What a FABULOUS DAY!!!
Everything that I ATTENDED today was WONDERFUL …
Rushworth Kidder, founder of the Institute for Global Ethics, was a fascinating and inspiring speaker. He talked about how there are core values that seem to emerge in all cultures and societies: honesty, responsibility, respect, fairness and compassion. He also explained that although ethics is usually defined as deciding between right and wrong, most ethical dilemmas are a choice between right and right. He said that “right-right” ethical dilemmas seem to fit into four paradigms: truth vs. loyalty, individual vs. community, short term vs. long term or justice vs. mercy. In making these choices, we need to decide which is the “higher right”. He recounted stories from his book How Good People Make Tough Choices. Then he talked about his book Moral Courage, which he defined as “willing endurance of significant danger for your principles or values.” ”Imagine a Venn Diagram,” he explained, “where three circles intersect; one circle is willing endurance, another circle is significant danger, and the third circle is principles or values.” For a choice to be morally courageous, it must have all three parts. I bought both of the books that he mentioned in his presentation.
Dr. Mohammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was also a fascinating and inspiring speaker. Although he has a PhD. in economics and is very intelligent and well educated, he is a very kind, soft-spoken, gentle, personable and very down-to-earth person. Dr. Yunus told the story of where the idea for micro-financing and how he started the Grameen Bank. Here are some of the highlights from his presentation …
“All human beings are entrepreneurs. It’s how we’ve gotten where we are today. It’s in our genes.”
“With a $15 loan, if you could help a beggar get out of begging, why wouldn’t you?”
“If you give to charity, you make one change, but if you create a social business, the money recycles.”
“In a social business, profit is not your objective, you have a social goal rather than a dividend for your investors.”
“All human beings are packed with unlimited potential; all we have to do is help them unleash it.”
This is a picture of me with Dr. Mohammad Yunus, autographing his book for me.
I ended my evening at the Tattered Cover Bookstore at a Freedom to Read Foundation event featuring author Lauren Myracle. She talked about the censorship of ttyl by the Superintendent of the Round Rock Independent School District in Texas. She read some angry e-mails that she has received from (mostly) parents, which really seemed to lend credence to Judy Blume’s remark that censorship is fear disguised as moral outrage. She also read e-mails that she has received from young people and librarians. She was a fantastic speaker. I bought copies of ttyl, ttfn and l8r, g8r – which she signed to the students at King Middle School.
Tomorrow morning is the announcement of all the Youth Media Awards …
Signing off,
Ms McDaniel
