The Battle for Christmas by Bill Washabaugh

 

It’s Christmas week here in Milwaukee. The streets are lighted, the houses are decorated, and all is ready for a collective effervescence of peace and good will. It’s a time when family members come together to bask in their reciprocal generosity. What a wonderful life...or is it?

 The traditions of Christmas here in the northern cities of the United States have a long and wondrous history, but maybe not so wonderful.* And it is worth reflecting on this history, lest we allow ourselves to be simply swept along by the tide of the season, the, uh, yule tide.

 Between 1500 and 1800 in Europe and America, Christmas meant one thing and one thing only, getting drunk. The baby Jesus may have been back there somewhere, but way back. What was front and center was a good long tug at the bottle. The liquor helped dull the pain of the season.

 The pain? Around 1800, the collective pain was obvious. The rivers froze which meant that the mills stopped working, which meant that the laborers were laid off, which meant that their families went hungry. In their poverty, most workers had little else to look forward to but booze.

 The liquor loosened folks up and, as a result, they acted out more freely in public. They developed a tradition of going door-to-door, begging—no, demanding—gifts from wealthy citizens. Such behavior echoed the long-established table-turning that had prevailed during the carnivalesque Christmas celebrations of the late Middle Ages. That is, the poor became demanding and the rich became acquiescent for just this short season of the year. The powerless became momentarily powerful. 

 But, such behavior was getting out of hand by 1820. It was about then that Clement Clarke Moore wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (‘Twas the Night Before Christmas), a poem that he and his cronies hoped would both entertain New Yorkers and dial down the turmoil of the season.

 Central to his story is St. Nick, Santa Claus, a cross-over figure if ever there were won. Nick wore the ermine-tipped red-velvet of a bishop, signs of his elite status. But he was dirty and he smoked a short-stem stump of a pipe, signs of his low-class affiliation. With this combination of high and low characteristics, he passed as neither drunken carouser nor haughty mill-owner, but as an in-betweener. He was the perfect figure around which to organize a Christmas cease-fire.

 This in-betweener was altogether acceptable as a magical elf who could silently infiltrate a house, where he could give gifts instead of demanding them. He was neither patron nor pauper, but a bit of both. And being a bit-of-both, he managed to appease the poor, while simultaneously calming the fears of the well-to-do.

 Besides creating and positioning this new Christmas hero, Moore engineered a second feature for the Christmas holidays, an ingenious shift of focus away from the warring social classes outside households and toward the children within households.

 In the past, children had been treated as simply dependents, not much more distinguished than household servants. But now, by making them central to the holiday, Moore reconstructed the carnivalesque power-reversals of yore, defusing class conflicts, and infusing family life with a central importance it never had. Rather than having the poor on the street demanding gifts from the wealthy, he featured children in the household receiving gifts and feeling like kings. 

 The empowerment of children that he fostered seemed to suit bourgeois sensibilities ever so much more comfortably than did the erstwhile momentary empowerment of the lower classes. And, voila, the ferocity of the streets was kept at bay. Thereafter, Ma in her kerchief and I in my cap could relax, get fat, and watch the world go by.

 So, here we are in Milwaukee, dizzied by the lights and sounds of Christmas. We are eager to buy gifts for the kids, and we are suffused with a sense of our own generosity towards mankind. But, after looking into the history, we can't help but wonder...

 *Stephen Nissenbaum, The Battle For Christmas, 1996.

The Working Catholic: Lockout by Bill Droel

 

Kellogg has used the lockout tactic before. In October 2013 the cereal company locked out its 220 Memphis employees. Issues included mandatory overtime and benefits. The situation remained until August 2014 when a federal judge ruled that in this case the tactic was illegal. The judge ordered that employees be brought back on the job with no penalty.

Now Kellogg has locked out 1,400 employees at four plants. The main issue is a two-tier pay scale—newcomers get less; as old timers retire the total wage and benefit expense decreases.

