Why ordinary people need to understand power
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0:00 - 0:02I'm a teacher and a practitioner
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0:02 - 0:04of civics in America.
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0:04 - 0:08Now, I will kindly ask those of
you who have just fallen asleep -
0:08 - 0:10to please wake up. (Laughter)
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0:10 - 0:12Why is it that the very word "civics"
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0:12 - 0:15has such a soporific,
even a narcoleptic effect -
0:15 - 0:16on us?
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0:16 - 0:20I think it's because the very
word signifies something -
0:20 - 0:23exceedingly virtuous,
exceedingly important, -
0:23 - 0:26and exceedingly boring.
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0:26 - 0:29Well, I think it's the responsibility of people like us,
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0:29 - 0:31people who show up for gatherings like this
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0:31 - 0:33in person or online, in any way we can,
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0:33 - 0:36to make civics sexy again,
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0:36 - 0:39as sexy as it was during the American Revolution,
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0:39 - 0:43as sexy as it was during the Civil Rights Movement.
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0:43 - 0:46And I believe the way we make civics sexy again
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0:46 - 0:50is to make explicitly about the teaching of power.
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0:50 - 0:53The way we do that, I believe,
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0:53 - 0:55is at the level of the city.
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0:55 - 0:57This is what I want to talk about today,
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0:57 - 0:59and I want to start by defining some terms
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0:59 - 1:01and then I want to describe the scale
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1:01 - 1:03of the problem I think we face
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1:03 - 1:05and then suggest the ways that I believe cities
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1:05 - 1:08can be the seat of the solution.
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1:08 - 1:12So let me start with some definitions.
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1:12 - 1:14By civics, I simply mean the art
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1:14 - 1:17of being a pro-social, problem-solving contributor
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1:17 - 1:19in a self-governing community.
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1:19 - 1:21Civics is the art of citizenship,
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1:21 - 1:23what Bill Gates Sr. calls simply
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1:23 - 1:26showing up for life,
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1:26 - 1:28and it encompasses three things:
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1:28 - 1:32a foundation of values,
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1:32 - 1:35an understanding of the systems
that make the world go round, -
1:35 - 1:38and a set of skills
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1:38 - 1:39that allow you to pursue goals
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1:39 - 1:43and to have others join in that pursuit.
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1:43 - 1:45And that brings me to my definition of power,
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1:45 - 1:47which is simply this:
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1:47 - 1:50the capacity to make others do
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1:50 - 1:53what you would have them do.
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1:53 - 1:55It sounds menacing, doesn't it?
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1:55 - 1:58We don't like to talk about power.
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1:58 - 2:03We find it scary. We find it somehow evil.
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2:03 - 2:05We feel uncomfortable naming it.
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2:05 - 2:08In the culture and mythology of democracy,
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2:08 - 2:09power resides with the people.
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2:09 - 2:11Period. End of story.
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2:11 - 2:13Any further inquiry not necessary
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2:13 - 2:15and not really that welcome.
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2:15 - 2:19Power has a negative moral valence.
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2:19 - 2:21It sounds Machiavellian inherently.
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2:21 - 2:24It seems inherently evil.
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2:24 - 2:28But in fact power is no more inherently good or evil
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2:28 - 2:31than fire or physics.
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2:31 - 2:33It just is.
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2:33 - 2:34And power governs
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2:34 - 2:36how any form of government operates,
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2:36 - 2:39whether a democracy or a dictatorship.
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2:39 - 2:43And the problem we face today,
here in America in particular, -
2:43 - 2:44but all around the world,
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2:44 - 2:47is that far too many people
are profoundly illiterate -
2:47 - 2:49in power —
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2:49 - 2:52what it is, who has it,
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2:52 - 2:54how it operates, how it flows,
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2:54 - 2:57what part of it is visible,
what part of it is not, -
2:57 - 3:00why some people have it,
why that's compounded. -
3:00 - 3:04And as a result of this illiteracy,
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3:04 - 3:06those few who do understand
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3:06 - 3:09how power operates in civic life,
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3:09 - 3:10those who understand
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3:10 - 3:12how a bill becomes a law, yes,
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3:12 - 3:16but also how a friendship
becomes a subsidy, -
3:16 - 3:20or how a bias becomes a policy,
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3:20 - 3:23or how a slogan becomes a movement,
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3:23 - 3:25the people who understand those things
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3:25 - 3:26wield disproportionate influence,
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3:26 - 3:28and they're perfectly happy
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3:28 - 3:31to fill the vacuum created by the ignorance
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3:31 - 3:33of the great majority.
