How the Olympics Changed What I Think about Gender Equity

| davidsabey

Villa_romana_bikini_girls

The United States is dominating the medal count because of the success of its female athletes. Of the country’s top ten medalists at the time of this writing, 6 were female, and they have won more gold medals and more medals overall than the top male athletes. (For an interesting read on the correlation between gender equity and olympic medals, check out this article.) Our quadrennial glory and global bragging rights rest largely on the shoulders of female olympians. And yet, there are persistent questions about the state of gender equity in our sports and in the Olympics and other major tournaments. Continue reading →

Courteous Conversations: Destroying our own freedom of speech

| joshsabey

communication-1461378-1278x1040

It was not easy to find people like Dan and Jonathan.

The first thing to know is that Dan and Jonathan are both Mormons, a generally conservative group, and yet they disagree over whether homosexual marriage should have been legalized. Dan is strong, confident, and has a beard while Jonathan is clean shaven and skinny.

David explains the rules of Courteous Conversations and then pauses. The camera is already rolling, but as David is about to ask Jonathan to state his beliefs about homosexuality, he second guesses himself, fumbles a little, and then says, “you’re on camera, so we understand if you don’t want to say something.” Continue reading →

Courteous Conversations: Talking across political lines

| joshsabey

the brothers sabey logo with headphones

Brian is a soft-spoken man who invites us into his living room while he retreats into a back room to finish putting the children to sleep. His wife is out playing volleyball with friends. Brian has blonde hair, blue eyes, and holds moderately conservative views.

I mention his political silhouette because that is the reason we have come. Our goal is to find people who disagree over potentially polarizing issues, and find a way to have them talk together and, more remarkably, listen. Continue reading →

How to have Courteous Conversations about Polarizing Issues

| joshsabey
Video trailer for Courteous Conversations

At the beginning of the summer, David and I set out to find a way to help people who disagree over polarizing issues—even passionately, and often angrily—talk productively together. Fed up with the antagonistic political discourse so prevalent (and aggravated by the current presidential campaign), we wanted to create a situation where people would actually listen to the other side. (For a glimpse into why this kind of conversation is so important, check out this YouTube about political discrimination.) To do this, we had to remove incentives to argue, create a situation where participants felt safe, and take away platforms for rebuttal.

Here’s what we did: Continue reading →

By the Sweat of Thy Brow

| sarahbarrows

PC:http://courtneyriouxcoaching.com/hard-work/

It had been a month now. An entire month of 60- to 70-hour work weeks, coming in on weekends, and I knew that until this project was finished, it would continue like this. Being fairly new in my career I felt I had to put in the hours to do my part, and so, after another long work day, my feet aching, I drove up to our apartment in the dusk, the following phrase ringing in my mind:

“By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread, all the days of thy life.”

According to Genesis, these are the words God says to Adam and Eve, and to us as their collective children as He drives them out of the blissful Garden of Eden.

Even in a digital age, when automated machinery does a lion’s share of the ‘sweating,’ here we still are working long work hours at jobs that we don’t necessarily see as our lives (why else would we call it ‘work/life’ balance?). But how do we truly find a balance between the necessity of work and the necessity of giving to our family and friends? How do we remain diligent at work when our nine-to-five job is an odd formula that doesn’t always fit the needs of home? Continue reading →

Against Chronological Snobbery: The Lightweight Modern Values of Equality, Tolerance, and Diversity

| briansabey
Question the Answers by walknboston, on Flickr
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkn/3526522573/

In my last “Against Chronological Snobbery” essay I introduced the debate between the “progressive” view of American history (that America’s history has been one of clear moral progress) and the “non-progressive” view (that it hasn’t—i.e., that the question is at least subject to debate). I endorsed the latter position. Representing the “progressive view” was Justice Kennedy’s Obergefell opinion, together with Justice Marshall’s assertion that the founders lacked any remarkable degree of wisdom, and that the greatness of the Constitution is its more recent embrace of equality and individual rights. Representing the “non-progressive” view was Justice Robert’s dissent in Obergefell and Justice Scalia’s dissent in U.S. v. Virginia, both of which included a scathing rebuke of the majorities’ chronological snobbery.

In this essay, I hope to continue my attack on the “progressive” view by assaulting one of its citadels—the self-satisfaction of contemporary mainstream culture with regard to its own value system.

Continue reading →