As usual, February has been a busy month at The Good Project. If you missed it, take a look at our February Newsletter, which offers a wealth of resources for Black History Month, and more. Here, check out a few more resources that caught our attention throughout the month: (Links in title)
To Serve Better: This project from the Harvard Gazette shares stories of people who are “committed to public purpose and to making a positive difference in communities throughout the country.” You can read about people like Gwen Thompkins, executive producer of the music radio show “Music Inside Out,” sharing the music of Louisiana with the wider world. In reading the stories of these individuals, consider: do these individuals embody the 3 Es of good work?
Being Good in a World of Need: Take a look at this webinar with Rutgers Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Larry Temkin, hosted at Harvard’s Safra Center for Ethics. Dr. Temkin discusses some of his worries regarding global aid efforts and how they might actually bring about worse outcomes in some of the world’s poorest regions. He explains that what is morally right for the individual might be morally wrong for the collective, and vice versa. How might we take the lessons Dr. Temkin describes and apply them to our own efforts to do good work?
Evolution from an ‘I’ to a ‘We’ Culture: In this article on his new book with Shaylyn Romney Garrett, The Upswing, Robert Putman (of Bowling Alone fame) speaks to how American society moved from an an individualistic ‘I’ culture during the early 1900s “Gilded Age” to a more collectivistic ‘we’ culture, only to become more individualistic since the Reagan years, with the 1990s serving as a new “Gilded Age.” Putnam urges a return to a more ‘we’ oriented culture and hopes that movements like Black Lives Matter will help urge Americans in this direction. At The Good Project, we use the Rings of Responsibility to help individuals think about their responsibilities to self, others, community, profession, and wider society. How can this framework help you think about moving from an ‘I’ to a ‘we’ culture in your own life?
Your Ideas are not Your Identity: Adam Grant’s new book Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know delves into the importance of intellectual humility--being aware of what we don’t know--and how that relates to our ability and willingness to change our opinions and ideas. In this article, Grant speaks to the “value of rethinking” ideas; he argues that rather than argue for a binary (I’m right, you’re wrong), we need to complexify ideas and try to get to the nuance of various arguments. To do this, we need to ask questions and listen to each other’s arguments. If you’re interested in thinking more about arguments and their connection to Good Work, check out our workbook with the Better Arguments Project. We contend that “better arguments lead to good work.”
Myth of the Lazy Genius: Who do you think of when you think of a genius? Bill Gates? Steve Jobs? As Andrei Cimpian points out in this article for Character Lab, you most likely thought of someone male. At The Good Project, we often talk about the importance of mentors and role models--and certainly, who we look up to helps create our ideas of what it means to do good work. But as Dr. Cimpian points out, it’s important that we don’t unwittingly think only of mentors who “naturally” come by their skills or who we think have innate talent (often male role models), and thereby shun role models who work hard to get where they are in life and persist through challenge after challenge (often female role models). What implicit stereotypes might you hold about role models or mentors in your life? How might these stereotypes affect your views of what it means to do good work?