Employers who use the lockout tactic claim that it gives them leverage in negotiations. To stay on the legal side during a lockout employers must publically say that the door to negotiations is always open. A lockout is becoming a popular maneuver.

In 2011 the NFL locked out its players for 18 weeks. The NBA had a five month lockout the same year. In 2012 the New York City Opera locked out its performers. The Minnesota Orchestra did the same the following year. Also in 2013 Crystal Sugar in Minnesota locked out 1,300 employees. In 2015 Allegheny Technologies, a steel firm, locked out 2,200. And in 2018 National Grid, a Massachusetts gas company, had a lockout of 1,200.

To all of us in the Hot Stove League the most pressing labor-management disagreement these days involves the lockout of baseball players.

The lockout tactic is foolish without the threat of permanent replacement workers. On its own a lockout doesn’t make sense because a company would go out of business if it didn’t allow workers to come to the jobsite. Sometimes the threat of replacements is implied. In the current Kellogg dispute ownership makes the threat explicit.

Catholic doctrine has something to say about both lockouts and permanent replacements. First, however, here’s what our doctrine does not say. Catholicism gives general, abstract guidance on what constitutes a just wage and acceptable benefits. Catholicism does not though endorse the specifics of any employer’s contract proposal in any given situation. Catholicism does not endorse the specifics of a union’s counter-proposal. (This applies, by the way, even if the employer is a bishop and the employees are gravediggers or janitors or teachers.)

Catholicism says that negotiation (which depending on circumstances can be smooth or hardball) is crucial. Totalitarianism (total corporate, total state or total both) is not conducive to a healthy society and holy people. There must be some form of negotiation, some form of democracy. Collective negotiation is the countervailing force that holds off totalitarian impulses. Catholicism strongly asserts that employees have a natural right and duty to meaningfully participate in the design and the benefits of work in some measure.  

A lockout and its threats break faith with an acceptable negotiation process. Cardinal John O’Connor (1920-2000) of New York testified in 1990 to our U.S. Senate Committee on Labor. He introduced himself as speaking as a citizen and an employer. He also said that as a bishop he is a mandated moral teacher. The context was a dispute at the Daily News in New York City. Ownership threatened permanent replacements.

“It is useless to speak glowingly” about rights if either “management or labor bargains in bad faith,” O’Connor said. “In the case of management [it is] a charade of collective bargaining and a mockery [for management] with foreknowledge… to permanently replace workers who strike.”  In 1999 O’Connor repeated Catholic principle, writing to nurses: “I remain strongly committed to a policy of no permanent replacements.”

O’Connor’s use of the phrase moral foreknowledge is important. A company that threatens the use of so-called permanent replacements knows the tactic is not an end in itself. Whatever the outcome of the lockout/permanent replacement gambit might be, its real purpose is to end possible negotiations and soon enough to bust the union.

To conclude on a positive note it is worth keeping in mind that the vast majority of contract negotiations are completed without any job action whatsoever. Yes, some posturing occurs; some swearing perhaps. But day-in-and-out negotiations are not newsworthy because nothing dramatic occurs outside the bargaining room and apart from the employee’s vote.

Droel edits a print newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

The Working Catholic: Advent, Part Two, by Bill Droel: Who invented Christmas?

 

Our Blessed Lady is a fair answer. In about 3 B.C. she gave birth to Jesus, who became known as The Christ. St. Joseph, while not Jesus' natural father, is another good answer because he is the main character in St. Matthew's rendition of the Bethlehem story.St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) is another good answer because he is popularly credited with devising the Christmas Pageant.
             But who created Christmas as we know it with all the gifts and indoor tree and special food and charitable donations and a day off from work? Although it is impossible to claim that Christmas is historically new, it is only in the last 160 years or so, and particularly since World War II, that Christmas (other than during Covid-19) is turkey, candy, hams, greeting cards, shopping sprees, family reunions, office parties, seasonal songs and shows for children. For most of Christian history Easter was the big feast; Christmas not so much.

