For next week, we plan to turn our attention to Europe to consider the questions raised in the following New York Times article: The Questions That Could Reshape a Worried Europe in 2017.
Although there are lots of questions, we felt that it might be best to come prepared to discuss all of them–based on the premise that some might not be fruitful enough for two hours’ discussion and we might thereby suffer from more “topic drift.”
See you next week!
During last week’s session, we spent a bit of time on the above topic, but agreed that we weren’t in a position to discuss this complex topic “off the cuff,” without the benefit of some background reading.
I offered to provide some evidence of why I’m concerned about the fiscal status of the various social programs, and backup to my statement that, without changing the programs I am concerned that they are not sustainable—in the sense that young workers contributing today cannot reasonably expect to receive benefits comparable to what today’s eligible recipients get.
Here is some reading for the holidays (remember, the Library is closed for the next two Mondays–and we have another topic already selected for our January 9, 2017 meeting). Continue reading “Fiscal Status of US Social Programs—The Long Version”
As Mike noted, we plan to continue our discussion about the value of art tomorrow, at least for a while, in the hope that Sarah and Marion will be able to attend.
After that, we plan to discuss two “blog” articles (and I’m adding an op-ed piece I read yesterday that reinforces one of the likely discussion tangents:
Start by reading “Why is the ‘Decimation of Public Schools’ a Bad Thing?,” which provides (at least in my reading) a pretty cogent explication of how important being specific in political discussion can be—rather than sound-bite slogans, which frequently don’t advance the dialog (or change anyone’s mind) at all. But the main subject of the article is expressing skepticism about “school choice” in the Trump-DeVos era. It’s not very long and an easy read.
Then read Mike’s friend (and I like his writing as well) Scott Alexander’s article “Contra Robinson on Schooling.” As usual, he takes a relatively deep dive I like about his written arguments because they are 1) they’re pretty cogent and 2) well “sourced” with links. So you can click through to examine the basis for many of his statements.
If you have lots of time, you might want to read the comments to his “Contra” blog article. Fair warning: there are a lot of them. If you don’t have that much time, consider his “Highlights from the Comment Thread on School Choice” article. It singles out the comments he thinks are worthy of note and, in some cases, a bit of debate.
Lastly, in the spirit of the “Decimation” description of the Liberal-Conservative language divide and our recent discussion on Identity Politics, you might be interested in Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on “Echo Chambers on Campus.” It’s similar to the piece we discussed two weeks ago in the sense that it seems like a thoughtful self-critique of liberal behavior/platform/rhetoric/you name it. I don’t often agree with him, but I respect his views. And I do agree with many of the observations he makes in this piece. Good fodder for discussion.
See you tomorrow!