EthicalStL.org: Recent Episodes
Ethical Society of St. Louis
Come learn from our diverse and exceptional panel of both long-time and new lay leaders. They will discuss the impact of volunteering and leadership in their own life and in our community.
In a polarizing world of politics, how can congregations be supportive in eliminating misinformation and disenfranchisement to clear the way for positive community changes?
Rev. Brian, an ordained clergyperson in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, will explore the Pastafarian Path to enlightenment. This spiritual journey does NOT require that you earnestly confess your transgressions and restrict your sex life to the “missionary” position; retreat into silence, meditating on your breath with a silly smile; endure a month’s days of starvation and evenings of gluttony; refrain from drinking alcohol, coffee, Coke and Pepsi and wear church sanctioned underwear; or sacrifice your son’s foreskin for your religious beliefs. Do you think life is absurd? Do you think this is funny? Yes? Congratulations—you have found The Way!
I took some time to interview several members of our organization about what brings joy to their lives. In doing so, I have been able to identify various commonalities that they’ve spoken about. After doing so I’ve divided these themes into Barriers, Boundaries, concepts that are beyond just yourself. In a time of political strife that many of our members appear to be obsessed with, it’s important to actively seek joy and engage in things that bring it about within yourself and your community. Many people still associate me with the darkness of my opening words back in September, but I’d like to shed some light on how life can be beautiful after tragedy.
After a short reflection on my own journey to embracing my aspec identity, this presentation will introduce the definition of Asexuality and several key terms. Asexuality will be discussed in the context of human diversity, amatonormativity, queer platonic and other “non-traditional” relationships, and various types of attraction. Emphasis will be placed on Asexuality as a prompt for a paradigm shift in addition to being a sexual orientation in need of embrace and recognition.
What if the ballot initiative reinstating Roe doesn’t pass? What if it does? What will be different for people seeking abortion care in Missouri? What has changed in the past two years since Roe fell? Get an inside view of what’s going on and what you can do.
Hatred and bias against Jews as a people or ethnic group has existed for thousands of years. The Holocaust, in which the Nazis and their collaborators murdered six million Jews in Europe, was one of the worst examples. But antisemitism didn’t start or end with the Holocaust, and antisemitism in the modern world is both a prelude to, and inextricably woven into, other forms of prejudice, bias, and hate. Together we will learn more about the deep roots of this bias, how it continues to affect our communities today, and what we can do to recognize and fight it.
This is not “why are we here” in a “what is the meaning of life” kind of way, but -literally- why are we here together, on a Sunday, in this room? Why do we come here each week? What draws people to the Ethical Society and places like it? How can we maximize the potential for community-building and friendship here? What are the current needs of people in secular spaces like this? Join Interim Director Amy Miller for an exploration of these and other relevant questions.
Seth Andrews is a broadcaster, storyteller, author, activist, and public speaker best known as host of the popular website, podcast, and online community, The Thinking Atheist.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community are frequently socialized in the context of “hard.” A copious amount of time is spent discussing how we face disproportionate levels of discrimination, higher rates of mental health challenges, and other hardships. However, we are more than the hurdles we face. Ky Miller will lead us through an exploratory celebration of queer culture, allowing us to connect with what is actually a really fascinating – and fun – culture. We will spend intentional time dedicated to honoring the sacred and transformational magic that is experienced in connecting with ourselves authentically and expand our perspective of Revolutionary Queer Joy as a fundamental component of liberation.
Missouri, like most states in the center of the U.S., has no extant tribes like some other states have. Therefore, the knowledge of either the history of Natives or the experience of contemporary Native Americans is one step further removed from people’s consciousness. Using startling facts as stepping stones to fascinating and forgotten stories, this presentation starts to remedy this phenomenon.
As an analogue to our special Mother’s Day Platform last month, please join us for a special Father’s Day Platform. We will engage with reflections on themes of “fatherhood,” both what it is and what it could be: protection, wisdom, tenderness, strength. Interim Director Amy L. Miller will present a short talk while our musical guest will reflect musically on the theme.
Is Diet Culture actually a cult? And are most Americans signing on for an accidental membership in the cult? Is it possible that the majority of us have been indoctrinated with the powerful propaganda of this 90 billion dollar a year industry and we have little awareness that the same tactics used by high-control religious organizations and cults are employed in the ways that we engage with food and our bodies? In this conversation, we will examine the classic components of cults and how these same methodologies are used to keep the American populace engaged in Diet Culture.
This presentation is driven by the necessity to seize the moment. The formula for flight is speed + thrust + lift – drag = Flight! Our region will never reach its full capacity unless we can mitigate the economic drag that plagues our Black and brown communities. That economic drag was caused by generations of (conscious and unconscious) disinvestment in these communities. In order to grow this region robustly and equitably, we must reinvest in those communities.
Interim Director Amy L. Miller presents a special Platform honoring the values of unconditional positive regard, nurturing, love, and protection that are associated with the “mother,” (while leaving space for those who have complicated feelings about Mother’s Day).
Facts, myths, and opportunities related to Earth’s climate and our species include key concepts of weather and climate, greenhouse gases, carbon footprints and policy options. St. Louis enviro-educator Green Jean Ponzi weaves these threads with perspective on human patterns and impacts toward finding paths to just, responsible action. Local examples offer courage to engage and persist in change-making. qTWrWfNxygtn7HrlL1Wb
Contrary to common belief, the conflict in Palestine is not ancient nor is it religious. Rather, it’s the result of Western empires intervening to facilitate a settler colonial project in the Holy Land over the last 100 years. This talk will discuss the history of settler colonialism, what it looks like, and why it’s relevant when discussing Palestine today.
An overview of psychedelic pharmacology and then a look into the clinical and neuroscientific data that have led to growing interest in psychedelics and psychedelic-assisted therapy.” Dr. Siegel will present the risks and challenges of psychedelics for treatment in mood and addiction disorders, and consider what impacts these treatments may have on the mental health system.
This presentation will give a brief overview of the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom campaign. This campaign is to push a constitutional amendment that will end the cruel Missouri ban on abortion. Presentation attendees will hear more about the campaign, have an opportunity to sign the petition, and learn ways that they are able to plug in and be part of the campaign going forward!
Sixteen years ago, she was just a kid that didn’t want to live. Six years ago, she wasn’t sure if teaching was for her. 2023 Illinois Teacher of the Year Briana Morales shares candid moments from both personal life and a career dedicated to working with youth furthest from justice in an alternative setting to illustrate how the love and compassion of educators can break many chains and heal unspoken wounds for our young people. Morales’ journey is living testimony of the philosophy that she seeks to impress upon her students and those who seek to know and understand them better: we can turn our pain into power and that can reveal our purpose. Briana Morales is a proud Latina and freedom fighter for students in alternative education, where she has spent her career loving and learning alongside students furthest from justice in East St. Louis, IL. She focuses on empowering her students with personalized, competency-based education where their cultural funds of knowledge are honored and students work at their own pace to master content rather than traditional learning that focuses on seat time and completion of work. Morales was honored as a 2021 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Early Career Educator of Color and has shared the journey her students have embarked on to turn pain into power through poetry both locally and nationally. Her commitment as a school board member for the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, School District #428 has allowed her to elevate the voices of justice-impacted youth. Morales has been active at the state level in education policy work around diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Most recently, she was a champion of $300K in state funding to provide professional development to in-service educators around cultural responsiveness. She is deeply passionate about creating healing-centered spaces where Black and brown students can feel seen, heard, and, one day, be free to be their authentic selves. Her love offering toward this future is her nonprofit, (Sister)Hood of Hope, Inc., dedicated to honoring brighter futures for girls of color everywhere by empowering them through the community of sisterhood. Morales believes in education as a tool that equips young people to become change agents in their community and have a fighting chance at the life they deserve. She is currently a doctoral candidate in diversity and equity in education at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Briana is the 2023 Illinois Teacher of the Year.
The legal battle over abortion rights in Missouri underscores a fundamental clash between religious beliefs and constitutional principles. Laws such as H.B. 126, passed in 2019, impose severe restrictions on abortion access under the guise of religious conviction, disregarding the diverse religious perspectives within the state. This legislation, triggered by the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, immediately banned most abortions in Missouri. Such laws, supported by legislators who justify them on religious grounds, blatantly disregard the principle of separation of church and state. Missouri’s abortion restrictions, dating back to 1986 and exacerbated by subsequent bills in 2014 and 2017, significantly impede access to abortion services, imposing burdensome requirements such as mandatory waiting periods and physician-specific counseling. Despite objections from clergy members representing various Christian denominations, Judaism, and Unitarian Universalism, the legislature persists in enacting laws that reflect a singular religious viewpoint. In response to these restrictions, a coalition led by Americans United and the National Women’s Law Center filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Missouri’s abortion laws. Their argument is based on the violation of Missouri’s constitutional provisions safeguarding the separation of church and state. The litigation, supported by clergy plaintiffs like Rev. Traci Blackmon and Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, aims to overturn these laws and restore reproductive autonomy. The legal proceedings commenced with a hearing on June 13, 2023, where the plaintiffs argued against a motion to dismiss the case, which was largely rejected by the court on June 30, 2023. Subsequent motions and arguments have been filed, with the defendants contending that they should prevail without further proceedings. The litigation represents a critical effort to defend individual liberties and uphold the principle that laws should not be based on religious doctrine, but rather on constitutional rights and freedoms.
Arts organizations such as St. Louis’ Prison Performing Arts have nearly eliminated recidivism for participants that continue after confinement in their Prison Performing Arts Alumni Theater Company. Through personal experience of going from nursing professor to drug addict, our speaker Julie Antonic will share how this arts organization transformed her life, as well as countless others across the country. The stigma of being an ex-felon creates huge barriers when felons return to their communities. When prisoners and ex-prisoners are given a voice, that platform can change everything. In Act I of Julie Antonic's life, she was a travel RN, an adjunct professor of nursing, and became an addict after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. In Julie's current Act II of her life, she is an actress, playwright and spokesperson for Prison Performing Arts. She is an artist and co-owner of Altitude Video Production, which produces aerial cinematography for events, real estate and more. She recently did a talk at TEDxSt.Louis Women, and lives in Blue Springs, Missouri. There she is the secretary of the friendliest yacht club on the planet and sails a 52 year old sailboat with her wife.
In a time of global strife, staying in touch with one’s own humanity and the humanity of others becomes ever more important. Join Interim Director Amy L. Miller to discuss healthy ways to communicate with each other, celebrate our differences, and be in community.
Recent research has shown that most stars have planetary systems, and that a non-negligible fraction of those planets are likely to be in the so-called “habitable zone,” where life may be possible. This makes the old question of “Are we alone?” more pressing: Does life exist elsewhere in the universe, and if so, is some of that life “intelligent” and able to communicate or otherwise interact with us? I discuss various aspects of these questions, including the research on exoplanets, the possibility of space travel, UFO (recently renamed “UAP”) phenomena, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). I conclude with some thoughts about the ethical meaning of a “yes” or a “no” answer to the “Are we alone?” question.
Social media has become a large part of our everyday lives. As a society, we continue to devote an increasing amount of time to these online platforms, engaging with a wealth of information from our friends to celebrities, family members to politicians, cat videos to devastating world news. Increasing rates of social media use along with high rates of mental illness have led many researchers to begin examining how social media use and mental health may be related. Perhaps surprisingly, only a few consistent conclusions have been drawn in this area, leaving researchers and community members alike wondering if and how social media use may be affecting our mental health. This presentation will focus on a newly developed model of understanding social media use that categorizes social media behaviors into four broad patterns. Topics discussed will include an overview of what these four different patterns of social media behaviors are, how they have been observed to impact people’s emotions in the moment, and how they are shown to correlate with various components of psychological wellbeing.
The Pledge Campaign is the time of year when we dream about what the Ethical Society of St. Louis could be and do if we had all of our needs met, and strategize ways to meet those needs. We need strong roots to build a strong future. Now is the time to reinvest in the future of the Society and to imagine what we can create together. This Platform talk is offered in conjunction with President-elect Scott Wright’s Opening Words for this day, as we launch pledge season together.
Does the pursuit of morality come at a cost to personal well-being? Several conceptualizations of morality emphasize its role in regulating or sacrificing the pursuit of one’s own interests for the sake of others. This might imply that being and becoming more moral would be personally costly. In this talk, however, I present empirical evidence showing that 1) moral people tend to experience more happiness and meaning in life and that 2) people believe that becoming more moral would contribute positively to various aspects of their well-being. I will discuss the implications and limitations of this research in relation to the broader question of when morality and well-being are likely to go hand in hand and when they might come into conflict with one another.
What does it take to thrive in a world that is volatile and uncertain, unjust and unfair? How can you experience well-being in a world so full of suffering? Research in human development, potential, longevity, and learning indicate that thriving is a state of being that we can tap into throughout our day and across our lifetime — no matter what we face. In this talk, we will explore ten timely and timeless "whole life" practices that enable us to experience wholeness and well-being at every age and stage of life. These ten practices support us individually and collectively and they activate and align with humanist commitments and beliefs.
The New Year is a time of celebration and renewal and optimism. What does it mean to have a fresh start? How do we reset our relationships when there has been damage to connections? How can we show up for each other and ourselves in a different and better way in the coming year? What are our hopes and dreams for the new year?
