Tuesday, 13 January, 2009

Loyalty: Virtue or Vice?
In anticipation of the next conversation in our Education for Citizenship series, we urge you to read Glenn Loury's "The Call of the Tribe" in the December 2008 Boston Review. Professor Loury will be in conversation with Richard Ford of the Law School who discusses his latest book, The Race Card, on FORA.tv.  Eamonn Callan will moderate this conversation at Kresge Auditorium on January 21.  We look forward to seeing you there.

 

The purpose of this evening is to bring poetic and scientific sensibilities to bear on life-sustaining elements that we often take for granted, especially water.  While nearly 2 billion of the world’s population lack adequate supplies of water and proper facilities for the disposal of human waste, we who are affluent treat the planet’s water system irresponsibly by drawing unsustainable amounts from and polluting the environment.  By bringing attention to present and future global water crises and to people and projects that are working toward solutions, we hope to foster a more respectful attitude toward water and the ecosystems that provide it.

The evening will begin with a presentation by David Crossweller introducing Wherever the Need, a charitable organization concerned with the provision and use of eco-sanitation toilets and water.

Related Themes: citizenship, gratitude, poetry, water

Tuesday, 30 September, 2008

Vice-Presidential Debate Broadcast
in Kresge Prior to Inaugural Lecture
The Aurora Forum has arranged to broadcast the vice-presidential debate on October 2 in Kresge Auditorium starting at 6:00pm. Doors open at 5:30.

You are invited to bring your friends, watch the debate, and stay for Danielle Allen's inaugural lecture for our Education for Citizenship series with the Stanford Center for Ethics.

Universities eloquently proclaim the advantages of education for creating responsible citizens, but their rhetoric is often better than the outcome. All too often, little attention is paid to what education is for and what it should consist of. What should today's students know in preparation for common citizenship in a pluralistic world? What is the role of the humanities in that preparation? Join us for a conversation with two leading public intellectuals about the role of liberal education in promoting civic virtue, as well as about its uncertain future in a complex and technologically demanding world. Related Themes: citizenship, democracy, education, freedom, vocation

This conversation concerns loyalty and the limits to which it might be subject when viewed in particular historical, social, and political contexts. What roles does loyalty play in forming personal and social identities? What are the connections between loyalty, patriotism, and pride? Under what conditions can loyalty be a vice and disloyalty a virtue? Is there greater agreement that disloyalty is a vice than that loyalty is a virtue? With class and racial inequalities remaining deeply embedded in our social, political, and economic structures, what is the place of loyalty in America today? Related Themes: citizenship, ethics, loyalty, vices, virtues

This installment in our Education for Citizenship series on virtues and vices examines greed, a selfish and excessive desire for more than is needed. How much is enough? What enables advertisers to convince citizens to consume more than is reasonable? Are seductive images of comfort, convenience, and sexual stimulation that bombard us in advertising edging out non-market values of care, community, love, and public service? Are market values changing college campuses? Join us for a conversation that casts a critical eye on the effects of greed on individual and collective life. Related Themes: citizenship, greed, vices, virtues

In her book, Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education, Danielle Allen discusses those sacrifices citizens make to keep democracy working in spite of the vices that often get in the way. One such vice is distrust of the stranger, which is overcome by the deliberate cultivation of what she calls “political friendship,” reaching out to others who appear to be different than ourselves. “To develop a cultural habit of such friendship would," Allen writes, “transform our political world.” In setting the context for our series on virtues and vices with the Center for Ethics, Danielle Allen will suggest ways people in institutions of higher education are prepared to effect this transformation by daring to imagine and act in accord with democratic ideals.

Related Themes: citizenship, education, vices, virtues