SALISBURY — Anthony Kronman began his talk on “The Humanities in the Age of Disenchantment” by quoting Max Weber talking about “disenchantment” in 1917. He wound his way around to poet Walt Whitman and the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza in the course of an unusual talk at the Salisbury School Friday, Dec. 2, as part of the Salisbury Forum lecture series.

Kronman, a former dean of the Yale Law School and currently teaching in that university’s Directed Studies Program, said that Weber, speaking to students in Munich aganst the backdrop of Germany’s impending defeat in World War I and rising social unrest, was concerned that academic life in the modern university was increasingly disconnected from the spiritual foundations of Christian Europe.

Weber, according to Kronman, saw a problem in that academics were increasingly concerned with adding to the world’s accumulated store of knowledge in their particular disciplines, knowing all the while that any unique contribution was certain to be superseded in short order, and thus ephemeral.

Kronman said that Weber felt that God had been exiled from public institutions and cultural life — “stripped of a connection with the divine and eternal.”

As the emphasis in academia and modern life shifted from its religious foundation, humanity took over the role of God. “Humans became masters of their future; and their endeavors were increasingly “defined by their transience.”

He said the American tradition of higher education began with small colleges dedicated to turning out “young Christian gentlemen.” Students learned a core curriculum of classics, sciences and mathematics, taught by polymath professors who could and did teach any subject.

The faculty of those colleges (almost all of which had a specific religious affiliation), understood their purpose as the “transmission of old knowledge, not the creation of new knowledge.”

But as the modern research university evolved, and separate departments were established, the emphasis shifted to adding to the store of knowledge.

Kronman pointed to the growing secularization of American life, the growing diversity of society with the waves of immigration in the latter half of the 19th century (and into the early 20th century), the subsequent reinforcement of “consumerist ambition” and the work of Charles Darwin as factors that resulted in the de-emphasis of God.

Kronman then took an unexpected turn, arguing for a new kind of academics that moves between a rational, Aristotelian view of the world and what he called “the God of Abraham.”

Using Whitman as a starting point, Kronman spoke of the individual as “an unduplicable reflection of the divine,” and then connected to Spinoza, the 17th-century Jewish writer, and his particular view of faith as a means of reconnecting the modern university student’s work “to something invulnerable to time, and thus save it from the meaningless.”

Or, as Kronman unapologetically put it, to seek salvation.

By
Leon Graham
leong@lakevillejournal.com
ROBIN KELSEY Photo Submitted

SALISBURY — The Salisbury Forum turns away from its usual sessions on global and national issues into the world of photography on Friday, April 8, at 7:30 p.m. when Harvard’s Robin Kelsey presents “How Photography Has Changed Our Lives — Performing for the Camera” at the Salisbury School’s Seifert Theater.

Kelsey, currently a visiting professor at Williams College, is the Shirley Carter Burden Professor of Photography in Harvard’s Department of History of Art and Architecture. Yet Kelsey followed an unusual, almost eccentric path to obtain that august title.

A child of two anthropologists teaching in Minnesota, he lived in a home where photographs were professional material for his parents: They told stories and documented field research in Mexico and among American Indians. But Kelsey intended to be an attorney. However, after receiving both undergraduate and law degrees from Yale, he found the study of law very different from its practice. He was unhappy, and he missed academia.

Kelsey became a doctoral student in art history at Harvard, where he planned a dissertation on American landscape painting. But when he was invited to speak at a professional meeting with no session on his subject, he chose instead to present a paper on 19th-century photographer Timothy O’Sullivan, a famous photographer of the Civil War and the American West.

“After I gave the talk, members of the audience said how happy they were I was working on this for my dissertation, which I wasn’t,” Kelsey said. “So I took this as a hint from the universe that I had perhaps stumbled upon a more promising topic” and switched gears.

His eventual dissertation covered O’Sullivan’s great photographic survey of the West.

When Harvard created a junior professorship in photography and offered it to him, Kelsey decided to accept rather than take a position at another school in more traditional areas of art history.

“I leapt into this professional formation of myself as a photo historian, which involved a steep learning curve since I had never done any graduate course work in the history of photography.”

Kelsey is especially drawn to the populist, democratic qualities of photography. Susan Sontag in her seminal 1977 collection of essays, “On Photography,” declared photography as important an art form as painting, particularly since the photographer “creates” by choosing to include — or eliminate — elements in his or her images. Whether Kelsey agrees with Sontag or not, he expresses “conflict” with the current practice of photography.

