Congratulations, Professor, on your induction to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It is well deserved, and you join your rightful place in history alongside Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Albert Einstein, and Joan Baez, and a select few key figures (only 261 folks is it since 1780?) MAZEL TOV! (And, we can say we knew …
Congratulations, Professor, on your induction to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It is well deserved, and you join your rightful place in history alongside Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Albert Einstein, and Joan Baez, and a select few key figures (only 261 folks is it since 1780?) MAZEL TOV! (And, we can say we knew you when!)
Yes! Congratulations to HCR. The Founders would have been proud to have her within the Academy. Alex, there have been many illustrious members. You can see a complete list or search for members here: https://www.amacad.org/directory
And...after reading of Heather's nomination, I took a deep dive into one of the Academy's projects. The recommendations released in "Our Common Purpose" are absolutely brilliant. They are part of a comprehensive plan to rebuild our democracy. I wrote about this with reverence and appreciation:
Thank you Bill. “Our Common Purpose”!especially supportive of engaging young people in civic engagement to become informed citizens and active participants.!
Bill, thank you for posting the '... 31 recommendations for strengthening democracy in the report Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century. They included reform to political institutions, investment in civil society, and transforming our political culture. Learn more about the people and the process that produced Our Common Purpose here.
'Here is a condensed version of the “Common Purpose Action Plan”. Read this and become hopeful!'
Cheers to you and to 'Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century'! Thanks.
Thank you for this. I really liked your article and am so glad to learn about "Our Common Purpose." Many of the recommendations make lots of sense, particularly civic education dedicated to learning from and including voices not usually heard. The fuller, richer story of America, including hopes for the future, is both compelling and really interesting. It would make history come alive. Thank you again.
The "history" I encountered in K-12 public school in the 1950s and '60s was largely a blend of mythology (I was told, for example, that Columbus was the very first person to realize the world is round), nationalistic propaganda, and mind-numbing lists of disembodied names and dates. I vastly preferred the arts and sciences.
Then gradually realized the real history IS both an art and a science. A science to the extent it can be based and reconciled by evidence, and an art to the degree is provides a visceral sense of continuity with generations past, who for better and worse contributed to building of the "now" we experience today, and also anchors our best educated guess to what may yet unfold in the future, with and without our influence. Like cosmology and paleontology, history attempts to show us how our "now" came to be.
And as in science, the more faithful to evidence we are, the more useful (and less toxic) our narrative becomes. One can only speculate about the understanding carried by the fellow who said he was a “f*ck*ng idiot” who was parroting “founding fathers and stupid sh*t like that" who has yet to realize that he is being had.
I always loved science and came to history to later. I was lucky to have a female Brit for world history, but after that it was coaches....I do know some coaches who know their stuff, but so many of them have or had their heads in their jock strap. I love your explanation of real history adding to it paleontology and cosmology.
They used to call it "natural history". The whole shebang is the Big Bang unfolding and interacting along the way. We are no less a part of it than a toad or a rose bush. If we get too much in nature's way, then we'll be history; but if we pay attention closely enough we get to use what nature teaches to make microprocessors and mRNA vaccines. We gotta pay attention to stay on her good side.
I am looking at pics from the Webb which are truly amazing. I agree that we are a part of universe. I hope we are paying attention, but it doesn't seem like it.
Thank you Alex, I did not know this! Congratulations to our dear Professor who is in quite amazing company of 261 new members, including Buffy Sainte-Marie and Salman Rushdie! It's very exciting to be a member of your community, and play a tiny part in spreading your wisdom.
And just in case I'm not the only one is this community who really didn't know much at all about the Academy. From its website, it "was founded in 1780, during the American Revolution, by John Adams, John Hancock, and 60 other scholar-patriots who understood that a new republic would require institutions able to gather knowledge and advance learning in service to the public good." So this makes me wonder how all of this wisdom is getting out to the general public. Maybe it would reduce the number of folks who can be duped by "disinformation."
It may just be me, but "wisdom" is a term I don't "hear" very often. It seems to me that pinning down what wisdom is is a bit mercurial, but it seems to me it has something to do with broad and deep perspective, and knowing "what matters" as well as what is reasonably accurate. Agreeing on what matters gets complicated fast, but it seems to me that focused thought in an open mind may produce different answers than what might occur to one casually, with minimal effort. "Wisdom" is often associated with age, but "from the mouths of babes" stunningly fundamental truths may emerge. There is more wisdom in a fingernail trimming from teenage Greta Thunberg than from the sum of 76-year-old Donald Trump. Who has never been fooled? Yet I would think aspirations for gaining wisdom would likely be protective against being easily duped by "disinformation". Especially nonsensical disinformation.
