Member-only story
With Charity for “NONE:” It Starts with Empathy or it Ends with Total War
My series on applying design thinking to our current crisis keeps getting derailed by political passions. I believe that an experienced US History teacher might have some insight that would help. Others outside of my community keep disagreeing.
Yesterday, I made the mistake of trying to be “helpful” to a group of inflamed partisans seeking to destroy a “cancer” on the United States. The debate was really about means vs. ends. They were not interested in historical perspective. Total victory had to be achieved now.
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. said, “there have been those that argue that the end justifies the means. This is where nonviolence would break within a system. It argues that the end justifies the means recognizing that the end is pre-existent in the means. The means represent the ideal in making and the end in process. And in the long run of history, destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”
If design thinking says it starts with empathy, did I just break a rule? What right do I have as a white, male, middle aged, cisgendered, over-privileged educator to invoke Dr. King in a crisis?
The answer is simple he is an American Hero. He gets his own holiday. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. He reminds us of our…