As a photographer himself, Kelsey says he suffers from “photographer’s block.” He feels “burdened by knowing all that has been done, the brilliant things that have been done.” But he is determined to “become more serious about the practice,” even as it means negotiating that past.

Call to action to stop overfishing of the oceans
By Janet Manko
March, 03, 2011

MILLERTON — It takes something special to get hundreds of people out on a snowy Sunday morning in February.

The Salisbury Forum and Moviehouse FilmWorks Forum presentation of “The End of the Line,” hosted by actor Sam Waterston at The Moviehouse, proved to be just the thing. All three theaters were full for the screening of the documentary film detailing the effects of overfishing in the world’s oceans and the human population.

Waterston introduced the film at each showing.

He also spoke after the screening and moderated a question-and-answer session in the large upstairs theater.

Waterston is on the board of directors of Oceana, a global nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect the world’s oceans.

On hand to field the tougher science questions was Oceana advocate and marine biologist Anna Gowan.

“We’re looking to educate the public on overfishing,” she said of the goal of the film.

“The End of the Line” (based on a book by Charles Clover) was directed by Rupert Murray and narrated by actor Ted Danson, who is also an Oceana board member.

The film presents interviews with scientists and fishing industry professionals, among others, who warn that if overfishing is not stopped within 40 years there will be no fish left for humans to eat.

The screening was sponsored by the Salisbury Forum, whose president, Walter DeMelle Jr., introduced Waterston to the audiences.

Waterston commented on the “terrific turnout” for the screening and asked the audience how many were already aware of the dangers of overfishing, and how many were at the film to learn about them.

It was about a 50/50 split. He encouraged all to take in the information presented in the movie and use it as the impetus to act and do something to affect change.

“Put simply,” he said, “we’re taking too much sea life out of the oceans, and putting too much bad stuff into them. We can make change.

“Let your representatives in Washington know you get it, that the strains are more than the oceans can bear.”

There was advice given both in the film and during the discussion on what seafood to buy to follow sustainable practices.

When asked what he consumes, Waterston confessed that he and his wife hardly ever eat seafood anymore.

“For us, it’s just too hard to keep up with the changes and to know if the information made available to the consumer is correct,” he said.

But he was quick to note that his fellow Oceana board member, renowned marine scientist Dr. Daniel Pauly, does not advise complete abstinence from seafood.

Saving the life of the oceans means seeing the big picture, he says, and that includes responsible and informed consumption of seafood.

The screening of “The End of the Line” was the first of the spring programs for the Salisbury Forum.

The next one will be Friday, April 8, at 7:30 p.m. at Salisbury School, titled “How Photography Has Changed Our Lives.” The speaker will be Robin Kelsey, a professor of photography and chair of the Harvard University Committee on the Arts.

For more on overfishing, go to oceana.org. For more on the Salisbury Forum, go to salisburyforum.org. For more on the FilmWorks Forum, which Moviehouse owner Robert Sadlon noted is now in its 14th year, go to themoviehouse.net.

© Copyright 2011 by TCExtra.com

From TCExtra.com

Salisbury Forum: Start small and let the effects ripple, says Maryam Elahi
By TARA KELLY
09/30

SALISBURY — Maryam Elahi, human rights lawyer and director of the International Women’s Program of the Open Society Institute, was the guest speaker at Salisbury Forum at the Salisbury School on Friday, Sept. 24.

The topic was “Conflict and Peace — Why Should Women Be at the Table?” A crowd of more than 200 people, many of whom not surprisingly were women, came to listen and ask questions.

Early in the talk, Elahi clarified one point: the “table” she referred to is the political decision-making table, not the peace negotiations table.

But to achieve that there is a Catch-22 that must be overcome, she said. For women to be effective they need a certain level of experience and resources, which many societies do not afford them, she said.

“Even today, there is a tribal leader in West Africa who said, ‘A woman’s place is in the kitchen and the bedroom.’”

But it is not just Third World nations that struggle with equity for women. In response to a question, Elahi said she considers the United Sates to be lagging behind many other nations on a number of gender issues — with reproductive rights chief among them.

“The Scandinavian countries are far ahead of the U.S. in their support of women and children,” she observed.

Women and children are a prime focus for Elahi since she believes it is they who suffer disproportionately in times of war. The vast majority of victims in a conflict or war are civilians; Elahi put the figure at 90 percent.

And 90 percent of that group are women, children and the elderly, she said.

