[Xmca-l] Re: Interesting to think about: the social springs of giving

[Andy Blunden]

I watched the story.
I already knew about Make-a-Wish so it was no surprise, but 
Mike's point was of course the way MaW became a vehicle for 
a fantastic wave of building social fabric.
XMCAers are all going to be interested in any idea which can 
lead to building this kind of *trust* in a community. Trust 
is basically what "social capital" is, but the point is only 
how does one go about *building* that trust? Robert Putnam 
says almost any doing-something-together will have this 
effect, and took choir groups as his typical example. 
Personally, I think MaW would do better than choir groups, 
but that's not the point. Putnam's own data in his original 
study in Italy actually showed that the best predictor of 
social capital was having a PCI local government, which was 
inconvenient for Putnam's theory, so he just excluded this 
from his results.
The story this week in Australia has been about Tamworth, 
famous for an annual Country Music festival, but otherwise a 
typical remote outback town. It is now building a 
Pharmaceutical plant. How did this huge change happen? A 
young boy had bowel cancer and his mother, a good member of 
the Country Women's Association, discovered that cannabis 
was the only medication which relieved the pain and nausea 
the boy was suffering. She took up the cause. While 
illegally acquiring cannabis she started lobbying government 
to legalise medical cannabis and she won, though the whole 
business will take a year or so to implement. And Tamworth 
will be all set to market it. She has gathered a huge social 
movement and local support radiating out from Tamworth.
My point. Make-a-Wish worked for North East Arkansas, partly 
because of one child who lived to champion it. Cannabis 
legalisation and production worked for Tamworth.
As Myles Horton said:

        What you must do is go back, get a simple place,
        move in and you are there. The situation is there.
        You start with this and let it grow. You know your
        goal. It will build its own structure and take its
        own form.

Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
On 20/10/2015 4:00 AM, mike cole wrote:
> What did you make of the CBS segment, Jay? Does it provide useful example
> of principle of community's in Turner?
> Mike
> Mike
>
> On Monday, October 19, 2015, Jay Lemke <lemke.jay@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For an interesting approach to "community", I'd recommend Edith Turner's
>> "Communitas". Ethnographic deepening of late Victor Turner's concept.
>>
>> JAY.
>>
>>
>> Jay Lemke
>> LCHC/Department of Communication
>> University of California - San Diego
>> www.jaylemke.com
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 8:58 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
>> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, indeed I am interested, Mike.
>>> Critiquing the concept of "social capital" and developing an alternative
>>> concept of "social solidarity" and searching for a suitable unit of
>>> analysis was how I got started down the track I have been on ever since
>>> then, about 2003. What is the difference between community as in all
>> people
>>> living in such and such town, and "real" community? Robert Putnam had
>>> assembled evidence that almost any collective activity fosters what he
>>> called "social capital." The problem was that he couldn't distinguish
>>> between the mafia taking root in a community and a community taking
>> control
>>> of crime on its streets, etc. His classic "example" activity was the
>>> formation of choir groups, proven promoters of collective "wealth".
>>>
>>> Andy
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>>>
>>> On 19/10/2015 2:07 PM, mike cole wrote:
>>>
>>>> I found a segment of the American weekly TV program, 60 minutes, more
>> than
>>>> usually interesting this evening, and one segment in particular
>>>> seemed to have a lot of relevance to many different interests of people
>> on
>>>> xmca. The topic was the the activities of the "Make a Wish Foundation."
>>>>
>>>> Of the very many issues that the program discusses, one which I found
>>>> particularly interesting was the ability of the organized practice of
>>>> communities
>>>> raising money to give seriously ill children "a last wish" is one that
>> has
>>>> particular relevance to questions about the mechanisms of social
>>>> solidarity. In small towns in northern Arkansas, a relatively poor and
>> out
>>>> of the part of the US, people raise amazing amounts of money to provide
>>>> special experience for kids who are dying of some disease that has not
>>>> known current cure. What particularly caught my attention especially is
>>>> the
>>>> powerful effect that participation in the money raising and the
>> ingenious
>>>> social organization of the activities, has on community members across
>>>> several generations, from peers to grandparents. In one sense, it seems
>>>> that everything is so focuses on the individual kid that it is "just a
>>>> manifestation of late capitalist individualism." If effects on the kids
>> is
>>>> interesting, but it is the reflected effect on the community pretty
>>>> generally, and the emergence of strong personal bonds in particular that
>>>> caught me most.
>>>>
>>>> Andy might find this interesting as an example of a project.
>>>>
>>>> mike
>>>>
>>>>    http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/topics/60-minutes/     click on make a
>>>> wish
>>>>
>>>>
>