Tag Archives: Florida

Making Sense of It All by Seeking Normalcy on Smaller Islands

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A continuous churn of disinformation now turns conventional notions of civic engagement upside down, making it wise to protect our understanding of the world as it is with more immediate connections that sustain us.

Give this thought experiment a try.

When we step back from our constant media chatter, we are better able to consider what really matters in our lives. The Trump show is an endless B-movie serial with a fool promoting rage-fueled ideas to bait the enemies he craves. There are evidently some among us who love this manufactured chaos. But most Americans dislike what he has done to deconstruct our national norms and institutions.

Perhaps one useful way to respond is to think of spaces that allow us to sustain our identity and personal sense of well-being. These virtual or actual islands we can recognize would include people who share the psycho-social spaces where we see ourselves. Geography may provide clear boundaries. In other cases the most significant description of this domain is the “noosphere,”—where people think in terms of the time-tested canons of rationality and durable understanding of what constitutes moral action. While many others can be interesting and pleasant, they may not provide evidence of the same essential views about how the world works empirically or morally. There is surely room for some plurality here, but in a country as vast as ours, there really is no alternative but to construct islands of sanity that we want for ourselves and to project to others.

I’m not talking about clinical definitions of sanity, but about the general view argued a hundred different ways by recognized philosophers and thinkers who were anchored in the real world, and who taught us how to evaluate truth claims as well as ways to evaluate qualities of personal character: figures as diverse as Aristotle, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and even Benjamin Franklin.  Denying a tested and proven statement like “current polio vaccines work well” is a failure of these established standards, as is the threat to jail an otherwise blameless woman seeking an early abortion. Ditto for any encounter with an individual whose core choices seem alien to what a life of compassion should require. In many cases an “I believe” statement is an illogical option for a tested truth claim that requires us to yield to what is “known.”

We know many individuals who are effective in dealing with their friends, families, and career objectives. We also probably have an extended collection of “media friends” that provide their own forms of normalcy to our daily lives. True, the “para-social” nature created by one-way media cannot achieve the kind of rich interactions we have with others face to face. But most of us have pieced together an existence that has significant anchors in our town, neighborhood or particular media. All play a role in clarifying important shared values that build rather than destroy our sense of well-being. Even so, there are still too many others among us engaged in forms of magical thinking that make them unreliable communicators.

A norms-busting Donald Trump has forced us to look to other sources for clarity. His failures are always followed by some new conspiracy theory that only the witless can find plausible. The continuous churn of this disinformation turns conventional notions of civic engagement upside down, making it clear that we would be wise to protect our sensibilities about the world as it is with more grounded connections that can sustain us. Civic spaces need leaders with integrity. But with those in power at the federal level grievously lost in the weeds of fantasy, we may want to celebrate the long history of the nation in the coming days, but exclude what our current leaders have done to the republic.

Who gets to be on your island of sanity? Of course the population will be indefinite but still personally knowlable. The traditional value of a strong city or neighborhood should never be overlooked. I’d single out the black residents of Natchez, Mississippi, as seen in Suzannah Herberts’ 2025 documentary, who more clearly understand their regional history. As well, I would count the thinkers and searchers who flood the little New York town of Chautauqua every summer, or the 17th Century Quaker colonies that once dotted the landscapes of New York and New Jersey. And we can add the recognition of many others—through direct or indirect contact–who provide the character and rational judgment necessary to earn our trust.

Americans Blinded by Their Myopia

What does this necessary winnowing look like? Individual determinations will obviously vary. An example I find striking is Eliza Griswold’s description of some young American evangelicals described in a recent issue of The New Yorker. The piece quickly sets off alarms suggesting that these magical thinkers may be lost to the demands and possibilities of living in world governed by a cultivated ignorance. One 16-year-old “unschooler” working in her parents’ pet store near the corner of Gun Club Road and Military Trail in South Florida grew more alien to me as I read on. Especially in this state, how easy it is to shut down one’s own mental growth with ersatz educational standards, and then double down on the words of a Christian fundamentalist “prophet” like the recently assassinated Charlie Kirk. Not surprisingly, customers in the store get unsolicited  faith-based advice on how to care for their exotic animals. Sadly, this person’s consciousness of a universe of vast possibilities will probably remain truncated.

