Over Christmas, we visited my brother’s family in Toronto. While there, I chanced to pick up Jane Jacobs’ book Vital Little Plans.
One of the essays centres on a conversation between Janice Stein and Jane Jacobs at the ‘Grazing in the Commons’ conference in Toronto, November 15,2001. It is titled ‘Efficiency and the Commons’. In particular, I appreciated the following exchange.
p 379. Stein:
“I think we need to think about citizenship not just as voting in an election. We need to start thinking about citizenship as a part-time job that we all have. And then ask ourselves.
‘OK, which job am I going to take on?
Am I going to go to work in my local school?
Am I going to go help out in the local clinic?
Am I going to help out with a community issue?
Because it seems to me that’s what crosses that bridge that we build between states and markets.
We know states do some things and markets do others. How do we fit this part-time citizen into our economy ?”
Jacobs:
“I think what you are describing has a great deal in common with art, which has always been a big question mark. Art done for art’s sake is outside of economic life. Artists do need, somehow or other to eat, but that’s not why they do art. They do it because they’re driven to do it. And it’s a gift. And I think that community things are done not for livelihood and not for power. That’s where that work belongs.”
Before heading home from Florida, Edward forwarded this link from The Atlantic.
Anne Applebaum The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff.
Another perspective on the current crisis can be found in Paul Kingsnorth contribution to this week’s Emergence Magazine. The op-ed piece is called Finnegas.
Finally, at the end of the week, Charlie Hunter forwarded a photograph of our St. Patrick’s Day meeting, with the caption ‘You and I received more compliments on our social distancing than on our good looks !’
Reading time should allow us some ‘deep thinking’ about government, capitalism and citizenship. On Sunday morning, CBC The Sunday Edition included interviews with both Robert MacFarlane and Rebecca Solnit, a couple of my favourite authors.
Acknowledgements
Edward Wedler for forwarding The Atlantic link, before heading home to Nova Scotia (now in mandatory self-isolation). Charlie Hunter for the photograph. Heather Stewart for her feedback.
References
Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring(Ed) 2016. Vital Little Plans. The Short Works of Jane Jacobs. Vital Little Plans. Penguin Random House Canada.
Anne Applebaum. The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff. The Atlantic.
Paul Kingsnorth. Emergence Magazine. March 20,2020. Finnegas.
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