Aug 3 2018

It feels like we need to spend more and more effort to separate fact from fiction in the outside world, while simultaneously yearning to seek deeper truth and meaning in our inner worlds.

What remains true and important is that peaceful nations exist on a bedrock of commonly-held realities. If a nation forsakes this, then it’s risking the very foundations of nationhood and unity.

As The World Turns

Discrediting the media, making false claims

I’d be the first person to admit that media bias is real. Having watched the 2016 US presidential rallies in real time, I noticed how media outlets cherry-picked sound bites to further their (often insulting and mud-slinging) editorial preferences. And I understand why many Americans have chosen to ignore any latest news story as just more (partisan) media spin.

That said, there’s an alarming trend of attacks and death threats against the media because of that bias or, in some cases, a perception of bias. This week, the escalation in anti-press rhetoric, and a spike in false claims in political speeches and statements, has led opinion writers David Leonhardt and Bret Stephens, as well as editor/writer Susan Glasser, to begin sounding the alarm on why this represents an assault on independent information outlets, and a real danger of these attacks turning violent.

If we take this to its extreme conclusion, a nation without an independent press can’t hold its elected officials accountable at all. And while the press needs to do a much better job of being that independent voice, a hobbled or non-existent free press would be the far greater tragedy against the principles of democracy and freedom in America and around the world.

I’m reading…

Ian Bremmer’s Us Vs Them. From the book jacket: “…populism is still spreading. Globalism creates plenty of both winners and losers, and those who’ve missed out want to set things right. They’ve begun to understand the world as a battle that pits ‘us’ vs. ‘them.’…This book is about the ways in which people will define these threats as fights for survival…And it’s about what we can do about it.”

Om Is Where The Heart Is

Bye bye male leadership?

If you’ve spent time in the US women’s small business community, as I have, you’ll have encountered some version of, or invested in a program to master, feminine power. I think this is generally a healthy trend. Go girl power! As the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements continue to work their way into our consciousness, and to clean up our collective act in workplaces, the rise of women to positions of leadership has been a long time coming.

Part of the conversation predicts that female styles of leadership will become the dominant force in the 21st Century, and that masculine ways of leading will become obsolete, which (implicitly) implies that men everywhere need to “suck it up” and live with the reality that their brutish days and ways will soon be over.

Hmm. Hold on now.

Yes, there’s a lot to be angry about, and women have been held back from their fullest potential for far too long. We have paid the price with our sanity, our dignity and, in far too many cases, our lives.

But I think a “women-only” view of leadership is short-sighted, and just as imperialistic as the male leadership order we feel oppressed by. Men still have a vital role to play in society and, in moments of national or personal peril, when brute force is required to defend us from enemies both foreign and domestic, men feel happy and proud to do just that, in our name and in our honor.

News and Views

I am a writer

I finally confessed something. To myself.
I am a writer, have always been a writer, and am now going full in as a writer.
And so, after years of semi-denial and resistance, I’ve created a home for my writerly self online.

MayaMathias.net is that home, for all my writing pursuits, including this Peace Matters newsletter.
Thank you for reading, and subscribe to Peace Matters here.

In the next issue:

I’ll share much more on my unfolding adventure into this wild and wonderful world of being a writer.

And if the reading gods allow, I’ll have finished Ian Bremmer’s Us Vs. Them and have some thoughts to share about it.

Live well and lead large – Maya

(featured image from TheDailyCougar.com)