indulging my self with things I want as opposed to need.

Alternatively, however, the aesthetic arguably can be a very human need for those who are not constantly under siege, have their primary needs for safety, food and shelter met and cognitive developmentally function at least at the conventional level of reasoning.  The aesthetic is a need because it is essential to becoming human in terms of learning to recognize beauty and the importance of preserving it for its own sake.  Tragically to contribute to the elevation of the human condition by pursuing the aesthetic one cannot be stuck in a survival mode.  When one is starving or is under siege little else occupies the mind other than survival.  Therefore, the extent to which we embrace the aesthetic for its own sake reveals much about our progress in becoming human.

I feel a little better now and hope that you feel likewise.  The pursuit of the aesthetic remains, however, to be a perplexing issue to be individually resolved.  Determining what function the desired object serves should go a long way in resolving this perplexing dilemma.

 The answer is immediately at hand that it is not a new big idea.  A random time sample will reveal that poverty and all the negatives associated with it has always been a concern.  For example, the profession of social work emerged out of the investigations, social diagnosis, of economist’s intent on discovering the causes of poverty and associated difficulties and addressing the causes with relevant interventions.  Work of this nature was well underway in the early eighteen hundreds and there is much written about it and about the charity organizations that followed.

 Not by process of elimination in this simple dichotomy but based on analyses the notion of poverty reduction is indeed a platitude.

 The dictionary defines platitude as; a trite or commonplace remark delivered solemnly.  Poverty reduction also is a motherhood statement with which no reasonable person could or would disagree.  Those who advocate for it engage in much rhetoric often of a nature that admonishes those who do not support or agree with the initiative.

 While I firmly believe that all positive sustainable change comes from grand and lofty ideas I also believe that we are long overdue putting the idea of poverty reduction into coordinated well thought out actions.

 The impetus for writing this comes from an article in my local paper calling for government investment in poverty reduction.  To the best of my ability, the only tactic I could discern was a call “for real social assistance reform”.  Simply put a bigger cheque for those in need so that they will not have to rely on food banks to feed their families.

 I am certain that there are more tactics to reducing poverty than a bigger social assistance cheque.  The trouble with the article to which I am reacting is that they were not listed.  I need to know, we need to know, what tactics the poverty reduction advocates want to implement.  The sooner we know the details the sooner we can resolve the inevitable objections and then get on with what needs to be done.

 For certain we need to engage in both remedial and preventative tactics.  Moreover, in the spirit of the elephant in the room, we need to acknowledge and guard against the inevitable abuses that will occur if indeed social assistance cheques become sufficient to live on without relying on food banks.  Abuses already are occurring because when people are in survival mode their focus is on the here and now not the broad and long term implications of their actions.

 Most importantly the called upon investment that will produce the best and sustainable results will be initiatives that are preventive in nature.  The preventive investments do not put monies directly in the hands of the poor in terms of a living social assistance cheque or a living wage.  Instead, the investment is in the various social institutions, mostly our education system, that are mandated to facilitate, to their full potential, the development of all children who came in contact with them.  No talk of poverty reduction is complete without including preventative measures.

 Prevention of poverty is far more complex and costly undertaking than increasing the social assistance cheques of those in need or implementing a living wage requirement.  Preventing poverty initiatives also threatens the status quo and will most certainly mobilize all its inadvertent protectors.  Just because prevention is more difficult, however, is no reason to turn away from it and settle for remedial actions.  The degree of difficulty, of any task including preventing poverty, is directly proportional to the benefits and satisfaction that come from getting it done.

 For a comprehensive description of remedial and preventative measures to address not only poverty but all the human malaise that has plagued us since the beginning of our time on this earth see Part Three in Because We Can.

Because we can – we must:
Achieving the Human Developmental Potential          http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php

In Five Generations

While I take pride in my status as a Luddite I do value and appreciate the basic benefits of technology.  After all I am of the generation that had reports processed on a mechanical typewriter and extra copies made through the magic of carbon paper.  Each rewrite or edit invariably produced new errors creating what at times felt like being in a state of demonic infinity.

So, even for me technological advances, for the most part, are good, albeit some, especially in my car, completely unnecessary.  In the spirit of the elephant in the room, however, it is essential that we acknowledge that, like any tool electronic communication devices can be put to both good and bad use.  This especially applies to those hand held ones.

Missing in the CBC segment was the fact that the hand held communication devises fuel and potentially indefinitely protracts what is known as the reference group cognitive developmental perspective (see Because We Can Chapter Four  http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php).  I call this a fact because we know that the invariant hierarchical sequence of development exists and that everyone goes through the stages.  I call this a fact because we also know that environmental conditions determine how fast and how far we progress through the invariant sequence of stages.