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3:35 - 3:39This is why it is so fundamental for us right now
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3:39 - 3:43to grab hold of this idea of power
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3:43 - 3:45and to democratize it.
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3:45 - 3:49One of the things that is so profoundly exciting
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3:49 - 3:51and challenging about this moment
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3:51 - 3:54is that as a result of this power illiteracy
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3:54 - 3:57that is so pervasive,
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3:57 - 4:00there is a concentration
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4:00 - 4:04of knowledge, of understanding, of clout.
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4:04 - 4:07I mean, think about it:
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4:07 - 4:10How does a friendship become a subsidy?
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4:10 - 4:11Seamlessly,
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4:11 - 4:14when a senior government official decides
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4:14 - 4:16to leave government and become a lobbyist
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4:16 - 4:18for a private interest
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4:18 - 4:21and convert his or her relationships into capital
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4:21 - 4:23for their new masters.
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4:23 - 4:26How does a bias become a policy?
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4:26 - 4:29Insidiously, just the way that
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4:29 - 4:32stop-and-frisk, for instance,
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4:32 - 4:35became over time a bureaucratic numbers game.
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4:35 - 4:38How does a slogan become a movement?
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4:38 - 4:41Virally, in the way that the Tea Party, for instance,
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4:41 - 4:45was able to take the "Don't Tread on Me" flag
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4:45 - 4:46from the American Revolution,
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4:46 - 4:48or how, on the other side,
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4:48 - 4:51a band of activists could take a magazine headline,
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4:51 - 4:53"Occupy Wall Street,"
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4:53 - 4:56and turn that into a global meme and movement.
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4:56 - 4:59The thing is, though, most people
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4:59 - 5:02aren't looking for and don't
want to see these realities. -
5:02 - 5:05So much of this ignorance, this civic illiteracy,
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5:05 - 5:07is willful.
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5:07 - 5:09There are some millennials, for instance,
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5:09 - 5:12who think the whole business is just sordid.
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5:12 - 5:13They don't want to have anything to do with politics.
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5:13 - 5:14They'd rather just opt out
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5:14 - 5:17and engage in volunteerism.
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5:17 - 5:19There are some techies out there
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5:19 - 5:21who believe that the cure-all
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5:21 - 5:23for any power imbalance or power abuse
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5:23 - 5:26is simply more data,
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5:26 - 5:28more transparency.
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5:28 - 5:30There are some on the left who think power resides
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5:30 - 5:32only with corporations,
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5:32 - 5:34and some on the right who think power
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5:34 - 5:36resides only with government,
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5:36 - 5:40each side blinded by their selective outrage.
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5:40 - 5:42There are the naive who believe that
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5:42 - 5:43good things just happen
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5:43 - 5:47and the cynical who believe
that bad things just happen, -
5:47 - 5:49the fortunate and unfortunate alike
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5:49 - 5:53who think that their lot is simply what they deserve
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5:53 - 5:57rather than the eminently alterable result
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5:57 - 6:00of a prior arrangement, an inherited allocation,
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6:00 - 6:03of power.
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6:03 - 6:07As a result of all of this
creeping fatalism in public life, -
6:07 - 6:09we here, particularly in America today,
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6:09 - 6:11have depressingly low levels
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6:11 - 6:14of civic knowledge, civic engagement, participation,
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6:14 - 6:17awareness.
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6:17 - 6:19The whole business of politics has been
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6:19 - 6:23effectively subcontracted out
to a band of professionals, -
6:23 - 6:25money people, outreach people,
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6:25 - 6:27message people, research people.
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6:27 - 6:30The rest of us are meant to feel like amateurs
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6:30 - 6:32in the sense of suckers.
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6:32 - 6:35We become demotivated to learn more
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6:35 - 6:36about how things work.
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6:36 - 6:38We begin to opt out.
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6:42 - 6:45Well, this problem, this challenge,
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6:45 - 6:48is a thing that we must now confront,
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6:48 - 6:49and I believe that when you have
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6:49 - 6:52this kind of disengagement, this willful ignorance,
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6:52 - 6:55it becomes both a cause and a consequence
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6:55 - 6:58of this concentration of opportunity
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6:58 - 7:01of wealth and clout that I was
describing a moment ago, -
7:01 - 7:04this profound civic inequality.