Thank you for this powerful expansion of my thoughts! I've been using the word "wisdom" to mean something deeper than "general knowledge., inspiring some kind of caring." Your description is perfect "it has something to do with broad and deep perspective, and knowing "what matters" as well as what is reasonably accurate." And I couldn't agree more about the variety (and sometimes surprise!) of sources. When my grown-up granddaughter was merely 10 years old, and I was deep into my struggle with an eating disorder, she wrote me a note, "Remember, chocolate is not love. I love you." Talk about "out of the mouths of babes"!
Here's where I think the challenge lies. To quote your wisdom, "aspirations for gaining wisdom would likely be protective against being easily duped by "disinformation". Especially nonsensical disinformation." I think you are correct. So my question is, how do we inspire this "aspiration for gaining wisdom" in the minds and hearts of "everyday people," (thank you Sly and the Family Stone) who are not necessarily "scholarly" folks but who could be moved by truth? Blessings,
I'm attracted to "scholarly" wisdom (like that of Dr. Richardson) because it is easier to cover territory stringing together established chunks of thought (citing, for example, "Occam's Razor" or salient historical events) to those who are likely to have already attached shared meanings to them, but that's just one way of doing business. In fact I think an over-reliance on "book learning" can sometimes get in the way. We may recite like parrots, but I think the utility of books lies in the degree we incorporate lessons they may contain into automatic, everyday thinking; the internal experience of sentient creatures. I think that is what Einstein was getting at when he said, “It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.” I think that roughly reveals the union between the sciences and the arts, but in any case, (I never quite bought Descartes' argument), but still oversimplifying, I think that I feel, therefore I am. But thinking of some sort is key to knowing thyself and to successfully negotiating our environment.
Again, addressing one somewhat nebulous and subjective thing with another, I suspect that central to "wisdom" is knowing "what matters" which I think takes awareness of context and a certain amount of discipline, and I believe that the "school of hard knocks" may teach important parts of that that may not show up in the curricula of universities.
However, it is only 99 days away from saving American democracy!!!!!
If Democrats actually expect to defeat even just one republican candidate, or incumbent, or republican sponsored legislation this November…
THEN
All Democrats
MUST
Begin to
FIGHT FIRE WITH EVEN BRIGHTER BURNING FIRE!!!
Here is a FACT to consider in direct refutation of republican lies:
Joe Trippi is a well-known benevolent Democrat strategist who has a wonderful podcast one of which is cited below. Here Trippi highlights the fact that when the enough concerned registered American voters vote for Democrats:
Then:
(1). All Americans will have their freedom of reproductive choice,
(2). All Americans will have their freedom to vote,
(3). All Americans will have their freedom to marry whom they want, and many other freedoms as well…
(4). Plus, all Americans will have inflation.
However!
If enough Americans are again fooled by republican lies, (as a lot have been in the past), into voting for republicans, then:
(1). All American people will have none of their freedoms, (Nos. 1-3), previously guaranteed by the Democrats’ defense of the American Constitution while maintaining their control of Congress.
AND
All Americans will still have the inflation exacerbated by the anti-democratic republican blockage of Democratic proposed relief legislation…
Congratulations, Professor, on your induction to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It is well deserved, and you join your rightful place in history alongside Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Albert Einstein, and Joan Baez, and a select few key figures (only 261 folks is it since 1780?) MAZEL TOV! (And, we can say we knew you when!)
https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/humanities/history/heather-cox-richardson-elected-to-aaas.html
Thank you, Alex, for highlighting this excellent news! Next up, the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
Alex G., thank you for sharing news of Professor Richardson’s prestigious induction into the AAAS. Such a well earned honor! ❤️
Yes! Congratulations to HCR. The Founders would have been proud to have her within the Academy. Alex, there have been many illustrious members. You can see a complete list or search for members here: https://www.amacad.org/directory
And...after reading of Heather's nomination, I took a deep dive into one of the Academy's projects. The recommendations released in "Our Common Purpose" are absolutely brilliant. They are part of a comprehensive plan to rebuild our democracy. I wrote about this with reverence and appreciation:
https://billalstrom.substack.com/p/the-best-defense-is-a-good-offense
Refresh and return to the fight for Democracy.