None of this is a plea for classist exclusivity, but simply for evidence of another’s efforts to deal with the broader requirements of authentic knowledge and generous empathy.

It will always be an overstatement to see Florida as a place that harbors visions of normalcy that look more dystopian. And, to be fair, examples like this can apply to some in my community. All deserve a basic level of respect, but may not produce a feeling of kindredness that should be evident when we recognize ourselves in the words and behaviors of others.

Our islands are probably stronger if they are physical places, such as a neighborhood or city. But natural heterogeneity in large populations may mean that they will have to be constructed through media sources that have produced what Joshua Meyrowitz describes as “media friends.”  These individuals may reliably turn up on YouTube, Substack, Facebook, or scores of other affinity sites.

In the end, we give meaning and purpose to our lives by sheltering from the larger and chaotic culture, finding kinship outside of what the now- dominant political order can provide.

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Thank you very much, but The Governor of Florida would prefer to tell your story his way.

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Active Listening in the Classroom Heather Syrett.

An age-appropriate accounting of the multiform American experience is an educator’s duty.

These days a possible run for the Presidency means becoming the voice of widespread grievances held by potential voters. It’s a bit too early to know, but Governor Ron DeSantis’ and Florida’s legislative leaders seem to have mapped a path that includes taking on the educational establishment.  There appears to be no end to the state’s interest in laying down curriculum rules distinctly at odds with best practices known to schools of education, teachers, librarians and curriculum specialists. An age-appropriate accounting of the multiform American experience is an educator’s duty. But the Governor seems to favor gag orders that omit inclusion of all of the state’s citizens. Among other goals, he wants newer but widely accepted representations of gender off the table in most school classrooms.  In addition, DeSantis has replaced a university president and most of its board with fellow social conservatives, demanded the removal of “inappropriate” library books, disallowed a high school AP African American Studies course, and is attempting to dismember various diversity initiatives. He clearly prefers narratives that pull us back to the less aware years of the last century, when homosexuality was mostly not acknowledged, or insights about social injustice were limited to a few heroic figures. And forget about introducing students to what we now understand are the many sources of systemic bias. He treats this aspect of organizational life as if it were mere speculation rather than settled social science fact.

Here’s the thing. Building a description of anything in everyday language is not a neutral act. The vast and largely accepted literature in the Sociology of Knowledge reminds us that narrative cannot help but come from perspectives shaped by the particular experiences and values of a given community. Narratives evolve with shifting preferences. The question is less if there is a perspective, but which ones are in play at any one time. These systemic preferences—some harmless and some pernicious—are built into the rhetoric of human communities.

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To progress beyond these limitations requires awareness.  Going the other way to denial leads us to banning rhetoric if it is “woke,” meaning that they may consider newer narratives that acknowledge more fluid definitions of gender, racial discrimination, or the situational ethics of the founding fathers. All are unsettling to anyone who mistakenly understands learning as a static enterprise dealing with “knowns” that are oversimplified into immutability. And so it follows that if a student is made to feel uncomfortable through discussion of a specific topic like the many form of the American family, a teacher is presumably supposed to retreat to some safer topic. Ditto for any topics touching on gender identity in the early elementary grades.

How does all of this look like in the classroom? One teacher in Palm Beach County recently changed her plans for a discussion about the first American woman to fly in space to omit the fact that Sally Ride was a lesbian. The teacher feared for her job if that detail was included. The same frightening logic is evident in the recent decision of a Florida College to cancel a scheduled appearance of the U.K.’s renowned King’s Singers. Someone discovered that a member of the acapella group was gay.

This land of swamps may have even more than it knows.

To be sure, no one wants to expose children to more than they can comfortably understand. And Ron DeSantis has imposed more gag rules on teaching professionals than the courts may accept. But hate bills against a lot of groups are fouling the very idea of education in the Sunshine State.

We can hope we have less to fear than we think from doctrines that pretend not to see. As Communication Theorist Marshall McLuhan once noted, school is a place where children can ‘take a break’ from their education via the mass media. For better or worse, our social and public media are infused with contemporary attitudes that are easily absorbed. And there are alternate ways for children to find their way to understanding the nature of social relations, even if they start with unfairly branded books like Todd Parr’s The Family Book, or Justin Richardson’s and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three.

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