For example, in places where people are in constant survival mode development is constrained.  In places where survival is less of an issue development is still obstructed, albeit at a higher stage.  In any event, obstructed cognitive development is essential for maintaining the status quo and is at the root of many social ills.  The lower the stage at which it is obstructed the better the conditions are for maintaining the status quo. 

Before the advent of hand held electronic communication devices a myriad of institutions obstructed cognitive development by fostering the belief of safety in numbers and membership in a group or gang.  The bigger and more powerful the gang the safer you are and the greater will be the rewards, was and continues to be the message of the institutions.  Religion as an institution has always been excellent in obstructing development ensuring that people stagnate at the reference group perspective.  The institutions of nationality also have been  powerful forces in stagnating development as well as various political ideologies.  Now the status quo maintenance efforts of all the institutions are being exponentially aided and abetted by the hand held electronic communication devices.

Because the devices allow, especially the young, to stay in constant contact with their respective gangs, the ease with which immediate contact is made create no discomfort.  Without discomfort there is no need to create a more comprehensive and adaptive meaning to the experience of having to be in constant contact.  As long as we belong to a gang and we are in constant contact life is good.  Or so we think.

Temporarily, in the short term, our identity being defined by belonging is natural  and a foundation on which development is built.  It is one of life’s primary needs, which when unsatisfied, lead to profound later life negative consequences.  Unfortunately, also there are profound later life negative consequences when we languish, especially at the reference group stage perspective.

Untold atrocities have been committed in the name of religion, political ideology, nationality and in the name of all sorts of gangs who justify their actions in terms of “this is what we do to them.”

From my perspective therefore a hand held electronic communication device is a  tool that is being put to much bad use.  It is far from just being an annoyance about which we need specific etiquette rules.  The cell phone in all its variations, deliberately or as a happy coincidence has become a significant tool of the status quo protectors.  At the very least, those who refine, manufacture and sell these electronic hand held communication devices know that they cannot go wrong by appealing to the reference group cognitive developmental needs of the masses.  Not bad, with the same tool make a lot of money and stifle the development of the consumer so your product will be a continuously growing success.

Knowledge, however, can be liberating as is striving to live a conscious and reflective life.  We need not be enslaved by the device nor be constrained to live  a life consumed by a need for gang membership.  We have the potential to develop beyond where we are stuck.  All it takes is creating a different meaning to the anxiety and panic that overwhelms us when we are NOT in constant communication with our respective gang.

Because we can – we must:
Achieving the Human Developmental Potential          http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php

In Five Generations

 Now I am desperate to channel my energies and skills into changing the world.  My current inspirational models are David Suzuki, Christopher Hitchens, Al Gore and the like.  When I was a neophyte professional, an aspiring therapist intent on fixing the troubled lives of people through some clever discourse I explored and emulated the methods of so called therapist gurus of the time.  Among the many there was Habib Devenloo, Albert Elis, Carl Rogers, Virginia Satir and my favourite Fritz Pearls.  All had movies of themselves at work explaining/rationalizing their actions on the basis of a particular theoretical model.  The chain smoking curly haired aggressive Fritz Pearls, from Big Sur, was the one I tried to emulate the most.  Alas I did not nor did I want to smoke and my hair would not cooperate to be like his.  Particularly, I had difficulty being aggressive with clients.  In short order I abandoned trying to copy others and began to give into exploring what I found to be curious including what I was going to do with my life.

 This has been a far more productive and gratifying process than trying to look like and behave as someone else.  Unfortunately life always interferes with life and the need to pay bills at times distracted me from the path I preferred.  In retrospect, however, much benefits were derived from the distractions but only after deliberate analyses.

 A myriad of experiences in the process of living eventually culminated in my current optimistic aspiration.  As a crystal it is most clear in Because We Can.  The best feedback I have received about this book so far is that I am, at this stage in my life, no longer just optimistic, but optimistic to a fault.  I am now, in this good way, more like myself then ever before.

 So this New Year message, to one and all, is to trust the process to lead to that which is good, but trust it only if you reflect on it and strive to construct meaning of what you experience.  It is natural and appropriate that there is a beginning to every process, and emulating Fritz Pearls for me was a necessary phase in becoming who I am now.  The only credit I can take for what is now is that I chose to benefit from the wisdom of others and always sought to construct informed meaning to what I experienced and what I was experiencing at any given time.  As with all tasks, in time and with much practice I am becoming increasingly better at it.