             By 1843 Charles Dickens (1812-1869) had written five well-received novels and then three duds. He was, at age 31, in debt with family obligations. Walking the streets of Manchester that fall he thought about Christmas and children. Returning to his London home he wrote A Christmas Carol in a fury. His publisher didn’t like it, so Dickens paid for the printing himself—adding to his debt. The story (followed by four more Christmas-themed novellas) took off and is now available in many editions and through many adaptations. For example, Acta (www.actapublications.com) sells a $14.95 edition tied in a red ribbon and with an introduction by theologian Jack Shea. My favorite adaptation is the 1992 Muppet Christmas Carol.

             It was Dickens who revived and updated a celebration connected to the nativity of Christ. He promoted forgotten customs and introduced some new ones that now define the holiday. In particular he lifted up practices consistent with Christ’s message: compassion, regard for family life, charity, humane working conditions and decency.

             Dickens was a contemporary of Karl Marx (1818-1883). Both explored the contradictions within industrial capitalism: How is it that prosperity results in widespread poverty? Marx and Dickens saw child labor, overcrowded housing, illness, unemployment and meanness in all the cities they visited. The remedy for Marx included violence, which he thought was inevitable. Dickens’ remedy is not as obvious as Marx’s. Dickens’ stories are about character. They are about the tension between on one hand bad people and corrupt and on the other hand people with good character and noble institutions. The stories hinge on the possibility of redemption.

           The complexity of the good guys is Dickens’ genius. They are usually not romanticized. Poverty itself does not make a person sympathetic or noble. A poor person can drink or carouse too much, can cheat at times and make bad decisions. But poverty is not a sin, as unfortunately it is considered, even today, by those today who distinguish between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.

            Dickens likewise does not romanticize those who help the poor. Donating alms, used clothing and the like at this time of year is not a special favor. It is not, please be reminded, particularly meritorious. Charity is simply rendered because a recipient is entitled to proper assistance and the donor is quite capable of helping out.

           This holy season is designed to reinforce behavior that should occur all year long: People should look out for people; families should treasure one another; institutions that lose their purpose and degrade human dignity can be reformed; joy and celebration are essential to the human prospect every day of the year.

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a free printed newsletter on faith and work.

The Feminine Christ

 

The idea is at the beginning of John’s Gospel.  John’s good news is that the Creator is in all that is created.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  This same was in the beginning with God.  All things were made by it, and without it was made nothing that was made.  In it was life, and the life was the light of all.  And that light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5)

The creator in all is the Light of the universe – the guide to justice and happiness. The Light is called Messiah or Christ the Savior. As an authentic and immediate representation of consciousness of Messiah or Christ the Savior, the feminine form is often instinctively used.  George Floyd called out ‘Mama’ as he was murdered.

In our pursuit of justice let our action be inspired by the following litany:

 

 Dorothy Day - Queen of Peace

  

Dolores Huerta - Our Lady of Guadalupe

 Rosa Parks - Mother of Sorrows

 Simone Wiel - Tower of David

 

Mildred Harnack - Mirror of Justice

 

Edith Stein - Seat of Wisdom   

 

Sojourner Truth - Comforter of the Afflicted

 Eleanor Roosevelt - Health of the Sick

 

Malala Yousafzai  - Cause of our Joy 

 Dorothy Stang - Morning Star.

As the psalm says, justice is God’s work. (Ps. 96:13)

The Working Catholic: Advent by Bill Droel

 

In coming days it is obligatory for all preachers to dust off their “Keep Christ in Christmas” sermon. The villain is commercialism. The remedy is to shop less, donate time or money to the less fortunate and to increase one’s prayer. I’m tired of this message. My concern, particularly during Advent, is my inadequate appreciation for Christ’s Incarnation and consequently my distraction from the true locus of Christ’s church.