In Gabe's own words, they say, "The writer Gregory Orr believes, 'Poetry is about survival first of all. Survival of the individual self, survival of the emotional life.' It is my belief and experience that Orr’s statement applies to most creative pursuits, including various modalities of art and self-expression that have helped me move through and beyond the traumatic events of my early life. Our own creativity has the unique gift of helping us process the unrelenting amount of information we’re exposed to, including the overwhelming, painful, and traumatic memories that can threaten to undo us. 'Self-Expression as Survival' de-emphasizes the importance of identifying as an artist, and instead focuses on the many ways creativity can combat the reality that trauma often renders us voiceless. It is not hyperbole to say that my exploration of photography, watercolor, performance art, sculpture, and, most importantly, writing memoir, saved my life. I learned to create order from chaos, make meaning from the mess, and transform something big and boundaryless into a work of art I could hold in my hands. To share our suffering in some way—trading off playing the role of artist and observer—is an important way forward." Gabe Montesanti
The Ugandan students and schools the Ethical Society supports are full of strength, resilience, and hope. Come learn about the recent developments at the Uganda Humanist Schools and leave inspired by the schools’ and students' promising futures. Note: The Ethical Society community currently supports 36 female high-school students with full boarding scholarships ($525/yr) and provides reusable menstrual supplies for all menstruating students in the primary and secondary schools. If you would like to make a donation to benefit the schools and you cannot attend the Platform, please contact Krystal White at krystalsnowhite@ gmail.com or Nancy Jelinek at njelinek@ethicalstl.org.
This performance experience features new and familiar music investigating the questions above and, hopefully, inspiring us to action in our St. Louis community. Enjoy music from the newest chapter of the international Justice Choir movement, Justice Choir STL. We are a radically inclusive community choir amplifying local justice movements through collaborative partnership performances. Led by Ethical Society of St. Louis Music Director Claire Minnis, this ensemble is open to all voices. If you have an interest in singing and a passion for justice, you belong here.
As a last minute fill in for an ill presenter, Amy talks from her book chapter on shame.
Scientists and engineers worldwide are devoted to helping find solutions to the negative effects of climate change. In this (largely nonscientific) presentation, Sophia will showcase some of those efforts. In short, there is "hope" -- and it may help to recognize -- we have done this before with other threats to our environment.
Our health status should not be predicated on our place of residence, but that is invariably the case across the country, and particularly true in St. Louis, where the life expectancy living in an inner-city ZIP code is 18 years lower than someone living in a ZIP code less than 10 miles away. There are many factors that have conspired to reduce the health status of Black Americans in the U.S. These include social and structural determinants of health, such as systemic racism and sociocultural barriers, which lead to inadequate social and built environments, inadequate information and knowledge, risk-promoting lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors, exposure to carcinogens, and diminished access to health care. The persistence of unconscionable disparities obligates systemic reform to improve the health of the African American community. Rebuilding our neighborhoods and schools, and eliminating intergenerational poverty would go a long way to improving the health of African Americans in St. Louis.
A rudimentary dive into compassion research unearthed this: "…While cynics may dismiss compassion as touchy-feely or irrational, scientists have started to map the biological basis of compassion, suggesting its deep evolutionary purpose. This research has shown that when we feel compassion, our heart rate slows down, we secrete the "bonding hormone" oxytocin, and regions of the brain linked to empathy, caregiving, and feelings of pleasure light up, which often results in our wanting to approach and care for other people…" (UC Berkley, "Greater Good Magazine")
What could be more impactful on a community than a desire to approach and care for other people? The intentional cultivation of compassion is not only possible, but necessary. Historically, we may have troubled ourselves with any number of other endeavors, but in the turmoil of today, it becomes increasingly urgent that we focus on co-creating spaces where people feel seen, supported, and cared for. Compassion literally means "to suffer together," but I'd like the focus to be on "relieving suffering together."
White Americans can choose behaviors in our everyday lives to grow racial justice. It's especially vital for white people to engage in and with our families, through our social networks, in our neighborhoods, and at our jobs to make antiracism a daily living commitment. Meanwhile these are some of the hardest places to do so. We have real power in our relationships with other white people—and not enough of us have used it. We need to talk about why white people struggle with knowing what to do about racism, and the significance of emotions like grief and anger (as well as the harmful role of shame) in reckoning with the transformation our communities need to become the partners in justice that Black communities and other communities need and deserve. Not only is such transformation vital to the well-being of U.S. democracy, it's vital to the freedom and wholeness of white people too.
Rev. Dr. Jennifer Harvey is a writer and educator long engaged in racial justice and white antiracism. Her books include the New York Times bestseller Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in Racially Unjust America and Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation. She has written for the New York Times and CNN, appeared on CNN's Town Hall on Racism with Sesame Street, and been heard on NPR's All Things Considered and "It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders." After serving nearly 20 years at Drake University as a professor of religion, she recently became the vice president for Academic Affairs and academic dean at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Harvey is ordained in the American Baptist Churches (USA).
You've heard the idiom about trying to manage a challenging group, "It's like herding cats?" This is funny (and true) because, well, cats are impossible to herd. They do what they want, when they want. You've also heard "Don't be a sheep." Being called a sheep is an insult. It means someone views you as just going along with things. At the Ethical Society, we don't want to fall into complacency and group think; we value being individuals who have our own opinions. But, when we are in community together, what is the sweet spot between these extremes? How do we balance doing what is best for the "greater good" with honoring ourselves and our own autonomy and ideas? Let's explore this together with our Interim Director, Amy Miller, as we continue to "Explore the Human Condition."
Across the country, we continue to see attacks on critical race theory, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), access to books and libraries, sex education, affirmative action, women’s reproductive rights, civil rights, and much more in our legislatures and institutions. To many, these issues seem to be overwhelming to fight individually, but for those who have been immersed in the issue, the prevailing understanding is that we are really fighting one common enemy that presents itself in a myriad of ways. Join Heather Fleming, founder and director of the MO Equity Education Partnership, as she explains the connection to each of these issues and how we all can work collectively to defeat this movement.
Emiel’s presentation delves into the intricate dynamics of code-switching and implicit bias, and explores how people with marginalized identities navigate diverse environments, including adapting their communication styles to fit cultural expectations. It sheds light on the subtle yet powerful impact of implicit bias on our perceptions and interactions. Emiel’s presentation will encourage critical self-reflection and equip community members with strategies to foster more inclusive and equitable interactions.
Summiting ten years of membership, Kyle Nienhaus shares his experiences with the Ethical Society of St. Louis including reflections on personal growth, challenges still to be met, memories of friends along the way, and hopes for our children’s future. Humanist values are human values worth wanting, and Kyle intends to show the “how-come?” and the “what-for?” of that age-old question: “Why?”
Kilimanjaro – the world’s tallest freestanding mountain – rises nearly 20,000 feet above sea level in safari lands on the border between Tanzania and Kenya. The mountain has five distinct ecological zones at different altitudes, with jungle at the foothills and glaciers at the summit. Some 35,000 tourists attempt to reach the peak each year, encountering physical and psychological challenges along the way. Some 10-25 percent of them have to turn back, succumbing to altitude sickness, injury, exposure to the cold or other adverse conditions. On June 14, Mary Ann Perkins and her daughter, Danielle, reached the summit. In her address to the Ethical Society, Mary Ann will draw parallels between their experiences on the mountain and humanist perspectives on life.
Member Dan Overmann gives a personal account of how the core values provide a behavioral "roadmap" leading to an enriched quality of life for himself and others – a life quality that is characterized by joy and meaning. Eliciting the best in the human spirit is the navigational keystone of the roadmap.
Creativity and storytelling help us cultivate meaning and bring joy into our lives. How can we harness the power of creativity to grow our movement and reach new audiences? Where can we find Humanism (and our values) in popular culture? Leader Intern Louise Jett explores pop culture that honors Ethical Humanism.
Reeves' research examines the interchange between institutions and behavior with a focus on political accountability and public policy in the United States. His most recent book, No Blank Check: The Origins and Consequences of Public Antipathy towards Presidential Power with Jon C. Rogowski was published in 2022 by Cambridge University Press. From the publisher: Concerns about unaccountable executive power have featured recurrently in political debates from the American founding to today. For many, presidents' use of unilateral power threatens American democracy. No Blank Check advances a new perspective: Instead of finding Americans apathetic toward how presidents exercise power, it shows the public is deeply concerned with core democratic values. Drawing on data from original surveys, innovative experiments, historical polls, and contexts outside the United States, the book highlights Americans' skepticism towards presidential power. This skepticism results in a public that punishes unilaterally minded presidents and the policies they pursue. By departing from existing theories of presidential power which acknowledge only institutional constraints, this timely and revealing book demonstrates the public's capacity to tame the unilateral impulses of even the most ambitious presidents. Ultimately, when it comes to exercising power, the public does not hand the president a blank check.
We will explore how healthy relationships look and feel, with emphasis on the fact that every relationship has its own culture. But when the foundation of the relationship is built on solid ground and with intention and integrity, relationships can grow into whatever you may want them to be. We will draw on the expertise of our Interim Ministry Team Director, Amy, as she introduces us to her working theories on how to ensure that our relationships are rooted in–and hallmarked by–relative ease.
Shuron will elaborate on past and present efforts toward housing justice in St. Louis. Since and before the historic Kraemer ruling, St. Louis has provided spatial, economic, social, and cultural restraints and opportunities to advance equity and liberation through housing justice. Housing work has provided incentives for disparate communities to form alliances around changes and policies to better living conditions. This work, legacy, and alliance building continues because of the seemingly insurmountable current housing system that is broken for most: evictions, which affect Black women with children the most, are on the rise while wages remain stagnant; rents are continually rising with no checks on increases; assistance and moratoria have ended; and renter workers are retaliated against for reporting conditions issues. Renter-workers are demanding equity through housing justice and their voices have not and will not go unheeded.
After living under and being evicted by a slumlord, Shuron Danielle Jones (she/her) began organizing around housing with Homes for All - St. Louis in 2019. Jones' work focuses on the research, passage, implementation, and evaluation of legislation and policies that forward renter-worker protections. Shuron assisted in crafting the Four and More for STL Renters campaign to introduce a Right to Counsel, Tenant Bill of Rights, an Office of Tenant Advocacy, and a City-Wide Tenant Union to the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. Shuron is also a public researcher, historian, and analyst, focusing on the work, lives, and organizing/advocacy/writings of Radical Queer Black Women in the Midwest from the 1970
It may be hard to keep up with all the "newfangled terminology." When we don’t understand something it's easy to get annoyed with it or dismiss it as not important. What is cisgender? What is nonbinary? What is demisexual? What is "ace"? What is pansexual? Why do pronouns matter so much all of a sudden? What does all of this mean? Approaching the idea of multifaceted (and mutable) identity from a curious, beginner’s perspective with the goal of education and normalization, we will leave Platform with a little more knowledge than we had before and some comfort around shared definitions.
Gardening is a great way to promote wellness and self-sustainability. It is a form of physical activity that can help reduce stress and increase energy levels. Additionally, gardening can be a source of healthy food access, a way to create a source of income, or simply a tool to reduce your reliance on others. Join Jessica K. Carter as she discusses how gardening to grow your own food can help you connect with nature and your best self, as well as exploration of why it’s good for you and the earth to reduce reliance on commercial food supply chains. The future of food can be in your own backyard!
This talk will focus on the "art of protest" both in the sense of the visual media produced by grassroots activists and in the ways that they understood problems and mobilized communities. How they conceived, created, and constructed visual texts demonstrates not just their arguments and ideology, such work reflects states of mind, the ways activists dealt with the messy business of challenging corporations and institutions, and changing hearts and minds and policies and laws. Uncovering these internal states allows for two things: 1) As a way of understanding the humor, rage, and determination that motivated activists to persevere despite obstacles and 2) as an entry point into understanding agency that may not result in positive or negative outcomes. Most activism happens daily, often in small ways like phone calls and town hall meetings and letters to the editor. Change often happens incrementally, until it happens like a storm. But activists consistently exert agency that represents a kind of radical hope. They get up every day and fight for the better world they want. They win some important goals even as they lose some. They get up the next day and fight for the better world they want. They perform these daily acts as a form of radical hope. They speak truth to power and fight for a more just, cleaner, and better world.
Amy Hay is a professor of history at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. Her research focuses on public health activism, specifically the mobilization of various groups of citizens protesting environmental pollution and its effects on human and environmental health. She has published on women’s activism at the Love Canal chemical disaster, and her book, The Defoliation of America (University of Alabama Press, 2022), examines the ways various groups – religious, grassroots, veterans – challenged the official narrative of using the phenoxy herbicides safely in South Vietnam and throughout the western United States. Her current project examines the connection between environment and health in the Rio Grande Valley over the long 20th century. It examines two groups of medical migrants – winter Texans and migrant workers – and considers the emergence of health disparities between the groups
When you look at the tiny sliver of earth that wraps around your house, what part of it reminds and connects you to the natural world? Is it reminiscent of the green planet we live on, or a reflection of the house next door? Are there ancient remnant plants and animals hiding in plain sight? Do you have a large tree or woodland growing along a creek in your neighborhood? Is your lawn diverse with native sedges, spring beauty or even dandelions? How do these fragments of a former natural community survive? More importantly, as stewards of your piece of earth, do you have what it takes to sustain nature and bring it back to your neighborhood? These are the questions we will ponder as we gather at the Ethical Society to celebrate Earth Day 2023. Scott has been tinkering with plants since the age of 12. Throughout his career, he has worked at a number of public gardens. He founded the St. Louis Wild Ones and developed the Whitmire Wildflower Garden before retiring and developing Cacalia Garden Design and Wilding, a consulting and design service dedicated to promoting the natural world through native plants and natural landscaping.
Environmental disparities exist and persist throughout St. Louis. The Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic at Washington University School of Law conducted a statistical analysis of these disparities, focusing on air pollution, asthma, illegal dumping, vacancy, lead exposure, indoor mold exposure, energy burden, and food deserts. The results were published in the Environmental Racism in St. Louis report. The Clinic has since examined the aspects of our laws and policies that create and perpetuate these disparities, and prepared recommended changes to those laws and policies that–if implemented–would effect change for the better. This presentation will address both aspects of the Clinic's work, namely, the disparities that persist and the changes necessary to help our city achieve environmental justice. Prior to joining the Clinic, Tara practiced law for 15 years.
Amy Miller will be in conversation with local author and yoga teacher Becky Vollmer to discuss the phenomenon of feeling “stuck” and how it shows up in our jobs, relationships, and personal habits. They’ll explore the tension between “wants” vs. “shoulds,” the stifling effect of other people’s expectations, and the way fear too often holds us back. But all is not lost! Becky holds that the opposite of fear isn’t just courage, it’s choice–specifically, soul-guided choice–and has specific strategies for making them work for you. We all have choices, she says; we just have to be brave enough to make them.
