Urban Survival Skills

Urban Survival Skills

2016 Edition

James E. McGuire

            There are basic life skills that one should have before graduating from high school. Growing up in frontier America, one might have needed to know how to kill and dress a deer.  Growing up on a farm, you might have needed to learn how to milk cows and feed chickens.  Those skills are irrelevant to life in an urban environment, replaced by other skills needed to survive and to thrive.[1] Test yourself:  which of these skills have you mastered and which are you working on now?  Are your parents helping you to be independent or hindering you by doing these things for you?  Are there other skills that you want to have before you graduate and leave home?

1.   Know your body and how to care for it.

Ø  I can (and do) go to the doctor by myself (and know when I am sick enough to need it).

Ø  I take care of my own health care needs (medications; allergies, glasses, contact lenses, hearing aids).

Ø  I take care of my body (know how much sleep I need, what it means to eat sensibly, to exercise in moderation, and to drink responsibly).

Ø  I know how babies are made and what safe sex means.

2.   Know how to manage your money.

Ø  I have my own checking account and ATM card (and know how to use them).

Ø  I know the value of money; what things cost; how much I would have to work to pay for goods and services (clothes, restaurant meals, travel, electronic stuff).

Ø  I know how to live within a budget.

Ø  I am financially literate:  I know about bank finance charges, credit card interest rates, and the costs of borrowing money.

3.   Know how to live by yourself.

Ø  I know how to set an alarm, wake on my own, and arrive on time at the places I need to be.

Ø  I know how to cook (basics for breakfast, lunch, and dinner), including shopping and cleaning up the kitchen (I know a sink needs to be cleaned and counters wiped).

Ø  I know how to do my own laundry (folding and storing my clothes) (using an iron is optional) (Meg: “One pair of red sox in a load of whites=pink underwear for the year.”  “Twice as much soap as recommended does not make clothes twice as clean.)

4.   Know how to live with others.

Ø  I know how to live with others, respecting common area space, keeping it free from my clutter, and picking up after myself.

Ø  I know how to have a conversation about shared chores and responsibilities (I have had this conversation with my parents/siblings).

Ø  I do my share (and more) of common area chores.

Ø  I know the basics of being an overnight guest (pitch in; be neat; make the bed; bring a gift; turn off my phone and carry on a conversation).

5.   Know how to travel.

Ø  I know how to ride a bike and drive a car (filling with gas, mandatory; driving stick shift or changing a tire, optional). 

Ø  I know my way around town-when to walk, when to ride; how to be street smart and street safe.

Ø  I know how to use public transportation, including subways, buses, trains, planes, and taxis. 

Ø  I know how to pack for a day, for a week-end or for a week, including my electronic gear, power cords and adapters.

Ø  I know how to navigate—I can read subway maps, paper maps, and use a GPS on my phone or in a car.

Ø  I know how to fly --how to go through airport security like an experienced traveler, how to find my gate, how and when to check-in and where to retrieve my luggage.

6.   Know how to dine in public.

Ø  I know the differences between restaurants and self-serve/fast-food places.

Ø  I know and use good restaurant manners—how to order, how to treat wait staff with respect, how to eat, and how to pay, including who to tip and how much. 

7.   Know how to use computers and phones responsibly.

Ø  I know how to touch-type.

Ø  I know how to store, retrieve, and back-up my work.

Ø  I know and practice proper netiquette.

Ø  I have a better source for sex education than watching porn.

8.   Know how to get a job and keep it.

Ø  I know how to apply for a job.

Ø  I have a current resume.

Ø  I know how to work: how to show up on time and put in an honest day’s work for a day’s pay, how to be a team-player; how to stand up for my rights without getting fired.

9.   Know how to plan and schedule.

Ø  I know how to budget my time, including creating short-term and long-term schedules.

Ø  I know how to plan an event (party, conference, other) and how to execute my plan.

10.                 Know how to say no.

Ø  I know my limits and my personal goals and values.

Ø  I know how to say “no” and to avoid being pressured to do things (drinks; drugs; sex) that I don’t want to do (ever or at that time or with that person).

Learning these skills starts long before you graduate.  You need to work with your parents to develop your plan: how much responsibility (and freedom) to ask for at what age(s).  Learn how to ask for reasons behind rules that are imposed on you.  Accept that you will make mistakes. That is how we all learn. Grandparents can help you and it works best when everyone shares the same goal:  creating strong, independent, competent children ready for life. In the end, of course, it is up to you to be the person you want to be.