In a recent column Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI paraphrases a social worker’s theology along these lines:

I am involved with the poor because I am a Christian. But I can work for years and never mention Christ’s name because I believe that God is mature enough that God doesn’t demand to be the center of our conscious attention all the time.

The social worker who does the job with competence and empathy has the privilege of encountering God Incarnate almost unaware, at least not until that social worker reflects on his or her workday.

Where is Jesus during Advent?

Through an uncommon and meaningful program, seminarians in the State of Washington get close to the real Jesus who is a baby in a trough, a common criminal on a cross, a fisherman, a neighbor, a teacher, a healing friend and a sometime agitator. These seminarians are required to spend some weeks laboring alongside migrant farm workers. By engaging in such work and through conversations with migrants, these young men get “good formation,” their bishop explains. They are made to think about an alternative to the attitude that the church is centered within the Chancery or the rectory.

However, the seminarians and their bishop and myself are still a crucial half step away from a better appreciation of the Incarnation and thus from the true locus of Christ’s church. A seminarian in the program says, the church “goes to meet [the people] where they are.” His bishop says, “We need the church to be close to those doing this labor.” No doubt these are positive statements. But the seminarian and the bishop could be missing the true meaning of Christmas if they presume that the church suddenly appears when a Church employee shows up on the scene. Although God exists apart from human experience, the Incarnation means that God is simultaneously also intimately in a machine shop, in a retail store, in an accounting room, on a hospital unit, in the jail, the court and the restaurant long before and after a visit from a Church employee. Christ and his church are in all workaday places whether people are continually conscious of Christ or not.

My Advent journey for 2021 is to get beyond a notion of church that uses phrases like “Bring Christ to the marketplace” or “Keep Christ in the world” or “Don’t lose Christ at the mall.” Christians certainly can gin up their virtues during Advent; more empathy and joy, for example. Advent especially calls out for an increase of the worldly virtues like social justice, solidarity and peace. But bringing Christ to the world is a tad arrogant.

Doesn’t it make for an intriguing Advent to realize that Christ is all along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile of Michigan Ave shopping? Isn’t it worth a pause these days to glimpse Christ in the neighborhood? To suspect that Jesus Incarnate lurks in the office, walks the legislative hall and inhabits the school? Do not these places, like all sacraments, both hide and reveal God? Isn’t Advent about looking at an animal trough in Bethlehem with eyes of faith and thereby seeing the Creator and Savior of the whole universe? The challenge is to encounter Christ who lives among us, not so much to bring God or the church anywhere.

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a printed newsletter on faith and work.

FAITH IN NATURE – THE SOURCE OF ACTION FOR JUSTICE

 

Introduction:  “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”  (Jeremiah 31:33)

Christine Newman Ortiz is the executive Director and founder of Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant workers center. Voces is well known for its participation in the struggle for worker rights.  On May 1^st every year Voces organizes a march in which thousands participate.  Christine animates the action for justice as nature - the natural law dictates.  

She is the daughter of a Mayan mother and a father who was born in Germany and earned a PhD in science.  He taught at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. 

Christine’s Faith or Trust in nature is expressed in a poem she wrote after her father’s death.

Es un guerrero, mi corozon (My heart, a warrior)

For Opa

You won’t believe me.

Or maybe you will?  

The day after my father’s soul

Departed his body

While he slept in our home

He came back the next day.

In the form of a sparrow                                                                                                                                                                           

Hovering

On the other side of the window

On the second floor of our home

Like a hummingbird                                                             

Holding itself in flight.

Fixing his gaze solidly to mine

For five long deep breaths

It was as if I was seeing through a crack in the universe

something wondrous, vibrant mysterious.