It's easy to think that someone is acting towards us in a certain way because of something that we did, or to get a reaction out of us, or for some other specific reason. Learning that whatever others say or do is always more about that person than it is about you can create a lot of freedom. Often, what frustrates us in relationships are the ways in which we miss each other in communication. Building on the understanding that people are different and that most annoyances can be neutralized with understanding, we can create more peace in our relationships.
Medicine, and science in general, have an unfortunate tendency to conceive of health as an ideal state. Patients are then judged as having failed when they do not achieve it. Doctors and nurses are judged as having failed if they do not continue to push their patients to achieve an ideal state. But patients exist in the world with the bodies they actually have. And those actual, non-ideal bodies deserve actual medical care, right now, as they are. Sadly, fat folks too often are told to "lose weight" by medical professionals before they are fully evaluated for their health needs. How would seeking health care be different for fat folks--and other folks with stigmatized health statuses--if medicine sought to achieve a less idealized version of health that actually meets people where they are.
Kyle is a St. Louis native and has been an Ethical Society member for a decade. He is a graduate of Berklee College of Music and has a book, “Humanist, All Too Humanist: A Nietzsche Interpretation” coming out this year.
The thing is: If Alice were exploring Earth, she would reasonably observe that nearly everyone needs therapy at some point in their life, for some thing…although not everyone gets the help they need. For the “Future of Health,” we welcome a panel of Mental Health professionals from our region who represent a wide range of specializations and perspectives. Join us for a lively and informative discussion of Mental Health, generally, as well as the trends and developments in practice. The goal is to normalize seeking mental health services. And, practically speaking, this will also be an opportunity for our community members to get a feel for what services are available.
The fetus supposedly justifies overriding patient autonomy in at least some reproductive health cases. However, since the case of contraception includes the same attitudes, behaviors, and practices, but no fetus exists, we can see that sexism is the true underlying reason for the widespread abuse of patient autonomy in reproductive health. Dr. Jill B. Delston is associate teaching professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her monograph is entitled Medical Sexism: Contraception Access, Reproductive Medicine, and Health Care (Lexington Books, 2019). Delston is the co-editor of a textbook entitled Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, Eds. 5 and 6.
Given that our tagline is “Being Human, Together” it seems reasonable that our shared humanity is a worthwhile topic, generally speaking. While not specifically grounded in “the arts,” perhaps there are more creative ways to consider how we care about each other and ourselves than what we’re used to. Let’s explore the ways in which how we care for each other can help us build an ethical future that will allow all of us to thrive.
As we navigate the current COVID recovery period, the future of the arts in our community and across the globe is being shaped by two dynamic drivers: 1) dramatic shifts in habit and engagement around arts consumption and 2) the latent potential for young people today to integrate the arts into their thinking and learning to ensure a vibrant future for the arts in decades to come. The first requires creativity and agility from art-makers to ensure that new, relevant channels can continue to make art accessible and to attract art-goers to traditional channels of consumption. The second requires a commitment to invest in young people with a level of grace and respect for their collective intelligence and emotional wisdom. Combined, our communities' success in addressing these two pressing needs will determine much of our future - not just our future in the arts, but also a future for the many gifts the arts empower: empathy, critical thinking, understanding difference, and cultivating creativity and hope.
Join Louise Jett, leader-in-training, as she speaks with St. Louis native Alonzo Townsend about his early life as the son of the late blues legend Henry Townsend, his childhood growing up in St. Louis, and his vision for the future of the St. Louis music scene. Alonzo is the youngest son of Delta blues legend and patriarch of the St. Louis blues, Henry James “Mule” Townsend and blues singer Vernell Townsend. Alonzo has made it his mission to carry on the blues heritage and become an active voice for St. Louis’ history and vibrant music scene. He is the founder of the Townsendx3 Agency which books the shows for The Dark Room and provides exposure for up-and-coming artists in our area.
Many people have a hard time talking about money or have money "wounds" that make it a sore subject for them. We are taught to shroud salaries in secrecy and that money "makes the world go round" but it also "can't buy me love." We receive endless mixed messages about money and what it means or doesn't mean about our value as people. This Platform will be a candid conversation about money, in myriad contexts, as well as an introduction to the annual Ethical Society Pledge Drive.
Ethics asks questions about better and worse, and about opportunities and vulnerabilities. Ethics explores intentions, duties, and expectations. Ethics praises virtue and warns against evil. When ethics looks at socio-technical systems, the technical details and human values become intertwined. Cryptocurrency (and its underlying technology, blockchain data structures) are central to several such socio-technical systems. Cryptocurrency has attracted much attention lately, both positive and negative. In this half hour, we’ll look at some of the technical details essential to cryptocurrency, and at some of the human values that have become intertwined with cryptocurrency. We will also at least mention some of the ethical theories that are being applied to help shed light on ethically significant decisions about cryptocurrency that have been made, and are likely to face us in the near future.
In our society, we rarely see examples of group benefit prioritized over profit. Few models of exchange place the rewards of ownership in the hands of consumers or provide workers with a chance to participate in self-governing institutions based on democratic models of decisionmaking. Rarest of all are arrangements whereby consumers, producers, and workers act in collaboration with one another to produce advantage for all. The MARSH Cooperative is testing these ideals in the real world, attempting to activate new paradigms for the ethical replacement of capitalism.
It has been a rough couple of years since the start of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, and it often feels like we have forgotten how to “people.” Studies suggest that we have become less extroverted, less agreeable, less creative, and less conscientious in the past few years; we are also lonelier and less connected than ever. A new year gives us a fresh start and hope that we can come together in new as well as familiar ways. In 2023, with a new interim director, we can practice reconnecting, growing together, and building new relationships in 2023.
This talk unveils the historical and theoretical background of powerful African-American school communities, illustrates how social and educational policies weakened these relationships, and provides strategies that rebuild the relationships that contemporary Black students have with their schools and communities.
The Ugandan students and schools the Ethical Society supports are full of strength, resilience, and hope, and member Krystal White experienced that positive energy firsthand this summer on her month-long journey visiting the students and teaching at their schools. Come learn about the recent developments at the Uganda Humanist Schools and leave inspired by the schools' promising future. The Ethical Society community currently supports 33 female high-school students with full boarding scholarships ($500/yr) and provides reusable menstrual supplies for all menstruating students in the primary and secondary schools. If you would like to make a donation to benefit the schools and you cannot attend the platform, please contact Krystal White at krystalsnowhite@gmail. com or Nancy Jelinek at njelinek@ethicalstl.org.
How should we think about our relationships with other animals? Entangled Empathy is one way to both motivate and improve those relationships. This presentation by Leading Scholar in Animal Studies and Feminist Philosophy Lori Gruen will describe what entangled empathy is and why it is a valuable perspective.
James has spent eight years at the Ethical Society of St. Louis: one year as an Ethical Culture leader-in-training; four years as the Society’s outreach director and second leader; and three years as senior leader. In this, his final Platform address, he will offer his reflections on eight years of service, thank the Society’s members and friends for the welcome they extended, and think about the future of Humanism.
In this digital age, the world seems smaller and more accessible, but we seem to be more distant from one another on a personal level. Add to this the required isolation from COVID times and we are left with a pained awkwardness as we try to re-engage with society and one another. This leaves us with a unique opportunity to reset and create genuine connections. But this requires us to be vulnerable with one another as a reminder of our full humanity.
Nadya Dutchin is the executive director of the American Humanist Association with more than 10 years of community engagement, strategic partnership, youth program development, multi-method fundraising, and change management experience. She is new to the humanist movement and is working to transform the AHA and humanist movement into one that focuses on protecting civil rights and building a more youthful and vibrant humanist community. She currently serves as the Board president of Our Climate for Education. Nadya is of Guyanese descent and a proud alumna of Florida A and M University where she studied Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Alex J. O’Connor is the founder of the Cosmic Skeptic YouTube channel, podcast and blog, platforms dedicated to the publication of philosophical ideas and debates in an accessible format. A recent graduate of philosophy and theology from St. John’s College, Oxford University, Alex is an international public speaker and debater, having delivered addresses across multiple continents at conferences, universities, and local drinking groups, as well as debated ethics, religion, and politics with a number of high-profile opponents before college audiences, on radio talk shows and on national television.
Jim came to IPSTL after serving 12 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) with congregations in New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. Prior to entering the ministry, Jim spent 11 years working in politics, primarily as a lobbyist to state legislatures and Congress.
Jim’s previous ecumenical and interfaith work includes serving as the Vice President of the New York State Council of Churches, and serving on Religious Leaders Council of Interfaith Philadelphia.
Jim holds a Master of Divinity degree from Yale University Divinity School. He received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ball State University.
Jim is a widower, losing his wife Robin to cancer in 2009.
Our culture seems obsessed with war – hundreds of TV shows, movies, video games, and books are written about it. By contrast, peace seems deeply uninteresting to us. We queue up to watch violence enacted, but hardly have any mental image of what peace looks like. Why is this? Why do we celebrate war but ignore peace? Why won’t we give peace a chance? In this Platform James Croft will examine peace’s image problem, and think of ways we could overcome it.
As the only resettlement agency in St. Louis, the International Institute of St. Louis welcomes and provides services to refugees coming to St. Louis. Working with the St. Louis community and other service providers, these new St. Louisans are given the building blocks for a productive and rewarding life in their new home. The presentation will focus on how refugees come to the U.S and St. Louis, refugee populations in St. Louis and services provided.
Since 2000 P. Ariel Burgess has been the resettlement director for the International Institute. In this capacity she and her team have resettled 1000 + refugees from throughout the world. Ms. Burgess is a licensed social worker, having received her MSW in 1991. Prior to working at the Institute Ms. Burgess co-founded an HIV/AIDS clinic specifically for women and children; and worked with the mentally ill.
How can the asylum seeking process inform U.S. citizens and public discussions about dignity, collaboration, and social change? Utilizing over three years of field work with a group of 48 Central American and Mexican asylum seekers (named Migrantes Unidos), who are committed to ending the use of ankle monitors and other forms of detention in immigration enforcement, Adriano Udani will discuss how the asylum seeking process impacts organizations, social service provision, and everyday life. In the U.S. immigration system that is intentionally designed to punish people through isolation, Adriano Udani argues that what is starkly missing and most needed are opportunities for accompaniment which provides opportunities for asylum seekers to co-pursue dignity, mutual support, opportunities for critical thinking, and collaboration for action.
Adriano Udani specializes in the study of political attitudes toward immigrant groups and policy decisions that affect immigrant treatment in the United States. He also studies public misperceptions of immigration enforcement and its impact on immigrant communities. His research is published across various fields of public administration, public policy, public policy, ethics, and race and ethnic politics. Adriano's current work contributes to the emergence of "Civically Engaged Research" in political science, which aims to reciprocally collaborate with people and groups beyond the academy to co-produce, share, and apply knowledge related to power and politics. His current project involves partnering with immigrant service providers, attorneys, and asylum seekers to abolish detention of all forms. Adriano Udani received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and his M.P.A. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
The presentation focuses on the ethical dimensions of modern international conflicts in which all aspects of society have become the battlefield. The modern format of international conflicts, called 'gray zone' conflicts, rarely involve direct military-to-military confrontation. Rather, contemporary conflicts can generally be characterized as low-intensity, perpetual hostilities that involve governments, civil society, and individuals. The media, cyberspace, educational institutions, and local organizations have become an inseparable part of the global great power competition. Illiberal regimes such as China and Russia have used these as platforms to proliferate their political interests into liberal democracies like the United States. This raises the question of how can the United States, and other democracies, counter these authoritarian influences without resorting to 'democratic backsliding,' for example through censorship.
Misinformation continues to be a growing threat in our society. Why do we fall for misinformation and what can be done about it? In this lecture, I’ll briefly describe some of the sociology that explains our susceptibility for believing false information. Then I will focus on 5 steps that can allow us to have more productive conversations with those who have developed misperceptions. Finally, I will share a few examples of when I applied these strategies in my own life.
Matthew Facciani, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral researcher at University of Notre Dame Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and he previously served as a postdoctoral researcher at Vanderbilt University in the Medicine, Health, and Society. He received a B.A. in psychology from Westminster College and M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of South Carolina. His research areas include media literacy, misinformation, and political polarization. Facciani’s forthcoming book, Misguided, describes the psychological and sociological processes that explain why we are susceptible to political and health misinformation. Facciani is also interested in evidence-based policy and works with the Research-to-Policy Collaboration at Pennsylvania State University.
Post-Dispatch Metro Columnist Tony Messenger will share some of the daily ethical challenges he faces as a journalist, and will explore how the profession might change in the future.
Tony Messenger is the Pulitzer Prize-winning metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In 2019 he won the Pulitzer in commentary for his series of columns on debtors’ prisons in Missouri. His first book: Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice, was published by St. Martin’s Press in December. Tony lives with his wife and two teenagers in Wildwood. He has four grown children and 9 grandchildren.
What future did you imagine growing up? Did you imagine we would have flying cars by now? Hoverboards, perhaps? Often, when we imagine the future, we focus on technology: the cool toys we will get to play with, the innovations which will make our lives easier. But what about our ethical future? What innovations in living together will we develop? And, more important, what are we doing now, which we shouldn’t be? Join James Croft for an inspirational exploration of the future of ethics!
Raji Laxman will offer an objective view of casteism, its origins and its societal impacts in India, drawing parallels to the similar “-ism”s and their impacts in the West. Born and raised in South India in a traditional and religious family, Raji moved to the United States in the mid 90s after her marriage. She has been a member of the Ethical Society for the past two years and has been working for Washington University in St. Louis for the past 16 years.