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7:04 - 7:07This is why it is so important in our time right now
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7:07 - 7:11to reimagine civics as the teaching of power.
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7:11 - 7:14Perhaps it's never been more important
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7:14 - 7:19at any time in our lifetimes.
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7:19 - 7:21If people don't learn power,
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7:21 - 7:22people don't wake up,
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7:22 - 7:24and if they don't wake up,
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7:24 - 7:27they get left out.
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7:27 - 7:31Now, part of the art of practicing power
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7:31 - 7:34means being awake and having a voice,
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7:34 - 7:36but it also is about having an arena
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7:36 - 7:40where you can plausibly practice deciding.
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7:40 - 7:42All of civics boils down to the simple question
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7:42 - 7:44of who decides,
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7:44 - 7:46and you have to play that out
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7:46 - 7:48in a place, in an arena.
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7:48 - 7:51And this brings me to the third
point that I want to make today, -
7:51 - 7:54which is simply that there is no better arena
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7:54 - 7:57in our time for the practicing of power
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7:57 - 8:00than the city.
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8:00 - 8:02Think about the city where you live,
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8:02 - 8:04where you're from.
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8:04 - 8:07Think about a problem in
the common life of your city. -
8:07 - 8:08It can be something small,
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8:08 - 8:11like where a street lamp should go,
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8:11 - 8:12or something medium like
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8:12 - 8:16which library should have its hours extended or cut,
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8:16 - 8:18or maybe something bigger,
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8:18 - 8:21like whether a dilapidated waterfront should be
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8:21 - 8:23turned into a highway or a greenway,
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8:23 - 8:25or whether all the businesses in your town
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8:25 - 8:29should be required to pay a living wage.
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8:29 - 8:32Think about the change that you want in your city,
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8:32 - 8:35and then think about how you would get it,
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8:35 - 8:39how you would make it happen.
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8:39 - 8:41Take an inventory of all the forms of power
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8:41 - 8:44that are at play in your city's situation:
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8:44 - 8:49money, of course, people, yes,
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8:49 - 8:54ideas, information, misinformation,
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8:54 - 8:57the threat of force, the force of norms.
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8:57 - 8:59All of these form of power are at play.
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8:59 - 9:01Now think about how you would activate
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9:01 - 9:05or perhaps neutralize these various forms of power.
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9:05 - 9:09This is not some Game of Thrones
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9:09 - 9:11empire-level set of questions.
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9:11 - 9:13These are questions that play out
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9:13 - 9:16in every single place on the planet.
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9:16 - 9:18I'll just tell you quickly about two stories
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9:18 - 9:20drawn from recent headlines.
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9:20 - 9:21In Boulder, Colorado,
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9:21 - 9:25voters not too long ago approved a process
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9:25 - 9:28to replace the private power company,
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9:28 - 9:30literally the power company,
the electric company Xcel, -
9:30 - 9:33with a publicly owned utility
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9:33 - 9:34that would forego profits
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9:34 - 9:38and attend far more to climate change.
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9:38 - 9:40Well, Xcel fought back,
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9:40 - 9:42and Xcel has now put in play a ballot measure
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9:42 - 9:44that would undermine or undo
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9:44 - 9:46this municipalization.
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9:46 - 9:49And so the citizen activists in
Boulder who have been pushing this -
9:49 - 9:51now literally have to fight the power
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9:51 - 9:54in order to fight for power.
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9:54 - 9:58In Tuscaloosa, at the University of Alabama,
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9:58 - 10:00there's an organization on campus
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10:00 - 10:04called, kind of menacingly, the Machine,
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10:04 - 10:08and it draws from largely white sororities
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10:08 - 10:09and fraternities on campus,
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10:09 - 10:11and for decades, the Machine has dominated
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10:11 - 10:13student government elections.
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10:13 - 10:16Well now, recently, the Machine
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10:16 - 10:17has started to get involved
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10:17 - 10:19in actual city politics,
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10:19 - 10:20and they've engineered the election
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10:20 - 10:22of a former Machine member,
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10:22 - 10:24a young, pro-business recent graduate
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10:24 - 10:28to the Tuscaloosa city school board.
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10:28 - 10:31Now, as I say, these are just two examples
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10:31 - 10:33drawn almost at random from the headlines.
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10:33 - 10:37Every day, there are thousands more like them.