My father, a proud Berliner,

A hard working responsible German immigrant

Who allowed himself moments of tenderness, expression, 

and sentimentality

Towards the end

Was reaching out 

Across a great chasm

In the form of his beloved sparrow, Pio-Pio

And his childhood nickname 

Clear as daylight

Loud as thunder

To say “Look I am still with you. Do not grieve. I am here.”

Epilogue: 

The two sources of Revelation are Nature and the Bible.                    

Thomas Aquinas

Heart and Fist’  Graphic

Diccionario del Corozon                                                                                                                                                                         

Grabados de Naul Ojeda

Taller Leñateros, San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico  2002                                                                                        

  

                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                              

 

 

 

Resilience and Equity in a Time of Crises: Investing in Public Urban Greenspace Is Now More Essential Than Ever in the US and Beyond

 

ABSTRACT

ijerph-18-08420.pdf

The intersecting negative effects of structural racism, COVID-19, climate change, and chronic diseases disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minorities in the US and around the Urban populations of color are concentrated in historically redlined, segregated, disinvested, and marginalized neighborhoods with inadequate quality housing and limited access to resources, including quality greenspaces designed to support natural ecosystems and healthy outdoor activities while mitigating urban environmental challenges such as air pollution, heat island effects, combined sewer overflows and poor water Disinvested urban environments thus contribute to health inequity via physical and social environmental exposures, resulting in disparities across numerous health outcomes, including COVID-19 and chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). In this paper, we build off an existing conceptual framework and propose another conceptual framework for the role of greenspace in contributing to resilience and health equity in the US and beyond. We argue that strategic investments in public greenspaces in urban neighborhoods impacted by long term economic disinvestment are critically needed to adapt and build resilience in communities of color, with urgency due to immediate health threats of climate change, COVID-19, and endemic disparities in chronic diseases. We suggest that equity-focused investments in public urban greenspaces are needed to reduce social inequalities, expand economic opportunities with diversity in workforce initiatives, build resilient urban ecosystems, and improve health equity. We recommend key strategies and considerations to guide this investment, drawing upon a robust compilation of scientific literature along with decades of community-based work, using strategic partnerships from multiple efforts in Milwaukee Wisconsin as examples of success.

WRITTEN by 

Jean C. Bikomeye

 (1)

Sima Namin (1)

 Chima Anyanwu (1)

 Caitlin S. Rublee (2)

 Jamie Ferschinger (3)

 Ken Leinbach (4)

 Patricia Lindquist (5)

 August Hoppe (6)

 Lawrence Hoffman (7)

 Justin Hegarty (8)

 Dwayne Sperber (9)

 Kirsten M. M. Beyer (1)* 

1

Institute for Health & Equity, Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Rd., Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA

2

Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Rd., Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA

3

Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers, Environmental Health & Community Wellness, 1337 S Cesar Chavez Drive, Milwaukee, WI 53204, USA

4

The Urban Ecology Center, 1500 E. Park Place, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA

5

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry, 101 S. Webster Street, P.O. Box 7921, Madison, WI 53707, USA

6

The Urban Wood Lab, Hoppe Tree Service, 1813 S. 73rd Street, West Allis, WI 53214, USA

7

Department of GIS, Groundwork Milwaukee, 227 West Pleasant Street, Milwaukee, WI 53212, USA

8

Reflo—Sustainable Water Solutions, 1100 S 5th Street, Milwaukee, WI 53204, USA

9

Wudeward Urban Forest Products, N11W31868 Phyllis Parkway, Delafield, WI 53018, USA

*

 

The Working Catholic: Labor Day Part II by Bill Droel

 

         Covid-19 brings us an opportunity to experiment with different work arrangements, including shorter hours. For example, the 100 employees at Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com), a popular crowd-funding platform, will work four days per week in 2022, a minimum of 32 hours. Their pay remains the same as when the company required 40 hours. Aziz Hasan, Kickstarter CEO, says this is not a gimmick. “It’s really about…a more potent impact… [And] it opens up so much more range for us personally.”

