Rather than tackle national and international issues and institutions that affect the larger civil society, we will attempt to concentrate on place-based trends that more directly affect our everyday experiences in our neighborhoods, workplaces and other closer connections.
Though these will overlap with certain global phenomena, we will seek to grapple with ideas that stem from and have immediate implications for our own personal ties. We will deal with those grassroots issues where we--rather than advocates of interest groups, think tankers, or politicians--can make a difference.
We start from the premise that changing the body politic is becoming increasingly difficult for citizens of the 21st century in the way that the power structure was able to do at the start of the 20th century, when American Progressivism was imbued with a strong reformist optimism ("I propose that we lead" declared Edward Adams in the paper delivered at the organizational dinner of the Commonwealth Club). That determination has long since been replaced by apathy, cynicism and irony. Were it not otherwise, the Commonwealth Club would still be engaged in "public service" i.e. attempting through "Study Sections" to help shape laws and regulations. Now only specialists attached to policy institutes and politicians' offices can comprehend such complicated issues.
This more decentralized, small scale approach puts aside debates over complex public policy matters such as "the media", health care, diplomacy, and immigration that tend to happen at academic conferences and research institutions and require a level of expertise that defeats all but most determined policy wonk.
That said, however, certain patterns of behavior associated with racial, gender, and employment relations, for instance, which have a universal dimension, affecting human activity well beyond our own personal situations, obviously have strong influence over our own daily lives. Insofar as these human/primate tendencies can be directed or "debugged", in Steven Pinker’s word, by individuals and smaller groups, they deserve to be examined as they are manifested in particular contexts which we call culture.
By culture we mean the normative order, grounded in specific places, explained by the human sciences, and illuminated by the arts, which allows us to comprehend ourselves, others, and the world around us, and through which we order our experience.
For culture to be more than a divertissement, it must be pertinent to the formation of our values, what has come to be referred to among researchers as "social capital". Observations that we accumulate not through "knowing more and more about less and less," but just by living a cosmopolitan life in the Bay Area equip us to form opinions that deserve to be probed by others who share a desire to reveal the deeper meaning of events.
We emphasize dialogue among participants. While we may invite resource people to act as "river guides"--those with special insights into some part of our milieu who might spark and channel our discussions--the major burden for exploring pertinent topics will fall on us ordinary mortals who join our dialogue.
Rafting the Cultural Currents of the New Millennium
"To enter the current of this poem is to hurtle downstream through history on a flood of eloquent and passionate language that is in turn philosophic, satiric, tender, angry, ironic, sensuous, and, above all, elegiac."
-Helen Vendler on "A Treatise on Poetry" by Czeslaw Milosz
"Our culture revolves around acquisition of material goods, and that turns out to be a pretty dissatisfying pursuit. It is very important for people to have meaning and purpose in their lives and connection to other humans."
-Dr Dan Shapiro who defeated cancer and counsels other patients, in conversation with Jane Brody, New York Times
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CulturePlaces, which combines various areas of interest, relies on events throughout the Bay Area to provide more opportunities to experience and compare opinions on the ramifications of the changing social landscape.
We follow three basic organizing principles:
- Some events can be enjoyed just for their shear senuous or aesthetic pleasure. No need to chatter, just feel the music or experience the beauty of a painting or the architecture of a building.
- Regardless of one's class, gender, age, race, sexual orientation and the numerous other distinctions that seem so wrapped up in identity politics these days, educated adults want to grapple with the ideas that are shaped by these associations but are not bound by them.
- And finally, we believe that the meaning and implications of our experiences, artistic and otherwise, emerge through discourse. All that is required is a probing mind and the capacity to engage in dialogue (attributes that are too often missing in conversations around the water cooler or at the dinner table). And while we may wrestle with weighty matters that can ignite strong emotions, we want to be able to treat them playfully and with a disinterested passion for clarity that avoids partisanship.
Before becoming a Meetup Group, our programs were held mostly at the Commonwealth Club and explored places that reflect the cultural norms and values that affect both individual and group behavior in this the new millennium. We wish to probe what was once called, rather grandiously, the Human Condition with an emphasis on societal and artistic trends.
From time to time we will add background material contained in a file on this site, or we will link to another site. Checking out these resources will enhance your enjoyment.
For some of our discussion programs, we invite an individual, often an advocate or researcher involved in some aspect of the issue, to join us as a resource person. This person does not give a speech, but instead offers some preliminary remarks to launch our exploration and then serve as a kind of "river guide" to keep the discussion on course.
Frequently, we'll attend a talk by one of the numerous authors coming through town hawking their thesis as well as their latest publications.
And of course concerts, plays, movies, and museum exhibits will make up the bulk of our outings. But in almost every instance we try to schedule time to share impressions and personal insights with one another.
Read more about our activities here
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CulturePlaces was launched and continues to be administered by Tom Merle. A fifth generation San Franciscan, Tom attended Bellarmine Prep in San Jose, received his B.A. in philosophy from Georgetown and a masters in humanities under a Woodrow Wilson fellowship from the University of Chicago, with additional graduate work in urban affairs, political science and sociology at Berkeley.
Career 1.0 included governmental affairs and regional planning for several local governments, the American Planning Association, and the Bay Area Council, followed by managing and marketing master planned communities for Mobil Land Development Corp. then Chevron's equivalent, including Redwood Shores, Red Mountain Ranch in Arizona, and Hilltop in Richmond.
At a fork in the river, Career 2.0 veered off in another direction: Executive Director of Family Winemakers of CA, then organizing tours and tastings, business development for wine shipping companies, and managing seminars and an information exchange on best social media practices. Tom has been holding tastings for alumni groups, museums, corporations and groups such as the California Historical Society and the Commonwealth Club for a dozen years.
You can reach TOM at: tom@cultureplaces.com or 707.337.3663