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10:37 - 10:38And you may like or dislike
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10:38 - 10:40the efforts I'm describing here
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10:40 - 10:42in Boulder or in Tuscaloosa,
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10:42 - 10:44but you cannot help but admire
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10:44 - 10:47the power literacy of the players involved,
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10:47 - 10:48their skill.
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10:48 - 10:51You cannot help but reckon with and recognize
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10:51 - 10:53the command they have
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10:53 - 10:56of the elemental questions
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10:56 - 10:57of civic power —
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10:57 - 11:02what objective, what strategy, what tactics,
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11:02 - 11:04what is the terrain, who are your enemies,
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11:04 - 11:07who are your allies?
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11:07 - 11:08Now I want you to return
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11:08 - 11:12to thinking about that problem or that opportunity
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11:12 - 11:14or that challenge in your city,
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11:14 - 11:16and the thing it was that you want to fix
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11:16 - 11:18or create in your city,
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11:18 - 11:20and ask yourself,
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11:20 - 11:24do you have command of these
elemental questions of power? -
11:24 - 11:27Could you put into practice effectively
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11:27 - 11:30what it is that you know?
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11:30 - 11:34This is the challenge and the opportunity for us.
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11:34 - 11:37We live in a time right now
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11:37 - 11:40where in spite of globalization
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11:40 - 11:42or perhaps because of globalization,
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11:42 - 11:44all citizenship is ever more resonantly,
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11:44 - 11:46powerfully local.
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11:46 - 11:48Indeed, power in our time is flowing
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11:48 - 11:51ever faster to the city.
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11:51 - 11:52Here in the United States, the national government
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11:52 - 11:55has tied itself up in partisan knots.
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11:55 - 11:58Civic imagination and innovation and creativity
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11:58 - 12:01are emerging from local ecosystems now
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12:01 - 12:03and radiating outward,
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12:03 - 12:06and this great innovation,
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12:06 - 12:09this great wave
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12:09 - 12:13of localism that's now arriving,
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12:13 - 12:15and you see it in how people eat
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12:15 - 12:17and work and share and buy and move
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12:17 - 12:19and live their everyday lives,
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12:19 - 12:22this isn't some precious parochialism,
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12:22 - 12:25this isn't some retreat into insularity, no.
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12:25 - 12:28This is emergent.
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12:28 - 12:32The localism of our time is networked powerfully.
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12:32 - 12:33And so, for instance,
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12:33 - 12:35consider the ways that strategies
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12:35 - 12:37for making cities more bike-friendly
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12:37 - 12:40have spread so rapidly from Copenhagen
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12:40 - 12:45to New York to Austin to Boston to Seattle.
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12:45 - 12:49Think about how experiments
in participatory budgeting, -
12:49 - 12:50where everyday citizens get a chance
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12:50 - 12:53to allocate and decide upon
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12:53 - 12:56the allocation of city funds.
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12:56 - 12:59Those experiments have
spread from Porto Alegre, Brazil -
12:59 - 13:04to here in New York City,
to the wards of Chicago. -
13:04 - 13:06Migrant workers from Rome to Los Angeles
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13:06 - 13:08and many cities between
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13:08 - 13:11are now organizing to stage strikes
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13:11 - 13:13to remind the people who live in their cities
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13:13 - 13:16what a day without immigrants would look like.
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13:16 - 13:18In China, all across that country,
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13:18 - 13:21members of the New Citizens' Movement
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13:21 - 13:22are beginning to activate and organize
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13:22 - 13:25to fight official corruption and graft,
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13:25 - 13:27and they're drawing the ire of officials there,
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13:27 - 13:29but they're also drawing the attention
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13:29 - 13:32of anti-corruption activists all around the world.
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13:32 - 13:34In Seattle, where I'm from,
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13:34 - 13:37we've become part of a great global array of cities
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13:37 - 13:38that are now working together
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13:38 - 13:40bypassing government altogether,
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13:40 - 13:42national government altogether,
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13:42 - 13:44in order to try to meet the carbon reduction goals
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13:44 - 13:47of the Kyoto Protocol.
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13:47 - 13:50All of these citizens, united,
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13:50 - 13:51are forming a web,
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13:51 - 13:53a great archipelago of power
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13:53 - 13:56that allows us to bypass
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13:56 - 14:00brokenness and monopolies of control.
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14:00 - 14:03And our task now is to accelerate this work.