Autonomy (https://autonomy.work), a research firm in the United Kingdom, has completed its participation in a five-year study of over 2,500 employees in Iceland. Backed by unions and civic groups, the workweek was four days with 36-hours per worker. Productivity remained the same. Sick days decreased. Customers noted better quality of service. Now, 86% of Iceland employees are allowed a four-day week. Another Autonomy study is under way in Scotland. For more on this get Autonomy’s Overtime: Why We Need a Shorter Working Week by Kyle Lewis (Verso, 2021).

The motivation for a shorter workweek on the part of executives is the realization that attracting and retaining competent employees, particularly because of Covid-19, is an expensive challenge. Some companies adopted employment flexibility long before Covid-19. For example, since the 1990s, Metro Plastic Technologies (www.metroplastics.com) has used six-hour days with 30-hours per week at comparable pay as a recruitment tool. The company has few worker shortages, according to Wall St. Journal (7/31/21).

Here are some considerations about a shorter workweek.

There will be complaints from a supplier or customer or worker or investor. A manager has to stand secure, resisting a premature return to old ways.

Flex-time and shorter workweek experiments can fail when they are implemented top-down, neglecting a genuine buy-in from employees from the start. Experiments originating with employees likely turn out better.

Workaholics are a further challenge. Some employees think clocking 50+ hours per week is noble in itself. A workaholic culture has infected many firms.

Keep in mind that the purpose of a shorter workweek is betrayed if time off is spent on unnecessary consumption. Waiting for the Weekend by Witold Rybcznski (Penguin Press, 1991) is a fascinating examination of how people carry their working day mentality into their time off by, for example, working on their putting.

Josef Pieper (1904-1997) says this mentality exists because our culture is one of “total labor.” The true purpose of time off is to establish “the right and claims of leisure in the face of the claims of total labor,” he writes in Leisure: the Basis of Culture (Ignatius Press, 1952). The obstacle is an economy premised on total work. It needs “the illusion of a life fulfilled.” So instead of genuine time off, it puts forth false leisure with “cultural tricks and traps and jokes.”

True leisure, Pieper concludes, is festivity or celebration. It is the point at which “effortlessness, calm and relaxation” come together. And true leisure “ultimately derives its life from divine worship,” even though people may not be conscious of the association.
“Have leisure and know that I am God.” –Psalm 46:11

Droel is with National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

The Working Catholic: Labor Day Part I By Bill Droel

  

         International Workers Day (May Day), the counterpart to our September Labor Day, was inspired by an 1886 event here in Chicago. The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor obtained a city permit for a May rally/demonstration in the Haymarket area (now a trendy restaurant spot).  Late in the evening someone at the rally threw dynamite. Police began to fire wildly into the dwindling crowd. Soon seven officers and four workers were dead.

Eight workers were quickly rounded up, including a lay minister, a printer and others. Seven were found guilty by August. Two got life sentences (one of whom was killed in jail); one was given 15 years. The remaining four were hanged in November.

A couple years after the Chicago event European countries designated May 1^st as Labor Day to honor the Haymarket Workers. For that reason, May 1^st became the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

And what was the issue that brought the workers to the Haymarket rally? Shorter work hours.

This was hardly the first effort in our country to reduce the working day. The 1830s saw an Eight-Hour Day Movement, details Mike Konczal in Freedom from the Market (The New Press, 2021). As part of that movement, Boston Trade Unions issued the “Ten-Hour Circular.” (Presumably they thought eight was unachievable.) This statement prompted six months of rotating strikes and protests across Boston. It was used in Philadelphia to start a general strike. There was a big parade after which the city passed a ten=hour workday law. In Baltimore the city mechanics, drawing on the same statement, won a ten-hour day. “Demands for time could unify workers facing different working circumstances,” writes Konczal.

