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Jun 1, 2004

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A New Ethos of Craft and Beauty?

Last month, I examined the first of two recently published books heralding a major shift in our economy and culture: Virginia Postrel’s The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness (HarperCollins, 2003). This month, the spotlight is on Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class and How it’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life.

Jun 1, 2004

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The Value of Values-Talk

Values talk is in. Ever since Enron, business leaders trip over themselves to ensure that values are more prominent in their materials. Political leaders sell their program on the appeal of the values they represent. Feature stories highlight successful business people who adjust careers in order to find balance in life, or work for a cause rather than for a profit.

Jun 1, 2004

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When A Deal Isn’t a Deal

“The reality is that our health system has been on a fast track to collapse. We’ve got to get the situation under control so we can meet the needs of the patients and the needs of the people of British Columbia.” So said British Columbia Minister of Labour Graham Bruce in early 2002 as his government asked the legislature to pass the controversial Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act.

Jun 1, 2004

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Commercialization and the Death of Singing

In the film ,My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), there is a wonderful scene that elicits laughter from the audience. A table full of people, both young and old, suddenly and surprisingly burst into song. All present seem to know from memory Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s 1967 hit, “I Say a Little Prayer,” and they sing it lustily. Even the young teens, who could hardly have been born when this song was climbing the charts, have no difficulty singing it.

May 1, 2004

George Grant and the Primacy of Economics

Some 25 years ago, I discovered the writings of the late George Parkin Grant (1918-1988), who during his lifetime came to be regarded as Canada’s foremost philosopher. Although he is probably best known for Lament for a Nation, a passionate book written in 1965 in the wake of the defeat of John Diefenbaker’s Conservative government two years earlier, Grant wrote a number of essays, most dealing in some fashion with the ongoing interaction of tradition, society, politics, and technology.

In Defense of Unions

May 1, 2004

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In Defense of Unions

The basic concept of unionism correctly recognizes the communal nature of the workplace. A workplace is not a collection of individuals who operate in isolation from or in competition with each other. It’s not every man (or woman) for himself. The workplace is not a family unit (I shudder when I hear an employer suggest this, because often it reveals his view of the owner as parent and the workers as children), but it is a mini-society.

May 1, 2004

Lessons from Old Europe

The U.S. government is not currently well-disposed to take political lessons from what Donald Rumsfeld has memorably dubbed Old Europe, least of all from France. And the recent vote of the French National Assembly to ban the wearing of headscarves by Moslem girls in public schools has hardly helped to mitigate American suspicions about the political wisdom of the current French establishment.

May 1, 2004

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The Age of Look and Feel

We now live in an aesthetic culture: an “age of look and feel.” This new focus on the sensory nature of things—their visual, tactile and emotional character—has become a major factor (perhaps even the major factor) influencing the design of the things we buy and the environment we build.

May 1, 2004

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Cyberpunk, Orwellian Fears, and the Faces of Tyranny

The Cold War ended, and, since its collapse, a generation came of age unlearned in duck and cover drills, unafraid of Red Menaces, and unfamiliar with nuclear wasteland nightmares. A generation was born that wouldn’t look into a future of George Orwell’s 1984, as the book and the date became things of the past.

Work, Meaning, and Choice

Apr 1, 2004

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Work, Meaning, and Choice

The lack of choice, which annoys me when it concerns my car or computer, has far greater implications for the modern workplace. Much has been said and written about making work meaningful, but much of it boils down to this: there is a strong correlation between job satisfaction and the amount of decision-making freedom a worker enjoys.