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[1] This skills checklist is based on one that my wife Claire and I prepared in the 1970s, raising children in the suburbs of Boston.  The list has been updated with the inputs from our adult children, from our great niece, Nina Weisbrod, a recent high school graduate who has mastered most of this checklist, from Meg, who provides care for our grand-children, Sam, Andy, and Abby, helping them master life skills, and from Ariel Plevan, nearly 12 years old, who made his own unique contribution as a New Yorker: “Know how to talk to people on the phone when ordering food.” I was prompted to update my checklist by a recent article entitled “12 Basic Life Skills Every Kid Should Know”, dated June 24, 2016. http://www.parenting.com/child/child-development/12-basic-life-skills-every-kid-should-know-high-school.  It is well worth reading. 

On Bullshit in Mediation

On Bullshit in Mediation

James E. McGuire

March 2005

            It happens.  Perhaps not in every mediation, but it is frequent enough that most mediators know that they will have to deal with it at some point.  Sam Hoar, my friend and colleague until his untimely death, had a special “Bullshit Guard,” an ear-shaped leather patch with those words printed in bold.  When needed, he would hook it over his ear with a twinkle in his eye, and then break out in a deep belly laugh when the party read the words and realized that he had been outed as a bullshit artist.  Some mediators are very polite, sublimate their feelings and never vocalize that they have been treated to it during the mediation.  Over drinks, of course, these same mediators can recount the stories and label it for what it was.  Other mediators detect it and name it, some times with circumlocutions and some times as directly as if they had borrowed Sam’s ear patch.  We know that it is not the same thing as an overt and direct lie.  We also know that that it is not the same thing as a sincere, but mistaken, belief of the truth of whatever the person is then saying.  So what is it?  Do we have a more polite term for it?  Why do people do it and what tools can the mediator put in the toolbox to deal with it when it is detected?

            When I decided I needed some help on this topic, I looked outside our field to see if there was expert assistance available.  I recommend for your reading pleasure and edification a short essay by the renowned moral philosopher and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University, Harry G. Frankfurt, entitled On Bullshit.  (Princeton University Press 2005).  Professor Frankfurt modestly describes his work as a tentative and philosophical analysis.  Like me, he is not interested in the rhetorical use and misuse of the term and concept, but rather focuses on what it is and what it is not.  His goal:  “to articulate the structure of its concept.”  Frankfurt at 2.

            Although Professor Frankfurt did not conduct a formal literature search, to my knowledge, this is pioneering work on a topic long overdue for focused attention.  He references an earlier publication, The Prevalence of Humbug, by Max Black (Cornell University Press 1985) that provides a useful starting point.  The reader knows intuitively that there are important differences between the terms:  “humbug” is genteel, quaint, and has slight overtones of being British. Bullshit is . . . well, “bullshit.”  We know it when we hear it and do not confuse it with humbug.  Nonetheless, we must start somewhere.

“HUMBUG:  deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody’s own thoughts, feelings or attitudes.” (Black, as quoted by Frankfurt at 6).  I leave it to you to read the essay as Professor Frankfurt dissects this definition and then brings in Wittgenstein, the OED, Ezra Pound and Saint Augustine to develop a more nuanced definition.  For my purposes, Professor Frankfurt makes a key point when he observes that bullshit, like bluffing, is produced without concern for the truth.  Unlike a lie, the statements may not be false.  The truth or falsity of the statement is not important.   Influencing the state of mind of the listener is important, whether the listener is the mediator or the other party.

When one party says of the other, “They are lying,” most mediators will re-frame.  “We understand that from your viewpoint that may appear to be so; it is possible that the other side sincerely believes what they are saying because they see the world from where they stand.  I doubt that they are consciously lying.”  Usually left unspoken is the mediator’s inner voice which says, “Not lying, but it might be pure unadulterated bullshit.”     

Why do we believe they are not lying?  The answer may be because we think better of all people and may be in part because of the mediation process. Liars are concerned with the truth.  To lie effectively presupposes actual knowledge of what it true and a determination to articulate the opposite.  Mediation as a process is not conceived of as a truth-seeking engine.  The mediator is not empowered to determine the truth of what happened nor the more difficult challenge of then determining who was right and who was wrong based on the “true” facts.  Since the topic of who is lying and who is telling the truth is fundamentally uninteresting in mediation, it may make more sense for parties to spend time and energy on techniques that carry lower risks and may promise higher returns.

Does it provide lower risk and higher reward?  As quoted by Professor Frankfurt, the author Eric Ambler wrote of a father’s advice to his son:  “Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through.”  This seems to be sage advice.  Overt lies breach ethical boundaries.  More practically, an overt lie does great damage to a party’s credibility and negotiating strength if the lie is detected.  Bullshit, artfully done, does not suffer from these liabilities.