 I wish this same reflective life for you and implore you to choose to actively pursue it.  Do what you can with your life but especially strive to make the world a better place and do it in as big a way as you possibly can.  Now this is an endeavour of which there will be never enough.

Because we can – we must:

Achieving the Human Developmental Potential          http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php

In Five Generations

In Because We Can the point is made that under ideal circumstances most of the world reasons and behaves from a stage three reference group perspective.  To make the point I call reference groups ‘gangs’.  To really make the point I say that the Hell’s Angels motorcycle outlaw group is a gang just as the Vienna Boys Choir is a gang.  Each has their own specific values and code of conduct to which members must subscribe to belong.  By definition therefore, religious denominations, political parties, professions, and private clubs are all gangs.

In Because We Can the point also is made that at the slightest provocation or duress we regress to earlier ways of reasoning about the world and then behave accordingly.  The stage before the reference group perspective is best described as instrumental hedonism.  At this stage of reasoning and behaving focus is on the here and now with little if any appreciation that our actions almost always have broad and long term consequences.  At this stage of reasoning we function mostly at an emotional level or what psychologist call System 1 mode of thinking (see Daniel Kahneman’s new book, (Thinking, Fast and Slow).  Stage Two and System 1 thinking is comprised of effortless impression and emotions void of conscious focused reasoning.

For the most part then when we cast our ballot we are doing so at a regressed cognitive developmental stage perspective, using System 1 mode of thinking, basing our decision on impressions and emotions.  At the very best, the minority chooses a candidate based on a reference group perspective, albeit also acting on System 1 thinking that the individual is one of us, is very much like me and therefore is a pleasing reflection of who I am (more precisely who the person likes to believe who she or he is).

This is the reason why the media often characterizes the elected representative as the peoples major, premier, senator, prime minister or president.

The next concept that is relevant to understanding the rapid decline in popularity of an elected official is the psychological process known as projection.  In its most primitive mode as a defense, the mechanism of projection refers to an urge to reject (spit out) anything that is painful.  This can be the self, but to spit out or reject the self is counterproductive to employing the defense mechanism of projection in the first place.

The ancients in their own wisdom recognized this conundrum and to solve it invented the idea of a scapegoat.  A scapegoat essentially was a real goat on whose head were invested all the sins of the people.  The goat was then rejected, cast out or sacrificed, to atone for the wrongdoings, mistakes or sins of the people who selected it for the very purpose.

In modern times the scapegoats are real people, mostly elected representatives.

Politicians are elected based on System 1 thinking and from a Cognitive developmental perspective that is emotionally based with a focus on similarity.

For the very reason therefore that a politician is elected, because he or she is like us, and because at some level we experience parts of ourselves as unacceptable, something to be spit out, scapegoating of the people’s elected representative quickly will occur.  Within a year popularity drastically plummets much to the bewilderment of the once favoured official and the interested observer.

So what is the lesson to be learned?

First and foremost, if we ever hope to progress through social systems which politicians influence, we must steel ourselves when deciding how to vote to employ System 2 thinking and a cognitive developmental perspective that is higher than ”is he or she like me or a member of my gang?”  We must use conscious focused reasoning with the intent to elect someone who is “not like me” but better.  Someone who is of superior cognitive intellect, someone who reasons and behaves at a post conventional moral developmental perspective, and someone whose emotional intelligence abilities are optimally developed.  After all do we not all want the best cardiac surgeon?  For the same reasons, our health and welfare, we should strive to elect those who are superior to who we are, so that we do not have to scapegoat them within a year for having the same faulty qualities we so dislike in ourselves.

The challenge is not easy, but being aware of what it is, is the first step.  Once we learn to chose with reason perhaps more people better than us will run for office.

Because we can – we must:
Achieving the Human Developmental Potential          http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php

In Five Generations

To effectively address, indeed solve, the plight of Canada’s natives, not just in isolated communities, but everywhere, there is a significant prerequisite that is required.  No apology for the debacle of residential schools, or for any other maltreatment of First Nations will suffice.  The politically incorrect, elephant in the room, first must be acknowledged.

Specifically, since Europeans landed on the shores of North America, all First Nations have been and continue to be under siege.  When under siege the defensive reaction is to regress to an instinctive preconventional stage of reasoning and behaving that is singularly focused on the immediate satisfaction of needs.  At this level of being the needs are primary, they are either survival focused (satisfy hunger, thirsts etc.) or focused on the avoidance of harm.  There is no time for reflection or the construction of new/better meaning to experiences.  In a constant state of physical and psychological survival mode functioning and all aspects of development become stagnated.  In Because We Can, Chapter Six, http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php, an entire section is devoted to describing what happens when one person, group or an entire nation is under siege.

