Ralph welcomes the Washington Post’s Steven Mufson to point out how some corporations are finally making efforts to achieve carbon neutrality. And author, Pete Davis, joins us to talk about his new book, “Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing” where he argues that the modern mindset of “always keeping your options open” does not necessarily lead to happiness, progress, fulfillment, or justice.
Steven Mufson is a journalist who reports on the business of climate change for the Washington Post. He shared the Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for a climate change series, “2C: Beyond the Limit.”
An important part of this whole exercise would have to be a much greater degree of transparency than companies have now. The Biden administration, I think, is going to try to get the Securities and Exchange Commission to require that companies reveal more about their greenhouse gas emissions… So ideally, you’d like people to both be transparent and actually succeed in hitting those targets.
Steven Mufson, Washington Post climate journalist
Pete Davis is a civic advocate and cofounder of the Democracy Policy Network. He is the author of Our Bicentennial Crisis: A Call to Action for Harvard Law School’s Public Interest Mission and “Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing.”
Authenticity is very important– finding your authentic self. But if your authenticity is about never subsuming yourself in something bigger than yourself, never dealing with the messiness of working with other people or being part of a larger thing that might not fit you perfectly, you might end up with… anomie. The feeling of total spiritual isolation that there’s no meaning in your life at all.
Pete Davis, author of Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing
We don’t want people to be nosy. We don’t want people to be hypocritically casting stones. We definitely don’t want the old judgements of patriarchy and white supremacy and homophobia that oppressed and belittled so many people. But a world where you have no morality, no judgement, is a world where people get away with things. And I try to point to examples of good forms of judgement… this warmonger is trying to whitewash his legacy and re-enter polite society without anyone calling him out and saying, ‘You just spent 20 years doing horrible things, why are we welcoming you to the party still without any atonement?’ Judgement is what keeps communities going.
Pete Davis, author of Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing
If [only] the very people who are engaged now in infinite browsing would realize how many of the things they take for granted — that they like in this country — started out with a few people who said ‘No. We’re not going to have a flitting short attention span life. We’re going to have a life of commitment. And we’re going to choose the course of justice that our temperament and our priorities lead us to.’
Ralph Nader
Can the Market Save the Planet?/Long Haul Heroes