Nikki Nienhaus will offer a brief history of racism in American medicine, how it has evolved and changed, and what the outlook is moving forward. She will include practical ways that individuals can recognize their own biases as well as those of the healthcare workers they encounter, and begin to change them. And lastly, she will offer actions that can be taken to create change on the global level. Dr. Nikki Nienhaus has been practicing as a chiropractor since 2016, both in private practice and as the chiropractor at Jamaa Birth Village, St. Louis’ first Blackowned midwifery clinic. Nikki and her husband Kyle have been members at the Ethical Society since 2013. They have one daughter, Lorelai.
Jonathan describes his start with the Ethical Society, his current situation, and anthropology.
No Roe in MO! Allison Hile, an expert in the fields of abortion care and sexual health education, will answer your burning questions: How could this have happened? What are people doing now? What can I do? And a few positive things on the horizon! Allison Hile has a master’s degree in counseling psychology with an emphasis in human sexuality. She is the retired executive director of a statewide organization training adults to be better sexuality educators. She has worked in the fields of abortion care and sexual health education for over 30 years. She is a founding board member of the Missouri Abortion Fund and their current board secretary. Allison and her husband are longtime members of the Ethical Society of St. Louis.
We live in a world, and a nation, beset by enormous challenges. Rising extremism, political dysfunction, and social polarization have created an increasingly mean and rancorous public square. Events like the overturning of Roe v. Wade suggest that American society is moving further from the progressive ideals the Ethical Society represents, while the attack on the Capitol showed how sick American democracy is. In such a challenging climate, how can Ethical Humanists live their values? Should we fight fire with fire, or should we be peacemakers?
Dave Warnock, author of the memoir Childish Things, argues that moving away from childish thinking means embracing the complexity and nuance in the world. Fundamentalist thinking keeps individuals and societies in an infantile state of mind. We must move away from that if we are to progress.
How Missourians of all stripes must be vocal and involved in protecting our democracy and not wait for anyone else to save it, including real-world tips on putting yourself in the activist and legislative arena. Stacey Newman condenses ProgressWomen’s popular long-running statewide #GOV101 series into urgent doable actions, compelling you to get off the couch and do something while you still can.
Life doesn't always turn out the way we expect, for better or for worse. However, through it all there is always hope- and a reason to look ahead. Persevering through challenges and finding purpose and meaning in serving others becomes the true measure of success. Teaching has been a journey of finding the joy in fulfilling the calling of a lifetime while learning my own invaluable lessons.
Carissa L. Philippi will present evidence from individuals with brain injury as well as brain imaging research in prison inmates which demonstrate the role of the frontal and temporal lobes in criminal behavior. In the context of this neuroscientific research, she will discuss legal and ethical considerations regarding concepts of individual responsibility and the limitations of neuroimaging.
If our minds are the product of matter and if matter simply obeys strict natural laws, how can we have free will at all? This is one of the greatest philosophical questions of all, and a problem which is frequently used to attack materialistic Humanism. “Of course we have free will,” critics of materialism often say, “and materialism cannot account for that, so materialism must be wrong!” Is this correct? What is the evidence that we have free will, and what are the implications if we don’t? Are our choices truly our own? Find out in this lightning-fast tour through one of the most difficult philosophical terrains of all.
As Ethical Humanists, we strive to live our values. we are committed to ethical action and relationship building. Reciting our values and living them are two totally different things. How do we put our values into action? Which ones are hardest to implement in our daily lives? Does everyone deserve to be treated fairly and kindly? Join Leader-In-Training Louise Jett in exploring radical kindness, Humanist values and Ethical Culture.
Americans have never had more opportunities to express their views or greater access to information. Even so, we face an unprecedented crisis of free speech. Resource disparities and identity discrimination create deep disparities in speakers’ opportunities to reach audiences. Disinformation and the limits of human attention undermine our public discourse. Governments work overtime to suppress political protest and dissent. If the freedom of speech isn’t making our society better, then it isn’t the kind of freedom we need and deserve. To get that kind of freedom, we need to change the legal and political structures that keep failing us.
Ethical Culture is a tradition with a proud history but an uncertain future. While some Ethical Societies are strong and growing, the movement as a whole is shrinking, and it may not be long until there are only a handful of Ethical Societies left. How can we avoid this future? What do we need to change, in our home Societies and in our movement, to make Ethical Culture radical, vibrant, and growing once again?
Learn from the Founder and President of Skepticon Lauren Lane about how this unique conference came to be and how it continues to find success today.
Lauren Lane is the Founder and Executive Director of Skepticon, a national conference located annually in St. Louis, MO that promotes skepticism, science education and community building. She earned her BFA in drawing from Missouri State University and her MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio from The Memphis College of Art.
She currently makes art, things, and trouble in St. Louis, MO.
How can we meet the economic needs of all in the present while leaving equal or better economic opportunities for those of the future? This is the question of economic sustainability, and economic sustainability is not possible without ecological and social sustainability. There is no economic incentive for a person to do anything for the sole benefit of anyone else, and certainly not for the benefit of those of future generations. Thus, the question of economic sustainability is ultimately a question of ethics.
Article 18 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion." Freedom of thought is thus considered a foundational liberty, one of the most important freedoms which must be protected by all governments and societies. But why is freedom of thought so important, and how can we honor it in our country, our city, and our lives?
Professor Anand Chandrasekhar will discuss the discovery of stem cells and ethical issues associated with research using embryonic stem cells. He will explain how ethical concerns related to stem cell research have receded due to the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The impact of iPSCs and applications on personalized/precision medicine and research using model organisms will be discussed.
The word skeptic literally means inquirer. And to inquire into things is good, right? But skepticism has a complex and much misunderstood history, from the Pyrrhonists who abstained from holding any opinion to modern scientific skeptics focused on criticizing pseudoscience. In his talk, Pigliucci will argue that skepticism can and should be a philosophy of life and a path to happiness. And there is a lot more to life and happiness than just debunking nonsense.
Massimo Pigliucci is an author, blogger, podcaster, as well as the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His academic work is in evolutionary biology, philosophy of science, the nature of pseudoscience, and practical philosophy. His books include How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (Basic Books) and Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk (University of Chicago Press). His forthcoming book is The Quest for Character: What the Story of Socrates and Alcibiades Teaches Us about Our Search for Good Leaders (Basic Books).
Vivian Gibson will discuss her best-selling memoir The Last Children of Mill Creek that chronicles the triumphs and daily struggles of her large family. You’ll hear about the friends, shop owners, church ladies and teachers who made Mill Creek into a tight-knit African American Community. In 1959, Mill Creek, a segregated working-class neighborhood in St. Louis was razed to build The Daniel Boone Expressway, an act of racism disguised as "urban renewal."
Vivian Gibson was raised on Bernard Street in Mill Creek Valley and has lived in New York City and Liberia. She started writing short stories about her childhood memories after retiring at age sixty-six. Her work has been produced as part of 50in50: Writing Women into Existence, at the Billie Holliday Theater in Brooklyn, and published in The St. Louis Anthology (Belt Publishing, 2019). She is the 2020 winner of the Missouri Humanities Literary Achievement Award. Gibson lives in St. Louis.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has swiftly become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War 2. Thousands of civilians have been killed, and more than a million refugees displaced. What can we learn from the history of armed conflict in Europe to determine how we might respond to this new crisis?
In this special Platform, Ethical Society Leader James Croft will be joined by Prof. Krister Knapp of Washington University, a specialist in the history of crisis and conflict, for a discussion of the invasion of Ukraine and what it means for the US and for the world.
Local author Sarah Kendzior, the author of “Hiding in Plain Sight” and “The View from Flyover Country,” will explore the rise of autocracy, paying particular attention to Missouri as the bellwether of American decline.
Her talk will examine the causes of rising autocracy – decades-long institutional rot, entrenched corruption, elite criminal impunity, digital media silos full of propaganda, and the embrace of groupthink and cults that tends to thrive in unstable times – and offer potential solutions to our ongoing crises.
“Sarah Kendzior is a modern-day prophet,” said Ethical Society of St. Louis Leader James Croft. “Her writing on American politics and culture is searingly honest, deeply thoughtful, and profoundly wise. At a time when truly dangerous forces are twisting American politics, we need voices like Kendzior’s to wake us up and get us to act.”
Kendzior will illustrate how Missouri has served as a petri dish for the end of the American experiment, a place where dirty dark money operatives test out their worst ideas on an innocent populace. But because Missouri has borne the brunt of these tactics early, she believes it may be better prepared to fight for the American future.
“While some might be put off by her diagnoses, we need to be honest about the challenges we face as a nation if we are to overcome them,” Croft said. “That honesty is what Sarah Kendzior offers, and that is why we are so delighted to have her join us for the Ethical Society of St. Louis’ annual Pacino Lecture. The Pacino Lecture is offered in memory of Nick Pacino, a member of the Ethical Society who was passionate about thought-provoking and timely ideas, and Kendzior is a perfect speaker to honor his memory.”
An exploration into how our commutes and other daily decisions contribute to prejudice and marginalization of Black people throughout the St. Louis region.
Tabari A. Coleman, MPA is a training consultant and social justice advocate known for his thoughtful but direct approach in facilitating dialogue sessions that focus on building empathy. With more than 19 years of experience in diversity and inclusion training and social justice work, he brings a wealth of knowledge, passion and expertise to his work. He worked for the Anti-Defamation League for 13 years as the education director and national director of Professional Development. He left in 2021 to start his own consulting company, The Coleman Group, LLC. He travels nationally and internationally delivering training programs, workshops and giving presentations. He is a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri-St Louis where he is applying his practical knowledge and experiences in the Social Justice in Education, Ed.D program.
Teka Childress will share an overview of the particular situation of homelessness in St Louis and the great opportunities there are to address it.
Teka Childress was part of the St Louis Catholic Worker community for 35 years and helped operate a house of hospitality and shelter. She also has worked as an outreach worker among unhoused persons for twenty years and has advocated for the rights of unhoused persons.
Casey is an entrepreneur, community builder, and creator of Open Div Summit A 4-day "pod-conference" around spirituality, meaning, and connection in the secular world. focusing on spirituality for the secular world.
In a typical year, this would be the announcement and reminder of the Pledge Luncheon, where we would gather for community and for the future of the Society. We had hoped to have a smaller version of that this year, but the Omicron spike is an unprecedented challenge that made doing so impossible. But despite these challenges, we as a Society have built new flexibility, enabling us to switch from in-person to hybrid to fully virtual on very short notice. It hasn’t been ideal, but we have kept our congregation going, have kept our relationships alive, and have grown an audience outside of St. Louis.
Whatever happens with the pandemic, our staff and our new technology have opened these opportunities that we didn’t have before. We can emerge from the pandemic with a strong local congregation and a larger network and influence throughout the Humanist movement. Capitalizing on those opportunities takes creativity, time, staff effort, and… capital. Existing members, please review the pledge packet you received and give as you can to help us build in the future. Non-members, please consider joining us, to become a part of our community.
Hear about our support of the Uganda Humanist Schools Trust (UHST) and providing scholarships to female high school students for the past decade. The schools and their surrounding communities have struggled mightily due to the COVID pandemic and the government-ordered school shut-downs; with significantly decreased tuition revenue but increased costs, the schools and the students relied heavily on funding provided by UHST.
Dr Helen De Cruz, the Danforth Chair in the Humanities in the Philosophy department of Saint Louis University, discusses the feelings of awe and wonder.
Renowned author Kurt Vonnegut once said, “I am a Humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishment after I am dead.” This quote is only one example of how the late Vonnegut was an ambassador for Humanism. He was also an honorary president of the American Humanist Association and honored as Humanist of the Year by the organization in 1992.
As a teenager, Leader-in-Training Louise Jett learned about Humanism via Vonnegut and his work, which reinforced values she held and introduced her to new perspectives.
During this Platform, Louise will explore the relationship Vonnegut had with Humanism while illustrating the role the celebrated author has played in her life and personal beliefs.
The Zoo is at a turning point in its 112-year history. It is preparing to embark on its biggest fundraising effort ever. The Zoo is in the midst of creating a whole institution in WildCare Park and for the first time in 20 years, the Zoo will have a new president. Finally, we know that we have much to do if we are to maintain the high standard of our Forest Park campus. This presentation will focus on this inflection point and will speculate on the Zoo’s future.
Jeffrey Bonner has led the Zoo for 20 years as the Dana Brown President and CEO. Prior to that he led the Indianapolis Zoo and prior to that he was part of the team that created the new St. Louis Science Center. He is a Burgess Fellow, a Traveling Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, and the recipient of the National Research Service Award. He is a graduate of Fort Zumwalt High School in O’Fallon, Missouri, the University of Missouri, and Columbia University in the City of New York. He is the author of a book on zoos entitled Sailing With Noah.
Katherine Mathews will tell the story behind the creation of the Bander Center for Medical Business Ethics at Saint Louis University. She will then discuss the Center’s innovative curriculum for training medical students to be positive change agents and leaders within the complex US healthcare industry. Through this curriculum students learn about financial drivers within healthcare where every dollar spent is someone else’s dollar of revenue or profit. Students also work in teams and use cases to practice foundational skills for professional development and ethical leadership. With a background in public health, research, healthcare administration, and direct patient care, Katherine Jahnige Mathews, M.D., MPH, MBA, is a Saint Louis University School of Medicine professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women’s Health. She also serves as director of education for the Bander Center for Medical Business Ethics. In 2020 she launched an innovative required curriculum for first- and second-year medical students called Leadership and the Business of Medicine. This curriculum has been developed with and for students and is grounded in explicit reflection about the values that inform our actions and sense of right and wrong.
How do you learn from people you hate? Not just disagree with, not just have conflict with, but actively hate? James Croft has been there: in his first proper job he was paired with a mentor whom he hated – and who he is pretty sure hated him too. Yet somehow they were able to learn from each other. How can we learn to do this in our own lives – and should we?
Jim Reeves is a professional mediator and facilitator with 29 years of experience helping people have conversations, finding root causes of conflict, and building solutions for productive working relationships. He holds a BS from the University of Central Missouri; a JD from St. Louis University; and an LLM in Conflict Management and Organizational Leadership from the University of Missouri. Jim is the principal and founder of ClearBridge Consulting, which helps people live and work together more effectively through mediation, facilitation, ombuds, and negotiation and conflict coaching services.