What characterizes third world countries and explains their plight is that they also are in a constant stage of siege.  Corruption is rampant as is violence and all forms of prejudice.  All the aid and infusion of monies have never been able to elevate the pervasive malaise of these people.  Moreover, the malaise is being intergenerationally perpetuated in tragically exponentially growing numbers.  Just think of what is going on inSomalia,Haitiand the Congo.

The exact same process was and continues to be perpetrated on Canada’s First Nations.  Within our midst, dispersed through our communities, and in isolated locations are real observable and measurable occurrences of third world phenomenon of our own making.  The European settlers devastated, put under siege North American natives, from which they have never recovered.  Each generation in survival mode and lacking the experience of being competently parented, repeats the same pattern with their children.  Secure attachment is a rarity and the devastating later life consequences become manifested in addictive characterological traits and in unrealized potential.

No wonder that the so called best minds in Canada have been unable to resolve the pervasive problems of the First Nations people.  No wonder whatever monies are infused into destitute communities, as in all Third World countries, go missing and have very little, or nothing to show for it.  No wonder the First Nation’s chiefs only know to seek remedial intervention, food and shelter, and be at a loss to explain the rapid deterioration of whatever gains were made.  Only the symptoms of the constant siege are acknowledged never the underlying cause.

To solve Canada’s First Nations problem, indeed to solve the global human malaise, requires the implementation of what is recommended in Because We Can.  It is not a quick fix, so we should have started yesterday.

The intervention must be two pronged and simultaneous.  Remedial measures must be taken simultaneously with the collaborative introduction of preventative measures specifically the introduction of Habilitative Communities.  Others have referred to such living arrangements as Just Communities and more recently as Therapeutic Communities.  Regardless of the name the principle is the same.

The principle is that all interactions are purposefully designed and initially facilitated to be conducive to personal growth and development.  Almost always the best place to start this initiative is in schools and community centres.  Self governance structures also are ideally suited to implementing this model of living together and supporting the personal growth of each constituent.  What is facilitated and happens in public is gradually generalized into interaction patterns behind closed doors and most importantly into parenting with empathic nurturance.

In many respects, isolated native communities as the James Bay settlement of Attawapiskat, are ideally suited to implementing the habilitative model incorporating into it traditional cultural elements.  It may not take five generations to realize the full benefits of such an initiative especially if external interference is curtailed.

For the skeptics and for the critical thinkers reading this, there is much published about the design and benefits of therapeutic and similar communities.  Successes have been recorded in both closed and open systems residential settings and there are published models to draw upon (many of which are referenced in Because We Can).

Because we can – we must:

Achieving the Human Developmental Potential          http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php

In Five Generations

 Ontario’s Liberal government is said to be introducing tough legislation in response to three suicides of teenagers who were bullied.  The Premier announced that an anti-bullying legislation is going to sanction harsh consequences for bullying.  The Federal Conservatives are doing the same thing.

 So let us do this again.

 Deterrence does NOT work.

 At the very best, a negative consequence, for a brief period of time, will get a perpetrators attention.  That is all, nothing more.  It is wishful thinking that a harsh consequence accomplishes something more.  And it is unconscionable for governments to pander to the uninformed public by invoking law and order measures.  In Because We Can, Chapter Three there is extensively discussed.  References are made to credible empirical studies and to scholars who have grown tired of the response “my mind is made up, do not confuse me with the facts”.

 Unfortunately, there is no easy nor quick fix to bullying and to being a victim.  Addressing the symptoms, like a child’s fever is a necessity, but not by more rules and harsher consequences.  There are far better remedial methods which over time also will serve to prevent the pervasive bully victim paradigm.

 Very briefly, what is required is a revision/expansion of the elementary and high school curriculum.  But before doing so, or simultaneiously, environmental conditions in each and every school must be changed significantly.  In Part Three of Because We Can, (http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php), the required changes are described extensively.  For example, schools literally must become therapeutic communities.  This translates into structuring the environment in such a way as to ensure all encounters among students, among staff and between students and staff are habilitative.  By habilitative I mean conducive to growth and development.  While the task may sound simple it is not.  Fortunately there are many examples to draw from, including ways in which to monitor the environment and intervene when necessary to stay on track.

 With respect to expanding the curriculum it is noteworthy that without appropriate (habilitative) stimulation, inspite of our cerebral cortex, we would all be feral beings.  We are not born with empathy, compassion or sensibilities, all the abilities that make us so called human.  We acquire these abilities in a variety of ways, generally referred to as being socialized.  Clearly some of us are better, more adaptively, socialized than others.  The point being that the abilities are acquired and as such can be improved upon through purposeful fused curriculum.  The best example of this is empathy training.