By 1868 Pennsylvania had “set an eight-hour workday as the default” suggestion. When it came to enforcing this suggestion or any other work-related law was overcoming the prevailing attitude that contracts are “a foundational form of freedom and government should never interfere with markets,” says Konczal. The contract need not be a written document. The worker knew the score when she or he took the job. The freedom of contract assumption, then and now, is a fallacy because “government and courts intervened in important ways,” but not in the interest of workers. Laws and court decisions were intended “to boost the power of bosses and owners while limiting and stymieing the actions of workers.”

The notion of an eight-hour day gained traction during the Great Depression. In 1930 W. K. Kellogg (1860-1951) changed the work schedule at his cereal company. Production went to three shifts per day, six hours each. An employee normally clocked 30 hours per week. Wages were increased by 12.5%. “This will give work and paychecks to the heads of 300 more families in Battle Creek,” Kellogg said.

The union at Kellogg proudly issued progress reports, documenting improved efficiency, decreased unit cost and dramatic reduction in injuries. Other well-known companies (Remember Hudson Motor Car?) joined the experiment. However, after World War II workers and their unions wanted to participate in the consumer boom. They pushed for more hours in order to get more pay, including overtime. Kellogg gradually phased out the 30-hour week and completely eliminated it by 1985, writes Benjamin Hunnicutt in Kellogg’s Six Hour Day (Temple University Press, 1996).

Covid-19 presents an opportunity to experiment with remote work, flex time and other work arrangements. The topic of shorter hours is also in the mix because our Covid-19 economy has meant a shortage of competent workers in some key sectors. Thus, some business executives see reduced hours as a tool for recruitment and retention.

To be continued…

Droel is associated with National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629).

The Working Catholic: Loneliness Part II by Bill Droel

 

A major cause of our loneliness epidemic is the 50-year deterioration of intermediate-sized groups—ethnic clubs, lodges, parishes, neighborhood associations, precincts, young adult clubs and even families. The extended family no longer lives within walking distance. Seniors relocate among strangers; their children often live in other towns.

A person who uses a social media platform has, on average, about 150 “friends.” Several surveys reveal that if friendship implies steady, close and dependable, the actual number is less than five. The Gallup Poll reports a steady decline in friendship. The small friendship circle is further restricted because it increasingly contains only siblings and first cousins. A recent Cornell University survey defined friend as “someone with whom you discuss important matters.” The average number of such friends is two. The saddest in this survey were those who say they have no important thoughts or feelings to discuss.

OnePoll, a survey company, broke down friendship into levels. The number of close friends with whom you share important thoughts and feelings is three. Those three, by the way, are people from high school and/or college days or siblings. The survey says that most people make no new friends after their early 20s. According to this survey, a person has five more friends that they “like” and on occasion “meet one-on-one.” Finally, that person refers to eight other friends, but does not seek them out or spend time with them. This understanding of friendship without contact is baffling.

Let’s use parishes and young adults as an example to further this topic of intermediate groups and aloneness; the phenomenon of hanging out but not joining. Of course, one blog column will not make for a mutual, solid attraction between young adults and a parish. And, any parish that reverts to 1950s-style will—despite good intentions—quickly squander any sustainable attraction for young adults. It is also inaccurate to say that “young adults are leaving churches in droves.” Or put it this way: A change in Roman Catholic gender exclusion in its ordained priesthood will not suddenly bring hundreds of young adults through the church door. To be accurate, let’s note that a fair number of young adults do worship regularly, but not at the pre-1970 rate.

Parishes and congregations are still the main entity for social capital, details Timothy Carney in Alienated America (Harper Collins, 2019). Not only do people make connections through church, those churchgoers are more likely to belong to other groups than non-churchgoers. Those other intermediate groups do not have to be sponsored by the parish. For example, a young adult who volunteers in a tutoring program for immigrants or for high school students is likely to also be a church member. Yes, some non-religious people are involved in circles of friendship and in volunteering, particularly with other college grads. But “the best predictor of civic virtues is regular attendance at church,” Carney writes in his important study.