What is the greatest kindness you have ever received? How did it affect you and what did it mean to you? In this Platform James will talk about the greatest kindness he has ever received, and examine what this can tell us about kindness as a virtue.
What does it mean to face the world every single day, knowing it was not designed for you; how you process information, take in your environment, or cope with the demands of a society too face paced for you to keep up with. How is it possible to have a disability and not be in a wheelchair, to have a college degree but get turned down by every job interview, or to be able to compose an original musical but not be able to perform math above a six-grade level. In this program, presenters Rob and Adam Rosen are proud to discuss the joys and struggles of being neurodivergent and what it takes to step out of an out-of-step life.
Adam Rosen is a St. Louis-based composer, performer, and published author. His essay, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Faygelah” was published in the 2004 anthology Mentsh: On Being Jewish and Queer. Adam’s first professionally produced show, Asperger’s: A High-Functioning Musical debuted to critical acclaim at the 2013 St. Lou Fringe Festival. Adam was diagnosed with high-functioning autism (level one) at thirty-seven years old. In 2017 Adam co-organized the first Community Autism Expo in the history of the St. Louis County Library. He was most recently interviewed for the 2020 anthology, Our Autistic Lives the first anthology devoted exclusively to the lives of autistic adults across the life span.
Rob Rosen is a graduate of Missouri Baptist University with a degree in Ministry and Leadership. He was diagnosed with ‘educational autism’ at the age of sixteen. In the last three years, Rob met the love of his life, got married, and with the love and support from his his family, bought a house together with his husband. In the future Rob wants to use his degree to help the LGBTQ community understand the needs of those who are neurodivergent.
Prior to our planned reopening in September, James will look back over the 18 months the Ethical Society has been closed, and chart a course for the coming year. After a period of retraction and self-protection, our community prepares to welcome people once again: what can we learn from what we’ve been through, and what do we hope to achieve together?
Are Marxism, critical race theory, and critical race feminism un-American ideologies that pose a threat to democracy, or defensible philosophies that help us understand wealth inequality under capitalism? Is Jeff Bezos, who recently spent billions of dollars to spend 4 minutes in space, contributing to society or stealing from the working class? Let’s talk about it!
Ann Skeet is offering a remarkable opportunity to revisit our understanding of winning and how we compete to achieve goals. We will consider what science offers to inform how we think about competition and together explore how a practice of personal ethical leadership, a blend of being and doing, shapes our approach to life and the goals we set.
Ann Skeet joined the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, the Jesuit university in Silicon Valley, as its senior director of leadership ethics in 2014. She researches, writes, and speaks about the ethical dilemmas of leaders and followers, corporate culture, and the ethical challenges of governance, and works with executives to shape and reinforce organizational cultures that encourage ethical outcomes.
Competition often gets a bad rap in progressive circles. The assumption is often that competition and collaboration are opposed, and that it is better to be collaborative than competitive. But human beings are both competitive and collaborative creatures by nature, and both have their benefits. So what are the benefits of competition, and why should we embrace our competitive side?
Contrary to the narrative that social media algorithms impact cognition, our research shows that people can and do override their intuitions and that reasoning often facilitates accurate belief formation. Although social media may impact what is salient to us when making choices about what to share with others, this is not intractable: Simple prompts that remind people to think about accuracy are sufficient to increase the quality of the news content that people share. This indicates that unreasonable behavior on social media is more a function of lazy thinking than of an inability for people to overcome social media algorithms.
Secularism is a hot topic in public, political, and religious debate across the globe. It is embodied in the conflict between secular republics – from the US to India – and a new, resurgent religious identity politics. In the last few years we’ve seen the resurgence of evangelical ethnonationalism in the US, Hindu nationalism brought to the fore by the BJP in India, and an ever louder drumbeat of horrors inflicted on Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang by the authoritarian Chinese government. What, though, is “secularism”, and why is it important?
What are the economic and social effects of surveillance in Northwest China? Because Uyghurs--a Turkic Muslim ethnic group--have been framed by Chinese authorities as a threatening population in need of social control, their existence offers technology companies space and funding that is unavailable in other parts of China to develop new technologies. These new technologies can then be used to assist in the “legal” theft of their labor when Uyghurs are assigned to work in unfree conditions. Building on analysis of labor exploitation in other places, Prof. Byler will describe the way state power is channeled through infrastructure and institutions to intensify ethno-racialization and produce a “reeducation labor regime” at a frontier of global capitalism.
The pandemic has forced all of us to pause many of the things which used to fill our daily lives, whether it’s our daily commute or our monthly get-together with friends. This – on top of the challenge of the virus itself – has been difficult. But it is also an opportunity: a chance to reassess our lives and get some clarity regarding what is really important, so that when everything reopens, we can start again more thoughtfully.
How do we decide what is right? What ideas and systems guide how we respond to life challenges and questions? Christian will share experiences that informed his approach to ethics and make a case why we should all expand our ethical literacy.
Our region is growing an abundance of local, sustainable, striving-to-be-equitable enterprises. From local food systems to our native plant landscaping movement, from energy policy to green jobs: much to be proud of, to support and enjoy! Prepare to be nourished by this report, and discussion that will surely complement it, with presenter “Green Jean” Ponzi of the EarthWays Center at Missouri Botanical Garden.
Social media is now a huge part of our lives, whether we use it ourselves or not. It shapes the media agenda; it influences political discussions; it molds our culture. It also affects our brains: social media platforms use sophisticated systems to encourage us to engage more and more, perhaps beyond the point where its healthy. How is social media affecting our brains and our society? Are the effects good or bad? And what can we do about it?
Christian admits he was a bad student. If you talked to some of his teachers, he was probably the worst kind of student- one who was capable, but unwilling. But as an adult, the learning bug bit him and the last ten years of his life has been a sort of testament to learning within and through community. Listen to Christian retrace his learning journey and hear some first-hand accounts of his (unofficial) teachers and co-learners. In addition, he will share some of the work he has been creating with others.
The happy attentiveness of artists at work has been described as a state of total absorption and effortless concentration. It might seem that Emerson contradicts this notion of happiness when he notes, “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful...” It may be argued that functional uselessness is the basic property of any work of art. How do artists in their happiness live up to the purposes for living that Emerson offered, usefulness first, but also “to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well?”
Art Reyes III leads a working class community organizing organization in Michigan that works to build multi-racial solidarity in one of the most segregated states in the country. This requires building a spirit of linked fate, that one’s liberation is intimately connected to others. Art will discuss what this has looked like in a time of rising white nationalism and threats of violence in Michigan, and how multi-racial, working-class communities have been building the capacity not only to respond but to vision and build a world where we all have dignity.
Throughout human history we have struggled to liberate ourselves. Human beings have fought for freedom against oppressive governments, cultures, and situations for millennia. What does it mean to be liberated? What can we learn from the struggles of the past? What are the great struggles for liberation in our own time? And how can Humanists heed our calling to create a world in which the dignity of all is recognized – in which all people live free.
Darrion Cockrell, who was recently named Missouri’s 2021 Teacher of the Year, will explore how his background and upbringing affected his view on life. He will explore how his own struggles lead him into teaching, and how he works to change the fixed mindsets of his students to something more expansive.
For our annual Pledge Platform, Leader James Croft will examine how we have had to expand our own concept of our community in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and how we have worked to examine different ways to remain in community despite our building being closed. Be Inspired. Be Invested.
Ecologically speaking, the edge effect results in greater diversity of life in a region where the edges of two adjacent ecosystems overlap, but social scientists also propose that the edge effect can help cultivate creativity in people who are exposed to different cultures. The edge effect may have been at play when some of our most revolutionary thinkers had creative breakthroughs, possibly even when Felix Adler founded Ethical Culture.
Myriam Springuel is the Director of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibitions Services (SITES) and Smithsonian Affiliations. For over 65 years, SITES, the largest traveling exhibition program in the world, has brought art and historical artifacts from the Smithsonian collection to communities across the US. SITES not only presents exhibitions in museums, science centers, and botanical gardens but also in nearly 2,000 rural communities since 1994 through the Museum on Main Street program. Myriam will explore how expanding the museum experience beyond the museum can help expand people’s minds.
For the past seven years the Ethical Society of St. Louis has supported the Ugandan Humanist Schools Trust. In that time, we have collectively donated almost $200,000 to schools and students in Uganda, helping fund student scholarships, provide needed supplies, and even build a new building. As we renew our commitment to the Ugandan Humanist Schools in a year of unprecedentedchallenges, James Croft will tell the story of our involvement as a Society, and explain why our continued support is vital.
In the late 90s, British Airways undertook a review of the various reward and recognition schemes in place worldwide and consolidated them under a single, integrated scheme: Bravo! Bravo! was the response to a global survey of employee expectations regarding how BA should recognize the contribution of its employees to the success of the airline, beyond financial remuneration. It explored the differences between Motivation, Reward and Recognition and asked fundamental questions about what it meant to feel valued in the workplace – and beyond. Liz Croft, who created Bravo!, will explore what we can learn about how to recognize others from her experience creating recognition schemes for one of the world’s iconic companies.
The Ethical Society of St. Louis is delighted to present its annual Ethics in Action Award to Gary Morse, PhD, honoring his work with Places for People. Places for People was founded 47 years ago in response to the then new federal policy of deinstitutionalization, which moved patients living in mental institutions back into the community. Today, Places for People serves more than 2,000 people annually, offering an individualized approach to health and healing. In this special ceremony Dr Brian Vandenberg, Joe Yancey, Bernadette Stapleton, and Dr Morse will speak about his work.
Our society is beset by numerous interlinked crises: political dysfunction, economic collapse, and environmental degradation combine to make a megacrisis. How can we honestly recognize the danger we are in as a nation and as a global community, while maintaining the sense of hope and efficacy required for us to make a difference?
The difficult parts of most relationships begin when there is growing tension around certain threshold issues and a lack of skills around how to engage them. But instead of looking at it as a win/loss, how might we turn conflict into a way to grow relationships, instead of break them down? Join Leader Intern Christian Hayden as he discusses this topic.
One of the most challenging elements of effective communication is listening. It seems simple – what could be easier than not speaking while someone else talks? But true listening is difficult. To get inside the minds of other people requires us to understand that they are not the same as we are, and that requires a lot of effort and communication skills. Join Leader James Croft as he discusses this topic.
John Baugh is Professor of Psychology, Anthropology, Education, English, Linguistics, and African and African-American Studies at Washington University. Baugh’s primary research interest has been the social stratification of linguistic behavior in multicultural and multilingual nations. In addition to his linguistic research, Professor Baugh directs the African and African-American Studies program, which strives to advance distinguished scholarship of and by people of African descent regardless of academic discipline.
Stephen Law is formerly reader and head of department in philosophy at Heythrop College University of London. He holds BPhil and DPhil degrees in philosophy from the University of Oxford where he was also a junior research fellow for three years. He has researched and published in metaphysics, epistemology, mind, philosophy of religion, and later Wittgenstein. His popular books include A Very Short Introduction to Humanism, The Philosophy Gym, and (for 12-adult) The Complete Philosophy Files. Stephen will be talking about science, scientism, the role of philosophy and religion, and what we can establish, if anything, from the comfort of our armchairs.
What does it mean to live an examined life? What parts of our life need we examine, and how? As we enter our year on The Examined Life, we will begin by asking how philosophical and spiritual examination of our lives can enrich us.
While most Ethical Society members know that Felix Adler, the founder of the first Ethical Society, was the son of a rabbi and grew up Jewish, we rarely talk about the relationship between Ethical Humanism and Judaism. In this Platform – the first of a new annual series exploring the similarities between Ethical Humanism and other religious traditions – James Croft will trace the Jewish roots of Ethical Humanism and show how our philosophy drew heavily on the Reform Judaism of Felix Adler’s upbringing.
When will things return to normal? Will they return? What is normal, anyway? We are in the midst of dramatic changes that pose fundamental questions about our life expectancies. See Brian's blog for the text of this presentation.
Before retiring, Brian spent 37 years as a Professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, served as Director of the Graduate Clinical Psychology Program, and published extensively on topics at the intersection of psychology, science, religion and existential concerns. He continues pursuing these issues in his blog, Decembersongs.com. Brian has been a member of the Ethical Society for over 15 years.
As a child, Leader-in-Training Louise Jett befriended a gruff stranger who lived next door. Their friendship remains close to her heart today. During this Platform, she will explore how humans crave connection and how we can tackle the loneliness epidemic one friend at a time, even during a pandemic.
Friedrich Nietzsche is perhaps the most misunderstood philosopher ever, and even this is not fully understood. He has been portrayed for over a century as a nihilist or Nazi but this is a result of misunderstanding him, as he mentally collapsed just as he was beginning his magnum opus, never to recover. The truth is rather (I claim) that the aim of Nietzsche’s philosophy is toward Humanism. He brilliantly coined new words and new ideas to express his intentions, often leading new and casual readers into confusion. I aim to show his philosophy was Humanist, All Too Humanist.
We live in a fast-changing world confronted by multiple major problems. Ongoing racism, the corona virus pandemic, the global economic meltdown, and governmental dysfunction are all real and cry out for solutions. Yet, climate change may be the biggest challenge the world faces. The talk will summarize the climate crisis problem and what we can all be doing to help to solve it.
Boomers think Millennials are entitled and whiny; Millennials think Boomers are smug and out-of-touch; Zennials laugh at Millennials’ obsession with Harry Potter; And everyone forgets about Gen X. Why do people of different generations seem to hate each other so much? What’s the cause of the generational conflict? Are generations really a good way of categorizing people? And how can we declare peace in the generation wars?
Ethical Culture does not have explicit tenants or commandments, but it does ask of its members/followers to commit to building ethical relationships, because we as a community feel they are imperative to social justice and realizing a better world. At the same time, many of us struggle to invite intimacy in our personal, romantic, and communal lives- why is that? And what ideas might lead us to better meeting our charge in the future?