Excellent, Bill. Thank you.
🗽
Here are some recent wam bams from Politics Girl during past week. https://youtu.be/Eu_Jirk5zdw https://youtu.be/tpsVq5-ZQN0
🗽
Thank You! I will pass this along.
Thank you Bill. “Our Common Purpose”!especially supportive of engaging young people in civic engagement to become informed citizens and active participants.!
Bill, thank you for posting the '... 31 recommendations for strengthening democracy in the report Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century. They included reform to political institutions, investment in civil society, and transforming our political culture. Learn more about the people and the process that produced Our Common Purpose here.
'Here is a condensed version of the “Common Purpose Action Plan”. Read this and become hopeful!'
Cheers to you and to 'Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century'! Thanks.
Thank you, Bill. Your plain speak is very helpful to me!
Nicely done.
Thank you for this. I really liked your article and am so glad to learn about "Our Common Purpose." Many of the recommendations make lots of sense, particularly civic education dedicated to learning from and including voices not usually heard. The fuller, richer story of America, including hopes for the future, is both compelling and really interesting. It would make history come alive. Thank you again.
The "history" I encountered in K-12 public school in the 1950s and '60s was largely a blend of mythology (I was told, for example, that Columbus was the very first person to realize the world is round), nationalistic propaganda, and mind-numbing lists of disembodied names and dates. I vastly preferred the arts and sciences.
Then gradually realized the real history IS both an art and a science. A science to the extent it can be based and reconciled by evidence, and an art to the degree is provides a visceral sense of continuity with generations past, who for better and worse contributed to building of the "now" we experience today, and also anchors our best educated guess to what may yet unfold in the future, with and without our influence. Like cosmology and paleontology, history attempts to show us how our "now" came to be.
And as in science, the more faithful to evidence we are, the more useful (and less toxic) our narrative becomes. One can only speculate about the understanding carried by the fellow who said he was a “f*ck*ng idiot” who was parroting “founding fathers and stupid sh*t like that" who has yet to realize that he is being had.
I always loved science and came to history to later. I was lucky to have a female Brit for world history, but after that it was coaches....I do know some coaches who know their stuff, but so many of them have or had their heads in their jock strap. I love your explanation of real history adding to it paleontology and cosmology.
They used to call it "natural history". The whole shebang is the Big Bang unfolding and interacting along the way. We are no less a part of it than a toad or a rose bush. If we get too much in nature's way, then we'll be history; but if we pay attention closely enough we get to use what nature teaches to make microprocessors and mRNA vaccines. We gotta pay attention to stay on her good side.
I am looking at pics from the Webb which are truly amazing. I agree that we are a part of universe. I hope we are paying attention, but it doesn't seem like it.
Congratulations!
Well deserved and thank you for keeping us sane over the past several years with words of truth and honesty
Esteemed company. Thank you for highlight, Alex.
Sincere congratulations, Professor Richardson. So well deserved.
🗽
Thank you for sharing the link to announcement of Prof. Richardson. Induction into AAAS.
Congratulations Heather!!!
Thank you Alex, I did not know this! Congratulations to our dear Professor who is in quite amazing company of 261 new members, including Buffy Sainte-Marie and Salman Rushdie! It's very exciting to be a member of your community, and play a tiny part in spreading your wisdom.
And just in case I'm not the only one is this community who really didn't know much at all about the Academy. From its website, it "was founded in 1780, during the American Revolution, by John Adams, John Hancock, and 60 other scholar-patriots who understood that a new republic would require institutions able to gather knowledge and advance learning in service to the public good." So this makes me wonder how all of this wisdom is getting out to the general public. Maybe it would reduce the number of folks who can be duped by "disinformation."
It may just be me, but "wisdom" is a term I don't "hear" very often. It seems to me that pinning down what wisdom is is a bit mercurial, but it seems to me it has something to do with broad and deep perspective, and knowing "what matters" as well as what is reasonably accurate. Agreeing on what matters gets complicated fast, but it seems to me that focused thought in an open mind may produce different answers than what might occur to one casually, with minimal effort. "Wisdom" is often associated with age, but "from the mouths of babes" stunningly fundamental truths may emerge. There is more wisdom in a fingernail trimming from teenage Greta Thunberg than from the sum of 76-year-old Donald Trump. Who has never been fooled? Yet I would think aspirations for gaining wisdom would likely be protective against being easily duped by "disinformation". Especially nonsensical disinformation.