Because it can be done elegantly and need not be clumsy or malicious when done well, we pay tribute to it by labeling the speaker a “bullshit artist.”  Like other forms of art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but most people recognize the art form.  Professor Frankfurt notes that the person who follows Ambler’s fatherly advice has much more freedom.  “His focus is panoramic rather than particular.  He does not limit himself to inserting a certain falsehood at a specific point, and thus is not constrained by the truths surrounding that point or intersecting it.”  Frankfurt at 52.  Though this mode of creativity is less analytical and less deliberate than lying, it may not be easier.

“What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affairs.”  Frankfurt at 53.  “The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be.” The essence of his deception is his intent:  what he is up to; what his true interests and objectives are.

So why would a party attempt to deceive as to his true interests and objectives?  To understand why we do what we do may benefit by looking to science, and not just philosophy.  Accepting Professor Frankfurt’s provisional and tentative definitions, I turned to the recent work of Robert Trivers, an evolutionary biologist.  He was profiled in an article in the Boston Globe on March 27, 2005.  Trivers is generally recognized as making a seminal breakthrough in the conceptual framework for asking questions about why we behave how we do behave.  He published papers in the 1970s linking genetics to behavioral biology.  That was part of the foundation for work of E.O. Wilson in the field of sociobiology and the work of Richard Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene.”  In his more recent work, Trivers reports that deceit is part of the human condition and has great value in evolutionary strategies.  Since it does, counter-strategies to able to detect when people are lying have also developed. The keen ability to detect the slight tic that betrays the lie is a human skill not restricted to world-class poker players.  So Trivers proposes that a counter-strategy to detection has also developed:  self-deception.  “If we don’t know we’re lying, then we won’t act like we’re lying, and are more likely to get away with it.”  Robert Trivers, as summarized in the Boston Globe at K-4 (March 27, 2005).  In other words, bullshit.  It works because it is less likely to be detected for what it is and what it conceals.  We may be close to the Truth when science and philosophy agree.

So if you detect it, what does it signify?  It may signify that the speaker has distanced himself from the facts to avoid telling the truth or lying.  But this may also include distancing himself from the ultimate fact: what he wants and why he wants it.            

The artist may be more interested in the art than the outcome.  Incapable or unwilling to deal with the facts, the ultimate claim may be presented simply and sincerely: “This is what I want.”  Yet the ultimate truth, to know yourself, may be the most difficult to master.  In that case, as Professor Frankfurt concludes, “sincerity is itself bullshit.”  Frankfurt at 67.

            So what is the mediator to do?  Recognize it for what it is.  Make no judgment that it is wrong; it is just another strategy.  Yet the skilled mediator will also recognize that this particular type of artist may still need help in discerning what really is in his best interests.  After all, that is why they came to you.

On Forgiveness

On Forgiveness

February 2015

James E McGuire

The weak can never forgive. 

Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.

Mahatma Gandhi

            Forgiveness is a power belongs to every person who has ever been wronged or harmed by the actions or inactions of another.  Forgiveness is more than just a companion to apology.  Forgiveness is more than something we hope will be given in return after a sincere apology has been offered.  Apology is an important part of the mediation process in helping parties deal with conflict and resolve disputes.  There are many articles, books and training programs devoted to this important topic. Less attention has been paid to the independent power of forgiveness and its role in mediation.

            Forgiveness means letting go of a need for revenge or making things even or having someone say, “I apologize.”  Forgiveness does not require any antecedent act.  Whether to hold onto the hurt and the pain of being wronged or whether to release that pain and get on with living is a fundamental choice for each individual.  No one can take that choice away from anyone, except the individual who decides not to forgive.

            To forgive does not mean to forget.  The harm that happened to you will always remain part of your life.  To forgive is not to condone or to make excuses for bad behavior. Forgiveness may not lead to reconciliation.  That may happen as a useful secondary result, but reconciliation is not the main goal of forgiveness.  Forgiveness may lead to sympathy, empathy or even compassion for the one that did the harm, though again that is not the primary goal.  Forgiveness does not require an apology as a pre-condition.  The apology may not be forthcoming because of the very nature of the person who did the harm.  That person may no longer even be part of your life:  the dead cannot say, “I am sorry.”  How many people carry the hurts and wrongs that happened to them over a lifetime right to the grave?

You’re lying on your deathbed.