The Encampment for Citizenship, founded in 1946 by Ethical Culture Leader Algernon D. Black and Alice ("Nanny") Politzer, a prominent civic leader, offered an opportunity for "young adults of many religious, racial, social and national backgrounds" to learn "the principles and techniques of citizenship… through lived experience." Black believed that young people could be a positive force in their communities if they developed critical thinking skills, youth activism, leadership qualities, and the courage to break free from stereotypes.
In this presentation, Dr. Ian Darnell will explore the rich legacy of LGBTQIA+ life and struggle in the St. Louis area. Covering a period of more than a century, he will highlight some of the key turning points that have shaped this complex and surprising history.
Ian Darnell serves as Curatorial Assistant for LGBTQIA+ collections at the Missouri Historical Society. A St. Louis native, he studied at Saint Louis University and earned his PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has contributed to a variety of local public history projects, including The Griot Museum of Black History and Mapping LGBTQ St. Louis.
Information and experience can help us become wiser, but gaining wisdom is not an automatic process. What helps us actually learn from suffering, and how can we insure that our pandemic experience results in a wiser society?
When people are divided and in conflict it can be difficult to maintain a positive stance in living. This is especially true today when political, cultural, and economic strife are prevalent. Bart Worden, Executive Director for the American Ethical Union, will talk about how Ethical Humanism can help us address the challenges we face as we strive to live ethically and work to build a caring and just society for all.
Bart Worden has been the Executive Director of the American Ethical Union, the national federation of Ethical Culture and Ethical Humanist Societies, since 2012. Bart is, in addition, the clergy leader for the Ethical Culture Society of Westchester, and is a Social Worker who has worked with programs that help people recover from psychiatric disability.
Religion is ancient, diverse, and deeply human. All through human history, and even into prehistory, human beings have used religion to fulfill fundamental existential and spiritual needs. Yet in a world of rapid secularization, religion must evolve: we must take responsibility for religion ourselves, and shape it to our new needs.
What does it mean to be "real" in the digital age? As more people leave the institutions that once helped many of us find meaning and belonging—opting out of religious communities and civic organizations—and move their search for realness to the internet instead, it's easy to worry. After all, we hear over and over that our digital lives are "fake," even though so much of who we are and what we do for work and play now happens online. Alternately, others say that technology will make us fuller, better versions of ourselves, if we just put our faith in it. But perhaps neither group gets it exactly right. Perhaps the internet is a new tool for understanding and expressing ourselves, and that the notalways-graceful ways we use this tool can reveal new insights into far older human behaviors and desires. In this talk, author and activist Chris Stedman will invite us to consider the ways we use the internet to fulfill the essential human need to feel real. The digital search for meaning and belonging presents challenges, he will argue, but also myriad opportunities to become more human.
Chris Stedman is the author of Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious (2012) and the forthcoming IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives (2020) and has written for The Guardian, The Atlantic, Pitchfork, BuzzFeed, VICE, and The Washington Post. Formerly the founding executive director of the Yale Humanist Community, he also served as a humanist chaplain at Harvard University and is currently a fellow at Augsburg University. Learn more at chrisstedmanwriter.com.
There are many ethical questions related to the topic of making a living, and we’ll explore several of them in this Platform: Is meaningful work a human right? To what extent should education and work serve the economy, and to what extent should an economy serve education and workers? How much should you weigh ethics when choosing how to make your living? And how does your spending rate affect your ability to make ethical decisions related to work?
Is the American Dream still alive for our region’s immigrants and refugees? While many foreign-born arrive in St. Louis with economic, educational and cultural assets, what resources are essential to restore hope and dignity to those foreign-born newcomers who are victims of persecution or war? Join Anna Crosslin, president and CEO of the International Institute of St. Louis, where staff, volunteers, and the wider community have welcomed thousands of immigrants and refugees and helped them find their best path toward self-sufficiency and successful integration.
The Ethical Society of St. Louis is the largest Ethical Society—and one of the largest Humanist congregations—in the world. We don’t often reflect on our status as a major Humanist cultural institution, but in this Platform—the second of our annual Pledge Drive Platforms—we will look at how our Ethical Society is inspiring the Humanist movement more broadly, and how we could play a bigger role in the future.
Historically, the Rite of Passage ceremony has served to initiate a person into a society or community. Typically, this pivotal point in a person’s life happens within a group. Sometimes the group is enacting upon one person, sometimes the whole group itself is involved in the process. In the end, there is usually growth, a heightened sense of development and awareness, and possibly a change in social status. But what do Rites of Passage look like now, in this modern age? We are so consumed by media and technology that even our minuscule social interactions have changed. How has this affected our development? How has this affected our ability to empathize?
Marriage has been one of the major Rites of Passage for people in every part of the world. Yet today more and more people, those with and without partners, are choosing not to marry. Why is this? What are the pros and cons of getting hitched? And what effects might a shrinking percentage of married people have on a country?
For millennia, people have celebrated the turning of the year as one of the most important rites of passage in the calendar. But why do we organize our years as we do, and what significance do different cultures place on the new year? How can we use the turning of the year as a time of renewal and regeneration?
Human potential is a central concept of Ethical Humanism: We believe that human beings have the potential to grow, improve, and change our circumstances. But what are the limits of our potential? How far does human potential extend, and how can we realize it best? In this Platform we’ll explore the idea of “human potential” and learn some ways to maximize our own.
Come learn the newest news about the Uganda Humanist Schools and how the Ethical Society is helping bring out the potential in young lives across the world. We will also celebrate the legacy of member and educator Ed Schmidt.
Documenting the evolution of teens and media from the 1950s through 2010, Don Miller’s book Coming of Age in Popular Culture examines the films, books, television shows, and musical artists that affected American culture and shaped the “coming of age” experience for each generation. Don is a local author, playwright, and Webster University professor, and he will share various examples from pop culture media that are tied to ethical issues, spanning six decades of recent history.
Loss of innocence—the disillusionment that occurs when the world doesn’t live up to our expectations—can be one of the hardest experiences to grapple with. It can be shattering to discover that our view of things was too optimistic, that the world is worse than we believed. How can we go on after our innocence has been lost? How do we rebuild our worldview and our confidence?
As we go through life we gain knowledge and experience, and we lose the innocence we had as children. This is an important process in becoming mature people. Yet there is also an argument for striving to keep a version of that early innocence—a state of openness and “unknowing” that in Zen Buddhism is called Beginner’s Mind. When is it helpful to have such an attitude, and how can we cultivate it?
A special Platform presenting the 2019 Ethical Society of St. Louis Ethics in Action Award to Joyce Best, lifelong activist for peace, justice, and racial equality.
Joyce and her husband, Steve Best, worked together for many years on various social causes, and they raised their children at the Ethical Society of St. Louis. Joyce was an active member of the Committee on Racial Equality and was featured in the recent Missouri History Museum’s exhibit on the civil rights movement in St. Louis. She participated in sit-ins and other interracial actions, including helping to form the Freedom of Residence group in St. Louis.
Joyce was active in Mothers and Children Together, which sponsored visits of children with mothers in prison, and in her profession as a librarian, she helped establish a library at Pruitt-Igoe. She is a longtime active member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and with that group she helped establish a children’s peace camp in University City, planning and administrating the camp and working there each day as a volunteer for several summers. She also locally coordinates the national Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, which recognizes children’s books that promote interracial harmony and world peace.
Joyce’s Ethical Society work includes serving on the Board of Trustees, and years of active participation in the Sunday School, including as volunteer director; in many committees, notably the Ethical Action Committee, and single-handedly administering the Gilpin Fund utility assistance program; and serving in multiple roles in the Tuesday Women’s Association. She continues to be a strong and persuasive voice of conscience at the Society.
Missouri tragically exemplifies the dangers of what happens when a slow but persistent effort to chip away at reproductive autonomy succeeds. Our current reality should be a lesson to others. We are fighting an abortion ban, universally felt to be one of the most restrictive bans across the United States. We are simultaneously defending the license of Missouri’s last abortion-providing clinic from regulatory attacks. And we are navigating illegal attempts by the legislature to deny payment for services rendered. We are helping Missourians understand the impact of a federal policy specifically designed to attack our nation’s only safety net program providing well people care and contraception. We have not arrived at this point by chance. In this hour we will discuss that evolution, where we are now, and what we do next.
Dr. Colleen McNicholas completed medical school at the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is a board-certified obstetrician gynecologist and completed her residency and family planning fellow-ship at Washington University School of Medicine where she later served as faculty for six years. She currently holds the position of chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. She provides gynecology, family planning, abortion, LGBTQIA care, and abortion services across the Midwest including MO, OK, and KS. Dr. McNicholas is also a clinical researcher focused on non-traditional provision of Long Acting Reversible Contraception. Lastly, she spends a great deal of time on reproductive health, rights, and justice advocacy, centering patients experiences and needs in the conversation of health care policy.
Human beings have always been fascinated by the question of our own origins: how did we come to be? Throughout history different cultures have created many stories to explain the birth of humankind. In this Platform we will examine some of these creation stories, to see what we can learn from the myths we have told about our ourselves.
Come learn about the Ethical Society’s themes for the 2019-20 year and how they relate to our lives personally and as a community.
For this year's “compare and contrast” Platform address, we’ll look at what Ethical Humanism has in common with and where it differs from Christianity, in its many forms. Some of the founders of the first Ethical Societies had Christian backgrounds, and many members today grew up in Christian households of one kind or another. Christianity is also still the dominant religion in America. What is the relationship between Ethical Humanism and Christianity today?
Ethical Humanism was founded as a new religion, a revolution in religious thinking which put people at the center, rather than God. Yet today, many would consider Humanism a non-religious philosophy, given that we do away with so much that is central to traditional religions. So what to do? How should Ethical Humanism – and Humanists in general – relate to religion?
Black Nonbelievers was founded in 2011 to provide support and increase the visibility of black atheists and religion doubters. Mandisa Thomas will discuss the organization’s historical context, its founding, its work, and her vision for the future.
Mandisa Thomas, a native of New York City, is the founder and President of Black Nonbelievers, Inc. As the president of Black Nonbelievers, Inc., Mandisa encourages more blacks to come out and stand strong with their nonbelief in the face of such strong religious overtones. Mandisa has many media appearances to her credit, including CBS Sunday Morning, CNN.com, and Playboy, The Humanist, and JET magazines. In 2019, Mandisa was the recipient of the Secular Student Alliance’s Backbone Award, and named the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s Freethought Heroine.
In modern culture, the concept of a spiritual dimension to life is commonly associated with religion, the supernatural, or new age concepts. But more and more, the idea that there can be spirituality without religion, and without any appeal to the supernatural, is being recognized by non-believers as a fundamental quality necessary for living a fulfilling and meaningful life. It may finally be time reclaim the idea of spirituality and its benefits for humanists.
Rich Feldenberg, M.D., is an Associate Professor and Pediatric Nephrologist, at St. Louis University School of Medicine, where he cares for children with kidney disease and conducts research on the genetics of birth defects in the kidneys. He grew up in St. Louis and has been passionate about science from an early age. His other interests are cycling, philosophy, and writing. He also leads the Science Enthusiasts Club at the Ethical Society each month.
Since July 2012, Dr. Karen I. Hall has served as the superintendent of the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District, where she oversees more than 1,500 students, 275 employees, and a $25 million budget. She joined the MRH district as assistant superintendent in 2008, coordinating a wide array of programs: human resources, professional development, curriculum and instruction, federal grants, home visits, gifted instruction, and social justice training, among many others. Dr. Hall has held principal positions in the Pattonville and Ritenour school districts and was a third-grade teacher in Kirkwood. Under her leadership, MRHSD was named a “District of Distinction" from District Administration Magazine and has consistently earned national attention for its system-wide sustainability practices.
One of the most important roles we each play for others is that of mentor. People learn from example, and we can choose to set a good example by identifying our best qualities and relentlessly living up to them. At a time when there are so many poor examples in public life, it’s important to remind ourselves that by living up to our own highest standards—by being our best selves—we can help others to do the same.
Dr. Will Ross grew up in a gritty, hard-scrabble ghetto in Memphis, Tennessee. His life was changed at age 15 when a prominent Jewish couple was able to send him to a summer program at a boarding school in New Hampshire, as well as provide financial support until he graduated from college. Mr. Wexner, a local businessman, and his wife, Shirley, were both active in the Civil Rights movement in Memphis and instilled in Will a strong sense of social justice and an embrace of Dr. Martin Luther King’s philosophy of inclusion and non-violent protest against racial injustice. Dr. Ross continues that legacy as he advocates for health equity throughout St. Louis.
Will Ross, MD, MPH, is associate dean for diversity, principal officer for community partnerships, and professor of medicine in the Division of Nephrology at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Ross has recruited and developed a diverse group of medical students, residents, and faculty. He helped establish free local medical clinics and has worked nationally and globally to promote health equity. He is a charter and founding member of the St. Louis Regional Health Commission and Chairman of the St. Louis City Board of Health. He is a founding member of the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, a magnet high school for students pursuing careers in medicine and biomedical sciences. He previously served as Chief Medical Officer of St. Louis Regional Hospital, the last public hospital in St. Louis. Ross earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and an MD from the Washington University School of Medicine.
He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Vanderbilt and a Renal Fellowship at Washington University. He also completed a master’s degree in epidemiology at Saint Louis University.
Humanism is often presented as a tradition grounded in Classical teachings, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment – essentially a project of the West. Is this picture accurate, or are there more diverse expressions of Humanism than this? This Platform will explore the many diversities within the philosophy and tradition of Humanism, giving life to the rich and complex worldview the Ethical Society promotes.
Ethical Humanism promotes the idea that truth and ethics are discovered and created by human beings working together, learning to communicate across all lines of difference and to listen deeply and learn from each other. But how do we learn and teach appreciation for diversity? How do we react to differences between people and bring out the best in each other, when difference can also be a source of conflict?