It is after the guns are laid down that some of the worst war crimes and atrocities are perpetrated on this group of victims, she said. Rape and sexual slavery are rampant, and the recourse for victims is negligible.

Elahi’s life work has focused on gender and human rights; for many years she was the advocacy director for the Middle East, North Africa and Europe for Amnesty International. She was the founding director of the Human Rights Program at Trinity College in Hartford. She has carried out missions to many countries including Algeria, Israel, Iraq, Turkey, Northern Ireland, Guatemala and Afghanistan.

Part of the presentation was a viewing of “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” a documentary film directed by Gini Reticker and produced by Abigail Disney.

It is the story of a group of women in Liberia who, after weeks of watching the tribal leaders get nowhere in peace talks, rallied together and staged a sit-in in the halls outside of the conference rooms. They physically blocked the men from leaving until they showed they were making a serious effort to resolve their differences.

Told in flashbacks and video footage from the time of the sit-ins, it is a moving and sobering look at the difficulties governments have in transitioning from war to peace.

Elahi urged the students and teachers in the audience to get the movie and share it in their classrooms.

Elahi left the audience with this thought: “We can’t individually transform societies overnight, but if you help one person, you help the world.” Which is why she thinks community gatherings such as the Salisbury Forum series are essential. Start small and let the effects ripple outward.

© Copyright 2010 by TCExtra.com

From TCExtra.com
Opinion/Viewpoint
No news is not good news
Editorial
06/10/2010

Peter Osnos gave hope to those of us who want to continue to maintain their connections to all kinds of news, whether local, national or international, at the last Salisbury Forum presentation for the season on Friday evening, June 4, at The Hotchkiss School.

Osnos, who is the founder of PublicAffairs Books and former foreign correspondent and editor for The Washington Post, as well as acting as vice chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, among many other things, has clearly made a serious study of the trends of media over the past few decades. He should know, if anyone does, the directions in which media consumers will look over the next 10 years to find out what’s happening in the world around them.

There are many different ways in which news is now delivered, Osnos said, and we all know there have been monumental changes in communication over the past 10 years. Could the next 10 years bring as many changes as the last 10? It’s probable, according to Osnos, who pointed out that Apple, Microsoft, and Google house the engineers and IT geniuses who have transformed news and information distribution — but don’t create content.

Consumers, however, need to secure the quality of content that they cherish, he said. So, while the ways in which news junkies receive information may be changing dramatically, they still want to receive it, as quickly and easily as possible. There will be many more ways of obtaining news, but the quality of content matters to all consumers of news.

This theory does give hope to those producing a small community weekly newspaper or Web site such as the one you’re reading. The news gathered at smaller outlets in smaller markets is unique, and very meaningful to those of us who choose to live and work in such places. Whether small-town news is available on paper or online, read in print or on an iPhone, it will still be useful, necessary, and hopefully even entertaining to those who consume it. After all, it helps us examine our lives more thoroughly, just as events such as the Salisbury forums do.

Osnos noted that the demand for all news has never been greater, and remains indispensable to our society. While the large news distributors and hardware providers are making money disseminating news, they know they also need quality content in order to maintain their business models. He believes there are real innovators around who are ready to absorb the changes that have to be made, and he is confident that quality books and news, however they’re delivered, have a future. At the same time, some parts of news distribution that consumers expect to be around forever may not be, and may suddenly disappear.

That, in fact, has already happened with some area media, as we saw a string of small weekly newspapers close overnight in neighboring New York state a little over a year ago.

The conversation at the forum featuring Osnos was both enlightening and fascinating, as have been all the other five Salisbury Forum presentations this season. Kudos to President Walter DeMelle and the group of community members on the board who have given their time to make this year’s, and the past five years’, forum events possible. We look forward to their sixth season of provoking thought and discussion on a range of topics that affect all of our lives.

© Copyright 2010 by TCExtra.com

By JANET MANKO
Reprinted with permission, The Lakeville Journal, © Copyright 2010.

FALLS VILLAGE — The amphitheater in Room 133 at Housatonic Valley Regional High School overflowed with adults and students on Friday evening, May 14, as the Salisbury Forum explored freedom of speech in an event called, “The Constitution in Our Midst.”

Two documentary films were presented by the teams of Housatonic students who had created them. The students, all members of the senior class and all enrolled in a media studies class taught by John Duval, had been mentored by documentary film producers Dominique Lasseur and Catherine Tatge of Cornwall.

After the films were screened, members of the audience had a chance to ask the students about their projects, and about the social issues that inspired them.