Thank you for this powerful expansion of my thoughts! I've been using the word "wisdom" to mean something deeper than "general knowledge., inspiring some kind of caring." Your description is perfect "it has something to do with broad and deep perspective, and knowing "what matters" as well as what is reasonably accurate." And I couldn't agree more about the variety (and sometimes surprise!) of sources. When my grown-up granddaughter was merely 10 years old, and I was deep into my struggle with an eating disorder, she wrote me a note, "Remember, chocolate is not love. I love you." Talk about "out of the mouths of babes"!
Here's where I think the challenge lies. To quote your wisdom, "aspirations for gaining wisdom would likely be protective against being easily duped by "disinformation". Especially nonsensical disinformation." I think you are correct. So my question is, how do we inspire this "aspiration for gaining wisdom" in the minds and hearts of "everyday people," (thank you Sly and the Family Stone) who are not necessarily "scholarly" folks but who could be moved by truth? Blessings,
I'm attracted to "scholarly" wisdom (like that of Dr. Richardson) because it is easier to cover territory stringing together established chunks of thought (citing, for example, "Occam's Razor" or salient historical events) to those who are likely to have already attached shared meanings to them, but that's just one way of doing business. In fact I think an over-reliance on "book learning" can sometimes get in the way. We may recite like parrots, but I think the utility of books lies in the degree we incorporate lessons they may contain into automatic, everyday thinking; the internal experience of sentient creatures. I think that is what Einstein was getting at when he said, “It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.” I think that roughly reveals the union between the sciences and the arts, but in any case, (I never quite bought Descartes' argument), but still oversimplifying, I think that I feel, therefore I am. But thinking of some sort is key to knowing thyself and to successfully negotiating our environment.
Again, addressing one somewhat nebulous and subjective thing with another, I suspect that central to "wisdom" is knowing "what matters" which I think takes awareness of context and a certain amount of discipline, and I believe that the "school of hard knocks" may teach important parts of that that may not show up in the curricula of universities.
Happy to pile on hearty congratulations for
Professor Richardson’s well deserved distinction! Thank you for bringing us this news. Professor Heather -Cox Richardson, a shining light among us.
Piling on with my congratulations, Professor! Brava!
Mine also. Professor Richardson deserves accolades and this one is especially notable. Congrats.
Wow, yes, congratulations!!!!
Absolutely!
So richly deserved!! great news. Mazel tov!!
Wonderful and well deserved! Congratulations sister Prof. Heather!
Congratulations! Very well-deserved.
This is wonderful news! Congratulations and well deserved. A very bright spot indeed.
Yes that is wonderful news!
However, it is only 99 days away from saving American democracy!!!!!
If Democrats actually expect to defeat even just one republican candidate, or incumbent, or republican sponsored legislation this November…
THEN
All Democrats
MUST
Begin to
FIGHT FIRE WITH EVEN BRIGHTER BURNING FIRE!!!
Here is a FACT to consider in direct refutation of republican lies:
Joe Trippi is a well-known benevolent Democrat strategist who has a wonderful podcast one of which is cited below. Here Trippi highlights the fact that when the enough concerned registered American voters vote for Democrats:
Then:
(1). All Americans will have their freedom of reproductive choice,
(2). All Americans will have their freedom to vote,
(3). All Americans will have their freedom to marry whom they want, and many other freedoms as well…
(4). Plus, all Americans will have inflation.
However!
If enough Americans are again fooled by republican lies, (as a lot have been in the past), into voting for republicans, then:
(1). All American people will have none of their freedoms, (Nos. 1-3), previously guaranteed by the Democrats’ defense of the American Constitution while maintaining their control of Congress.
AND
All Americans will still have the inflation exacerbated by the anti-democratic republican blockage of Democratic proposed relief legislation…
See:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/traditional-political-physics-need-not-apply/id1523896927?i=1000571526879
Thanks for this. Unfortunately, I can't sign into the podcast. Cheers. Susan