In keeping with June’s “Celebrate Diversity” theme, Jia Lian Yang and Ethical Society member Treasure Shields Redmond will be discussing the genesis of their award winning podcast, Who Raised You? The Who Raised You? podcast is a kitchen table conversation with St. Louis’s artists, educators, and change makers that explores how culture, family, and intersecting identities pave our way toward liberation.
Most of us struggle with self-worth sometime. Perhaps we don’t like how we look, or we think we haven’t accomplished much, or we worry about how others see us. Developing a secure and abiding sense of self-worth is perhaps one of the most important things we can do for our mental health and wellbeing—so why is it so difficult?
The subject of this Platform was suggested by the winner of the Platform Topic silent auction item at this year’s Youth Group Dinner Dance. The generations to come after us are on many of our minds lately, as we grapple with the climate crisis and witness other fundamental changes in culture and politics. Ethics is about relationships; what kind of ethical responsibilities can we have with those who do not even exist yet? How can and should we take them into account when making ethical decisions?
Many religions have a concept of environmental stewardship that says humans have been given responsibility for the environment and other animals by a creator. Ethical Humanism embraces the theory of unguided evolution. Yet many Ethical Humanists are strong environmentalists. What is the basis for the Ethical Humanist environmental ethic? How do we decide ecological ethical questions? Some people argue that humans have been so harmful to the environment that the earth would be better off without humans; is this really true?
Earth Defense Coalition was born from the struggle for clean water in an increasingly polluted world. Everything we do is to serve the end of saving Earth not simply for its people but also the preservation of its natural ecological state and millions of species. We recognize that history proves a diversity of tactics a necessity to tearing down the machine, [including...] Nonviolent Direct Action.... We understand the intersectionality of struggle within imperiled groups whose way of life has been drastically harmed by the confluence of colonial, imperialist violence and ecological destruction. The ongoing colonization and brutality inflicted on people of color and indigenous populations worldwide is directly at the crosshairs of the Earth’s survival. We stand with our sisters and brothers to reclaim the sanctity of the planet and its trillions of hominid and non-hominid inhabitants.
Our theme this month is Respect Dignity. How can Humanists ethically advocate for the dignity of our worldview to be respected? And what is the difference between having dignity and being dignified?--What are our biases about what dignity looks like?
This talk will discuss the causes and consequences of rising inequality in the United States. Mark Rank is Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University. His most recent book, with long-time collaborator Thomas Hirschl of Cornell University, is Chasing the American Dream: Understanding the Dynamics that Shape Our Fortunes. This book explores the nature of the American Dream and the economic viability of achieving it through both extensive data analysis and in-depth interviews with a wide spectrum of modern Americans.
The theory of evolution by natural selection is now a cornerstone of science, and we are learning more about the process every day. For Ethical Humanists, evolution is fascinating for its own sake, but it also influences how we view humanity, our own lives and ethical values, and the rest of the natural world. So join us for this special Sunday—we will celebrate evolution through science, story, readings, and song; explore some of the emotions and questions that evolutionary theory raises; and talk about why evolution matters.
What does it mean to have dignity, and how can we respect the dignity of others? We can get a window into what it means to have dignity by looking at forms of dehumanization, times when people have had their dignity stripped from them – then try to do the opposite, and humanize them instead.
In a world-culture that seems fascinated with communication and intersectionality, this reflection invites us to step back from our fast-paced cadence of life in order to examine more intentionally how human relationships and the desire for the common good demand greater self-awareness (honesty) and vulnerability (personal risk).
Javier Orozco is Executive Director of Intercultural and Interreligious Affairs for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, overseeing the Office of Hispanic Ministry and the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. Drawing from his experience working across lines of religious difference, in this Platform Address he will share his experiences and thoughts on how we can build relationships with those who believe differently.
Personal caregiving at home for family and friends used to be the only option for those who need extra assistance or help, whether temporarily or for life. Today there are professional options for caregiving both for services and housing, yet there are many ethical dilemmas involved in decisions about care: issues of cost and time, of fairness and priorities, increasingly of balancing multiple caregiving responsibilities. How should we approach such difficult and often heart-wrenching questions?
For this, the second part of our annual Pledge Sunday Platforms, prepare to go big picture. We’ll explore where we seem to be going as a species, analyzing some of the challenges facing human beings as we approach the third decade of the third millennium; and we’ll ask where we are going as an Ethical Society, outlining some of the things we'd like to achieve and how we hope to achieve them.
It's pledge time! Time to kick off the Ethical Society's annual pledge campaign. This year's campaign theme, "We Are the Ethical Society," will highlight and share stories of members and remind us that it is individuals that together create a community and an institution. We will emphasize the humans in Ethical Humanism. Come learn more about this past year's accomplishments, plans for the future, and how together we are the Ethical Society. Plus, hear the announcement of the fundraising total for the Uganda Humanist Schools project!
Jason Purnell is Associate Professor at the Brown School of Washington University. His research focuses on how socioeconomic and sociocultural factors influence health behaviors and health outcomes and on mobilizing community action to address the social determinants of health. He currently leads Health Equity Works, the new name and expanded mission of the Brown School initiative previously referred to as For the Sake of All, which the Ethical Society learned about in a two-part Forum last month.
We all need support sometimes. Life doesn't always go to plan, and when things fall apart, we need people we can turn to for help. But it can be difficult to ask for help: we fear the vulnerability of admitting we need support, or we may not have anyone in our lives we can trust with our weakness. How can we get better at asking for support when we need it, and how can we build a community that supports each other through life?
In 1994 Bob Hansman began City Faces for children in Clinton-Peabody Public Housing, then something of a hotbed of Bloods (and Crips) activity. In 1996 he opened a studio there, which has by now been populated by two generations of kids in the projects as well as hundreds of Washington University volunteers. In 2002 he adopted his son Jovan; the two of them have been the subject of national television and magazine coverage and the recipients of numerous awards. In 2017 Bob and Jovan illustrated a book of poems about immigration—Traveling the Blue Road: Poems of the Sea, which has won recognition from the National Associations of Teachers of English and Social Studies.
Bob Hansman is a child of the sixties. He got to meet Coretta Scott King and Julian Bond, and was sitting just yards from Bobby Kennedy when he announced his run for the presidency. He also got beat up (and his lawyer’s office got pipe-bombed) by the Ku Klux Klan. Years later he began teaching at both Washington University and the Clinton-Peabody housing projects. Those two threads have been weaving in and out ever since. In 2017 he published a book about Pruitt-Igoe. Locally, Bob has received a Rosa Parks Award and a Dred Scott Freedom Award from Dred and Harriet Scott’s great-great-granddaughter.
For millennia, the idea that human beings have a supernatural “soul”—a spirit inside us which is more than simply matter—has played a central role in religious and spiritual traditions. But even if, like many Humanists, you do not believe that you have a literal “soul,” you might still use the word in a metaphorical sense, or talk about “soul music” or “soul food.” What do these words mean, then, and what might an Ethical Humanist understanding of “soul” look like? How can we feed our Ethical Humanist “souls”?
Come hear and see what’s going on with the Uganda Humanist Schools and how the Ethical Society is helping Ugandan humanists transform young lives and lift up an entire community.
Identifying with and being a part of a community is a quintessential human endeavor. However, exclusion is a common challenge to community-building. This talk focuses on teasing out ways to create communities that genuinely strive to include everyone.
Sincere Kirabo is a DC-area-based cultural critic and social change instigator; his work focuses on cultivating Black humanist culture, building healthy Black masculinity, and struggling to create a world that honors the “radical” idea of free Black people. Sincere has a background in social science, and his social critiques have been featured in media outlets including The Humanist, Black Youth Project, and Everyday Feminism. Sincere served as social justice coordinator with the American Humanist Association, connecting humanist philosophy with inclusive practices and outreach. He is active in LGBTQ issues and secular social justice.
Philosophers, politicians, and talking heads everywhere are decrying an apparent breakdown of civility in our public discourse. Rising partisanship, extremism, and an increasingly contentious social media environment are combining to fracture our political community and make our public discussions cruel and fruitless. But what does it mean to be “civil”, really, and is it as high a value as many believe? In this Platform we’ll explore what “civility” means, and how it can cultivate—or stifle—community.
An individual’s community used to be largely determined by circumstance—the extended family and town in which they grew up, the traditions of family and background. “Community” was mostly a given, and often something to escape from in search of freedom and new experiences. Today, community is often something that people are seeking, as families shrink, people move more often, traditions continue to lose power, and individuality reigns supreme. What does it mean to cultivate voluntary community? What do we owe family or tradition? What do we owe relative strangers? What do we owe ourselves? What does choosing community require of us, and what does it give us in return?
Culture and politics today are riven with debates about social justice. Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement are social justice campaigns which have become international phenomena. At the heart of these movements are so-called “social justice warriors”: people who take to the streets (and their keyboards and phones) to promote their vision of social justice. But what does it mean to be a social justice warrior, and should we become one?
The epidemic of gun violence is of deep concern to most Americans. Yet it often seems as if we’re stuck in a cycle of tragedy, “thoughts and prayers, and pollical stalemate. What progress has been made and how might we achieve more?
A special Platform presenting the 2018 Ethical Society of St. Louis Ethics in Action Award to Jorge Riopedre, president and CEO of Casa de Salud https://casadesaludstl.org, a clinic providing high-quality, low-cost clinical and mental healthcare to the uninsured, focusing on the new immigrant community.
Jorge founded a media production company specializing in the Hispanic market, and then became the executive director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan St. Louis. He is a 2015 Eisenhower Fellow, having traveled to Germany and Mexico to study the healthcare systems of those countries, and is now president of the Eisenhower Fellowships St. Louis chapter. Jorge co-founded the St. Louis New American Alliance, which provides referral services to foreign-born individuals throughout the region.
Jorge says, “The Internet and social media have made it easy to connect and given us a megaphone to express ourselves on every topic imaginable, and yet our isolation from each other has increased; we seem to be less willing or able to actually do something to drive change. Actions, not words, are what the world needs from us, and what we need for ourselves.”
“Deed Before Creed” is one of the best known sayings in the Ethical Humanist movement. It has become a sort of motto for our community, expressing something important about our approach to religious beliefs and ethical values. But what does this motto mean? What is the relationship between our beliefs and our values, and does it matter?
Jé Hooper is in the Leader-in-Training program of the American Ethical Union and the Ph.D Interdisciplinary Arts program at Ohio University. His work promotes the intersections of art, justice, and religious ethics in efforts to obtain social equity. An AEU Mossler Fellow, Jé is working on a film entitled “Humanitas: Conscious Coloring of Kindness,” in which Felix Adler and W.E.B. DuBois are re-imagined in a histocontemporary retrospective.
Our 2018-19 monthly themes are all related to the Ethical Society’s Statement of Purpose, which you can read around the building and at https://ethicalstl.org/who-we-are/. What does it mean to Ethical Humanists to live a life of purpose? What are some of the sources of a sense of purpose, for an individual or an organization? Come explore these and related questions, and hear about the year we have in store!
For this year's "compare and contrast" Platform address, instead of looking at similarities and differences between the Ethical Society and another tradition, we'll explore how the views and practices of Ethical Societies have changed over time. What would Ethical Society members of 100, 50, or even 20 years ago recognize in the Ethical Society of today? What would they find has changed? And what does our history suggest about how the Ethical Society might continue to develop in the future?
In Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women, Susan Burton details her life experiences growing up impoverished in California, navigating abuse, addiction, poverty, and the cyclical nature of imprisonment in the US, and how she broke free and became an inspiring leader. Her story is both tragic and hopeful, and is the focus of the “One Book, One Ethical Society” initiative. In this year of exploring emotions, Samantha and Krystal will share their own reflections of growing up and their memories prompted by Susan’s life.
Samantha N. White is a Kentucky native but, after 11 years, considers St. Louis to be her home. She is an avid reader and loves food, hiking, volunteering, and playing board games with friends and family. Samantha is also a social justice advocate, is heavily involved in the Ethical Society End Racism Team efforts, and recently joined the Society’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Her sister, Krystal Sno White, is an educator and volunteer who currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Ethical Society of Saint Louis and NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri.
Sweaty palms, a racing heartbeat and a gasp as you catch your breath. Did you just get attacked by a wild animal? Or did you just run into the love of your life? No matter what you think, your body responds the same! Find out more about the biological underpinnings of emotions in this Platform.
How as human beings do we look inside ourselves in order to develop ourselves emotionally? If we don’t believe there is a higher power to provide us with answers to life’s conundrums, how do we look inside ourselves to find wisdom that helps us overcome our insecurities as a person? This Platform offers a humanist’s insight into how to grow and mature as a person as we move through life’s trials, tribulations and wonders.
Not everything we want is something we should want. Sometimes, we have less control over our desires than we would like. And sometimes, we’ve been told our desires are wrong, when in fact they are not. How can we deal with our dark desires, those things we want but think we shouldn’t? Why do we want things which hurt us? Where can we find help?
Veteran activist, artist and artivist Elizabeth Vega will explore how what we desire can and should change as we become radicalized by love.
What makes desire healthy or not? How does society shame us about our healthy desires? How can we ethically pursue our desires? Kendra Holliday explores the various facets of what we yearn for, and how we can find balance in pursuing our passions. Kendra Holliday is a sex-positive activist and co-founder of Sex Positive St Louis, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to provide safe spaces for adults to connect with like-minded people, obtain accurate sex ed, and explore their sexuality. Her blog is The Beautiful Kind, and her professional consulting site is www.beopenandhonest.com.
“Let my heart put aside every desire, so that my heart grows used to its farthest spaces. Better that it live fully aware, in the terror of its stars, than as if protected, soothed by what is near”—Rainer Maria Rilke.
Scientists say we live in an infinitely expanding universe—an idea that they also say our human minds are incapable of comprehending. Essentially, infinity scares the heck out of us. Which is how desire—the yearning for something or someone—became the gasoline in the motor of humanity, filling the empty tanks of our fears and fueling everything from global economies to our most intimate moments.