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14:03 - 14:05Our task now is to bring more and more people
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14:05 - 14:07into the fold of this work.
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14:07 - 14:09That's why my organization, Citizen University,
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14:09 - 14:11has undertaken a project now
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14:11 - 14:14to create an everyman's curriculum
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14:14 - 14:17in civic power.
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14:17 - 14:19And this curriculum starts with this triad
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14:19 - 14:21that I described earlier of values,
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14:21 - 14:24systems and skills.
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14:24 - 14:27And what I'd like to do is to invite all of you
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14:27 - 14:29to help create this curriculum
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14:29 - 14:32with the stories and the experiences
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14:32 - 14:35and the challenges that each of you lives and faces,
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14:35 - 14:38to create something powerfully collective.
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14:38 - 14:41And I want to invite you in particular to try
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14:41 - 14:43a simple exercise drawn
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14:43 - 14:45from the early frameworks of this curriculum.
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14:45 - 14:48I want you to write a narrative,
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14:48 - 14:51a narrative from the future of your city,
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14:51 - 14:54and you can date it, set it out one year from now,
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14:54 - 14:56five years from now, a decade from now,
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14:56 - 14:58a generation from now,
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14:58 - 15:02and write it as a case study looking back,
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15:02 - 15:03looking back at the change
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15:03 - 15:05that you wanted in your city,
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15:05 - 15:08looking back at the cause
that you were championing, -
15:08 - 15:11and describing the ways that that change
-
15:11 - 15:15and that cause came, in fact, to succeed.
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15:15 - 15:17Describe the values
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15:17 - 15:19of your fellow citizens that you activated,
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15:19 - 15:23and the sense of moral purpose
that you were able to stir. -
15:23 - 15:25Recount all the different ways
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15:25 - 15:27that you engaged the systems of government,
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15:27 - 15:29of the marketplace,
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15:29 - 15:31of social institutions, of faith organizations,
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15:31 - 15:34of the media.
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15:34 - 15:38Catalog all the skills you had to deploy,
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15:38 - 15:41how to negotiate, how to advocate,
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15:41 - 15:42how to frame issues,
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15:42 - 15:44how to navigate diversity in conflict,
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15:44 - 15:46all those skills that enabled you
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15:46 - 15:48to bring folks on board
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15:48 - 15:51and to overcome resistance.
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15:51 - 15:54What you'll be doing when you write that narrative
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15:54 - 15:59is you'll be discovering how to read power,
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15:59 - 16:04and in the process, how to write power.
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16:04 - 16:06So share what you write,
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16:06 - 16:07do you what you write,
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16:07 - 16:11and then share what you do.
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16:11 - 16:13I invite you to literally share
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16:13 - 16:15the narratives that you create
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16:15 - 16:18on our Facebook page for Citizen University.
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16:18 - 16:21But even beyond that, it's in the conversations
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16:21 - 16:22that we have today
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16:22 - 16:24all around the world in the simultaneous gatherings
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16:24 - 16:27that are happening on this topic at this moment,
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16:27 - 16:29and to think about how we can become
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16:29 - 16:33one another's teachers and students in power.
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16:33 - 16:35If we do that, then together
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16:35 - 16:37we can make civics sexy again.
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16:37 - 16:40Together, we can democratize democracy
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16:40 - 16:43and make it safe again for amateurs.
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16:43 - 16:47Together, we can create a great network of city
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16:47 - 16:50that will be the most powerful collective laboratory
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16:50 - 16:53for self-government this planet has ever seen.
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16:53 - 16:56We have the power to do that.
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16:56 - 16:59Thank you very much.
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16:59 - 17:02(Applause)
- Title:
- Why ordinary people need to understand power
- Speaker:
- Eric Liu
- Description:
-
Far too many Americans are illiterate in power — what it is, how it operates and why some people have it. As a result, those few who do understand power wield disproportionate influence over everyone else. “We need to make civics sexy again,” says civics educator Eric Liu. “As sexy as it was during the American Revolution or the Civil Rights Movement.”
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 17:19
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Amara Bot edited English subtitles for Why ordinary people need to understand power | ||
Amara Bot edited English subtitles for Why ordinary people need to understand power | ||
Amara Bot edited English subtitles for Why ordinary people need to understand power | ||
Amara Bot edited English subtitles for Why ordinary people need to understand power | ||
Amara Bot edited English subtitles for Why ordinary people need to understand power |