Further, young adult churchgoers in general have better employment opportunity, stability in marriage, less drug use, less resentment and more frequent use of libraries, parks and museums. No, this doesn’t apply only to the upper-class. Immigrants who attend church or mosque or synagogue are upwardly mobile. Nowadays it is primarily working-class whites who do not attend church. These young adults hang out but don’t connect. Their conversations are superficial; their use of TV and mobile devices is often excessive.

Surprisingly, those people who are most likely to say that religion is very important are the least likely to attend church, Carney finds. They are not searching for a vibrant expression of their faith. They are stuck and largely disconnected. This is a sizable and growing number.

What will happen? To be continued…

The Working Catholic: Lonely in Crowds By Bill Droel

 

 I’m against social distancing. I’m into physical distancing instead. There is already too much social distance in our country.

Covid-19 is accompanied by a dramatic increase in the amount of time people spend alone. “People last year spent far less waking time—an hour and a half less [per day], on average—with people outside their own household,” write Ben Casselman and Ella Koeze in N.Y. Times (7/29/21), summarizing a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov). Time spent all alone increased by about one hour per day. Of course, Covid-19 restrictions on visitors increased the loneliness of those in nursing homes. In general, seniors spent the most time alone,” says N.Y. Times. But teenagers too were alone: One and a half hours more each day than before Covid-19.

Covid-19 is not the cause of aloneness; it only accelerated a 50-year societal trend. Robert Putnam of Harvard University tracks the loss of social capital, of togetherness. His 2000 book, Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster) exhaustively crunches all the numbers to conclusively prove the steady depletion of community life in our society since about 1970. His latest report with Shaylyn Romney Garrett is titled The Upswing (Simon & Schuster, 2020). The two discover that our current separateness is not brand new, yet isolation has not always been so. In a parallel to today, our society was individualistic from the late 1800s into the early 20^th century (the Gilded Age). Inequality was extreme; culture was polarized. However, our society gradually became more cooperative as the 20^th century evolved. Bowling leagues, clubs, denominations, veterans groups, civic endeavors, associations, school boards, neighborhood organizations and like attracted members and enriched society. But then, starting in about 1970, there was a major relapse.

Sustained isolation harms individuals. We become pessimistic. We are prone to scammers—those soliciting over the phone and those peddling conspiracies on cable TV. It is worth recognizing that loneliness and isolation can just as readily occur in big cities with crowded events as it can in rural towns.

Sustained isolation harms society. A sense of victimhood can overwhelm any impulse for the improvement of institutions, neighborhoods and culture at large. Collective virtue, which is acquired and practiced in social interaction, gives way to collective apathy or at times to narrow, one-off outbursts of fragmented dissatisfaction. A healthy give-and-take over differences is replaced by uncivil culture wars over abortion, same-gender unions, a woman’s place in society, the status of science and other issues. In fact, as the affliction of loneliness grows, individuals grasp for identity in an affiliation with extreme factions.

This analysis is totally wrong, some say. The boring social groups of the past are replaced by lively social media. That’s where today’s young adults meet and interact.

Facebook, which owns the other major social platforms, pitches community in all of its reports, its publicity and its Congressional testimony. Nonsense, writes John Miller in America magazine (8/21). Facebook is selling community but it can’t really build it. Some of its executives and engineers have so little experience of real community that they half-believe the company’s line. Other Facebook leaders are fully aware that the “company’s business model relies on making money by selling advertising to companies based on information it has gathered about its users.”

The presumption that healthy connectivity is aided by computers is backward. Computer-aided connections are a symptom of the loneliness epidemic. By design, they turn up the volume of disagreement and accentuate slights. They add to the widening polarization of isolated factions from the common square of democratic conversation. Technology, by nature, individuates. Policing the content of Facebook and other sites is not the remedy.

What can be done? To be continued…

Droel edits a printed newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)