You have one hour to live

Who is it, exactly, you have needed

All these years to forgive?[i][1]

           

                  Why forgive anyone for anything?  Short answer:  to be happy.  A core part of a happy life is to be in good health, physically and mentally.  Forgiveness has now become part of mental health therapy.  In 2006, the American Psychological Association compiled research papers on forgiveness.  The overwhelming consensus is that forgiveness leads to good mental health.[2]  The Mayo Clinic[3] published on-line tips for good adult health.  Among the many topics covered is an article on the value of forgiveness.  According to the Mayo Clinic:

Forgiveness can lead to:

ü  Healthier relationships

ü  Greater spiritual and psychological well-being

ü  Less anxiety, stress and hostility

ü  Lower blood pressure

ü  Fewer symptoms of depression

ü  Lower risk of alcohol and substance abuse

Every major religion has as core part of its doctrine for the faithful the importance of forgiveness.  In the Jewish religion, a special day is set aside for primary purposes of both giving needed apologies and dispensation of forgiveness.  Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement provides an opportunity to forgive and to be at peace with yourself, your family and community.   Christianity was, from its beginnings, a religion of love and forgiveness:  “turning the other cheek.”  One of the last things Christ said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  The Muslim world learns from the teachings of the sacred Qu’ran[4]  that Allah rewards “whosoever forgives and makes amends.”  In Buddhism, “forgiveness is seen as a practice to prevent harmful thoughts from causing havoc on one’s mental well-being.”[5]

            For those of us who are not religious, we can take our guidance from secular philosophers.  In his most recent book Religion for Atheists:  A non-believer’s guide to the uses of religion, Alain de Botton discusses among other things the usefulness of forgiveness.  He suggests that rather than just one day each year reserved for seeking atonement, we should set aside some time every quarter of the year to review the slights, insults, and actual harm that has befallen us and to dispense forgiveness for our own mental well-being. Instead of religious places of worship, the author suggests that we create secular temples for “Spring”; for “self-knowledge” and for “forgiveness.”

            Another philosopher, Charles Griswold, takes the reader deeper into the topic.[6]  He grounds forgiveness in morality that transcends any religion.  He frames forgiveness as a bi-lateral act for we must know whom we seek to forgive and for what.  More than that, forgiveness comes with conditions—not merely giving up revenge, but also giving up the internal seething and toxic anger that was caused by the harm that was done to us.  For the more ambitious, Professor Griswold has a book devoted to the topic: Forgiveness: a Philosophical Exploration” (2007).

            David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times wrote a recent article reflecting on the fall from grace of Brian Williams.[7]  Williams was a news anchor (“NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams”) who was caught in repeated instances of exaggerated or inaccurate personal recollections of his involvement in wars and natural disasters. Williams made a defective apology and offered to take himself off the air for a week.  NBC determined to suspend him without pay for six months.  Reacting to the lynch mob aspects of the destruction of this man and his career, Brooks offered the concept of rigorous forgiveness.  He identifies four different processes involved in forgiveness.

1.     “Pre-emptive mercy:” Quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “forgiveness is an attitude, not an act.”  Do we want to give him a chance to be part of the community?

2.     Judgment:  What did he actually do?  What is the appropriate remedy for that wrong? Some wrongs are like stealing:  a debt to be repaid.  Others like adultery can be remedied only by rebuilding relationships over time.  Brooks suggests that Williams’ sin was vanity:  the cure for which is only extreme self-abasement.

3.     Confession and Penitence:  For all who seek forgiveness, it is both necessary and appropriate to admit to the error and make a confession of the mistakes more complete than anyone expected.  That can lead to course of action for personal emotional and spiritual recovery.

4.     Reconciliation and re-trust.  “After judgments have been made and penitence performed, both the offender and the offended bend toward each other.  Rebuilding trust may not be immediate, but the wrongful act is no longer a barrier to rebuilding trust and repairing the social fabric.

            For the world of mediators, it may be enough that we reflect on the importance of forgiveness as part of the process of bringing peace to the parties.  Just as mediators have learned how to be effective apology coaches, perhaps we can also learn how to be effective coaches in the art of forgiveness.

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[1] “Up”, by Margaret Atwood in her book of poems, Morning in the Burned House (1995). 

[2] http://www.apa.org/international/resources/forgiveness.pdf

[3] http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/forgiveness/MH00131

[4] http://www.islamonline.com/news/articles/6/Forgiveness_Islamic_Perspective.html

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgiveness

[6] http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/on-forgiveness/. 

[7] New York Times, Februay 10, 2015, “The Act of Rigorous Forgiving,” David Brooks, Op-Ed Columnist.

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