Taking inspiration from poetry as well as experiences from her own life, Rev. Victoria Price asks us to consider whether this limited view of desire has blinded us to the possibility of a life-changing dialogue with Infinite Love in the farthest spaces of our hearts.
Victoria Price brings her unique story to the national and international stage as an author, inspirational speaker, blogger, designer, artist and art consultant, and interspiritual and interfaith minister.
Victoria's popular blog, Daily Practice of Joy, chronicles her journey back to joy that began in 2011, the year in which the world celebrated the 100th birthday of her father, Vincent Price, with Vincentennial celebrations around the globe.
In 2016, after living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a quarter century, Victoria embarked on an ongoing journey of intentional homelessness, chronicled in her new inspirational memoir, The Way of Being Lost: A Road Trip to My Truest Self. Her critically-acclaimed biography of her father, Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography, was published in 1999 by St Martin’s Press and 2014 by Open Road Media.
Shame shackles helpfulness, despite the illusion that it promotes right living. Can we learn from “shameful” behaviors used to adapt to suffering-filled environments? All stressful work risks anger and mistrust being brought home from the office. Healthier coping allows helpfulness to rise as we grow from misdeeds, address addiction, and end aggression.
Shane Reister, PsyD, received his Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Illinois School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University. He has 15 years of experience in forensic psychology and currently serves as the Southern Regional Psychologist Administrator at the Illinois Department of Corrections, overseeing the mental health programming of 11 state prisons. He also has served on the planning committee for the Southern Illinois Drug Awareness Conference. He specializes in LGBTQ and multicultural-diversity, which includes development of trainings on transgender correctional psychology. He utilizes approaches to empower clients to find a path to wellness and freedom from mental illness, criminal behavior, and addiction.
Recent years have seen a resurgence of political extremism, as well as the increased relevance of what is often called “identity politics.” The truth is, much politics revolves around a search for group identity and is driven by a desire of people to feel pride in themselves, their group, or their nation. Likewise, feelings of shame and self-disgust can be manipulated to fuel political movements. This Platform explores the role of both pride and shame in politics.
The recent Pixar movie Inside Out reminded us that sadness isn’t all bad: indeed it is an essential part of our emotional repertoire, a necessary color in our palette of feelings. Using the character of Sadness as our guide, we will ask, “How can we embrace the sadness of life?”, using moments from the film to examine the upside of feeling down.
Scientists and philosophers have had an exceedingly hard time articulating so-called “demarcation criteria” —conditions that formally separate science from pseudoscience. Pseudo-science is all over modern society and imposes costs ranging from the resurgence of diseases because of anti-vaccination move-ments to the rising of global temperatures while an ideologically divided political class sits idle. This talk will explore the fascinating landscape separating science, pseudoscience, and borderline examples of disciplines and notions that may turn out either way. Massimo Pigliucci is Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College.
One of our SEEK Core Values is “I am free to question”—but some philosophers and ethicists have taken this idea a step further, arguing that questioning, and even curiosity in general, is a moral virtue, one that people who seek to be ethical are obligated to cultivate. At the same time, curiosity can be dangerous to self and others when unbalanced by other character traits such as thoughtfulness and compassion. What are the moral pros and cons of curiosity?
We all recognize the familiar tug of curiosity: the desire to turn the page of our book just to discover what happens. Yet many of us also would like to be more curious about areas of life which currently do not interest us at all. How do we cultivate and maintain our curiosity so we don’t get set in our ways and stale in our tastes?
Society at large and many industries seem finally to be acknowledging and responding to the reality that so many women have lived for so long—widespread sexual harassment. How can we all be part of the solution and not part of the problem?
Often, anger is characterized as a “negative” emotion, something to be lessened or avoided. But anger is an appropriate response to injustice and is often necessary for social progress. If we don’t get angry about the problems of the world, we won’t be motivated to solve them. Anger is essential if we want to make change.
There is overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real, human-caused, and will have catastrophic effects. Yet it is still a struggle to educate and motivate the public to take action. Theatre has the power to inform and move people. Climate Change Theatre Action 2017 was a world-wide series of performances of short plays inspired by climate change and prevailing attitudes toward science.
This special Arts Festival Platform will reprise several of the vignettes and performances seen at the Ethical Society last fall, produced by That Uppity Theatre Company Producing Artistic Director Joan Lipkin (Ethical Society Ethical Humanist of the Year Awardee) and Pamela Reckamp. Read by some of the leading actors in St Louis, the plays were selected from over 25 cultures, including perspectives from low-lying nations threatened by sea-level change and countries facing severe heat-waves, floods, or droughts. The Platform will also include a performance from Ashley Tate of Ashleyliane Dance Company.
“Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing us as a global community. Scientists estimate that we have 15 years to de-carbonize the economy if we want to stave off the worse impacts of climate change."—Joan Lipkin
Sure, love can be great and everything, but love can also hurt, confuse, confound, and even damage. This Platform—address and music—will explore the facets of love that don’t make the Hallmark cards, as well as the fact that not everyone finds true love or keeps it. Whether you’re a hopeless romantic or a hardened cynic when it comes to love, or anywhere in-between, come join us this Sunday to acknowledge that yep, sometimes love just stinks.
People are ever-changing, and therefore love and relationships continue to change over time. In this special love-month Platform, several Ethical Society member couples will share some of what they have learned about keeping relationships growing and deepening over the years, and Leader Kate Lovelady will lead a vow-renewal ceremony.
From the intensity of romantic love, to the incredible depth of love for our children, to the straightforward friendly love of our chosen comrades, to the love we hold for all the human family, love is a central, governing theme in most of our emotional lives. It's a common topic around Valentine's Day, but using our love well and with intention is something for us to be mindful of year-round. What does it mean to love? What does who and how we love say about us? Why is love often so painful despite it being such a beautiful and necessary part of life? Is there a “right” way to love? Come learn how to put the concept of Love as Action into action!
Amy Miller is a clinical social worker in private practice in Webster Groves, where she specializes in communication, relationships, and personality types. Talking about How to Make Relationships Better is her favorite thing. She's married to her best friend and is the proud and lucky mama of a sweet, funny 16-month-old girl.
The Ethical Society of St. Louis is a rarity. We are the only Ethical Society in the city of St. Louis, one of very few in this part of the US, and one of less than thirty Ethical Societies in the world. What difference can we make, small as we are? How can our community, seemingly so tiny in comparison with the many problems we face, have an impact for the good? Through love —love of each other, and love of the world.
It’s pledge time! Time to kick off the Ethical Society’s annual pledge campaign. This year’s campaign theme is “Evolving, Together.” The theme is inspired by the opening of our new permanent Evolution Exhibit—which tells the story of the evolution of life, humanity, and cultures—as well as the ongoing “evolution” of the Ethical Society, as we grow as individual members and as a community. Learn more about this past year’s accomplishments and plans for the future, and celebrate our wonderful staff who support all our wonderful members. How can our financial support for our growing community evolve as well? Plus, hear the announcement of the fundraising total for the Uganda Humanist Schools project!
Rep. Bruce Franks, Jr. represents District 78 of St. Louis City in the Missouri House of Representatives. He was elected to his first two-year term in November 2016.
In addition to his legislative duties, Rep. Franks, Jr. is a small-business owner, operating Kwik Tax Services for six years in St. Louis City. In 2015 he was appointed Police Community Liaison by the St. Louis City Police chief. He also has served as a regional organizer for Generation Progress and is the founder of 28 to Life, a youth violence-prevention organization. Rep. Franks, Jr. graduated from Lindbergh High School in 2002 and has strived to serve his community in his adult life. He was born in St. Louis and lives there with his wife. They have seven children.
Fear is a primal and powerful emotion, one that evolved to help humans (and other species) avoid dangerous circumstances. The automatic bodily responses that fear triggers are meant to help us handle the unknown and the possibly hostile. Yet many of our fears are actually unfounded, and fear responses often get in the way of our higher values and goals. How can we free our minds of irrational fears?
We live in a time when hatred seems to be festering all around. More forcefully than they have in decades, groups such as the Ku Klux Klan are asserting themselves in politics, while the “alt-right” foments racial and religious hatred with a passion. Rallies in major American cities and towns have seen genuine Neo-Nazis march openly in the streets. Reports of hate crime and bullying are up, and our political culture seems like a swamp of fear and hate. How should we respond? What are the most effective ways to counter hate? What really works to reduce hatefulness and to create a more loving culture?
The story of the history and evolution of our universe, our planet, and the life upon it is the scientific version of the origin myths that traditional religions offer. Dr. Claude Bernard, Professor of Physics Emeritus at Washington University and member of the Ethical Society, will present this history compressed into a one-year calendar - a format pioneered by Carl Sagan that allows us to better appreciate our small but important part in the vastness of time.
Wonder is often associated with religious experiences, with astral revelations and spiritual visions. But wonder isn't exclusive to traditional religious ways of looking at the world - we can experience wonder regardless of our religious beliefs, drawing inspiration from the natural world and from our relationships with each other. In this Platform we’ll explore what wonder is, why it's important, and how we can all live lives more wonderful.
Come hear and see what’s going on with the Uganda Humanist Schools and how the Ethical Society is helping Ugandan humanists transform young lives and lift up an entire community. If you would like to make a donation supporting the Uganda Humanist Schools please contact Kate Lovelady at klovelady@ethicalstl.org.
lt;a href="https://ethicalstl.org/platforms/ESSTLPlatform2017-12-03.odf" target="_blank"gt;See the photos that accompanied this presentation.lt;/agt;
Power can be unleashed by the simple act of talking about your joys and pas-sions and focusing on what you can influence. Learning that we have more control of our destiny through our intention awakens us to both our collective and individual power—our power to cultivate joy in the everyday moments of our lives and in our communities.
Jill Stratton, Ph.D. is Associate Dean of Undergraduate Residential Learning at Washington University. With over 20 years in higher education, she has invested a great deal of time and energy in researching career joy, strengths-based leadership, and the concept of creative flow. Jill teaches the Psychology of Young Adulthood, Leaders in Context, and Bad Leadership at Wash U and is firmly convinced that the more time spent exploring flow and career joy, the more effective people will be in their lives and future careers.
To some extent, we can only understand our current lives by comparing them to others’ lives, as well as to our own—the lives we have led in the past or might lead in the future, and the “alternate” lives we might have led but didn’t. Comparison can be a weapon and a tool. How can we limit, and use, comparison to increase joy in our lives?
It’s tempting to think that joy is something that happens to us: an emotion that infects us at special moments, but not something we can actively pursue. In this Platform, James Croft suggests that this is not the whole story: we can learn to live life more joyfully, and take more control of our emotions.
Poets once had the reputation as prophets. They crafted poems that reflected the culture and truths of their community for listening audiences. Yet, poetry is not typically viewed as a medium for truth but something dead or too insular for relevance. Furthermore, poems that are performed have somehow lost their place in literature. This talk challenges the notion that good poetry is only experienced on paper and seeks to reconnect this literary art to its prophetic, oral history.
MK Stallings is an artist who voices his truth through poetry. Founder of arts-based nonprofit UrbArts, MK facilitates youth poetry workshops, coaches poetry slam teams, teaches sociology using poetry as a learning strategy, and advocates for marginalized artists. UrbArts acts as the fiscal sponsor for Brick City Poetry Festival and MK is a key member of the planning committee.
Our lives are increasingly affected by accelerating technological advances, forcing ever faster changes in our lives. We will eventually be forced to face our planet’s increasing temperature and rising oceans, and deal with an ever-growing population with diminishing resources. How do we prepare ourselves for the inevitable new deluge of problems?
Alan Ranford does not claim to have solutions: “I’m just a layman looking at the world that awaits us all.” A member of the Ethical Society for over 45 years, Alan was a mechanical engineer in areas including guided missiles, advanced aircraft systems, and disposable medical products. Forty years ago, he became concerned about our environment and excess population growth. He conducted adult classes on environmental issues and created a program to teach our 5th and 6th graders about the consequences of unsustainable living, disguising this message as a fun series of role-playing classes in which they were the passengers and crew on board a gigantic spaceship circling the sun; each week there was a new problem/situation to solve.
Doubt often gets a bad rap: self-doubt is frequently considered a major barrier to progress in life, and “Doubting Thomas” is portrayed in the Bible as the unfortunate, skeptical disciple who should have believed on faith alone. Yet doubt is essential to learning and to growth. In this Platform we’ll rehabilitate this much-maligned emotion and explore the many ways doubt helps us live more thoughtful, truthful lives.
In Ethical Humanism, for better or worse, professional Leaders don't have all the answers, or even most of the answers, even for themselves. Kate will share some of life’s conundrums whose solutions contin-ue to vex her, including environmental, ethical, and philosophical dilemmas. Why would anyone come hear this? Maybe this Platform is a terrible idea??
Usually we consider it good to be trusting, and to trust other people. But sometimes our trust in others is misplaced, and it is right to be skeptical. How can we tell when we shouldn’t trust other people, and how can we be misled by our desire to trust one another? This Platform address will explore how we can apportion our trust appropriately, and when it’s okay not to trust people.
Our 2017-18 monthly themes are all related to emotions—trust, confusion/doubt, joy, envy, fear/hate, love, anger, curiosity, sadness/grief, pride/shame, and lust. Whew! Come hear why we’ve chosen to “feel ethical” this year, and learn what new activities and programs we have in store!
Welcome or welcome back to a new season at the Ethical Society! Enjoy highlights from Ethical Humanist history, and reflections from two of our long-time members. Join us as we honor the following member anniversaries:
50 years: Steve Maragides
30 years: Jim and Joy Pierce, Janet Morse, Mary Wittry, Mary Bumpus, Ed Schmidt
20 years: Paula Bertram, Dan Overmann and Mary Murphy-Overmann, Gene Lauver, Arlene Honeywell, and Robert Taylor
10 years: Tom and Kitt Rogers, Mary Ann Tipton, Maxine Stone, Bea Hollander.