 Let us not allow ourselves therefore, to be pandered to.  We know far more than given credit.  And if we don’t know about the efficacy of some things, like bigger and more prisons or harsher consequences, the answers are only a click on the mouse away.  The silent but informed minority, you who are reading this, must join with others to become the informed vocal majority.  A good place to start is to challenge the politicians to tell us what proactive preventative measures are they introducing along with their harsh reactive consequences.  I for one would rather that a child not bully or be hurt rather than respond to the incident after it occurred.

It would be too easy and too simple to blame the subjective priority interests of newspaper editors.  The editors are first business people and as such they know what sells.  The same can be said of all the media.  We are fed only what careful research, data collection and analyses, defines as appealing to our palate.  Most certainly our palate is not sophisticated.  As children resist new foods, especially that which is nourishing, as adults we resist, more accurately, cannot relate to and therefore have no interest in that which is sustainably transformative.

This important point is comprehensively explored in Because We Can, Chapter Four, http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php.  Briefly, the empirically demonstrated reality is that one cannot relate to (understand) a cognitive developmental perspective rationale that is more than one stage advanced.  In other words, a stage two, what’s in it for me preoccupied with the immediate satisfaction of needs, thinker only can relate to (understand) stage three reference group reasoning.  To relate to (understand) the importance and relevance of early childhood education requires having reached a cognitive developmental perspective that, for most people, is three stages removed.  For the majority, the position of early years experts is incomprehensible and therefore is completely uninteresting.  Whereas,  for most of the people Sidney Crosby’s first goal, after a long absence, is completely understandable and therefore fear more interesting.

The lesson to be learned for those of us who get the importance of early childhood education and relevant curriculum, is to be mindful of how we go about persuading others to be supportive of it.  If we reach too far our reasoning will not be understood and interest in what we say immediately will be lost.

Instead of focusing on the human malaise and changing the rut in which humanity has been stuck since the beginning of our time, we need to focus our persuasive strategies on delineating how early childhood education will benefit the competitive edge of our team (our gang).  After all, the earlier a child starts in a sport the better are that child’s chances of becoming successful at it.  The same argument can be made about early relevant education enhancing the competitive edge of our local team in competition with teams from somewhere else.  This is not a difficult argument to make because it is true.  Moreover, there are many valid analogies to draw upon, as for example, the fact that the month in which a child was born, affords a great advantage when entering an organized sport.

In summary, while the task of changing the world in a meaningfully sustainable way is markedly formidable it is not impossible.  There are known tried and tested methods we just have to use them.

Among his many accomplishments Fraser Mustard co-authored in 1999 with then Ontario MPP Margaret McCain the Early Years Study which subsequently was updated a few years ago.  I reference the work in Because We Can and consider it to be crucial to supporting my theses.

In brief, the Early Years Study describes the social determinants of physical health and how experience builds the brain.  Regardless of what natural or innate propensities with which a child is born, the Early Years Study, unequivocally demonstrates that environment always is the activator of the good or the bad, the functional or the dysfunctional, and most importantly how much one’s potential is realized.

InOntariofull-day kindergarten has been linked to the Early Years Study as well asHamilton’s Best Start Network.

Nevertheless, inspite of his stature and influence Fraser Mustard only created ambers not the fire with which to change the human malaise.  In part, I think, because he underestimated the all pervasive forces of the status quo protectors.  Naively, he believed that because his message was so sound there would be a groundswell of positive response.  And there should have been except for the reality of how the majority of people reason, feel, and act accordingly.  For example, just this past weekOntariolegislators abandoned a curriculum reform the intent of which is to teach children about respect for all individuals.  A theme that would go far in addressing the problem of bullying.  Reportedly the legislators were politically bullied out of it.  How ironic but perfectly predictable.

The intent of this blog, in the spirit of the elephant in the room chronicles, is to draw attention to the limitations of reason validated by empirical evidence.  Reason and science are necessary for change to occur but they are never sufficient.  As Malcolm Galdwell points out in Tipping Point, for ambers to catch fire much fanning action is required.  So while the world undoubtedly is a better place for having had on it a man of Fraser Mustard’s stature, to rely solely on his initiatives clearly is not enough.  We all have to do our part in order for the ambers to catch fire.

While the process can be and often is disheartening we are in excellent company and the goal surely justifies the required efforts.

Because we can – we must:
Achieving the Human Developmental Potential          http://atpolgar.com/pub_s.php

In Five Generations