Living the Good Life Means Having a Public Life
Last week I listened to a presentation from the Chippewa Valley Museum (CVM) on the results of our community’s first comprehensive cultural assessment. “The Good Life: A Cultural Direction for Eau Claire County” – aka The Good Life Plan – is a strikingly done strategic vision for integrating arts and culture more deeply into the fabric of our metro community region in western Wisconsin.
Working with a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the CVM led an intensive two year effort to engage diverse members of our community members in a far-ranging discussion and reflection about the connection between local arts and cultural experiences and the quality of life for both individuals and the community at large. Key collaboration partners included local government, the public library, area arts associations, a children’s museum, and a local non-profit civic engagement organization.
The Good Life Plan calls for community action on four core strategies:
- Infuse arts, history, and heritage content in all educational experiences;
- Provide more educational opportunities for arts,history and heritage;
- Build stronger connections between local schools, organizations, and cultural representatives;
- Provide education for creative workers that helps them manage their career in the real world.
The Good Life Plan underscores the importance of shared arts and culture experiences for us as individuals and a community.How deficient and unfulfilled my life and those of my family would be without those shared experiences. How barren and sterile our community would be without the free summer concerts, the symphony, the art shows, the poetry slams, the community theater, the bluegrass concerts, spring garden tours, the antique car shows, the annual art chalk fest, the church fish boils and so many other expressions of life that make us and our community who we are.
I am reminded that we are such a varied mixture of social beings, and that we come to know ourselves as individuals only as we come to understand ourselves in relationship to others. Especially important are the public relationships we form outside our family and intimate connections, with others different from ourselves.
In 1994, Frances Moore Lappe and Paul Martin Du Bois released The Quickening of America: Rebuilding Our Nation, Remaking Our Lives. They observed:
The biggest problem facing Americans is not those issues that bombard us daily, from homelessness and failing schools to environmental devastation and the federal deficit. Underlying each is a deeper crisis…. The crisis is that we as a people don’t know how to come together to solve these problems. We lack the capacities to address the issues or remove the obstacles that stand in the way of public deliberation. Too many Americans feel powerless.
Their solution was that we Americans first need to learn the concepts and practices that make us effective public problem-solvers, and then gain the capacity to make our engagement in public life rewarding and sustaining. Much of their book is a presentation of  ten arts of democracy, a combination of individual and group skills, essential for effective public problem-solving.
They begin, though, with a catalog of ten myths about public life that we must dispel if we are to get on with the work of coming together to solve our problems. For each myth, they also offer an empowering insight to replace the myth. Sadly, a generation later, the myths are still with us, and perhaps more engrained than ever in our dominant contemporary beliefs about public life about political discourse.
Myth 1: Public life is what someone else has. Public life is for the politicians, the educated, the experts, and the activists.
Insight:Â We each have a public life and everyday our behavior shapes the public world.
Myth 2: Public life is unappealing, unrewarding, and largely a necessary evil to protect our private lives.
Insight: Public life serves a deep human need to know one’s life counts and is as essential to our growth and happiness as is private life.
Myth 3: Public life means ugly conflict and is always nasty.
Insight: The differences an conflict we encounter in public life can be healthy and informative, and offer new perspectives for solving problems.
Myth 4: Public life competes with a satisfying private life.
Insight: Public life often enhances our private lives.
Myth 5: When we enter public life, we must squelch our self-interests for the common good.
Insight: Acting on an understand of our interests in relation to those of others can lead to constructive and successful solutions.
Myth 6: Public life is only about pursuing our own immediate gain and selfish interests.
Insight: As individuals, we come to understand and fulfill our self-interests fully only when we interact with others.
Myth 7: Power is evil and a dirty word. To be good people, we should avoid power.
Insight: Power is the capacity to act publicly and effectively, to bring about positive change, and to build hope.
Myth 8: Power is zero-sum gain. The more power you have, the less there is for me.
Insight: Relational power expands possibilities for many people at once. The more you use it, the more there is.
Myth 9: Power is a one-way force to control others and get them to do what you want.
Insight: Power always exists in relationships, going both ways. In relationships, the actions of each affect the other, so no one is ever completely powerless.
Myth 10: Power is about today’s victories.
Insight: Power is more than today’s visible results. You can reach short-term goals and still have lost power. Wielding power relationally builds future power.
I think most of us seek a life of meaning, fulfillment, and experiences that go beyond mere existence. Many times the dominant message in our society that such a life is out of reach for most of us, and there’s not much we can do about it. Building, supporting, and enjoying a community with a vibrant and diverse arts and cultural life is one way of overcoming that message. So is recognizing – and choosing to live – the public life we are all called to have.
How’s your public life?
Hi Mike,
I also thought that The Good Life was a remarkeable document, especially considering that the authors had never done something like that before. It was grass-roots planning at its best.
I know that you probably spend all of your time wading through replies on you Website, but this had to be said.
Please send me your US Mail address. Thanks.
Bill