One film, “No Speech Zone,” was about the back-to-school speech made in September on television by President Barack Obama. The students who made this film interviewed community members, including fellow high schoolers, about the speech, and the fact that no one asked their opinion about whether the speech should be shown at school.

The group that made this film included students Zach Ackerman, Elizabeth Cuoco, Tyler Gelbar, Emma Osborne, Kayla Robinson, Dylan Morehouse and Justin Taylor.

The other film, “The D Word,” was about a lawsuit filed by Connecticut high school student Avery Doninger against her school. She had posted comments critical of her school superintendent on her Internet blog. School administrators saw it and took punitive action.

This film was made by Housatonic students Madeleine Bambery, Steven Bartomioli, Bill Bunce, Alyse Couture, Nick Dignacco and Ryan King.

The upshot of the post-screening discussions was that students, parents and teachers would welcome more opportunities for open discussions, such as that at the forum.

For more on the forum, read the editorial below:

Housy students find their voices
Editorial
May, 20, 2010
Reprinted with permission, The Lakeville Journal, © Copyright 2010.

Some smart, talented Housatonic Valley Regional High School students were given an unusual opportunity to show their skills at The Salisbury Forum Friday night, May 14, which was held at their school. (See story above, which appeared on the front page.) They presented to the adults of their community some very strong opinions, questions and answers, all through the filter of a lens: Two teams of students produced their own documentary films, on topics of their own choosing, relating to their rights as citizens which are afforded them through the U.S. Constitution. The two films which came out of this initiative, “The D-Word” and “No Speech Zone”, were screened at the event.

There were, of course, adults who should be recognized who gave their time to mentor the student teams and gave them the chance to produce the documentaries. The Connecticut Project for the Constitution, Global Village Media, The Salisbury Forum, the administration at Region One and many more all came together to give the students who stepped forward support for this project.

But the real credit for the outcome must be given to the students themselves, who worked very hard to produce 25 to 30 hours of recorded interviews, and who did research and visited with community and educational leaders to learn about their topics. Those many hours of video were edited down to about 20 minutes for their final products, not an easy task.

However, the student filmmakers had to have learned much in the process which could not have been easily communicated in a classroom situation. They were required to remove themselves from their comfort zone and go out into the community to find information on their topics. As Harold Schramm, professor emeritus at Western Connecticut State University and co-founder of Connecticut Project for the Constitution, said in introducing the event on Friday, the qualities of a documentary filmmaker are the same as the qualities of a good citizen.

Those qualities include curiosity, open-mindedness, the ability to understand both sides of an issue and to empathize even if not in agreement with one side or the other. The students who worked on the documentaries will be able to take what they’ve learned and apply it to many aspects of their lives in the years to come, but most especially to their role as active, responsible U.S. citizens.

The two documentaries covered topics that these students will find continue to be relevant in adult life. “The D-Word” dealt with the issue of free speech, and “No Speech Zone” with the issue of information being withheld from high-school students by adults without any discussion. Should students be able to make statements online, from home, that could be seen as insulting or disruptive in school? Should students have been allowed to see the speech given by President Obama at the beginning of this school year, in real time in their classrooms? These were the questions the students sought to answer through this project, and they may well have been surprised themselves by some of what they found.

One clear realization was that as high school students, they are not easily given the chance to voice their opinions openly and honestly in their day-to-day lives. Even as they enter the adult world, these students will find that free speech and open information are not rights that are as automatic as might be expected. The Freedom of Information law in Connecticut is only 35 years old this year, and every year there is some reason to feel that the power of the law is eroding on the one hand, yet on the other hand being upheld by those who firmly believe in the importance of open information.

These students will find in the future that they will need to continue to be vigilant in order to support and maintain their rights as citizens. They’ve made a good start.

By Bruce T. Paddock

April, 15, 2010

Reprinted with permission, The Lakeville Journal, © Copyright 2010.


SALISBURY — The Salisbury Forum brought two favorite guests back for an appearance last Friday, April 9, at Salisbury School.

For journalist and best-selling author Todd Brewster, it was a second appearance in Salisbury, while Yale Law School professor and constitutional scholar Akhil Reed Amar was back for his fourth visit.

At a Forum event in October 2008, Amar and Brewster discussed what the Constitution does and does not say about the presidency, as well as what qualities American voters have historically tended to look for when choosing a president.

For Friday’s presentation, “The Presidency in the Age of Obama,” the two men discussed 10 moments that they felt defined the young Obama presidency, and that would be seen in years to come as also defining the era in which they occurred.

Some of the moments, such as the inauguration and the passage of health-care reform, were obvious choices.

Others, such as Obama’s first meeting with Gen. Stanley McChrystal on Oct. 1, 2009, were perhaps less so. One or two (“The Tea Party”) weren’t technically moments.

For each one, first Brewster and then Amar explained what he felt the event had to tell us about the president and about the country. The common theme running through all the discussions was the many burdens that Obama finds himself under.

One example was the Beer Summit, in which Obama invited black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley, the white police officer who arrested Gates in his home, to share a beer at the White House.

According to Amar and Brewster, the incident showed that the first African-American president had become the arbiter of all things racial in the country.

Despite the political topic, both men were generally politically neutral. For example, while Amar made no attempt to hide his negative feelings about the Tea Party, his criticism focused solely on what he considers their misunderstanding of the Constitution and of American history, not on their political positions.

In the brief question-and-answer period that followed the talk, audience members asked about health-care reform and about the Supreme Court. The final question of the evening, about the deterioration of the political debate in recent years, served as a segue to the next Salisbury Forum event, in which local students will show documentary films they made as part of a program with Global Village Media and the Connecticut Project for the Constitution. The latter organization was co-founded by Brewster, and is dedicated to improving the quality of public dialogue about constitutional issues. “The Constitution in Our Midst,” will be held at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village on Friday, May 14, at 7:30 p.m.

By Patrick L. Sullivan, October, 22, 2009
Reprinted with permission, The Lakeville Journal, © Copyright 2009.

SALISBURY — Jeffrey Sachs, an economist, and Bill Blakemore of ABC News delivered a rather gloomy assessment of the state of the planet at the opening of this season’s lectures sponsored by the Salisbury Forum Friday, Oct. 16.
The talk was held at the Salisbury School. Blakemore “interviewed” Sachs on “Four Global Crises: Money, Security, Heat, Psychology.”

Sachs, director of The Earth Institute, professor at Columbia University and an advisor to the United Nations, began by responding to Blakemore’s question of the economic impact of global warming, saying that insurance companies are paying billions of dollars in climate-related claims.

But the conversation quickly branched out in several directions.

“We’re a very crowded planet now, from 3 billion in 1965 to 7 billion today,” he stated. “This massive increase in population, plus the desire for a higher standard of living on a crowded, productive planet is happening very fast.

“We don’t know how to handle it.”

Of the recession, Sachs said the problems are “not impossible to solve. A good brainstorming society would take up the challenge. America has been able to rally in the past.”

Referring back to the environment, “the key idea is to find technologies that can keep existing living standards without the high costs to the planet. And we need a new type of economy that gives the right signals.”
Sachs said he was in favor of developing not just wind and solar power, but nuclear as well.
“I don’t like not having electricity, by the way. We’d better get back to nuclear, which we suspended 30 years ago after Three-Mile Island.”

Failure to do so leaves us with what he called “the inertia of coal plants, which are certainly dangerous.”

On politics, Sachs was acerbic. “It’s like science fiction, watching lobbyists eat up Congress each year.” In talking with Obama administration officials, Sachs said “it’s top-to-bottom special interests.

“And there’s not a serious thought in Congress.”

Sachs said he was “disgusted” at a recent briefing on the political prospects of the Cap and Trade legislation in the Senate. “I learned what every senator is demanding as his pound of flesh. ‘The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body’ is wrecked right now.”

Sachs advocated a wholesale change in America’s foreign policy.

“These problems are not unsolvable but they’re tough. None of them will be solved militarily. We can’t win the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. The only thing we can do is work with other countries.

“The problem isn’t that we’re doomed, the problem is to open our eyes.”

The evening ended with a question from the audience about the concept of national security in an interconnected world.

Sachs said the core of most problems worldwide is hunger, lack of jobs and lack of education.

“Anybody who spends a day in a camel herder village will tell you: Don’t send the Army, send the Army Corps of Engineers.”

Recent Salisbury Forum speaker and FRONTLINE producer, Martin Smith, has a documentary airing on Tuesday, October 13, 2009, at 9P.M. ET on PBS: Obama’s War.

Tens of thousands of fresh American troops are now on the move in Afghanistan, led by a new commander and armed with a counter-insurgency plan that builds on the lessons of Iraq. But can U.S. forces succeed in a land long known as the “graveyard of empires?” FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith makes the dangerous journey to the front lines of America’s biggest fight. For a preview and more, visit www.frontline.org.